European mouflon Harzgerode in 1906, followed by further releases in the Taunus and the Solling. In all cases, the mouflon favoured level or low-lying plains with forest cover and not, as expected, rocky, mountainous areas. Gradually they were mixed with varieties of domestic sheep, especially crossbreeding with the racka. After the European mouflon population declined during the First World War, in the German Reich alone about 2,500 were counted in 1938. After a further decline during the Second World War, the number of European mouflon worldwide in 1954 was only about 4,500. After that, numbers recovered due to careful management and grew
Wild horse taxonomists considered domesticated and wild horse two subspecies of the same species, the valid scientific name was "Equus caballus" Linnaeus 1758, with the subspecies labeled "E. c. caballus" (domesticated horse), "E. c. ferus" Boddaert, 1785 (tarpan) and "E. c. przewalskii" Poliakov, 1881 (Przewalski's horse). However, in 2003, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature decided that the scientific names of the wild species have priority over the scientific names of domesticated species, therefore mandating the use of "Equus ferus" for the horse, independent of the position of the domesticated horse. Przewalski's horse occupied the eastern Eurasian Steppes, perhaps from the Urals