The Kingdom of Rarities (37 page)

We arrived in Thimpu at noon under a brilliant blue sky. Traveling with me was my wife, Ute, who had less interest in ibisbills and nuthatches than in Bhutan as a land where Tibetan Buddhism still flourished. As we walked along the streets of the capital, it seemed that, at least outwardly, the dense fabric of Bhutanese cultural and religious life had frayed little in the years since my earlier visit. Whitewashed monasteries gleamed in the sunshine, Tibetan prayer flags fluttered and snapped in the breeze, and men and women walked through town in traditional dress. From the magnificent government centers called
dzongs
to the newest tourist hotels, every piece of architecture still adhered to the national building code: a pagoda-style roof, white walls, and highly decorative painted wood window frames and awnings. Even so, sophisticated Thimpu residents stepped comfortably between two worlds—the modern world of television, cell phones, and Internet access and the traditional one of spinning prayer wheels, oil lamps, and religious festivals.

My first visit, in June 1989, was ill timed, coinciding with torrential monsoon rains. Landslides blocked all road traffic and grounded me in the capital. With no chance to search for rare birds and mammals, I stayed mostly indoors, meeting government officials. One misty afternoon during a break in the weather, I opened my guesthouse window, which looked out on a large meadow. I hoped that a flock of black-necked cranes would circle overhead and magically land in the grass, but it was the wrong season to see Bhutan's most famous endangered species. My fantasy gave way to a different kind of spectacle. Two dozen men clad in brightly colored robes entered the field carrying old-fashioned bows. They broke into two teams, and the archers erected targets about 150 meters opposite each other. The contest began. As arrows flew across the field, each team tried to disrupt the other's concentration with oaths, whistles, and lewd gestures, the men emboldened by swigs from hip flasks. I feared that at least one bowman would be shot dead because the opposing archers stood next to the targets, but their aim was uncanny. From my windowsill seat, the ring of pagodas and banners of prayer flags framed a tableau from the Middle Ages.

By contrast, this dry-season journey of April 2005 promised fine weather in place of monsoons. Himalayan spring had arrived, and Bhutan's spectacular rhododendron forests were bursting into color. The Himalayas are the center of diversity for the genus of “rose trees”; of more than 850 species worldwide, more than 60 are native to Bhutan. Some are dwarf alpine varieties found at timberline, and others, such as those in the Black Mountains, grow thirty meters tall. Some are widespread and abundant, while others have quite localized distributions globally. The narrow ranges of some of these endemic “rhodies” added to Bhutan's long list of rarities. Because Bhutan lies in the eastern zone of the Himalayas, monsoons tend to last longer than in Nepal, and more rain falls. With wetter conditions come more species of plants and, with the incredibly steep topography, more chance for isolation of species. All of these factors greatly increase Bhutan's rarity quotient.

My invitation for this visit came from Kinzang Namgay, head of the WWF's Bhutan program. He had arranged an enticing itinerary, accompanied, as required, by a Bhutanese chaperone. No traveler in Bhutan, or naturalist, goes it alone here. Our journey began with an initial southern excursion, a descent from Thimpu to the edge of Manas National Park. The actual trek would commence at the wintering spot of Bhutan's black-necked cranes, high in the Phobjikha Valley in central Bhutan, and continue through extensive old growth. Aside from the rarities I wished to see and learn about, I was eager for the chance to explore one of the rarest habitats on Earth, extensive tracts of ancient temperate broad-leaved forest.

With an endowment estimated at $30 million in 2012, Bhutan's conservation trust fund pays the annual operating costs of a network of protected areas and biodiversity corridors that together cover almost 35 percent of the country. By government decree, the full Himalayan spectrum—from lowland jungles to snow-covered peaks—receives protection. Far from being stuck in the Middle Ages, in the field of nature conservation Bhutan has bypassed all industrialized nations and emerged in the lead.

The government's decision to ban export logging in its heavily timbered forests is remarkable, since logging, legal and illegal, may be the single greatest threat to the forests of Asia and the persistence of rare species. Logging could be highly lucrative in the short term, but Bhutan's leaders had noticed that in neighboring countries rampant corruption associated with export logging was a cancer, one that could spread rapidly to other sectors of society. In addition, denuded forests and subsequent landslides and siltation would have diminished the country's most profitable export—hydropower sold to India. So, amazingly, they chose to abstain entirely from the destructive industry despite the cash it could bring in.

