The poor Indian antelope, with its majestic corkscrew antlers, only makes news when starring in tragedies. A death at the gun of movie stars in 1998, or a fatal leap from a bridge on the Solapur-Pune-Mangalwedha National Highway last week. To naturists, this charismatic, gregarious animal that is unique only to the Indian subcontinent, is a subject of wonder and investigation; a flagship species that denotes the ecological health of its habitat.

Naturists say this is just the beginning of the end. The blackbuck is not on the endangered animals list yet. Ananya Jana, a phylogenetics researcher, who based her PhD on the herd animal, estimates that about 30,000 to 35,000 of them exist in the wild currently. “The IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature] survey of 2017,” says the Hyderabad-based scientist, “estimated there were above 25,000 blackbucks in India, and an upward trend was estimated.”