Just shy of a week after my inaugural encounter with the Wildlife Conservation Expo, I thought it the perfect opportunity to share a few quotes that I jotted down during the various lectures.  Here’s  but a mere sampling from the 8 talks I attended that ranged from the Wild Camel to Grevy’s Zebra to Okapi:

“Are we just going to let everything disappear because it’s too late?  Shall we just pull the plug?”

Dr. Jane Goodall commenting on BBC wildlife presenter and conservationist Chris Packham’s notion to let pandas die out with a degree of dignity.

“There are more human beings born every day than all Great Apes left in the wild.”

Dr. Jane Goodall

“Just when millions of dollars start to pay off we want to pull the plug?  Now that’s a waste of money.”

Dr. Jane Goodall commenting on BBC wildlife presenter and conservationist Chris Packham’s notion to let pandas go extinct.

“Snow leopards and other wildlife are like a necklace around our mountains.”

A Ladakhi villager quote presented by Dr. Rodney Jackson of the Snow Leopard Conservancy

“I was working in the Garden of Eden.”

Dr. Jim Sanderson (Small Cat Conservation Alliance) describing work in the remote parts of Suriname where animals have no innate fear of people.

“Every species is a flagship species.”

Dr. Jim Sanderson of the Small Cat Conservation Alliance

Although we did not have near as much time available as I wanted to browse all the booths, we did manage to grab the last available piece of snare art.  As conservationists for the Painted Dog Conservation traverse the African landscape it is not uncommon for them to discover wire snares.  These snares not only endanger Painted dogs, but any wildlife that happens upon a chance meeting.  However, in an effort to turn evil into good, the Painted Dog Conservation removes any discovered snares from the wild and utilizing local artists/villagers transforms the snares into pieces of African art. And the proceeds benefit local peoples as well as conservation efforts.

Tags: conservation quotes, snare art

This entry was posted by Scott on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 10:27 am and is filed under Commentary, Endangered species, Wildlife, conservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.