Even as the world talks about melting of ice in the Arctic, the Antarctic and the Himalayas, one animal species — yak or Bos grunniens — is already beginning to bear the brunt of global warming — be it in the Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh or in the Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir. While the yak population is declining sharply, the animal is being gradually pushed up the Himalayas, with scientists fearing that the time is not far away when there will be no more “comfort zone” left for it to survive. Only four states in India have yaks — Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

Arunachal’s yak population has almost halved, from about 13,000 in 1997 to about 7,000 in 2003. In Himachal, it has come down from 6,000 to 2,000 in 10-12 years. Sharp population decline has also been reported from Sikkim and J-K.

“It’s a serious case of impact of climate change and global warming. Farmers are increasingly reporting that their animals are unable to bear the rising temperature in altitudes that were comfort zone for centuries,” said K P Ramesha, senior scientist with the National Research Centre on Yak (NRCY), the only centre of its kind in the country.

Yaks can live only in altitudes starting from 7000 feet upwards, and while 5-13 degrees Celsius is its thermo-neutral or comfort zone, it is also the only animal that can survive even at minus-40 degrees Celsius. But rearers are now moving upwards beyond 8,000 feet in order to save their animals.

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