The dead seals that have been examined so far appear to have been well-nourished before their death, according to Asel Baimukanova at the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology in Kazakhstan. Most of the females were pregnant.
"This suggests that they were young and vigorous before they died", writes Baimukanova on social media, where she describes the deaths as unnatural and sudden, reports the news site Eurasianet.
It may take months to come to the first conclusions about what is causing the seal deaths. One theory is that seals get caught in poachers' nets, as some of the dead animals have been found with cuts and other signs of this.
This is the second time in two years that large numbers of seals in the Caspian Sea have died under mysterious circumstances. In November 2022, over 170 dead seals were found along the Kazakh coast, and a month later, around 2,500 seals were found on Russian territory. Then, Kazakh authorities concluded that viral infections were the underlying cause of the deaths.
According to Kazakh authorities, there are around 300,000 seals in the entire Caspian Sea, while other estimates suggest that there are fewer than 100,000 left today.
