Saiga antelope

During the last glacial period, the saigas ranged from the British Isles through Central Asia and the Bering Strait into Alaska and Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories. By the classical age, they were apparently considered a characteristic animal of Scythia, judging from the historian Strabo's description of an animal called the kolos that was "between the deer and ram in size" and was wrongly believed to drink through its nose.[20]

Considerable evidence shows the importance of the antelope to Andronovo culture settlements. Illustrations of saiga antelopes can be found among the cave paintings that were dated back to seventh to fifth century BC. Moreover, saiga bones were found among the remains of other wild animals near the human settlements.[21]

The fragmented information shows an abundance of saigas on the territory of modern Kazakhstan in the 14th-16th centuries. The migratory routes ranged throughout the country's area, especially the region between the Volga and Ural Rivers was heavily populated.[22] The population's size remained high until the second half of the 19th century, when excessive horn export began. The high price and demand for horns drove radical hunting. The number of animals decreased in all regions and the migratory routes shifted southward.[23] Populations in Ukraine were driven to extirpation in the 18th century.[1]

After a rapid decline, they were nearly completely exterminated in the 1920s, but they were able to recover. By 1950, two million of them were found in the steppes of the USSR. Their population fell drastically following the collapse of the USSR due to uncontrolled hunting and demand for horns in Chinese medicine. At one point, some conservation groups, such as the World Wildlife Fund, encouraged the hunting of this species, as its horn was presented as an alternative to that of a rhinoceros.[24]

In the mid-2010s, the populations again shrank enormously – as much as 95% in 15 years.[25] This led the saiga to be classified as critically endangered by the IUCN. In more recent years, the saiga has experienced massive regrowth. As of 2022, there is an estimated number of 1.38 million saiga surviving in Kazakhstan, per an April aerial count.[26]

Cherny Zemli Nature Reserve was created in Russia's Kalmykia Republic in the 1990s to protect the local saiga population. Kalmykia's president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced 2010 as the Year of Saiga in Kalmykia. In Kazakhstan, the number of saigas was found to be increasing, from around 21,000 at the beginning of this millennium to around 81,000 in January 2010. However, in May 2010, an estimated 12,000 of the 26,000 saiga population in the Ural region of Kazakhstan have been found dead. Although the deaths are currently being ascribed to pasteurellosis, an infectious disease that strikes the lungs and intestines, the underlying trigger remains to be identified.[27] In May 2015, what may be the same disease broke out in three northern regions of the country.[28] As of 28 May 2015, more than 120,000 saigas have been confirmed dead in the Betpak-Dala population in central Kazakhstan, representing more than a third of the global population.[29] By April 2016, the saigas appear to be making a comeback, with an increase of population from 31,000 to 36,000 in the Betpak-Dala area.[30] In April 2021 a survey in Kazakhstan found that the saiga population had risen from an estimated 334,000 to 842,000. The population increase was partially attributed to the government crackdown on poaching and the establishment of conservation areas.[31] UK charity RSPB reported in 2022 that, partly due to their conservation efforts, as well as the designation of the Bokey Orda-Ashiozek protected area by the Kazakhstan government, the population had now risen to a peak of 1.32 million.[32]

The Mongolian saiga (S. t. mongolica) is found in a small area in western Mongolia around the Sharga and Mankhan Nature Reserves.[33]

Saigas have been a target of hunting since prehistoric ages, when hunting was an essential means to acquire food. Saigas' horns, meat, and skin have commercial value and are exported from Kazakhstan.

Saiga horn, known as Cornu Antelopis, is one of the main ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine that is used as an extract or powder additive to the elixirs, ointments, and drinks. Saiga horn's value is equal to rhinoceros horn, whose trade was banned in 1993. Cornu Antelopis is thought to be a cheaper substitute of rare rhino horn in most TCM recipes.[36] Although the hunting and trade is considered illegal, the horn products still can be found sold publicly and openly in a great variety of venues and businesses.[37]

In the period from 1955 to 1989, over 87 thousand tonnes of meat were collected in Kazakhstan by killing more than five million saiga.[38] In 2011, Kazakhstan reaffirmed a ban on hunting saiga and extended this ban until 2021.[39]

Saiga meat is compared to lamb, considered to be nutritious and delicious. Numerous recipes for cooking the antelope's meat can be found.[40] Both meat and byproducts are sold in the country and outside of it. About 45–80 dm² of skin can be harvested from one individual depending on its age and sex.[23] The skin is used to produce suede and box calf.

