Kazakhstan's most mischievous satirical blog, Kazaxia [1], is up to its old tricks again, reporting on the saiga [2] antelope that has potentially ruined bookmakers worldwide by predicting the winner of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil with its timeless steppe wisdom. As Kazaxia writes [3]:
A shaman contacted kazaxia about the psychic saiga – it points a horn at one of two lamb bones bearing an etching of the national flags of the competing teams to select the winner. The unnamed saiga predicts that Argentina will triumph over England in the final. Brazil and Germany will be the unlucky losing semi-finalists, with the Germans grabbing third place on penalties.
For the competition’s opening match between Brazil and Croatia the long-nosed antelope refused to select a bone, suggesting the game could be a draw. For more predictions you can follow @psychicsaiga [4] on twitter.
Saigas, which are members of the antelope family, once roamed the Eurasian steppe from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and the Caucasus into Mongolia and Dzungaria. Their numbers are now critically endangered [5] with herds restricted to areas of Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
Rather uncharitably, given that the satirical saiga is out to promote a good cause – saving itself from extinction – @pete_leonard [6] chided [7]:
Psychic Saiga (@psychicsaiga [4]) in Kazakhstan predicts England to be World Cup runners-up http://t.co/HGqqqEfwcx [8] Stupid as well as endangered.
— pete_leonard (@pete_leonard) June 12, 2014 [9]