The four representative cultures - the Soyot, the Tofalar, the Tozhu-Tuvans, and the Dukha - developed in concord with the domestication of the reindeer in this remote, fragile, and ecologically diverse transition belt between the Siberian boreal forest and the Inner Asian steppes. The reindeer is an ungulate species uniquely adapted to the taiga and tundra regions of the far north and of the high mountain areas of Inner Asia. Unlike the large-scale reindeer (caribou) ranchers of Scandinavia, northern Siberia, Alaska, and Canada, who live in tundra areas and raise large herds of reindeer for meat, these cultures practice a peculiar form of reindeer husbandry, raising small herds of deer in mountainous forest areas (taiga) predominantly as pack and riding animals and for their milk products, while wild game is the principal source of food. They represent the southernmost extreme of reindeer pastoralism. These unique and endangered reindeer-herding cultures of Inner Asia, which include the Soyot of Buryatia's Okinsky Region, the Tofalar of Irkutsk Oblast, the Tozhu-Tuvans of the Republic of Tuva in Russia, and the Dukha of Mongolia's Hovsgol Province, are among the oldest cultures related to the northern reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) as a totem animal. Reindeer herding as a way of life in the Eastern Sayan Mountain region along the Russian-Mongolian border faces the threat of imminent extinction as a result of the collapse of communist-era institutions and a variety of related crisis factors.
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