Monitoring of Dead Seals in Azerbaijan
After reports of a mass mortality of seals in Dagestan, on the 8th and 9th of December, 2022, specialists from Biodiversity Conservation Service at the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources RA inspected the coast in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea to identify the cause of the high mortality rate of seals.
“The monitoring was carried out by representatives of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Food Safety Agency and Ministry of Agriculture on the entire sea coast from north to south. About 17 dead seals were registered in the Khachmaz region (in the north of Azerbaijan) and 27 carcasses – on the Absheron Peninsula, in the coastal areas of Bilgah, Kurdakhany, Buzovna, Novkhany, Binagadi and Shuvyalan villages. Samples of tissues and internal organs were collected from dead animals for toxicological, virological and bacteriological analyses,” Elchin Mamedov, Head of Department for Studying the Number of Fish and Forecasting Catches at Center for Research on Biological Resources (Biodiversity Conservation Service, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan), told Kaspika Agency.
In the top photo: the examination of a dead seal during the monitoring of the Azerbaijani coast, the Caspian, December 8-9, 2020, Trend News Agency, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan.