Catastrophic Collapse Of Saiga Antelopes In Central Asia
More than 120,000 saiga antelope have been confirmed dead in central Kazakhstan, representing more than a third of the global population. This is a major blow for conservation efforts given that saigas have in the past ten years only just started to recover from a global population size of less than 50,000 animals following a 95% crash in numbers.
Preliminary analysis indicates that a combination of environmental and biological factors is contributing to this catastrophic event, which has seen four large birth aggregations of this critically endangered antelope eradicated since mid-May this year. Primarily mothers and calves are amongst the carcasses; not a single animal survived in the affected herds.
Erlan Nysynbaev, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture of Kazakhstan stated “This loss is a huge blow for saiga conservation in Kazakhstan and in the world, given that 90% of the global saiga population is found in our country. It is very painful to witness this mass mortality. We established a working group that includes all relevant experts, including international ones, and are determined to identify the causes and undertake all possible efforts to avoid such events in the future.”
At the request of Kazakhstan, the Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) despatched an emergency mission last week with experts from the Royal Veterinary College in the United Kingdom and the Food and Agriculture Organization to assist on the ground with post-mortem examination, analysis and to contribute to the working group.
CMS Executive Secretary, Bradnee Chambers said “Authorities in Kazakhstan are responding quickly to this disaster and are working hard to solve the mystery behind this mass saiga die-off. I am pleased that the international expert mission we were able to send, at very short notice, is now contributing to these efforts”.
According to information received from the members of the CMS expert mission, it is becoming clear that two secondary opportunistic pathogens, specifically Pasteurella and Clostridia, are contributing to the rapid and wide-spread die-off. However, the hunt for the fundamental drivers of the mass mortality continues since these bacteria are only lethal to an animal if its immune system is already weakened.
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