Climate & Environment

War‑Related Losses Claim Over 120,000 Black Sea Dolphins, Ecologists Warn

By Mansur Mirovalev

The war in Ukraine has devastated marine life in the Black Sea, with more than 120,000 dolphins killed since 2022, according to Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine. Rusev said that the number of dolphin deaths rose from about 50,000 in 2022 to over 120,000 by 2026, representing roughly one in four of the sea’s cetaceans.

Fishers and poachers along the coast often find dolphins that have suffocated in nets. They cut off the animals’ fins and release them, but the dolphins, marked by net damage, frequently wash ashore. The war has also caused explosions, cruise‑missile launches, and the use of military sonar, which interfere with dolphins’ echolocation and make it difficult for them to navigate, hunt, and communicate.

The loss of dolphins, apex predators, further disrupts the Black Sea ecosystem, already strained by chemical pollution from munitions, oil spills, and vegetable oils released by damaged warships, tankers and freighters. Many dead dolphins still have their fins but appear starved; they have been forced to consume blubber that contains pollutants from wastewater, agricultural runoff, microplastics and antibiotics. This self‑poisoning weakens their immune systems and leads to lethal respiratory infections caused by morbillivirus.

The Black Sea, a relatively young sea that may have been a freshwater lake until the Bosporus opened about eight millennia ago, has low oxygen levels below 50 to 100 metres and supports limited fauna and flora. The 2023 destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River released 18 cubic kilometres of water contaminated with fertiliser runoff, heavy metals and machine oil, further harming fish species such as mullet and bluefish.

Environmentalists from Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have reported increased dolphin deaths, though the exact causes are often unclear because many carcasses are advanced in decomposition, making it hard to identify net marks or other injuries. Dimitar Popov of Green Balkans, Bulgaria’s oldest nature conservation group, agrees that warship sonar systems affect cetaceans’ hearing and echolocation.

Russian environmental monitors have attributed dolphin deaths to parasites and virus infections, but provide no further explanation. The sight of dead dolphins on beaches has horrified Ukrainians already accustomed to daily drone and missile attacks. Tetiana Smolchenko, a resident of Odesa, recounted seeing an emaciated, decaying dolphin with her eight‑year‑old son and describing the experience as “no less horrifying” than human casualties.

Since 2022, Ukrainian sea and airborne drones have sunk two submarines and three dozen Russian warships, including the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, the Moskva. These vessels carried toxic fuel and chemicals, and their destruction has caused oil spills that coat seaweed, poison molluscs and fish, and kill sturgeons in large numbers. Explosions also startle birds migrating between Northern Europe and the Middle East, affecting their ability to find food and reach wintering or nesting sites.

While the war has inadvertently increased populations of boars, roe deer, foxes, jackals, hares and badgers due to reduced hunting, the recovery of the dolphin population will take decades. Rusev estimates that it will take 30 to 50 years for cetacean numbers to return to a level that would restore the sea’s ecosystem to a more normal state.