Kazakh border guards have seized three Azerbaijani boats for allegedly poaching in Kazakhstan\'s Caspian Sea territorial waters. A Border Service press release said that the Azerbaijani vessels were found to be in possession of more than 1 1/2 tons of sturgeon. According to the report, the Azerbaijanis were escorted to Aktau, the administrative center of the western Kazakhstan Mangystau Oblast, where the Kazakh Customs Control Agency and the regional prosecutor\'s office opened an investigation. Sturgeon poaching in the Caspian is considered a particularly serious matter by most of the Caspian littoral states because of rapidly shrinking stocks. Some environmentalists in the Caspian region have warned that without strict limits on sturgeon fishing, the species could soon become extinct. (Interfax-Kazakhstan)