Take a deer鈥檚 body, attach a camel鈥檚 head, add a tapir鈥檚 snout, and you have a saiga鈥擟entral Asia鈥檚 odd-ball antelope with the enormous schnoz. Unfortunately, these animals are as endangered as they are strange looking. The problem is over-hunting. Now, according to a 菊花视频 (WCS) study, the saiga鈥檚 migration routes are in jeopardy as well.

Conservationists tracked saiga with GPS collars in Mongolia and discovered a 鈥渕igration bottleneck鈥濃�攁 narrow corridor of habitat that connects two populations. Local people herding livestock and increased traffic from trucks and motorcycles are pinching the saiga鈥檚 three-mile-wide corridor closed.

鈥淟ike other species of the steppes and deserts, saiga have avoided extinction by being able to migrate long distances as their habitat changed over time,鈥� said Dr. Joel Berger, a WCS conservationist and professor at the University of Montana. 鈥淕iven the uncertainty of how global climate change might affect specific regions, and how and where species might persist, prudent conservation strategies must take into account the movements of highly mobile species like saiga.鈥� The Mongolian government, which participated in the study, has already expressed interest in protecting the migration corridor.

Saiga once roamed in Alaska and the Yukon but vanished in North America after the last Ice Age. Today, they inhabit only isolated pockets of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kalmykia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Numbering an estimated one million animals just 20 years ago, the population has plummeted by 95 percent, largely due to poaching for horns used in traditional Chinese medicines and competition with livestock.

Standing less than two feet at the shoulder and weighing about 50 pounds, the small antelope is best known for its large nose. The function of the saiga鈥檚 unusual proboscis is not clear, but it may warm or filter air during Mongolia鈥檚 frigid winters and notorious dust storms.