Rare wild horses back on Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe after being saved from extinction

For the first time in at least 200 years, wild Przewalski's horses have returned to Kazakhstan’s Golden Steppe.

These are the last truly wild horses left on Earth whose habitats were wiped out by farming and other human activity.

Now, Prague Zoo has restored them to their original home in the plains of Central Asia.

In early June, a Czech Army CASA aircraft landed in central Kazakhstan with four of these endangered animals on board. Tessa, Wespe, Umbra and Sary took an 18 hour flight from Berlin and a seven-hour truck ride to reach their new home.

An earlier flight brought a stallion, Zorro, and two mares, Zeta II and Ypsilonka, bringing the total number to seven.

Two large paddocks totalling 80 hectares in size have been set up in Altyn Dala - the Kazakh name for the Golden Steppe. Here the horses will acclimatise to their new environment under the close supervision of researchers for a year.

Before being released into the wild, they need to demonstrate that they are resistant to frost and parasites and can find food under the heavy snow that falls on the Golden Steppe in winter.

Przewalski's horses are considered the last truly wild horse left on the planet as other species like the American Mustang are descended from domesticated animals. The species were once common across the vast steppes of Central Asia.

By the time they were discovered by Russian geographer Nikolai Przewalski in 1879, their habitat had been reduced to a small area of western Mongolia. Competition from livestock, human activity and changes to their environment had all but wiped them out.

After the Second World War, their numbers were so low it became clear they could become extinct in the wild.

In 1959, a conference took place to work out ways of