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AUTHOR: Robert McCracken Peck
TITLE: Home Again!
SOURCE: International Wildlife 29 no5 36-41 S/O 1999
The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction
of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited.
BAATAR, a Mongolian herdsman who uses only his first name, is an accomplished raconteur. In his country, where
electricity is hard to come by and radios, televisions and the Internet are unavailable to all but a few, the ability to
entertain with songs and stories is a talent prized above all others. When Baatar joins friends or strangers for a
communal bowl of airag (fermented mare's milk), the story he most loves to tell, and the newest in his repertoire, is a
tale that, like many Mongolian stories, revolves around a horse.
It begins with Baatar looking out of his felt-and-canvas ger, or yurt, one morning two summers ago and seeing a
remarkable sight: There, grazing happily among the 40 domestic horses that provide his family with food, income and
transport was a smaller, stockier, stiff-maned horse with a pale tan coat and a dark stripe down the middle of its back.
In a country where there are no fences and more than half of the 2.5 million people lead a semi-nomadic existence
centered on horses, sheep, goats and cattle, an occasional stray animal is not unusual. But Baatar knew at once that
this was no ordinary stray.
The creature that had joined Baatar's herd was a rare Przewalski's horse. Known locally as takhi, the species is
believed to be the distant ancestor of all domestic horses. It was once so close to extinction that many scientists had
written it off as a viable species, but today, after decades of intense effort by conservationists, wildlife biologists and
zookeepers from more than 25 countries, the world's oldest and only truly wild horse is once again galloping across the
grassy steppes of Mongolia.
The miraculous survival of Przewalski's horse, let alone its dramatic comeback in the wild, is a story that defies the
bookmaker's odds. Once abundant throughout Asia and Europe (where early humans frequently painted its distinctive
shape on the walls of caves), the horse began its decline in numbers and reduction in range at the end of the last Ice
Age, about 10,000 years ago.
At that time, warming climatic conditions changed the horse's favored steppelike grasslands to forests in much of
Europe and Russia, shrinking the areas where it could most effectively feed and reproduce. Human pressure further
reduced its range, until, by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, only a small area of steppe at the edge of the Gobi
Desert in northern China and southern Mongolia provided the conditions required for the species' survival.
So isolated were the natural refuges supporting the remaining herds that Western scientists did not know that the
species existed until 1878 when the Polish explorer Colonel Nikolai Przewalski (1839-1888) was given the skull and
skin of a previously undescribed horse by a group of local hunters during a Russian expedition to Mongolia. Przewalski
presented the speciments to the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg. The species was
declared new to science and named in his honor just three years later.
As zoos rushed to collect examples of the rare horse and local herdsmen continued to shoot the animals for food, its
numbers dwindled, until the wild population could no longer sustain itself. By the late 1960s, Przewalski's horse was
effectively extinct in the wild.
By then, despite the deaths of many horses at the hands of inept collectors, enough animals had been captured from
the wild to establish a number of captive breeding populations in European, Russian and American zoos. Even these
came perilously close to disappearing, however. The devastation of World War II reduced the world's zoo population of
Przewalski's horses to just three stallions and nine mares by 1945. It is from this stock, and one wild mare, that all of
the Przewalski's horses existing in the world today descend--including the individual in Baatar's herd.
Reintroducing Przewalski's horses to the wild has been the dream of conservation biologists ever since the last
horses disappeared from Mongolia's Gobi Desert in 1968, but most believed the chances of such a project succeeding
were minimal. "Reintroducing captive-bred animals to so unforgiving a habitat was considered logistically and
biologically difficult," explains Jan Vegter, project manager for the Foundation Reserves for the Przewalski Horse
(FRPH), a private organization which, with financial support from the Dutch government, is helping the Mongolian
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Association for the Conservation of Nature and the Environment to manage the reintroduction project. "Combine the
challenge of breeding these horses with the complexities of international politics," adds Vegter, "and you have a project
with a far greater chance for failure than for success."
But in 1992, after years of careful preparation, 13 captive-bred Przewalski's horses were flown to Mongolia from
Holland and the Ukraine (one mare died en route). At the Ulan Bator airport, a team of Mongolian scientists, their Dutch
counterparts and a small crowd of enthusiastic well-wishers were waiting to escort the wooden-crated animals to the
recently established 150,000-acre Hustain Nuruu Steppe Reserve, now a national park, about 100 miles southwest of
the capital.
