In Odesa, in the waters of the Black Sea near the national natural park "Tuzlivski lymani", scientists and local residents noticed dolphins that were forced to stay for the winter.
Usually they winter in the depths near Crimea, Georgia and Turkiye, but due to the consequences of Russian aggression, they remained in the shallow waters of the North-Western part of the Black Sea, where there is very little food. Ivan Rusev, an ecologist of the Tuzlivski Lymani National Park, reports on Facebook.
He explained that due to the impact of sonars and bombardment, many animals were killed and injured by the powerful explosions. Such "contused and lonely" animals are forced to stay for the winter near the "Tuzliv estuaries".
Rusev emphasized that currently the cetaceans of the Black and Azov seas need protection from the consequences of war more than ever. Therefore, the employees of the national park, together with the scientists of the Institute of Zoology and the Ukrainian Bird Protection Society, submitted a package of documents to the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources regarding the creation of a large Black Sea reserve in the Northwestern water area.
“The war, which has had an extremely negative impact on the number of dolphins and their fertility in the future, will end anyway, and dolphins, like us humans, need a safe home in the sea to reproduce. And a safe home is where there is no poaching and fishing at all, – said the ecologist. "The creation of a Black Sea reserve for dolphins is a direct duty of the state."
He noted that without the creation of a reserve, there are significant risks of losing the dolphin population, which has already happened with monk seals. This could lead to the loss of the entire ecosystem of the Black Sea.
Rusev emphasized that the increase in the territories of the nature reserve fund is part of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
Earlier, EcoPolitic wrote, that in the Odesa region, the prosecutor's office opened criminal proceedings on the fact of ecocide, namely, the mass death of dolphins due to the military aggression of the Russians.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that in Ukraine, due to the full-scale invasion of Russia on the Black Sea coast, thousands of dead dolphins. And this is only a small part of the devastating consequences.
