NEW YORK: The saiga, a critically endangered Asian antelope species, has been decimated by a mysterious, fast-moving disease. In the past two weeks, more than third of all saigas have been killed, conservationists have found.
The cause of the outbreak is unknown, but scientists believe it is always fatal.
“I’m flustered looking for words here,” said Joel Berger, a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “To lose 120,000 animals in two or three weeks is a phenomenal thing.”
Before the end of the Ice Age, saiga lived over a vast range stretching from England to Alaska. After the climate warmed, they continued to thrive on the steppes of Central Asia.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, however, the saiga population fell by more than 95 percent. Poachers were mainly responsible, killing the animals to sell their horns in China for use in traditional medicines.
A burial pit for some of the more than 120,000 saiga antelope that have died in central Kazakhstan.Previous Mass Die-Offs of the Endangered Saiga Antelope Hint at a Warm, Wet, Weedy Culprit in KazakhstanMAY 29, 2015
In 2006, the five nations where saiga still survived — Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — signed a memorandum of understanding to conserve the species. Anti-poaching measures have helped the population recover from less than 50,000 to about 250,000 before the current die-off.
