The saiga, a species of antelope native to Central Asia, once roamed the vast grasslands of this region in enormous herds, many millions strong. Regrettably, such spectacular sights are a thing of the past. Today, the saiga is largely confined to a single country: Kazakhstan. This country is estimated to be home to well over 90% of the global saiga population, with Russia, Mongolia and Uzbekistan accounting for the rest.

赛加羚羊是一种原产于中亚的羚羊，过去曾以庞大的群体在该地区广袤的草原上迁徙，数量可达数百万只。遗憾的是，如今这样的壮观景象已成为过去。如今，赛加羚羊主要分布于一个国家：哈萨克斯坦。据估计，该国拥有全球超过90%的赛加羚羊种群，其余则分布在俄罗斯、蒙古和乌兹别克斯坦。

The saiga is perfectly adapted to the tough conditions of the remote wilderness of the steppes of Central Asia. One such adaptation is its bizarre bulbous nose, which enables the animal to survive the extreme seasonal temperature swings of the region. The swollen nostrils of the nose serve several purposes: they filter out dust and cool the blood during hot, dry summers, and they warm the cold air before it enters the saiga's lungs in winter. Other seasonal adaptations include a heavy winter coat that the saiga sheds when the weather warms up.

赛加羚羊完美适应了中亚草原偏远荒野的恶劣环境。其中一种适应特征是它那奇特的球状鼻子，这种结构使该动物能够耐受当地极端的季节性温差。鼻孔肿胀具有多种功能：在炎热干燥的夏季可过滤灰尘并冷却血液；而在冬季，则能预热进入赛加羚羊肺部的冷空气。其他季节性适应包括厚重的冬毛，当天气转暖时，赛加羚羊会脱掉这些毛发。

Despite these superb adaptations to harsh conditions, the saiga has no defence against the threats posed by humans. It was almost driven to extinction by hunters in the 19th century. Legal protection ensured its survival for a while, and numbers steadily recovered throughout most of the 20th century. But the respite was only temporary. In the ten years following the break-up of the former Soviet Union in 1991, over 95% of the global population was lost - one of the fastest examples of species loss ever recorded for a mammal.

尽管在恶劣环境中进行了出色的适应，犀牛仍无法抵御人类带来的威胁。19世纪时，猎人几乎将其逼至灭绝。法律保护使其幸存了一段时间，20世纪的大部分时期，其数量也持续恢复。但这一喘息之机只是暂时的。1991年苏联解体后的十年间，全球犀牛种群数量损失超过95%，成为有记录以来哺乳动物物种减少速度最快的案例之一。

The dramatic decline during this decade was due to illegal poaching on an industrial scale. Male saiga are a particular target, because their horns are highly prized by traditional medicine practitioners. Poaching reached epidemic levels after misguided conservationists tried to relieve the pressure on threatened African rhinos by actively encouraging the use of saiga horns in traditional medicine as an alternative to those of rhinos. Male saiga were almost wiped out, leading to a population crash from which the species has been struggling to recover ever since.

本十年间数量急剧下降的原因是大规模的非法盗猎。雄性赛加羚羊尤为成为目标，因为它们的角在传统医学中极为珍贵。由于一些误入歧途的环保人士试图通过积极鼓励将赛加羚羊角用于传统医学，以替代犀牛角，从而缓解非洲犀牛濒危的压力，导致盗猎活动达到流行程度。雄性赛加羚羊几乎被完全灭绝，种群数量急剧减少，此后该物种一直艰难地努力恢复。

Another threat to the survival of the saiga is loss of habitat, as a result of agricultural expansion and human settlement. Physical barriers such as railways, pipelines and fences can block the seasonal migration routes of this transboundary species. In the worst cases, herds may starve to death after being trapped.

犀牛生存的另一大威胁是栖息地的丧失，这源于农业扩张和人类定居。铁路、管道和围栏等物理障碍物会阻断这种跨境物种的季节性迁徙路线。在最严重的情况下，群体可能因被困而饿死。

Then there is the risk of disease. In 2015, an outbreak of haemorrhagic septicaemia, caused by the normally harmless bacterium Pasteurella multocida, killed over 75% of the global adult saiga population in just three weeks. In 2017, 60% of the Mongolian saiga population - a subspecies found nowhere else in the world - was killed by a virus that spilled over from livestock. These so-called mass mortality events represent an unpredictable and serious threat to the species.

