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?
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