"I strain my eyes over the flat, endless plain of Russia's southern Republic of Kalmykia, blinking as the horizon melts into a delusional mirage. There is not so much as a tree, bush, or hill as far as I can see. Wait ... something. A cloud or red dust several hundred yards away. Through my binoculars, I see a brown ribbon of, perhaps, a hundred saiga antelope reeling away. The herd flows like water across the parched terrain, once the bed of a shrunken Caspian Sea. In an instant the animals drift out of sight. Only the red dust lingers ......"