Scientists say there are far more dead Black Sea dolphins than they can record
"Actual data on dead Black Sea dolphins because of the war are greatly underestimated," Ivan Rusiev, the leading scientist of the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park
Dolphins continue to die in the waters of the Black Sea; scientists and soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stationed at the seashore regularly find corpses of animals on the coast.
In previous articles, Rubryka has talked about the causes of these animals' death: it happens because military ships use sonars. On July 18, animal corpses were found again in the Tuzly estuaries:
"The sea brought two harbor porpoises to the coast of the Tuzly Lagoons national nature park again. The dolphin was gone when we arrived at the experiment site in the morning. After looking through the files, we learned that the jackals took the dolphin and dragged part of the spine to a considerable distance," the park's Facebook page reports.
Photo from a hidden camera installed by employees of the Tuzly Lagoons park. Source at the link.
Thus, having appeared on the coast, a dead dolphin can disappear the next day, although there are exceptions when parts of corpses can lie around for a long time.
"One should understand that the data on dead Black Sea dolphins from the war are greatly underestimated since it is practically impossible to find and include in the total number of all animals thrown out of the sea. To this, one should add that, compared to the pre-war period, now we have access to only 3–5% of the sea coast for monitoring and that the sea washes up no more than 5% of all dead dolphins. The remaining 95% goes to the bottom of the sea, and we cannot register and study them," Ivan Rusiev, the leading scientist of the national park, says in the post.
