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There are so many wild animals on the property. It makes the ashram Noahβs Arkish. All the wildlife is intact; watching the animals adds to the safety and rescue aspects of the ashram. The ashramβs pristine environment along withβ¨its celibacy policy and abundance of food is like a Garden of Eden. Like starting over! You forget about sex and spending your whole paycheck on organic apples.
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Tom Hillman (Digging for God)
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The only good cage is an empty cage.
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Lawrence Anthony (The Elephant Whisperer)
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Wild animals are less wild and more human than many humans of this world
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Munia Khan
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No matter how few possessions you own or how little money you have, loving wildlife and nature will make you rich beyond measure.
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Paul Oxton
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The smaller the creature, the bolder its spirit.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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Where do we record the passing of wildlife? Who mourns the silent deaths of the small?
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O.R. Melling
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One might even argue that if an animal could choose with intelligence, it would opt for living in a zoo, since the major difference between a zoo and the wild is the absence of parasites and enemies and the abundance of food in the first, and their respective abundance and scarcity in the second. Think about it yourself. Would you rather be put up at the Ritz with free room service and unlimited access to a doctor or be homeless without a soul to care for you?...
But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
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Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
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If you are not filled with overflowing love, compassion and goodwill for all creatures living wild in nature, You will never know true happiness.
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Paul Oxton
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Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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A simple act of kindness and compassion towards a single animal may not mean anything to all creatures, but will mean everything to one.
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Paul Oxton
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Even a wolf knows how to be polite when animalistic humans have no clue about politeness
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Munia Khan
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Animals are a window to your soul and a doorway to your spiritual destiny. If you let them into your life and allow them to teach you, you will be better for it.
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Kim Shotola (The Soul Watchers: Animals' Quest to Awaken Humanity)
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Mother Nature is our teacherβreconnecting us with Spirit, waking us up and liberating our hearts. When we can transcend our fear of the creatures of the forest, then we become one with all that is; we enter a unity of existence with our relativesβthe animals, the plants and the land that sustains us.
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Sylvia Dolson (Joy of Bears)
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Sometimes, I am the beast in the darkness. Sometimes, I am the ghost.
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Heather Durham (Going Feral: Field Notes on Wonder and Wanderlust)
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Only when the last of the animals horns, tusks, skin and bones have been sold, will mankind realize that money can never buy back our wildlife
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Paul Oxton
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That thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you is usually what you need to find, and finding it is a matter of getting lost. The word βlostβ comes from the old Norse βlosβ meaning the disbanding of an armyβ¦I worry now that people never disband their armies, never go beyond what they know.
Advertising, alarmist news, technology, incessant busyness, and the design of public and private life conspire to make it so. A recent article about the return of wildlife to suburbia described snow-covered yards in which the footprints of animals are abundant and those of children are entirely absent. Children seldom roam, even in the safest places⦠I wonder what will come of placing this generation under house arrest.
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Rebecca Solnit (A Field Guide to Getting Lost)
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We should not need to have a "Save an Animal Day", Save from what?, It is in fact "Save from who". It is Human Kindness, Compassion and Caring that so desperately needs to be saved.
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Paul Oxton
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Like us, animals feel love, joy, fear and pain, but they cannot grasp the spoken word. It is our obligation to speak on their behalf ensuring their well-being and lives are respected and protected.
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Sylvia Dolson (Joy of Bears)
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Every creature was designed to serve a purpose. Learn from animals for they are there to teach you the way of life. There is a wealth of knowledge that is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals. Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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The dangerous temptation of wildlife films is that they can lull us into thinking we can get by without the original models -- that we might not need animals in the flesh.
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Doug Peacock (Grizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness)
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Iβve always found wildlife very calming-- except when animals are eating each other, of course.
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Tom Upton (Just Plain Weird)
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When you look a wild animal in the eye, it's like catching a glimpse into the soul of nature itself
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Paul Oxton
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Never apologize for being over sensitive and emotional when defending the welfare of wildlife.
Let this be a sign that you have a big heart and aren't afraid to show your true feelings.
These emotions give you the strength to fight for what is right and to be the voice of those who cannot be heard.
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Paul Oxton
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Walk in kindness toward the Earth and every living being. Without kindness and compassion for all of Mother Natureβs creatures, there can be no true joy; no internal peace, no happiness. Happiness flows from caring for all sentient beings as if they were your own family, because in essence they are. We are all connected to each other and to the Earth.
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Sylvia Dolson (Joy of Bears)
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No one in the world needs a Rhino horn but a Rhino.
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Paul Oxton
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Humankind must begin to learn that the life of an animal is in no way less precious than our own.
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Paul Oxton
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This is not wilderness for designation or for a park. Not a scenic wilderness and not one good for fishing or the viewing of wildlife. It is wilderness that gets into your nostrils, that runs with your sweat. It is the core of everything living, wilderness like molten iron.
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Craig Childs (The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild)
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We live in a shockingly beautiful world. We are walking through the living kingdom of heaven every day; the colours, the sound, the love of others, the potential to create, the plants, wildlife, nature, music, all sensations and life...but if we refuse to see colour and beauty we may as well be in Hell. Maybe an animated band was the best way of announcing this.
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Gorillaz (Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre)
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Humanity can no longer stand by in silence while our wildlife are being used, abused and exploited.
It is time we all stand together, to be the voice of the voiceless before it's too late. Extinction means forever.
