Saiga Antelope

These antelopes live in the steppes–arid grasslands that encompass parts of Eastern Europe and most of northern and Central Asia. Kazakhstan is home to an estimated 98% of the world’s saiga population, with smaller populations found in Mongolia, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

The species dates back to the Ice Age, once roaming by the millions in a range that stretched from England to Siberia, even into Alaska. Eventually, the saiga reached the steppes of Central Asia, where they continued to thrive. Reports from the 1900s describe huge herds covering the steppe as far as the eyes could see.

Unfortunately for the saiga, the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s was accompanied by widespread corruption, unemployment, and poverty, leading to increased hunting for food and trade. Booming meat demand took its toll on populations, as did lucrative trade in male antelopes’ horns, prized in traditional Asian medicine. Practitioners grind the foot-long horns into a powder, using the medicine to treat headaches, sore throats, fevers, and diseases.

Other human activities also disrupt saiga habitats, including construction of fences, highways, train tracks, and pipelines that impede their seasonal migration to new pastures.

Climate change contributes to steep declines in saiga abundance as well, including a mass die-off in 2015. That May, in less than one month, a lethal bacterial outbreak killed 211,000 of the antelope in Kazakhstan – more than half of the species’ global population. Scientists attributed the die-off to an infection of Pasteurella multocida, a bacteria which normally exists harmlessly in saigas’ tonsils. The bacteria somehow invaded each animal’s digestive system, poisoning their blood and breaking down their organs, leading to death within a few hours. Research shows that the Pasteurella multocida bacteria can grow rapidly when hotter and wetter temperatures than normal prevail, which was the case just before the 2015 outbreak. The threat of future disease outbreaks triggered by high temperatures and humidity remains high, as these conditions are expected to become more frequent as the climate crisis advances. Growing numbers of domestic livestock, which contribute to disease transmission, also increase the risk of future disease outbreaks.

Conservation efforts by the Kazakh government and community organizations to halt the saiga’s decline have supported a dramatic turnaround in the antelope’s fortunes. Most importantly, the government has banned saiga hunting and trading in saiga products and upped maximum jail sentences for poaching to 10 years. Apart from anti-poaching measures, the recovery of saiga populations also speaks to the success of education programs, training of customs and border officials, and action against illegal sale in consumer countries.

The existence of free-ranging and healthy saiga populations is entirely dependent on the continued enforcement of anti-poaching measures and trade controls and other conservation measures.

Organizations working to protect the saiga and its habitat and to restore populations include:

Saiga Conservation Alliance, a network of researchers and conservationists established in September 2006;

Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK);

Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, an international effort launched in 2005.

The saiga’s most noticeable characteristic is its massive, trunk-like nose. The long nose functions to filter dust rising from the dry ground in the summer and warm the air it breathes in freezing winters. There’s also evidence that the saiga’s stubby trunk aids in communication and choosing mates. Loud nasal roars by male saiga are thought to advertise body size when attracting females.

In the spring, saiga migrate across the steppes by the thousands. Despite their awkward running gait, saigas can travel more than 50 miles a day on their migrations and can clock more than 40 miles per hour.

Every spring female saiga congregate and give birth en masse over roughly a week’s time, usually to twin calves or even triplets. This mass birthing gives enough calves a fighting chance to survive attacks by wolves, coyotes, eagles, and other predators.