East Meets West: Przewalski's Wild Horses

Zhang Hefan: Why did the "rebirth" of the Przewalski's wild horse become a cultural symbol of the centuries-old interaction between China and the West?

The Przewalski's wild horse is listed as endangered on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and there are currently more than 2,000 of them worldwide, mainly in more than 30 countries, including China, Mongolia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Belgium. The Przewalski's wild horse travelled from China to Europe over a hundred years ago and returned to its native range a century later. What has been the journey from discovery to extinction in the wild, and from relocation and conservation, the 'Return of Wild Horses', and the reproduction of populations to the present-day 'reintroduction'? What are the lessons for biodiversity conservation?

The 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was recently held in Yunnan, China, and this year also marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Centre (hereinafter referred to as the "Wild Horse Centre") and the 20th anniversary of the reintroduction of Przewalski's wild horses. The success of the reintroduction of wild horses is not only a reflection of the importance China attaches to the construction of ecological civilisation, but also an example of international mutual assistance in saving endangered species, said Zhang Hefan, a professor-level senior engineer at the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Centre, who has been engaged in wild horse conservation research for nearly 30 years, in an exclusive interview with East Meets West of the China News Service. Furthermore, the rebuilding of wild horse populations will profoundly impact further promoting the conservation of desert ecosystems and maintaining global biodiversity.

As the world's first recorded case, the Przewalski's wild horse twins born in Xinjiang's Kalamaili Nature Reserve have grown up. Photo by Zhang Hefan

China News Service: The Przewalski's wild horse, known as a "living fossil", has travelled from the east to the west and returned to its native range over the past century. What was the hardship of reintroducing the wild horses?

Zhang Hefan: The Przewalski's wild horse is listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and is known worldwide as a "living fossil". Since the disappearance of the tarpan from Ukraine in 1876, the Przewalski's wild horse has been the only surviving wild horse in the world.

In 1890, German explorers captured 52 wild foals from the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang and transported them to Germany, where 28 survived and 13 of them successfully bred offspring.

In the mid-20th century, the main distribution of Przewalski's wild horses was restricted to the Junggar Basin in Xinjiang, China, and Khovd in Mongolia. No evidence of Przewalski's wild horses in the wild was obtained in the early 1980s after many scientific expeditions in China.

In the meantime, Przewalski's wild horses were scattered in zoos, private hands and sanctuaries in the Soviet Union, the United States, West Germany, East Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, with only 385 horses in the world at the time.

As a result of long periods in captivity, the wild horses have lost their good genes in the wild, while their reproductive capacity has deteriorated and genetic diseases have increased, putting them at risk of extinction on earth and causing international concern. This led to the establishment of the Wild Horse Conservation Management Organisation, which established the Global Wild Horse Management Programme to preserve over 90% of the genetic diversity of existing wild horses and reintroduce them to their native environment.

In October 1978, at the first meeting of the International Wild Horse Foundation in The Hague, in the Netherlands, the Chinese government responded positively and took on the mission to save this endangered species. The former Ministry of Forestry of China signed agreements with the San Diego Zoo in the USA and the Hellabrunn Zoo in Germany to reintroduce the animals.

In January 1985, China launched the 'Return of Wild Horse' programme and, after investigations, argumentation, and site selections by experts and scholars, a wild horse centre was established in Jimsar County, Xinjiang, in the following year.

In early March 2012, the staff fed the Przewalski's wild horses with forage at a wild horse reintroduction site in Xinjiang's Kalamaili Mountain Nature Reserve. Photo by Liu Xin, China News Service

From 1985 to 2005, the Wild Horse Centre introduced 24 wild horses from the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States in five batches. Since 1990, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration and Gansu Endangered Animal Protection Centre have brought in 18 wild horses from the United States and Germany. The John Aspinall Wildlife Park in the United Kingdom donated 10 wild horses to China in 1992, and they arrived at the National Anxi Extremely Arid Desert Nature Reserve in Gansu in 1997.

China News Service: What is the status of the Przewalski's wild horses after their return to their homeland?

Zhang Hefan: After 35 years of research and practice in the areas of wild horse husbandry, breeding, disease prevention and control, behavioural monitoring, physiology and ecology, and reintroduction, the wild horses in captivity have successfully survived the tasks of finding food and water, and natural enemy defence in the wild, and have reached their expected goals in terms of wild trait recovery, breeding, nutrition, family formation, population structure, environmental quality, survival status, overwintering, and enemy defence.

Chinese wild horse conservation experts have figured out a set of practical rewilding technical routes and programmes and have developed a five-step soft-reintroduction programme of "adaptive feeding - captive breeding - semi-natural enclosure experiments - natural enclosure experiments - natural wild population". In 2001, the wild horse reintroduction programme was first launched in Xinjiang, and in 2003, wild horses were successfully bred in the wild and formed natural herds in 2004. The reintroduction population of wild horses has achieved restorative growth and is progressing towards a free-living wild population.

