Tarpan - The "breeding Back" Controversy

The "breeding Back" Controversy

Three attempts have been made to use selective breeding to create a type of horse that resembles the Tarpan phenotype. These efforts are sometimes colloquially called "breeding back," though recreating an extinct subspecies is not genetically possible with current technology. In 1936, Polish university professor Tadeusz Vetulani selected Polish farm horses that he believed resembled the historic Tarpan and started a selective breeding program. This horse breed is now called the Konik, which clusters genetically with other domestic horse breeds, including those as diverse as the Mongolian horse and the Thoroughbred. In the early 1930s, Berlin Zoo Director Lutz Heck and Heinz Heck of the Munich Zoo began a program crossbreeding Koniks with Przewalski horses, Gotland Ponies, and Icelandic horses. By the 1960s they produced the Heck horse. In the mid-1960s, Harry Hegard started a similar program in the United States using Mustangs and local working ranch horses that has resulted in the Hegardt or Stroebel's Horse. While all three breeds have a primitive look that resembles the wild type Tarpan in some respects, they are not genetically Tarpans and the wild, pre-domestic European horse remains extinct. However, this does not prevent some modern breeders from marketing horses with these features as a "Tarpan." In spite of sharing primitive external features, the Konik and Hucul horses have markedly different conformation with differently-proportioned body measurements, thought in part to be linked to living in different habitats.