Takhin tal Research Camp, Gobi B Strictly Protected Area, July, 2023.

Lit only by a faint glow on the eastern horizon and the fading light of stars, we hike into the hills at 4am, stumbling on loose sheets of rock which shear away in thin vertical slices under foot. Halfway up we find a narrow, well-worn animal track and we fit our steps to it. As the sun inches above the horizon and the sky blooms in shades of lilac and gold, we discover that the path is filled with hoofprints, khulan and takhi, oval and round, big and tiny. It’s the time of foals in the Gobi.

We soon discover that the path is filled with hoofprints, khulan and takhi, oval and round, big and tiny. It’s the time of foals in the Gobi.

We crest the hill and Dalai, the young ranger-turned-researcher holds up his hand. A narrow stream snakes around the base of the rock far below, forming a small but perfect watering hole, fringed with vivid green—an oasis in an otherwise barren landscape. We settle awkwardly and try to conceal ourselves as best we can, pull our coats around us against the chill, and train our binoculars on the many layers of horizon which begin to appear as the sky lightens. The scrubby steppe cedes to sand hills which give way to layers of mountains receding far into the distance. The immense sky is studded with florid glowing clouds.

At 5:07am, our efforts are rewarded when we see our first takhi.

At 5:07am, our efforts are rewarded when we see our first takhi, coming around the bend, wading through the river. We scramble to a better vantage where we can see several horses, as yet unaware that they are being watched. A mare is lying down in the middle of the stream but gets up and moves quickly out of the water. She has a muddy tide line blackening her belly and legs. Has she noticed us? She moves closer to the others and one by one they lift their heads, freeze for a moment, and move off again.

By 5:13, several of the mares have bunched together. They stop as one to stare at us, then lift their tails and empty their bowels. Our domestic horses do this, too, when startled. Are they clearing out for a run?

Now the stallion who has lingered by the water is also on the move. He’s darker than the mares, almost a ruddy brown, as if tarnished. The whole golden band passes directly below with the stallion at the rear. At this distance we are clearly too much for them. A few of the mares trot back the way they came, ducking for cover behind the rocks as if to put some distance between us.

The trouble all began in the late 19th century, when the Western world finally took note of the takhi…

We can clearly count them now as they begin to move off: 7 mares, a couple of youngsters, a foal, dark like his father, and the stallion who waits behind. He drops and rolls in a sandy place and turns to watch us again, head high and attentive. One mare appears to take the lead. She turns a quick circle, gestures with a swing of head and neck, and they turn away from the water and the lush grazing, disappearing into a land of perfect camouflage.

We’ve come to the last place on earth where horses can live wild as they have lived for thousands of years, where they can forage freely, form social bonds of their own choosing, be the agents of themselves with enough range and habitat to sustain their numbers in the hundreds, perhaps thousands (that’s the dream) and still we interfere despite our best intentions. By our very presence, our curiosity, our desire to witness wild, we interrupt them.

At least here in the Gobi, they can get away.

“The trouble all began in the late 19th century, when the Western world finally took note of the takhi. Nikolai Przewalski, a Polish-born explorer serving as a colonel in the Russian army, “discovered” the horses during an 1878 expedition to the Mongolian-Chinese frontier. Naturally, Przewalski named the horse after himself, and when he returned to the West, word quickly spread among zoos, adventurers, and curio collectors about the mysterious wild horses.

“Soon, trappers began arriving in Mongolia. Like Peter S. Beagle’s King Haggard rounding up every last unicorn, the trappers began picking Mongolia and China clean of their Przewalski’s horses. Traders hired locals to chase the herds until the foals were too exhausted to keep up, and then killed any protective stallions or mares that tried to defend their young. Sometimes, the traders returned to Europe with nearly 100 foals, most of which soon died from trauma or malnutrition.

“In the 1940s and 1950s, pressures on the horses mounted as conflicts broke out over China’s recognition of Outer Mongolia’s independence, and Russia and China deployed armies into the areas where the remaining horses lived. Half a century’s worth of hunting pressure and intrusions turned out to be too much for the species to bear. In 1969, locals spotted a lone stallion roaming in the Gobi desert. After that, the takhi were never again seen in their homeland. The world’s wild horses were gone.” From: Nuwer, R. Saving the World’s Only Wild Horses. Nova (2015).

