Yeti- The Ecology of a Mystery

by Daniel C Taylor

  AS JENNIFER HOLDS OUR CHILD, A TEAR FALLS on to that olive-brown cheek. And then, a family of four arrays itself on the big black motorcycle. Jesse again sits astride the gas tank holding the handlebars. Side-saddled behind me, Jennifer cradles our daughter in her lap—the little Tara protected by a new mother’s arms. In an-hour-and-a-half, we’re due for dinner with friends. Before that, we must track down diapers, bottles, and formula from some shop in the Kathmandu bazaar. A little girl has a lot of growing up to do. Several of Jesse’s T-shirts will serve as Tara’s new baby gowns.

  It is 1983, Thanksgiving Day.

  eleven

  The King and His Zoo

  11.1 Nepal’s Once-Forested Mountains Being Taken over by People and Their Fields

  Source: Author

  December 1983. We need a reference skull from a ground bear for our three tree-bear skulls. According to science, there are ground bears in Nepal, but I can find no museum anywhere in the world that has a thibetanus skull from Nepal, whether of tree or ground bear. So I am meeting my friend Shah Dev again.

  I wait in the antechamber. Each visit is always a bit of a surprise—will he be the friend with whom I once partied, or will he be aloof with the dual supremacies of being the king and the reincarnated god? He has been both, sometimes on the same visit. The door of the antechamber opens. Energetically, His Majesty’s principal private secretary motions me in.

  As I follow him down the hall, I ponder the meaning of being a king in the modern age. A question which, perhaps, only kings contemplate, and only a few are left. The problem is, if one is an absolute king, the position comes with no helpful checks and balances but with the unchecked hopes of people. The position does not allow a mistake. The question grows more challenging when the king is also a god—for gods are presumed to have ultimate knowing. Absolute authority coupled with sanctified guidance would be splendid, if it did not have to be carried out by humans.

  Such leadership is flooded with requests—a business permit, a treaty proposed by a government, even an old friend who asks about a bear. And in all of this, kings survive when catious—and caution and protection are made easier by isolation. So they surround themselves with walls (of many kinds). But there is an undermining problem with living in isolation: it is easy to make mistakes.

  The man who leads me to this cautious king is the loyal servant who opens doors, moves between rooms, and I’ve learnt that he does not like to be surprised. As the private secretary and I hurry down the hall, I spot the minister of finance in an antechamber reviewing his papers for his audience that is scheduled in fifteen minutes. Yet, as we approach the audience chamber, I know my role over the decades with regard to my isolated friend has been to bring him unvarnished news—so we often talk for hours. But this time, the private secretary has just told me: ‘You absolutely must take no more than fifteen minutes. I’ve fit you with some difficulty, no old school talk.’

  As we arrive before the door, behind which I know is a massive formal royal study, standing guard is His Majesty’s aide-de-camp, who smiles in recognition, and with a polished movement swings the door wide open.

  The king of Nepal, His Majesty Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, age thirty-nine, is positioned in the centre of the room, feet astride a snow-leopard skin, hands clasped behind his back, grinning as I walk in. He pumps my hand warmly. Forty straight-back chairs line three walls, the fourth wall presenting, alone, by itself, His Majesty’s desk. In front of the desk, grouped around the snow-leopard skin, are three armchairs and a coffee table. The room’s formality and its host’s regal/divine position disappears as two friends settle into the armchairs. Shah Dev continues to grin, sizing me up. I do the same, noticing that he’s lost weight and trimmed his moustache. My mind goes back to the schoolteacher in Khandbari who speaks about his king without knowing him.

  Shah Dev reaches for his tiny pipe in its stitched leather casing and picks up the blue tin of Dutch tobacco, custom-blended and shipped to the Himalaya from the shores of the Zuyder Zee. He scrapes the pipe bowl with a little tool made of stainless steel that is used even by commoners, flips the tool around, and packs his tobacco. As the tool flips, I spot the Harvard crest in the steel and the word ‘veritas’; it is the same tool he bought one afternoon when we stepped out of the rain into Leavitt and Pierce just off Harvard Square. His pipe lit, Shah Dev looks at me intently.

