Efforts to conserve the endangered Formosan landlocked salmon have made a further progress, with artificially bred fish now spawning in their natural habitat in northeastern Taiwan, national park administrators said Wednesday. 'Juvenile Formosan landlocked salmon that were released into the Sijiehlan Stream and the Luoyehwei Stream on the border of Yilan and Taichung counties a few years ago have been faring well and are now spawning, ' said Chung Ming- shan, deputy superintendent of the Shei-Pa National Park Headquarters. 'The discovery is encouraging as it marks a step forward in our drive to preserve the precious fish that harks back to the Ice Age, ' Chung added. 'It's truly a miracle in the history of biology.' Noting that the species traditionally inhabits slow-flowing streams with gently sloping beds at elevations above 1,500 meters, Chung said the fish is now found mainly in the Cijiawan Stream and Gaoshan Stream in the upper stretches of the Dajia River, with the total number exceeding 2,300. As the fish had been spotted in streams in the Yilan-Taichung border area prior to the 1970s, Chung said the Shei-Pa National Park's conservation researchers have since 2006 regularly released young and juvenile fish into the Luoyehwei and Sijiehlan streams. 'Through our monitoring system, we have found that those fish have survived in the two streams and been able to breed naturally,' Chung said. However, he went on, many of the fish perished or were washed away during the onslaught of several typhoons last year. Late last year, park researchers released 100-plus young fish into both the Sijiehlan and Luoyehwei streams, and they have been growing well, Chung said. 'Although Typhoon Morakot wreaked havoc in southern Taiwan's mountainous regions in early August, the storm did not affect the Formosan landlocked salmon's habitat in central Taiwan, ' he explained, adding that his office will continue to release young fish to reduce the possibility of the extinction of the species and increase the biodiversity of streams in the region. 