ABSTRACT
I am struck by the diversity of wildlife in the region of the Indian Himalayas where the Dalai Lama and his government reside. Even at the relatively low altitude of Dharamsala, lying at about 6,000 feet in the heart of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, the forested hills are rich with rhododendron trees, whose tall and knobbed trunks reach into the sky with their signature red flowers in springtime. Oversized black scorpions congregate below on the wet rich earth when they aren’t dropping through kitchen windows as they did on a number of occasions in my apartment at Dolma Ling. In those days, Dolma Ling lay at some distance from the town, in an area less densely populated than it is today, in the beautiful lower altitudes of the Kangra Valley. I enjoyed walking in the rice paddies and wheat fields, where I saw pre-historic looking vultures feeding on buffalo carcasses or gold-billed and yellow-billed blue magpies with extended bifurcated tails as awkward as they were eye-catching.
