In November, the border service of the National Security Committee (KNB) stopped seven cases of poaching in the Caspian Sea.
According to the press service of the department, employees seized 44.3 km of nets, more than 250 fish of sturgeon and partial species, as well as 28 seals. The amount of prevented damage was about 620 million tenge.
Materials on these cases were sent to law enforcement and judicial authorities.
In total, during November, border guards detained 5,785 offenders, including:
- for border violation – 17 foreign citizens;
- for attempted border violation – 19 foreign citizens.
They prevented 1,313 cases of illegal movement across the state border, including:
- narcotic substances – 26 cases;
- weapons, ammunition – 62 cases;
- religious literature – 35 cases;
- fuel and lubricants – 414 cases valued at over 50 million tenge;
- consumer goods – 644 cases valued at over 3.5 billion tenge;
- currency – 132 cases valued at over 3 billion tenge.
Earlier this spring, it was reported that dead seal bodies were periodically found on the shore of the Caspian Sea. The first reports of dead animals appeared on 29 March. At that time, employees of the fisheries inspectorate of the Mangystau Region during monitoring discovered 62 carcasses of dead seals in the Tupkaragan District.
On 25 April, in the Tupkaragan District of the Mangystau Region, employees of the fisheries inspectorate found 12 seal carcasses. Later, the fisheries inspectorate of the Mangystau Region reported that from 29 March to 25 April 2024, 182 dead seals were discovered on the shore of the Caspian Sea.
At the end of October, in the Tupkaragan District, more than 150 dead seals were washed ashore on the Caspian Sea coast. According to local blogger Azamat Sarsenbayev, the incident occurred after storms. It was noted that many of the dead animals had mechanical injuries on their bodies.
Incidentally, from 24 October to 13 November, specialists from the Zhaiyk-Caspian Interregional Basin Fisheries Inspectorate discovered 1,034 seal carcasses washed up on the Caspian shore in the Tupkaragan District.
Later, specialists from the Department of Ecology of the Mangystau Region reported that they had studied the water composition on the Caspian Sea shore and found no abnormal deviations.
At the beginning of November, on the coast of the Tubkaragan Peninsula, scientists discovered 426 dead seals. Research fellow at the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology, Assel Baimukanova, reported on preliminary results of the study of seals that died in the Caspian Sea.
At the same time, ecologist and founder of the Central Asian Institute for Environmental Research (CAIER), Assel Tasmagambetova, stated that over the last 100 years the population of the Caspian seal has declined by 90%. Tasmagambetova said that today there are fewer than 100,000 individuals.
In mid-November, the Fisheries Committee suggested that the cause of the mass death of seals on the Caspian Sea coast could be natural phenomena, including releases of natural gases as a result of underwater earthquakes.