The Caspian seal, a unique species found only in the Caspian Sea, is rapidly disappearing. Once numbering over a million, the population has plummeted because of pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. By 2016, their population had fallen to 70,000 and continues to decline 3–4 percent annually, with some scientists estimating that the seals could face extinction within two decades. But in recent years, mass die-offs have reached alarming new levels. In November 2024 alone, 270 dead seals washed up on the Kazakh coast, while over 2,500 carcasses were found along Russian shores. The unlikely new crisis facing the seal population is Russia’s war against Ukraine, nearly 1,000 miles away.
Caspian Sea Resources and Threats
The Caspian Sea is the world’s largest inland body of water and borders 5 nations: Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, and Azerbaijan. The Caspian holds significant oil and natural gas deposits and is an essential hub of regional economic activity. It is also a source of contestation between its littoral states.
While there have been international conventions governing the Caspian, including agreements to protect biodiversity and combat the environmental degradation of the Caspian Sea, little progress has been made to efficiently tackle the environmental crisis as a whole.
Russia’s Volga River supplies 80 percent of the Caspian Sea’s water. For decades it has also deposited into the Caspian pollutants like pesticides, mercury, lead, and arsenic from industrial waste and oil extraction. Meanwhile, dam construction upriver and climate change are causing water levels to drop by six to seven centimeters annually. The virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea over the course of just a few decades only 500 miles away is a stark reminder to the littoral states what can happen to the Caspian.
The Caspian Sea’s biodiversity is in many ways unique. Its seal population, found only here, has long been endangered by pollution, overhunting, and habitat loss. Rising temperatures also threaten their survival, as they rely on ice to breed, give birth, and nurse their pups.
Russia’s Rise in Military Activity in the Caspian Sea
While mass die-offs of Caspian seals have been documented since the 1990s, the recent spike is exceptionally large. The timing of the die-off coincides with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, during which Russian military activity in and around the Caspian Sea has increased significantly. Russia’s Caspian Flotilla, based in Kaspiysk, Dagestan, has repeatedly launched Kalibr cruise missiles, aeroballistic missiles, and X-101 high-precision missiles at Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro. On November 21, Russia fired its first intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) at Dnipro from Astrakhan, near the Caspian Sea.
The large-scale launch of missiles on and near the Caspian Sea releases toxic fuel residues that can degrade water quality, disrupt food chains, and harm aquatic habitats. Runoff from launch sites may also raise the sea’s temperature, further reducing the ice formation that Caspian seals need to survive.
Littoral Diplomacy
The littoral states have signed various treaties and conventions to regulate the shared use of and responsibility for the Caspian. In 2006, the ratification of the Tehran Convention provided an institutional framework to address multilateral cooperation in reducing pollution and enforcing environmental conservation measures. In 2016, the first legally binding Aktau Protocol entered into force, which set requirements for all Caspian states to exchange environmental data collection on the Caspian Sea and to report oil spills publicly in order to enhance clean-up efforts. Locally, the Kazakh government established the Caspian Sea Research Institute to reduce reliance on Russian scientists. This new source of expertise is essential given the discrepancies between scientists regarding the cause of mass seal deaths since the 1990s: Russian scientists attribute them to natural factors, including poisonous gases from underneath the seabed.
On June 29, 2022, all five of the littoral states attended the sixth Caspian Summit. The summit reaffirmed the principle that the Caspian Sea is solely to be used for peaceful purposes, despite Russia’s growing naval and coastal arsenal and missile launches since the start of its war against Ukraine four months prior. This principle, established in the 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea signed by Russia, upholds that the littoral states must “promote the use of the Caspian Sea for peaceful purposes and rational management of its resources, as well as exploration, protection, and conservation of its environment.”
The 2018 Convention emphasizes the importance of having a unified, systemic protocol for addressing the widespread deaths of Caspian seals as they migrate between territorial waters in the Caspian Sea. As Iran and Russia retreat from many of their international commitments, creating transnational coalitions to investigate the cause of mass wildlife deaths and to collaborate on conservation efforts are more necessary than ever.
A Broader Response
As international agreements on environmental preservation in the Caspian Sea break down, international and local environmental organizations must do more to create pressure for stronger environmental protection of Caspian Sea wildlife. Raising local and international awareness of the rise in the deaths of seals and the devastating effects of pollution on other Caspian wildlife is a vital first step. Linking environmental damage to an increased threat to the human population of the Caspian Sea region, such as food and water insecurity, should follow. The environmental damage from Russia’s military actions in the Caspian Sea should be made clear to the other littoral states. While the precise cause of the recent spike in Caspian seal deaths is still unknown, the negative environmental impact overall on seals and human populations alike is crystal clear. Local, regional, and international communities cannot afford to stay silent, as more than the fate of rare seals is at stake.
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