The domestic variety is used as beasts of burden (a yak carries around 130 kilos), as mounts and supplies wool, leather, meat, milk, butter and cheese.

What’s more, its dried dung is a much-used fuel. The yak lives in and around the Himalayas, in Nepal, Bhutan and China, as well as in Mongolia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, up to altitudes of 5,400 meters.

Yaks live for fifteen to twenty years at high altitudes above 3,000 meters.

The dzo (zo or dzopkyo in Tibetan), a cross between a yak and a cow, replaces the yak admirably at lower altitudes. Its female is the dzum (dzom).