The nerpa (the Baikal seal) is the largest endemic of Lake Baikal. But you can meet this amazing seal in other Russian water bodies. How are they different from each other? Why is their study so important for scientists? What information can be inferred from them? Academician Vyacheslav Vladimirovich Rozhnov, chief researcher at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS, head of the laboratory of behavior and behavioral ecology of mammals, scientific director of environmental and environmental projects and international programs, answers these questions.
― Vyacheslav Vladimirovich, today I would like to talk about one of the areas that you are working on: the Baikal seal, endemic to Lake Baikal. I recently visited these parts, but I was only able to see a seal in the nerpinarium. Are they not showing up in the wild now?
- They can also be seen in the wild. In 2020, we formed a program to study the Baikal seal, and we are working within the framework of this program. The seal can be seen on the Ushkan Islands (ushkan was an old name for hare), it loves these places, it roosts there, on the rocks in the summer and on the ice in the winter.
- Why did it become necessary to create a special program for the study of the Baikal seal?
- The fact is that this program is only part of a larger one for the study of aquatic mammals. We have a program for studying seals in closed water bodies - the Caspian Sea, Lake Ladoga, Baikal. These are places where seals live in closed habitats. We were very interested in the biology of these species, their adaptation to their habitats. Baikal, Ladoga - fresh water, Caspian Sea - saltwater. Where did they come from? How did they adapt, how is their population structure different? The Ladoga seal is in the Red Book of the Russian Federation, the Caspian seal is also, and the Baikal seal is a commercial species, however, there is no need for it now.
- Why are these two species in the Red Book, but the Baikal species is not?
- Because their living conditions are very different. Baikal is a wonderful lake, it is protected, although it has its own problems, which also affect the Baikal seal. The Caspian Sea is a very complex body of water where oil, gas and fish are harvested. Moreover, it is surrounded by five states and their citizens live on the shores of this sea. The situation there is quite complicated, especially considering that this is a place of volcanic activity, seismic activity, where gas and oil are naturally released, and our military flotilla is stationed there, and there is a large natural fishery. Naturally, all this is reflected in the Caspian Sea.
Ladoga is also a very interesting place, there is only fishing there. How the seal got there is unknown, but it is believed that it is supposedly a competitor of fishermen in catching fish, that is, it also has its own problems.
For us, all these seals in three reservoirs are the highest link in terms of trophism, and everything that happens in these reservoirs should affect them. For us, these species are indicators of the condition of these reservoirs. We are studying them all in this regard, although we do not have stable funding for this.
- How do you work then?
- There is a wonderful organization - the Lake Baikal Foundation, which supports the study of the Baikal seal. They have invested a lot of money in the work we are doing. In the Caspian, paradoxically, we work for Kazakh money; they have good companies that understand that they need to take care of the Caspian. We haven’t gotten to Ladoga - we couldn’t find anyone who could support us. Sometimes we go there with our savings and collect something.
- Did you manage to figure out where the nerpa came from in Baikal?
- Just like in the Caspian Sea and Ladoga, it is completely unclear where the seals came from there. I’ll start with Ladoga: it connects with the Baltic, and those seals that live on Ladoga are quite different from the Baltic seal in color, size, etc. But it turned out that they easily traverse the Neva back and forth.
- Can this be seen? Are you walking along the Neva, and suddenly a black head pops out?
- Not often, this is not some thoroughfare, but nevertheless, the connection between Ladoga and the Baltic exists and sometimes Ladoga seals end up at the mouth of the Neva. For us now, one of the main tasks on Ladoga is to trace the genetic connections of seals. As for the Caspian Sea, it is a completely isolated body of water and where the seal came from is also unclear. We have to research the same thing as my brother, paleontologist academician Sergei Vladimirovich Rozhnov. We have to study, among other things, how the Caspian Sea was formed and what connections it has with the Arctic Ocean.
In general, the Arctic Ocean is the place where ringed seals live. They belong to the same genus as the Ladoga, Caspian, and Baikal seals. But we are taking a different path: we are studying not the origin of these lakes, but the genetic connections of these animals.
