wild horses

Much of my work these days has been administrative in nature and, although important, is less interesting to write and read about. I am involved in a multisectoral initiative to help clarify Mongolia’s response to the HIV crisis and to devise a strategy that will hopefully implement a strong prevention effort against the virus for the next several years. Although I miss the interpersonal interactions that working with HIV on the front lines provides, the work we are doing, although less immediately tangible, has the potential to affect the quality of lives for all Mongolians. If we do it well.

So although the work may be of interest to a handful, I will write a little about the parts of Mongolia I have had the opportunity to see during my leisure time. Last weekend I traveled out of the city with a friend who works with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It is always good to travel with people who know something useful and informative about the country or area you’re in. So it is with my FAO friend who, unfortunately, will be leaving soon, but from whom I seem to have learned a little more about this very interesting land.

We rode out to Khustai National Park, one of the three national parks in which the wild Takhi horses freely roam the hills. The Takhi (translation “spirit”) are considered the only wild horses left in the world. Although feral horses exist elsewhere, such as the “wild” mustang in the American West, those horses are descendants of horses that were once domesticated. The Takhi have always been wild and were saved from total extinction, in the early and again in the mid 1900s, by their capture and placement in zoos. Takhi are allegedly as spirited and undomesticable as zebra. The takhi were reintroduced into Mongolia in the early 1990s though a joint program between Mongolia and the Netherlands. Interestingly, the takhi have 66 chromosomes whereas domestic horses have 64. Takhi are capable of cross-breeding with domestic horses, and you can see their characteristics in some of the domestic herds; however the offspring have 65 chromosomes which are further reduced to 64 upon subsequent breedings. I thought this was especially interesting because everyone I asked said they couldn’t interbreed, despite the striking takhi characteristics that were evident in some of the domestic herds, and I felt somewhat vindicated to learn that they can and do.

The park is beautiful, especially now, in the Spring, when large expanses of green grassland replace the dusty barren patches of winter. We saw the takhi as well as a fair number of domestic horses, and group of grazing elk.