Caspian seal

How it lives

It lives only in the Caspian Sea. More than 99 percent of seals breed on the northern winter ice. Females give birth to one white pup in late January to early February, usually beside ice ridges that give shelter, and nurse for at least three weeks. Pups gain about 0.5 to 0.8 kg a day, and mothers often leave them alone while they feed. Seals mature at about five to seven years and may live 40 to 50 years. After the ice melts, adults haul out on northern islands to moult.

Where it goes

Caspian seals move with the seasons within the Caspian Sea. In winter they gather on the ice of the northern basin to pup, and after the ice melts they spread out to feed and moult on islands and shores in the north. In one tracking study about 60 percent of tagged seals moved into the middle and southern basins. Feeding areas include the Volga delta and the waters off Dagestan, Russia, near Chechen Island and Derbent.

We only draw a journey on the map when scientists have tracked it or clearly documented it. For this animal we have not found one yet.

Populations

A century ago there were about 1.5 million (Wikipedia). By 2005 about 104,000 remained, a fall of more than 90 percent since 1900. The Caspian Seal Research and Rehabilitation Center estimates fewer than 70,000 today, and Wikipedia notes other estimates up to 168,000. The IUCN lists it as Endangered (2016), and it is on CMS Appendices I and II since 2017. Bycatch is a major threat: a study counted at least 1,215 seals killed in the 2008 to 2009 season, 93 percent of them in illegal sturgeon fisheries. Other threats are hunting, disease, pollution and climate change. Wikipedia reports about 2,500 dead seals found along the coast in December 2022, with the cause unknown.