Saiga unicorn

It is not often that you can read about the fate of a certain individual from a herd of many-thousands of saigas. But this short story is about one such unusual and freedom-loving animal. In an early May morning in 2017, near a small lake formed by an artesian well, saiga calves were being born, they were cared for and guarded not only by their mothers but also by the staff of the Stepnoi Reserve. It is impossible to tell how exciting it is to watch how from day to day, from month to month, the saigas grow stronger, and the males grow mature, growing lyre-shaped transparent horns.

Having settled comfortably in a small observation shlter near the lake, and installing camera traps for monitoring, zoologists have been observing what is happening at the watering place for a long time. It seemed that they themselves became members of this noisey herd, recognizing practically every animal “by sight”, especially males, of which there were not so many that year. Their attention was attracted by one male – a large one with an already considerable length of horns, who, despite his young age, behaved aggressively – like the future leader of a harem. He would only become one next year, which did not prevent this bully from interfering in adult affairs. Fierce fights are common between males, first of all during the rutting period, and they, at times, end in injury and even death of animals. As a result of one of these “showdowns” our saiga, broke off a horn, but, as it turned out later, our “bully” not did not suffer, but continued to live and for more than three years proudly showed-off his one-horned head.

It was this saiga who was captured at the watering hole by the cameras of outstanding animal photographers Yevgeny Polonsky in 2018, Andrey Gilev in the fall of 2018, Valery Maleev in the winter of 2019, as well as a student from Great Britain Babette Fourier in the summer of 2019. The footage from camera traps, in which the image of a one-horned male appears regularly, does not give an opportunity to doubt that this is one and the same animal. And in August 2020, the image of our “bully” surrounded by his relatives appeared on the web-site of the Black Lands Reserve – at a significant distance from the place where he was born. The male born in 2017 on the territory of the Stepnoi Reserve near a small lake formed from an artesian well is alive, he feels great, as you can see.