Bhutan's notable conservation achievements were promoted by a young king who coined the term “gross national happiness” as a novel metric to assess the well-being of his subjects. Protecting a
healthy natural environment, conserving the native flora and fauna, and restoring rare species such as cranes and tigers were part of this GNH, along with poverty reduction, literacy, and provision of safe drinking water.

Before we headed off to the mountains, Kinzang had arranged a meeting for me to speak to government officials and to discuss local conservation issues. In most parts of Asia, men tend to dominate government departments, but here the lecture room filled not only with men but also with a surprising number of women. I began my talk by lauding Bhutan's goal to protect all species by protecting large areas of
all
habitats. This approach was similar to the one that John MacKinnon advocated for Vietnam and that underpins conservation strategies in several countries of the region. I suggested that this “representation strategy,” as biologists refer to the inclusion of differing habitats, could be complemented effectively by specific programs targeting wide-ranging, migratory, and rare species that might need special measures of protection. In the discussion after my talk, I learned that in the Bhutanese plan, even mythical rare vertebrates rate attention: the main purpose of Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary was to safeguard the preferred habitat of the yeti.

After the meeting, I was introduced to two well-respected young biologists from the Nature Conservation Division who, to our delight, had volunteered to be our nature guides. Both Nawang Norbu and Sherub had earned master's degrees abroad and were rapidly gaining respect in Bhutan's conservation community. Sherub was one of the country's top ornithologists and, like many Bhutanese, had only one given name (in Tibetan, his name means “wisdom”). Nawang was a talented ecologist who would later head Bhutan's most important forestry institute. The required government-appointed chaperone was Mincha Wangdi, among the kingdom's top environmental educators, an employee of WWF-Bhutan, and the former teacher of Sherub.

Ute had spent the morning exploring one of the large monasteries in Thimpu. She met the attendant lamas and made a donation.
She also purchased Tibetan prayer flags, which saturate the landscape in a rainbow of blue, green, red, yellow, and white, representing the elements of water, wood, fire, earth, and iron, respectively. The flags are covered in printed prayers and religious symbols, and their display is said to help individuals accumulate merit toward a higher rebirth in their next reincarnation. At another monastery she witnessed the chanting of the monks and spun giant prayer wheels at the entrance to the ceremonial chamber. The massive wheels, nearly four meters tall, contain thousands of written prayers, and the timeless ritual of spinning them in a clockwise motion is intended to generate compassion for all living things.

In late afternoon, we drove from Thimpu to a large enclosure for takins, the national animal. Many species figure prominently in Bhutanese mythology, but none more so than the rare takin, an ungulate of the high mountains now restricted to a small arc around the Eastern Himalayas. According to legend, the takin was created in the fifteenth century when the great Lama Drukpa Kunley, the “Divine Madman,” visited Bhutan. The charismatic lama attracted a large following with his unorthodox teachings, startling outbursts, and magical powers. During his visit he was asked to perform a miracle. After consuming an entire cow and goat for lunch, he placed the goat's head on the cow's skeleton and waved his arm, and the bizarre takin sprang to life and galloped off to graze.

Our group cautiously approached the tall fence enclosing the captive herd of females, young calves, and a watchful bull. The takin is a stout ungulate about the size of a cow, with a shaggy, gold-hued coat, swollen muzzle, and short, curled horns. Wild takin herds wander the high alpine meadows in summer, feasting on nutritious plants and escaping the leech- and horsefly-infested forests below, keeping a lookout for prowling tigers. Although tigers once occupied this entire belt across the Himalayas, now it is only in Bhutan that tigers still venture up to timberline to hunt takins and other montane ungulates. In other countries, tigers are too vulnerable to poachers in such high, remote areas. At the onset of cold weather,
wild takins enter the dense forests and disperse. This captive herd lived a pampered, tiger-free life but still seemed quite wild. Our curiosity brought us too close to them, spooking the animals. An adult female barked something in takinese and the whole group rumbled down the hillside.

