Black Sea dolphin population could take up to 50 years to recover to prewar levels – environmentalist
According to preliminary scientific estimates, it will take between 30 and 50 years for the population of cetaceans in the Black Sea, which are dying as a result of hostilities, to recover.
Ivan Rusiev, an employee of the Tuzly Estuaries National Nature Park, said this in a comment to Ukrinform.
The environmentalist said that dolphins in the Black Sea face the threat of complete extinction because of the war. According to him, dolphins were added to the international Red Book as early as the 1980s. During the Soviet era, the mammals were killed for their fat, meat, and bone meal.
“Over several decades, 6 million dolphins disappeared. Then another disaster struck the mammals: the emergence of mnemiopsis, jellyfish-like organisms that feed on anchovy eggs. The anchovy population, which is dolphins’ main food source, declined. The mammals were also captured by Russians and unsuccessfully trained for military purposes, resulting in their deaths,” the environmentalist said.
He added that between 10,000 and 20,000 mammals were killed by fishing nets every year.
“According to our estimates, there were 3,000 kilometers of fishing nets in the northwestern part of the Black Sea alone each year, and one dolphin was caught for every 10 kilometers,” Rusiev said.
The scientist noted that before the war, the population of three dolphin species in the Black Sea stood at approximately 500,000. The highest number of mammals ever recorded in the body of water was 2 million.
“If the dolphin population continues to decline, they will find themselves in a difficult situation. Our park has already prepared documents to establish a large marine reserve as part of the national park, extending to Snake Island, to ensure the safe reproduction of the mammals,” Rusiev said.
According to him, the creation of a safe zone for dolphin population recovery has already been approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine, but has yet to be approved by the regional military administration.
He noted that these waters are particularly important from March to October, when the mammals arrive from Crimea, Georgia, and Türkiye after wintering.
“They reproduce and feed here, so it is very important to create suitable conditions for them. They reach sexual maturity at the age of 6–10. A pair gives birth to one calf every two to three years, and the parents then raise the young for another three years. That is why the populations will take a very long time to recover. According to our estimates, it will take 30–50 years to restore the prewar number of these dolphins,” Rusiev emphasized.
As reported by Ukrinform, environmentalist Ivan Rusiev, an employee of the Tuzly Estuaries National Nature Park, said that the war had killed more than 100,000 Black Sea cetaceans over the past four and a half years. In the past two months alone, 79 dead mammals have been found along the national park’s coastline.
The causes of the mammals’ deaths are being investigated in Odesa. At the State Agrarian University, with the assistance of law enforcement agencies, researchers performed an autopsy on a dolphin that likely died in 2026 as a result of exposure to hostilities.