A 5,000-kilometre trip is helping give a rare horse another shot in the wild.
Shara and Togs, two female Przewalski’s horses born and raised at Marwell Zoo near Winchester in Hampshire, have been flown to Kazakhstan for release.
The move is part of a species revival led by European zoos.
Przewalski’s horses were once found across central Asia, but the species was last seen in the wild in the 1960s. It was reduced to about a dozen breeding individuals in captivity.
The species is still listed as endangered. The most recent assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature recorded 178 mature horses in 2014.
Ian Goodwin, Marwell Zoo’s animal operations manager, said: “We are proud to have played our part in bringing these incredibly special horses back to the wild.
“They were one of the very first species at the zoo when it opened in 1972, so we have been working with them for more than 50 years.”
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