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Advancing saiga conservation: The Third Meeting of the Signatories to the CMS Memorandum on saiga antelope
Update by Natalia Yakusheva, CMS Secretariat, published in Saiga News Issue 20 on page 5. More than seventy participants from governments, international organizations, NGOs, and academia gathered together to agree on a concrete set of measures to restore saiga populations in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Saiga conservationists meet in Tashkent
Update by E.J. Milner-Gulland, Saiga Conservation Alliance, published in Saiga News Issue 20, on page 6. The recent meeting of the signatories to the MOU on saiga conservation (26th-29th October 2015) was the culmination of months of work by the CMS secretariat and their technical advisors at the SCA and IUCN Antelope Specialist Group, as well as our hosts in Uzbekistan.
Saiga antelope mass die-off in the Betpak-Dala population in May 2015
Update by Steffen Zuther, ACBK, published in Saiga News Issue 20, on page 8. As mentioned in Saiga News 19, in mid-May 2015 the beginning of a mass die-off was detected in the biggest calving aggregation of the Betpak-Dala population, in the south of Kostanay oblast, Kazakhstan. The die-off lasted for almost a month and affected all the bigger calving aggregations throughout the range of the population.
A trial by fire
Update by Mariya Vorontsova, Office of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) in Russia, published in Saiga News Issue 20, on page 10 We have repeatedly visited this amazing corner of the Astrakhan region, communicated with the employees of the Sanctuary and watched their work. We always marvelled at the idyllic views (the boundless steppe, quietly grazing saigas, flocks of birds) that opened out in front of us. All this is possible through the efforts of a small group who protect the Stepnoi Sanctuary, within which saigas find rest and care at different times of their lives.
"Friends of Conservation Islands" - a movement without borders
Update by Eugenia Samtanova, Yashkul' Multidisciplinary Gymnasium School in Republic of Kalmykia in Russia, and Natalya Shivaldova, "Ekomaktab" Ecological Resource Centre in Uzbekistan. Published in Saiga News Issue 20, on page 12. In the beginning it only united conservation enthusiasts within Russia. This year the movement has stepped up to the international level, thereby proving that nature does not recognize borders.