Nearly 700 dead swans have been discovered in a nature reserve in Kazakhstan that is home to rare and endangered species, authorities in that vast Central Asian country announced Tuesday.
• Also read: South Korea votes to ban dog meat
“A total of 675 dead swans were discovered at Lake Karakol from December 21 to January 8,” which is located in a nature reserve near the Caspian Sea (west), the Kazakh Defense Ministry told AFP on Tuesday. “Ecology.”
According to the same source, the birds died of bird flu and specialists were sent to the site, while dozens of dead swans are found every day.
In the past, environmental activists have repeatedly expressed concern about environmental problems in this area of western Kazakhstan, including air and water pollution and desertification.
At the end of 2022, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokaïev even specifically called for the preservation of this artificial Lake Karakol, which was created during the Soviet era with water from a former nuclear power plant and has now been transformed into a zoological reserve with many protected species alive. .
“It is important to preserve this unique reservoir. “One of the region's most pressing problems is desertification,” he said, as the level of the Caspian Sea, the world's largest closed sea, falls every year.