- And what are they telling you?
- These connections indicate that the Baikal seal is the youngest of those I named. It appeared in this closed reservoir relatively recently, apparently, this is due to glaciations, when the reservoirs were connected with each other. We believe that they made their way from the Arctic Ocean to Baikal and stayed there.
- The fact that the seal is called an endemic of Baikal obviously means that it has changed a lot while living in this lake, acquiring features that it did not have before. What are these features?
- All these species were described by morphology: size, color, etc. Yes, the color varies - the Baikal seal is black and the smallest. That is why we study genetics, to trace formative connections that provide much more information than just color or size. From the point of view of morphological adaptation, they are all adapted to the aquatic environment.
- It is said that the Baikal seal is a champion in diving depth and holds its breath longer than all other seals.
- To hold your breath, you don’t have to dive deep, you can just swim longer. The Caspian seal can also dive as deep as possible in the Caspian Sea and swim for a long time. The Ladoga seal is exactly the same. And the ringed seal can generally dive deep and swim deep. Today we do not have much technology that would allow us to estimate the time an animal spends under water. Although the Japanese did wonderful work on Lake Baikal: they installed video cameras and sensors on these animals to find out how long they were in the water. But no one installed anything on the Caspian seal, nor on the Ladoga seal. It's difficult for us to compare.
- What then is the difference between the Baikal seal and all the others?
- The fact is that, unlike the Caspian seal, it lives in fresh water; it is completely isolated from all other bodies of water, unlike the Ladoga seal, which has some connections with the Baltic Sea and with the Baltic seal that lives there. These differences are from the point of view of location. It is smaller in size than all the other seals we work with, which could be an adaptation to life on Lake Baikal. This difference is morphological. As for adaptations, we are currently working on these things, but we cannot yet draw definite conclusions. Nevertheless, we are collecting data and, when we study it in more detail, we will be able to talk about adaptations.
- Your laboratory focuses on animal behavior. What can you say about the character of the Baikal seal? I heard that it is very friendly, unlike its relatives living in other bodies of water.
- This is a matter of appearances. In general, I have not heard of seals belonging to the genus Pusa having an aggressive attitude towards humans. They are afraid of them. But if you create such a wonderful center as in Irkutsk or in the Moskvarium (the Baltic seal also lives there), then they are easily tamed, like other marine mammals, and behave in a much more friendly manner. If the Caspian seal is tamed, it will also be friendly. I don’t see much difference in the nature of the attitude towards humans: they, in my opinion, are equally friendly if a person treats them the same way. But in the wild, they are all afraid of humans and swim away from them.
- Do they keep their distance because they feel threatened?
- Yes, because the nerpa has always been a game species - both in the Caspian Sea, in the Baltic Sea, and on Lake Baikal, where it continues to be a commercial species, but not prominent anymore. Previously, fur, fat, and meat were in great demand, but now the demand is very small, but the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO), or rather its Baikal branch, specifically continues to study seals in order to assess the state of the seal population. To do this, they take a so-called commercial sample to see how many males, females, how many females are pregnant. This is a common practice for game species.
- You say that by studying these animals, you try to understand something about these bodies of water, they become an indicator of information for you. What important things did you learn, in particular, about Lake Baikal?
- We discovered it has its own problems. The main flow into Baikal comes from Mongolia along the Selenge River. It is clear that in Mongolia this river is actively used in different directions: either they wanted to build a power plant there, and this would limit the flow into Baikal, then there the water is taken away for irrigation of the land - also understandable, steppe regions, but the flow, again, is limited. There are various enterprises on the shores that discharge various pollutants, and this flows into Baikal.
Of course, all this is reflected in the seal too. This program includes the study of animal movements, nutrition, trophic relationships of seals, and the lipid profile reflecting their nutrition. We also study the level of toxicants in these animals - both organic and heavy metals.
- How is this done?
― We take samples from these animals, in particular a biopsy, since a commercial sample is taken from the Baikal seal, samples of various tissues, organs, we send them to the laboratory or we ourselves do tests for pollutants and heavy metals. We have established great cooperation with various institutions. Mercury, for example, is very well determined at the I.D. Papanin Institute of Biology of Inland Waters, there is a wonderful researcher there - Viktor Trofimovich Komov. He and I do this kind of work together.
As for persistent organic compounds, we send them to a laboratory in Obninsk, we get results from which we see how much the seal is exposed to these pollutants. We find out that toxicants actually accumulate in seals, and this suggests that the water that comes from the Selenga, among others, and in which they live, is heavily polluted. Pollutants that accumulate in fish - gobies and golomyanka - enter the seal.
- How can this information be used to improve the situation?
- Our task is to obtain information about what is contained in seals, and to give this information to those authorities that are responsible for the use of Baikal, the seal itself on Baikal or in the Caspian Sea. We give them this information: for example, the seal’s fertility has decreased.
- Is the seal’s fertility decreasing?
- Not yet in the Baikal seal; commercial samples have shown that almost all seals are pregnant. They don’t have a problem getting pregnant, they have a problem surviving, because since the number of offspring decreases, their survival rate decreases. That's the point.
- How so?
- Including, probably, because of the pollution which manifests itself in the later stages of the baby’s development, when it leaves the mother’s body. They have to be on the ice for some time, and problems also arise with ice.
- Because of climate change?
- Yes, and not everyone has enough immunity to survive in such conditions. In order to understand the immune aspects of the life of seals, we are studying a special set of genes responsible for immunity, looking at the hormonal state of these animals, developing so-called minimally invasive methods so as not to take blood, but, for example, a piece of fur or whiskers - and from these whiskers to determine what changes took place in the life of the animal.
We have a variety of specialists in our group: geneticists, physiologists, zoologists, programmers, those responsible for space research and the operation of technology. We accumulate this data, then provide information about the state of it all, with our interpretation, proposing to change something.
- What can be changed?
- For example, recommend not to build a station on Selenga, but to sell energy to Mongolia at a lower price, so that they do not build a power plant, so as not to limit the flow of water. You can negotiate with them to use the river differently - this is already international relations. Geoecology is developing very actively in this region. Moreover, we have an expedition exploring the state of the water environment in Lake Baikal, and it began to climb up the Selenga to Mongolia to see what was coming from where. This hydrological expedition worked this year for the first time, now they are collecting data and processing it in order to make any claims to Mongolia if there is damage.
We are informing the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources that some measures need to be taken here to limit, for example, the flow of phosphates into Lake Baikal. To do this, it is necessary to build treatment facilities somewhere, and to limit ecotourism in some places, because it is developing at a frantic pace and unsystematically. And behind this are the poisonous spirogyra algae, changes in the level of Baikal from the Angarsk hydroelectric station, a change in the situation with the Baikal omul, which must rise into the rivers and spawn there, and when the water level fluctuates, it has nowhere to do this. We make recommendations on certain aspects: for example, it would be good if the Angarsk hydroelectric power station regulates the flow in such a way that the level of Lake Baikal remains with minimal movements in the water level.
- Is anyone listening to you?
- Sometimes yes, more often no, and when they listen, they forget. Unfortunately, this is often the case. A typical example is not with the Baikal seal, but with its relative in the Caspian Sea: almost every year in December, dead seals wash ashore in Dagestan. The Dagestan coast is the most famous and accessible place for us to walk along the coast in December, when the storms begin, and collect what the sea throws up. Sometimes it throws out a lot of seals, but they are already dead. Naturally, the first assumption is that humans are to blame: oil, gas, fishing...
Right here, without actually discussing it: oil workers are all dangerous, fishermen too, because the seal gets entangled in their nets, dies, etc. But here we see animals that have washed ashore, remarkably well-fed, completely healthy and normal, suddenly dead for unexplained reasons.
We started taking biosamples and comparing them with negative human influences. And what? We do not see anywhere that oil influenced such a massive death of the Caspian seal. Nowhere do we see seals thrown out that were caught in the net of poachers or trawlers catching sprat. And these things are very easy to track. We see that the animals died about two weeks before they were washed up, and since we have transmitters on both Baikal and Caspian seals, we know their travel routes quite well.
- But not on everyone?
- Not on all of them, but about a dozen or so tagged seals are swimming. Moreover, they do not swim alone, they are herd animals and live in large groups. And we know that about two weeks ago they sailed through the middle of the Caspian Sea. We can also find out what was happening there at that time. If we go to a site with data on seismic conditions at this time, we see that seismic events occurred in these places.
- Some kind of underwater earthquakes?
- Absolutely true, and this is a common thing: the middle Caspian is the boundary of tectonic plates. These are the same plates that collide with each other, upset the balance, and oil begins to ooze and gas is released. What is a gas emission? It’s not just methane, propane, it’s mixtures, including hydrogen sulfide. When mixed, it is all very poisonous. Moreover, it is quite heavy in terms of volatility. In the middle of the Caspian Sea, after seismic phenomena have occurred, the sea calms down and on this calm and smooth surface there lies a gas cloud, which lies there in the form of a large lens. When a seal swims through this lens, it suffocates and dies. And our seal transmitters show that at this time they are swimming through these places. Then the suffocated seals are carried away by currents and winds - some to the Dagestan coast, others carried past the shores of Turkmenistan, and they swim further to the territory of Kazakhstan, where they are washed up there. But the bulk is washed up in Dagestan - such are the winds and currents.
- Are there no such emissions in Baikal?
- Fortunately, no. There are generally few seal washups there. I cite the Caspian seal as an example of how our authorities treat their ward species. The Baikal seal is under the jurisdiction of VNIRO, and the Caspian seal is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources; it is a Red Book species. We say: we collected samples, went to the Caspian specifically for this, give us money (we need very little) to carry out analysis in specialized laboratories. They promise but give us nothing.
What is the abundance of seals on Lake Baikal? Its numbers. How to calculate it? They counted the Caspian, thank God, they gave us money for this: they flew by plane, identified clusters, then used drones to calculate where these clusters were. Such approaches are the most productive. We do the same on Baikal, but it’s difficult to count on Baikal, because the Baikal seal goes out onto the ice, makes shelter under the snow, gives birth to cubs there, and is not visible. You have to ride a sleigh and count the cubs.
- But this is only what you see, and much is not visible.
- Yes, that’s absolutely right. But in the summer we use the same unmanned aerial vehicles to count them on the rocks. And on the Ushkany Islands, in particular on Tonky Island, on the shore, there are camera traps photographing everything that happens there. We then count them in photographs, and also develop special methods with artificial intelligence, neural networks, that count this. We launch the quadcopter, it takes photographs. By the way, seals are afraid of a quadcopter if it flies low.
- Do they jump into the water?
- Yes. Another problem: some of the seals are lying on the rocks, the other part is swimming in the water. Which part? Here we are also helped by the transmitters that we hang on the seals, because when they dive, the contacts of the transmitters in the water are closed, and when they appear above the water, the contacts open. This way we can know how long they spend underwater and how long they spend on the shore.
- How do you manage to install these transmitters?
- If I say “very easily”, it would be an exaggeration. The seal needs to be caught, but catching it among the stones with a net is quite difficult. Nevertheless, we catch it with a big net and cover it. Or it gets caught in the net. We immobilize it with gloved hands so that it does not bite. We smear the transmitter with special glue, glue it to the shoulder blades, previously it was glued to the back of the head. We wait for it all to dry, and during this time we take all sorts of samples from the seal - blood, a piece of fur, whiskers.
- It is clear that after this the seal is afraid of humans.
- With the number of seals that we catch - this is ten to fifteen out of hundreds of thousands of seals living on Lake Baikal - this does not affect its timidity. But we know how seals react to tourists. We have now started this work. There are small groups, there are large ones, there are special places where tourists are brought. We look at a number of behavioral signs to see how they react to small and large groups. So, they are much more afraid of tourists than of us. We know how to approach slowly so that we can catch it without causing harm to each other, and cover it with a net. And tourists make noise, talk, and it scares the animals. And we treat them with care.
