The most visible and tragic impact is the <\/b>massive death<\/b><\/a> of three species of <\/b>\u0441etaceans living in the Black Sea – Black Sea bottlenose dolphins, harbour porpoises\u00a0 and common dolphins<\/b>. People usually call them all dolphins. We find their new mutilated bodies at the seashore almost every day. You should understand that only 5% of dead cetaceans are thrown at the seashore; the rest of them drown into the depth. It is the internationally recognized coefficient. That is why we should multiply the number of dead bodies, found at the seashore, by 20 and, then, we will get real number of dead dolphins. <\/span>In total, at least 120 thousand dolphins died during the full scale war.<\/b><\/p>\n When we find bodies, we can determine causes of death by character of external traumas. If we see traces of nets and cut fins, then, it means that the dolphin got trapped into fishing nets. There is a large penalty for dolphins killed by fishing nets. Fishermen know about it and, instead of rescuing dolphins, they try to get rid of them \u2013 they cut their fins and tails and throw back into the sea. There were a lot of such cases before the war.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The full scale war brought many new factors, physical as well as chemical. Physical factors of negative impact became visible in the spring 2022 when active fighting erupted in the Black Sea.<\/b><\/p>\n The most widespread factor is <\/b>acoustic impact<\/b><\/a>. <\/b>Active sonars on ships and submarines issue high-intensity sound waves at medium and low frequencies. This disrupts dolphins’ echolocation and spatial orientation, and also causes acoustic trauma and damage to the animals’ inner ears. The dolphin loses its sense of direction, becomes separated from its pod, and is unable to forage effectively (it needs up to 25 kg of fish per day). Eventually, it becomes distressed, may panic, and swim toward the shallows.<\/span><\/p>\n Dead dolphin at the seashore of the <\/span><\/i>Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, June 2026. Source: <\/span>account of Ivan Rusev in Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n The second factor is blast waves from airborne weapons. <\/b>The use of guided air bombs and dropping munitions from fighter jets cause powerful blast waves in the water environment. Depending on distance, this can lead to immediate damage to soft tissues and internal organs (lung rupture, cerebral hemorrhage) or to the animal sustaining a concussion and losing its ability to hunt on its own.<\/span><\/p>\n The third factor is the impact of cruise missiles<\/b>. Launches of \u00abCaliber\u00bb-class cruise missiles from Russian ships and submarines generate a high-energy acoustic shock. To evade air defense systems, the missile flies at an extremely low altitude – just 10\u201320 meters above the water surface. The entire acoustic shock from the jet engine is directed straight into the water. If a dolphin is within a radius of 1\u20132 kilometers of the flight path and is swimming close to the surface, it experiences a severe acoustic shock, leading to disruption of its echolocation, disorientation, and panic. In addition, the animal may be injured by falling warheads or interceptor missiles launched by air defense systems.<\/span><\/p>\n And the fourth factor is the detonation of sea mines<\/b>. The detonation of anti-ship mines (particularly Soviet-type drifting mines) causes an extreme increase in water pressure. Dolphins within a radius of several hundred meters from the epicenter of the explosion sustain fatal injuries. Mine explosions also cause the total destruction of fish populations\u2014which form the basis of the dolphins\u2019 food supply.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In addition, if a dolphin is near the site of an explosion, it may rapidly rise to the surface and leap out of the water out of fear. <\/span>This leads to decompression sickness, just as it does in scuba divers. <\/b>Due to the rapid ascent to the surface, the pressure drops sharply, and the nitrogen in the blood instantly expands, forming bubbles that block blood vessels, damage organs, and paralyze the dolphin. The same thing happens to humans – after all, both dolphins and humans breathe air.<\/span><\/p>\n The impact of war-related chemical factors began <\/b>with the sinking of the cruiser \u00abMoscow\u00bb in April 2022<\/b><\/a>. On board the \u00abMoscow\u00bb and other sunken Russian vessels were hundreds of metric tons of fuel (fuel oil, diesel), as well as munitions, including \u00abCaliber\u00bb-type missiles. As the ships\u2019 hulls are destroyed, all these toxic substances are gradually leaking into the water. Petroleum products and heavy metals create a persistent toxic background that intensifies with each new attack – such as the recent sinking of four Russian ships<\/a> in Novorossiysk.