The director of the Prague Zoo was awarded the Order of the Polar Star for saving Převalský’s horse
photo: Prague ZOO/Miroslav Bobek and Převalský’s horses
The director of the Prague Zoo, Miroslav Bobko, was awarded the Order of the Polar Star by Mongolian President Uchná Chürelsüch. This is the highest state honor that a foreign national can receive. He earned it for saving Převalský’s horse and protecting Mongolian nature.
The order was handed over on behalf of the Mongolian president by his advisor Erdenecogt Odbajar. According to Press Releases during the presentation, he thanked the director of the Prague Zoo for his extraordinary contribution to the protection of Mongolian nature and the development of Czech-Mongolian relations.
The Prague Zoo has already sent nine planes with Przewalski horses to Western Mongolia. The Army of the Czech Republic also significantly helped with the transports. The Prague Zoo subsequently also takes care of the sustainability of the return of this endangered species to the wild, and is also preparing a similar project for the east of Mongolia.
Czech horses flew to Mongolia for the first time in 1992
The first transport with Czech horses to Mongolia appeared in June 1992. At that time, it was still under foreign organizations. Since 2011, the Prague Zoo has been organizing its own transports under the name Return of Wild Horses. The last such transfer of four selected mares was detected in June 2019. They now inhabit the strictly protected Gobi B area.
“The awarding of the Order of the Polar Star is a great honor for the current and past employees of the Prague Zoo, who over the course of decades worked tirelessly to save the Převalské horse and return it to its original homeland,” said Miroslav Bobek.
Twenty-nine mares have already given birth to over eighty foals
“This award comes at a time when the twenty-nine mares we transported by CASA planes to Gobi B not only had over eighty foals, but also had ten grandchildren and even their first great-grandchildren. Our mission in western Mongolia is accomplished, we are turning to the east,” added Bobek.
The director did not forget the founders and the public, without whom biodiversity protection projects would be unthinkable. Five crowns go to them from every entrance to the zoo.
Mongolia values the Czech project
“The award shows how much Mongolia values the Czech Převalský horse reintroduction project. The project is all the more important in a situation where there is a significant decrease in biodiversity everywhere in the larger world,” added Jan Vytopil, the deputy of the Czech Republic in Ulaanbaatar.
Převalský’s horse, also known as kertak, is the only wild horse species that has survived to the present day. However, this species was almost exterminated at the turn of the 60s and 70s of the last century. Its survival was ensured by the care of zoos.
Smaller, stockier and with short legs
all Převalský horses alive today come from only 13 ancestors. About 70 percent of them also have at least one ancestor from the Prague Zoo in their family tree. Breeding began here in 1921, and the Prague Zoo has been keeping a worldwide breeding book of this species since 1959.
In 2017, the world population of the Převalské horse numbered about 2,010.
This relatively small breed for a horse is about 130 cm tall at the withers and weighs around 200-350 kilograms. It is characterized by a massive club-nosed head, a white area around the nostrils, an erect mane and a dark stripe down the back to the base of the tail. It has short hairs on the sides of its tail and a hint of cross-striping on its limbs. They differ from domesticated horse breeds in their stockier stature and shorter legs.