Dolphins are dying in the Black Sea. Dead Season. Why did dozens of dolphins die in the Black Sea? Corpses on the beach

Scientists consider the mass death of dolphins in the Black Sea a threat to the population

To identify the causes of the mass death of dolphins in the Black Sea, numerous tests, prompt dissection of the animals’ bodies, as well as research into their food supply are needed, said ecologists and zoologists interviewed by the Caucasian Knot, noting that there is no exact data on the number of dead dolphins.

As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on May 3, the environmental prosecutor's office reported the discovery of 68 dead dolphins in the Black Sea within the borders of Novorossiysk. Experts have named several versions of the death of animals, including water pollution and an unstudied virus. On June 27, the prosecutor of the Krasnodar region, Sergei Tabelsky, said that the death of 167 dolphins had already been recorded in the Krasnodar region, noting that the reasons for the mass death of animals have not yet been determined.

"Scientists have determined that the death of animals did not occur in the coastal waters of the Black Sea"

The experts contacted by the Azov-Black Sea Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office were unable to identify the exact cause of the death of dolphins in the Black Sea, a representative of the press service told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent prosecutor's office.

At the same time, scientists have established that the death of the animals did not occur in the coastal waters of the Black Sea, their bodies simply washed ashore, explained a representative of the press service of the Azov-Black Sea Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office.

“To determine the exact cause of the death of dolphins, a comprehensive approach is needed”

Until there is some kind of analysis collection system, the reasons for the death of the Black Sea dolphins will be impossible to determine, the leading engineer of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution Problems told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. A.N. Severtsov RAS Dmitry Glazov.

According to him, a dead animal must be opened very quickly; after a long stay in the water or on the beach of a dolphin corpse, the clinical picture becomes blurred.

To determine that the animal died from the disease, it is also necessary to quickly collect samples and analyze them in different laboratories, Glazov noted.

In his opinion, the cause of death may also be pollution of the Black Sea, since dolphins are sensitive to heavy metals and organic discharges into the sea - meaning sewage.

“But again, this needs to be analyzed. It’s expensive, no one is doing this or intends to. In theory, this is the work of institutes that are engaged in resource research on the coast, this should be their interest,” Glazov believes.

He also noted that Black Sea dolphins are a Red Book species and the problem of their death should be dealt with by Rosprirodnadzor.

“Until there is some kind of analysis collection system, it will be impossible to find out the causes of death,” the scientist noted, recalling that a similar situation occurred in 2008 in the Caspian Sea, where seals died en masse.

According to him, government authorities were never able to establish the cause. “Only thanks to the fact that Greenpeace went there then and systematically took samples and then analyzed it, it was possible to find out that the cause of death was carnivorous plague. But it was their good will,” Glazov noted.

"Dolphins have not been counted in the Black Sea for 35-40 years"

The death of animals is a threat to the entire population, while no one can say the exact number of this species of marine mammals in the Black Sea, so the scale of the problem is not known, Glazov said.

“In the Black Sea, dolphins have not been counted for 35-40 years; few people know what is happening there in the sea,” Glazov noted.

In addition, according to him, no one knows the exact number of dead dolphins.
“No one keeps a record of the discarded bodies, they just come across someone on the beach, and there was no purposeful recording of deaths. There is no such service, there is no person in charge who would record this,” says the scientist.

According to him, the bodies of dolphins from private beaches are disposed of by special farms with which an agreement was concluded; information about these animals is not sent to the prosecutor’s office.

“How many of them are there, where are they thrown out, what types, are there any traces of nets, some kind of ropes or bullets. After all, no one records this. There is no system,” Glazov noted.

"Such a mass death of dolphins could have happened due to infection"

To investigate the mass death of dolphins in the Black Sea, it is not enough to examine only the corpses of animals; such a mass death could only happen due to infection, said a zoologist, a member of the “Environmental Watch for the North Caucasus”, a former employee of the Gelendzhik Dolphinarium Konstantin Andramonov.

“It is necessary to study the complex, including the food supply of dolphins, perhaps the source of infection in the food chain of animals. They feed on plankton, shellfish and fish,” Konstantin Andramonov told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

"No dead dolphins were found in the marine waters of the Utrish Nature Reserve"

In the marine area that is part of the reserve, which is 783 hectares, no dead dolphins were found, the deputy director for science of the Utrish State Nature Reserve told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. Olga Bykhalova.

“Now we are keeping a daily count of dolphins, which involves a certain period, then there will be an analysis to determine specifically by individual, what type, what number. These are migratory animals, it is difficult to count them,” Bykhalova said.

According to her information, there are three species of dolphins in the Black Sea: the Azov dolphin, also called the porpoise - the smallest dolphin, the white-sided dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin - the largest Black Sea dolphin, all of them have conservation status and are listed in the Red Book.

“The fact that so many of them die is always alarming, but this suggests that the problem needs to be comprehensively studied,” Bykhalova noted.

Let us recall that earlier the Azov-Black Sea Environmental Prosecutor's Office stated that there was no version of dolphin poisoning with oil products, since no traces were found on the bodies of the dead animals.

About 11 dead dolphins were found on the shore of Evpatoria, in the area of ​​the Simferopol-Evpatoria highway and in the area of ​​the village of Morskoye.

The exact reasons for the incident are still unknown. This could have happened due to human intervention, but scientists do not exclude the possibility that the dolphins themselves washed ashore. According to them, when the leader is injured, he is thrown ashore and the whole flock follows him. In this way, animals become victims of their social structure.

It is noted that the distance between dead dolphins is several hundred meters. It is also likely that the cause of the mass death of animals could be a storm; one of the reasons for the death of dolphins could be some kind of epidemic, because dolphins, especially Azov dolphins, are very sensitive to both the environment and diseases.

Dead dolphins are regularly found on the beaches of the Black and Azov Seas, But there are so many of them in 2017 that this attracted increased public attention - zoologists and ordinary vacationers discovered a total of 428 dolphins. The peak of dolphin emissions traditionally occurs for the spring-summer period,a large number of dead dolphins were found near Sevastopol.

Speculations are being made. What the death of dolphins is associated with the negative impact of sonar and acoustic equipment, installed on ships in Sevastopol and Novorossiysk, as well as pollution of the water area, infection of dolphins with helminths.

At the beginning of this year 4 bottlenose dolphins, 4 Azov dolphins and 2 white drums were found dead on the shore. One dolphin was found in the Sudak region, 3 in the Feodosia region, 1 in Yalta, 4 in the Sevastopol region and 1 near Evpatoria. The bottlenose dolphin showed signs of being caught in fishing gear - its tail fin was cut off. Two more dolphins had serious signs of exhaustion They probably died as a result of the disease. The remaining bodies were at the stage of decomposition, which did not allow us to visually determine the possible cause of death. Most of the animals found were adults; there were no babies among them. Experts suggest that a sharp jump in dolphin deaths with subsequent peak values ​​is expected in late March - early April and until the end of July.

Among the causes of death of dolphins are deaths in nets, viruses, diseases, severe storms. and lack of food. Eg, common dolphins in Balaklava V In search of food, they swim very close to the shore and even beg for food from people.

And in 2018, the inexplicable happened –there was no annual seasonal fish migration during the winter and spring months, for which the dolphins come. The animals had to starve.

The health of dolphins is also adversely affected by the state of the sea - a high concentration of pesticides eaten with fish is found in the subcutaneous fat of dead dolphins. Toxins have a particularly strong effect on the body during mammalian weight loss, and poisoning of dolphins with pesticides.

Marine biologists do not exclude the presence of other reasons that remain to be clarified. Now biologists are collecting signatures so that their initiative on the ban on the use of flounder and katran nets, invisible to dolphins, was considered at the state level.

Three species of dolphins live in the Black and Azov Seas - bottlenose dolphins, white-sided dolphins and azovs. The Red Book of Russia states: “ Number of bottlenose dolphins in the Black Sea is sharply declining, which is especially noticeable in comparison with the pre-war period, when there were dolphins of all types in the sea about 0.5–1 million heads . By May 1977 year, according to aerial survey data, the total number of dolphins reached 140 thousand, of which 36 thousand bottlenose dolphins. A route survey from ships carried out ten years later showed a decrease the number of all dolphins is up to 113 thousand, and bottlenose dolphins - up to 7 thousand, i.e. more than five times" .

