October 31, 2017
Around 130 dead seals have washed
up on the shores of Russia's Lake Baikal, authorities said Tuesday, as they
launched a probe into the latest problem to hit the world's deepest lake.
The Baikal seal is the smallest
in the world, and exactly how and when the species colonised the ancient
Siberian lake is
still a mystery.
"There were about 130
animals found dead" over the past few days, said environmental ministry
spokesman Nikolai Gudkov.
"We took water samples to
understand whether we can talk of water pollution as
the reason," he told AFP, though results have not yet been processed.
Scientists have also taken
biopsies of the animals, he said.
The animal is not endangered and
Gudkov said the species' population has actually increased in recent years,
growing to around 130,000.
Preliminary theories about the
die-off did not suggest pollution is the reason, he added.
Lake Baikal, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site which has thousands of endemic species, has been suffering from a
string of detrimental phenomena over recent years.
These include depletion of fish
stocks, death of endemic sponges and explosion of growth of Spirogyra algae
unnatural to the lake which scientists say is caused by pollution.
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!