UK Zoo yak info desired

yakhistorian

yakhistorian

Member
Hi,

Yaks appear to have been imported from England (Whipsnade) to Canada as livestock around 1909. They may have had an earlier presence here as zoo exhibits. Can any of you shed light on this?

Many of the yak breeders in the U.S. acquired their stock in the 1990's from sources in Canada such as Al Oeming's Game Farm in Alberta. Others came from places like the Catskill Game Farm and Southwick's Zoo in Massachusetts. Is there any way to find out whether these facilities got their stock from the UK?

I am hoping people here at ZooChat can help me with names, dates, stories, photos, contact information--anything, no matter how obscure, could be of value to my research. We are concerned with the genetics of our animals, so, being able to trace the various lineages to their source is my ultimate goal.

I am not very knowledgable on what resources may be out there concerning early zoo acquisitions or avenues by which zoos sold or otherwise dispersed their excess stock, but I am eager to learn.

I have already posted similar entreaties at the General Europe forum, as well as the New Member one--please excuse the redundancy!

All My Best,
Dianne
 
yakhistorian said:
Yaks appear to have been imported from England (Whipsnade) to Canada as livestock around 1909. They may have had an earlier presence here as zoo exhibits. Can any of you shed light on this?
Click to expand...

Yaks imported into Canada from England, in 1909, could not possibly have come from Whipsnade because Whipsnade Zoo did not open until 1931. (However, yaks were bred at London Zoo as long ago as 1863.)

New York (Bronx) Zoo acquired yaks from Hagenbeck in 1913; these were believed to be from wild stock and were said to be the first black yaks in the USA. (Reference “Management of Wild Mammals in Captivity” (Crandall, 1964))
 
Oops--Woburn, not Whipsnade...

Thank you Tim, for the information about London and New York.

I meant to say "Woburn Abbey," not Whipsnade. Ernest Thompson Seton (Boy Scout founder) asked the 11th Duke of Bedford, Herbrand Russell, for assistance in bringing yaks to Canada as the perfect livestock to raise in the harsh northern climate. The Duke maintained a herd at Woburn Abbey, and there are apparently yaks there to this day:

Parishes - Woburn | A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3 (pp. 457-462)

As for "wild," I think it is more likely they were all domestic yak, Bos grunniens, but were probably unused to interacting with people. If you have ever dealt with range cattle, you will know why I say this. A true Wild Yak, Bos mutus, would be in severe physiological distress at sea level--I do not see how any could have been kept alive for the months it would take to transport them from their native habitat to New York. Their normal range is at altitudes of 12,000-20,000 feet--where most of us would need supplementary oxygen to feel comfortable!

Again thank you for the new information.
 
yakhistorian said:
Thank you Tim, for the information about London and New York.

I meant to say "Woburn Abbey," not Whipsnade. Ernest Thompson Seton (Boy Scout founder) asked the 11th Duke of Bedford, Herbrand Russell, for assistance in bringing yaks to Canada as the perfect livestock to raise in the harsh northern climate. The Duke maintained a herd at Woburn Abbey, and there are apparently yaks there to this day:

Parishes - Woburn | A History of the County of Bedford: Volume 3 (pp. 457-462)

As for "wild," I think it is more likely they were all domestic yak, Bos grunniens, but were probably unused to interacting with people. If you have ever dealt with range cattle, you will know why I say this. A true Wild Yak, Bos mutus, would be in severe physiological distress at sea level--I do not see how any could have been kept alive for the months it would take to transport them from their native habitat to New York. Their normal range is at altitudes of 12,000-20,000 feet--where most of us would need supplementary oxygen to feel comfortable!

Again thank you for the new information.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response clarifying the Woburn / Whipsnade situation.

The ungulate collection that the Duke of Bedford had at Woburn is justly famous; I’m not too surprised that the Canadian yaks came from there.

Regarding the New York yaks:- in the classic book that I referred to in my earlier post, Crandall states the yaks that Bronx Zoo acquired from Hagenbeck in 1913 were believed to be from wild stock.

