There are about 2,500 Przewalski horses left in the world, making them an endangered species. At one point, there were only 12 horses left, but thanks to captive breeding programs their numbers have increased. Due to their endangered status, they are heavily monitored, and kept only in zoos or their specific areas of reintroduction.
So, not exactly the kind of horse you’d expect to show up at your local livestock auction.
Oh June 9, the Lazy B Equine Rescue and Sanctuary announced on Facebook that an owner had surrendered a very strange looking, hard to control mare. The horse had been purchased from an auction, listed as a mule, but she couldn’t be handled by the new owner. The rescue immediately thought something was strange, and wondered if this could be a Przewalski horse. They decided to get the horse DNA tested. They named this unusual animal, “Fiona.”
A few days after that, on June 11, a different Przewalski emerged, this time a stallion.
“This horse was sold out of the Peabody Kill Pen
Turns out after being dna tested it is 100 percent rare PRZEWALSKI. He is a stallion and is needed to help keep the breed going. The government will be buying him from the owner to be put back with his herd. How he was captured and ended up at a auction is a mystery.”
What in the world.”
The owner of the stud decided to post some tik toks about their new horse after seeing the rescue’s post. She said that they saw him listed on an online livestock auction in Kansas, and knew immediately what he was. She bought him, and a friend held in him quarantine for about a month, before he came home. He’s been at his new home in Oklahoma for two months. As an homage to the mare, they named him, “Shrek.”
The new owner made various tik toks about Shrek, but she does appear to be underage, so I’m not going to share her posts. But in them, she tells his origin story, and that they pulled his hair for a DNA test. The results showed he was pure Przewalski. They contacted a zoo and a brand board, who said she can most likely keep the horse.
This is a pretty strange reaction for an animal on the endangered species list.
According to the owner: “Every Przewalski alive is being tracked, but the system lost track of around 4 horses (1 stud and 3 mares). They found out the mares died, but they weren’t 100% sure. Shrek is most likely that missing stud. And just recently a mare was surrendered to a rescue in UT.. there’s a chance she is one of those lost mares. But whoever had these horses was keeping them illegally. I decided to post him because I saw that video of the mare. Anyways, we plan on keeping him only for his sake, but we still aren’t sure what that looks like.. I will keep ya’ll updated.”
Shrek’s owner had backlash. She is young, and her social media was age appropriately immature, so perhaps people may have assumed the worst. People doubted her story. She was told she wasn’t able to house the horse. She was accused of seeking attention. People begin to believe she was an unreliable narrator. She shut off her comment sections.
So we have two (2) animals with endangered status in private hands. This is very interesting because there are protections in place to keep endangered animals safe. The US is part of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, which regulates or bans international trade of species under threat. Przewalski’s would fall under this, but yet it seems no one in government knew of these horse’s existence. So either the horses were smuggled into the country without any tracking, or they were part of a herd already in the US.
If these animals were already in the US, the Endangered Species Act makes it illegal to sell, although possibly only over states lines (I’m not a lawyer, so I may be interpreting this wrong). It’s also illegal to process any endangered species without a permit. The ESA makes note that “Captive bred wildlife permits are not issued to keep or breed endangered or threatened animals as pets.”
If I’m understanding this correctly, this law would mean that neither new owner can keep these animals, as they need to be in a permitted facility, and are not allowed to be kept as a pet. Lazy B has been upfront that they will hand over the horse to the proper authority, as soon as that is figured out. Shrek’s owner has said they are keeping him.
On July 11, Lazy B Equine Rescue released the results of Fiona’s DNA test. Texas A&M’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences had run a test on the the hair they had received. They marked her as Przewalski, noting they didn’t see any signs of the other breeds of horse they check for, so they added Przewalski to their panel. They told the rescue to get a Karyotyping test to check the chromosomes to be sure.
The only way to be 100% sure that the horse is Przewalski is to run a blood test to check for those additional chromosomes, but based on all the evidence presented, it’s pretty certain this is a Przewalski.
After Fiona’s results were made public, Shrek’s owner made their results public. They had used the same lab, so they results were basically identical, but she received her results just under a month ago. The dates on her papers said they received the sample on June 14 and had their results on June 17. She had sent the sample in immediately after this whole thing started, even though she was claiming at that point to have had the results for a full month.
Although it seems minor, it makes you wonder how much of the story she’s telling is true. Is there some unknown tracking system that lost track of a stud and three mares? How does someone lose endangered animals? Did a random zoo and a brand agency really tell her she could keep the stud? Do they even have that kind of authority? Maybe she is telling the truth, but something isn’t making sense here.
The “3 mares and a stud escaped,” rumor keeps getting repeated over social media, but I’m not sure where it originated. It seems to have come from Shrek’s owner, but there’s no reports of any missing animals from any authority. No zoo has reported horses missing, and no agency has reported any kind of escape. If these animals were part of a herd anywhere in the US, they would have been registered under a permit issued by the ESA. Wouldn’t the owner be looking for these extremely valuable horses?
Shrek’s owner also said they found out more about the horse’s history, but she has not said what it is. It may be an important piece to the puzzle, or it could be something inconsequential.
Right now we have no real answers, but oddly enough, no authority seems to be speaking out. No government agency has provided any answers, or given any kind of statement, despite both horse owners apparently seeking guidance. This has just led to the internet to speculate on what exactly is going on here.
One theory seems to be these were part of an illegal, unregistered breeding herd and escaped, which is why no owner has come forward. They would rather just let the horses go than risk the punishment they’d receive for having these animals.
Another theory focuses on the rumor of the “three mares and a stud”. People are saying that they escaped from quarantine, two of the mares died, and I guess the remaining stud and mare were just found on the side of the road and brought to an auction? (*note, it’s unclear if these horses were found at the same livestock auction.) There’s so many questions of how the government would not be aware of these horses being imported into the US, or if this was a zoo transfer, why is there no record? There’s no record of where these horses came from, and no zoo or owner claiming them.
There’s no real answers at the point. It’s a mystery that has fascinated the internet. Hopefully we’ll have some answers soon, and an understanding of how two endangered animals seemed to slip through their protections.
(1904) “Vaska,” the first Przewalski horse from the wild to reach Europe, and the only known one to be ridden.