WildView™

June 16, 2025

Look Who’s Takin

- as seen by -

Alys Granados

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Takin (Budorcas taxicolor) can weigh nearly 900 lbs, but this one didn’t make a lot of noise when we spotted it.

I recently took a trip to Sichuan, China, to visit a friend with the dual goal of seeing wildlife. A 6 a.m. sighting of this wild animal (above) was a most welcome one, and we were so lucky to watch it munching on grass for a few minutes. This was our second sighting, as the previous night we had seen a group of five takins. There were likely more in the area, however, since takins are known to live in groups of around 10 or more. In the 1980s, renowned wildlife biologist and conservationist Dr. George Schaller documented a herd of 100 of what he called “bee-stung moose”.

Unlike other more familiar species in China, like the giant panda or the snow leopard, takins are not well-known outside the Himalayas where they are found, possibly because few zoos have them. They are in the same family as cows and goats, and just like mountain goats, these ungulates need to be great climbers to survive and navigate their mountainous habitat with steep terrain in China, living at elevations of up to about 13,000 ft (4000 m).

Unfortunately, takins face many of the same threats as countless other species, including habitat loss and hunting. As a result, in China, they have the same level of protection as pandas, because of declining population trends, and they are globally listed as Vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Nikon 3200

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