60,000 Antelope Died in Four Days and No One Knows Why
It started in late May. When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground.
"But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science.
But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died. As veterinarians and conservationists tried to stem the die-off, they also got word of similar population crashes in other herds across Kazakhstan. By early June, the mass dying was over.
In May 2015, nearly half of all the saigas, a critically endangered antelope that roams the steppe of Kazakhstan, died off. Albert Salemgareyev
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/60-000-antelope-died-four-days-no-one-knows-why-n421056?cid=sm_fb
= new reply since forum marked as read
"Where seldom is heard/A discouraging word/And the deer and the other deer play."
There have never been antelope in North America. We do have the pronghorn which is often colloquially known as a pronghorn antelope, but is in fact not an antelope.
(Trivia note)
It was written by a Kansas native in the 1870's and has been long been considered the "unofficial anthem of the American West"...
But really, what this proves is that some DUers will take intellectual dishonesty to absurd lengths!
Shakespeare wrote Hamlet without ever visiting Denmark.
The song does not describe an existing home on the range, wherever that range might be, but a desired, or aspirational, home.
It is "Oh give me a home..." Not "I have a home.."
In fact that sort of proves then point. Clearly the composer WANTED a home where the deer and the antelope play.
Most likely, he did not have one, for the very reason you cite.
However, perhaps he wanted a menagerie of some sort that would have required the importation of antelope. But, give the the expense, then maybe he wanted to get the fuck out of Kansas and go to Kazakhstan (either taking some buffalo with him, or simply accepting water buffalo under a broader notion of "buffalo"
.
Well, the plan is screwed now because the deer don't have any antelope to play with. But ungulates can be fickle in their play as, for example, the reindeer who would not let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.
So maybe Rudolph decided "I'll show them" and since they wouldn't play with Rudolph, he went on a murderous ungulate rampage and made it so they couldn't play with the antelope.
My bad. 
I would wonder if there was an old Soviet chemical weapons facility in the area, but if the die off is in more than one area that doesn't seem a likely explanation.
