What is a Yak?

Yak

The yak is the shaggy-coated wild ox of Asia. There are not many places that are less pleasant to live in than the high, windswept plateaus of Tibet.

The winters are bitterly cold and food is scarce.  Yet this bleak land, in which few other animals can endure, is the home of the yak.  The wild yak may stand over 6 feet high at the shoulders and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

Its thick, woolly hair may grow so long that it may even drag on the ground.  Its heavy coat is good protection against the cold. Despite its large size, the yak is as sure-footed as a goat on the sleep mountain-sides.

Some yaks have been tamed.  Tibetan people depend on the yak for their meal, drink their pink milk, and weave their long hair into ropes and cloth and use yaks for pack animals.  

Domesticated yaks are sometimes called “grunting oxen” because they grunt when overloaded. - Dick Rogers