Kazakhstan has gifted 1,500 saiga antelopes to China, stepping in to support China’s own efforts to restore the species beyond Central Asia.
Loved for its handsome, bulbous nose, the saiga is found in large numbers across the Kazakh steppe. Once endangered in Kazakhstan, numbering as few as 40,000 in 2005, the antelope is in fact now overpopulated, as numbers have reached a record 4.1 million in 2025.
As such, Kazakhstan has been looking for ways to reduce its population while nurturing environmental and diplomatic ties with China.
In turn, China has long been interested in reviving the saiga, but previous attempts have not been successful.
Dastan Kusmanov, an ecologist and PhD candidate at the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy, told The Times of Central Asia: “I believe that the saiga being gifted to China is an environmental measure. If a new saiga population is established in China, this is an overall benefit for the species’ survival, because if anything happens to the existing saiga population in Kazakhstan, the species still has a chance to survive elsewhere.”
Read my article Kazakhstan Gifts 1,500 Saiga Antelopes to China in The Times of Central Asia (3 September 2025).
***
Jonathan Campion is a writer, journalist, editor and linguist, working in the Eurasia region. Read about his work here, and contact him here.
LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA 