ENVIRONMENT
Wild horses return to Kazakhstan steppes after 200 years
June 13, 2024 - Przewalski’s horses have returned to the steppes of Kazakhstan after nearly 200 years, as part of an ambitious scheme to reintroduce them to their ancestral homeland.
The 18-hour airlifts of seven Przewalski's horses from Europe to the Central Asian country took place across two operations in early June by the Prague Zoo. Around another 40 are planned for the next five years.
The wild horses, named after Russian explorer Nikolai Przewalski, once roamed the vast steppe grasslands of central Asia, where horses are believed to have been first domesticated about 5,500 years ago.
Przewalski’s horses had disappeared from the wild by the end of the 1960s, but remained in captivity. They have already been reintroduced in China and western Mongolia, where the population now numbers around 1,000.