KATHMANDU, Dec 31: Former US President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at the age of 100 on Sunday, used to go bird watching every time he visited Nepal. Carter, who contributed to bringing Nepal’s peace and democratic process to a logical conclusion, had a completely non-political interest in Nepal.
Carter, who visited Nepal five times from 1985 to 2013, allocated time for bird-watching during each visit. According to the Nepali ornithologist who guided Carter on his bird-watching trips, he was a nature lover, but his interest in bird-watching overshadowed his other interests in nature. The 39th President of the United States (from 1977 to 1981) was also an environmentalist and nature conservation campaigner.
According to ornithologist Rajendra Suwal, when Carter first came to Nepal in 1985, he went straight from the Everest base camp to Tiger Tops in Chitwan and went on a wildlife safari and bird watching. Then, in August 2007, Carter was guided by the late Harisharan Nepali ‘Kaji Dai’ and Suwal during a bird-watching trip to Shivapuri.
Similarly, Suwal guided Carter on bird watching trips to Nagarjuna and Godavari when Carter visited Nepal in April and November of 2013. During his visit to Nepal in 2008, another ornithologist from Nepal, Dr. Hemsagar Baral, took Carter on bird watching trips to the Phulchowki area. Suwal and Baral remember Carter as a nature lover, especially a bird lover. Suwal reminisced that Carter told him about his habit of maintaining data on birds seen around the house even while having breakfast at his home in Georgia.
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“No matter how busy his daily routine was, he wanted to spend two hours a day with nature,” Suwal told Republica, “Carter told me that he kept bees and cut the hives himself.”
Suwal remembers that even the possibility of rain did not stop Carter from bird-watching during his visit to Nepal. “In August 2007, Carter’s bird-watching trip to Shivapuri was during the monsoon season, but that did not stop him,” Suwal told Republica, “Coincidentally, it did not rain that day.”
Suwal remembers that some of the then US ambassadors to Nepal were active in such trips because of the former president’s interest in bird watching.
According to Suwal, while on a birdwatching trip to Shivapuri in 2007, Carter was shown a PowerPoint on the birds of Nepal on the way, and in 2013, a documentary called Planet Earth's Mountains was shown to Carter. Suwal remembers Carter getting ready for birdwatching in the early hours of the morning.
Nepal is considered a rich country in terms of the number of different species of birds. There are nearly 900 species of birds found in Nepal. Only 400 species of birds are found in the places Carter observed - Shivapuri to the north of the capital and Phulchowki to the south.
“Nepal is a piece of heaven in terms of nature,” Suwal remembers Carter telling him.
Dr. Baral describes Carter as very family-oriented and easy-going.
After observing several species of birds, Baral remembers Carter saying, “I really like birding.” He recalls going birdwatching in Shivpuri the following day with Carter’s wife Rosalyn, daughter-in-law, and other members of the tour group.
