China's largest salt water lake contains 23 times as many naked carp as it did in the 1980s thanks to preservation work including a ban on fishing for the rare species.

The fishing bureau of northwest China's Qinghai Province, home to Qinghai Lake, said Sunday that there are now 60,000 tonnes of the fish in the lake.

The local government has banned naked carp fishing there since January 2011, following five temporary prohibitions since the 1980s.

In 2015, local authorities found 16 cases in which the ban had been violated, arresting 14 suspects and seizing 339 kg of naked carp.

The fishing bureau has also been releasing artificially-bred fry into the lake.

Qinghai Lake is a major breeding ground for naked carp, which take 10 years to grow into an adult fish weighing 0.5 kg on average.

Before 1960, there were an estimated 320,000 tonnes of naked carp in Qinghai Lake. After decades of overfishing, it was on the brink of extinction. Endi

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