Scientists solve mystery of 200,000 antelope that suddenly dropped dead
International experts are investigating the sudden death of 200,000 endangered saiga antelope in Kazakhstan, raising fears the ancient species may be at risk of dying out.
Around 40 per cent of the Central Asian nation’s population of the endangered antelope have died in the past two weeks. Animal health experts suspect a respiratory disease may be to blame.
The world's scientists were baffled in 2015, when entire herds mysteriously dropped dead in Kazakhstan, with 200,000 of the animal's population wiped out in the space of three weeks.
Kazakhstan is home to around 90 per cent of the world’s population of the saiga, recognisable by their lyre-shaped horns and bulbous nose.
Huge herds of saiga once roamed the earth alongside the wooly mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger in the ice age. The mammoth and tigers died out but the saiga became prized for its delicious meat, which resembles succulent lamb.
“The death of the saiga antelope is a huge tragedy,” said zoology scientist Bibigul Sarsenova of the recent mass death.
“Should this happen again next year, they may simply disappear.”
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global coalition of governments and environmental organizations, says the saiga antelope is a “critically endangered” species.
An estimated 300,000 saiga roamed across the Kazakh steppes on May 11, when the first dead antelope was discovered. By May 27, 2015 nearly 121,000 carcasses had been found in three huge areas of their usual habitat, Agriculture Ministry officials said.
“We believe the cause of the deaths is pasteurellosis,” Yerzhan Madiyev, deputy head of the ministry’s veterinary committee, told a news conference.
Pasteurellosis is a bacterial disease that can infect humans and cattle, rabbits, cats and dogs. Its bacteria occur naturally in the upper respiratory tract, but can be harmful when the immune system is compromised.
The researchers blamed the unusual humidity and high air temperatures in the days before the deaths for allowing the tonsil bacteria to infect the animal's bloodstream, leading to septicaemia, Sky News reported.
Kazakh scientists are testing soil, air and water to try to solve the mystery of the mass deaths, said Bagdat Azbayev, chairman of the Agriculture Ministry’s forestry and wildlife committee.
Experts from Britain, Germany and the World Organisation for Animal Health have come to help Kazakh scientists investigate, he said.
There were more than 1 million saiga in the 1990s, but by 2003 poaching and disease slashed their numbers in Kazakhstan to 21,000, Azbayev said.
Two years later, the government adopted a plan to protect them and numbers rebounded.
In neighboring China, demand for the male antelopes’ horns led to the complete extinction of the species decades ago.
Much smaller saiga herds live in Russia and Mongolia. The species tends to live for between six to 10 years.
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