Random question - has anyone been to Mongolia recently and seen the Przewalski's horses?

asmp

asmp

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Daughter is off on a riding holiday next month to Mongolia and she is hoping to go on an excursion afterwards to see the Przewalski's horses but she can’t find any online. Has anyone does this recently and how did you go about booking it?
 
I went to Kustaai National Park in 2008 (overnight minibus excursion from Ulaanbaatar, staying in tourist ger at Kustaai with cafeteria catering). Well worth the trip. They are such unusual horses to see in the wild, very stocky bodies and massive heads. Cave paintings come to life! It was organised by John (Zavkhan Trekking) at the end of our Altai holiday. (We'd flown from UK to Ulaanbaatar for one night in hotel, then domestic flight to Bayan-Olgi for the ride, then domestic flight back to Ulaanbaatar, then the minibus to Kustaai, then back to Ulaanbaatar to fly home). Higfhly recommend any of the Zavkhan trips.

Watching Nick Knowles on Channel 5 these past five consecutive Friday evenings (Gobi desert) has brought it all back to me. Absolute trip of a lifetime.
 
Have never ridden there but we did go to Whipsnade zoo years ago when our grand daughters were little and we saw them there. Am having trouble with pic size but they did not look rideable. And what I didnt realise then, they look similar to the British Museum carving of the ice age horse.
 
Skib said:
Have never ridden there but we did go to Whipsnade zoo years ago when our grand daughters were little and we saw them there. Am having trouble with pic size but they did not look rideable. And what I didnt realise then, they look similar to the British Museum carving of the ice age horse.
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Hasn’t Putin tried to get one riding, or more biddable or something? I don’t mean for himself, but in his earlier leadership quite a lot of money was put into their breeding, sort of flagship Russian project.
Most research agrees they are feral! Certainly look pre historic!
 
Skib said:
Have never ridden there but we did go to Whipsnade zoo years ago when our grand daughters were little and we saw them there. Am having trouble with pic size but they did not look rideable. And what I didnt realise then, they look similar to the British Museum carving of the ice age horse.
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I saw them at Whipsnade when I was about 11 on a school outing. 1960/61?. Never forgotten them.
Good luck on your trip OP
 
Skib said:
I have resized the pic three times using Adobe Photoshop and H&H is still saying it is too big to upload. I will try once again
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Tucking in!
Looking similar to pictures of wild tarpan, I kind of remembered Przewalskis with a lot less daylight beneath, quite low to the ground. Be amazing to see them actually on the steppes!
Hope OP’s daughter has the best time!
 
Skib nice photo but not the Przewalskis . Many years ago I saw them at the Highland wildlife park in 1982 I took a picture of a mare and foal. I should it to my friend and said it was Kea and Warrior my mare and foal that I bred. She said which field is that and totally believed they were mine even though she knew them well being on the yard next door. I had bred my dun mare to a Fjord and they would have fitted right in at the park.
 
Hobo2 said:
Skib nice photo but not the Przewalskis .
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They were labelled Przewalskis when we visited in 2011 and are still listed Przewalskis on the Whipsnade Zoo website.

I should add that Whipsnade zoo which is a branch of London Zoo is part of a world beeding progamme to conserve Przewalskis horses, so I dont think they have got it wrong.
 
Skid oh they just look so different as to most pictures in books and to the ones in the Highlands but I guess they know what they are doing :).
 
There was an exhibition on "The Ice Age" at the British Museum.The catalogue shows the bone carved with horses similar to Przewalskis. It was not on show last time we went to the BM. But the catalogue mentions the similarity and has a pic of a dark brown Przewalski horse.
The only other ancient horse I have is a fridge magnet reproducing a carved horse head from caves in the Dordogne
 
I have just read the very long Wikipedia article (original in Russian) on Przewalskis horses. (One can right click Wikipedia articles to translate to another language.)
It seems that I was wrong in thinking they were related to the Ice Age horses. It seems that DNA analysis shows that they are not.
 
Exasperated said:
Hasn’t Putin tried to get one riding, or more biddable or something? I don’t mean for himself, but in his earlier leadership quite a lot of money was put into their breeding, sort of flagship Russian project.
Most research agrees they are feral! Certainly look pre historic!
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Przewalski horses are more than feral, they're essentially a separate species to domestic horses. They have an extra pair of chromosomes than domestic horses (and all other feral horses, that descend from domesticated horses). Despite this genetic difference, Przewalski horses and domestic horses can still breed together and produce viable offspring that are also able to reproduce (unlike, say, mules), so they are in danger of disappearance via hybridisation if this is allowed to happen.
The Przewalski horse was extinct in the wild by the mid 1900s and has been reintroduced from zoo populations of less than 20 animals plus one domestic horse for outcross to avoid severe inbreeding. There are several breeding programs such as in the South of France that still breed them in no intervention areas (basically survival of the fittest, and if they can't survive the South of France, then there's little point paying to ship them to Mongolia) and then reintroduce some individuals back to Mongolia.
Oh and Przewalski horses are about as rideable as a zebra.
 
