Topography of adaptation: Native domestic animals in Sakha (Yakutia) and the environment

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  • 適応のかたち : サハの在来家畜と環境
  • テキオウ ノ カ タチ : サハ ノ ザイライ カチク ト カンキョウ

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This paper examines how native domestic animals such as cattle and horses have been bred in Sakha (Yakutia) by tracing the ways in which environmental adaptation was considered as a physical attribute in academic discourses. The number of cattle and horses in Sakha has historically varied inversely. In the last thirty years, the number of cattle decreased by almost half after the fall of the Soviet Union, while the number of horses is growing to almost the same level as during the Soviet era. Looking back at the historical situation of the native domestic animals, cattle and horses followed completely different paths. Sakha indigenous cattle (Yakutian cattle) numbered nearly 500 thousand head in the 1920s, but the population sharply dropped in Stalinʼs time, as crossbreeding with European breeds that promised to produce more beef and milk was widely introduced. On the other hand, conservation of Sakha indigenous horses (Yakutian horses) was enshrined into law in the 1960s, since they were recognized as the breed well-adapted to the harsh environment of Eastern Siberia. The marked difference between the cases reflected the distinctive responses to Lysenkoism, which had maintained a strong influence over agricultural policy until the end of Khrushchevʼs regime. The defenders of Yakutian cattle were forced to obey the line of the Lysenkoite promotion of crossbreeding, while the defenders of Yakutian horses evaded it by pointing out the singular nature of environmental adaptation. From the observation of the concrete trajectories that the native domestic animals followed, it is inferred that one of the reasons for the current trend of the rise and fall of livestock animals may be found on the trail.

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