The Ecology Ministry will cease issuing hunting permits for saiga antelope, QazMonitor reports.
What happened: On April 22, the Forestry and Wildlife Committee published a draft decree on the Open Legal Acts to cease culling the population of saiga. The document is open for public discussion until May 8.
Context: The saiga regulation started in October 2023. In 2024, authorities were contemplating allowing trophy hunting for saiga. Throughout the period, a total of 42,000 saiga antelope were hunted.
Kazakhstan introduced a ban on saiga hunting in 1999 and set up strict anti-poaching measures to save the endangered animals. The species was classified Critically Endangered in 2001 and reclassified to Near Threatened by the IUCN Red List in 2023.
Due to wildlife conservation efforts, the saiga antelope population surged from 21,000 heads in 2003 to over 1,915,000 in 2023.
Forecasted data indicated a total of approximately 2.6 million saigas by the end of 2023, including calfs. The Ministry estimates an annual 40% increase, projecting the population to reach 4.2 million by the end of 2025.
On April 16 this year, during the meeting with residents of the Kostanay region, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that he would ban the hunting of the saiga population.