It is Your Turn, Comrade Prosecutor!

In late February – early March 2025, in the northern part of the Buzachi Peninsula, workers at Karazhanbas and Kalamkas oil fields began to find month-old Caspian seal pups – sivars. Karazhanbasmunai employees discovered the first seal pup on February 28 near the supply base. A little later, they found two more – near the production building and in the shift camp.

The number of sivars grew every day. People did not remain indifferent to these seals in need of help. Several times a day, they inspected the coast and production areas, transporting animals closer to the Caspian, made holes in thick coastal ice, and released them into the sea water. ‘By March 4, assistance was provided to ten seals,’ reported JSC Karazhanbasmunai’s telegram channel. Seal pupss were found at Kalamkas field, and Karazhanbas oil pumping station (Mangistau Oil Pipeline Department, JSC KazTransOil), which was 5 kilometers from the sea coast.

People worked tirelessly, showed resourcefulness so as not to traumatise frightened animals, using improvised means: blankets, cardboard boxes. ‘A deep bow to these men. In the holy month of Ramadan, they came with beautiful, good deeds. They treated carefully, despite seal pups were aggressive, trying to bite like dogs…’, Saule Buribay, who arrived at the site of this incident, shared her impressions.

The rescuing operation was complicated by the fact that the entire water area around the Buzachi Peninsula had been frozen by thick, strong fast ice, followed by compact grey-white ice up to 30 cm thick. Holes drilled in ice for seal pups were not enough to survive. Moreover, sivars would not be able to keep them unfrozen, as adult seals do by scratching the edge of ice with the claws of their front flippers. Leads and large polynyas were needed. Or even better, open sea water, which was only available far to the south, near the Tyub-Karagan Peninsula.

In early March, inspectors from Zhaiyk-Caspian Interregional Basin Fisheries Inspection, representatives of Mangistau Region Akimat and public organizations, specialists from Scientific and Production Center of Microbiology and Virology joined the seal rescue operation. The only right decision was made – to gather the wandering sivars in one area (a football field was chosen) and then deliver them to an area with ice-free water – to the coast near Fort Shevchenko. It was decided to release healthy individuals into the sea and transfer weakened ones to Caspian Seal Research and Rehabilitation Center in Aktau for recovery.

The final stage was planned for March 12 – a helicopter flight over Buzachi and other areas to make sure that there were no little “travelers” left on the icy coast and in the snowy steppe.

The rescue operation will soon be successfully completed. We look forward to seeing touching photographs from a ceremonial release of seals into the Caspian Sea!

It is your turn now, employees of
investigative bodies and Prosecutor’s office!

Only you have authority to find out:
1. How dozens of sivars with silver-grey “commercial” fur, and at least one year-old individual, mistaken for a sivar due to someone’s inexperience, did end up on the Buzachi Peninsula – several dozen kilometers from sites, where seals of different ages were kept together.
2. For which amazing reason, creatures of 25-30 days old, lacking strength and ability to crawl long distances on ice and ground, only recently weaned from their mother’s milk, and therefore not experiencing hunger and preferring to lie on ice for hours, suddenly rush into a risky “journey” to the mainland. Allegedly “in search of fish.” In the growing frost and wind. And having reached the coast, they climb up stony embankments and, getting stuck with their clumsy plump bodies in snow drifts, overcome another 5 km!
3. Who and for what reason left these helpless Caspian seal pups on Buzachi, abandoning the plan to deliver them to a place, where they would be skinned and their blubber rendered?
As noted in the scientific paper by Baimukanova A.M. and Baimukanov T.T. (2019), dedicated to the illegal catch of Caspian seals and the sale of products from them in Kazakhstan’s Caspian cities, ‘there are people, who are ready to  go out onto the ice and get seals.’

The crime against nature for the barbaric extermination of
The Caspian seal has no statute of limitations!

Please attach to your investigation materials data on another incident. On February 21 and 22, 2017, oil field workers found several sivars that had made a similar multi-kilometer “throw-march” across the frozen Caspian waters – from seal haul-out sites to the Buzachi Peninsula. The pups were found in the steppe, near Karazhanbas-Kalamkas highway, and at Severnye Buzachi deposit, located 30 kilometers from the Caspian Sea coast. No investigation was conducted. More details about that incident are here.

Below is a list of scientific papers with the results of long-term researches on illegal seal hunting in Kazakhstan and other Caspian countries, photographs of a cap made from the Caspian seal fur and bottles of the Caspian seal oil sold openly in the markets of Aktau and Atyrau –in retail and “to order”.

List of scientific papers:
1. Baymukanova A.M., Baymukanov T.T. (2019). On illegal sealing of Caspian seals (Pusa caspica) and marketing the products from them in Kazakhstani Caspian cities. Proceedings of XI All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference of Young Scientists on Challenges for Aquatic Ecosystems, Sevastopol, September 23-27, 2019, FRC IBSS RAS, 2019, 74-75. (Download in Russian).
2. Ermolin I.V. (2019). Deliberate by-catch of the Caspian seal and the development of illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Dagestan, Russia: A socio-economic approach. Journal of Economic Sociology, vol. 20 (1), Januar 2019, 83-122. (Download in Russian).
3. Dmitrieva, L., Kondakov, A.A., Oleynikov, E., Kydyrmanov, A., Karamendin, K., Kasimbekov, Y., Baimukanov, M., Wilson, S., & Goodman, S.J. (2013). Assessment of Caspian seal by-catch in an illegal fishery using an interview-based approach. PLoS ONE, 8(6), e67074. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067074.
4. Ermolin, I., & Svolkinas, L. (2016). Who owns sturgeon in the Caspian? New theoretical model of social responses towards state conservation policy. Biodiversity and Conservation, 25(14), 2929–2945. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1211-x.
5. Ermolin, I., & Svolkinas, L. (2018). Assessment of the sturgeon catches and seal bycatches in an IUU fishery in the Caspian Sea. Marine Policy, 87, 284–290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2017.09.022.
6. Svolkinas, L., Goodman, S.J., Holmes, G., Ermolin, I., & Suvorkov, P. (2020). Natural remedies for Covid-19 as a driver of the illegal wildlife trade. Oryx, 54(5), 601–602. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0030605320000617.
7. Svolkinas, L., Holmes, G., Dmitrieva, L., Ermolin, I., Suvorkov, P., & Goodman S.J. (2023). Stakeholder consensus suggests strategies to promote sustainability in an artisanal fishery with high rates of poaching and marine mammal bycatch. People and Nature, 5, 1187–1206. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10490.

 

In the top photo: The sivar – a moulted Caspian seal pup at 1 month old. The Buzachi Peninsula, Kazakhstan. March 4, 2025. Still from the video by Karazhanbasmunai JSC.