Agricultural advancement and human settlements have been shrinking habitat areas of the saigas since the 20th century.[23] Occupants limited saiga's passage to water resources and the winter and summer habitats. The ever-changing face of steppe requires saigas to search for new routes to their habitual lands. Currently, saiga populations' migratory routes pass five countries and different man-made constructions, such as railways, trenches, mining sites, and pipelines.[23] These physical barriers limit movement of the antelopes. Cases of saiga herds being trapped within fenced areas and starving to death have been reported.[41] Starting in 2011, Kazakhstan has built more than 150 km of wire fence at the border with Uzbekistan. This fence limits seasonal migration of saigas and other smaller animals. Although concerns have been stated, the fences are still being built.

Saigas are dependent on weather and affected by climate fluctuations to a great extent due to their migratory nature.[42] Harsh winters with strong winds or high snow coverage prevent them from feeding on the underlying grass. Population size usually dramatically decreases after severe cold months.[23] Recent trends in climate change have increased the aridity of the steppe region, leading an estimated 14% or more of available pastureland to be considered degraded and useless.[43] Concurrently, small steppe rivers dry faster, limiting water resources to large lakes and rivers, which are usually populated by human settlements.[23] Moreover, high temperatures in the steppe region lead to springtime floods, in which saiga calves can drown.[23]

For ungulates, mass mortalities are not uncommon. In the 1980s, several saiga die-offs occurred, and between 2010 and 2014, one occurred every year. The deaths could be linked to calving aggregation, which is when they are most vulnerable.[18] More recent research involving a mass die-off in 2015 indicates warmer weather and attendant humidity led bacteria common in saiga antelopes to move into the bloodstream and cause hemorrhagic septicemia.[44]

In May 2015, uncommonly large numbers of saigas began to die from a mysterious epizootic illness suspected to be pasteurellosis.[18][45] Herd fatality is 100% once infected, with an estimated 40% of the species' total population already dead.[46] More than 120,000 carcasses had been found by late May 2015, while the estimated total population was only 250,000.[47]

Biologist Murat Nurushev suggested that the cause might be acute ruminal tympany, whose symptoms (bloating, mouth foaming, and diarrhea) had been observed in dead saiga antelopes.[48] According to Nurushev, this disease occurred as a result of foraging on a large amount of easily fermenting plants (alfalfa, clover, sainfoins, and mixed wet, green grass).[48] In May 2015, the United Nations agency which is involved in saiga conservation efforts issued a statement that the mass die-off had ended. By June 2015, no definitive cause for the epizootic had been found.[49]

At a scientific meeting in November 2015 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dr. Richard A. Kock (of the Royal Veterinary College in London) reported that his colleagues and he had narrowed down the possible culprits. Climate change and stormy spring weather, they said, may have transformed harmless bacteria, carried by the saigas, into lethal pathogens.[50]

Pasteurella multocida, a bacterium, was determined to be the cause of death. The bacterium occurs in the antelopes and is normally harmless; the reason for the change in behavior of the bacterium is unknown.[51]

Now, scientists and researchers believe the unusually warm and wet uncontrolled environmental variables caused the bacterium to enter the bloodstream and become septic. Hemorrhagic septicemia is the likely cause of the most recent deaths[52] The change of the bacteria may be attributed to "the response of opportunistic microbes to changing environmental conditions".[53]

The Betpak-Dala saiga population in central Kazakhstan, which saw the most deaths, increased from 31,000 after the epidemic to 36,000 by April 2016.[51]

In late 2016, a large loss of the population happened in Mongolia. The etiology was confirmed to be goat plague in early 2017.[54]

Currently, only the Almaty Zoo and Askania-Nova keep saigas.[56] Cologne Zoological Garden and San Diego Zoo had them in the past. Pleistocene Park in northern Siberia plans to introduce the species.