Mass Seal Stranding in Late 2024
Over the last three months of 2024, storm winds stranded thousands of dead seals onto the coast in the Northern and Middle Caspian Sea: 1,989 individuals in Kazakhstan and 1,890 – in Russia. The results of PCR tests obtained by Kazakhstan specialists did not confirm the death of seals from pasteurellosis, avian influenza, canine distemper, and other dangerous diseases. The reasons for this mass stranding of the endangered species endemic to the Caspian are being investigated.
Northern and Middle Caspian, Kazakhstan
From October 10 to November 18, 2024, employees of the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology (IGE) and Zhaiyk-Caspian Interregional Basin Inspection of Fisheries found 1,155 dead seals while monitoring the Tyub-Karagan Peninsula coast. Of the 305 animals examined by IGE, 10 (about 3 %) were injured with mechanical devices, fishing gear, etc. ‘We took samples for analysis to establish the exact cause of death. However, the severe decomposition of these animals does not allow us to carry out full analyses. We are concerned that more than half of examined females were pregnant, and that many of them were young. This may indicate sudden death,’ commented Assel Baimukanova, a researcher at IGE, on the results of the coastal monitoring.
On November 18, a special commission, having flown around the sea coast north of Tyub-Karagan (Kulaly, Morskoy, Podgornyy, Novyy islands, and areas near Karazhanbas and Kalamkas oil fields on the Buzachi Peninsula), registered another 834 seals. The total number of dead animals found in the Kazakhstan part of the Northern and Middle Caspian increased to 1,989 individuals in October and November. This autumn mass stranding has been observed in Kazakhstan for the first time in the last 60 years.
Reference: about a mass mortality 60 years ago
“At the beginning of 1964, dead seals were stranded on the eastern coast of the Middle Caspian. But later it turned out that both coasts of the Middle and Southern Caspian became sites of stranding. A large number of dead fish and invertebrates were washed up along with seals. We surveyed an area from the Bautinskaya Spit to Cape Melovoy, a total length of about 200 km. Quantitative accounting was conducted in various sections on 33 km of the coastline. Seals lay tens and hundreds of meters apart from each other, or 20-30 dead seals could be found over a distance of 50-100 m. <…> Veterinary examinations could not explain the cause of an animal’s death: its internal organs were in a state of intense decomposition, and period between animals’ death and their stranding on the shore was so long that during this time pathogens in their bodies (if they actually existed) had died and been replaced by other microflora. However, the high fatness of the dead seals cast doubt on the possibility of a prolonged pre-mortal illness. And the fact that this mass mortality occurred within the Middle and Southern Caspian, where animals were kept apart and had virtually no contact, ruled out the possibility of an epizootic. Age of embryos, coinciding with the second half of last autumn and the beginning of winter, and the mass stranding of dead fish and crayfish along with dead seals indicated that these animals died simultaneously and in a very short time. The large stranding area suggested that the death could have occurred in waves: following a one-time death in one area, after some period of time it was consistently repeated in other areas of the sea. There was a fairly good basis for such an assumption, since it had been already known that in the waters of the Southern Caspian various organisations, including oil and gas explorers, carried out blasting operations in autumn and winter months. From this, it was natural to conclude – explosions at sea were the cause of fishes and seals mass mortality.” (Badamshin B.I. On the mass death of the Caspian seal // “Proceedings of KaspNIIRKH”, Astrakhan, Vol. 26. – 1971. – Pp. 261-264.).
PCR analyses of bio samples had been performed by November 13 did not reveal infection of seals with pasteurellosis, avian influenza, canine distemper virus, salmonellosis, and listeriosis. Final conclusions about causes of this mass stranding on the Kazakhstan coast in the autumn of 2024 will be made after all laboratory studies are completed, in 3-4 months (in March-April, 2025 – note by Kaspika).
Northern and Middle Caspian, Russia
‘At the same time, dead seals were also observed in the Russian waters of the Caspian Sea. On Maly Zhemchuzhny Island, camera traps recorded about 30 dead individuals,’ said Alimurad Gadzhiev, Head of Compass Foundation Program for Research and Conservation of Caspian seal Population, Vice-rector at Dagestan State Univirsity.
In December, storm winds brought 1,860 seals to the Dagestan coast. A significant number of animals were found from Makhachkala to the Terek River mouth. Specialists from Rosselkhoznadzor Administration for the Republic of Dagestan collected bio samples for analysing in Federal Centre for Animal Health, as well as to North Caucasian Interregional Veterinary Laboratory.
Among the dead, there are an increasing number of seals aged 7-12 years, which form the reproductive basis of the population – that indicates degradation of the species and its extreme vulnerability to growing anthropogenic impact.
The Caspian seal’s chances of survival are diminishing.
Sources: LADA.KZ (19.11.2024); Caspian Herald (21.11.2024), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Republic of Dagestan (12.12.2024); DAGPRAVDA.ru (17.01.2025), Komsomolskay Pravda (07.02.2025).
In the photo: Dead Caspian seals on the coast near Bautino, Kazakhstan. Photo from LADA.KZ article.