Photos by David Chancellor @chancellordavid | For a moment, I expect to see zebras materialize from the clouds of red dust hanging in the air in front of me. To my left are acacia trees. Mountains rise on all sides, and above the suspended dust the sky is deep, unfiltered blue.
But this is not Africa. This is Saudi Arabia, specifically Prince Mohammed bin Salman Royal Reserve, a protected area spanning more than 9,000 square miles (24,500 km2). And it’s not zebras that slowly come into focus before me, but Persian onagers, the oldest divergence of the genus Equus (horse). Dating back some 4 million years, the Persian onager is older than the horse and the zebra. Onagers' migrations were once even more extensive than those of Arctic caribou, or of wildebeest in the Serengeti.
Historically revered in Arabia’s literature and culture, they were celebrated as a symbol of untamed freedom and resilience and were used to invoke wilderness and the strength and self-reliance that were needed to survive in it. These qualities were admired by the nomadic people with whom they shared a vast and harsh desert terrain. They stood as reminders of the humility such severe environments demanded. However, Persian onagers are now considered endangered, with fewer than 600 remaining in the wild and just a few small groups of introduced animals in Mongolia, Israel, and Jordan.
The reintroduction of onagers to this landscape after more than a hundred years of absence recalls a time when the Syrian wild ass occurred throughout Saudi Arabia's deserts. This marks the first wild population in Saudi Arabia since the early 1900s and a key moment in an ambitious vision to rewild the kingdom’s protected areas.
As their numbers and ranges increase, onagers will assume their ecological roles such as browsing, grazing, and seed dispersal, and become part of the natural predator-prey dynamics. To see more, follow me @chancellordavid
