Black Sea Ecosystem Devastated: War Claims Lives of Dolphins and Marine Life

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has led to a tragic surge in dolphin deaths along the Black Sea coast, with fishermen and poachers frequently discovering suffocated marine mammals entangled in nets. These dolphins are often released by cutting off their fins, their bodies bearing net marks washing ashore.

Fishing and poaching activities in Black Sea nations have significantly declined since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, an attempt to seize Ukraine's entire Black Sea coast that ultimately failed. However, the hostilities have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of times more bottlenose and short-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises, according to Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine. Rusev estimates that in 2022 alone, approximately 50,000 dolphins perished in this manner, a figure projected to exceed 120,000 by 2026, representing one in four cetaceans in the Black Sea.

Dolphins, as apex predators, play a crucial role in the Black Sea's ecosystem, which is already compromised by chemical pollution from munitions and oil spills from damaged naval vessels. Many deceased dolphins appear emaciated, their fins intact, suggesting starvation. The constant underwater noise from explosions, cruise missile launches, and military sonar systems disorients dolphins, deafening their echolocation abilities and hindering their capacity to navigate, communicate, and hunt. "If a dolphin can’t fish, it loses weight fast," Rusev explained, noting that his park, spanning 280 square kilometres, serves as a vital stopover and breeding ground for migratory birds.

These dolphins are forced to consume their blubber, which has accumulated pollutants from wastewater, agricultural runoff, microplastics, and antibiotics. This self-poisoning weakens their immune systems, making them susceptible to lethal respiratory tract infections, such as those caused by the morbillivirus.

The Black Sea, one of the world's youngest seas, is hypothesized by some scholars to have been a freshwater lake until approximately eight millennia ago, when the Bosporus Strait opened. Its waters are oxygen-poor, supporting little life below 50 to 100 metres. The war's environmental damage has been exacerbated by the 2023 destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River, which released a massive volume of water contaminated with fertilizers, heavy metals, and machine oil.

Fish species like mullet and bluefish have become scarce, and naval mines have been spotted near Istanbul, further impacting fishing activities. These changes inevitably affect dolphins. "With dolphins at the top of the food chain, everything from zooplankton to fish reaches them," Rusev stated.

Environmentalists in Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkiye have also reported an increase in dolphin deaths, though the exact causes are not always identifiable. Dimitar Popov of Green Balkans noted that the advanced decomposition of stranded cetaceans often makes it impossible to detect specific marks. He concurs with Rusev that naval sonar systems likely impact cetaceans' echolocation and hearing.

Meanwhile, Russian environmental monitors have attributed the dolphin deaths to