Our herd of Przewalski's horses has, for the second year running, grown in size. The addition of four new foals, two females and two males, all born from April through to July, now bring our entire herd to twelve. The new additions have been named Gurav, Dorov, Tav and Zurgaa, which mean three, four, five and six in Mongolian. They join last year’s foals Neg (one) and Khoyer (two).

We have been involved in re-introducing Przewalski's horses back into their native homeland at Takhin Tal, Mongolia, as well as at other locations throughout Europe including Cevenne National Park, France, Hortobágy National Park, Hungary and Eelmoor Marsh here in Hampshire. This summer two Przewalski's horse colts arrived at Eelmoor Marsh from Woburn Safari Park to help with grazing management at this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

The Przewalski's horse is the only truly wild horse remaining in the world, although the last confirmed sighting of a Przewalski’s horse in their native Mongolia (excluding reintroductions) was in 1968.

The Przewalski's horse was reassessed by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) last year and following many years of captive breeding and reintroductions in Mongolia, they have successfully bred in the wild and the first wild born foals have now bred themselves. For this reason the species has now been downgraded from “Exctinct in the wild” to "critically endangered”. This is a massive success for the zoo world.

23rd September 2009