此外，还存在疾病风险。2015年，一种通常无害的细菌——多杀杆菌引发的出血性败血症疫情，在短短三周内导致全球成年沙拐子鹿种群中超过75%的个体死亡。2017年，蒙古沙拐子鹿种群中60%的个体被一种从家畜传播而来的病毒所杀灭。这些所谓的群体性死亡事件，对这一物种构成了不可预测且严重的威胁。

Climate change poses a further threat. Although well adapted to cold winters and hot summers, saiga struggle to cope with temperature extremes and unpredictable fluctuations in climate. Experts believe that unusually warm weather may have triggered the 2015 mass mortality event. The steppe region has also become increasingly arid in recent years, and many of the smaller streams that the species normally depended on have dried up and vanished.

气候变化带来了进一步的威胁。尽管白尾鹿已适应寒冷的冬季和炎热的夏季，但它们仍难以应对极端气温以及气候的不可预测变化。专家认为，异常温暖的天气可能引发了2015年的大规模死亡事件。近年来，草原地区也变得越来越干旱，许多原本供该物种依赖的小溪干涸消失。

Recent efforts to save the saiga have been spearheaded by the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, a project led by the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan, working in partnership with the Kazakh government's Committee for Forestry and Wildlife, Frankfurt Zoological Society and Fauna and Flora, an international conservation charity. Its purpose is to protect and restore Kazakhstan's steppe, semi-desert and desert ecosystems and the many species they support, including the critically endangered saiga. In 2022 the United Nations recognised the initiative as a World Restoration Flagship project, an accolade reserved for the ten best examples of large-scale ecosystem restoration around the globe.

近年来，拯救赛加羚羊的行动由阿尔滕达拉保护倡议项目牵头，该项目由哈萨克斯坦生物多样性保护协会主导，并与哈萨克斯坦政府林业和野生动物委员会、法兰克福动物学会以及国际保护慈善组织“动植物”（Fauna and Flora）合作开展。其宗旨是保护并恢复哈萨克斯坦的草原、半沙漠和沙漠生态系统，以及这些生态系统所支持的众多物种，包括濒危等级极高的赛加羚羊。2022年，联合国将该倡议认定为“全球生态修复旗舰项目”，这一荣誉授予全球十大大规模生态系统修复典范项目。

So, how many saiga are there now? By 2000, the global saiga population had hit an all- time low of just 21,000 individuals. There was some recovery in the first decade of the new millennium but this was then crushed by devastating mass mortality events that saw the loss of hundreds of thousands of the species. But thanks to the intervention of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, the most recent episodes in the ongoing story of the saiga have been relatively uplifting. Three years ago, the Ustyurt Plateau population in Kazakhstan experienced its largest mass birth of saiga calves in many years. An aerial census two years ago recorded an estimated 842,000 saiga across Kazakhstan as a whole, and according to an aerial survey earlier this year, the saiga population in Kazakhstan now exceeds 1.9 million. The world's strangest-looking antelope remains critically endangered, but the direction of travel is positive.

那么，目前有多少头赛加羚羊呢？到2000年，全球赛加羚羊的数量已降至历史最低点，仅有2.1万只。在新世纪的第一个十年里，种群曾出现一定程度的恢复，但随后又遭遇了毁灭性的大规模死亡事件，导致数以十万计的个体灭绝。然而，得益于阿尔滕达拉保护倡议的干预，赛加羚羊持续发展的故事近期呈现出相对乐观的态势。三年前，哈萨克斯坦乌斯秋尔高原迎来了多年以来最大规模的赛加羚羊幼崽出生。两年前的一次空中普查显示，整个哈萨克斯坦境内赛加羚羊数量估计为84.2万只；而今年早些时候的一项空中调查表明，哈萨克斯坦的赛加羚羊种群现已超过190万只。尽管这种外形最奇特的羚羊仍处于极度濒危状态，但其未来的发展趋势却是积极向上的。