Russia to develop a program for the Caspian seals conservation

Russia has begun the development of a comprehensive program for the study and conservation of the Caspian seals. According to the State Duma Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, environmentalists and scientists intend to stop the decline in the population of this Red Book animal, which plays an important role in the Caspian ecosystem. The work will be carried out by the Compass Foundation together with the Institute of Ecology and Sustainable Development under the Dagestan State University.

Research work will begin in January 2023.

“The program that we are starting with the Compass Foundation involves the organization of transboundary monitoring of the seal populations state in order to assess its real number. We will also engage in environmental monitoring and study the causes of death of animals,” said Alimurad Gadzhiev, director of the Institute of Ecology and Sustainable Development of DSU.

It is planned to create a rehabilitation center where sick and injured seals will be delivered with the help of fishing nets. Local fishermen and student volunteers will be attracted to participate in the endemic rescue program.

Meanwhile, scientists believe that the cause of the recent mass death of Caspian seals may lie in the underwater landscape. As professor, specialist in the field of marine biodiversity, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrey Adrianov, said,  methane most likely caused the death of the animals. 
 
“The bottom of the Caspian Sea is unstable, gas release is not uncommon there. If the release occurs at a shallow depth (and in the north of the Caspian it is usually shallow everywhere), then methane reaches the surface and for some time is contained above the water in high concentrations. The seal emerges, takes a breath, gets poisoned,” Adrianov said.

He added that the case of seals this year is not the most massive that ever occurred, a real disaster was recorded about 20 years ago.