The Turkmenian kulan Equus hemionus kulan is a subspecies of onager, or Asiatic wild ass, native to Central Asia. And though it may not look it – with a diminutive frame 200-250 cm long and 100-140 cm tall – it is actually one of the largest onagers in the world. There was a time when […]
Tag: Kazakhstan
Wild Tigers to be Reintroduced to Kazakhstan After 70 Year Absence
Conservationists are applauding an announcement made this week by the Republic of Kazakhstan that it plans to reintroduce tigers to part of their historic range, where they’ve been absent for 70 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were believed to be 100,000 tigers living in the wild. Today, there are only estimated […]
The Spirit of the Steppes: Saving Central Asia’s saiga
In 2015, disease wiped out 200,000+ adult saiga; now a new viral outbreak threatens Mongolia’s entire population. But these steppe antelope are resilient, and could recover, if protected from traffickers. The beauty of the saiga belies first impressions. It may be hard to look beyond the big nose — a bulbous schnozz that looks like […]
New Sociable Lapwing habitats discovered in Uzbekistan
The Critically Endangered Sociable Lapwing is one of the world’s rarest and most threatened birds. It breeds in Kazakhstan and southern Russia and winters from Sudan to Pakistan and India. How it gets from its breeding grounds to its wintering areas is of great interest to conservationists, since hunting pressures along its migration routes is […]
Half of world’s rare antelope population died within weeks
More than half of the world’s population of an endangered antelope died within two weeks earlier this year, in a phenomenon that scientists are unable to explain. At least 150,000 adult saiga antelopes were buried during a fortnight in May, but scientists say the actual figure will be significantly higher as many more carcasses were […]
120,000 dead: half of the world’s saiga die in less than a month
No one knows what’s killing them, but scientists estimate that almost half of the world’s saiga (Saiga tatarica) have perished since May 10th. To date, researchers on-the-ground unofficially estimate that 120,000 saiga have died in Kazakhstan from what appears to be a wildly virulent disease, although no cause has been ruled out. Saiga are bizarre-looking, […]