Dead dolphins, naval mines: Russia-Ukraine war destroys the Black Sea — SkimNews
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- Ivan Rusev reported that about 50,000 dolphins died in 2022 and the toll exceeded 120,000 by 2026, roughly one in four cetaceans in the Black Sea; fishing and poaching in littoral nations also plummeted after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
- Black Sea dolphins lose echolocation amid explosions, cruise-missile launches and naval sonar, preventing them from navigating, communicating and hunting; starvation drives them to consume blubber laden with wastewater pollutants, microplastics and antibiotics, leaving them vulnerable to lethal respiratory infections caused by the so-called morbillivirus.
- Kakhovka dam’s 2023 destruction released most of its 18 cubic kilometres of water carrying fertiliser runoff, heavy metals and machine oil, aggravating chronic war damage; mullet and bluefish became scarce, while bans and naval mines spotted near Istanbul constrained fishing.
- Dimitar Popov of Green Balkans said environmentalists in Bulgaria, Romania and Türkiye also reported a spike in dolphin deaths, agreeing with Rusev that warship and submarine sonar affect cetacean echolocation and hearing; decomposition often hides net marks, while Russian monitors separately blamed parasites and virus infections without further explanation.
- Ukraine’s sea and airborne drones have sunk two submarines and three dozen Russian warships since 2022, including the Moskva, all loaded with toxic fuel and chemicals; despite instructions to target shadow-fleet tanker engines, oil and fuel spills continue, coating seaweed and poisoning molluscs and fish, especially sturgeons.
- Migratory birds lose access to food when blasts and flying drones startle them, while flamingos at Tuzly Lagoons abandon their hatches and seagulls eat the eggs; Rusev said some bird populations will be affected for years.
- Wildlife recovery will be uneven: insects and small mammals should return to normal within years, while the cetacean population needs 30 to 50 years; reduced hunting and poaching have separately allowed boars, roes deer, foxes, jackals, hares and badgers to increase.
Why it matters: More than 120,000 cetaceans—one in four in the Black Sea—have died since 2022, and Ivan Rusev estimates restoring the population would take 30 to 50 years. For fishers in littoral nations, already plummeting fishing and poaching mean a much longer wait for recovery than for insects and small mammals, which should normalize within years.
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