Dolphins dying in the black sea, the latest victims of the Ukraine war

Dolphins have washed up dead on the coasts of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine, raising alarms among scientists, who believe that they might be victims of the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused significant environmental damage, interfering with the dolphin’s natural habitat, scientists say. However, scientists have not been able to gather more information because of the ongoing war.

“Recent studies from Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine found that marine biodiversity was under growing threat because of the war, including from bombs dropping in coastal feeding areas, oil from sunken ships, and river runoff polluted by chemicals used in ammunition,” reported the New York Times.

An environmental scientist at Ukraine’s Tuzla Estuaries National Nature Park, Ivan Rusev, said that his organization has found that several thousand dolphins have been killed since the war began. He added that the increase in ship noise and sonar systems in the Black Sea could be disorienting dolphins, which use sound to find food.

“Some of the dolphins had burns from bomb or mine explosions and they could no longer navigate and of course could not look for food,” Rusev added.

Since the start of the war, Tukey has found more than 80 common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) dead in the country’s western black sea. The Turkish Marine Research Foundation (Tudav) said it was “an extraordinary increase.” Tudav is investigating the probable causes for the deaths of the dolphins as well as the effects that the war is having in the region’s marine biodiversity.

“Along with marine pollution, ship noise and low-frequency sonars are known to be a serious threat to the marine species, especially to dolphins, which utilize underwater sounds actively to feed and navigate,” the Turkish researchers said.

While permanent underwater noise itself does not kill the dolphins, it can disturb and harm them by leading then to areas they are unfamiliar with. “It might be the cause of mass migration of fish and cetacean stocks to the south,” said Dr. Pavel Gol’din, a researcher at Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences.