The Marine Mammal Council, the Nature Reserves EcoCenter, and the Clean Seas International Environmental Fund jointly decided to establish Caspian Seal Day.
It will be celebrated on March 24th. On this day in 2020, the Caspian seal was included in the Red Book of the Russian Federation. The Caspian seal has been on the list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature since 2008, with the status of “endangered”.
In recent years, massive dumping of bodies of dead seals have been regularly observed in the Caspian Sea. Various causes have been cited for this phenomenon, including climate change, infectious diseases, and possible exposure to pollution.
Changing ice conditions and falling sea levels are forcing animals to find new places to give birth and moult.
Aerial surveys carried out in the Russian and Kazakh parts of the Caspian Sea showed that in 2023 their numbers decreased by 16.5% compared to 2022.
In order to attract the attention of the Russian community to the topic of saving and preserving the endemic of the Caspian Sea, the entire ecosystem of this sea, it was decided to establish Caspian Seal Day.