Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Yaks, zebus, and aurochs
At the moment the preponderance of evidence is that present-day dog breeds
eventually emerged from a series of dog domestications that took place in
Asia about 15,000 years ago—though it is possible that domestication began
earlier. This scenario suggests a world of nomadic communities made up of
children who kept bringing home wolf puppies and patient adults who toler-
ated the inevitable snarls and bites. Other centrally important domestications
that have shaped the modern world took place for strikingly dif erent rea-
sons. One of these domestications involved the yak.
Terelj is a huge area of mountains, valleys, and grasslands that stretches
to the northeast of Ulaan Baatar, the capital (and only major city) of Mongo-
lia. When I was there in July 2008 the countryside was ravishingly beautiful,
a blazing green sprinkled with Edelweiss and other wildfl owers. The Gorkhi
Valley in the heart of Terelj is dotted with weathered sandstone pinnacles, left
behind by the great river that fl owed there in a wetter past.
Nomad families come to the area for the summer grazing. Their herds
of horses and yaks provide milk, and the goats produce valuable cashmere
wool.
The long-haired yaks are especially endearing animals. Calm and phleg-
matic, they stick out their blue tongues thoughtfully as they move across the
landscape like large hairy hassocks.
Wild yaks that live on the high Tibetan plateau to the south have long
coarse coats that come in basic black. For a variety of physiological reasons
wild yaks do not thrive at lower altitudes such as the Gorkhi Valley.
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Wild yaks have special circulatory adaptations that, during pregnancy,
increase blood fl ow to their placentas and ensure that the baby yaks receives
plenty of oxygen during their critical early development. The human inhab-
itants of Tibet, who have had at least 10,000 years to adapt to their high-alti-
tude plateau, have evolved a yak-like circulatory mechanism to help nurture
their babies in the womb. Native Tibetans' babies are heavier at birth and
more likely to survive than those of Chinese women who have come to settle
on the Tibetan plateau.
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