MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - Wildlife specialists from across the globe have pushed for government programs to protect the population of the Saiga antelope in Russia at an international congress in Moscow.
The 29th congress of the International Union of Game Biologists was held on August 17-22. Some 530 delegates from 40 countries took part in the forum, according to congress president Vladimir Melnikov.
One of the causes of the dramatic reduction in Saiga numbers across post-Soviet territory since 1992 has been an increase in hunting of the antelope as a source of meat, a spokesman for the Russian committee of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program said.
"The smuggling of Saiga horns has also increased in recent years, as the state monopoly on the international horn trade was curtailed," Valery Neronov added.
The Saiga population has suffered heavily as a result of poaching and wide-scale hunting. According to estimates, the European Saiga population is 15,000 to 19,000, while there were about 800,000 in the 1950s.
The next congress will be held in Barcelona in 2011.
