Still Waters Posted May 23, 2015 #1 Share Posted May 23, 2015 Herds of one of Central Asia's most symbolic animals, the saiga antelope, are declining rapidly - and no one knows why. The Kazakh department for emergency situations says more than 19,000 saiga carcasses have now been buried in the country's Qostanai region, though unofficial reports on 20 May suggested the number of dead animals may already exceed 30,000. http://www.theguardi...e-death-mystery 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KariW Posted May 23, 2015 #2 Share Posted May 23, 2015 This is very disturbing, and I have to wonder if they will eventually find that the deaths of the antelope may be in fact due to some virus, such as foot and mouth disease? Really wish the article had went into a little more detail on diagnostic findings, but perhaps its just too early to say at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeOnlyMe Posted May 23, 2015 #3 Share Posted May 23, 2015 I cant really comprehend an entire species going extinct. Humans.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalmoxis Posted May 24, 2015 #4 Share Posted May 24, 2015 Their deaths could be related to something in the frequency range. They should dissect some corpses to find out if they are having heart-attacks. A heart-attack can be induced with sound frequencies if powerful enough. That's a wild guess. If it's not immediately apparent and nothing externally physical can be found then they should search for off-the-radar answers. Say, if the globe resonates anomalous frequencies for whatever unknown reasons, if the signal is in the right range or strong enough it can make animals do stuff, like migrate, get confused. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zero Fox FK Posted May 28, 2015 #5 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I'm pretty sure its some sort of Radiation to blame. The one in that photo is definitely suffering some sort of deformity... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silentsinger Posted May 28, 2015 #6 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I'm pretty sure its some sort of Radiation to blame. The one in that photo is definitely suffering some sort of deformity... If you are refering to its nose, then thats just how they look, its not a deformity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundew Posted May 28, 2015 #7 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Most likely a pathogen of some type, viral or bacterial. This is a real problem when you have low genetic diversity. The number of these animals was highly reduced, and even though they were making a good comeback, they are all closely related genetically. It is genetic diversity that allow some animals to thrive when disease or environmental change comes along, with enough diversity, there is a likelihood that a good portion of the population will survive, without it the whole population can be in danger of extinction. If I remember correctly the Saiga has a biological strategy that has helped the population recover in the past: the females usually give birth to twins, meaning the numbers can double quickly. So if the surviving animals are immune to whatever is killing them, they have a decent chance of recovering again. This type of thing is not unusual in nature, even populations of creatures as different as sea-stars (starfish) and butterflies go through periodic die offs due to pathogens when the population swells, usually they recover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.United_Nations Posted May 28, 2015 #8 Share Posted May 28, 2015 I cant really comprehend an entire species going extinct. Humans.. what? there is a strong possibility this could be some sort of lung or heart failure caused by a virus or bacteria Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ancient astronaut Posted May 28, 2015 #9 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Sadness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJNYC Posted May 28, 2015 #10 Share Posted May 28, 2015 This is so sad. I truly hope that we can stop the deaths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenore Graves Posted May 28, 2015 #11 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Well that's pretty sad, but as a side note....that's a weird looking animal! Never heard of a Saiga antelope, what a nose!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Posted May 28, 2015 #12 Share Posted May 28, 2015 Very sad. I hope they can survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saitung Posted May 29, 2015 #13 Share Posted May 29, 2015 Yes, it is truly sad, but the sadder truth is that as long as mankind continues to advance in the direction we are headed, there is no way we can save many of the species that live close to us. Lower life-forms will always suffer in the shadow of man’s strive for advancement. The fact that mankind needs screwdrivers to survive, means that we MUST continue to manufacture to retain our technologies. The special metals in or cell phones come from the de-forestation of Africa, logging is destroying football field-sized swaths of the Amazon’s jungles per day, and the run-offs of our over-fertilized farm lands have created dead-zones in our seas the size of some states. This antelope is not the first casualty, and certainly not the last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiltedmusician Posted May 29, 2015 #14 Share Posted May 29, 2015 This is similar to an event where moose or antelope or something were eating a certain kind of plant more than others and were really damaging the population of that plant. That plant whose name I do not recall had the ability to produce insecticide to protect itself. After a while a bunch of these moose or antelope started falling over dead and the biologists observing them started to investigate every possible cause. It turned out to be the plants. They began producing a much higher amount of the insecticide which killed the protozoa in the animal's guts causing them to starve to death with full bellies. Nature itself decided to reduce their numbers, with poison. Pretty ironic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeastieRunner Posted May 29, 2015 #15 Share Posted May 29, 2015 This is so sad ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thenIsaid Posted June 4, 2015 #16 Share Posted June 4, 2015 It's inevitable. We are the cause of the next major extinction event generally, and it has already progressed far beyond the point of recovery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfluder Posted June 8, 2015 #17 Share Posted June 8, 2015 Oh, I'm sure that anyone who may be responsible for the hastening of climate change, or the deaths of thousands of different species all across the globe, will investigate and find that they've done nothing wrong. Just business as usual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Greenman Posted September 2, 2015 #18 Share Posted September 2, 2015 It started in late May. When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground. "But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science. But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died. As veterinarians and conservationists tried to stem the die-off, they also got word of similar population crashes in other herds across Kazakhstan. By early June, the mass dying was over. [See Images of the Saiga Mass Die-Off] http://www.livescien...bpr=30478646760 How terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anomalocaris Posted September 3, 2015 #19 Share Posted September 3, 2015 (edited) 60,000 Antelopes Died in 4 Days — And No One Knows Why It started in late May. When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground. "But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science. Read more Edited September 3, 2015 by Anomalocaris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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