According to authorities, over 1,700 dead seals have been discovered along southern Russia‘s Caspian Sea shore.
The cause of the animals’ deaths is still unknown, according to the officials in the Russian province of Dagestan, but they most likely passed away naturally.
Regional officials first reported on Saturday that 700 dead seals had been discovered on the coast, but on Sunday Zaur Gapizov, the director of the Caspian Environmental Protection Center, said that 1,700 dead animals had been discovered after a more thorough survey of the coast.
According to Gapizov, the seals presumably passed just a few weeks ago. No indication that they were slain by poachers, he continued, was present.
Federal Fisheries Agency experts and prosecutors examined the coastline and gathered the information for laboratory analysis, which did not immediately detect any pollutants.
Numerous instances of mass seal fatalities in the past have been attributed to natural causes.
The information on how many seals there are in the Caspian varies greatly. According to the fisheries department, there are between 270,000 and 300,000 Caspian seals overall, although Gapizov’s centre estimates there are just 70,000.