A 10-year program will conserve endangered finless porpoises in the Yangtze River through habitat protection, relocation and artificial breeding.

The hydrobiology institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences made the announcement Saturday in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province.

Experts hope to launch the program later this year after obtaining approval from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Freshwater porpoises have a population of 1,000, smaller than that of giant pandas. To prevent the population from further declining and becoming extinct, the protection of their natural habitats will be improved.

The options of relocating them to new homes and artificial breeding them will also be explored, according to the plan.

From Nov 10 to Dec 30, the institute will send a team to examine the waters along the Yangtze River from Yichang, Hubei province, to Shanghai. Zhang Xianfeng, a research fellow at the institute, said the research will provide a new estimate of the porpoises' population, as well as the distribution and emerging threats to their survival.

The program calls for a year-round fishing ban in protected habitats to help ease food shortages for the porpoises, the result of a declining fish population, Zhang said.

Successive deaths of finless porpoises have been reported in earlier months, alarming the public over the shortage of the animal's food and the poor water quality.

Yu Jiang, a leading campaigner for the protection of endangered dolphins, said on his blog that more than 20 finless porpoises died each year from 2008 and 2011. This year alone, that number has already climbed to 36, Yu said.

Within 10 years, the finless porpoise will have the same fate as the extinct white-flag dolphins, he said.

The protection program was announced in Wuhan at a memorial on the 10th anniversary of the death of Qiqi, the last known white-flag dolphin.