An accident involving two Russian oil tankers, Volgoneft-212 and Volgoneft-239, occurred in the Kerch Strait on December 15. Since then, animal rights activists have recorded 32 deaths of cetaceans — their deaths are most likely related to the fuel oil spill, which has already reached Feodosia, Alushta, and Sudak.
This was reported by the Russian scientific and ecological center for dolphin rescue "Delfa" and the publication "Agency" with reference to ecologist Georgy Kavanosyan.
Images taken on January 4 show a film of fuel oil appearing off the coast of Feodosia, Alushta, and Sudak, three popular resorts in Crimea.
Pollution is also visible near Cape Takil and in a large area from the village of Partenit to Sudak (Alushta is located within this area).
According to Kavanosyan, the satellite images likely show surface contamination in these areas. It is currently unclear whether there is fuel oil in the area of these resorts and at depth.
M100 fuel oil, which leaked from Russian tankers, freezes and sinks in winter. It will begin to float in summer, when the temperature reaches +25 °C. The Black Sea warms up to this temperature in summer at a depth of 15-20 meters. The depth of the coastal area near Anapa and the southern part of the Kerch Peninsula does not reach 20 meters.
Satellite images also indicate that fuel oil has likely stopped leaking from the tankers, Kavanosyan notes. Previous images from December 31 still showed a leak.
On Sunday, January 5, the occupation governor of Sevastopol Mykhailo Razvozhaev said that about 18 tons of soil contaminated with fuel oil had been collected from the cityʼs beaches. Sevastopol is the westernmost part of the southern coast of Crimea.
The first traces of the environmental disaster were also found on the coast in Georgia. A bird contaminated with fuel oil was found in the village of Ureki. However, this does not mean that the pollution has reached Georgia: some birds, even contaminated with fuel oil, are able to fly about 300 km from the accident site, Kavanosyan added.
Animal deaths
It is not the spawning season in the Black Sea right now, so the number of dead animals — at least 32 — is unusually high.
The organization notes that the condition of the bodies indicates that most died in the first 10 days after the disaster. And now they are being carried away by the sea. The most affected were the Azov whales — they have always been the most vulnerable cetaceans.
Animal rights activists say the number of cetacean releases could increase in the coming months. Hospitals are currently being set up to provide long-term care for them.
Animal rights activists have also organized monitoring of live dolphins in the sea — observing their behavior and fuel oil pollution.
Dolphins (bottlenose dolphins) were only found in clean water, meaning they stay as far away from polluted areas as possible.
But earlier, eyewitnesses sent videos of bottlenose dolphins hunting right near the shore — in Blagovishchenska and Vityazevo, where fuel oil had settled on the bottom.
There is a lot of fuel oil pollution in the sea, according to animal rights activists, there are long stretches where fuel oil floats in lumps in the water column, and an oil film on the surface.
What they say in Ukraine
Minister Svitlana Hrinchuk also spoke on January 2 about the situation with the spread of petroleum products in the Black Sea after the accident involving Russian tankers.
According to her, on December 31, the Sentinel-1 satellite received an image of the area near the Kerch Strait. In the water area near the entrance to the Kerch Strait from the Black Sea side, in the area of the settlement of Volna (Krasnodar Territory, Russia), an oil slick with an area of approximately 10 km² was recorded. A slick with an area of approximately 3 km² was also discovered at a distance of 28-30 km south of Cape Opuk.
A significant amount of fuel oil has reached the southern coast of Crimea. In addition to cetaceans, there is information about affected birds in the cities of Koktebel, Alushta, Gurzuf and in the Anapa region.
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