Wild Horses Return to Kazakh Steppe After 200 Years

Jun 13

Jun 13 Wild Horses Return to Kazakh Steppe After 200 Years

Seven Przewalski's Horses – the last true wild horse in the world – have been returned to their native stomping grounds, Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe. An operation to reintroduce the horses to their natural homeland is the culmination of decades of work by a consortium of zoos and other conservation groups.

“This is an endangered species returning to their ancestral lands, a species which went extinct in the wild in the 1960s, last seen in Mongolia … so it's just marvelous ... a miracle,” Prague Zoo spokesman Filip Mašek tells BBC News.

The Przewalski's Horse is the last wild horse species on the planet, named after Russian explorer Nikolai Przewalski who first identified the species to European scientists in 1879. The species, which emerged from the steppes of Central Asia millennia ago, was driven to near extinction by competing with humans and their livestock, with a few kept in zoos in Munich and Prague.

Descendants of these survivors – six mares and a stallion – have now been reintroduced in Kazakhstan, where they are reportedly doing well. The zoo plans to bring in at least another 40 horses over the next five years.

Key to the return of the horses has been the restoration of huge swaths of the grasslands that once covered much of Central Asia. Other species, such as the saiga – a goat-sized antelope with a distinctive large nose – are also beneficiaries of the conservation efforts. The return of the saiga is “one of the world’s great conservation success stories,” declared Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme. “It is a stellar example of what humanity can do when we act decisively to restore vulnerable ecosystems.”

The conservationists hope to match the success of its Mongolia program, where the reintroduction of 34 horses over the past decade has helped boost the native population to more than 850 animals. The seven newcomers are off to a good start, as they are reportedly already beginning to mate.

“We are still responsible [for] the fact this wild horse disappeared,” Mašek says, “and now we can sort of reverse that, and give it back to nature.”