About 2,500 seals have been found dead off the coast of the Caspian Sea in southern Russia, officials said Sunday. Local authorities initially reported on Saturday that 700 dead seals were found on land, but the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology later raised that number to around 2,500. Local authorities in Russian Dagestan said it was unclear why the mass deaths occurred. However, this may be due to natural causes.
Data on the number of seals in the Caspian Sea are very diverse. The Fisheries Agency announced that the total population of Caspian seals is between 270,000 and 300,000 individuals, while the Caspian Conservation Center reported 70,000 individuals.
The Caspian sea seal is listed in the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a vulnerable species. The seal likely died a few weeks ago, Zaur Gafizov, director of the Caspian Environmental Protection Center, said in a statement.
He added that there is no evidence that they were killed or caught in fishing nets. Specialists from the Federal Agency for Fishery and the Prosecutor’s Office examined the coastline and collected data for laboratory tests, which did not immediately reveal pollution. Police are currently awaiting lab results.
Several previous mass deaths of seals have been attributed to natural causes. Kazakhstan, which has a long coastline on the Caspian Sea, has reported at least three cases this year.
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