Rare 6-Month-Old Horse Dies at National Zoo Facility
Monday, Feb 2, 2009 | Updated 8:00 PM EDT
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A Przewalski's horse and a cub run at the gobi desert on Sept. 16, 2007, in Junggar Basin of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.
FRONT ROYAL, Va. -- A rare, 6-month-old horse has died at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal after fracturing its neck.
It's not clear how the Przewalski horse was injured, zoo officials said.
The animal was found unconscious Friday shortly after it walked onto a trailer to be taken to a new pasture, officials said. The horse was rushed to a veterinary hospital and died a short time later. Another six-month-old horse that was being transported on the trailer wasn't injured.
The species is native to China and Mongolia and was declared extinct in the wild in 1970. About 1,500 of the horses now live in zoos or have been reintroduced to parts of Asia.
Copyright Associated Press
