About 700 endangered fur seals have been found dead on Russia’s Caspian Sea coast in the North Caucasus, local officials said on Sunday.
Caspian seals, the only mammals found in the Caspian Sea, have been classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list since 2008.
“The number of discovered animals could increase. The cause of death has not yet been determined,” the press service of the region’s fisheries agency said, according to Russian state media TASS.
The seals have appeared off the coast of the Russian republic of Dagestan along the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest landlocked body of water.
TASS said that “researchers have already started work on identifying the cause of the mammals’ deaths.”
The news comes after more than 140 Caspian seals were found dead on Kazakh beaches on the Caspian Sea earlier this year, according to Kaspika, an agency for the conservation of Caspian seals.
According to the IUCN, the Caspian seal population has suffered from overhunting, habitat degradation and climate change.
The Caspian Sea borders five countries: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.
Source: CNN Brasil
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