Saving a rare species

According to Prague Zoo, the Central Asian Przewalski’s horse is the very last surviving wild horse species and by the late 1970s it was extinct in the wild.

It is stockily built, smaller, and shorter than its domesticated relatives with a typical height of about 12–14 hands (48–56 inches, 122–142 cm), and the average weight is around 300 kg with the original horses being found in Central Asia.

Breeding for survival

Prague Zoo has been breeding this animal successfully since the 1930s and in 1959 was charged with managing the international studbook for the species and since then has bred over two hundred foals.

It made its first transport of horses it had bred to China in 1988 and in 1992 sent the first of several specimens to Mongolia working with zoos in The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland but due to financial constraints the number of horses returned to Central Asia tailed off

But thanks to the involvement of the Czech Army a total of 18 mares and one stallion were sent to Mongolia between 2011 and 2015 and started breeding.

Kazakhstan to receive eight horses

Now after creating a new large paddock for their horses in 2021, the Prague Zoo director Miroslav Bobek alongside colleagues and a representative of the Czech Military has announced that it will be sending five mares and three stallions to Kazakhstan in June where they will join a small herd created thanks to donations from other zoos.