Summer School: The Last Wild Horses
Let’s talk Przewalski’s horses.
By Claudia Feh, CC BY-SA 4.0
First off, let’s address the elephant in the room. Last month, two different TikTok accounts claimed they rescued two Przewalski’s horses at two different auctions in two different states. The posts went viral, and the account holders named the rescued horses Fiona and Shrek. Then the muck well and truly hit the fan. Some people accused the account owners of being outright liars, while others said they should immediately relinquish the animals to authorities.
For what it’s worth, it is illegal to own endangered animals without special permits, but proving Fiona and Shrek are 100% Przewalski’s will take not only DNA tests, but also chromosome testing as well. More on that later.
But first…
What is a Przewalski’s horse?
It is spelled P-R-Z-E-W-A-L-S-K-I, but it is pronounced shuh-val-ski. In Mongolia they’re called takhi, and in Kazakhstan they’re called the kertagy or the kerkulan. What’s important to remember is this is an entirely different species from the domesticated horse. They’re not an ancestor of the domesticated horse; they’re just a different part of the horse family tree entirely.
Copyright: IAEA Imagebank Photo Credit: Dana Sacchetti/IAEA. Creative Commons.
How are they different from domesticated horses?
Przewalski’s horses (Equus ferus przewalskii) have 66 chromosomes, while domestic horses have 64. Where it gets complicated is that they can produce fertile hybrids with the domestic horse (65 chromosomes) that are able to breed and produce offspring. The hybrids look like Przewalski’s horses, and the only way to identify them is through chromosome testing.
Why are they endangered?
A combination of hunting and poaching from humans and environmental changes all led to the Przewalski’s decline in the wild as early as the late 1800s. Around that same time, rich Europeans were running rampant collecting wild animals. One example is Carl Hagenbeck, a German merchant who spent his entire life collecting and selling exotic animals to zoos and circuses.
In “The Remarkable Comeback of the Przewalski’s Horse,” writer Paige Williams describes what happened next: “Hagenbeck, by his own count, took at least 52 foals. Expeditions to catch the takhi lasted for about 20 years. When capturing the foals, hunters often killed the stallions, which then jeopardized natural breeding. In the meantime, deadly winters killed thousands of horses, and overgrazed pastures left others starved. Mongolia’s last group of takhi was spotted around 1969. Then, as far as anyone could tell, the creature ceased to exist in the wild.”
By the 1960s, Przewalski’s horses were extinct in the wild with only 30 to 40 left in captivity. Every Przewalski’s today are descended from just over a dozen animals that were capable of reproducing.
In case you’re wondering, Hagenback also collected and exhibited human beings including Nubians and Labrador Inuit. After a tour that included Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Krefeld and Paris, all eight Inuit “recruited” for the tour contracted smallpox and died.
“Vaska”, the first Przewalski’s horse from the wild to have reached Europe and the only of such who could be used for riding; photo from Askania Nova. Caught in 1899, he travelled to Europe via Kobdo (Mongolia). In 1900 he reached Askania Nova, a year later he was given to the Russian tsar and placed in Tsarskoye Selo, and after a few years given back to baron F. E. Falz-Fein to Askania Nova.
What’s being done to help?
Zoos worldwide are deeply invested in rehabilitating the population. According to Smithsonian magazine, “By 1990, the population had reached nearly a thousand, with 961 P-horses living in over 129 institutions in 33 countries on four continents—enough to try reintroducing the takhi to the wild.”
That number is over 2,000 today with just over 1,000 living successfully in the wild after being reintroduced to Mongolia, China, Russia, and, most recently, Kazakhstan. Interestingly, one of the most successful reintroduction spots is in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
On top of traditional breeding programs, Przewalski’s have also been successfully cloned as reported by Horse Nation last summer.
A Przewalski’s horse being released in Mongolia in 2017.
Why does it matter?
Aside from the fact that every species deserves to live, Przewalksi’s are crucial for the health of the steppe ecosystem. Grass needs to be grazed and, without wild horses, the steppe suffers. Grazing helps keep the grass short, which helps prevent wildfires. It also promotes carbon sequestration. In addition, grazing allows the small, little animals that burrow access to the ground. Last but not least, dung fertilizes the soil.
Group of Takhi (Equus Przewalski) at Hustai, 2011. Creative Commons.
Go riding.
Amanda Uechi Ronan is an author, equestrian, and wanna be race car driver. Follow her on Instagram @amanda_uechi_ronan.
