In this way every part of an animal’s organization could be modified exactly as required, and in the very process of this modification the unmodified would die out, and thus the definite characters and the clear isolation of each new species would be explained. ibid.
There is no part of natural history more interesting or instructive than the study of the geographical distribution of animals. Alfred Russel Wallace
The action of this principle is exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident; and in like manner no unbalanced deficiency in the animal kingdom can ever reach any conspicuous magnitude, because it would make itself felt at the very first step, by rendering existence difficult and extinction almost sure soon to follow. Alfred Russel Wallace, paper 1858
Wallace discovered about five thousand new species. Bill Bailey’s Jungle Hero I, BBC 2013
Isolated animals became new and distinct species. Islands are natural laboratories for evolution. Bill Bailey's Jungle Hero II: Wallace in the Spice Islands
The doctoral subject Tinbergen set for Richard was the study of innate behaviour in young animals. Beautiful Minds: Professor Richard Dawkins, BBC 2010
Something like the shrew was the ancestor of all the mammals. One line took to the trees, developing dexterity, stereo-vision, larger brains, and a curiosity about their environment. Professor Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Cosmos: One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue, 1979
Humans – who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals – have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them – without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us. Carl Sagan
Every living thing is, from the cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky simply to be alive. Most, 90% and more, of all the organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth, suffered that normal misfortune. You spring from an unbroken line of winners going back millions of generations, and those winners were, in every generation, the luckiest of the lucky, one out of a thousand or even a million. So however unlucky you may be on some occasion today, your presence on the planet testifies to the role luck has played in your past. Daniel C Dennett, Freedom Evolves
There is no other known snail that has a metal fortified shell. Even in the animal kingdom we don’t know of anything else that has a metal fortified shell. The animals have spent evolutionary time honing the composition of a shell to make it deflect predators, to make it strong. So it’s like having armour, right. Here’s this little animals that sits in this warm water that’s coming out, this metal ridge, and it’s sitting there mining these metals. Professor Cindy Van Dover, marine biologist Duke University North Carolina
If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small
In the space of a few generations we have laid waste to paradise. The Tall-grass Prairie has been transformed into a corn factory where wildlife means the exotic pheasant. The Shortgrass Prairie is a grid of carefully fenced cow pastures and wheat-fields. The Passenger Pigeon is no more; the last one died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. The endless forests of the East are tame woodlots. With few exceptions, the only virgin deciduous forest there is in tiny museum pieces of hundreds of acres. Fewer than one thousand Grizzlies remain. The last three condors left in the wild were captured and imprisoned in the Los Angeles Zoo. (An expensive reintroduction effort has since been started.) Except in northern Minnesota and northwestern Montana, wolves are known as scattered individuals drifting across the Canadian and Mexican borders. Four percent of the peerless Redwood Forest remains and the ancient forests of Oregon are all but gone. The tropical cats have been shot and poisoned from our Southwestern borderlands. The subtropical Eden of Florida has been transmogrified into hotels and citrus orchards. Domestic cattle have grazed bare and radically altered the composition of the grassland communities of the West, displacing Elk, Moose, Bighorn Sheep, and Pronghorn and leading to the virtual extermination of Grizzly Bear, Gray Wolf, Cougar, and other ‘varmints’. Dams choke most of the continent’s rivers and streams. Dave Foreman and Bill Haywood, Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching
Mankind’s true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view) consists of its attitudes towards those who are at its mercy: animals. Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Freddie Starr ate my hamster. The Sun headline
In 2006 at London Zoo a biological phenomenon occurred: a female Komodo Dragon became pregnant despite having no contact with a male Dragon. Amazingly the female Dragon had given birth to parthenogenetic offspring. The Truth Behind: Loch Ness, National Geographic 2011
We are just part of animal life. Francis Bacon, cited The Art of Francis Bacon
Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. Anatole France
The extermination of the buffalo has been a veritable tragedy of the animal world. Theodore Roosevelt
Why should a lobster be any more ridiculous than a dog? Gerard de Nerval, French poet, justifying his walking lobster on lead round garden
I felt so tiny. Jane Goodall
When I first began describing brutal aggression there were certain scientists who actually criticized me for publishing it. Jane Goodall, televised interview
It took six months before I could get within a hundred yards. And it was two years before I could make really close-up detailed observations without them being scared. Jane Goodall, interview Blue Peter 1971
Jane Goodall fulfilled a childhood ambition when she travelled to Gombe in Tanzania to study the behaviour of wild chimpanzees. Great Thinkers: In Their Own Words 1/3: Human, All Too Human, BBC 2011
Goodall’s revelation came when she observed for the first time chimps making and using tools. ibid.
Goodall noticed other human traits in chimpanzees like affection and grief. But it was her observations of the darker side of chimpanzee life that would be most controversial. Goodall discovered chimps with violent behaviour patterns. ibid.
Our bees, butterflies and pollinating insects are dying out. This giant insect workforce pollinates our crops. Bees, Butterflies and Blooms, BBC 2012
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. Genesis 2:19&20
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. Job 30:29
There is not an animal in the earth, nor a flying creature flying on two wings, but they are peoples like unto you. We have neglected nothing in the Book (of Our decrees). Then unto their Lord they will be gathered. Koran 6:38
A group called PETA: People for the Protection of Animals ... If you can’t stand the meat, get out of the kitchen. But just don’t blow up the kitchen. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s2e1: PETA s2e1, Showtime
They even oppose the use of service animals like guide dogs. ibid.
No pets ... All animals anywhere in captivity would be set free. ibid.
Life isn’t Disney bullshit. ibid.
The ALF is an anonymous group of activists who go to extreme measures to get their point across. ibid.
Medical Research: PETA violently oppose using animals to save human life. ibid.
The Endangered Species Act is bullshit. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s3e11: Endangered Species,