Search
In times long ago, there once lived an old king who had three sons. One day the king became very ill and as he felt his death coming close, he called his three sons to his bedside and spoke to them. "Dear children! My life has come to its end. I will soon depart from this impermanent, transitory world, and enter again into the permanent, eternal world. After my release from this life you will take my place on the throne and will reign over my kingdom ......
We evaluated the repeatability, practical feasibility and comparability of three techniques for age estimation of saiga antelopes; the tooth sectioning technique (TS), the tooth eruption and wear technique (TEW), and a visual aging technique routinely used in field studies. We found that TS and TEW gave repeatable results, and agreed well. The visual method underestimated the age of males compared to laboratory methods. It assigned animals consistently to the age class of at least one year old, but less consistently to the age class less than one year old.
The students were lucky enough to be able to take part in
various Saiga Day festivities, speak with local adults and
children, and to research the impact our work is having in these
remote regions. Their results were very encouraging and each made
insightful recommendations for future saiga conservation
programmes.