Explosions, missile launches, and military sonar systems used during the Ukraine war are confusing dolphins in the Black Sea and leaving them unable to hunt, experts have said.

Trawlers are finding the animals suffocated and entangled in their nets and cutting off their fins to release them, leaving them to wash ashore with the net marks still visible.

Ivan Rusev, head researcher at the Tuzly Lagoons national park in southern Ukraine , told Al Jazeera more than 120,000 dolphins have died this way since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A dead dolphin at the Limans Tuzly Lagoons National Nature Park (AFP/Getty)

He said many military technologies block their primary survival tool, echolocation, and leave unable to navigate, communicate and hunt.

“If a dolphin can’t fish, it loses weight fast,” he said, adding that the animals then switch to drawing on their blubber to fuel themselves.…