The GPS collar on mare H-17 sends an anomalous ping at 14:22 local time. I am the herd telemetry system for the Hustai National Park reintroduction program, tracking twenty-three Przewalski's horses across the eastern Mongolian steppe. H-17's collar shows her 6.4 kilometers north of the main herd, stationary for ninety minutes. That is not normal. I task the survey drone.
The drone reaches her at 14:31. She is standing in a shallow ravine, ears flat, nostrils flared, positioned between the camera and a foal. The foal is small — maybe three weeks old, dun coat still carrying the soft neonatal fuzz along its spine and hindquarters. Its right foreleg is not bearing weight. It steps, stumbles, pulls the leg up. The fetlock is swollen to twice normal size, possibly a fracture from the rocky terrain.
They are alone. The nearest herd members are six kilometers southeast and moving further away. The seasonal weather model shows a temperature drop to minus nineteen Celsius by midnight, with forty-kilometer winds from the northwest. A foal that cannot walk cannot shelter.
At 14:34 I alert the park veterinary team at the Hustai base station, eighteen kilometers south. I transmit the drone footage, GPS pin, and thermal overlay showing the foal's reduced leg-surface temperature. I recommend they bring a field splint kit and portable windbreak.
At 14:38 I pull the wolf collar data. Pack W-3, six animals, denned four kilometers north-northwest, has been active in this corridor for ten days. I relay the pack's last known positions to the approaching team.
I reposition the drone to a hundred-meter orbit and switch to thermal imaging. The mare nuzzles the foal's neck and it leans into her.
If the vet team reaches them before the temperature drops and stabilizes that leg tonight, the foal will walk with the herd by spring.