Context: Recently, Himalayan yak has been categorised as a food animal by Food Safety and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI).

• It was recommended by Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying (DAHD).

• Categorisation will check decline in population of yak and will encourage its rearing.

Himalayan Yak

• Himalayan Yak is long-haired, short-legged oxlike mammal and high-altitude bovine animal.

• Majorly they are found in Tibet and India.

• In India found in - Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and West Bengal.

• Yaks rearing is primitive, unorganised and full of hardship.

• It is reared for transportation, meat, milk, wools and dung to be used as a fertilizer in mountain regions.

• Yak’s milk has medicinal values and is nutritious, rich in fat and minerals.

• Yaks obtain water by eating snow.

• Calves are born about nine months later.

• Yak can survive in very cold temperatures up to minus 40 degrees.

• Nomadic communities rearing yak are- Changpas and Dokpas in Ladakh, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh.

• According to census of 2019, India has 58,000 yaks.

• It has drop by 25% from livestock census in 2012.

• Decline in yak population could be due to less remuneration from yak.

• It discourages people to continue nomadic yak rearing.

• Domesticated yak is known as Bos grunniens while the wild variation is called Bos mutus.

Conservation status

• IUCN: Vulnerable

• CITES- Appendix I

• Indian WildLife (Protection) Act of 1972: Schedule II

National Research Centre on Yak: The Government of India established the ICAR-National Research Centre on Yak, in 1989 at Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh as a dedicated centre for research into yak husbandry.