In 1992, the first “rewilded” takhi were reintroduced to their ancestral home in the newly established Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area of the Dzungarian Gobi desert. Although born in captivity in zoos and ecological reserves in Europe and the Americas, the takhi quickly adapted to life on the desert steppe. Living alongside khulan (Asiatic wild ass), goitered gazelles and many other native species they soon reclaimed their place in the ecosystem they have evolved to inhabit.

Bands of horses flow over the landscape with synchronous movement triggered by communication not visible to the human eye.

The desert is active at night, but we don’t see it—lizards, scorpions, tiny jerboa—there are wolves and leopards out there, too. The takhi have every right to be skittish and vigilant. In the first year after reintroduction, every single foal born was eaten by a predator. After that first devastating season, the takhi quickly learned how to protect their young while fending for themselves in the Gobi.

The sun has set behind black mountains. Rivers of blazing salmon-coloured clouds flow from the horizon into the darkening dome of sky. Soon, stars will litter the atmospheric ocean that swirls above us, and my husband will sit out all night watching the skies while I dream of bands of golden horses running away.

We’ve come to the Gobi with Learning Wild, an organization that takes equine enthusiasts out into the natural world to observe and study free-living and wild horses. Brainchild of equine podiatrist Bonny Mealand and equine behaviour researcher Dr Emily Keason, Learning Wild’s immersive courses take participants around the world, from the Outer Hebrides to Spain, Zimbabwe and Mongolia to observe equids in their natural habitats. Learning Wild courses offer insight into equine ethology — who horses are when they’re at home — and how we can bring this knowledge back to improve the lives of our own domestic horses.

Communication between individuals and groups is subtle and profound, but rarely aggressive.

Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, with a focus on animals living in natural conditions outside the confines of domesticity.

According to Bonny, “observing horses in the wild, studying them living life on their own terms, helps us move away from flawed interpretations. It provides a depth of understanding which can positively inform how we handle, train and care for them.” We observe wild horses to gain insight into who horses are — how they have evolved and their unique adaptive behaviour: what the late veterinary ethicist Bernard Rollin described as their telos…

The telos of an animal is the set of distinctive traits and powers that allow them to function and thrive in the environments they are adapted to. A good life for horses is one that allows them to fulfil or satisfy their telos, a life that suits their characteristic nature.

When observing Takhi, even from a distance, we begin to see patterns emerge. We know that pressures from predation and food scarcity draw horses together into multi-generational family bands, where responsibility is shared between adult members increasing their collective sense of safety, their ability to seek food, water and shelter and to pass on this knowledge to their offspring. In the Gobi, we also observe multiple bands drawing together without conflict, which suggests safety in numbers.

Communication between individuals and groups is subtle and profound but rarely aggressive. Like shoals of fish, bands of horses flow over the landscape with synchronous movement triggered by communication rarely visible to the human eye.

We observe wild horses to gain insight into who horses are — how they have evolved and their unique adaptive behaviour.

In the Gobi, foals wean naturally, and mares stay close with their offspring for years. One afternoon, we observe a mare with foal at foot, grazing companionably alongside an older sibling. The rangers confirm this as normal within a family band. Horses are free to negotiate the spaces they inhabit and, more often than not, two or three individuals can be found standing or grazing quite close together. A bachelor band of nine horses fans out across the steppe in groups of three, offering shade, nose-to-tail fly relief and mutual grooming. We can’t know what companionship means to the takhi, but we can observe it as a prevalent and ubiquitous phenomenon.

It would not be possible to visit the Gobi B Strictly Protected Area without the support of Takhin tal Research Camp and the International Takhi Group (ITG), the advocacy organisation that supports Takhin tal’s work.

It’s easy to swell with emotion witnessing horses living this freely, but we don’t observe wild horses simply because they are beautiful and compelling. We observe these horses to better understand them — because when we know better, we can do better.

One afternoon at Takhin tal, our guides lead us on a hike through a small ravine. We hope to see takhi here, but the grassy meadow before us is empty. The relentless heat is cooled by the water, and we flop down on mossy grass studded with tiny wildflowers and hoofprints. I spy a few black strands of tail hair caught in a woody shrub. Shoes off, we wade in the deliciously cool water. Only a few days ago we were a group of strangers. Now we are fast friends with a shared appreciation for the takhi, once extinct and now living wild again in this magnificent place, a land as ancient as their own DNA.

