--- title: Back to the wild: animals that zoos returned to nature — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Back to the wild: animals that zoos returned to nature», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Some animals were wiped out in the wild and survived only in zoos, like the last books of a story kept safe in a li --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Back to the wild: animals that zoos re… # Back to the wild: animals that zoos returned to nature Lesson 114 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/0/) — Some animals were wiped out in the wild and survived only in zoos, like the last books of a story kept safe in a library. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/1/) — When the danger outside was stopped, zoos could send them home again. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/2/) — The Arabian oryx, the European bison, Przewalski's horse, the California condor and the scimitar-horned oryx all came back this way, and tiny Partula snails went back to their islands in their thousands. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/3/) — Releasing is very hard: an animal born in a zoo does not know how to find food or spot a predator, so it first learns in a big pen in the wild, then wears a radio collar so scientists can see if it survives. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/4/) — That is why we cannot simply open all the cages: a release works only when the wild home is protected and the thing that killed the animals in the first place has gone. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/6/) — In 1987 the last wild California condors were caught, leaving 27 in the world; lead from bullets in carcasses was poisoning them, and today there are over 500, more than half flying wild. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/7/) — Przewalski's horses, short and stocky, are the last truly wild horses; they were extinct in the wild by the 1960s, and zoo-bred horses were released in Mongolia from the 1990s, where hundreds now live. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/8/) — Zoo-born animals may not know how to find food or avoid predators, so many first go through a soft release in big pens in the wild; golden lion tamarins survived better once they were released in family groups. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/9/) — European bison were wiped out in the wild by 1927, but about 50 lived in zoos; they were bred and released in Poland and other countries, there are now thousands, and a few were brought to Kent in England in 2022. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/10/) — Big grazers like bison eat, trample and rub against young trees, opening sunny clearings in a forest where other plants and animals can live. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/11/) — The scimitar-horned oryx was extinct in the wild by 2000; zoo-born oryx were released in Chad from 2016, and the herds now have calves in the wild. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/12/) — Some people think the oryx, seen from the side with its two horns in line, may have helped give rise to the unicorn legend, but no one can be sure. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/13/) — Released animals often wear radio collars or satellite tags, so scientists can see whether they find food, survive and have young. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/14/) — Some British zoos breed native animals like water voles (small river animals, not rats, that have vanished from much of Britain), sand lizards and pool frogs for release, and Chester Zoo and others have released thousands of water voles. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/15/) — Releases work only when the wild habitat is protected and the original danger is gone, and they cost a lot of money and years of work. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/16/) — Many zoos fund rangers and scientists in places like Kenya, because protecting animals where they live is often more effective than breeding them in zoos. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/114-back-to-the-wild/17/) — Tiny Partula snails on Pacific islands such as Tahiti were wiped out by a predatory snail that people brought in to eat another pest snail; zoos bred them and have returned thousands. - ← previous: [Breeding programmes for rare animals: studbooks and frozen zoos](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/113-breeding-programmes-for-rare-animals/) - next →: [Why zoos exist and what critics say](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/115-why-zoos-exist-and-what-critics-say/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)