Earth Day 2019

Saving the Saiga

Wild male saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) visiting a waterhole at the Stepnoi Sanctuary, Astrakhan Oblast, Russia. Photo credit: Andrey Giljov [CC BY-SA 4.0 ]

By Susan Lieberman
April 21, 2019

Nearly a half century ago, we observed the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Only a year earlier, the Endangered Species Conservation Act had for the first time facilitated the creation of a list of animals “threatened with worldwide extinction” and prohibited their importation without a permit.