An heat wave prolifoked an opportunistic bacterium that has lasted life to hundreds of thousands of animals. It was a total catastrophe.
In May 2015, a wave of death swept the rural areas of Kazakhstan, where more than 2000,000 antelopes died. THE mass extinction, one of the largest ever recorded, It decimated 80% of the local population and more than 60% of the world’s population.
At the time, there were many possibilities raised. Fuels? High temperatures? Finally scientists know the answer.
These creatures originating from Eurasia, recalls, There are millions of years agoand have resisted the times – they walked alongside dirt and mammoth rhinos during the ice age.
But they have already suffered 3 great mass extinctions In recent times, first in the 1980s, later in 2015, a giant extinction, and again in 2017, already more controlled due to knowledge about the previous extinction.
Finally, it was found that some different factors were involved in the mass mortality event. THE bacterium Pasteurella multocida It was pointed out as the main cause of the deaths of the leave.
At the time, the EJ Milner-Gulland biodiversity teacher, said: ““ It is becoming a total catastrophe ”. It was a “unprecedented” disaster, commented at the time.
But the idea of heat waves It is not totally unreasonable: in fact, as that region of Kazakhstan was that year hit by unusual high temperatures, this led to the bacteria to proliferate, and settle in the animals, infect the bloodstream of the antelopes, leading to hemorrhagic septicemia, a type of poisoning.
“Os Mass Mortality EventsThey are a great threat to the antelope outdating and can destroy many years of conservation and growth work from the Saiga population in just a few days, ”said Steffen Zuther, a project manager for Kazakhstan in Frankfurt’s zoological society.
“Therefore, understanding these MME, what triggers them and what can be done to fight them is extremely important to develop effective conservation strategies of the leave,” he added. “It’s important maintain sufficiently sized output populations for the species to survive such catastrophes. ”
And attempts to recover the species have worked: the population is growing in such a way that Kazakhstan announced, in May 2025, that it will react to hunting for an anti -illuminated saga.
