Saiga antelopes are uniquely vulnerable to catastrophic mass mortality. Understanding the climate-disease interaction is critical for conservation planning and welfare mitigation.
Saiga mass mortality events cause welfare harm at a scale almost unparalleled in wild animal populations — hundreds of thousands of animals dying painful deaths from systemic bacterial infection over days to weeks. The welfare harm is compounded by the aggregation of saiga in mass calving groups, meaning entire populations of socially bonded animals experience simultaneous collapse. Individual animals show signs of severe systemic illness including bloody diarrhea, respiratory distress, and rapid deterioration before death. Conservation responses cannot prevent individual events once underway but can maintain population resilience through anti-poaching, habitat protection, and monitoring that enables rapid population assessment after events. Pre-event vaccination programs have been explored but present logistical challenges for wild populations across vast steppe landscapes.