Fisheries experts in China have determined that the Chinese paddlefish, also known as the Chinese swordfish or the elephant fish, has been extinct for at least a decade.

The giant freshwater fish, a native of the Yangtze River, had been listed as critically endangered since 1996 and was last spotted alive in 2007. Overfishing and habitat destruction in the economically-thriving Yangtze drainage caused a rapid decline in its numbers. The Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences and the International Union for Conservation of Nature have determined that it is likely that the species no longer exists, and that it likely went extinct between 2005 and 2010.

The Chinese paddlefish was a giant, measuring up to 10 feet in length and nearly 700 pounds at maturity. The species was likely doomed to extinction as early as 1993, the last year that there were enough known breeding pairs to sustain the population. Efforts at breeding the fish in captivity proved unsuccessful.