Men find Markhor horns in the snowy mountains of upper Ladakh, India.

The markhor is a large species of wild goat that is found in northeastern Afghanistan, northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan , some parts of Pakistani Controlled Kashmir (Gilgit-Baltistan) and Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, southern Tajikistan and southern Uzbekistan. It is also known as Shakhawat.

The species was classed by the IUCN as Endangered, as there were fewer than 2,500 mature individuals but in recent years the numbers have actually increased by an estimated 20% for last decade. The markhor is the national animal of Pakistan.

Ladakh is a region of India in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that extends from the Karakoram Range in the north to the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent(" According to Hinduism Yaksha people born from 5th wife of Kashyapa Rishi). It is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Jammu and Kashmir and its culture and history are closely related to that of Tibet.

Historically, the region included the Baltistan (Baltiyul) valleys (now mostly in Pakistani Kashmir), the entire upper Indus Valley, the remote Zanskar, Lahaul and Spiti to the south, much of Ngari including the Rudok region and Guge in the east, Aksai Chin in the northeast, and the Nubra Valley to the north over Khardong La in the Ladakh Range. Contemporary Ladakh borders Tibet to the east, the Lahaul and Spiti to the south, the Vale of Kashmir, Jammu and Baltiyul regions to the west, and the trans–Kunlun region of Xinjiang on the north side of the Kunlun Range across the Karakoram Pass in the far north. Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture.

In the past Ladakh gained importance from its strategic location at the crossroads of important trade routes, but since the Chinese authorities closed the borders with Tibet and Central Asia in the 1960s, international trade has dwindled except for tourism. Since 1974, the Gove