Przewalski’s horses
Brief history of breeding the Przewalski’s horses in the Prague zoo
The Prague breeding of the Przewalski’s horses can be proud of the longest unbroken tradition of breeding this species in the world.
The first Przewalski’s horses were brought to the then Czechoslovakia from Halle by professor František Bílek in 1923. The original trio was placed to the school farm of the Department of breeding biology of the Czech technical institute (the institute of agriculture did not exist at that time) in Netluky, nowadays part of Uhøínìves, near Prague. One mare died out soon and there were only the stallion Ali and the mare Minka left. Between the years of 1928-1931 they had 4 foals. Professor Bílek exchanged three out of the four with the zoological gardens abroad for other animals that were to go to the zoological garden in Troja that was being constructed at that time. Ali and Minka were moved to the Prague zoological garden from Netluky on 1st August 1932, based on the decision of Ministry of education and national enlightenment. The first foal in the zoo was the filly Heluš that was born on the 21st march 1933. The bodies of Ali and Minka were preserved after their death and they can be seen in the museum of hippology in the castle Slatiòany.
Prague gradually became one of the biggest breeders of wild horses all over the world and after 1945 it was one of the two zoological gardens where the breeding herds remained alive.
In 1959 the Prague zoo organised the 1st international symposium on saving the Przewalski’s horses and we were appointed to keep the international studbook. It is also the most extensive studbook as it contains the data on 4650 individual animals bred and born since 1899. As the first international studbook in the world it was transformed into the Internet version. At the end of 2005 there were 1860 Przewalski’s horses living all over the world, out of these not even 300 hundred living in the wild in the Mongolian and Chinese reservations. The Prague zoo has sent to Mongolia for reintroduction into the wild altogether 4 horses, 1 stallion and 3 mares. Other 7 horses left for the steppe reservations in the Ukraine and Hungary. Almost 70 % of the horses designed for the reintroduction to the wild have got in their lineage an ancestor from the Prague breed. From 1928 to 2005, 231 foals were born in the Prague zoological garden.