The 1939 Bronx Zoo guide states the zoo waited a number of years to obtain the foundation stock for the famous yak herd because the wish was to obtain wild-bred yaks......

I wonder if the Hagenbeck archives in Hamburg provide further details about the source of the yaks that Bronx received from Hagenbeck.
 
I think we may be debating semantics here. Domestic yak, Bos grunniens can be found feral in their native ranges. Most likely Hagenbeck brought feral B. grunniens to New York--these would be "wild" for all practical purposes, but still far more tractable and physiologically capable of dealing with low altitudes than B. mutus.

Again, there is little to no chance of sustained viability of Bos mutus below 10,000 feet. Even B. grunniens brought down below these altitudes can have a rough time of it, but, fortunately, enough of them adapted that we now can raise them at a wide variety of altitudes.

What adds to this likelihood is the fact that B. grunniens and B. mutus can be remarkably similar in appearance. A Montana yak rancher friend of mine, Jim Watson, visited yak herders in Tibet last year. He brought photos of his bulls to show them. The herders became very excited and, through the translator, told Jim that his bull Escalade looked like a Wild yak bull:

yak bull images | yak breeding stock | yak bull for sale

B. mutus bulls were known to come down to the high summer pastures (around 12-14,000 feet) to mate with the pastoralists' B. grunniens females--the herders prized these crosses, despite their hard-to-manage temperament, because of their hybrid vigor. See pages 10-11, The Yak, second edition, 2009, by Gerald Wiener et al. for a photo of B. mutus for comparison.
 
UK Zoo yak info

In the Duke of Bedford's book [written by Hastings, who if I rember rightly --can't find my copy of the book at present -- was Herbrand's grandson] 'The Years of Transition', he refers to a wild yak bull they had, which ran with a herd of domestic yak females and bred with them. All the other yaks at Woburn were domestics -- I wonder whether this bull was actually an imported feral yak?
This yak stuff is fascinating; I have no practical experience of them, but have always liked them.
How distict are grunniens & mutus? Is it like chickens & Red Junglefowl, where they are clearly the same species, or is there a suggestion that they are distinct in some way, as I believe is the case with domestic & wild Bactrian Camels?
 
FBBird said:
This yak stuff is fascinating; I have no practical experience of them, but have always liked them.
How distict are grunniens & mutus? Is it like chickens & Red Junglefowl, where they are clearly the same species, or is there a suggestion that they are distinct in some way, as I believe is the case with domestic & wild Bactrian Camels?
Click to expand...

Yes, very interesting and apart from FBBird's question above, I have a few others also;

1.What colour are Wild Yaks? Are they black?

2.The domestic strains in Zoos seem to be predominately black, or a White 'speckled roan' type which crops up in some places. Whipsnade's large herd are all black ones. In films on the Himalayas etc I have seen Yak 'trains' with white-faced blacks and piebalds also(are these from crossing with cattle?)

3. I don't remember seeing Woburn's herd. What color are they. And are they unbroken descent from their original import?
 
More yak info than you can shake a tail at!

The Wild Yak, B. mutus, are primarily the standard brownish-black color with grayish muzzles and a grizzled dorsal stripe running down their spine. There is also a rare light-colored variety, referred to as Golden, that occurs in about 2% of the population around the Aru Basin in Tibet. No other colors have been reported.

B. mutus males are reported to be up to 2200 lbs. while the females range from 600-800 lbs., much like B. grunniens females. In comparison, adult B. grunniens males can be 1200 to 1800 lbs.--two of Jim Watson's mature bulls, Big Ben and Tad, are 1770 and 1780 lbs. respectively. And all that wool makes them seem enormous.

I have been fortunate enough to have visited with them several times. It is very humbling to stand in the back of a pickup truck in the middle of the "bull pasture" and have it surrounded by these massive bulls all eagerly--but politely--wanting their alfalfa pellet treats. Their mouths are ten inches wide--I felt like I was feeding rhinos! (Not that I have ever actually fed rhinos, but I think you get my point!) Their strength is incredible--one of them jostled another, who bumped into the truck, sending it rocking without any effort.

