Przewalski's Horses at US livestock auctions

SusScrofa said:
Arbuckle Wilderness Safari in Oklahoma is a non-AZA zoo that supposedly has/had Przewalski's Horse. There are pictures of them in the ZooChat gallery.

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Both from @jbnbsn99

USDA reports as of 3/2024 also lists them as a holder of 2 horses.
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I saw billboards for this place everywhere when I was in Oklahoma last week! I hadn’t heard of it before so I looked their USDA reports up and did a double take when I saw Przewalski’s listed. It seemed especially odd in light of this whole recent news thing. I would've loved to have had time to make a trip through there, but OKC Zoo wound up being a whole-day affair.
 
biggest_dreamer said:
I saw billboards for this place everywhere when I was in Oklahoma last week! I hadn’t heard of it before so I looked their USDA reports up and did a double take when I saw Przewalski’s listed. It seemed especially odd in light of this whole recent news thing. I would've loved to have had time to make a trip through there, but OKC Zoo wound up being a whole-day affair.
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I did a quick scan through the USDA's inspection report archive on this facility.

While the records only went back to May 5th, 2014 the P-Horses were present even all the way back then. Makes one wonder how long they've been there overall. Equines are long-lived, so it's perfectly possible that these P-Horses are only middle aged by this point in time.

Since there doesn't appear to have ever been more than two individuals present, I'm going to assume that it's a same sex pair.
 
The New York Times published an article about Shrek and Fiona on the 24th.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/nyregion/rare-horses-przewalski.html#

There's some interesting new information in it.

Apparently Shrek and Fiona were originally in the same herd! An elderly man in Utah bought four Przewalski's horses from an exotic animal auction in Missouri back in 2022. Roughly a month after they arrived, the man's wife contacted a local Sheriffs deputy, asking for help rehoming the Przewalski's.

The deputy asked Lazy B Equine Rescue (The very same place Fiona would end up two years later!) for help, but Lazy B was unable to take the P-Horse herd on. (They lacked the proper facilities to house wild horses at the time.) One of the four P-Horses died of old age shortly afterwards.

The remaining three (Shrek, Fiona, and another one that has yet to resurface) were apparently disposed of via a local livestock auction barn in January of this year, after the elderly couple who apparently still owned them died.

Fiona evidently landed with a local horse trainer, who thought that she was a mule! Having worked with feral domestic horses in the past, the trainer was determined to mold her into a model equine citizen. After six months of trying, said trainer finally conceded defeat and surrendered Fiona to Lazy B.

Shrek wasn't quite so lucky. He ended up bouncing around quite a bit, being bought from, and rerun through, several local auctions in quick succession. He acquired a rather fierce reputation amongst the local horse training community as a result. Eventually he was bought by a horse trader, who shipped him to Kansas, and run him through a livestock auction there. He ended up with yet another horse trader, who rather bafflingly, also thought that he was a mule! He put Shrek up for sale online, where he was bought sight unseen by the family who are currently caring for him.

What a bizarre story. Glad to have some further clarification regarding Shrek and Fiona's more recent movements, though. I remain convinced that they ultimately came off of Canyon Colorado Equid Sanctuary back in the day.

Again, given their advanced ages, it's not hard to see how they could've been bred, born, and grown up there, until finally being sold during the dispersal of CCES's rare equid herds in 2009.

Furthermore, since it's now known that Arbuckle Wilderness purchased some fifty or so P-Horses from CCES...

Plus, you know, Oklahoma and Missouri literally border one another...

I theorize that Shrek, Fiona, and their two herdmates were sold off of CCES, to Arbuckle Wilderness, and then Arbuckle resold them to whoever had them in Missouri.

I'm curious to see if the federal investigation confirms or denies this theory once it's concluded.
 
It's mind blowing to see that a species like the P.horse has made its way on the private bussines. Where did they got them from?
 
Wisp O' Mist said:
The remaining three (Shrek, Fiona, and another one that has yet to resurface) were apparently disposed of via a local livestock auction barn in January of this year, after the elderly couple who apparently still owned them died.
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I'm curious to know why you've focused on the four that the elderly man from Utah purchased, as if those four were the only individuals in the private trade. Wouldn't all of the horses ever purchased from Canyon Colorado Equid Sanctuary by non-accredited zoos and all of their descendants be considered part of the private trade? If approximately 50 horses were purchased by Arbuckle Wilderness, they continue to hold two, and you believe four of them were sold to someone in Missouri, then there were approximately 44 horses floating around in the private trade, without even considering the other thirty or so that were liquidated in the late 2000s. Bill Gruenerwald could have also sold off some of the horses he bred in any of the 20 years he was doing it.

There seems to be a number of non-accredited, shoddy places that have acquired the species in recent years. I know you've found one private breeder of the species, Abe Millar, and there are probably many others. Why have you focused on the four that the man from Utah purchased, when there are clearly many others?

EDIT: I do not mean to be condescending if it reads that way. I am genuinely curious about the other horses.
 
wild boar said:
Why have you focused on the four that the man from Utah purchased, when there are clearly many others?
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Because this thread is about Shrek and Fiona, not Canyon Colorado Equid Sanctuary. Nor the rare species of equines that the facilities closure made available to the US private exotic animal trade in general. I have a separate thread for those topics.
 
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