There the horses were kept under close observation in three 100-acre, semi-wild enclosures for the next two years.
This time was needed, according to Vegter, to ensure the horses' safety and help ease their transition from their
European breeding reserves to the harsh living conditions of Mongolia's steppes--where winter temperatures can drop
to minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit, and packs of wolves share the rugged terrain. "The situation was new for the horses
and new for us," explains Vegter. "The horses needed time to form strong social bonds and to adjust to the habitat, and
we needed time to work with the local people."
Initially skeptical Mongolian officials were won over to the reintroduction project when FRPH agreed to support the
local economy by hiring displaced herdsmen as rangers. "They provide daily reports on the movements of the horses
and help to patrol the reserve," says Vegter.
On June 24, 1994, as the ranking Buddhist lama for Mongolia chanted a blessing from the highest mountain in the
reserve, and a crowd of cheering neighbors looked on, the fence gates were opened and 12 khaki-colored horses--two
stallions and their harems--galloped into the wild. With far less fanfare, a second group of seven horses was introduced
to another part of the reserve in 1995 and a third, smaller group in 1997.
In May of last year, 20 more horses were transported to Mongolia from the semi-reserves in Holland where they had
been raised. This was the largest introduction to date and reflects a growing confidence that the project is working and
that the horses are capable of dealing with the challenges of life on the Mongolian steppes.
"All of the wild herds are doing extremely well," reports John de Meij, 33, a former project assistant at Hustain Nuruu,
who, like Jan Vegter, lived in one of the reserve's 13 gers for six to eight months each year. "They have adapted
remarkably well to the climate, to the wild food available and to the complex social patterns that characterize the
species," he says.
So well have they adjusted, in fact, that the first generation of horses born in the wild have begun to break off from
their natal herds to seek companionship elsewhere. As they reach maturity after two or three years, takhi naturally
leave their families to avoid inbreeding. It was one such mare that Baatar found fraternizing with his own horses in
1997. "She was clearly trying to find another Przewalski's harem to join," explains Vegter, "and in earlier times she
might have found one, but for now, there are no wild herds close enough for her to reach without assistance. [There
are several captive herds in southern Mongolia more than 1,000 miles away from Hustain Huruu.] She no doubt saw
Baatar's domestic herd as an inferior but viable substitute."
Word of Baatar's discovery soon reached the scientists at Hustain Nuruu, who had noted the disappearance of the
restless mare but did not know where to look for her. With Baatar's help, they were able to tranquilize the errant takhi
and return her to the reserve 40 miles away. Happily, she was able to join a small bachelor herd there and
subsequently became pregnant by one of the takhi stallions. When it arrived last year, her foal became the first
second-generation Przewalski's horse to be born in the wild.
That the foal was later killed by wolves was "very sad, but part of the natural order of things," according to de Meij.
"We consider both the successful birth and the natural death of the young horse all part of the reintroduction process."
To de Meij and other conservation biologists, the success of the program is encouraging, but to Mongolians, it has
symbolic importance that far outweighs the technical triumphs of successful breeding, transportation and refuge
management. In a country where horses are seen as universal symbols of freedom, independence and domestic
tranquility, the return of a wild horse species that roamed the steppes in the days of Genghis Khan is a source of great
national pride.
Unlike the wild horses that live in parts of North America and Europe, which are really feral domestic horses, the
Przewalski's horse as a species has never been domesticated. Far more aggressive than its domestic counterpart, the
recently reintroduced wild horses demonstrate a complex variety of social behaviors that have survived generations of
captive breeding.
A Przewalski's horse differs from a domestic horse in a number of physical ways as well: Its skull is heavier and its
jaw more thickly shaped; its mane stands upright and lacks the forelock found on domestic horses; and its tail extends
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a short distance from its body before broadening to a plume-like flyswatter. Still more fundamental differences exist on
a genetic level: Even though the two species are able to interbreed, DNA analysis shows the Przewalski's horse to
have 66 chromosomes while the domestic horse has 64.
As the recent experience with Baatar's herd demonstrates, with so few wild horses available, there is the inevitable
risk of crossbreeding and diluting the purity of the Przewalski strain. On the other hand, keeping so rare a species
"pure" presents problems of a different kind.
"The health of any species depends in large measure on the variability of its gene pool," observes Ronald Keiper of
Pennsylvania State University, who has studied the behavior of captive herds of Przewalski's horses in Holland and
Germany for more than a decade. "With so small a pool to start with, careful breeding is essential for success."
