60,000 Antelopes Died in 4 Days — And No One Knows Why

[sue4e3]

http://www.livescience.com/52032-saiga-die-off-mystery.html

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.

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. [See Images of the Saiga Mass Die-Off]

"The extent of this die-off, and the speed it had, by spreading throughout the whole calving herd and killing all the animals, this has not been observed for any other species," Zuther said. "It's really unheard of."Tissue samples revealed that toxins, produced by Pasteurella and possibly Clostridia bacteria, caused extensive bleeding in most of the animals' organs. But Pasteurella is found normally in the bodies of ruminants like the saigas, and it usually doesn't cause harm unless the animals have weakened immune systems.Genetic analysis so far has only deepened the mystery, as the bacteria found were the garden-variety, disease-causing type "There is nothing so special about it. The question is why it developed so rapidly and spread to all the animals," Zuther said.

[PatrickforO]

1. Maybe these antelope decided to leave the earth because we are

fucking it up so bad. In the book Mutant Message Down Under, the protagonist goes on a walkabout with a small aboriginal tribe that has decided to leave the earth by not procreating, again because of our neoliberal slash-and-burn capitalism.

[shenmue]

2. Nooooooo