Mongolia to get rare horses

The military is to transport four rare horses to west Mongolia for the first time as part of long-running efforts by Prague Zoo to help preserve the Przewalski's breed.

A stallion and three mares of the Asian breed - which became extinct in the wild 40 years ago - will travel aboard a CASA transport plane June 14.

The transportation project, which is set to cost several hundred thousand crowns, is being organized to coincide with the zoo's 80th anniversary celebration.

Zookeepers hope the four horses can help revitalize one of three herds of the wild Asian breed being re-introduced in Mongolia.

The herd at the Khomiin Tal Reserve includes nine horses sent from France six years ago, as well as five horses born within the herd.

"This is the first Czech transport of Przewalski's horses to Mongolia," Prague Zoo Director Miroslav Bobek told reporters, adding seven horses had already been sent to grassland reservations in Ukraine and Hungary.

Bobek said the Mongolia project involved extensive advance preparation in a bid to minimize the risks involved for the animals.

The 3-year-old stallion Matyas, 4-year-old mare Lima and 5-year-old mares Kordula and Cassovia are being kept at the zoo's acclimatization center in Dolní Dobřejov, central Bohemia, ahead of the journey.

On the day of the move, veterinarians will vaccinate them, adjust their hooves and give them a tranquillizer before they are driven to Prague-Kbely military airport, where their horse boxes will be transferred to the plane in the company of a vet and a breeding expert.

As well after the 17-hour flight, the horses will need to travel a further 160 miles in an off-road vehicle to get to the reserve, and then spend a period in quarantine.

Bobek stressed that while it was a complicated and dangerous journey, the four young horses were crucial to the future of the Przewalski's population in Mongolia, where they will widen the gene pool and increase the birth rate of the herd, the Czech News Agency reported.

While this is the first time the country has sent live Przewalski's horses to Mongolia, it has been a leading member of international efforts to keep the breed alive for decades.

The animals were first introduced to the Czech Republic in 1923, and in subsequent decades the country gradually became one of the biggest breeders in the world.

More than 200 Przewalski's foals were born at Prague Zoo in the intervening decades in what the zoo says is "the longest unbroken tradition of breeding this species in the world."

"Almost 70 percent of the horses now designed for reintroduction to the wild have got an ancestor from the Prague breed in their lineage," the zoo said in an online statement.

Since 1959, the zoo has been in charge of the international studbook documenting every member of the Przewalski's breed from 1899 to the present day.

The records show that international breeders have managed to revive the population of the breed from just a few dozen in the 1940s to nearly 2,000 today, including around 250 in Mongolian and Chinese reservations.

Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com