ASTANA — Iran has opened its first specialized center for the conservation, treatment, and dissection of Caspian seals in Bojaq National Park in the Caspian Sea province of Gilan.
Photo credit: open source
The center aims to revive and care for the seals, the only marine mammal in the Caspian Sea, reported The Tehran Times on Nov. 21.
The center’s inauguration will mark a milestone in the implementation of national and regional programs to protect this endangered animal.
According to Ahmad-Reza Lahijanzadeh, the deputy head of the Department of Environment for Marine and Wetlands affairs, the center has the capacity to become a specialized veterinary and research complex to investigate the causes of seal deaths.
Training fishermen to report incidents and transport injured seals to the center quickly, and using drones to monitor seals, will play a key role in reducing losses, Lahijanzadeh added.
The coastal community can also contribute to the preservation program through reporting seal sightings or carcasses.
In recent years, the increasing number of seal carcasses found along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea has raised concerns among environmentalists that the Caspian seal is at greater risk of extinction than ever before.
The species is now listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, with its population declining for various reasons, from one million in the past to 70,000 today.
