URUMIEH, West Azarbaijan -- In an effort to enrich water resources, over 3,660,000 fish fry have been released to the water reservoirs and ponds in this northwestern Iranian province, provincial fishery chief said here Sunday.

Ayat Fakhri told IRNA that the fish fry have been released to the water reservoirs behind Mahabad, Miandoab and Shahid Kazemi dams. He said that the fish fry have been released from Pol-e Dasht Complex which, he added, has a production capacity of four million fish fry.

The official said that 400,000 more fish fry are to be released. West Azarbaijan Province produces over 600 tons of fish annually. Earlier, officials said that Iran is witnessing a constant drop in its production as poaching and pollution continue to take a toll on the Caspian Sea's sturgeon population. "During the past 20 years, some 140 million sturgeon from the Caspian have disappeared," an Iranian official recently said, blaming the phenomenon on illegal fishing amid increasingly high prices for the black delicacy.

Iranian authorities say the sharp fall in the sea's sturgeon population is also linked to a partition of the inland sea's resources.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 which created three new Caspian countries -- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan -- the sea's sturgeon population dropped from 200 million in 1990 to 60 million just five years later. Caviar was discovered in the 19th century by Russian fishermen and is mostly destined for markets in Europe or the United States where customers are willing and able to pay much higher prices. Press also reported earlier that between six and eight tons of contraband high-quality caviar were being sold each year to countries in Europe and North America.

(IRNA)