As the COP29 climate action conference gets under way in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, located on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, an environmental tragedy is unfolding along the eastern shore, where hundreds of dead seals are washing up in Kazakhstan.

Kazakh authorities have sent samples from dead seals to labs for testing. So far, the cause of the die-off has not yet been determined. Over 825 dead seals have been counted to date, according to media reports.

Asel Baimukanova, a specialist at the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology, said all the carcasses examined so far seemed well-fed, and more than half of the females were pregnant. “This suggests that they were young and viable before they died,” Baimukanova wrote on Instagram. “The deaths were apparently unnatural and sudden.”

The expert reported that every autumn seals migrate to the northern part of the Caspian Sea to reproduce. The deaths have occurred during this period of concentration in northern waters, she noted. Kazakh authorities estimate the overall Caspian seal population to be in the 300,000 range. But Assel Tasmagambetova, founder of the Central Asian Institute for Ecological Research (CAIER), says there could be fewer than 100,000 Caspian seals remaining.

According to environmental officials, it could take months to make initial conclusions about the causes of the die-off. Environmental specialists in Mangistau say water samples taken from areas where concentrations of dead seals have been found did not turn up any “anomalous deviations”.

One working theory is that the seals became ensnared in poachers’ fishing nets. Cuts and traces of nets were found on some of the carcasses. “Not all, but some [of the dead seals] definitely suffered because of this,” the Lada news outlet quoted Andrey Rutskoy, a specialist from the local fisheries inspectorate, as saying. He indicated that poaching in the Caspian by fishermen using powerful motorboats poses a challenge for inspectors and enforcement authorities. 

This marks the second time in two years that Caspian seals have died en masse under mysterious circumstances. In November 2022, more than 170 carcasses were found along the Kazakh coast, and a month later, about 2,500 dead seals washed up in Russian territory.

In 2023, Kazakh officials determined that viral infections were the root cause of the seal deaths, adding that the animals’ immunity systems had been compromised by pollution. Russian health officials attributed the mass deaths to “natural factors,” citing poisoning by gases that emanated from under the seabed.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.

Almaz Kumenov is an Almaty-based journalist.