URUMQI, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Three herdsmen from the ethnic Kazak group have been hired to assist the Xinjiang Przewalski's Horses Propagation Research Center in tracing and monitoring the horses that are released into the wild.

    The three recruits were selected from more than 200 herdsman by a six-member international team who are in Kamaray, northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, preparing to release more captive-bred, endangered Przewalski's horses into the wild.

    Sailik, one of the three recruits, said he was overjoyed at his appointment.

    "It is a honor for me. The most important thing is that I can get extra income in addition to herding my own livestock," he said, declining to disclose the sum of his new salary.

    Joep van de Vlasakker, from the Large Herbivore Foundation, instructed the three Kazak herders on how to use GPS when searching for the horses in the wilderness.

    "If they are successful, more herders will be trained to help," Van de Vlasakker said.

    The breed has existed for 60 million years and is the world's only surviving wild horse species. They were first revealed to the world in 1879 when Russian explorer Nikolay Przewalski discovered them in Xinjiang.

    A German party captured 52 horses in 1890 and transported them back to Hamburg, but only 28 survived the journey. The thousand or so Przewalski's horses in the world, including those in Xinjiang, are said to be the offspring of those survivors.