Rejected by his mother, a rare wild Asian horse foal finds a new mom in a grieving domestic mare

APPLE VALLEY Minn AP An endangered wild Asian horse foal is thriving thanks to an unlikely hero Marat a Przewalski s horse fell critically ill soon after his birth at the Minnesota Zoo nearly two months ago He survived thanks to intensive care But his mother rejected him when he returned His future looked grim until Alice a domestic Pony of the Americas who d lately lost her newborn accepted him as her own Veterinarians say this is one of the first times this kind of surrogacy has been tried with Asian wild horses and his supporters couldn t be happier Zoo staffers picked the name Marat because it means one who is brave and he s had to be brave from such a young age Przewalski s are considered the only remaining truly wild horse species They were declared extinct in the wild in the s with just a scant surviving in zoos But they ve since been reestablished on the steppes of Mongolia and China with specific in Russia and Ukraine Since fewer than exist in contemporary times each foal is critical to the species survival Being one of the true wild horses left in the world behaviorally they are a little bit different disclosed Dr Randy Kochevar the zoo s chief animal care officer They ve never been truly domesticated and they re shorter and stockier than familiar breeds he stated Related We can end horse slaughter in the U S but we must act now Marat was born with particular limb problems that made it hard for him to stand up straight revealed Dr Annie Rivas the zoo s director of animal strength And because he was struggling to keep up with Mom in the herd he was spending a lot of time lying down on the ground and unfortunately developed bacterial sepsis So he was very very sick Rivas announced The University of Minnesota s equine intensive care unit nursed him back from his pneumonia and wounds But it wasn t distinctive that his first-time mom Nady would refuse to take him back Minnesota Zoo director of animal care Anne Rivas examines Marat a Przewalski s horse foal nurses and his adoptive mother Alice a Pony of the Americas on June in Apple Valley Minn Credit AP Photo Mark Vancleave That left us with What are we going to do with this foal Rivas reported We could hand-rear him but we re not going to be the ones who are the best at teaching them how to be a horse especially a wild horse Fortunately they ascertained Alice a gentle mare who was still grieving her own foal but right now started nurturing Marat and allowing him to nurse It was really kind of a perfect fairy-tale ending They just bonded like that Rivas explained Integrating Marat into the complex social hierarchies of a wild herd will be the next challenge she stated but Alice is helping Marat learn how to behave with other horses They ll presumably stay together for a limited more months They want him to join the zoo s adult Przewalski s herd before he s too old He is definitely a wild horse Rivas declared One he is a stallion so he s already got a big personality from that But he is also a little more wild than you would expect a domestic horse foal to be at this point in his life And he is trying to show me that he s the boss he s in charge he s dominant So he s trying to step up kick assert his dominance over me The post Rejected by his mother a rare wild Asian horse foal finds a new mom in a grieving domestic mare appeared first on MinnPost