The Opposite End of China || Xinjiang & Northwest China Blog (中国的另一端 || 新疆 & 中国西北博客): Przewalski's Good, Bad, and Ugly News.

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August 27, 2007

Przewalski's Good, Bad, and Ugly News.

The good news...

Six captive-bred Przewalski's horses, an endangered species, have been released into a nature reserve in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The six horses, one male and five females, were released onto the plains of Kamusite, part of the Kelameili Nature Reserve, from the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Center. (Xinhua, 07/08/21)

The bad news...

There are only about 2,500 Przewalski's horses in the world. The horses living in the wild in Xinjiang became extinct in the 1960-70s. (Xinhua, 07/08/21)

And the ugly news.

Two rare Przewalski's horses - a mare and a foal - were knocked down and killed by passing cars in separate incidents on an expressway last week, according to a Xinjiang wild-horse breeding-research centre. (SCMP, 07/08/21)

I hope neither of the dead horses was the Przewalski sponsored by the good guys up at the Fubar in Urumqi.

The funny thing is that the stories appeared in separate newspapers on the same day. Coincidence? I think not. I'm imagining some lazy wild-horse researchers having a conversation by the side of the road...

"Shouldn't we drive in a bit further?"
"Nah, just let them out here, by the side of the road. I want to get back home for Part 339 of Rediscovering the Yangtze River on CCTV-9."
"Yeah, that show is awesome. OK, I'll go back and let out the horses."
Neigh! Screeeeech. Splat!
"Uh oh."

Endangered horses released into nature in NW China
21 August 2007
Xinhua News Agency
(c) Copyright 2007 Xinhua News Agency

URUMQI, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Six captive-bred Przewalski's horses, an endangered species, have been released into a nature reserve in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The six horses, one male and five females, were released onto the plains of Kamusite, part of the Kelameili Nature Reserve, from the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Center.

The male horse was given to the center by a German zoo in 2005 while the five females were born and bred in the center.

The center released a total of 45 horses in two batches in 2001 and 2004 to the nature reserve.

There are only about 2,500 Przewalski's horses in the world. The horses living in the wild in Xinjiang became extinct in the 1960-70s.

The Xinjiang wild horse center opened in 1986 with the import of 18 horses from the United States, Britain and Germany.

The center keeps 290 horses, most of them in captivity. It started to release the horses into a semi-wild environment in 2001.

posted August 27, 2007 at 11:00 AM unofficial Xinjiang time | HaoHao This!

Comments

Episode 314 was my favourite...

The comment above was posted by Simon at August 29, 2007 03:00 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

From the SCMP on 2007.09.17:

XINJIANG - Authorities will build special highway passes, fences and warning signs to help prevent vehicles from killing the world's only surviving wild horse species, the Przewalski's Horse. Cars have already killed four of the animals this month, the Xinjiang Daily reports.

The comment above was posted by michael at September 17, 2007 04:07 PM unofficial Xinjiang time.

First of all I have to say that I really was surprised in a positive way, that you put these news on your blog. It is very important to get the readers of your blog get in touch with nature conservatio issues in Xinjiang. But I have to say, I worked for this project and your ironic style of writing is not acceptable in this case, for us it is a serious threat to the success of the reintroduction project and you can be sure that our Chinese collegous suffer the most. Actually not just two but for horses were killed, two by truck drivers, for the othe rtwo drivers the police is searching for. One of the truck drivers is sentenced to a penalty of 120.000 USD. That is not funny at all. Don´t get me wrong, I like your blog, but this article was a little bit to insensitiv from my point of view.
Oh, the stallion adopted by Fubar, greetings to Manus and Jonathan, is still alive.

The comment above was posted by Norbert at September 23, 2007 04:43 AM unofficial Xinjiang time.