<\/span><\/p>\n The second powerful chemical factor is the <\/b>blast of the dam of Kakhovka Hydro Power Plant<\/b><\/a>. <\/b>Pollutants that had accumulated in our soil over decades were washed away by a flood of water into the Dnipro-Bug Estuary, and from there into the sea. These include hundreds of metric tons of various oils, fuel oil, crude oil, and fuel that had been stored at flooded industrial facilities and warehouses. At the same time, toxic sediment from the bottom of the Kakhovka reservoir, along with the contents of animal burial grounds and cemeteries – everything that had accumulated there over the course of 50 years\u2014was washed into the sea. All of this material settled on the seabed – in what is known as the \u00abbenthic zone.\u00bb Some of the chemicals immediately entered the food chains of marine organisms, causing metabolic disorders and chronic poisoning.<\/span><\/p>\n The third factor is the fuel oil spill in the Kerch Strait<\/b>, which began following an accident and the sinking of two old Russian tankers in December 2024. The ships were carrying several thousand metric tons of fuel oil. And although the Russian occupation authorities claimed to have pumped out most of the fuel from the flooded compartments, the spill is actually still ongoing. Satellite images show fresh fuel oil trails originating above the site where the tankers sank, as well as hundreds of large oil slicks that have been carried by currents over long distances. This fuel oil has catastrophically polluted the Crimean coast, and some slicks have reached the Odesa region and our park. It is important to understand that when the water temperature drops, the fuel oil polymerizes. It sinks to the bottom and hardens like asphalt, but as the water warms up in the summer, it softens again, rises to the surface, and actively poisons marine life. This is a cyclical process that can last for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n The sand polluted by fuel oil at the seashore of the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, July 2026. Source: <\/span><\/i>account of Ivan Rusev in Facebook<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/div>\n The fourth factor is vegetable oil spills resulting from attacks on Odesa ports. <\/b>Russian attacks on the port of \u00abPivdennyi\u00bb in December 2025 and the port of \u00abChornomorsk\u00bb in February, April, and May 2026 led to a specific but extremely devastating environmental disaster. Tens of thousands of metric tons of sunflower and other vegetable oils spilled into the coastal estuaries: Sukhyi and Adzhalyk. Port authorities should have set up boom barriers and collected the oil, but this did not happen. As a result, all of it flowed into the open sea and spread 150 kilometers as far as the Danube Delta.<\/span><\/p>\n In large quantities, vegetable oil has proven to be more dangerous than petroleum. It lacks a pungent odor that would scare birds away, so they calmly land on the water at spill sites. The oil completely soaks into their feathers. The bird tries to clean itself with its beak and swallows a lot of oil, which disrupts its metabolism and damages its liver. But even so, it cannot clean itself on its own. The oil polymerizes so strongly on the bird\u2019s body that even when people attempt to rescue it, such birds have to be washed several times. In winter, the situation is compounded by the fact that the oil disrupts the bird\u2019s natural thermoregulation, causing it to simply freeze to death.<\/span><\/p>\n Feathers of swan, polluted by sunflower oil, March 2026. Source: <\/span><\/i>account of Ivan Rusev in Facebook<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/div>\n These include loons, podiceps, swans, herons, and ducks. Imagine that this year they traveled enormous distances in the hope of finding a relatively warm sea and fish, only to be met with kilometers of oil slicks. There were no fish – they had all retreated to deeper waters. The Odesa Zoo tried to organize a rescue effort: it took in birds from the public and distributed them to people who could care for them. My son and three grandchildren took in 13 birds, tried to nurse them back to health, but in the end, they all died. In total, more than 5,000 birds died from the first two oil spills (the survival rate of oil-contaminated birds was practically zero).<\/span><\/p>\n Dead podicep at the seashore of the Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park, January 2026. Source: <\/span><\/i>account of Ivan Rusev in Facebook<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/div>\n The oil spills also affected bottom-dwelling organisms. <\/b>Since it was cold during the initial spills, the oil quickly thickened, sank to the bottom, and covered the benthos (bottom-dwelling organisms) with a dense film up to a millimeter thick. This blocked light and gas exchange. The result was a massive mass die-off: tens of thousands of dead seahorses, as well as countless crabs, jellyfish, and crayfish, were washed ashore along the coast of the Gulf of Odessa. In addition, when mixed with algae during storms, the oil slick was washed up on beaches and disrupted the vital functions of small invertebrates in the sand, which act as the coast\u2019s natural cleaners.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/investigator.org.ua\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/tuzlivski_lymany_zagyblyi_delfin.jpg\")
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