Saiga antelope have experienced catastrophic mass mortality events killing hundreds of thousands of animals within days, representing extreme acute welfare harm at population scale.
The 2015 saiga die-off represents one of the most acute and dramatic wild animal welfare events in recorded history — hundreds of thousands of animals dying within days from overwhelming bacterial infection. The suffering involved — respiratory distress, hemorrhage and rapid multi-organ failure — is distressing to contemplate at individual scale and almost incomprehensible at population scale. Monitoring programmes that provide early warning of outbreak conditions, combined with anti-poaching efforts that maintain population resilience, are the most important welfare interventions available for this vulnerable species.