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Preserving Przewalski's horse

by Kate Jordan

From AnimalNews 9.2

Dr. Wynne Collins didn't set out to save the Przewalski's horse—declared extinct in the wild 40 years ago. But today, as a doctoral student at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia, Collins works hard to preserve the world's last truly wild horse.

Her early research efforts were funded, in part, by one of Morris Animal Foundation's (MAF) first Fellowship Training grants. Since then, Przewalski's horses have been upgraded from "extinct in the wild" to "critically endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species.

Named after a Polish explorer who first identified the breed, Przewalski's horse, or P. horse, nearly vanished in the mid-1900s due to hunting, habitat loss and severe weather conditions. Today, only about 1,500 horses exist in the world, with 100 of them in North American zoos.

Collins' research focuses on the species' reproductive patterns because its survival depends on developing an efficient captive breeding program. With her first MAF grant, Collins, with help from scientists at the National Zoological Park, determined a safe method for collecting sperm from Przewalski's stallions, identified vital seminal traits and experimented with sperm-freezing techniques. She also assessed urinary hormone levels
from Przewalski's mares at two institutions and made a stunning discovery: 30 to 40 percent of the mares weren't
experiencing normal estrus cycles. This finding may help explain the low number of foal births. Collins' initial study piqued the interest of zoo managers throughout the country and has since helped to put wild equid research on the map.

"MAF's funding has been extremely important," Collins says. "Funding for graduate students has become so tight and now, because of this project, there's been a surge of interest in saving other wild equids, like the zebra, African wild ass and Persian onager."

In her second MAF-funded study, currently under way, Collins builds on the groundwork laid in her first project. Working with scientists at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, Collins is using flow cytometry techniques. This dramatically improved the team's ability to analyze the specimens, ultimately providing important information needed to improve cryopreservation techniques. She is also monitoring the mares' estrus cycles to determine prime conditions for artificial insemination. With improved frozen sperm and a better understanding of the mares' cycles, the team is poised to reverse the low fertility rates via artificial insemination procedures.

"Maybe we can't save every single species, but we can save some," Collins says. "Horses are definitely my love, and it's been great working on a project that the public is also so passionate about."

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