The Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center in northwest China has successfully bred 290 heads of Przewalski's Horse, the largest number in captivity in Asia.

 

Przewalski's Horse is the only surviving species of wild horse. They originally inhabited the Junggar basin in Xinjiang, as well as the areas bordering Gansu Province and Inner Mongolia.

 

Hunting and poaching wiped the last wild communities out in the 1970s. Now only 700 members are left, living in captivity in Germany, Britain and the United States.

 

China's State Forestry Administration reintroduced 18 Przewalski's Horses to the Junggar basin in Xinjiang in 1986. The Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center now boasts one of the highest breeding survival rates for Przewalski's horses in the world.

 

Przewalski's Horse is considered biologically significant because its preserves the original genes of the horse before they were bred in captivity. 

 

(CRI September 18, 2006)