How Two of the Rarest Horses on Earth Got Lost

The entire world’s population of Przewalski’s horses once dwindled to a mere dozen. So how did a pair named Fiona and Shrek end up in livestock auctions in the West?

Photography for The New York Times. Reporting by Sarah Maslin Nir.

A cowboy on horseback herding cattle and dogs across a dry, hilly landscape with sparse vegetation and a dirt path in daytime.

For this New York Times commission, I helped follow the trail of two Przewalski horses, an endangered wild horse species endemic to Mongolia, that somehow wound up mistakenly sold as mules at livestock auctions in Utah.

I joined Kasey Bartlett, who goes by the nickname Rooster, and his team of cowboys rounding up cattle from their summer grazing land in the mountains ahead of a coming early winter storm. 

Rooster had seen the Przewalski come through the Cedar City, Utah livestock auction several times, but each time came back because it was untrainable. When the price dropped to a mere $90 he made his bid. 

From reporting by Sarah: 

Mr. Bartlett could barely get him on the truck to ship him home. “He was wild and mean and disrespectful,” he said. “I figured maybe somebody would want him because you don’t see something like that everyday.”

View through a metal fence of two horses in a corral with two men in cowboy hats and glasses talking near other horses and a red barn in the background under a blue sky.
A person wearing a cowboy hat and beige jacket sitting at an auction with a pen in hand, observing a herd of cows inside a barn.
A man wearing a large black cowboy hat and a gray zip-up jacket looking into the distance at sunset.

Rooster took the horse up to the Anderson Livestock Auction in Willard, Utah. There, it was sold to a horse dealer and then to a man in Kansas before finally ending up at a ranch in Denver. When I visited the auction, just a few horses went on the auction block between groups of goats, sheep and cattle.

An older man wearing a cowboy hat and a beige jacket, sitting in a rodeo arena, resting his arm on a fence, watching the event.
Two men walking up a staircase towards a restaurant, with a small dog following, decorated with mounted deer heads on the walls on either side.
A black horse with a barcode clip on its tail is standing in a cattle pen, with two people in cowboy hats talking in the background, against a rural landscape with mountains.
A group of goats and calves in a pen with mountains in the background, some animals marked with pink paint.
A man wearing a cowboy hat and plaid shirt sitting in a chair inside a livestock auction barn, facing a pen with goats.
Crowd watching a livestock auction or sale at an indoor arena with horses in the foreground and various signs on the walls.
A person wearing a cowboy hat and denim jacket standing next to a brown horse, buckled to a trailer, with mountains and a cloudy sky in the background during dusk.
Several horses in an outdoor corral with metal fencing, on a sunny day with a clear blue sky.
An elderly man with a beard wearing a black cowboy hat and a green jacket, standing outdoors with a blurred landscape of orange hills and a blue sky in the background.
Silhouettes of three riders on horseback and two dogs against a blue sky with clouds, backlit by the sun.
A person putting on cowboy boots outside near a vehicle
A saddled horse with a coiled lasso hanging from the saddle, set outdoors with mountains and a cloudy sky in the background.
A cowboy on a horse loading equipment into a white truck while three black and brown dogs with red collars play nearby outside during sunset.
Two cowboys riding horses with cattle on a winding mountain road with desert hills in the background.
Three cowboys on horseback herding cattle across a dusty, open landscape with rolling hills and sparse vegetation under a cloudy sky.
Cattle herding at dusk with a cowboy on horseback in the background, dust clouds in the air.
A cowboy wearing a black hat and denim jacket riding a brown horse on a dusty trail in a dry, hilly landscape.
Cowboy in torn jeans and a hat roping a steer in a dusty outdoor cattle pen with stormy clouds overhead.