- Some biologists call marine mammals a separate civilization. What do you think about the intellectual capabilities of the seal?
- All animals are very smart - even a mouse, even a seal, even a whale, even an elephant. They are all adaptive to the environment in which they live. And this environment develops in them a certain set of behavior: cunning, intelligence. Perhaps this can be called civilization, but what is civilization? Are they building anything?
- Civilization is not necessarily technological. In the movie "Avatar", for example, there is also a civilization.
- It’s difficult for me to say what civilization is. I am not ready to discuss how applicable this concept is to the animal world. But it’s true that they are smart and have a complex system of relationships. Our colleagues study, for example, the killer whale, such a large dolphin, its acoustic communication - it turns out that different populations have different systems of audial cues similar to languages. But when we say the words “they speak,” we mean a way of communication. This does not mean that they have their own language. They have a communication system. And a person always wants to compare someone with himself - to endow the animal with human traits.
- We just have no other options. But there are known cases when animals came to people’s aid and saved them?
- There are cases when marine mammals, for example, push animals that are in distress to the surface. In the same way, they push a person out if they are nearby. But why do they do this? When their baby is born, it must take a breath, which is why it is born tail first, so as not to immediately choke, stuck in the mother's body. Animals living in groups push it up so that it floats up as quickly as possible and takes a breath of air and becomes buoyant.
- So, they push out a drowning person not because they love people, they just have such an instinct?
- Yes, they have this form of behavior towards a sinking object.
- Have you ever had to save a seal yourself?
- No, I didn’t have this opportunity. We save species not at the individual level, but at the population level. Although we propose to build nurseries and animal rehabilitation centers. If we encounter an injured animal, it is right to send it to a rehabilitation center so that it can be treated and released back.
- On Lake Baikal there is a nursery for bear cubs that have lost their mother. ― The main nursery for bears ― in the Tver region, founded by Dr. Valentin Sergeevich Pazhetnov, who developed a technology for rescuing motherless bear cubs. This project
served as the basis for our projects. For example, we have created a special technology for raising tiger cubs that were picked up in the wild, otherwise they would have died. We built a special center for them, placed them there and raised them so that they would grow up to fear humans, not hunt domestic animals, and get along with each other, as tigers should. We developed a special preparation procedure and thus restored both in the Jewish Autonomous Region and in the Amur Region the group that once lived there. We are doing exactly the same thing now with the Caucasian leopard, which was almost completely destroyed in the Caucasus. We are restoring it.
- Don’t seals require such nurseries?
- They do. Vodokanal in St. Petersburg helped build this center to preserve the Baltic and Ladoga seals. There are cases when the cub is left alone and needs to be fed, and for this you need to know the biology of the species well. With the seal it is simpler in this sense: it eats fish. It is fed, grows up, the wounds healed - it can be released back, it will continue to eat fish. It's not as difficult as a tiger, fortunately.
There are enthusiasts who have built such a nursery on the shores of the Sea of Japan, in Primorye, where sick seals are actually kept safely, treated, and then released. In the Caspian Sea, in Kazakhstan, in Aterau, a special rehabilitation center for Caspian seals was built.
But the thing is that there are very few seals that require attention and rehabilitation. Saving one or two, even ten of these animals will not solve the problem as a whole. If the seals die, then hundreds, thousands of animals will follow. I saw a wounded seal somewhere - I saved it. From the point of view of humanism and education, this is a very good and useful thing; from the point of view of studying the biology of a species kept in captivity, it is also great. From the point of view of saving the species, it meant nothing.
- Are you interested in working with seals?
- We study seals with great pleasure, be they Caspian, ringed, bearded seals, or any other. We have a special program, and it is much broader than just in closed reservoirs - we study seals in the Sea of Okhotsk, and seals in general, including in the Arctic Ocean. We treat them with great love.
In my laboratory in the seal group, for example, there is a girl who works with Baikal seals. She was born on Lake Baikal, in the very north, and since childhood she had a dream of holding a seal in her hands. And her life turned out so well that she moved to Moscow and is now studying them. Dreams come true.