Tengrinews says, a dead ray was found by a habitant of Aktau, on August 4:

“I was surprised and scared, to be honest. Where did rays came to the Caspian from? They have never been there as well as know. This is very strange. They can survive here? Have they ever been in our sea?”

According the Ecology Department of Mangystau Region, rays don’t inhabit the Caspian and they never have.

“At least we have never come across anything like that in our practice. Though, theoretically that is possible, as rays are adopted to live in seas and oceans. It is most likely that the fish came to the Caspian with ships. But this could also be poachers, following their goals. For instance, they could be checking if a ray can survive in our water. In 2010-2011 there have been a similar situation with a shark, poachers put it in our sea for their special experiment, which by the way, wasn’t successful,” says state ecological inspector, Bakhytzhan Zeynelabdi.

The inspector also stated that the fish inspection can find out the reason of the ray’s death.