Tibetan Woman and her Yak
The Himalayan Plateau is yak country. These massive (2m tall), long haired relatives of the American Bison and the Asian and African water buffalos, play an integral part in high altitude life. Yaks are kept for their milk and meat and especially for their ability to plow fields and carry heavy loads. The butter made from their milk is used to make yak butter tea, a staple of the Tibetan people. Their dung is used as fertilizer and fuel in the higher altitudes where trees no longer grow.
Yaks live at altitudes between 3000 and 5500 m (10k - 18k ft) and are well adapted to the cold climate and thin oxygen. They have unusually large hearts and lungs, higher levels of fetal hemoglobin (which binds oxygen more tightly than "regular" hemoglobin), a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and no sweat glands which are a source of heat evaporation. Their diet is purely grass and apparently yak will not eat grain which means they must always have pasture available on overland hauls. Yaks use their massive horns to break through snow in order to find plants to eat.
"Shangri-La", Yunnan Province, China
Tibetan Woman and her Yak
The Himalayan Plateau is yak country. These massive (2m tall), long haired relatives of the American Bison and the Asian and African water buffalos, play an integral part in high altitude life. Yaks are kept for their milk and meat and especially for their ability to plow fields and carry heavy loads. The butter made from their milk is used to make yak butter tea, a staple of the Tibetan people. Their dung is used as fertilizer and fuel in the higher altitudes where trees no longer grow.
Yaks live at altitudes between 3000 and 5500 m (10k - 18k ft) and are well adapted to the cold climate and thin oxygen. They have unusually large hearts and lungs, higher levels of fetal hemoglobin (which binds oxygen more tightly than "regular" hemoglobin), a thick layer of subcutaneous fat and no sweat glands which are a source of heat evaporation. Their diet is purely grass and apparently yak will not eat grain which means they must always have pasture available on overland hauls. Yaks use their massive horns to break through snow in order to find plants to eat.
"Shangri-La", Yunnan Province, China