The Przewalski’s horse went extinct in the wild, but there were still zoo stocks. Some international preservation organization met to decide where to try to reintroduce them into the wild. They decided on outer Mongolia. They were reintroduced in June, 1992 in the Hustai National Park. (They have since been reintroduced in other countries.)
I went to Mongolia in October, 2016. It was quite cold and there were few tourists, but we (my guide, driver, and I) encountered a couple of Brazilian women who had also come to the park to see the horses. They said that they did not see a single horse. I hoped we would be luckier when we visited the park the next day. Come the day of the visit, we drove around the park, not seeing much of anything until we entered a little valley and, suddenly, there were dozens of harems of horses. A harem is what they call a stallion, his mares and offspring. I think the park’s entire population of about 300 horses were there. It was an awe-inspiring sight.
There were also deer in the park, and the driver was more excited to see those than the horses. Those deer were quite shy. Even though they were far enough away that they were barely visible, they would flee if we moved at all. Given that I’ve had staring contests with whitetails at a distance of 20 feet away—and they don’t understand the word “Shoo”—I thought that I’d happily trade the timid Mongolian deer for our overly bold whitetail.
Extinction is an absolute. Either it is or it isn't.
The damned whitetails here are so tame, from idiots feeding them, that I almost had to honk at one to get out of my driveway a couple days ago.