  ‘So, Dan’l,’ he says with an emphatic nod, ‘what have you been doing?’

  ‘We followed your suggestion, Shah Dev, and searched the Barun Valley some months ago. You had said that no place is as wild in the whole of Nepal.’

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘Well, villagers report two bears in the jungle. Both are black. One is large, very aggressive, lives on the ground, and when dead, even five villagers will have difficulty carrying it. This bear seems to be what science calls the Asiatic black bear, Ursus thibetanus. I’m sure you know it; you must even have shot one. But villagers also report another bear, which, for us, is new. It is smaller, shy, and lives in trees. Two villagers can carry a dead one. Villagers call the big, ground-based bear bhui balu and the little, tree-living bear is called rukh balu. We found evidence to support the villagers’ claims—a bear does live in trees and makes unusual nests. We found five such nests, a trail of footprints in the snow, and possess three skulls. As far as we can determine, the rukh balu has never been scientifically described.’

  ‘What do you mean? The rukh balu is not unknown. It is found in several places in Nepal.’ Shah Dev looks at me quizzically.

  ‘You mean Nepalis generally speak of the rukh balu and the bhui balu?’

  ‘Not every Nepali, or even half of the Nepalis, but those who know about bears. Or maybe I should say the Nepalis living near the jungle know of the rukh balu.’

  ‘Shah Dev, this Nepali knowledge is not scientific knowledge. Science says there are four bears in the Himalaya: sloth bear, Melursus ursinus; red bear, Ursus arctos isabellinus; blue bear, Ursus arctos pruinosus; and Asiatic black bear, Ursus thibetanus. Clearly, the sloth bear, the red bear, and the blue bear are not tree bears. Where Nepalis report two bears called the bhui balu and the rukh balu, the literature reports only one, Ursus thibetanus. And no description of this bear fits the tree bear, especially the bear’s behaviour.’

  Shah Dev leans forward, his eyes sparkling. ‘Let me be clear. Are you saying that science does not know something that Nepali villagers know?’

  ‘It appears to be.’

  Shah Dev hasn’t worked his pipe since the story began. Reaching for the phone he dials his brother Prince Gyanendra, who knows about wildlife conservation. With the instructions I just overheard, I expect that the prince is already on his way to the palace.

  ‘What does this mean?’ the king asks, turning to me after studying the ceiling in silence.

  ‘It means we need more evidence. When we examined our first skull at the Smithsonian alongside the many Ursus thibetanus skulls in their collection, we found our skulls to be smaller and more delicate. But specimens of one bear don’t prove anything except maybe that the Barun bears are small. So I returned to the Barun last week to purchase ground bear skulls, but the villagers claim that they do not have any of that type. I got two more tree bears but no ground bears. If skulls of both types can be collected from the same jungle and are shown to be different, that will prove that two different bears exist.’

  ‘Collecting skulls will be easy. First we shall arrange the necessary permits for the endangered species, and then I will tell my hunters to go and shoot both bears.’

  ‘I already have the permits.’

  Shah Dev settles back, remembers his pipe, scrapes the bowl, and again lights up. Smoke curls. Over the years that I have known him, as people keep coming to him with personal requests, Shah Dev has consistently demonstrated awareness of how what seem to be little things can link together unexpectedly to become big. As he has been increasingly surprised, more caution has risen. Smoke curls up.
Monarchs plan across generations.

  ‘We must be careful,’ he says. ‘If we do anything too quickly, we will overlook something important. And if it turns out that you are making a mistake, it should be clear that it is your mistake, not ours.’

  He is right, of course, and not just from a royal perspective. Science is science because its perspective is also careful—seeking to explain the Yeti I’ve tried to be careful, but this man is the king of a nation whose mascot is the legend I seek to demystify. The tree bear is what we have spoken of, but I need to alert him to the fact that this bear idea, as it connects to the Yeti, may in time be taking money and magic from his kingdom.