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Paul Oxton
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That's the trouble with the world we live in. It's full of people just doing their job and ignoring what's really going on. Care about the rainforest until they get a couple of kids and enough money for a gas guzzling car, or some hardwood dining furniture. Watch all those wildlife programmes and coo over the furry animals, but still eat meat and poultry that was raised in conditions of unbelievable cruelty.
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Robert Muchamore
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We forget, in a world completely transformed by man, that what weβre looking at is not necessarily the environment wildlife prefer, but the depleted remnant that wildlife is having to cope with: what it has is not necessarily what it wants.
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Isabella Tree (Wilding)
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It seems everything in nature that has beauty, also has a price.
Let the value of our planets wildlife be to nature and nature alone.
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Paul Oxton
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Connecting with the wilderness allows us to live in the flow of a meaningful, joyful life. Embracing this state of connectedness or oneness with other living beings including animals, as opposed to feeling an βothernessβ or βseparatenessβ brings a sense of harmony and enables us to be at peace with oneself and the world.
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Sylvia Dolson (Joy of Bears)
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Isn`t man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes, and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out a card praying for 'Peace on Earth.
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C. David Coats
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Elk have not been seen in Switzerland for many a year. In the interests of scientific accuracy, please strike the idea of elk from your mind. If you must, think of ibexes instead, a fierce and agile type of goat with great spiraling horns. Marmots will also do in a pinch, but under no circumstances should you think of elk. No. Elk. The elkless among you may now proceed.
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Maryrose Wood (The Unseen Guest (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, #3))
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Wildlife, we are constantly told, would run loose across our towns and cities were it not for the sport hunters to control their population, as birds would blanket the skies without the culling services of Ducks Unlimited and other groups. Yet here they are breeding wild animals, year after year replenishing the stock, all for the sole purpose of selling and killing them, deer and bears and elephants so many products being readied for the market. Animals such as deer, we are told, have no predators in many areas, and therefore need systematic culling. Yet when attempts are made to reintroduce natural predators such as wolves and coyotes into these very areas, sport hunters themselves are the first to resist it. Weaker animals in the wild, we hear, will only die miserable deaths by starvation and exposure without sport hunters to control their population. Yet it's the bigger, stronger animals they're killing and wounding--the very opposite of natural selection--often with bows and pistols that only compound and prolong the victim's suffering.
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Matthew Scully (Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy)
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They say that animals are incapable of feelings and reasoning. This is false. No living thing on earth is void of either. They also say that man is the most intelligent β and the most superior β species on earth. This is also false. It is very arrogant to assume that we are the most intelligent species when we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. It has been shown that both rats and monkeys learn from making errors, yet we have not. Our history proves this. All creatures on earth have the capacity to love and grieve the same way we do. No life on the planet is more deserving than another. Those who think so, are the true savages.
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Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
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This is an ode to life.
The anthem of the world.
For as there are billions
of different stars that
make up the sky
so, too, are there billions
of different humans that
make up the Earth.
Some shine brighter
but all are made of
the same cosmic dust.
O the joy of being
in life with all these people!
I speak of differences
because they are there.
Like the different organs
that make up our bodies.
Earth, itself, is one large body.
Listen to how it howls
when one human is
in misery.
When one kills another, the
Earth feels the pang in its
chest. When one orgasms,
the Earth craves a cigarette.
Look carefully,
these animals are
beauty spots that make the
Earthβs face lovelier
and more loveable.
These oceans are the Earthβs
limpid eyes. These trees, its hair.
This is an ode to life.
The anthem of the world.
I will no longer speak of
differences, for the similarities
are larger.
Look even closer. There may be
distances between our limbs but
there are no spaces between
our hearts. We long to be one.
We long to be in nature and
to run wild with its wildlife.
Let us celebrate life and living,
for it is sacrilegious
to be ungrateful.
Let us play and be playful,
for it is sacrilegious
to be serious.
Let us celebrate imperfections
and make existence
proud of us, for tomorrow is
death, and this is an ode to life.
The anthem of the world.
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Kamand Kojouri
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In this image-driven age, wildlife filmmakers carry a heavy responsibility. They can influence how we think and behave when weβre in nature. They can even influence how we raise our kids, how we vote and volunteer in our communities, as well as the future of our wildlands and wildlife. If the stories they create are misleading or false in some way, viewers will misunderstand the issues and react in inappropriate ways. People who consume a heavy diet of wildlife films filled with staged violence and aggression, for example, are likely to think about nature as a circus or a freak show. They certainly wonβt form the same positive connections to the natural world as people who watch more thoughtful, authentic, and conservation-oriented films.
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Chris Palmer (Shooting in the Wild: An Insider's Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom)
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It may be underfunded and at times mismanaged, but the [Endangered Species] Act is an unprecedented attempt to delegate human-caused extinction to the chapters of history we would rather not revisit: the Slave Trade, the Indian Removal Policy, the subjection of women, child labor, segregation. The Endangered Species Act is a zero-tolerance law: no new extinctions. It keeps eyes on the ground with legal backing-the gun may be in the holster most of the time, but its available if necessary to keep species from disappearing. I discovered in my travels that a law protecting all animals and plants, all of nature, might be as revolutionary-and as American-as the Declaration of Independence.
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Joe Roman (Listed: Dispatches from Americaβs Endangered Species Act)