A geographic and wildlife scientific survey team has announced a
sighting of the largest ever known herd of wild yak in the Kunlun
Mountains, a de-populated zone between
Xinjiang,
Qinghai
and
Tibet. The sighting was said to be as high as 500.
The wild yak (Bos grunniens) is one of China's principle protected
species. The sighting of the yak in such large numbers has caused
great excitement amongst the scientific survey team. Zhao Ziyun,
head of the scientific survey, and chairman of the Xinjiang Branch
of the Chinese Association of Scientific Exploration, said that it
is the first known sighting of the yak in such a size herd. While
the team's main activities are to check local water resources as
well as climatic and geographic conditions, animal welfare is also
a high priority.
"Since September 12, snowstorms have continuously beaten down on
the de-populated zone, making the mountain areas white and animal
movement more conspicuous. We have seen that the wild yak living
there have been migrating north, towards the Kumatage Desert, along
the vast river valley. A herd of 500 wild yak constitutes a massive
herd. It is moving very slowly and we have noticed how some members
of the herd have formed smaller units or teams, known as clans,
that will usually keep some distance from other clan formations.
From above, the herd looks like black lines stretching out for
several kilometers across the white reflective mountains. It really
is quite spectacular."
According to Zhao Ziyun, a 1983 survey carried out on wild yak
numbers in the Aerjin Nature Reserve showed that the largest herd
ever seen and recorded there consisted of just 200 animals.
Gu
Jinghe, a reseacher with the Xinjiang Ecology and Geographic
Institute of the Chinese Academy
of Sciences suggested that this was a first.
"To my knowledge, the largest herd of wild yak consists of 400
animals. Finding such a large herd is indeed very rare."
In
the early 1980s, Gu Jinghe surveyed the wild animals of the
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and discovered that the wild yak is a
macro-species peculiar to this region and this is why it has
high-priority species protection. It is rare but not yet
endangered. The yak inhabit the plateau at a level of between 3,000
and 6,000 meters above sea-level and then variously distribute
along Xinjiang, Tibet, Gansu and Qinghai.
Around the world there are approximately 100,000 wild yak with a
high proportion distributed in China's Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Gu
Jinghe pointed out that the yak is gregarious and a social animal
and that generally several dozens form a herd but sometimes this
might rise to 100. He speculated that the fertility, or "on heat,"
season of September for the wild yak occurs at the same time as
this rare sighting, leaving questions as to the large numbers. The
pregnancy of a yak lasts about 9 months with one young forming a
litter. It is not unheard of male yak to rush, unprovoked, into a
tamed herd for mating when they are on heat. Abduction of tamed yak
is also known to happen.
(china.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, September 30, 2002)