My bull, Rogue, is only three years old, and is probably around 1200 lbs. (I do not have a chute scale here at my place.) He will continue growing for the next five years before he reaches his full size. It is a good thing he is as mellow as his father, but, even so, I NEVER stand near him without a sturdy fence or a lunging whip between us. He is a bull, and I never forget that. I cannot even begin to imagine trying to work with one of his wild relatives!

Rogue is a Trim--he is the color of B. mutus, but has a spot of white on his forehead and around one rear coronet. You can see this, and other color types, here:

Tibetan Yak colors | yak color patterns | yak images | Tibet images

I believe the yaks in England and Canada have all the same colors as those in the U.S. As you can see, we don't have nearly the variety found in Asia--or in Switzerland, as you can see at Daniel Wismer's website:

"- \\Yak Tsang Ling Roti Flüo 3926 Embd VS //-"

And sadly, due to the strict import regulations, we cannot bring in any others...

There is really no way to differentiate a B. grunniens of native coloration from B. mutus based on appearance. B. mutus may appear less wooly, but there are also specimens of B. grunniens with very sparse wool. Wild Yak will be more shy and wary--but so will feral Domestic animals. And, some nonferal Domestics can be quite shy as well, like my Nellie. The two species interbreed readily. with young showing the expected hybrid vigor and temperament closer to B. mutus.

An excellent, current overview of the two species can be found in Mammalian Species, Number 836:1-17, 2009, by David M. Leslie Jr. and George B. Schaller. I have drawn much of the information I have posted here from that article and from Wiener et al's The Yak, 2nd., ed. which can be found online here:

THE YAK - SECOND EDITION
 
Photo worth 1000 words...

Hi Tim,

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Remember how I mentioned above:

"There is really no way to differentiate a B. grunniens of native coloration from B. mutus based on appearance." ?

Well, the photo you so kindly provided shows me the proof I needed to determine that the Bronx Zoo received at least one yak that was definitely B. grunniens, Domestic Yak. That would be the animal on the right. He is a young bull, as evidenced from his larger hump and the shape and size of his horns--probably around three years of age. And, most importantly, his dark muzzle reveals him to be of the variety we call Imperial--which does not occur in B. mutus, the Wild Yak.

Contrast him with his companion, a female of typical native coloration, and note that her muzzle is grey--horsey folks might refer to her as "mealy-mouthed." This is the only color you will see in B. mutus, and it also is very common in B. grunniens.

I very much believe she, like the bull, is B. grunniens, based on her attitude. The two of them are calm, standing square, heads relaxed, not poised for flight the way you would expect recently arrived B. mutus to act if someone was close by taking their photograph...

Again, thank you for providing this link.
 
yakhistorian said:
Hi Tim,

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Remember how I mentioned above:

"There is really no way to differentiate a B. grunniens of native coloration from B. mutus based on appearance." ?

Well, the photo you so kindly provided shows me the proof I needed to determine that the Bronx Zoo received at least one yak that was definitely B. grunniens, Domestic Yak. That would be the animal on the right. He is a young bull, as evidenced from his larger hump and the shape and size of his horns--probably around three years of age. And, most importantly, his dark muzzle reveals him to be of the variety we call Imperial--which does not occur in B. mutus, the Wild Yak.

Contrast him with his companion, a female of typical native coloration, and note that her muzzle is grey--horsey folks might refer to her as "mealy-mouthed." This is the only color you will see in B. mutus, and it also is very common in B. grunniens.

I very much believe she, like the bull, is B. grunniens, based on her attitude. The two of them are calm, standing square, heads relaxed, not poised for flight the way you would expect recently arrived B. mutus to act if someone was close by taking their photograph...

Again, thank you for providing this link.
Click to expand...

You’re very welcome. I’m glad that you found this link of interest; I was certainly very interested in your response.

I’ve read several times that Bronx Zoo’s yak herd was descended from wild caught animals so it is fascinating to read a contradictory opinion from somebody who has had considerable practical experience of keeping yaks.

(And, as you mentioned in an earlier post, the term “wild yaks” could refer to feral domestic yaks rather than genuine wild yaks.)
 
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