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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.
Are mass-die-offs like these indications of stress in the larger ecosystem?
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @02:59PM
"Shouldn't we let the scientists on the ground determine this rather than speculating from half a world away?"
Probably but who cares. Though I'm not the original poster we're just talking. People can talk and speculate. This isn't a scientific journal. It's a discussion board.
"The bacteria implicated ... rarely causes harm unless their immune system has already been weakened by something else."
So perhaps 'stress in the larger ecosystem' (yes, that's a broad term) caused immunodeficient antelope which caused them to be more susceptible to disease. Stress to environment -> stress to antelope (perhaps it affected the quality of food supply, weather conditions, etc...) -> disease. Yes, a bunch of speculation but hey this is a discussion board where people should be able to discuss things. It's not a scientific journal. Even if it's wrong it's not like it's the end of the world.