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Abstract This paper explores the relationship between herding and hunting practices in the mountainous environment of Indigenous Soyots of Okinskii Raion (Oka), Buryatia. It traces an animistic approach to the concept of balance among sentient entities, including landscapes, identifying it as an underlying ethic governing the relationships of domestic and non-domestic animals with humans. Drawing on this ethic of care, the paper identifies practices directed at achieving balance as a form of resistance to assertions of outright control over living beings. The author begins by problematising the concept of care, pointing to basic ontological differences identified in anthropological literature, before addressing how care and balance are related. Here care is understood as a matter of attentiveness: a skill that links herding and hunting practices. The paper then delves into three concrete areas of care: the care of creating life in living and calving spaces; the care of holding life together through material implements and invocation of intangible protective forces; and, finally, care for species diversity in local yak and hybrid breeding practices.
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