The World Wide Fund for Nature Office in Mongolia and Saiga Conservation Alliance conducted a survey on the saiga population in January and registered 5,074 Saiga tatarica (Mongolian Saiga), an increase of over 1,000 compared with the same period of last year.
The population of saiga has increased this year, but there are still numerous threats facing the endangered animal such as poaching, food shortage, drought, dzud, and contagious diseases. Mongolia Mongolia registered over 15,000 saigas in 2014, but the most of them died as a result of dzud and contagious diseases in 2017.
The saiga is critically endangered antelope that originally inhabited vast area of the Eurasian steppe zone from the foothills of some areas in the world, including Mongolia.
Saiga is now confined to numbers 5,074 in Mongolia, 6,000 in Russia, 500 in Uzbekistan, a few in Turkemistan, and 334,000 in Kazakhstan.
