Bharal
Encyclopedia
The bharal or Himalayan blue sheep or naur, Pseudois nayaur, is a caprid
Goat antelope
A goat-antelope or caprid is any of the species of mostly medium-sized bovids that make up the subfamily Caprinae , part of the Bovidae family of ruminants...

 found in the high Himalayas of Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

, Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...

, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, and Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...

. Its native names include bharal, barhal, bharar and bharut in Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

, na or sna in Ladakh
Ladakh
Ladakh is a region of Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of the Republic of India. It lies between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent...

, nabo in Spitian
Spiti Valley
The Spiti Valley is a desert mountain valley located high in the Himalaya mountains in the north-eastern part of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The Middle Land", i.e. the land between Tibet and India....

, naur in Nepali
Nepali language
Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

 and na or gnao in Bhutan.

The bharal has horn
Horn (anatomy)
A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae...

s that grow upwards, curve out and then towards the back, somewhat like an upside down mustache.

The bharal was also the focus of George Schaller
George Schaller
George Beals Schaller is an American mammalogist, naturalist, conservationist and author. Schaller is recognized by many as the world's preeminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Born in Berlin, Schaller grew up in Germany, but moved to Missouri as a...

's and Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...

's expedition to Nepal in 1973. Their personal experiences are well documented by Matthiessen in his book, The Snow Leopard. The bharal is a major food of the snow leopard
Snow Leopard
The snow leopard is a moderately large cat native to the mountain ranges of South Asia and Central Asia...

.

Taxonomy and evolution

  • Chinese blue sheep, Pseudois nayaur szechuanensis
  • Himalayan blue sheep, Pseudois nayaur nayaur
  • Helen Shan blue sheep, Pseudois nayaur ssp
  • Dwarf blue sheep
    Dwarf Blue Sheep
    The dwarf blue sheep or dwarf bharal Pseudois schaeferi is an endangered species of caprid found in China Proper and Tibet. It inhabits low, arid, grassy slopes of the upper Yangtze gorge in Batang County of the Sichuan Province, and a small part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, where it is known by...

    , Pseudois schaeferi

The dwarf blue sheep
Dwarf Blue Sheep
The dwarf blue sheep or dwarf bharal Pseudois schaeferi is an endangered species of caprid found in China Proper and Tibet. It inhabits low, arid, grassy slopes of the upper Yangtze gorge in Batang County of the Sichuan Province, and a small part of the Tibet Autonomous Region, where it is known by...

 (P. schaeferi) is sometimes considered to be a subspecies of the bharal.

Ruttingbehaviour

The rutting of the bharal starts in towards late November and continues until mid-January. During the rut male bharal use multiple strategies for mating. Namely: Tending, Blocking and Coursing The young are born in late June and July.

Ecology

Bharal are mainly grazers but during times of scarcity of grass they have the plasticity to switch to herbs and shrubs A high degree of diet overlap between livestock (especially donkeys) and bharal, together with density-dependent forage limitation, results in resource competition and a decline in bharal density.

Conservation status

The bharal is listed as least concern under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Relationship with humans

Many Buddhist monasteries protect the bharal that are found around them, but lately, issues of crop damage caused by bharal have started to arise in areas such as the Spiti valley
Spiti Valley
The Spiti Valley is a desert mountain valley located high in the Himalaya mountains in the north-eastern part of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The Middle Land", i.e. the land between Tibet and India....

.

External links

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