Overview
- Dagestan’s natural resources ministry reported 484 carcasses after deploying teams across roughly 300 kilometers of coastline.
- Regional emergency services told TASS they documented 322 dead seals between the Sulak and Terek river mouths, with officials cautioning the tally may rise.
- Regional authorities ordered carcass collection and disposal and launched a multi-agency investigation to establish why the animals died.
- No cause has been confirmed, and scientists have highlighted asphyxiation from natural gas releases in seismically active seabed areas during migration as a leading hypothesis.
- Environmental groups and independent outlets suspect human factors such as industrial trawl nets and pollution, noting the IUCN lists the species as endangered after a steep long-term decline and previous mass die-offs, including in 2022.