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Bataar tightened his heavy sheepskin sash against the biting dawn wind , resting his gloved hand on the timber latch of the release gate as white frost coated the rolling foothills of Hustai . Within the fenced twenty - hectare acclimation paddock , a family band of eight takhi huddled together , their dun - colored coats glowing pale gold against the withered steppe grass . If the lead stallion refused to guide his band beyond the perimeter before the first severe autumn blizzard struck the valley , the veterinary team would have to keep the animals on supplementary grain for another year , delaying a decade of delicate diplomatic and ecological preparation . What Bataar sought in the stallion's posture was not mere curiosity , but an awakening of ancient memory . For nearly forty years , the Przewalski's horse had been considered completely extinct in its native Asian homeland , surviving only as captive curiosities across a scattered network of European zoological gardens . Rarely has a creature so entirely dependent on human custody been asked to reclaim one of the harshest environments on earth . In the Mongolian highlands , winter temperatures routinely plunge below forty degrees below zero , bringing deadly snow crusts through which only the hardiest grazers can dig for forage . Many pastoral elders in the adjoining valleys had doubted that captive - bred animals could survive such brutality ; few do so now . Yet skepticism had persisted among the park rangers until this very morning . It was not enough that the horses possessed the genetic purity of their wild forebears ; they needed the behavioral instincts to defend water holes against wolves and find sheltered ravines when blizzards scoured the plateau . Nor should one underestimate the ecological labor these wild equids perform across the grassland ecosystem . By grazing selectively on tough , fibrous grasses that domestic livestock reject , the takhi encourage the growth of delicate steppe forbs , creating vital micro - habitats for ground - nesting birds and burrowing rodents . Had international conservationists settled for maintaining captive populations in overseas enclosures , the steppe would have continued its slow ecological impoverishment . It was this reciprocal relationship between animal and landscape that gave the morning its quiet solemnity . Seldom does human intervention restore a broken landscape so completely . Not until the morning sun cleared the eastern ridge did the stallion take his first deliberate stride toward the open gate . His short , dark mane stood rigid as he tested the wind , scenting the vast , unfenced hills rolling toward the horizon . What followed was neither panic nor haste . With measured , rhythmic steps , the stallion crossed the muddy boundary line , paused to snort at the frost , and nudged the lead mare forward . The remaining band followed in disciplined single file , their hooves striking the rocky soil with a resonant , hollow thud . Some biologists had feared the horses would cling nervously to the familiar paddock fence ; others , that they would bolt blindly toward the distant dunes . Neither occurred . Reaching a gentle knoll covered in wild feather grass , the band began to graze with absolute calm , as though their exile in manicured foreign parks had been nothing more than a brief afternoon dream .
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