  A side door opens. In walks Prince Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. I rise and step towards him. Walking past me, the prince bows, and still holding his bow, continues to walk forward. His Majesty remains seated as the other approaches him genuflected. The older brother offers the younger his hand; obeisance is performed. This deference must happen each day when they meet for the first time. Only after that rite is over does the prince straighten. Firm of spine and always polished in speech, he greets me regally.

  The king brought the prince because he knows the latter thrives on catching mistakes. The prince will pounce on any flaw in my thinking.

  ‘Dan’l, tell your story to my brother.’

  ‘Your Royal Highness, His Majesty and I were discussing a discovery made by Bob Fleming, myself, and our families. We’ve conducted wildlife observations in the Barun Valley over the last year. The villagers there claim that two bears live in their jungles, the bhui balu and the rukh balu. The bhui balu fits the scientific descriptions of Ursus thibetanus, the Asiatic black bear, but the rukh balu seems unknown, for there is no scientific description about a small shy bear that lives in trees. This bear, known to Nepali villagers, is unknown to the world. As of now, we’ve collected three rukh-balu skulls, one set of paws, and intriguing data on nest-making. All verify villagers’ reports, but disagree with the literature. To clarify what is true, we now need bhui-balu data from the same habitat, especially skulls, to compare with the tree-bear evidence.’

  The prince breaks in. ‘Let me understand. You say that no scientific distinction is currently made between the bhui balu and the rukh balu. However, our people consider these to be different animals. Are you saying that science does not recognize this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So how do we test what you assert?’

  ‘Two issues need separation, Your Royal Highness. The first is the rukh balu/bhui balu question. Are these two different bears, and if so, how are they different? The second question is: might one of these bears be the Yeti?’

  ‘Wait,’ His Majesty breaks into the conversation. ‘You did not mention that. What is the Yeti information?’

  ‘As Your Majesty knows, there are two types of Yeti evidence. One is what the villagers report. Basically, nothing can be proved with these stories. The other evidence has scientific substance, footprints have been photographed and, in one instance, plaster casts were made. The most famous discovery is by Shipton in 1951. You must have seen that picture—a track almost 13 inches long, very clear with noticeable large toes that look human. The second set of credible photographs, as well as the plaster cast, was taken by Cronin and McNeely in 1972, a print just under 9 inches long.’

  I pull photographs from file folders. ‘Your Majesty, please examine this rukh-balu print. When my brother-in-law and I found this, we thought we had found the Yeti. However, as you can see, the photographs show nail marks. Although the nails point towards it being a bear and not a hominoid, the shape of the footprint does not match that of Ursus thibetanus. There appears to be a “thumb”. Cronin and McNeely’s Yeti prints are similar to these, but their print shows no nail marks.

  ‘Shipton’s sighting doesn’t solve the problem either, because he has only two photographs as evidence—a close-up and a long-distance shot. And in their close-up, they presumably selected the most human-looking print. John Napier, a British curator of primatology, obtained the original negative of the Shipton photograph and discovered that the lower section of that negative had been edited out when the picture was first published. With that, we see part of a second print showing what could be nail marks. More importantly, Your Royal Highness, Napier shows how the print could have been made by an animal setting its hind paws into its front paw prints. Napier did not know about the rukh balu and possibly an undescribed bear. If we add what we now know of a rukh balu having a thumb-like digit, Napier’s overprinting thesis for the Yeti becomes more convincing.’

  ‘OK, your point about the Yeti is understood,’ the prince says. ‘However, you said that there are two issues: the bear and the Yeti. Tell us about the bear.’

  ‘Well, the question is how the rukh balu and the bhui balu differ. Three explanations can be offered. First, the difference may be based in gender: the ground bear is the male, and the tree bear the female. A second explanation might be that the tree bear is a juvenile ground bear, a yearling that has left its mother but is still undersized. The third explanation is what the villagers maintain—that the two bears are different. Why not test whether the villagers are right?’

  I continue, ‘There may be an easy first action to sort all this out where we could use your royal help: Your Majesty might own a tree bear in your Royal Zoo. I examined this bear through the cage. The size is right and its front paws appear to have a thumb-like digit. One zoo bear by itself proves nothing, but it is of interest. Could Your Majesty arrange to have the animal tranquilized and let me examine it?’