By the end of 2020, the Wild Horse Centre had successfully bred more than 760 wild horses over six generations, and now has 484 wild horses, including 274 from the reintroduction population, 113 from the semi-natural enclosure population, and 97 from the captive breeding population. It has developed into the world's largest professional wild horse breeding and research base. 140 wild horses have been reintroduced into the wild in 19 batches over the past 20 years. At present, China's wild horse population is the largest globally, contributing to the protection of endangered animals worldwide.

Wild horses galloping through the Kalamaili snowfields. Photo by Zhang Hefan

China News Service: How do you understand the symbol of the ecological civilisations of the East and West, as a global effort to rescue the Przewalski's wild horses?

Zhang Hefan: What China's wild horse rescue efforts have achieved today is thanks to the concerted efforts and cooperation of international colleagues and friends. From this perspective, the Przewalski's wild horse has no national boundaries and can be seen as a cultural symbol that runs through the ecological civilisations of East and West.

Since its establishment, the Wild Horse Centre has reported the annual births of wild horses to the International Wild Horse Organisation to include them in the international wild horse genealogy book, achieving international and scientific management of the genealogy file. During this time, there has been a constant stream of domestic and international experts and scholars visiting the centre. According to incomplete statistics, there have been over 100 visits or collaborations with foreign experts from Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Mongolia, Russia, and Australia. The Wild Horse Centre has conducted occasional breeding stock exchanges and technical cooperation with research units and organisations such as the Cologne Zoo in Germany, the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in the United States, the Gobi B Reserve in Mongolia, and the Prague Zoo in the Czech Republic.

In 1989, Christine Oswald, a friend from West Germany, gave the Wild Horse Centre a set of solar-powered electric fences when she visited the Centre. In 2005, the Cologne Zoo in Germany donated six stallions to us and provided liquid nitrogen cold branding technology to improve the Wild Horse Centre's ability to identify wild horses by their natural characteristics. In 2007, US experts donated radio satellite collars and put them on reintroduced wild horses to enable scientific monitoring of their movements. In 2012, China sent four stallions to Mongolia, the first time China has exported breeding stock abroad.

In the past two years, the Wild Horse Centre has also reached an agreement with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the National Zoo of the United States on artificial insemination. Their world's first artificial insemination technology for wild horses created in 2013 is currently the most advanced way to solve the inbreeding problem of wild horses internationally. After introducing and absorbing it, we can serve the endangered hoofed species in China and the world.

International cooperation and technology exchange has played an essential role in China's efforts to artificially breed the population of wild horses, reintroduce them into nature, and promote the recovery and growth of their wild population.

Competition for water sources. Photo by Zhang Hefan

China News Service: The Przewalski's wild horse, which was extinct in the wild in China, has been "reborn" and its population has jumped to the highest in the world. What experience do you think can this example offer the world in terms of biodiversity conservation and even ecological protection?

Zhang Hefan: Biodiversity is a matter of human well-being. Protecting any species, including the Przewalski's wild horse, contributes to the world's biodiversity.

Reintroduction is an important and effective tool for the conservation of endangered species, and a major scientific research experiment, with no experience to follow. The Chinese government has organised a multidisciplinary team of experts to carry out scientific research and rewilding experiments to improve the reproduction survival rate of wild horses in the Gobi, accumulating a large amount of scientific information and valuable experience to contribute to the implementation of the global integration of wild horse conservation and the wild horse rewilding and genetic diversity conservation proposed in the Global Wild Horse Management Action Plan.

In September 2007, the "Concern for Przewalski's Wild Horses and Building a Friendly Environment" campaign was launched in Urumqi, Xinjiang, with volunteers distributing pamphlets and explaining to call on more people to join the campaign to protect wildlife. Photo by Liu Xin, China News Service

China's technical achievements in improving the reproduction survival rate of wild horses and its rewilding programme have provided a proven "Chinese Solution" for reintroducing other endangered species in the world, thus contributing Chinese power and Chinese wisdom to the building of a global community of life.

The reintroduction of wild horses to nature from their extinction in the wild is not only an achievement of species conservation, but also a reflection of the importance China attaches to ecological construction and ecological civilisation. The re-establishment of the wild horse population in the wild will profoundly impact further promoting the conservation of desert ecosystems and maintaining global biodiversity.

Profile of the Interviewee:
Zhang Hefan is a professor-level senior engineer at the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Centre and a member of the China Science Writers Association. He has been working on the conservation of the Przewalski's wild horse, a first-class national protected animal, for nearly 30 years, and has written more than 400,000 words of notes and published more than a million words. Among them, The Return of Wild Horses to Kalameili won the Ninth Best Works Award for the Construction of Spiritual Civilisation of the Communist Youth League; The Call of Wildness - Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Return of Wild Horses to Their Homeland won the Gold Award for the Fifth Science Works in Xinjiang; The Journal of the Return of Wild Horses in Xinjiang won the First Prize for the Seventh Liang Xi Science Works; Wild Horses Went Home won the Silver Award of the Fifth Excellent Science Works Awards of the China Science Writers Association; The Wild Horse's Homeland was selected to The Recommended Catalogue of Key Publications for the Village Library in 2020 by the National Press and Publication Administration.