An animal called the takin lives in the high-altitude forests of the Min Mountains of Tibet and China. Although it is as large as a cow, it is not often seen because it hides when people come near, although some have attacked hunters.
It is an unusual looking creature with a large head and a thick, short neck. Atop the male’s large ears a pair of strong, Ushaped, black and rather blunt horns point backwards.
Takins weigh about 650 pounds and look clumsy, but they are extremely nimble, making trails in the mountain areas at the top edge of canyons where people would be afraid to go.
These unusual animals are actually related to mountain goats. Their hoofs are more like those of goats, and their calls are a combination of a bull’s bellow and the bleating of a goat. They also chew the cud.
Their food is a variety of plants, leaves, thistles, wildflowers, nettles, berry vines and tender new branches of trees. To reach the foliage or leaves on branches too high for them, they will stand on their hind legs and lean their front legs against the tree. Sometimes they will bend a young tree down to the ground by straddling it. In winter when snow is deep and plants are buried, they eat the foliage of trees as high as they can reach. Sometimes this is not enough food, and in severe weather many of them die.
Herds may have from ten to thirty takins, including parents and young ones. Females take full care of their babies since the males don’t take much interest in the young. At times the bulls seem to be playful, but soon the playfulness turns into serious fights.
Babies are quite cute, usually a fuzzy dark-brown color, not at all like their parents who are grayish-red with a black mouth and snout. But as the young ones mature, they gradually change to the adult coloring. Young ones are quick to play together, tumbling and trying to outrun each other. Female baby-sitters often take over responsibility for the babies and young ones, caring for a dozen or more of them.
At one time takins were killed by native hunters for their tasty meat and pretty hides, but now the Chinese government fully protects them from hunters.
These animals remind us of an expression in a Bible verse that says, “The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works” (Psalm 145:99The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalm 145:9)). A little farther on we read, “Happy is he . . . whose hope is in the Lord his God: which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is” (Psalm 146:56). Is He your Lord and Saviour?
ML-06/19/2005