The Kingdom of Rarities (40 page)

The author commented, “We may spend our lives seeking something that is actually right inside us, and could be found if we would only stop and deepen our attention.”

After more whiskey, it was time to air out the yeti stories. No rare Himalayan species has garnered more ink, launched such fruitless expeditions, or attracted more cranks than this rarity, the “abominable snowman.” Search parties have scoured parts of the Himalayas and brought back traces of fur claimed to be from a yeti, but these typically turn out to be from a Himalayan tahr—a relative of the Rocky Mountain goat—a Himalayan brown or black bear, a langur, or a macaque. The absence of scientific proof does little to dissuade the locals, who are convinced that the yeti, known here as the
migoi
, is real. In fact, the Bhutanese add a novel feature to its repertoire—the ability to become invisible when necessary. Such revelations only add fuel to the beliefs of diehard cryptozoologists (literally, those who study hidden creatures) who remain convinced it is only a matter of time before hard evidence convinces a skeptical world.

The next day, after crossing another mountain pass, we were at last entering old-growth oak and rhododendron forest. At the next rise, I walked clockwise around a stone monument, a religious shrine, and leaned against a boulder. As soon as I put my pack down, a cascade of cuckoo songs tumbled down the mountainside. The large hawk cuckoo is an incessant singer. Repeatedly, I heard its definitive self-diagnosis: “
Brain fe-ver, brain fe-ver, brain fe-ver
,” consoled by a nearby oriental cuckoo's soft “
Ho-ho-ho-ho
”; offered treatment by the Indian cuckoo's “
One-more-bottle
,
one-more-bottle
”; and dismissed by the psychoanalytic Eurasian species with the classic rejoinder “
Cuck-koo, cuck-koo
.” I tried to call in the oriental but instead stirred up a juvenile yellow-billed blue magpie.

The oaks were massive, draped in lichens. Rhododendrons colored the scene—the giant
Rhododendron arboreum
, with its bright red flowers and the most beautiful variety I had ever seen; the species
R. hodgsonii
, now all around me, its trunk and limbs festooned with long peeling strips of purplish bark. The rhododendrons had peaked, and
the trail lay strewn with fallen flowers. William Beebe's quote “To be a Naturalist is better than to be a King” floated through my mind.

To pause in this old-growth oak-rhododendron forest, to be in this moment, seemed to offer a perfect marriage of Buddhist practice and scientific curiosity. There is something wondrous about walking among living organisms many hundreds of years older than you. Deep groves of old growth are globally rare and can induce a state of rapture in those open to the experience, whether in the redwoods or sequoias of California, the hill dipterocarp forests of Sarawak, the mountain ash stands of Australia, the venerable hemlock-cedar forests of Vancouver Island, or the primeval koa stands of Hawaii. And rapture mixes with tranquility, an inner quietude that envelops the soul of every nature lover who enters a valley of ancient trees. Standing on a petal-strewn path in this rare forest offered a taste of what practiced Buddhists must feel when deep in meditation. A phrase echoed in my head, a phrase that naturalists in nature know but sometimes fail to name. Like the repetitive refrains of the cuckoos, it was a welcoming, unshakable song: “
Serenity, serenity
.”

My reverie ended with the sudden arrival and rapid departure of two Americans striding down the trail. Their Bhutanese guide, who was puffing along behind them, muttered that the Yanks had decided to cover in one day's walk what our party would do in three. So much for the sacred art of pausing. The racers failed even to slow down to marvel at the serenade of cuckoos, or the intensity of the purple-barked rhododendrons, or the calming effect of standing in an old-growth forest. Perhaps the Buddhists are right in observing the nature of impermanence underlying everything of this Earth, but I wanted to burn into every neuron what it was like to stand in such a magnificent forest. I wanted an image that would last decades, remaining with me when I was too old to climb this ridge again. My sense of moral superiority evaporated when Mincha struggled up to where I was and asked if I had seen the American hikers. “You mean the ones who raced through with blinders
on?” “Oh yes,” he replied. “They had four satyr tragopans cross the trail in front of them. You must have just missed it.”

Now the trail began descending rapidly, and before long we would be out of the altitudinal range of the evasive tragopans. Up ahead, a shaggy gray-coated mammal bounded across the trail. A juvenile or yearling yeti? The upright, wagging tail ultimately revealed a village dog that came up to greet us. We walked along together until we caught up with the cook, who had a hot lunch waiting. I sat on a rotting log with hemlock and rhododendron seedlings, sedges, and ferns growing out of it. Finding the dog hungry, I shared my potato pea curry with the mutt. Later I came across an appropriate Bhutanese proverb, “If merit is to be earned, be good and kind to dogs.”

There was much to like about this country and its customs, including kindness to dogs. In other Asian countries, dogs may wander half starving and mange afflicted; the Bhutanese, by contrast, are typically generous with food and care. Dogs are considered a high rebirth, next to humans in the chain, bumping the apes back down the list despite all the DNA evidence. The Bhutanese believe that dogs have intervened on behalf of humans when the gods were angry with them. Dogs are also said to be helpful in the afterlife: if a human soul is lost in the darkness of the hereafter, dogs show the way with a light glowing on their tails. Just above the base of the mountain, my new companion returned my favor. He darted under some brush and scared up a Kalij pheasant, our first of the journey. Moments later, we were at the edge of a village and a few minutes from the waiting van.

