By Abdullahi Lukman
In a landmark step for wildlife conservation, China will reintroduce saiga antelopes into the wild after a 75-year absence, following a donation of 1,500 individuals from Kazakhstan.
The historic transfer, announced on June 17 during a meeting between the presidents of both nations, is scheduled to begin in 2026 and marks a significant milestone in international cooperation for the preservation of endangered and transboundary species.
The saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), one of the world’s most ancient surviving mammal species, once roamed the vast steppes of Eurasia alongside Ice Age giants like woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats.
Recognizable by its oversized, humped nose adapted for filtering dust and warming cold air, the saiga’s historical range stretched from Eastern Europe across Central Asia and into northwest China.
However, by the 1950s, the species had vanished from China, driven out by habitat loss, hunting, and growing human activity.
“The donation is a significant conservation-driven move aimed at restoring the saiga population in China and promoting international collaboration on the conservation of transboundary species,” said Professor Zhigang Jiang, a conservation biologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who has extensively studied the saiga’s ecology and historic range.
This planned reintroduction comes after decades of effort and research. Although China began trying to reintroduce the saiga in the 1980s using captive populations, those attempts were largely unsuccessful due to genetic bottlenecks and poor habitat conditions.
Scientists now believe that the introduction of wild individuals from Kazakhstan, which has become the stronghold of the global saiga population, offers a renewed opportunity for success.
Once on the brink of extinction, the saiga population in Kazakhstan fell to fewer than 30,000 individuals in 2003 due to rampant poaching and disease outbreaks.
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However, a large-scale conservation program—the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative—helped restore the population dramatically. As of April 2025, Kazakhstan is home to over 4.1 million saigas, with more than 98% residing in the country’s Golden Steppe.
Professor Jiang stressed that the success of reintroducing the saigas to China hinges on the identification and protection of suitable habitats.
“Open steppe and semi-desert ecosystems, with low human disturbance and sufficient migratory space, will support large herds of saigas,” he said.
The saiga’s last known wild population in China lived in the Junggar Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, near the Kazakhstan border.
Jiang also highlighted other potentially suitable reintroduction sites, including the Qaidam Basin in Qinghai province, northern Gansu, western Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia.
Reintroducing the saiga antelope could restore ecological balance in China’s arid grasslands, where the species once played a vital role as a grazer. It could also contribute to the broader goal of restoring lost biodiversity and mitigating the impacts of habitat degradation.
Conservationists see this initiative as a rare and hopeful example of transboundary wildlife restoration, especially as the world faces accelerating biodiversity loss.
The reintroduction not only symbolizes a diplomatic success between Kazakhstan and China but also a shared commitment to ecological resilience.
“I am expecting the reintroduced saiga from Kazakhstan to return to its historical range in China,” Jiang added. “This is not just about saving a species—it’s about restoring an entire ecosystem.”
The saiga’s return to China represents one of the most ambitious species reintroduction efforts in recent history and could serve as a model for future international wildlife conservation partnerships.
