THE FORMATION OF A SUSTAINABLE SAIGA (SAIGA TATARICA LINNAEUS, 1758) SEMI-FREE POPULATION IN THE BIOSPHERE RESERVE "ASKANIA NOVA", PRESERVATION AND THE PECULIARITIES OF ITS SIZE MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Saiga is a wide-areal species of "mammoth fauna" with extremely big changes of numbers in its populations. This species has disappeared from the south ukrainian steppes in the middle of XIX century. From the end of XIX and during XX centuries, a line of attempts for introduction and breeding the species at the zoo "Askania-Nova" was done, which were found unsuccessful except of the last one in 1979 and have led to the stable breeding in the capture. Until 2005, the current isolated population of the saiga in southern Ukraine was slowly increasing in number, which was due to deficiencies in the organization of technological processes to ensure its keeping in semi-free conditions. The steady increase of the population is seen in Askania-Nova last twenty years with a stock of 500–600 individuals in summer that is provided by a complex veterinarian actions and preservation other components of the ecosystem of the protected zone (a plot "Great Chapelsky depression" at an area more than 2000 ha). Besides, a man plays a regulatory function for the saiga preservation and other rare ungulate species because of the absence of big predatory mammals. The main methods of the regulation of the saiga population are the catching of adult animals or hand drinking of the newborns and replacement of the raised young stock on other territories: private and state zoos, zoo nurseries, hunting economies, petting zoos, etc. In some years, natural factors also play a significant role – natural mortality by age due to congenital and acquired pathologies and the weather and climate conditions.