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Thanks to the kind help and support from Houston Zoo, the Saiga Conservation Alliance (SCA) is excited to be able to share their new website with you. The new-look SCA website is full of the latest updates from exciting SCA projects in Central Asia and news on what they are doing to tackle the illegal trade in saiga horn (ling yang, 羚羊) in China and other countries. So, if you've ever wondered where saigas live now, how embroidery can help save Uzbek saiga populations, or how you can get involved in saving these strangely beautiful creatures, then check out the new website.
http://saiga-conservation.org
This disease outbreak is worrying because the Mongolian
subspecies numbers only around 12,000 individuals*.
Saiga Deaths in Mongolia:
Initial reports suggest that the cause is Peste-des-petits-ruminants, which is a viral
disease that has been spreading in the region over the last few
years. Further tests are now being carried out by the Mongolian
authorities, and we will share their results once they are
confirmed. If this diagnosis is confirmed, the saigas are likely to
have become infected from livestock. In this case, vaccination of
livestock herds in the region should control the further spread of
the disease.
Tests are still being conducted, but it's most likely an
outbreak of peste-des-petits ruminants, or "sheep and goat plague",
that has spread in livestock throughout the region.
The Saiga Conservation Alliance is working with governmental
agencies, rangers, the Wildlife Conservation Society and
WWF-Mongolia to investigate the outbreak, identify 'hot-spots' and
stop it before it does more harm to saigas.
However, there is cause for hope.
Carlyn Samuel, Saiga Conservation Alliance
In continued analyses of samples from the catastrophic mass die-off of saiga antelopes from May 2015, laboratories have identified the bacteriumPasteurella multocidaas the causative agent of haemorrhagic septicaemia, which led to the death of the animals. With recent histopathology confirming this diagnosis. Attempts to identify other infectious agents such as viruses, using latest diagnostic methods, have failed to find anything significant and confirmed consistent Pasteurella infection in all cases examined. Hence it seems unlikely that an underlying infection predisposed the population to catastrophic haemorraghic septicaemia.
Alyona Krivosheyeva, Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan,