Xinjiang Release Wild Horses back to Nature: Conforming to the "Call of the Wild"

Urumqi, China News Service, September 29 Title: Xinjiang Release Wild Horses to Return to Nature: Conforming to the "Call of the Wild"

Author Sun Tingwen Zhang Hefan

The Przewalski's wild horses ran happily to the field. Photo by Zhang Hefan

A few days ago, the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center implemented the sixteenth batch of wild horse release experiments, and the 15 Przewalski's wild horses that were packed in boxes ran into the wild happily at the moment people opened the box door. The 15 Przewalski's wild horses were placed in a 1,500-acre enclosure for temporary breeding, and according to the adaptation to the recovery situation, the batch of Przewalski's wild horses was tentatively scheduled to be wild in mid-to-late October, when they will truly return to nature to thrive.

The Karamaili Mountain Ungulate Wildlife Nature Reserve (referred to as Kashan Nature Reserve) is a wildlife type nature reserve that mainly protects a variety of precious and endangered ungulate wildlife and their habitats, such as Przewalski's wild horses, Mongolian wild donkeys, goose-throated antelope and other precious and endangered ungulate wildlife and their habitats, located in the Junggar Basin in northern Xinjiang.

The ancestors of these wild horses once lived in the vast arid desert grasslands of the Junggar Basin, which were wild. However, in the 1970s, the Xinjiang Przewalski's wild horse became extinct. All of the Przewalski's wild horses in the world today are the descendants of 28 Przewalski's wild horses that migrated to Europe more than 100 years ago. After the wild release, these Przewalski's wild horses, like the dog "Buck" written by the American writer Jack London in "The Call of the Wild", conform to the call of their wild nature and live the life of a primitive animal.

Ma Xinping, director of the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center, said that since its establishment, on the basis of introducing 24 wild horses from Britain, Germany and the United States, the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding Research Center has carried out work around the research experiments of breed preservation, group expansion and rewilding, and has bred 6 generations of 666 wild horses, with an average survival rate of more than 90%, ranking first in the world, and has now developed into the largest wild horse breeding base in Asia.

Chu Hongjun, director of the Kashan Conservation Area Management Center, said that in order to cope with the impact of extreme weather on the survival of Przewalski's wild horses in the wild, the Kashan Nature Reserve has adopted methods such as regular cleaning of water sources, establishment of artificial water sources and artificial replenishment in the dry season, and establishment of forage depots for winter feeding, so that Przewalski's wild horses can adapt to the natural environment faster.

It is reported that by the time of this wild release, the wild population of wild horses in Xinjiang has increased from 206 to 221, and the wild population has also increased from 18 to 20.

Xinjiang is rich in wildlife resources, in addition to Przewalski's wild horses, there are Tibetan wild donkeys, Tibetan antelopes, snow leopards, brown bears, white-shouldered eagles, Tibetan snow chickens, wild camels and so on.

Recently, the Xinjiang Lop Nur Wild Camel National Nature Reserve Management Bureau issued a notice prohibiting human activities such as tourism and exploration in the Lop Nur Wild Camel Nature Reserve, aiming to reduce the interference of human activities on the normal living habits of wild camels and protect the wild nature of wild camels.

Due to the excessive grazing and logging in the past, the vegetation was destroyed, the ecological environment deteriorated for a while, and the Mongolian wild donkey slowly disappeared from the big grass beach in Qitai County, Xinjiang. Today, through more than 20 years of artificial sand control afforestation and ecological afforestation, Dacaotan has formed a green barrier of 500,000 mu, and now a large number of wild animals such as Mongolian wild donkeys and goose-throated antelopes have returned one after another.

While restoring the ecology to attract wild donkeys to migrate back, Qitai County is also making efforts to continue the wild donkey population through artificial breeding. The county's Mongolian wild donkey domestication and breeding base began with two wild donkeys, and after 12 years of hard work, there are now 50 Mongolian wild donkeys. Some of them are now three years old and have reached the release time, and according to the plan, they will be released back into nature. (End)