Shreya Dasgupta for Mongabay,
part of the Guardian Environment Network
Monday 20 June 201612.46 BST
Last year, catastrophe hit saiga
antelopes in Kazakhstan.
About 200,000 of these critically endangered antelopes died in Betpak-Dala in
May, deeply worrying conservationists. The deaths, scientists eventually found,
were most likely caused by bacterial infection.
But there may be hope for these
severely threatened migratory mammals.
A recent aerial survey of saigas
carried out from April 18 to May 3, 2016 has revealed that the numbers of all
three saiga populations in Kazakhstan—Ural, Betpak-Dala and Ustyurt — are going
up. The surveys were conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic
of Kazakhstan in partnership with the Association for the Conservation of
Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK) and JSC “Kazaviaspas”, Kazakhstan government announced on
Tuesday.
“The news about recovering saiga
populations in Kazakhstan is a sign of hope after the catastrophic mass saiga
die-off event in 2015,” Bradnee Chambers, Executive Secretary of the Convention
on Migratory Species (CMS), said in a statement.
The surveys counted a total of
108,300 adult saigas. The Ural population has about 70,200 individuals, up from
51,700 in 2015, while the Ustyurt population has around 1,900 individuals, up
from 1,200 in 2015. The Betpak-Dala population also showed promise with about
36,200 individuals, the results revealed.
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