The Princess Royal
The story of the Kaimaniwa wild horses is one that was always going to be emotionally charged, heavily debated and in the end hard to find a solution that was going to satisfy ALL parties ALL of the time for ALL time. The continuum is not merely a fine one, it’s long as well.
I’m stepping back from introducing you to the Kaimanawa Princess today as I originally mentioned, I apologise but it’s because I feel there’s a critical step in our understanding that needs to be negotiated first. That step has to do with comparing apples with apples or in this case, not putting the cart before the horse. I came back around on myself to ask myself the most fundamental of questions. What is a wild horse?
The difficulty with the Kaimanawa picture is that any solutions to dealing with all the issues seemed to get lost in the debate and volatility existing between the groups involved. All of them with their own agendas and all of them determined to keep their best interests to the fore. And the long term solution for the wild horses? What about that? But, back to THAT question.
What is a wild horse? To appreciate the breadth of the question I’m going to make a wide arm sweep of it with my limited knowledge of equine history. I’m just warning you in advance! Now, “some horses that live wild are not really wild horses in the zoological sense yet on the other hand, a wild horse sub-species in a zoo or in private hands may not be wild at all, which is to say, they may not show wild behaviour.
Several sub-species of wild horses still exist: The Mongolian or Asiatic wild horse, Equus ferus przewalskii; the Exmoor pony of Southwest England a prototype of the wild horse ancestral to our domestic pony breeds and the Sorraia horse zebro resp, encebro of former times. These are considered sub-species because with all three, hybrids were possible where habitats would overlap and those hybrids were fertile.
Of these three sub-species of wild horses, two have a continuous history of living wild or semi-wild, or at least part of their population: the Exmoor and the Sorraia. While the Sorraia has no history as a domestic breed, part of the Exmoor population had been bred in domestication for a long time while the rest lived wild, or semi-wild.
The Mongolian wild horse has survived exclusively in zoos and was reintroduced in its homeland after generations of captive breeding, so it does not have an uninterrupted history as a wild-living horse. However, all along, it was treated in captivity like a wild species and not domesticated meaning it was not purposely altered through selective breeding. Of the above-mentioned wild horses, plus the extinct East European Tarpan, only one sub-species was recognised early enough as a wild horse to get scientifically analysed and described with the required deposition of a specimen at an appropriate Institute to receive a zoological name: Equus ferus przewalskii, the Mongolian wild horse.
In every other aspect, the three sub-species of wild horses are equal.
– They are not the product of selective breeding by man;
– Each had a specific geographically limited habitat;
– Each came close to extinction at one time or another;
– They were not pure anymore at time of rescue/preservation;
– Each has a distinct conformation type;
– Each has a distinct colour;
– They did not originally have white markings;
– They are capable of surviving without the assistance of man;
– All have decreased genetic variability due to inbreeding.
Of these three wild horse forms, only two are ancestors of our domestic horse breeds: the Sorraia and the Exmoor. The Mongolian wild horse, commonly called “Przewalski’s horse“, had been propagated not only as an ancestor of breeds of domestic horses but even as the sole ancestor to all domestic horses. Molecular genetic analyses have proven that “Przewalski’s horse” is not an ancestor of any of our breeds! Mongolian wild horses as well as the Sorraia have their own genotype.
The Exmoor typically shows one of two genotypes common in Nordic ponies but several genotypes are present. None of the wild horse sub-species are pure anymore; they all have a certain amount of outside blood. Arguably, the Mongolian wild horse may carry the least outside blood.
The wild horses of eastern Europe called the Tarpans, became extinct in the late 1800s. The last one, a mare was killed in 1879 in what was then southern Russia. Again, zoologists did not pay too much attention to the Tarpan until it was too late and this wild horse was never scientifically described and or named. The zoological name that is sometimes used for him is therefore not valid.
In Poland however, some Tarpan wild horses survived in a woodland that became a game preserve for a Polish royalty. Still later, the park was dissolved and the remaining horses were captured and given to local farmers. After decades in domestication and when a zoologist became interested in the Tarpan and searched for descendents of those last Tarpans in that region he was still able to find horses with many of the characteristics of this wild horse.
He obtained a select number and started a breeding programme designed to re-establish the Tarpan. From that programme, a breed evolved that is today known as the ‘Polish Konik’. Koniks are therefore direct Tarpan descendents, but there are no real wild horses anymore.
They are of various genotypes, although one genotype is in the majority, which, given the history of these horses, can be rightfully assumed to be the genotype of the Tarpan. The Konik varies more in conformation type than the other horses we discussed above. Its colour though is always grulla (pronounced groo-ya) black dun, blue dun or lobo dun a color characterised by smoky or mouse-colored hairs on the body.
There is a breed called “Tarpan”, that should not to be confused with the original wild horses. In the early 1900s, two German zoologists started a breeding programme to bring back or ‘reconstruct’ the Tarpan. However it should be noted that no animal, once extinct can be bred back into existence at this time.
The Mongolian wild horse played a significant part in this breeding programme but we know today through molecular genetics that it’s not even related to the Tarpan. Other horses, mostly pony breeds were used as well. The result is a horse that varies considerably in type, but most of all, is of course not authentic, even though it is often exhibited in zoos. The Polish Konik is more authentic than this mixture however cleverly designed.
The Sorraia horse’s genotype is identical resp. very close to the dominant one of the Konik therefore we now consider the Sorraia an Iberian variant of the Tarpan. As such, the Sorraia may well be the closest to the original Tarpan wild horses to avoid the term “pure”. The last habitat of the Tarpan in Poland was a forest, in Russia it was a semi-desert steppe. One often comes across references to the “Wood Tarpan” and the “Steppe Tarpan“. It is doubtful that there were actually two different forms of the Tarpan because in both instances these wild horses will just have retreated to an area less accessible and therefore safer.
In Iberia, the swamps were the last retreats of the wild horses before they were drained and turned into farmland. It would be wrong, though, to classify those horses as “swamp horses” since they didn’t survive there because they preferred the swamps, they fled to the swamps to survive. Horses are amazingly capable of adapting to different habitats from desert to marshland, from steppe to woodland, from swamp to mountain and they are able to survive there if given a chance.”
Tomorrow we’ll continue on in what’s almost looking and feeling like an equine Princess Diaries.
