A quarter century-old project to repopulate the vast steppes of Mongolia with wild horses was kept alive as four animals made the long trip back to their ancestral home from Prague Zoo.
Driven to extinction in their homeland in the 1960s, the Przewalski’s horses only survived in captivity before efforts began to re-introduce them to the arid desert and mountains along Mongolia’s border with China.
“The return of the wild horses here is very important for the Khovd Province and for all the Mongols, we are very grateful for it,” said Khovd Province Governor Damdin Galsandondog while the horses explored their new home.
Mongolia’s rich traditional culture is closely linked to horses; they always played an important role in daily life, the arts, and traditional stories.
Zoos organized the first transport to Mongolia of the stocky, majestic beasts back in 1992.
For the past decade, the Prague Zoo has been the only one continuing that tradition; as a result, their breeding program holds the studbook of a species whose ancestors—unlike other free-roaming horses like the mustangs in the United States—were never domesticated.
The zoo completed its seventh transport last week, releasing four mares born in captivity in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Denmark back into the Gobi Desert. They will spend the next year in an enclosed area to acclimatize before being freed.
“All the mares are looking very well, they are not hobbling, they are calm, eating hay and trying to test the taste of the new grass,” Prague Zoo veterinarian, Roman Vodicka, said a few days following their release.
Prague has reintroduced 27 horses in total over the years and officials estimate around 190 are now back in the wild in the Gobi B park, where the most recent arrivals were sent.
[Reuters]
