Tehran, Oct 27, IRNA -- Caspian Sea is seeing more than 90 percent of its exotic delicacy caviar resources having long gone, it was announced at a trans-Caspian seminar held in the northern Iranian city of Rasht, press said Sunday.

They quoted the head of an institute for study on sturgeon fish, Mohammad Pour-Kazemi, as telling the seminar that the population of Beluga sturgeon fish -- the source of 90 percent of black caviar -- was in danger of extinction more than any time because of poaching.

"The extraction of caviar in the Caspian Sea has dropped to 145 tons in 2002 down from 3,000 tons in 1985 because of irregular poaching," he was cited as telling the seminar.

According to experts, sturgeon fish are unique prehistoric creatures which predate even dinosaurs. Until decades ago, it was not unusual for a sturgeon fish to live 200 years and weigh a ton. But, today they hardly outlive their first spawning at age 10.

In June, 2001, the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) issued a moratorium for Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan -- the four main producers of the world caviar -- to halt sturgeon fishing or face a ban on their exports of caviar.

The CITES, however, exempted Iran, citing its effective conservation and policing of its fisheries.

Apart from poaching and disappearance of spawning sites, the other cause of depletion in sturgeon stocks is environmental pollution, mainly because of energy prospecting of the littoral Caspian countries.

Press on Sunday reported that a massive oil slick caused by the drowning of an Azeri cargo ship last Tuesday was heading toward lower Iranian shores.

The Mercury was carrying a cargo of about 1,000 tons of crude oil in railway carriages on its deck, as well as more than 50 people who were killed after it went down in a storm.