Takin

The takin is a bovid, a member of the same big family as cattle, antelopes, goats and sheep, and it belongs to the goat and sheep branch of that family, the Caprinae. It is the only species in its genus, Budorcas. For a long time it was grouped with the musk ox of the Arctic, because the two share a massive body, short legs and a heavy head. Genetic studies changed that picture: the takin's closest living relatives turned out to be sheep, and its resemblance to the musk ox is a case of two animals evolving a similar shape to survive similar cold, rough conditions. Its odd mix of features has inspired several nicknames. Early Western naturalists called it the gnu goat, for its sloping back and horns that recall a wildebeest, and the cattle chamois, for a body like a small cow on the nimble legs of a mountain goat. Local peoples across its range have their own names, and in Bhutan it is known as dong gyem tsey. Whatever it is called, the takin is one of the largest wild goat relatives on Earth, a heavy climber that can scramble up steep, rocky slopes and push through bamboo thickets that would stop most animals of its size.

Takins are big animals. Adults stand about 100 to 140 centimeters (3.3 to 4.6 feet) at the shoulder and measure up to about 2.2 meters (7 feet) from nose to tail, and they usually weigh between 150 and 350 kilograms (330 to 770 pounds). Males are clearly larger and heavier than females, with a thicker neck and a more massive head. Both sexes carry horns. They start close together on top of the head, grow out sideways and then turn back and up, and in old bulls they become thick and ridged at the base. The most striking feature is the face. The takin has a broad, arched Roman nose, and inside it the large nasal passages and sinuses warm and moisten freezing air before it reaches the lungs, a real advantage in mountains where winter nights fall far below zero. The coat is long and dense, with a woolly underlayer, and the skin produces an oily, strong smelling secretion that works like a raincoat, keeping the animal dry in the constant mist and rain of the eastern Himalayas. Color changes across the range: the Mishmi and Bhutan takins are darker and browner, the Sichuan takin is golden with a dark back, and the golden takin of the Qinling Mountains is pale gold, sometimes almost cream, all over.

Four kinds of takin are usually recognized, traditionally as subspecies of one species, although some experts now treat them as four separate species. The Mishmi takin (Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor) lives in the Mishmi Hills of Arunachal Pradesh in India, in southeastern Tibet and northwestern Yunnan in China, and in the far north of Myanmar; it is dark brown and the least studied of the four. The Bhutan takin (B. t. whitei) lives in Bhutan, with a smaller population reported in Sikkim, and is the national animal of Bhutan; its coat is brownish with golden tones. The Sichuan takin (B. t. tibetana), also called the Tibetan takin, lives in the Min and Qionglai Mountains of Sichuan and neighboring Gansu, the same forests as the giant panda, and is golden with darker patches. The golden takin (B. t. bedfordi) is found only in the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi, in central China. It is the palest and most famous of the four, sometimes linked by writers to the legend of the Golden Fleece, and in China it is ranked among the country's national treasures alongside the giant panda and the golden snub nosed monkey. Most takins in Western zoos are Sichuan or golden takins, which is why many people picture the species as a shaggy golden animal.

Takins live in the mountains where the eastern Himalayas meet western China. The IUCN lists four countries: Bhutan, China, India and Myanmar. In China they occur in southeastern Tibet, northwestern Yunnan, Sichuan, southern Gansu and the Qinling Mountains of Shaanxi; in India mainly in Arunachal Pradesh, with Dibang Valley as the stronghold, and in smaller numbers in Sikkim; in Bhutan across the northern and central mountains, with Jigme Dorji National Park as a key area; and in Myanmar only in the mountains of the far north. The IUCN places the species between about 1,000 and 4,000 meters (3,300 to 13,100 feet) above sea level. Within that band, takins move with the seasons. In summer, herds climb through rhododendron scrub to open alpine meadows near the tree line, where fresh grass and herbs are plentiful and the air is cooler. When autumn snow arrives, they come back down into temperate and mixed forests and dense bamboo, where the canopy blocks the wind and there is still food to browse. These daily and seasonal trails are used so regularly that they wear deep paths into the hillsides, often leading to salt licks and hot springs. Because takins need the whole slope, from valley forest to high meadow, roads, farms and logging that cut that slope apart can isolate herds.

