Wild horse species return to Kazakh steppes

Sub: Environment

Sec: Species in news

Context:

After a long flight from Prague, the release of three Przewalski horses into the Kazakh steppe- the native habitat of this endangered species.

About the project:

Organizations Involved:

The project is run by the Prague and Berlin zoos.
The Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity in Kazakhstan (Albert Salemgareyev) is also involved.

Objective:

The aim is to preserve the Przewalski horse, an endangered species with a common ancestry with modern domestic horses but genetically different.

First Release:

The first three horses, named Zorro, Ypsilonka, and Zeta II, arrived earlier in the month.
Four more horses arrived from Berlin and were released in the afternoon.
Initial observation will take place in the Golden Steppe nature reserve.

Przewalski horses:

Also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered horse originally native to the steppes of Central Asia.
It is named after the Russian geographer and explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky.
Once extinct in the wild, since the 1990s it has been reintroduced to its native habitat in Mongolia in the Khustain Nuruu National Park, Takhin Tal Nature Reserve, and Khomiin Tal, as well as several other locales in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
The Przewalski’s horse is stockily built, smaller, and shorter than its domesticated relatives.
They have a dun coat with pangaré features and often have dark primitive markings.
Przewalski horses are one of the world’s last breeds of wild horses.
They can withstand harsh winters, like those in Kazakhstan where temperatures can drop below -30°C.
There are now 2,000 Przewalski horses worldwide, mainly in China, Mongolia, France, Russia, and the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
The Chernobyl population was introduced in 1998 and has grown to 210.

Other horse breeds:

Other Conservation Efforts in Kazakhstan:

The Saiga antelope, another endangered species, has seen its population grow to about two million due to conservation efforts by Kazakh authorities and NGOs.
Saiga antelope:
- The saiga antelope is a species of antelope which during antiquity inhabited a vast area of the Eurasian steppe, spanning the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the northwest and Caucasus in the southwest into Mongolia in the northeast and Dzungaria in the southeast.
- Today, the dominant subspecies (S. t. tatarica) only occurs in Kalmykia and Astrakhan Oblast of Russia and in the Ural, Ustyurt and Betpak-Dala regions of Kazakhstan.
- It is regionally extinct in Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, China and southwestern Mongolia.
- The Mongolian subspecies (S. t. mongolica) occurs only in western Mongolia.

Kazakh steppe:

The Kazakh Steppe, also called the Great Dala, is a vast region of open grassland in Central Asia, covering areas in northern Kazakhstan and adjacent areas of Russia.
It lies east of the Pontic–Caspian steppe and west of the Emin Valley steppe, with which it forms the central and western part of the Eurasian steppe.
The Kazakh Steppe is an ecoregion of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome in the Palearctic realm.
The steppe extends from the east of the Caspian Depression and north of the Aral Sea, all the way to the Altai Mountains.
It is the largest dry steppe region on earth.
The region has a cold semi-arid, continental climate.

Source: TH