HALF OF ALL SAIGA ANTELOPE HAVE DIED IN A FEW WEEKS

THESE ANTELOPE WERE ALREADY ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST.
THEY EXIST IN ONLY ONE PLACE ON EARTH...THE EURASIAN STEPPES.
THE MAJORITY LIVE IN KAZAKHSTAN.

IN THE 1990S, MORE THAN A MILLION WERE COUNTED, BUT THEIR NUMBERS HAVE DWINDLED IN RECENT TIME TO PERHAPS 250,000.

AND IN MAY, WITHIN JUST A FEW SHORT WEEKS, HALF THE REMAINING HERD HAD DIED!

NEWSWEEK REPORTS:   

Over the past few weeks, nearly half of the remaining antelope, have died under mysterious circumstances. Aline Kühl-Stenzel, of the United Nations  Convention on Migratory Species tells New Scientist that the death toll may have reached 120,000, though the official count is at 85,000.

What’s behind these mysterious deaths? 

Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College tells the publication that it may be one of three ailments: haemolytic septicaemia, a bacteria that also affects buffalo; epizootic hemorrhagic disease, a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes; or clostridia bacteria. 

Tests to find the culprit are underway.

THAT IS NOT WHAT LOCALS ARE SAYING!
THOSE DISEASES ARE NOT WHAT PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE SEE AS THE PROBABLE CAUSE!

Radio Free Europe, however, notes that there is a more salacious possibility: poisoning from rocket fuel. Russian rockets are regularly launched from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome and spew a toxic fuel called heptyl, which The Moscow Times describes as a “highly corrosive combination of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, topped off with kerosene.” 

A Kazak space official tells Radio Free Europe that the deaths “could be, of course, linked to ecology, as well as to the Cosmodrome."

Activists blamed the 2012 discovery of nearly 1,000 dead saigas in the Qostanai region on the rocket launches. Authorities said at the time that the cause was probably the bacterial infection pasteurellosis, but the diagnosis was never officially confirmed.

Its numbers, once in the millions, Saiga herds were severely depleted after the fall of the Soviet Union by hunters and poachers looking to make money off the sale of saiga meat and horns.

Authorities in the Qostanai, Aqtobe, and Aqmola regions have declared an emergency as they struggle to dispose of the dead Saigas and search the steppe for more carcasses.

The global Saiga population was thought to have fallen to as low as about 21,000 in 2003, when the species was declared critically endangered.

There have been sizable die-offs of Saigas in the past decade in Kazakhstan, as well as instances in which large numbers of the animals were apparently killed by poachers for their horns, which fetch around $80 a pair on the Kazakh black market.

I WOULD NOT BE AFRAID OF "BETTING THE FARM" THAT WE WILL NOT LEARN OF A "CONCLUSIVE" REASON FOR THESE ANIMALS' DEATHS.
EVERYTHING BUT ROCKET CRASHES AND ROCKET FUEL WILL BE BLAMED, JUST AS EVERYTHING BUT A HIGHLY RADIOACTIVE PACIFIC OCEAN HAS BEEN BLAMED FOR THE MASS DIE-OFFS OF OVER 200 SPECIES OF MARINE LIFE AND SHORE BIRDS.

AS SCIENTISTS STRUGGLE TO FIND ANY CULPRIT BUT MAN, ANYTHING TO BLAME BESIDES OUR MANMADE TOXINS, THEY MAY HAVE TO INVENT NEW KILLERS WITH MULTI-SYLLABLE LATIN NAMES.
PERHAPS SOMETHING ON THE ORDER OF "FLOCCI NON FACCIO SYNDROME" OR "MAGIS TAURUS STERCUS DISORDER"?
"Non Legit Investigationes"...DID NOT DO THE RESEARCH.
"Mentiturae totus entiturae" ... LIES, ALL LIES.

DEEP SADNESS FOR SO MUCH LOSS OF LIFE THESE PAST YEARS...HUMAN, ANIMALS, UNTIL IT SEEMS WE GO THE WAY OF THE WIND, AND SWIFTLY.

HOW VERY LITTLE SEEMS TO MATTER ANYMORE!
HUMANITY HAS BECOME ANYTHING BUT HUMANE.

LOOKING BACK OVER 7 DECADES, I AM OFTEN GLAD NONE OF YOU WHO ARE YOUNGER CAN SEE WHAT ALL WE'VE LOST.

BUT YOU WILL SEE THE FINAL LOSS.

WHO CAN APOLOGIZE TO THE WORLD'S YOUNG FOR THAT?
NOTHING MAKES IT RIGHT.