As we come down a small track, our guide points to some flat-topped rocks which form natural steppingstones across the stream. Gun Tamga, he says, and I know: the last truly wild takhi, a stallion, was sited here at this very spot, in 1969, completely alone. Despite the intense heat of the day, I feel a chill shudder through me.

In 1992, the first takhi were released into the Gobi. Successive reintroductions over many years have brought the current population to approximately 415 individuals.

The Takhi had survived a violent history of slaughter and capture, but they couldn’t withstand habitat degradation, poaching or human conflict. By the mid-20th century, only a few hundred survived in captivity in zoos. Lax breeding practices and inadequate housing introduced diseases like Ataxia and fertility rates plummeted. Building on a stud book established by Dr Erna Mohr in 1959, two intrepid Dutch enthusiasts, Jan Boeman and Annette Groeneveld reconstructed the pedigree of every captive takhi in Europe and the Americas. Their advocacy shone a light on the plight of captive takhi at a time when zoos were coming under scrutiny and change for welfare’s sake was on the horizon.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, several European zoos and conservancy organisations established reserves where careful breeding and “re-wilding” of the captive takhi would occur, where the horses had sufficient space and forage to run together in natal bands. By the late 1980s fertility rates were high enough to consider reintroduction and in 1992, the first takhi were released into the Gobi. Successive reintroductions over many years have brought the current population to approximately 415 individuals.

Members of Learning Wild Mongolia with the Director and staff of Takhin tal Research Camp.

In the Mongolian language, Takhi means spirit, or worthy of worship. Their reintroduction in 1992 coincided with the emergence of the new independent Mongolian government, a parliamentary democracy. For the people of the Gobi, takhi represent a reawakening of national and cultural identity and of spiritual traditions long suppressed by external powers. One night in camp, a ranger spoke from his heart. “Some people believe in God,” he told us. “Mongolian people believe in the horse.”

It would not be possible to visit the Gobi B Strictly Protected Area without the support of Takhin tal Research Camp and the International Takhi Group (ITG), the advocacy organisation that supports Takhin tal’s work. ITG works closely with the Mongolian government to ensure better outcomes for animals, people and conservation.

Takhin tal employs 21 rangers, all of them members of the local nomadic herding community, who are expertly trained to track, observe and count the takhi and protect their habitat. Their employment not only raises awareness of the importance of conservation among local people but provides significant financial security in a region hard hit by economic instability and the effects of climate change.

Takhin tal is a vivid example of a successful initiative transforming the lives of people and animals in a landscape hard hit by these pressures.

There are 9,000 square kilometres of protected land in the Gobi B Strictly Protected Area, and no fences to stop the takhi from straying beyond the boundaries of the reserve. Summers are increasingly dry, and winters bitter cold. Desertification is swallowing up more and more arable steppe every year.

But these sturdy golden desert dwellers are gradually beating the odds.

Links:

Further reading:

  • Williams, P. The Remarkable Comeback of the Przewalski’s Horse. Smithsonian (2016). https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/remarkable-comeback-przewalski-horse-180961142/\
  • Nuwer, R. Saving the World’s Only Wild Horses. Nova (2015). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/przewalskis-horse
  • Turghan, M.A. et al. An Update on Status and Conservation of the Przewalski’s Horse (Equus ferus przewalskii): Captive Breeding and Reintroduction Projects. Animals (2022). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9686875/
  • Goto, H. et al, “A Massively Parallel Sequencing Approach Uncovers Ancient Origins and High Genetic Variability of Endangered Przewalski’s Horses,” Genome Biology and Evolution (2011). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3194890/
  • Taylor, W.T.T., Barron-Ortiz, C.I. Rethinking the evidence for early horse domestication at Botai. Sci Rep 11, 7440 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86832-9
  • A case for UNESCO world heritage designation for the Gobi in the Journal of Asia-Pacific Biodiversity, vol 15 (2022), pgs.500-517. It is available as an open access article from Science Direct https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2287884X22000905