For hundreds of years, like the carp, Chinese sturgeon swam against the current of the Yangtze. After the Gezhouba Dam was built, the great fish could be seen flinging themselves at the dam, attempting to cross. They hurled their bodies into the concrete and steel, again and again. How had a passage that was once open suddenly become a wall? Many were injured, retreating to the sea with bruised and battered snouts, their unused ovaries shriveling up. Others died, their bodies sinking at the base of the dam, almost like an offering.
