Page 29 - BHUTAN 2007

The antic Tarai gray langurs also made an appearance for us, along a
roadside sitting on guardrails. However, as soon as we slammed to a stop

for closer observation, they leapt into the trees that march down the steep

mountainside. With our binoculars and long lenses we could view them

easily anyway. They have completely black faces surrounded by a luxurious

white ruff that makes them appear to be wearing large lacy collars, like the
first Queen Elizabeth. Their bodies are covered with soft-looking, thick gray

fur and the pads on their hands and feet are black like their faces. We

observed them for quite some time as they dined on leaves and jumped

from branch to branch with such elegant ease.

Bhutan also supports Himalayan Spectacled Bears, Snow Leopards, tigers,

and martens, but we were never anywhere near where these rare and
reclusive species would be found. There are two other monkeys living in the

primeval forests as well, like the beautiful Golden Langur and the Rhesus

Monkey, but we were not privileged to see them either. The Gray Langurs

do cause the farmers some trouble because they raid the fields. Scarecrows

flap and clap in the fields, more to scare the langurs away than the birds.
There are small hut-like structures on stilts in many fields so that when

monkey predation on the crops becomes too bold and too destructive, the

farmer moves into the hut so that he can physically prevent their

depredations. Because of the Buddhist reverence for life, the monkeys and

birds are not maimed or killed, merely frightened away. What Buddhist can
be sure that the monkey he attacks is not a relative returned to life in a

lower animal form?