Caspian seal

The Caspian seal (Pusa caspica, syn. Phoca caspica) is one of the smallest members of the earless seal family and unique in that it is found exclusively in the brackish Caspian Sea. It lives along the shorelines, but also on the many rocky islands and floating blocks of ice that dot the Caspian Sea. In winter and cooler parts of the spring and autumn season, it populates the northern Caspian coastline. As the ice melts in the summer and warmer parts of the spring and autumn season, it also occurs in the deltas of the Volga and Ural Rivers, as well as the southern latitudes of the Caspian where the water is cooler due to greater depth.

Evidence suggests that the colonization events of Caspian seals were probably facilitated by river connections from the Arctic that have since disappeared, land-locking the populations sometime before the major Pleistocene glaciations.

Since the beginning of the 1900s, the population has dropped by over 90%. In 2022, a substantial die-off of the endangered species was reported, threatening the isolated population at an estimated number from fewer than 70,000 by the Caspian Seals Research and Rehabilitation Center to 168,000 by the Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force.