Remember the more than 200 Saiga antelopes who mysteriously died within three weeks in Kazakhstan in 2015? A case that had gone around the world, but today finally, thanks to new research, we know exactly what it was that triggered this death.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Remember the more than 200 Saiga antelopes who mysteriously died within three weeks in Kazakhstan in 2015? A case that had gone around the world, but today finally, thanks to new research, we know exactly what it was that triggered this death.
At the time, researchers had attributed the death of the saiga antelope which are in danger of extinction, to a bacterium known as Pasteurella multocida type B which had caused haemorrhagic septicemia.
Now, according to a new study published in Science Advances, the team finds that that type of bacterium is present in the body of some animals such as antelopes, but it is harmless. However, its inordinate growth due to climate change has been lethal.
As we read in the research, the high humidity and hot temperatures contributed to the proliferation of these bacteria, without this jump, therefore, there probably would have been no massacre.
"This discovery alarms us about the future of so many other animals," the researchers write.
During the study, the 2015 deaths were compared with two other similar events, one in 1981, the other in 1988, in which the animals had died from hemorrhagic septicemia.
Even on those occasions, before the death, suspicious climate changes had occurred. Let's not forget that the antelopes all died on the same day within three hours.
Being endangered animals, the area was monitored, so experts can say that in the previous days there had been no signs that could foreshadow such a dramatic event.
Only 30 of the saiga antelopes survived, but only because they were not in that area, but in more northerly areas with low humidity.
Antelopes are increasingly in danger:
- Ash and antelope are dying out: included in the IUCN red list
- Shahtoosh, the wool of Pakistan that threatens the Tibetan antelope
Second Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College of London, at the head of the team, there is no need to be calm because there is a high probability that it can happen again, but this time unfortunately there is the possibility that the total extinction of the species.
Dominella Trunfio
