Bovine

The bison is also known as the “Indian buf­falo”. It is the only wild cattle and at the same time the most power­ful mam­mal of the Ame­ri­can con­ti­nent! Before Euro­pe­ans came to Ame­rica, there was a bil­lo­wing sea of grass – the great prai­rie that see­med end­lessly wide. This was the home of the bison. It is hard to ima­gine that almost 60 mil­lion of these mighty ani­mals lived here! For the Indi­ans, bison was vital: they lived off their flesh, made their clo­thes and tents from their skins, and tur­ned their horns into jewelry. They hun­ted only as many ani­mals as they nee­ded for their live­li­hood.

The house yak is a cattle spe­cies that is native to Cen­tral Asia. The name comes from the Tibe­tan lan­guage. There are end­an­ge­red wild yaks and domesti­ca­ted house yaks in the Hima­la­yas, Mon­go­lia and sou­thern Sibe­ria. The ani­mals are the basis of life for the local popu­la­tion: milk, meat, lea­ther, hair and wool are pro­ces­sed, and the feces used as fuel.In addi­tion, yaks are used as live­stock and mounts. The yak is the only type of cattle with a multi-laye­red coat. He has firm cove­ring hair, coar­ser wool and fine under­coat. In spring, the yaks are brus­hed, and the fine under­coat spun into yarn for clot­hing.

The Watussi cattle, or Ox, with its beau­ti­ful strong horns is named after a noma­dic group in Burundi and Rwanda. The Tutsi con­s­i­der these cattle to be a sym­bol of pres­tige, care and kind­ness. The Tutsi use the cattle as a bar­ter and dowry to marry, but they are not slaugh­te­red.

Zwerg­zebu or domestic cattle are small cattle from the Zebu lineage. They are native to South Asia and are now wide­s­p­read in South Ame­rica. Next to the water buf­falo, they are the main tro­pi­cal live­stock. Due to the low weight and sure-foo­ted­ness of zwerg­zebu, they hardly cause damage to the ground. Thus, they help with field work. For long jour­neys, they are used for trans­port.