In Russia, a ban on dolphin fishing in the Black Sea has been in effect since 1966, all Black Sea countries have stopped fishing, and the last one refused to catch dolphins Türkiye in 1983. Unfortunately, after the ban on dolphin fishing, the dolphin population in the Black Sea did not stop declining.

No one knows exactly how many dolphins live in the Black and Azov Seas. The fact is that there is no systematic monitoring of the population, and expert assessment gives a fairly large scatter - the data varies from several thousand up to 140 thousand individuals. Oddly enough, we know quite little about how the Black Sea dolphins use the water area, what migration routes they have and whether they exist at all - according to some information, there are several sedentary groups of dolphins. These questions require research.

All three species of our dolphins are listed in the Red Book of Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and the Red Book of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It is difficult to say why we know so little about the state of the dolphin population. Perhaps because they were of no interest for fishing and only scientists were interested in their biology. Unfortunately, the capabilities of scientific organizations are, as a rule, limited, and to conduct a large-scale census of the dolphin population, systematic observation is needed, it is necessary to observe the behavior of dolphins in the sea every year, preferably at the same time, several planes, ships are needed, and, most importantly, , experienced specialists who are able to identify animals from the air or from the surface of the water and count them, which is very difficult. All this is quite problematic from an organizational point of view.

❗Attention! Witnesses to the death or unlawful actions against dolphins should contact Rosprirodnadzor by calling 8-978-905-88-44.

In order to remove a washed-up dolphin corpse, you should call to hotline 1563 Unified city duty dispatch service.

❗If a dead or living dolphin is found on the shore in Crimea, Please call the following numbers:
+79780326852
+79164090148

In Novorossiysk, the prosecutor's office is investigating the causes of the mass death of dolphins in the Black Sea. On just one day in May, three more bodies of marine mammals were immediately discovered in the sea within the city limits - one near the Horse and Dolphin cafe, two more near the Zubkov battery. And in just a fairly short period of time, according to law enforcement and environmentalists, more than 100 dolphins died off the coast of Kuban and Crimea. And now the first versions of the reasons for this emergency have appeared.

In total, over the past month, 72 dead dolphins were discovered on the shore and in the sea in the Novorossiysk region alone. And according to environmentalists, another 31 dolphins died near the Crimean coast during the same period. In both cases, the bodies of marine mammals were found by local residents in the coastal strip.

It caused shock among people who witnessed this incident, and the region’s social networks are full of discussions about the incident.

We now receive reports of the discovery of dead dolphins almost several times a day,” says Azov-Black Sea interdistrict environmental prosecutor Maxim Cherny. - We are developing several versions that could have caused these incidents. One of them is the presence of hard shelled mollusks in the stomachs of all dead dolphins. The experts who performed the autopsy believe that this could have been the cause of death of the marine mammals. Another version is water pollution. Her samples have now been taken and are in the laboratory for testing. The third version is a direct physical impact on dolphins. Someone could have killed them, or the animals could have gotten caught in a net from which they were unable to escape. The fourth version is that the leader of the pack lost his natural geolocation, which forced him to throw himself ashore and other members of the pack to follow his example. If this version is correct, then we have to find out why this is happening.

According to employees of the supervisory agency, all of the listed versions have the right to exist and preference is not given to any one. But if we talk about possible environmental pollution, it is not yet clear how this could happen, because monitoring points scattered along the entire coast indicate that the chemical composition of the water is absolutely normal.

Sources in law enforcement agencies of the neighboring region report that over the past 1.5 months, the bodies of 31 dolphins have been found in the area of ​​the Kerch Peninsula. Now the environmental prosecutor's office of Crimea is checking these data.

According to environmental scientists who were involved in the investigation of an incident, such a mass death of dolphins (more than 100 individuals at once) has not occurred over the past few years.

Not long ago, a large number of dead dolphins were recorded in Novorossiysk, and now the carcasses of dead mammals have begun to appear in Abkhazia.