Takins are plant eaters with a very broad menu, and studies in China have recorded them eating well over a hundred different plant species. In spring and summer, on the high meadows and in the upper forest, they graze fresh grasses and herbs and browse the young leaves of shrubs such as willows and rhododendrons. In autumn and winter, lower down, they turn to bamboo leaves and shoots, evergreen leaves, twigs and the bark of trees and shrubs, which they strip with their teeth. They are strong enough to push over small trees and bamboo stems to reach leaves that are out of reach, and they often stand on their hind legs, resting their front feet on a trunk, to feed higher up. Like many mountain grazers, takins need more minerals than their food provides, and salt licks play a big part in their lives. Herds travel long distances to reach the same licks year after year, eating mineral rich soil and drinking from salty springs, and dozens of animals can gather at a single site in summer. Those gatherings are one of the best chances researchers and wildlife photographers have to see takins, since for most of the year they stay hidden in thick forest. They usually feed in the early morning and late afternoon and rest during the middle of the day.

Takins are social, but the size of their groups changes through the year. In winter they live in small herds of a few animals to a few dozen, scattered through forested valleys where food is spread thin. In summer they gather in much larger herds on the high slopes, and near rich feeding grounds or salt licks groups of a hundred or more have been recorded, with reports of up to about 300 animals. Older males often live alone or in small bachelor groups for much of the year and join the females when the breeding season begins. The rut takes place mainly in July and August. Bulls follow females closely, sniff and test their scent, and fight rivals by clashing heads and horns, roaring and pushing. After a pregnancy of about seven to eight months, the female gives birth to a single calf, usually in spring, weighing roughly 5 to 7 kilograms. Calves are surprisingly quick to get on their feet and can follow their mother over rough ground within about three days of birth. They start to eat plants at around two weeks old and stay close to the herd, which offers protection from predators. When something alarms them, takins give a deep, coughing alarm call and the whole herd crashes off into the bamboo, where they may lie flat on the ground with their necks stretched out to stay hidden.

Takins are not aggressive by nature, and in the wild they almost always flee from people, slipping into thick bamboo at the first sign of danger. Their size and strength still make them animals to respect. An adult male can weigh well over 300 kilograms, and a takin that feels cornered, is protecting a calf or is worked up during the breeding season can charge, knocking a person down or tossing them with its horns. Most known incidents come from China. In 2007, in Huxian County in Shaanxi, a takin that had wandered out of the Qinling Mountains injured eight people before police shot it; local officials believed it had been driven from its herd by rival males. Field researchers in the Qinling have also described being charged and thrown when they came too close to a bull. Such cases are rare, and they are usually linked to animals that are stressed, injured or pushed out of their normal range. In Bhutan, where takins are protected and respected, encounters with farmers and herders are generally peaceful, and at the Motithang Takin Preserve in Thimphu visitors watch them from behind a fence. The sensible rule is the same as with any large wild animal: keep your distance, never get between a mother and her calf, and give a bull plenty of room to move away.

Bhutan officially declared the takin its national animal on 25 November 2005, choosing it both for its rarity and for a legend that every Bhutanese child knows. The story goes back to Drukpa Kunley, the fifteenth century Tibetan saint known as the Divine Madman, famous for teaching Buddhism through outrageous humor. When a crowd of devotees asked him to perform a miracle, he first demanded a whole cow and a whole goat for lunch. After eating both and leaving only the bones, he stuck the goat's head onto the cow's skeleton, snapped his fingers, and the strange creature stood up and walked off to graze on the mountainside. The people called it dong gyem tsey, the takin. That mix of cow and goat is exactly what the animal looks like, which helps explain why the legend stuck. The takin's place in Bhutanese life also shows in Thimphu, the capital. A few takins were once kept in a small zoo there, and when the animals were released they refused to go back to the forest and wandered the city streets looking for food, so the area was turned into the Motithang Takin Preserve, which visitors can still see today. In the wild, Bhutan's takins live mainly in the northern mountains, with Jigme Dorji National Park as their stronghold.

The takin is not classed as Endangered, but it is Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, one step away. Its global assessment, dated 30 June 2008, describes a decreasing population and a decline driven by habitat loss and hunting, and the IUCN has flagged it as needing an update. Nobody knows how many takins exist overall, because they live in remote, steep and forested country that is very hard to survey. The partial counts give an idea of the scale: several thousand golden takins in the Qinling Mountains, an estimated 3,500 Mishmi takins in China, a few hundred in India according to older estimates, and around 500 to 700 Bhutan takins in Jigme Dorji National Park. The main threats are hunting for meat and, to a lesser degree, skins, often with snares; the clearing of lower forests for farms, roads and logging, which removes the winter range herds depend on; and competition and disease from livestock grazing in the high meadows. Protection is strong on paper. The takin is a first class protected animal in China, is listed under Schedule I of India's Wildlife Protection Act, is fully protected in Bhutan and appears in Appendix II of CITES, which controls international trade. Large reserves such as Foping and Tangjiahe in China, Mehao and Dibang in India and Jigme Dorji in Bhutan now shelter some of the most important populations.