Skib said:
They were labelled Przewalskis when we visited in 2011 and are still listed Przewalskis on the Whipsnade Zoo website.

I should add that Whipsnade zoo which is a branch of London Zoo is part of a world beeding progamme to conserve Przewalskis horses, so I dont think they have got it wrong.
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Apologies Skib. Those look far more donkey-like, not sure what went on with their enclosure labelling, but they don't look like any Przewalskis that I've seen 😬 got to see some very close at a zoo in Italy, and they were pretty much always the first animals I went to see at Marcel. Przewalskis are much more stocky/heavier set and their ears are definitely much shorter than those in your image.
 
Jinx94 said:
Apologies Skib. Those look far more donkey-like, not sure what went on with their enclosure labelling, but they don't look like any Przewalskis that I've seen 😬 got to see some very close at a zoo in Italy, and they were pretty much always the first animals I went to see at Marcel. Przewalskis are much more stocky/heavier set and their ears are definitely much shorter than those in your image.
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I agree it looks donkey like.

Przewalski’s Horse, Equus ferus przewalskii, description, habitat and life cycle - DesertUSA

Przewalski's horse is the last of the world's truly wild horses, a designation it earned by always resisting any attempt at training.
www.desertusa.com
 
Skib said:
They were labelled Przewalskis when we visited in 2011 and are still listed Przewalskis on the Whipsnade Zoo website.

I should add that Whipsnade zoo which is a branch of London Zoo is part of a world beeding progamme to conserve Przewalskis horses, so I dont think they have got it wrong.
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Whisnapde absolutely do have them, but your photo isn't one.


@asmp - the riding holiday organiser may well know how best to do a visit :)
 
Jinx94 said:
Took me a while to track them down, but pretty confident that those are onagers (asiatic wild ass) 🙂
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Jinx94 said:
Took me a while to track them down, but pretty confident that those are onagers (asiatic wild ass) 🙂
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I think you may be right, tarpan was what came to mind - but from pictures not actually seen.
Putin probably didn’t get far with gentling them, then!
However, in nineteenth century, a pair of zebra were driven in London, belonged to an eccentric aristocrat, there are photos as well as accounts of this, too.
In the 70s and 80s, my parents spent a lot of time in east Africa, and at least one of the bush trekking operations routinely used zebroids for both riding and pack animals. These are horse / zebra cross, infertile, bad tempered, but very tough indeed. Look a bit like stripy, large, bay mules, slightly rounded ears, Mother said they would jog on for hours and would attack any jackal that entered their corral.
 
Gloi said:
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There are plenty of photos of the German colonial forces experimenting with zebra as pack, draft and ridden animals.

The thinking behind it was that horses were susceptible to diseases (especially those spread by tsetse fly) whereas zebra were resistant. Zebra-horse crosses were also tried.

And a few Europeans had zebra in harness, (I've seen photos of singles, pairs, threes or sixes). One of the Rothschilds regularly drive a zebra-pulled gig in London.
 
rabatsa said:
There is a post somewhere on the forums about a gene that made horses more tractable, it sounds like P horses do not have this gene.
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Zebras (and presumably Przewalski's horses) also have much larger amygdalas than horses do, which is why they're more prone to fight/flight than domestic horses are.

Skib said:
Have never ridden there but we did go to Whipsnade zoo years ago when our grand daughters were little and we saw them there. Am having trouble with pic size but they did not look rideable. And what I didnt realise then, they look similar to the British Museum carving of the ice age horse.
Click to expand...
Whipsnade held Persian onagers (the animal in your photo) till the mid 2010s, as well as Przewalski's horses, so that may be why you've muddled the two.
 
There are folks in the US who've broken zebras to ride (the most famous video) but all these 'domestic zebras' are separated from their mothers as foals, as, without hand-rearing, they never become tame enough to handle and work like a horse.

I have a Country Life article written by a fellow who broke a zebra to play polo. To acquire the animal in the first place, they drove a lorry alongside its herd in the wild until it tired enough that they could lasso it; pulled on the lasso till it toppled over; tied its legs together; and threw it in the back of the lorry. After it refused to eat or drink for three days, they put it in a crush as it kicked and bit to defend itself - "I have not seen any animal in a crush fight the way Zeb" did - blindfolded it after much effort, eventually got tack on it, and kept riding it and beating it with a whip until it gave up the fight, finally making it 'rideable'. It is the epitome of "breaking" in of an animal.

Apologises for putting a downer on the thread, but, since reading that article, I haven't been able to look at these stories of zebra 'taming' without thinking of what those poor animals went through in the name of human arrogance and ambition.
 
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