A seal plays with a man in a special aquarium. Bodies of 363 dead seals have been washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea since March 31.
Photo: ИТАР-ТАСС
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Warm Weather Kills Caspian Seals
Bodies of 363 dead seals have been washed up on the shores of the Caspian Sea since March 31. The seals are being killed by unfavorable weather, RIA Novosti reported with reference to Emergency Ministry of Kazakhstan.
”The better part of northeastern Caspian hadn’t been coated with ice till February 20, which could have negatively affected the seals population during breeding,” the Emergency Ministry announced in the news release. Though the ice covered all northern part of the sea February 21 to 22, it thawed out completely by March 20, unfavorably affecting the offspring.
The preliminary examination of seals’ internals revealed no excessive content of heavy metal salt and no petroleum was discovered in the sea water of mass seal mortality. A special intergovernmental commission endeavors to determine what exactly killed the seals, but roughly two weeks could be needed for it, said Nurlan Iskakov, who is the environment protection minister in Kazakhstan.
The minister said he had ordered to cancel “disposing of any waste from any types of drilling on the Caspian shelf.” Now the rules of zero discharge are applied there, Iskakov specified.
Kazakhstan’s two big Caspian oilfields - Karazhambas and Kalamkas – have been aggressively explored for more than 25 years already.
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