Profile: Into the wild: The man who lives with endangered horses

URUMQI, May 11 (Xinhua) -- To some, they are nothing more than stocky and furry creatures, a rarely seen animal species.

To 48-year-old Zhang Yanbao, however, they are his dearest friends and the "protagonists" of his 33-year career.

The star of Zhang's life story is the Przewalski's horse, believed to be the only wild horse species in existence today.

"Like us, each of the horses has its own temperament and personality, as well as a specific role in the family," said Zhang, an engineer at the Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Center.

Once extinct in China due to excessive poaching and environmental degradation, the horses were reintroduced to the country from Britain, Germany and the United States starting in 1986, and raised in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Gansu Province.

The species, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, is under first-class national protection.

The Xinjiang Wild Horse Breeding and Research Center was established in 1986 as a base to save the species from extinction. Generations of Chinese researchers like Zhang have made a life for themselves in the wilderness to take care of the animal.

Zhang's affection for the horse traces back to a magazine in his teenage years.

"One day I read a story about the horses in a magazine and was captivated. Since there were no illustrations of the species, I imagined what they might look like and was eager to see them in person," he recalled.

Upon graduation from junior high school in 1988, he came to the center and took up a job as a horse breeder. "I marveled at their beauty at first sight. But to be honest, at first, they all looked the same to me," he grinned.

To get the hang of caring for the horses and quickly identify them, he kept a journal during his shifts and spent most of his time observing the horses after work.

"The stallions look more imposing, while the mares are tamer. They can also be distinguished by their different birthmarks and fur color," he said.

Zhang soon mastered the temperament and family role of each horse.

"The first German stallion that was introduced from Europe was renowned for his 'quick temper' and did not like humans being too close. So we often worked in pairs when adding forage for him. One of us would push a trolley as a form of protection, while the other went to work," he said.

In 2001, the center began releasing Przewalski's horses into the Kalamaili Nature Reserve in Xinjiang's Junggar Basin, one of the original habitats of the species.

To monitor the first batch of 27 released horses, Zhang was among the first that volunteered at the station in the uninhabited reserve.

There was no electricity in the wild and the closest water supply was dozens of kilometers away, a journey they made once a week. On rainy days, the vast Gobi Desert turned to sludge, and their jeep sometimes got stuck in the mud.

Over the following seven years, he repeated his daily routine: he rose at first light and drove around in the wild for hours to observe the horses through binoculars, making note of their behaviors and locations; by night, he slept in a self-built plastic tent lit by candlelight.

On a winter day in 2001, when the temperature plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius, a female foal was found missing. While the team searched in vain for the missing horse, a second foal suddenly broke away from the grazing herd and guided Zhang and the research team toward her companion.

"She refused to eat and kept galloping until we found the foal about 2 km away," recalled Zhang.

"The missing foal was weeping and extremely weak when we found her. Unfortunately, we were unable to save her. Even now we are still deeply moved by their friendship whenever we bring up the story. It was as if their hearts were connected, just like humans," he said.

But to Zhang's young daughter, the horses had taken her father from her and she could hardly enjoy such stories. This weighed heavily on Zhang's mind, and at one point, he even considered quitting.

In 2008, Zhang finally moved back to the center, and he was able to visit his family who live about 40 km away once a week.

He now is in charge of wild survival training for the horses to prepare the animals for a smooth and speedy transition to life in the wild.

There are more than 2,000 Przewalski's horses in existence worldwide. Xinjiang has 477 Przewalski's horses, with 97 in the center, 267 in the Kalamaili Nature Reserve and 113 in places including Tianshan wildlife park, according to an official with the center.

Zhang said the hard times are now over, and he is more committed to his original aspiration to let more Przewalski's horses return to the wild.