Rare Przewalski Horses

The Calgary Zoo has a ranch just south of the city and once a year we get the chance to visit. The ranch is a 320-acre captive breeding facility at DeWinton, and is not open to the public. It also serves as a Zoo quarantine and holding area for everything from elk to zebras. There is also a wonderful Whooping Crane breeding program. Many thanks again to Crane Keeper, Dwight Knapik, for showing us around for the afternoon on October 8th and filling us with interesting information.

"The horses at the Calgary Zoo Ranch ain’t never been rode – and they ain’t never going to be. They’re Przewalski horses, the world’s only truly wild breed, and the Zoo’s mandate is to keep them wild. Also known as Asian horses, Mongolian Wild horses or Takhi, they were native to Asia and became extinct in the wild. Their captive breeding is now monitored under a worldwide Species Survival Plan, an international program that controls the breeding of most zoo animals today. All the estimated 1,500 Przewalskis today are descended from 13 ancestors captured in Mongolia during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Today, at least 60 Przewalski horses live on their own at Hustain Huruu, a Mongolian steppe area. Przewalskis are virtually untameable, suspicious and very difficult to manage compared to modern domesticated breeds." From article by Tyler Trafford in Canadian Country Cowboy magazine.

www.canadiancowboy.ca/features/the_zoo_ranch.html