Abstract
The traditional transhumant animal-herding economy has continued to be a core subsistence activity in a community of Altaic Kazakhs in Bayan Ulgii province in western Mongolia. To achieve husbandry improvements and regional development as a central principle, basic social research based on long-term fieldwork was carried out from July 2011–October 2012 among 44 households living at the Buten Winter Pasture in Sagsai county. The primary focuses of this research were: 1) total livestock procession and proportion of each household; 2) local methods of livestock husbandry, herding, and management; and 3) recent modes of seasonal transhumance mobility. Through concentrated fieldwork, the current situation of and issues facing a contemporary Altaic Kazakh community are explained with some negative social factors such as a 60% poverty rate, lower living status of the poor, lack of traditional husbandry skills, and stagnation of herding productivity.
