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Photo by TuffyDog.com
No Przewalski's horses have been seen in their natural habitat since 1968 and only 200 remain in zoos today.
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Zoo performs first reverse vasectomy on horse
By BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo have revealed they reversed a vasectomy on an endangered horse to allow it to reproduce naturally — the first-known operation of its kind on an endangered species.
Veterinarians said Monday that the surgery was performed in October 2007 on a Przewalski horse named Minnesota.
Luis Padilla, the zoo veterinarian who performed the reversal surgery, said the procedure was a first for this species and likely for any endangered species.
The horses are native to China and Mongolia and were declared extinct in the wild in 1970. Since then several hundred have been bred and reintroduced to the wild in Asia.
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