Water Buffalo are very common in Asia, particularly South East Asia and Northern Australia.

They have many uses including working on the land and for food. In Australia, they are mainly wild but also farmed for food. They make a particularly good steak.

I lived in Darwin, Northern Australia and when U returned to my hometown of Brisbane City, I brought back 10kg of Barramundi (fish) and 20kg of Buffalo rump. We had a barbeque and people wouldn't believe it was buffalo steak, it was so juicy and tender.

This young calf made me remember back in the 80s I visited my cousin in Darwin, Northern Australia. She had a young calf in her back yard. We were standing there chatting and I was patting the calf. It moved, and stood on my foot. Now, water buffalo are a bit like mules - stubborn. They move when they want to move unless you're a trained buffalo handler - which I am not! No matter how much we pushed and slapped it on the butt, it wouldn't move! Luckily, her back yard was quite wet and the soil was quite soft, so my foot sank in the mud so no real damage was done! Finally it moved and I limped back into the house. Funny now.

In South-east Asia, buffalo are ideal for plowing the muddy waters of the river paddies.

This one is a fairly rare albino, which is apparently lucky. Not so lucky for this poor bugger as he was to be the village feast for some festival that was happening in Sa pa, Northern Vietnam the weekend after this photo was taken.