On December 7, in connection with the detection of mass deaths of seals on the Dagestan coast of the Caspian Sea, large-scale monitoring was carried out by the employees of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources in the Azerbaijan section of the Caspian Sea, the Press Office of the Azerbaijani Ecology Ministry and Natural Resources reported.

Firuddin Aliyev, the head of the Biological Diversity Protection Service, said that during the monitoring, 17 seal bodies were found in the direction of the Istisu settlement, Tikanlioba, Seyidli, and Nabran villages in the Khachmaz region. "To investigate the cause of death of the seals, together with the experts of the Food Safety Agency, samples will be taken from the bodies, and the results will be reported," he added.

On December 8, experts of the Biological Diversity Protection Service and the Food Safety Agency took samples from the bodies of seals found in the Azerbaijan section of the Caspian Sea to determine the cause of death. Firuddin Aliyev said that no traces of injury were found during visual observations of the seals' bodies by experts. 

As previously reported by Caucasus Watch, in the Kirovsky district of Makhachkala, on the shore of the Caspian Sea, about 2500 dead seals were found. According to the inspectors of the North Caucasian Federal Agency for Fishery, this figure may increase.