Persian onager found in desert steppes. Their largest population is found in Khar Turan National Park. The Persian onager is listed as endangered by IUCN Red List, as it is close to extinction. Currently, poaching for meat and hides, competition with livestock, and drought are the greatest threats to this species. Asiatic wild asses are highly and legally protected; hunting them is forbidden. The European Endangered Species Programme reserved for European Association of Zoos and Aquaria is helping save the Persian onager from extinction, by breeding them in captivity and reintroducing them to their former ranges, including in new locations once inhabited
Onager Persian onager alone has been reintroduced to Jordan and the deserts of Saudi Arabia. Onagers are notoriously untamable. Equids were used in ancient Sumer to pull wagons "circa" 2600 BC, and then chariots on the Standard of Ur, "circa" 2550 BC. Clutton-Brock (1992) suggests that these were donkeys rather than onagers on the basis of a "shoulder stripe". However, close examination of the animals (equids, sheep and cattle) on both sides of the piece indicate that what appears to be a stripe may well be a harness, a trapping, or a joint in the inlay. Onager The onager (; "Equus