Siberian mystery: fish are vanishing from the world’s deepest lake, hit by unexplained phenomena
Lake Baikal in Russia has suffered drastic loss of its signature fish, the death of sponge species and the explosive growth of foul-smelling algae
Russia’s Lake Baikal is undergoing its gravest crisis in recent history, experts say, as the government bans the catching of a signature fish that has lived in the world’s deepest lake for centuries but is now under threat.
Holding one-fifth of the world’s unfrozen fresh water, Baikal in Russia’s Siberia is a natural wonder of “exceptional value to evolutionary science” meriting its listing as a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
Baikal’s high biodiversity includes over 3,600 plant and animal species, most of which are endemic to the lake.
Over the past several years, however, the lake, a major international tourist attraction, has been crippled by a series of detrimental phenomena, some of which remain a mystery to scientists.
They include the disappearance of the omul fish, rapid growth of putrid algae and the death of endemic species of sponges across its vast 3.2 million-hectare area.