The Przewalski's horse was saved from potentially disastrous inbreeding, according to Keiper, by the farsighted
efforts of Ema Mohr and Jiri Volf of the Zoological Garden in Prague, who began a detailed studbook for the species in
1960. By chronicling the lineage of every individual, breeders were able to reduce the inbreeding that could cause
congenital defects in the animals. When the Prague Zoo published the first of its annual genealogical reports, there
were 59 Przewalski's horses in captivity worldwide, and their situation was declared "catastrophic" by the zoologists
involved with the species' long-term preservation. Today, with more than 1,400 animals in existence and computerized
records detailing their relationships, the species' survival is far more secure.
While European zoos have been at the center of the Prze-walski's horse breeding efforts, a number of American
zoos also have played a role in saving the species. The Bronx Zoo, the Catskill Game Farm (near Kingston, New York)
and the San Diego Zoo have breeding herds which can be seen by the public. The National Zoo's Conservation and
Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia, also has a herd, but it is not open for public view.
Meanwhile, in Mongolia, the reintroduction of horses to the wild continues with success. "Our long-term goal is to
have a free, self-sustaining population of 300 to 400 Przewalski's horses living in the Hustain Nuruu reserve," says Jan
Vegter. "We plan to release six more groups of five to eight horses each over the next five years." Parallel programs in
the Dzungarian Desert in China and Mongolia's Gobi National Park hold promise for an even broader distribution of the
Przewalski's horse in the decades to come.
Ironically, one of the greatest challenges now facing the Hustain Nuruu herds is the extent of their success. Since
the first straying mare episode, there have been several other incidents of wild horses leaving the reserve. As more
and more wild-born horses come to maturity, they will want to break away and form herds of their own. Where they will
go and how they can be discouraged from joining domestic herds like Baatar's is a serious question. "No one has ever
been able to observe and record this natural distribution behavior in the wild," says Vegter. "We are learning as we go."
Vegter and his Mongolian colleagues look forward to the day when such wandering takhis will find enough protected
land and enough members of their own species to form new herds without the guidance of humans. They believe that
such a day is possible. With the goodwill of Mongolia's people and the support of its newly democratized government,
wild Przewalski's horses have already made a remarkable recovery. Their future, if not assured, is today more
promising than at any time in living memory--all of which makes for good stories over airag in gers like Baatar's.
ADDED MATERIAL
Robert McCracken Peck is a fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia which is conducting
long-term biological studies in Mongolia. On five separate trips, he has traveled to all but four of Mongolia's aimags
(provinces). John de Meij, for whom photography is a hobby, was a project assistant at Hustain Nuruu National Park
when Peck visited.
Robert McCracken Peck
Photographs by John de Meij
STALLIONS SPAR in Mongolia's Hustain Nuruu National Park, where the Przewalski's horse is making a comeback in
the wild. The species vanished in Mongolia, but since 1992 it has returned--built back from stocks bred in foreign zoos.
Khaan, on the left, was released with his harem in 1994. His adversary is named Bayan.
AHERD goes free. A second group of horses from Europe arrived in Hustain Nuruu in 1994 and was released the next
year. The horses were kept in a fenced area to be acclimated to each other and to the harsh steppe climate. The photo
was taken at the time of release when the fence to the enclosure was first opened. Known locally as takhi, the species
is believed to be the distant ancestor of all domestic horses.
NOMADIC HERDSMEN gather at festivals each summer for horse-racing, wrestling and archery competitions.
Horsemanship is highly valued in the culture. To win over skeptical Mongolian officials, scientists heading the
reintroduction project agreed to hire displaced herdsmen as rangers. Mongolians such as these provide daily reports
on movements of the horses and also help to patrol the reserve. ROBERT M. PECK
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RELEASED directly from a crate after arriving in Mongolia in 1996, the mare Meta heads for the wild. Her group had
been together in a semi-reserve in Europe and was socially well-enough integrated that the horses could be freed
immediately. The animals are descended from a captive stock that itself nearly disappeared. In 1945, the population in
zoos consisted of just three stallions and nine mares.
AT HOME on the range, the first horses released on the steppes of Hustain Nuruu graze on the rolling landscape after
an early dusting of snow. This photo was taken as observations were made of each animal following the release. The
reintroduced horses have adapted well, and all were pronounced in good condition. The goal is to have 300 to 400
living on the reserve in a population that is self-sustaining.
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