Rewilded horses in European nature conservation - a genetics, ethics, and welfare perspective.

In recent decades, the integration of horses (Equus ferus) in European rewilding initiatives has gained widespread popularity due to their potential for regulating vegetation and restoring natural ecosystems. However, employing horses in conservation efforts presents important challenges, which we here explore and discuss. These challenges encompass the lack of consensus on key terms inherent to conservation and rewilding, the entrenched culture and strong emotions associated with horses, low genetic diversity and high susceptibility to hereditary diseases in animals under human selection, as well as insufficient consideration for the social behaviour of horses in wild-living populations.

Age-specific effects of density and weather on body condition and birth rates in a large herbivore, the Przewalski's horse.

Reproduction in young females can show a particularly sensitive response to environmental challenges, although empirical support from individual-based long-term studies is scarce. Based on a 20-year data set from a free-roaming Przewalski's horse population (Equus ferus przewalskii), we studied effects of large-herbivore density (horses + cattle) and weather conditions experienced during different life stages on females' annual birth rates. Foaling probability was very low in 2-year-olds, reaching maximum values in 5 to 10-year-olds, followed by a decrease in older females indicating reproductive senescence.

Fine-scale collective movements reveal present, past and future dynamics of a multilevel society in Przewalski's horses.

Studying animal societies needs detailed observation of many individuals, but technological advances offer new opportunities in this field. Here, we present a state-of-the-art drone observation of a multilevel herd of Przewalski's horses, consisting of harems (one-male, multifemale groups). We track, in high spatio-temporal resolution, the movements of 238 individually identified horses on drone videos, and combine movement analyses with demographic data from two decades of population monitoring.

Intestinal parasites in Przewalski's horses (): a field survey at the Hortobágy National Park, Hungary.

The Pentezug Wildhorse Reserve, located in the Hortobágy National Park, Hungary, has one of the biggest ex situ populations of Przewalski's horses and aims to preserve its landscape and to study this subspecies. Between September and November 2018, 79 faecal samples were collected from Przewalski's horses. The McMaster, Willis flotation, natural sedimentation and coproculture methods were applied to all the samples.

[Ultrasonic examination of soft tissue injuries in the shoulder region].

Authors call attention with the demonstration of pictures of a few cases of their own to the significance of the ultrasound examination in cases of shoulder injuries. They stress that beside the demonstration of rotator cuff injuries the examination of the surrounding muscles and the labrum glenoidale should not be forgotten either. The modernization of the ultrasound devices, the improvement of the methods of examination and the obtaining of the necessary practice ensure a more and more important place to echography in the diagnosis of traumas of the motion organs.