Russia’s environmental watchdog said on Tuesday that checks by experts proved that media reports about the mass death of dolphins in the Black Sea were false.
Recent reports said divers had found about 20 dead dolphins in the sea and on the shore close to the nature preserve Bolshoi Utrish, near the resort town of Anapa.
“Reports about the mass death of dolphins have not been confirmed,” a spokesman for the federal environment service said.
He said representatives of the service had spoken to the management of the diving club whose divers reportedly found the dead dolphins.
“They said their divers had found no dolphins,” he said. “And the photos that have been circulated by some online media have different landscapes in the background.”
On May 10, Mikhail Polyakov, head of the sea mammals lab of the Karadag nature preserve in Ukraine’s Crimea, also on the Black Sea, said that about 30 dead dolphins had been found on the shore. He said the animals must have got trapped in fishing nets and had been brought ashore about 6 weeks earlier.
KRASNODAR, May 17 (RIA Novosti)