http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32792485


Kazakhstan antelopes: Saiga deaths top 10,000 in a week

19 May 2015

Saiga antelopes are dying out in Kazakhstan, with more than 10,000 dying in a week recently because of infection.
The endangered saiga population is dwindling as a result of disease and uncontrolled hunting.
The government has been trying to restore the saiga population, and the deaths are a blow to those efforts.
Classified as critically endangered, saiga antelope numbers in the Eurasian steppe are down to 50,000.
Because of the deaths, an emergency situation has been declared in the Zholoba area of the Amangeldi district in northern Kazakhstan, the BBC's Abdujalil Abdurasulov reports from Almaty.


Saigas are sometimes called the "queens of the Central Asian steppes", but the population is down from about one million in 1993.
A committee of scientists came to the conclusion the antelopes were dying from an infection, probably the infectious disease pasteurellosis, Kazakhstan's Interfax news agency reports.
Kazakhstan launched a programme to restore the saiga population and has tried to control the hunting of the endangered animal in the past, but the mass death of saigas has happened before, according to the country's ministry of agriculture.

I was signed up in 1997 or 1998 to go hunt one. They were a cheap Asian hunt.

It is sad the way the herds have been decimated.

I hunted one in 1990 and was told there was 2 million. Wolves were following their migration, and specialized professionals hunted the wolves - making a living of selling skins 3 $ each...

I can't remember why they were originally closed, but I got my deposit back and I doubt I will ever get to take one.

http://www.huntingreport.com/w...te.cfm?articleid=722



Disease Outbreak Causes Saiga Population Collapse

(posted June 05, 2015)

In what is likely the largest disease mortality event in a big game animal, wildlife officials in Kazakhstan are reporting that over 120,000 saiga antelope have died in the past month. That represents over 40% of the worldwide population.

The IUCN considers the animals critically endangered. Under Soviet protection, over 2 million saiga roamed the Asian steppe in the 1950s. Long-time subscribers will remember when saiga were huntable in the days following the collapse of the Soviet Union. While sport hunting was briefly open in the late 1990s, uncontrolled poaching took its toll and all hunting was closed by 2006. In 2010, Kazakhstan reaffirmed the closure until at least 2021. This latest die-off will certainly put reopening of hunting off for a decade or more.

While the immediate cause of death has been identified as pasturella bacteria infection (the same pathogen that has caused bighorn sheep die-offs here in North America), there are certainly some unknown, additional factors which have weakened the animals to the point that the ever-present bacterium becomes lethal. The UN reports the massive die-off has ended, but no definitive cause has been identified.

Saiga are a mid-sized antelope once found over much of central Asia. Their distinctive feature is an enlarged nose (a true proboscis) which serves to filter out dust during long migrations and to warm the air in the winter before it reaches the saiga's lungs. Only the males have horns, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Mike Bodenchuk, Editor at Large.

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I wonder how the species would do in Texas?

quote:

Originally posted by analog_peninsula:
I wonder how the species would do in Texas?

It would do really well in the short grass prairie of Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Kansas or the Texas Pan Handle.

They live in that kind of climate.

If you think about where Pronghorn Antelope like to live it would be the same.

I was in a wildlife museum in the Yukon, these antelope actually lived in North America in prehistoric times. It maybe time to bring them back.

We should go slow with introducing animals on top of our native species. Carp and tamarisk come to mind.

So much more could be done with native re-introductions before we flop another critter into the mix.

Just my 2 cents... for free
Zeke

quote:

Originally posted by Spooksar:
I was in a wildlife museum in the Yukon, these antelope actually lived in North America in prehistoric times. It maybe time to bring them back.

why not? they introduced back elk and bison.

do not know the impacts on other wild animal population already there ...

Now they are saying 60,000.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60...nd-no-one-knows-why/

quote:

Only the males have horns, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Explains the uncontrolled poaching. Damn Chinese are a plague on this planet!


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