Our departure from Bhutan was going to generate a painful withdrawal. For two weeks, life had slowed to the speed at which I believe we are meant to live. The fresh air, the altitude, the powerful influence of the Buddhist culture seemed to awaken each of us from the trance, the self-made cocoon we lived in back home. If only for a short while, we had escaped to a different place, a geography
where a pair of hiking shoes, binoculars, and a cup of hot tea seemed like enough.

As we packed away our gear and fond memories, a question raised by Bhutan's critics popped up: What did a small, remote, sparsely populated and still untouched country have to teach the rest of the world about conservation, reverence for rare species, or anything? Is it really an outlier among nations?

But the critics ask the wrong question. It is not the size of the country or its intactness per se, but the philosophy that guides it, that is important. The Bhutanese have taken the principles of modern conservation biology and woven them into the Buddhist dharma to chart a different course for their nation. So perhaps a better question is: What solution does a devoutly Buddhist culture offer for the conservation crisis? The answer: The global conservation crisis is ultimately a spiritual crisis in disguise. And what we lack in abundance is compassion for the millions of other species with which we share the planet, something that comes as naturally to the Bhutanese as breathing. Perhaps that is the country's most essential export to the rest of us who are trying to come to grips with the conservation of rarities.

Even in a nation where the majority of civic and religious leaders and its populace express compassion for all living things, the record is not perfect, of course. Overzealous government officials can make regrettable decisions. In 2012, several years after we completed this journey, someone in the government granted permission to “improve” the trail we had hiked on and turn it into a road with a power line. Some of the massive oaks lay strewn along the wayside, casualties in the name of progress. Fortunately, much of the old-growth forest remained intact adjacent to it, but this story illustrates how, in the absence of constant vigilance, a few individuals can make decisions against the best interests of a nation.

Our cultural evolution as a species is in its adolescence. But evolution never stops, and perhaps ahead of us is a prominent marker
in our own development: the point when we truly value nature's diversity, a metric noted by conserving rare wildlife. And as with the dying musk deer, the answer to our dilemma of how to take that next step was right in front of me, right in front of us, all along. Developing our gift for compassion is a critical contribution to the persistence of rarities.

Compassion alone, of course, is insufficient. It didn't work for flightless birds against invading rats in Hawaii, nor will it save many other of nature's rarities. Incentives, economic or otherwise, for conservation, superb science, and improved governance for everything from a climate change treaty to enforcement of antipoaching laws are also necessary parts of the solution. The fate of rarities is not only in the hands of impoverished villagers but also in the hands of those in political palaces and the boardrooms of multinational corporations who could take seriously the conservation of rarity and act on its behalf with far-reaching effect. The combined actions of Big Agriculture, for example, have far greater consequences for the persistence—or extinction—of rarities than do the effects of indigenous groups scattered throughout the tropics.

The challenge ahead for us in preserving rarities is to link the science-based approach that focuses on populations rather than individuals and the animal-welfare philosophy that gives ethical value to individuals and their well-being. There is ample evidence of reason to hope for such a grand merger of science-based thinking and compassionate connection to wildlife. We see the response of compassion in laws preventing animal cruelty and in the growth of rescue shelters for dogs, cats, and wild animals. The combined scientific and compassionate response is also taking root. A global tiger summit, the International Forum on Tiger Conservation, staged in November 2010 and attended by heads of state of the tiger range countries—the first ever such forum for a wild species—may give this rare top carnivore a second chance through its commitment to double the wild tiger population by 2022. In 2012, new legislation was passed in several countries to stop the finning of sharks, another top predator that has been made rare by senseless
slaughter, and whose decline has altered the regulation of marine systems.

Some critics hold that wildlife conservation will be an unattainable luxury for the poorest countries until their citizenry can climb out of poverty. Besides Bhutan, the examples of two other economically poor countries counter such an assertion. Nepal, as we've seen, is now doing a better job of protecting its rare endangered vertebrates than are most countries. Perhaps most successful of all is Namibia, another country characterized by extreme rural poverty yet soon to have almost half its land area covered by communal conservancies and national parks protecting many rarities of that nation's arid lands, from succulent plants in the Namib-Karoo region to free-ranging black rhinos. If three of the poorest nations on Earth have some of the best track records for conserving rarities, other factors must be at work.

A marriage of science, political will, and compassion in rich countries as well as poor could embrace not only empathy for animals but also our ability to conduct and understand science and to appreciate fully the wonderful beauty of rare animals and oldgrowth forests, the complexity of life, the immensity of the universe. As we enter the Anthropocene epoch, we must hope that humans in the early twenty-first century will finally be able to reach accommodation with uncommon nature and—dare we hope—a celebration of rarities.

For those wishing to delve deeper into the subject of rarity, I have selected a number of books, articles, and scientific papers that I drew upon in my own research or that expand greatly beyond the species I have covered. Under each chapter title, I have tried to identify references that might appeal to a broad range of readers, professionals, and students.