Over the past month, four cases of dolphin deaths were recorded in Abkhazia. Sputnik correspondent Vladimir Begunov was told why dolphins are dying in the Black Sea by Murman Solomko, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Ecology and Nature Conservation of Abkhazia, and Roman Dbar, Director of the ANA Institute of Ecology.

According to the chairman of the State Committee for Ecology and Nature Conservation of Abkhazia, this year experts managed to capture only one dolphin. The bodies of other mammals were not found.

Apparently they were carried away by the sea, the publication writes.

The only dead dolphin that was examined was without any physical injuries. According to Solomko, it was a baby dolphin who died of a heart attack after getting caught in a fishing net.

Cases of mass death of marine mammals, according to Murman Solomko, are associated with the fact that dolphins lose orientation in space during storms, they get seasick, and they wash ashore, believing that they are swimming towards the sea, writes Sputnik.

According to the director of the Institute of Ecology of the Academy of Sciences of Abkhazia, the mass death of dolphins in Novorossiysk is associated with the military fleet.

Nothing other than the navy can lead to so many deaths of dolphins, Sputnik quotes Roman Dbar as saying. - The military on ships and submarines use powerful ultrasonic equipment, from which dolphins literally go crazy and wash ashore, not understanding anything.

According to the scientist, many mammals die due to fishing nets. Once entangled in the nets, they are unable to breathe air and die.

It is easy to identify such dolphins - they have a cut off fin on their back, says Dbar.

The fact is that fishermen, when they see a dead dolphin in their nets, do not waste time trying to disentangle the dolphin. They simply cut off the fin and throw the carcass into the sea.

According to the scientist, of the three species of dolphins in the Black Sea, the Azov dolphin is the one most often caught in the net. The bobwhite rarely gets entangled in nets, the bottlenose dolphin almost never.

- Firstly, these two species are found at great depths, and secondly, and this is the main thing, the white drum and bottlenose dolphin have a different level and frequency of the echolocation signal, they can recognize nets, but the coastal Azov dolphin cannot.

Previously "Living Kuban" that almost 70 dolphins died in Novorossiysk from April to May. All carcasses were found within the city of Novorossiysk. The Azov-Black Sea Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office organized an investigation into this fact. However, there are still no official versions. The exact reasons for the death of mammals have not yet been established.

The wounds on the bodies of the dolphins found near Novorossiysk, which were taken for gunshot wounds, could have been left by seagulls, the environmental prosecutor’s office believes. Department specialists are awaiting test results, putting forward three versions of the mass death of dolphins, including diseases. Zoologist Konstantin Andramonov, who complained about the lack of scientific research on dolphins, is leaning towards the version of an unstudied viral infection.

As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, on May 3, the environmental prosecutor's office reported the discovery of 68 dead dolphins in the Black Sea within the borders of Novorossiysk. The media also reported that residents of Novorossiysk found dead dolphins with gunshot wounds, but the prosecutor's office called this information untrue. As of May 15, since the beginning of April, the number of dead dolphins was about 90 individuals. Experts are developing several versions of the death of animals, including water pollution.

The prosecutor's office is awaiting the results of biochemical tests

The study of the six bodies of dead dolphins continues; samples taken have been sent to specialized institutions in Moscow. The results of biochemical analyzes take about a month, the press service of the Azov-Black Sea Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor's Office told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent today.

The version that some of the dolphins died from gunshot wounds has not been confirmed, confirmed prosecutor's office employee. According to him, it was established that the wounds on the bodies of the dead animals, taken for gunshots, were left by seagulls that feed on carrion.

Now the prosecutor's office is considering three versions of the mass death of dolphins - diseases, pollution of sea water by sewage, as well as the impact of sonars and other devices of the Novorossiysk seaport.

There is no version of oil poisoning, since no traces of them were found on the bodies of the dead animals. So far, it has been possible to accurately establish the cause of death of one of the animals, who died from pulmonary edema and intoxication with waste products, the Azov-Black Sea Environmental Prosecutor's Office reported on May 15.

