Kazakhstan plans to cull up to 337,000 Saiga Tatars after numbers of these once critically endangered antelopes increased tenfold following a successful intervention by the Kazakh government. The server of Radio Free Europe/Rádio Svoboda informed about it.
Astana
2:11 p.m November 7, 2023
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Print
Copy the url address
Abbreviated address
Copy to clipboard
Close
With the growing number of saigas, farmers complain that the herds are grazing their crops and destroying their livelihoods. | Photo: Abduaziz Madyarov | Source: Profimedia
In 2015, an epidemic broke out among Tatar saigas in the central region of Kazakhstan, and these ungulates with atypical snouts succumbed by the thousands. At that time, 200,000 of them died within a few weeks, which was over sixty percent of the population in the entire country.
‘Dad, are they going to kill you?’ Almost two thousand conservationists were murdered in a decade
Read the article
But in recent years, their population has rebounded and now stands at 2.6 million individuals, according to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Environment.
Farmers in the Central Asian country are complaining that the large herds are grazing their crops and destroying their livelihoods as the number of saiga grows. Last year, according to the ministry, they caused damage to agriculture in the amount of 25.5 million dollars (580 million crowns).
Astana wants according to the server to end the moratorium on sajg hunting by December 31 of this year.
However, experts warn that Kazakhstan should first implement measures to prevent poaching and other problems that brought the animals to the brink of extinction in the 1990s.
Poachers kill saigas for their horns, which are in high demand as an ingredient in traditional medicine in neighboring China.
CTK
Share on Facebook
Share on LinkedIn
Print
Copy the url address
Abbreviated address
Copy to clipboard
Close
Tags: Kazakhstan cull hundreds thousands antelopes critically endangered animals destroy crops farmers iRADIO
