Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Around 2,500 dead seals were found on the coast of the Caspian Sea in southern Russia.
Regional officials earlier reported 700 dead mammals, but later the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment raised the toll to 2,500.
Officials in Russia’s Dagestan province said the cause of the mass seal death was unclear, but added that the incident most likely occurred due to natural reasons.
Zaur Gapizov, the head of the Caspian Environmental Protection Centre, said that the seals had likely died a couple of weeks ago, adding that there was no indication that they were killed or strangled in fishing nets.
Experts inspected the site at the Federal Fisheries Agency and prosecutors who collected data for lab research didn’t spot any pollutants immediately. Officials are now awaiting laboratory test results.
Endangered species in Caspian Sea
There are a lot of varying figures about the number of this species in the Caspian Sea. According to the fisheries agency, the total number of Caspian seals lies at around 270,000-300,000, while the Caspian Environmental Protection Center has given a figure of 70,000.
The mammals have been termed endangered by the global conservation body, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), in its red list.
Mass-seal death: a common occurrence
Several previous incidents where many seals were found dead have been linked to natural causes. Kazakhstan, which has a long coastline alongside the Caspian Sea, reported at least three such occurrences this year.
