Odessa. Concentrated, looking into the distance, Ivan Russev walks part of a Black Sea beach in search of a stranded dolphin. This Ukrainian scientist has been keeping track of the effects of war on local fauna and flora since the beginning of the Russian military incursion into his country.
The balance is “terrifying”, said this 63-year-old man, scientific director of the Tuzly Lagoons National Park, 280 square kilometers of protected coastline in Bessarabia, an isolated historical area of the Odessa region, in southwestern Ukraine, near the border with Romania.
Every day, Russev surveys the territory, controlled by the army, looking for dolphins stranded in the sand.
The first mammals began to beach themselves in early March. Quick action had to be taken to document these deaths: jackals are numerous in the area and dolphin carcasses never lasted more than one night.
Russev, a native of the region, began from the first day of the Russian offensive, on February 24, to keep an account of the consequences of the conflict in the park, in a widely followed diary on Facebook.
Then, “we started to communicate with our Turkish, Bulgarian, Romanian colleagues, and they all come to the same conclusions: there are a huge number of dead dolphins since the beginning of the war.”
The Turkish Foundation for Marine Research raised concerns in March about an “unusual increase” in deaths of dolphins found off Turkey’s Black Sea coast.
Russev advanced a figure: “5 thousand dead dolphins according to the data collected”, that is, almost 2 percent of the total population of the animal in that sea.
“Last year, in our 44 kilometers of coastline, we found a total of three dolphins. This year, in only the 5 kilometers in which we have the right to operate, we have already found 35”, he told AFP.
It is impossible to know exactly how many were stranded in other parts of the reserve. Fearing a Russian landing, the Ukrainian army forbids park employees access to most of the area.
The three species of dolphins found in this almost closed sea, estimated at 2 million in the mid-20th century, have been victims of fishing and pollution for decades. The last record in 2020 accounted for 250,000 copies, Russev added.
For the scientist, there are no doubts. The culprits of this hecatomb are the powerful sonars used by the Russian warships and submarines that circulate in the Black Sea, which disturb “the acoustic system of the dolphins.
“They destroy their inner hearing, they become blind, they can’t orient themselves or fish,” Russev said. Weakened, the dolphins fall ill and die from the infections.
As proof, he claims that no dolphins found this year had apparent injuries or the typical cuts that indicate they were caught in a fishing net. This hypothesis must be confirmed.
On the Russian side, scientists who have also verified the excess mortality of dolphins, rule out the sonar thesis and assure that they are victims of a morbillivirus, a cause of frequent deadly epidemics in marine mammals.
To clear up doubts, several samples of the latest specimens found in the park will be analyzed in Germany and Italy.
Near the wooden cabin where he sleeps, at the entrance to the reserve, Russev does not hide his concern. Multiple bombardments hit the park and burned a hundred hectares of protected areas.
“War is a dreadful thing. It has an impact on the entire ecosystem, on species that will have difficulty recovering and restoring the balance of nature”, she concluded.
#increase #death #dolphins #Black #Sea #effect #Russian #incursion #Ukraine