Zoologist stated the need for detailed scientific research on dolphins

A zoologist, a member of the “Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus”, a former employee of the Gelendzhik Dolphinarium, considers the situation unusual in terms of the number of dead dolphins Konstantin Andramonov, who said that he did not remember such a massive death of dolphins in the Black Sea before.

At the same time, the zoologist does not believe in the version about water pollution. “I believe that this does not stand up to any criticism; the same bottlenose dolphins live in dolphinariums in much worse conditions, with water 200 times more polluted than in the natural environment,” Konstantin Andramonov told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

In his opinion, the main version of the death of dolphins remains helminths. “This is a severe infection; due to these diseases, normal life activity is disrupted, orientation in space is disrupted,” the zoologist said.

At the same time, he criticized the version that the death of animals was influenced by the construction of the Kerch Bridge, since, Andramonov is sure, dolphins can migrate away from unfavorable conditions.

Earlier it was reported that environmentalists accused the builders of the bridge across the Kerch Strait of destroying Cape Tuzla. According to the Ecological Watch for the North Caucasus, deforestation on the cape, storage of materials, and construction work have led to the collapse of the ecosystem and a negative impact not only on migratory birds, but also on dolphins.

According to the zoologist, the voiced version that at the bottom of the Black Sea since the First World War there have been barrels of a toxic substance that can be released into the water does not stand up to criticism. Andramonov also does not believe in the version about the influence of the special equipment of the Novorossiysk seaport services on the dolphins. “They simply do not have enough transmitting power to lead to the death of dolphins. Only diseases that have been well studied remain. Perhaps a new viral infection has appeared,” the expert noted.

In his opinion, the investigation by the prosecutor's office into the mass death of animals is not enough; he notes that detailed scientific research is needed in this situation. “It is necessary to establish the cause of the outbreak of the disease. Perhaps it came from the food supply: plankton, shellfish, fish, then dolphins - that is, somewhere along the way there was some kind of source of infection,” notes Andramonov.

The version of pollution of the Black Sea is actively lobbied by the owners of dolphinariums

He believes that the version of pollution of the Black Sea is actively lobbied by the owners of dolphinariums. “The sea is polluted, and they [claim that] they save dolphins by catching them. They catch them for scientific research, for educational purposes, and use them commercially,” the zoologist said.

According to his information, the administrative license for catching animals states that after five years the dolphins must be released into the wild. "In fact, none of this is being done. They ( dolphinarium owners) they say that more and more new dolphins are being born in their artificial habitat. But in fact, they are periodically caught. There are special companies that prepare documents for them,” Andramonov said.

Animal rights activists are now fighting for the introduction of genetic certification of marine mammals found in dolphinariums

According to him, animal rights activists are now fighting for the introduction of genetic certification of marine mammals that are in dolphinariums in order to establish where the dolphin was born - in the natural environment or in captivity. “It’s impossible to know now,” the expert notes.

According to him, there is “a very large lobby” for dolphins. He mentioned information that it is planned to open a dolphinarium in Grozny. On May 6, the Grozny TV company reported that a dolphinarium was being built in Grozny.

“There’s a lot of money there. It turns out that the law is relaxed for [dolphins] born in captivity, they become the private property of the dolphinarium,” the expert said. According to him, not a single dolphin caught for the dolphinarium has yet been returned to the natural environment. “For 25 years, all these organizations have been violating the orders of the Ministry of Natural Resources, and they continue to be issued fishing permits,” Andramonov said.

At the same time, he noted that all animals kept in dolphinariums suffer from intestinal dysbiosis, since chlorine is used to purify water. “In the Gelendzhik Dolphinarium, where I worked, the water is so dirty that they have constant dysbiosis, and this is suppressed with antibiotics. Chlorine burns everything, all the intestinal microflora,” said the zoologist.

According to his information, three species of dolphins live in the Black Sea: the bottlenose dolphin, the white-sided dolphin and the Azov dolphin, all of which are classified as rare species. At the same time, there is no exact data on the dolphin population in the Black Sea, notes Andramonov; only aerial surveys are conducted, which cannot show the real numbers. The approximate number of bottlenose dolphins, according to the expert, is about 30 thousand individuals.