Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Sign Saiga Protection Memorandum

How does satellite tracking fit in?

Satellite telemetry — tracking animals through transmitters that beam location data to orbiting satellites — is already a working tool in Kazakhstan's saiga conservation. Wildlife experts explained how the equipment maps saiga movements and helps identify ways to protect the animals during an online event organized by the Global Rewilding Alliance on May 23, 2025.

Alyona Krivosheyeva, conservation director of the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity of Kazakhstan (ACBK), described the group's role at that event. "ACBK was founded in 2004, and during all of this time, it has grown into the largest national biodiversity conservation NGO in Kazakhstan. Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative is one of the biggest initiatives within ACBK with wider national and international partnership," she said.

Why do migration routes matter so much?

Seasonal migration shows exactly why a cross-border agreement makes sense: saigas don't respect administrative or national borders. In late December 2025, large groups of saigas moved into the Aral district of the Kyzylorda Region, drawing public attention. Wildlife officials described the movement as a natural winter migration driven by snow depth and food availability.

Rasul Makhanov, head of the regional branch of the state enterprise Okhotzooprom, explained that saigas from the Kostanai, Aktobe and Ulytau regions move south when deep snow makes it difficult to find food. "They come in search of pasture. This is a natural process," Makhanov told Kazinform.

The numbers involved were substantial. At the time, an estimated 60,000 to 65,000 saigas were in the Syrdarya area, with more than 30,000 concentrated in the Aral district alone.

How many saigas are there now?

Kazakhstan is home to three saiga populations: Ural, Betpak-Dala and Ustyurt. A census conducted in April and May 2025, during the calving season, recorded 3,978,000 animals. The Ural population accounted for 2.3 million, Betpak-Dala for 1.6 million, and Ustyurt for 78,000.

Separately, data reported in April 2025 put the country's total saiga population at a record 4.1 million.

Those figures look healthy, but the recovery remains fragile. Makhanov noted that saiga numbers can fluctuate significantly, with severe winters posing a particular threat. He recalled that a harsh winter in 1992, marked by deep snow, caused extensive saiga deaths and reduced their numbers to an estimated 15,000. A species that climbed from 15,000 to over four million can still be knocked back hard by weather, disease or poaching.

The Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan initiative is aimed at ensuring the long-term conservation of the species, protecting biodiversity and strengthening environmental cooperation in Central Asia. The memorandum is an agreement to cooperate, not yet a detailed program — the reintroduction plan, joint patrols and protected corridors still have to be built. But it commits both governments to treat the saiga as one shared population across one shared steppe.