  The king touches a buzzer behind his desk. Before the buzzing stops, the door opens and the aide-de-camp is inside, standing at attention.

  ‘Tell my private secretary to come. General Shushil—I want to see him, Narendra too. Tell Bishou to come.’

  The king, the prince, and I now circle into a conversational holding pattern. His Royal Highness politely queries, ‘You were in the villages recently?’

  ‘Yes, I made a quick trip to the Barun to seek more bear skulls. While there I saw a new temple built by Your Majesty’s government. The villagers appreciated it very much.’

  ‘Which Barun villages?’ asks His Royal Highness.

  ‘Where the Barun and Arun rivers meet. This is an interesting place with unusually high …’ I stop; neither brother is listening. People are filling the chairs along the wall. As they enter, each entrant bows at the waist, palms pressed above the forehead, and walks that way to a chair where he mutely sits, shoulders bent in deference; their faces show obvious consternation. All remain silent as we await one last arrival. Then His Majesty looks at his staff and says, ‘This is my friend, Dan’l. I have known him for many years. He has some interesting discoveries. Please, your report, Dan’l. But only about bears.’

  I explain about the tree and ground bears—that though Nepalis know both, Western science knows only the latter. ‘If the villagers are right and there are two bears, this will be an important discovery for Nepal. I have asked His Majesty for help.’

  ‘Yes, I want to answer this question. You are to help Dan’l. He wants to study the bear in the zoo. He wants to research in the Barun Valley next year. I promised the help of palace hunters. He is my friend and is careful, and he will not violate any of our national regulations. Also, he has the needed scientific collection permits. Make the arrangements.’ He turns to me and says, ‘Dan’l, I think this will be enough.’

  Everyone stands, poised to leave. I rise too, but hold back while the others depart. His Majesty stands, looking at me with his hands clasped behind his back as I say, ‘Your Majesty, thank you. It is always wonderful to see you. Thank you for your support.’

  My friend grasps my hand, drawing out the moment by not letting go; a smile opens into a warm grin. ‘Dan’l, it is going to be fun to watch you and this. I’m sure there will be more surprises. Do a good job with this. From what I know—and take this as suggestion, not command—the Barun’s wild
erness is more important than the bear. What we do for conservation in the Barun affects the adjoining areas, such as Everest and also the Arun Valley hydroelectric project. And we need to rethink our national park management. Let me point you to these issues as well, not just the bears. Seek conservation that affects the life of my people. We need ideas about how to be more effective at protecting what we have, especially ideas that make life better for my subjects.’ He gives a gentle squeeze, and then releases my hand with a formal handshake. ‘Good luck.’

  At times after my meetings with Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, especially when consideration had been of the whole well-being of his kingdom, I felt that this man was, in fact, blessed with divine insight. He held binding his country as one people to be the highest priority, and he looked into the future with insights few Nepalis had. He was very suspicious of Nepal’s neighbours using his country for their national purposes. However, he was also human and perhaps overly cautious. Tragically, of course, he has been assassinated; the deed, I know for sure, done by his son frustrated with the old patterns of authority.

  11.2 The Author and His Son Jesse at the Zoo—the Bear is in the Net

  Source: Robert L. Fleming

  THE NEXT MORNING AT 7:15, Bob Fleming, Jesse, and I rendezvous at the front gate of the Kathmandu Zoo. Seven government officials wait in the morning fog. They had orders from the palace asking them to show up. That’s all they know.

  ‘Our task is to study the black bear’s feet,’ I say.

  They nod. A command from the palace to show up at the zoo early in the morning was strange enough; that the purpose was to study a black bear’s feet made the command only implausibly stranger. The director calls for his tranquilizer blowpipe. Another among them calls for tea. After half-an-hour the gun arrives. Nepal’s chief ecologist suggests a different tranquilizing drug. We wait for another hour and drink more tea. Finally, a dart is injected. The man who called for tea suggests that the plaster-of-Paris casts we want of hind paws overprinting forepaws will be more accurately made if first, a negative mould is made if the first imprint is in dung which has a smoother consistency than mud; then the dung mould would be used to make the plaster casting.