PRZEWALKI HORSE

We thought they were saved

An episode from the series EXTINCTIONS / SAVED FROM EXTINCTION

Synopsis

On a mountainous steppe in Mongolia, 2 horses with striped legs, eyes placed high, long ears, and sturdy necks frolic and rear up. One of them is a stallion. They are Przewalski’s horses, the last truly wild horses in the world. Tens of thousands of years ago, they featured in prehistoric cave paintings. In the ’70s, the species disappeared from the wild, and in the ’90s, the Przewalski’s horse was reintroduced in 3 natural parks in Mongolia.

The horses face harsh winters, predation, and crossbreeding with domestic horses in these remote places. What if the solution lay in another type of reintroduction?

In a reserve in France, the horses have been reintroduced alongside with bison and deer. The project is based on the interactions between these ancient European species.