Quotes About Wildlife

Sometimes the past may be a greased pig; sometimes a bear in its den; and sometimes merely the flash of a parrot, two mocking eyes that spark at you from the forest.

One of the questions that I am almost in aria of asked about backpacking is, Aren't you afraid? Generally, people have something specific in mind when they ask the question, and generally, it's something on the order of snakes, bears, or criminals. I'm not particularly afraid of snakes; in most parts of the United States, bears are more of a nuisance than a threat; and I've never met a criminal in the woods.

My first visit to grizzly bear country was a hike through Yellowstone National Park, and my nerves were frayed by rumors and warnings about a mauling that had occurred that same week on a trail just south of the park. Dan and I made so much noise--banging our walking sticks, talking loudly, stomping our feet--that we nervously joked that we would be the first people in history to cross the park without seeing any wild animals at all.

The Kikuyu, when left to themselves, do not bury their dead, but leave them above ground for the hyenas and vultures to deal with. The custom had always appealed to me, I thought that it would be pleasant thing to be laid out to the sun and the stars, and to be so promptly, neatly, and openly picked and cleansed; to be made one with Nature and become a common component of a landscape.

I turned to the animal world from the world of men; my heart was heavy with the tragedy of the night.

If there were one more thing I could do, it would be to go on safari again.

Owls hoot in B flat, cuckoos in D, but the water ousel sings in the voice of the stream. She builds her nest back of the waterfalls so the water is a lullaby to the little ones. Must be where they learn it.

of a copperhead. When he

had a wee in the Amazon. Until Richard told me I should be careful because there are some tiny fish that can swim up from the water through my urine and into my knob! Is that how amazing the Amazon is? The fish in there would really rather live in my knob than the river.

Fair peace becomes men; ferocious anger belongs to beasts. [Lat., Candida pax homines, trux decet ira feras.]

A sportsman is a man who, every now and then, simply has to get out and kill something.

Right in the Hart of the Africn Jungel a small wite man lives. Now there is one extraordinary fact about him that he is the frind of all animals.

[The lion] began to contemplate me with a kind of quiet premeditation, like that of a slow-witted man fondling an unaccustomed thought.

With man gone, will there be hope for gorilla?

There are no wild animals until man makes them so.

I like bears. I like bear people. I like bear-type men.

The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.

Man has injured every animal he has touched.

I drew when I was very, very young. My mom kept stuff I drew when I was 2 and a half years old, because it looked like, you know, like a jaguar as opposed to a cheetah.

The peasants of the Asturias believe that in every litter of wolves there is one pup that is killed by the mother for fear that on growing up it would devour the other little ones.

The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?

Wilderness. The word itself is music.

Traveling with a big band is like being an inmate in a traveling zoo.

We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.