The Ukrainian delegation at the meeting of member countries of the ACCOBAMS Agreement on the preservation of cetaceans of the Black and Mediterranean Seas and the adjacent waters of the Atlantic Ocean spoke about the impact of Russian military aggression on the inhabitants of the Black Sea.
Three species of Black Sea cetaceans are under international protection, but during the full-scale war, more than 100 dolphin bodies were found on 6 km of the coast, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources reported on Facebook.
The eighth meeting of the member countries of the Accobams dolphin & whale conservation – dauphins & baleines Agreement takes place from November 28 to December 2, 2022 in St. Julian's, Republic of Malta. The participants of the meeting listened to the joint statement of the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.
The message emphasized that dolphins are the pearl of the Black Sea biodiversity, so Ukraine should turn the attention of the international community to this problem, the scale of which is impressive.
"Since the beginning of the war, the preservation of cetaceans has become one of the most urgent problems of nature conservation, since bottlenose dolphins and other types of dolphins are literally "blinded" by the sonar of Russian submarines and ships, which does not allow them to eat normally. Not to mention even the mass mining of the seas, which is a real problem. More than 100 bodies of dolphins were found on six kilometers of the sea coast, and this is far from the final number," the joint statement said.
The press service of the Ministry of Environment emphasized that the attention of the international community will help:
- develop and coordinate, together with foreign partners, an action plan;
- implement the latest monitoring systems;
- to attract funds for the creation of the rehabilitation center "Afalina" on the basis of the National Natural Park "Tuzlivski Lymani". It is planned that animals injured as a result of Russian aggression will be rehabilitated there.
"Before the war, Black Sea species of cetaceans gave birth once every 2-3 years, and with the increase in the number of dead animals, the restoration of dolphin populations will take more than a dozen years. That is why the issue of rehabilitation of cetaceans of the Black Sea is so acute," the message explained.
The press service also emphasized that it is important that the barbaric destruction of wildlife by the aggressor's troops does not go unanswered.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that the victims of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were no less than three thousand dolphins in the Black Sea.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the prosecutor's office in the Odesa region opened criminal proceedings on the fact of ecocide, namely, the mass death of dolphins that has been going on for half a year in the Black Sea due to the military aggression of the Russians.
