Then it recovered slowly and reached 3,200 in 2008 and about 8,000 in 2010. However, in late 2016, the livestock-transmitted contagious Peste des Petits Ruminants virus seriously affected the saiga population, causing near-catastrophic herd depletion by over 50 per cent, to some 4,500-5,000 head, which could now justify assigning the species CR status on a regional scale also. However, accurate data on the size of the saiga antelope population in 2017 is not yet available.