Photo: Delfa Dolphin Rescue and Research Centre
The bodies of at least 32 dolphins have been recovered from coastal areas of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region following an oil spill in the Black Sea caused by two tankers that ran aground in mid-December, the Delfa Dolphin Rescue and Research Centre said on Sunday.
According to the centre, such a high number of deaths was “highly abnormal” for the time of year, with dolphin stranding season — the time of year when the most dolphins are found washed up on land — typically coming in spring and summer in the Black Sea region.
The recovered bodies suggested that the dolphins had died within the first 10 days of the oil spill on 15 December, the centre said, with most of those recovered being endangered Azov dolphins and reports of new dolphin deaths coming in “almost daily”.
While according to the centre no live dolphins have yet been found stranded in the aftermath of the spill, the number of dolphins expected to be washed ashore either dead or alive was expected to rise to “significantly higher” levels than normal over the coming months, adding that the centre intended to set up a facility to treat the affected dolphins.
Aside from the 32 dolphins whose deaths were “most likely linked to the oil spill”, Delfa said that a further 29 dolphins had been found washed up on the coast, though it stressed that these were dolphins that had died before the spill.
Efforts to clean up the spill began in the Krasnodar region on 17 December, two days after two tankers, which were each carrying over 4,000 tons of oil, ran aground in high winds in the Kerch Strait, which runs between Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia proper.
On Thursday, Russia’s Transport Ministry said that a total of 2,400 tonnes of oil had leaked from the tankers into the Black Sea, with the Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea declaring a regional state of emergency on Saturday after oil began to wash up on the coastline around of the peninsula’s main city Sevastopol.
