Saiga antelopes experienced catastrophic population collapses but are showing recovery in some regions. Conservation and welfare interventions must address both population threats and individual animal suffering.
Saiga welfare spans both conservation threats and catastrophic mass mortality events from disease. The 2015 die-off caused immense suffering to hundreds of thousands of individual animals dying rapidly from systemic infection. Poaching causes individual suffering and population decline simultaneously. Recovery programs involve monitoring, anti-poaching enforcement, and habitat protection. Mass mortality events require rapid veterinary response that is challenging at the scale of hundreds of thousands of animals across remote steppe. Reducing demand for saiga horn through substitution programs and consumer education addresses the poaching pressure that undermines conservation progress.