2,500 dead seals found on Russia’s Caspian Sea coast

Moscow – About 2,500 seals have been found dead on the coast of the Caspian Sea in southern Russia, officials said Sunday.

Authorities in the Russian province of Dagestan said it was not clear what caused the mass death, but it was likely to be from natural causes.

Regional officials initially reported on Saturday that 700 dead seals had been found on the coast, but the Dagestan department of Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment later raised the number to about 2,500.

Zaur Gabizov, head of the Caspian Environmental Protection Center, said in a statement that the seal most likely died two weeks ago. He added that there was no indication that they had been killed or caught in fishing nets.

Experts from the Federal Fisheries Agency and state attorneys general examined the coast and collected data for laboratory research, which did not immediately detect any pollutants.

Several previous incidents of seal deaths have been attributed to natural causes. Kazakhstan, which has a long coastline on the Caspian Sea, has reported at least three such incidents this year.

Data on the number of seals in the Caspian Sea varies greatly. The Fisheries Agency said the total number of Caspian seals is 270,000 to 300,000, while the Caspian Sea Environmental Protection Center put the number at 70,000.