Captive Breeding Programme and International Network

Captive breeding has long been part of the wider discussion about saiga conservation, but keeping and breeding saigas successfully in specialist centres is technically difficult. Different institutions had built up valuable experience, yet much of that knowledge remained dispersed between breeding centres, zoos, researchers, and conservation organisations in different countries.

SCA’s role was to help bring that expertise together and connect captive breeding more clearly with the conservation needs of the species.
On 28-29 August 2017, SCA, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ecology and Evolution, and San Diego Zoo hosted a major two-day international workshop in Moscow. The meeting brought together representatives from the saiga range states, China, the United States, and Europe, alongside Russian government officials, European and American zoos, and international conservation organisations including IFAW, WCS, and WWF.

The workshop was deliberately strategic. Participants exchanged practical experience of keeping and breeding saigas, considered the role that specialist breeding centres could play in species conservation, and worked towards a more coordinated approach to ex-situ conservation. Plans were also developed for closer collaboration with European and American zoos.

One of the most important outcomes was a commitment to create an international network of captive-breeding professionals, allowing people working with saigas in different institutions to continue sharing knowledge, problems, and best practice after the Moscow meeting. The network began under the coordination of Jeff Holland of the Centre for the Conservation of Tropical Ungulates.

For SCA, the importance of this work was not simply increasing the number of saigas in captivity. It was about ensuring that specialist centres could learn from one another and that captive breeding was considered as part of a wider conservation strategy, informed by science and connected to work being carried out across the species’ range.

Project partners
The workshop was organised with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ecology and Evolution and San Diego Zoo, with participation from the Centre for the Conservation of Tropical Ungulates, specialist breeding centres across the saiga range, European and American zoos, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, IFAW, WCS, WWF, and other members of the international saiga conservation community.