Saiga in grassland habitat. © Victor Tyakht / Adobe Stock

Saiga

World’s quirkiest antelope

Species

The weird and wonderful saiga – distinguished by its large, bulbous nose – once roamed the steppes of Central Asia in vast nomadic herds, millions strong, a spectacle said to have rivalled the modern-day wildebeest migration in East Africa.

The saiga is superbly adapted to the harsh conditions of the remote wilderness areas that it favours, but has no defence against the threats posed by humans. In the 19th century, it was almost annihilated by the kind of unbridled hunting spree that drove the bison to virtual extinction in North America.

Legal protection ensured its survival, but the respite was only temporary. The break-up of the former Soviet Union in 1991 led to a poaching free-for-all. Over 95% of the global population was lost in the following decade – one of the fastest recorded declines for a mammal.

Signs of recovery early in the new millennium were crushed by devastating mass die-off events that saw the loss of hundreds of thousands of saiga – a real disaster for a species already pushed to the brink by hunting and habitat loss.

The case history of this critically endangered antelope is characterised by alternating setbacks and comebacks, during which populations have yo-yoed wildly. The saiga’s natural resilience and high reproductive rates, supported by well-directed conservation measures, have led to a recent recovery, but the species is still in grave danger.

Fascinating facts about saiga antelope

600 miles

Saiga can migrate over distances of up to 1,000 kilometres between summer and winter.

Saiga calf. © Bakhtiyar Taikenov / ACBK

Double bonus

A female saiga usually give birth to twins.

Unfussy eaters

Saiga can eat plants that are poisonous to other animals.

Distant cousins

The saiga’s closest living relatives are two species of African antelope, the springbok and gerenuk.

Up to 50

The number of females in the harem of a male saiga.

ACBK staff weighing a saiga calf to gather species data. © Bakhtiyar Taikenov / ACBK

Heavy load

Newborn saiga calves are the largest of any ungulate species.

Why do saiga antelope have big noses?

The saiga antelope’s nose is undoubtedly its most distinctive feature. This bizarre, bulbous appendage is an adaptation that enables the saiga to survive the tough conditions and extreme seasonal temperature swings in its native habitat. The swollen nostrils filter out dust and cool the blood during hot, dry summers, and act as a radiator in winter to warm the cold air before it enters the saiga’s lungs. Other seasonal adaptations include a thick winter coat that the saiga sheds when the weather warms up.

Saiga, Kazakhstan. © Klaus Nigge / Nature Picture Library

A male saiga in Kazakhstan poses on the vast steppe, showing off his distinctive profile.

Where do saiga antelope live?

The word ‘antelope’ conjures up visions of Africa; a foot race between cheetah and gazelle, impalas alert for a leopard lying in ambush; herds of wildebeest streaming across the plain. But Asia has its very own antelope. The vast steppes of Eurasia – stretching from Hungary to northeast China – were once carpeted with uncountable numbers of saiga.

Regrettably, such spectacular sights are a thing of the past. Today, this enigmatic ungulate with the extraordinary nose is largely confined to a single country in Central Asia. Kazakhstan is estimated to harbour well over 90% of the global saiga population, with Russia, Mongolia and Uzbekistan accounting for the rest.

What are the main threats to saiga antelope?

Poaching on an industrial scale has contributed significantly to the saiga’s dramatic decline, but it is by no means the only factor. Habitat loss and fragmentation, catastrophic disease outbreaks and increasingly restricted access to historical migration routes have also taken a heavy toll.

Poaching

Saiga have always been hunted for their meat, horns and skins. Male saiga are a particular target, because their horns are coveted by traditional medicine practitioners. In the 1990s, poaching reached epidemic levels after misguided conservationists tried to relieve the pressure on threatened African rhinos by actively encouraging the use of saiga horn in traditional medicine as an alternative to rhino horn. Male saiga were almost wiped out, leading to a population crash from which the species has been struggling to recover ever since.

Habitat loss

Traditional saiga feeding grounds are being lost to agricultural expansion and human settlement. Physical barriers such as railways, pipelines and fences can block the seasonal migration routes of this transboundary species. In the worst cases, herds may starve to death after being trapped.

Disease

In 2015, the largest of Kyrgyzstan’s three saiga populations was decimated by an outbreak of haemorrhagic septicaemia – caused by the bacterium Pasteurella multocida – which killed over 75% of the global adult saiga population in just three weeks.

In 2017, 60% of the Mongolian saiga population – a subspecies found nowhere else in the world – was killed by a viral infection spilling over from livestock. These so-called mass mortality events pose an unpredictable but potentially existential threat to the species.

Climate change

Although wonderfully well adapted to cold winters and hot summers, saiga struggle to cope with temperature extremes and unpredictable fluctuations in climate.

Experts believe that unusually warm and wet weather may have triggered the mass mortality event that saw a normally harmless bacterium opportunistically invade the antelopes’ bloodstream, with fatal consequences for over 200,000 saiga.

The saiga’s steppe habitat has become increasingly arid in recent years, reducing the availability of healthy pastureland and drying out the smaller water courses away from human habitation that the species normally relies on.

Saiga on the move. © Nikolay Denisov / Adobe Stock

Saiga on the move.

A newborn saiga calf on the Ustyurt Plateau, an increasingly arid environment.

How can we help save the saiga antelope?

Fauna & Flora’s saiga antelope conservation efforts are focused on Kazakhstan, which harbours three of the world’s five remaining populations.

The smallest, remotest – and most threatened – of these three populations inhabits the Ustyurt Plateau. This vast transboundary desert – shared with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – covers an area of roughly 200,000 square kilometres.

The Ustyurt population plays a disproportionately significant role in the long-term survival of the saiga. Such metapopulations, as they are known in the trade, have a wider value that transcends their actual size, particularly in the context of the unpredictable – and, to date, unpreventable – mass-mortality events that pose an ever-present threat to the species as a whole.

With deadly disease outbreaks able to obliterate any saiga subpopulation almost overnight, the Ustyurt population assumes even greater importance.

Fauna & Flora is playing a central role in the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, a coalition spearheaded by our in-country partner, the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, working in partnership with the Kazakh government’s Committee for Forestry and Wildlife, Frankfurt Zoological Society and RSPB. Its purpose is to protect and restore Kazakhstan’s steppe, semi-desert and desert ecosystems and the species they harbour, including the critically endangered saiga.

In 2022 the United Nations recognised the initiative as a World Restoration Flagship project, an accolade reserved for the ten best examples of large-scale ecosystem restoration around the globe.

Staff from Fauna & Flora's partner, Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, weighing a saiga calf to gather crucial data on the species.

How many saiga antelope are left?

In the 1990s, the global saiga population hit an all-time low of just 21,000 individuals – a tiny fraction of the millions that used to grace the steppes of Central Asia. The mass mortality event of 2015 wiped out 75% of the species. Thanks to the intervention of Fauna & Flora and our partners, the most recent episodes in the ongoing saiga soap opera have been relatively uplifting.

In 2020, the Ustyurt Plateau population experienced its largest mass calving in many years. An aerial census in 2021 recorded an estimated 842,000 saiga across Kazakhstan as a whole. According to a 2022 aerial survey, the saiga population in Kazakhstan now exceeds 1.3 million.

The anti-poaching efforts and wider conservation initiatives of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative have made a significant contribution to the saiga’s recovery. Together with our partners, we have helped achieve a dramatic turnaround for the species. The world’s quirkiest antelope remains critically endangered, but the direction of travel is positive.

Dr Sergey Sklyarenko

Science Director, Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan

Save the saiga

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