Search
The saiga antelope is an exotic and unfamiliar element of the British Pleistocene mammal fauna. Until the early 1980s, there was only one confirmed record from the British Isles, a well-preserved frontlet with both horn cores from the Thames gravels at Orleans Road, Twickenham, London (B.M.fN.H) Paleontology Department (M4448) described and fisured by Smith Woodward (1890) and again by Reynolds (1939).
During the Soviet period the provision of winter feed shielded domestic livestock from winter mortality while hunting controls allowed saiga numbers to recover from overhunting. Livestock and saiga numbers during this period were high and there is evidence that productivity was affected. However, there were no crashes in livestock numbers linked to high densities, probably because rainfall variability is relatively low and catastrophic droughts are rare. Today livestock numbers in Kazakhstan have crashed because of the withdrawal of state support and the use of animals as currency. The collapse of the state also meant the end of hunting controls and increased poverty, which has lead to…
Fecundity and calf survival are known to be affected by markedly skewed sex ratios, but in saiga antelope the sex ration has become so distorted as to lead to a drastic decline in the number of pregnancies - a finding that has implications both for the conservation of the species and for understanding the reproductive ecology of polygynous ungulates.
The average length of gestation, the dates of the rut in the years studied, and the age of females that have mated immediately upon the onset of the rut and before its cessation have been determined. It is shown that the duration of mass calving depends on the proportion of mature males in the population.
The range area and population size of the Saiga in Kazakhstan have changed substantially since they were first described, declining rapidly through the nineteenth century to a low point in the 1920s, followed by recovery until the 1950s and subsequent stabilization. A detailed description is given of the Saiga's habitat and the differences between the winter and summer pastures. The species feeds mainly on grasses, although herbs and shrubs are seasonally important. The migratory patterns of the species divide into directional seasonal migrations and less structured local movements. Group sizes are largest in the calving season and during the autumn migration. Harems are formed in early…
Today, the principal strongholds of this 'living fossil' are the dry steppe and semi-desert regions of Kazakhstan, which harbour over 80% of its overall range and number. A tiny fraction of the species lingers in Mongolia, while its second largest population is practically confined to Kalmykia, a small province of Russia in the far southeastern corner of Europe.
Saiga antelopes (Saiga tatarica), presently confined to Central Asia, spread westward to England and eastward to the Northwest Territories of Canada during the late Pleistocene. Two saiga cranial fragments from the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories have yielded radiocarbon dates of 13 390 ± 180 and 14 920 ± 160 B.P. respectively.
Both the saiga's range and its populations have been severely affected by socio-political and land use changes over the last century, related to the formation and dissolution of the Soviet Union. We identified ecological drivers of saiga migration, compared four populations in terms of differences in the geographical characteristics of their ranges and the factors affecting habitat selection within the seasonal ranges.