AQTAU, Kazakhstan -- Officials in Kazakhstan’s western Manghystau region say 64 endangered seals and five huge sturgeon washed up dead on the shores of the Caspian Sea over the weekend.
The Manghystau regional fishery inspection agency said on May 16 that all of the animals found near the port of Fort Shevchenko had been taken for tests to determine the cause of their deaths.
Less than three weeks ago, authorities said the bodies of 94 dead seals were found in the same area. They said at the time that the animals were too decomposed to perform any forensic investigations on them.
On May 4, Ecology Minister Serikqali Birekeshev rejected allegations that the mass deaths of the endangered seals might have been caused by operations of the North Caspian Operating Company, which drills oil wells in the Caspian Sea bed.
The Caspian seal is the only mammal living in the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water.
The endemic species has for decades suffered from overhunting and industrial pollution in its habitat, with their numbers now estimated at less than 70,000, compared with more than 1 million in the early 20th century.
Listed as a threatened species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2008, the seal was included in Russia's Red Data Book of endangered and rare species last year.
The Caspian Sea, shared by five riparian states -- Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Turkmenistan -- boasts vast oil and gas reserves.
Pollution from hydrocarbon extraction and declining water levels are posing a threat to many local species and putting the future of the sea itself at risk.