A rare Przewalski mare bred at the Prague Zoo and transported to the endangered wild horse breed’s ancestral home of Mongolia last year has given birth to a foal — and two others are pregnant, with one ready to give birth at any moment.
“Approaching the first anniversary of the independent Czech transport of Przewalski horses to Mongolia, we received the nicest gift,” Prague Zoo director Miroslav Bobek said. “Cassovia gave birth while Lima and Kordula are pregnant.”
The last Przewalski horses in the wild became extinct in the 1960s, and the three herds currently in the wild in Mongolia all stem from reintroduction projects. Also known as the Dzungarian Horse and the Mongolian Wild Horse, it is the last breed of wild horse in existence.
As of last summer, the herd in Mongolia’s Hustai Nuruu reserve numbered 24, of which five were born in the wild and the rest introduced by a Dutch project in 2000 (including a mare from Prague Zoo called Babeta) and a French project in 2005.
Przewalski horses have been bred in the Czech lands since 1923, two years after the first stallion, Ali, was brought here by zoologist and hippologist František Bílek, and mated with a mare named Minku. He gave the pair to the Prague Zoo in 1932, since which time well over 150 have been born in zoos here.
