Mongolia – looking at Yaks

 

I like yaks. You can see them all over the Himalayas, around the higher parts of Central Asia, Xinjiang, and Mongolia, of course. I was quite surprised to see yaks at about 1500 m altitude. I thought they wouldnt thrive below 2500 m, but that might be the case in the southern part of their habitat, Ladakh for instance, from where I had this knowledge [1]. In Mongolia the yak also thrives a little lower, maybe because of the lower temperatures their as yaks are also well adapted to cold. I've found a map about the distribution of yaks in Asia [2].

I thought that it should be interesting to know how many yaks there are in Mongolia. For 2020 I've found:  30.0 million of sheep, 27.7 million goats, 4.7 million cattle, 4.1 million horses, and 472.9 thousand camels, but the census didn't tell the number of yaks [3]. However, I could find a number  for the end of 2011, when the yak population reached 440.300 heads [4]; so I assume that there are roughly as much yaks as there are camels in Mongolia, each according to climate and region. The same article informs us: „Yaks don’t acclimatize well to land lower than 1800 meters above sea level and its reproductive ability worsens, being apt to suffer diseases.“ The photos I show here were taken at an altitude of about 2200 m.

The nomads try to avoid cross-breeding, which is totally different compared to Ladakh, where herders experiment with cross-breeding. More on this topic in the Yak in Ladakh blogpost [1]. „The English word "yak" is a loan originating from Tibetan: གཡག་, Wylie: g.yag.“ [5] English uses yak for both genders whereas Tibetan and other languages of the region have different words for bulls and cows. We'll have to spend some time on different term, when we talk about interbreeding. Yak in Tibetan is for the yak bull and the yak cow is called bri. As we use a word coming from Tibetan, we should ask: what terms are the Mongolians using? For the yak bull sarlagiin bukh (сарлагийн бух) is used and for the he yak cow sarlagiin ünee (сарлагийн үнээ).

My first yak sighting in Mongolia had been, as mentioned, at 1500 m altitude. The yaks were grazing and grunting – one name for them is also grunting ox. The pictures were taken at Yolyn Am (Ёлын Ам), while accessing the gorge, which is famous for the bearded vulture or lammergeier (correctly spelled in German: Lämmergeier). But now, I want to make the gorge famous for another attraction: the sarlagiin.

Links and Annotations:
[1] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-yak-in-ladakh.html
[2] https://en.nabu.de/topics/species/yak.html
[3] https://montsame.mn/en/read/249861
[4] https://montsame.mn/en/read/125609
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_yak

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