Saiga antelopes are ancient steppe ungulates that have survived ice ages — but they now face catastrophic threats including disease outbreaks, poaching for horns, and climate-driven habitat change that have caused population collapses.
Saiga welfare encompasses both the chronic stresses of habitat fragmentation and poaching pressure, and the acute catastrophic welfare events of mass die-offs. The 2015 mortality event was unprecedented in scale and speed: animals that appeared healthy were dead within hours, with entire calving aggregations eliminated. The welfare of the dying animals — suffering acute septicaemia in their thousands across open steppe — represents one of the most significant welfare events in recent wildlife history. Climate change amplifies this risk by creating the conditions (warm, humid springs) that trigger bacterial virulence in animals that have co-existed with Pasteurella for millennia. Poaching-driven sex ratio imbalance — where males are heavily targeted for horns — reduces reproductive success and forces females to travel further to find mates, increasing energy expenditure and stress. Conservation interventions must simultaneously address poaching, habitat connectivity, and climate monitoring to provide early warning of future die-off risk.