The next day, the official tour began and we headed for Punakha, the historical capital of Bhutan. As we left the outskirts of Thimpu, we saw a solitary building that declared itself the home of the Karma Insurance Company. I asked Nawang if the standard life insurance policy in Bhutan covers multiple reincarnations. The ensuing string of Buddhist jokes set the tone for the rest of the journey. Merriment seemed to be a favorite pastime in this country, where the citizenry take the concept of happiness very seriously.

National merriment helps offset the mild unease caused by traveling the Bhutanese National Highway, which includes scarcely 200 meters of straight road on the entire route connecting Thimpu in the west with Tashigang in the east. The narrow one-and-a-half-lane highway is carved out of mountainsides and features blind curves, dips, sheer drops, absent guardrails, and long, winding grades that limit vehicles to a snaillike speed.

We continued east, ascending the north–south ridge that separates the conifer forests of western Bhutan from the Himalayan broad-leaved forest in the center and east. Hemlocks grow tall and straight, but their branches droop toward the ground as if weighed down by the heavy growth of old man's beard (the ubiquitous lichen
Usnea
) hanging from the limbs. Himalayan yew, firs, spruces, and pines give off a sweet fragrance. Near the crest of the ridge, conifers defer to stands of hardwoods. Here we stopped to gaze at a natural arboretum of rhododendrons in full glory: pink, magenta, and crimson blossoms brightened lichen-covered tree limbs. The showy white flowers of wild magnolias set off the rhododendron bouquets.

“Let's walk up here for a moment,” the soft-spoken Sherub suggested. On a clear day, he said, one can see bearded vultures, or lammergeiers, circling above. “They figure in our custom of sky
burial. Our relatives carry the dead to a high promontory, where the body is dismembered and left on a platform for these vultures.” The ossifrage, as this raptor is also known, drops bones from great heights so they break, giving the bird access to the marrow. Riding the Himalayan thermals on a three-meter wingspan, the raptor spreads the remains and releases the spirits of devout Buddhists. Unfortunately for us, descending late afternoon mist obscured any chance of seeing one in action, so we continued to Punakha.

At dawn the next day we headed north along a dirt road at the juncture of the Mo and Pho Chu (Male and Female Rivers). Looming over the confluence was the magnificent seventeenthcentury Punakha Dzong, a combined fortress and monastery of grand design. This dzong, like others throughout the country, once served as the religious, military, administrative, and social center of the district.

We continued to a quiet spot several kilometers upstream and began scanning the riverbed. Ibisbills are globally rare, but like other rarities we have encountered, such as the rhinoceros in Nepal and the Kirtland's warbler in Michigan, they are often easily encountered in a prime location in the right season, especially when one is accompanied by a skilled guide. “There!” shouted Sherub excitedly. We all jumped out of the vehicle to take a better look through a spotting scope. A pair of ibisbills probed the river's stony margins with their long, curved bills. It is said that ibisbills require clear, fast-flowing water because that is the habitat of the aquatic larvae of the dragonflies, mayflies, and stone flies the birds feed on. One might guess, then, that the cause of the ibisbill's rarity was an absence of pristine rivers. Yet the dirty truth is that a lazy birder can find ibisbills congregating beneath the sewage treatment plants in Thimpu and Paro. So why this species is rare remains a mystery worthy of much further study, including an examination of the effects of hydroelectric projects on these birds' abundance and range. Regardless of their status, ibisbills are captivating to watch. Like the fabled takins, they seemed like another legacy of the
Divine Madman's conjuring: in this case, an ibis's head and bill are mounted on a sandpiper's body that is marked with racing stripes and detailing to create a most striking bird.

Suddenly we were startled by a raucous shriek. Looking up, we saw a huge raptor with a white head and brown body—which could only be the rare, globally threatened Pallas's fish-eagle. A close relative of the bald eagle, it nested in the tall chir pines above the river. While searching for the nest, we spotted two more eagles in the same stretch. Perhaps they were coot hunting. The eagles have been known to land on coots and hold them underwater until they drown before carrying the birds away. But carrion is also a staple food item. The eagles often nest near fishing villages, where they seize scraps and, like the bearded vulture, occasionally sample human corpses. Their low numbers are likely caused by their perch on the top of the Asian food pagoda as large-animal flesh eaters, the jaguars and tigers of the bird world.