Kazakhstan to allow hunting once endangered antelopes

By AFP
May 29, 2025
Saiga antelopes graze on a prairie outside Almaty. —AFP/File
Saiga antelopes graze on a prairie outside Almaty. —AFP/File

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan said on Wednesday it will authorise the hunting of saiga antelopes, once an endangered species that the government says is now threatening farming in the vast Central Asian country.

The country previously backtracked on lifting a hunting ban on the species, recognisable by their long, trunk-like rounded snout.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev had called the antelopes “sacred animals for the Kazakh people”. The saiga was massively poached in the 1990s.