Apple Valley, Minnesota – The endangered wild Asian horse foal is thriving thanks to unlikely heroes.
Marat, a Przewalski horse, was born at the Minnesota Zoo nearly two months ago and soon became seriously ill. He survived thanks to intensive care, but his mother rejected him when he returned.
His future seemed harsh until Alice, a domestic pony from the Americas who recently lost her newborn, accepted him as her own. The veterinarian says this is the first time this type of surrogacy has been tested on a wild Asian horse, and his caregivers were not happy.
The zoo staff meant “brave man” and he chose the name Marat as he had to be brave from such a young age.
Przewalski is considered the remaining true wild horse breed. They were declared extinct in the wild in the 1960s, with only a few people surviving at the zoo. However, they have since been reestablished in Mongolia and Chinese steppes, some in Russia and Ukraine. With less than 2,000 of these exist today, each foal is important for the survival of the species.
“Being one of the truly wild horses left in the world is behaviourally different,” said Kurt Heisman, director of animal care at the zoo. They were never truly tamed, he said, and they were shorter and stricter than the familiar breeds.
Dr. Annie Rivas, director of the zoo’s animal health department, said Marat was born with several limb problems, making it difficult for him to stand up straight.
“And he was struggling to catch up with Mama in the pack, so he spent a lot of time lying on the ground and unfortunately developed bacterial sepsis.
The University of Minnesota Horse Intensive Care Unit nursing him from his pneumonia and wounds. However, it was not uncommon for Nady, his first mom, to refuse to bring him back.
“It left us with, ‘What are you going to do with this foal?”,” Rivas said. “We managed to save him with our hands, but we’re not the best one to teach them how to become a horse, especially how to become a wild horse.”
Luckily they found Alice, a calm mare who was still grieving their foal, but soon raised Marat and he began to allow him to nurse.
“It was really like the perfect fairytale ending… They just tied that way,” Rivas said.
Integrating Marat into the complex social hierarchy of wild herds will be the next challenge, she said, but Alice is helping Marat learn how to act with other horses. They will probably be together for a few more months. They want him to join the zoo’s adult Prutzwarski flock before he gets too old.
“He’s definitely a wild horse,” Rivas said. “He’s already a stallion, so he has a big personality. But he’s a little more wilder than you would expect to have a family horse foal at this point in his life, and he’s trying to show that he’s the boss.
