“We’re in the process of bringing about the extinction of all of the species we most care about — including our own.”
– Alex Miller
“There’s no point bleating about the future of pandas, polar bears and tigers when we’re not addressing the one single factor that’s putting more pressure on the ecosystem than any other — namely the ever-increasing size of the world’s population.”
– Chris Packham
“I’ve seen wildlife under mounting pressure and it’s not just from human economy or technology but behind every threat is the frightening explosion in human numbers.”
– David Attenborough
“More than 225,000 human beings are added to the planet and more than 80 species become extinct each day. Our children and grandchildren — and of course the animals and plants — would be far better off if both numbers were much, much lower.”
– Connie Benowitz
“We are in a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption that could push half of Earth’s species to extinction in this century.”
– E. O. Wilson
“Through the billions of dollars of subsidies to agricultural and energy companies taxpayers provide each year we are hastening the extinction of not only other species but our own.”
– George Bojanowicz
“Future generations will look back aghast at how we allowed the world’s most endangered species to be gunned down in their droves by adrenaline junkies in pursuit of grinning selfies and gruesome souvenirs. Trophy hunting isn’t about a handful of sick individuals — it is about a huge global industry which wields extraordinary power and manipulates governments.”
– Eduardo Goncalves
“Trophy hunters are people who like to kill animals and enjoy doing so so much that the hunters are willing to pay hundreds, thousands and in some cases even hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to be allowed to do so. Why?”
– Paulette Weisberg
“Hunters are conservationists? Then why do they pay to kill rather than simply donate to preserve?”
– Harold Travers
“‘Sport’ hunting? What other sport involves killing?”
– Jody Bishop
“Individuals who hunt for sport do so because they like the feeling it gives them. They feel empowered — in control. I really do understand the appeal. But there are ways of obtaining that feeling that do not involve killing…”
– Thomas Kelly
“The primary wildlife conservation problem is human population growth. It is the underlying cause of just about all habitat destruction — urbanization, expansion of animal agriculture, increased energy development and so on. Anyone who seeks to further conservation should be working to promote international family planning, vegan diets, adoption of renewable energy, etc. because those are the things that have a significant impact. Using conservation as a justification for indulging a desire to hunt and kill is dishonest, unsupported by a significant amount of evidence and most importantly a distraction from the real issues.”
– Jesse Parsons
“I wonder if hunters and trappers would find the arguments they use to justify their activities acceptable if cats and dogs — or people such as themselves — instead were the victims.”
– Tonya Williams
“A number of times I have heard trophy hunters — not subsistence hunters — say that more wolves should be killed in order to help ensure that there will be adequate opportunities to hunt deer. I simply have no words…”
– Peter Nichols
“Children are so impressionable that they can be convinced by their parents that killing wildlife for ‘sport’ is something of which to be proud. What I don’t understand is why any parent would want to raise a child who has so little regard for life.”
– Angela Tedesco
“We take habitat away from wild animals and then kill them for invading ‘our’ space.”
– Patrick Edwards
“More than 200 million wild animals are killed by hunters in the United States each year. Many if not most of those animals are not killed for meat or in order to prevent starvation, control disease, protect communities from dangerous animals or for any of the other reasons ‘sport’ hunters often use to try to justify their activities. Those animals are killed because the ‘sport’ hunters like to kill animals.”
– Christopher Nicholson
“Why do some people as soon as animals are declared ‘recovered’ and no longer at risk of extinction want to start killing them? And why do government agencies responsible for ‘managing’ the animals allow this?”
– Anna Murphy
“Few men could endure to watch for five minutes an animal struggling in a trap with a crushed and torn limb. Some will wonder how such cruelty can have been permitted to continue in these days of civilization.”
– Charles Darwin
“Poaching is rampant here in the United States as well as in Africa. Experts estimate that less than five percent of poachers in this country are caught and at least as many wild animals are killed illegally as are killed legally. I call upon the government to start enforcing the hunting regulations much more vigorously.”
– Edward Parchese
“Two-thirds of people in the United States oppose trophy hunting. Three-quarters oppose canned hunting — including many hunters.”
– Laurence Branning
“The overwhelming majority of funding for wildlife (in the United States) comes from taxpayers — the vast majority of whom do not hunt. Pittman/Robertson? That’s an excise tax on firearms and ammunition — not a ‘hunting tax.’ Seventy percent of gun owners in the United States do not hunt and that number is going up every year. State hunting license fees go mostly toward keeping the game species preferred by hunters — deer, elk, turkey, grouse, etc. — at an overpopulated level so there are plenty for hunters.”
– Jeremy Parish
“I think there should be a federal excise tax on hunting and fishing licenses — not just equipment and ammunition. I can think of many uses for the money — increasing the now lax enforcement of poaching laws, addressing all of the toxic lead left in the environment in the form of spent bullets, providing additional funding for habitat maintenance and restoration — the list goes on…”
– Keith Bonham
“United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services kills approximately 4,000 wild animals per day. This is done at taxpayer expense of about $250,000 per day largely in response to requests from farmers and ranchers. I for one would prefer that my tax dollars be used to help save wildlife…”
– Jeremy Williams
“Decisions about wildlife management should be based on science rather than willful ignorance of it.”
– George Koenig
“Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I’ve finished ‘shooting,’ my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy.”
– Jimmy Stewart
“There is as much educational benefit in studying dolphins and whales in captivity as there is in studying humans by observing prisoners in solitary confinement.”
– Jacques Cousteau
“The thing that worries me more than anything really is what is happening to the oceans. The acidification of the oceans and rising temperature of the oceans is on the way to cause major problems with depopulation of the fish stocks, for example.”
– David Attenborough
“How can people love dogs but hunt wolves? There is so little difference!”
– Deborah Giunta
“How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder?”
– Carl Sagan
“The squirrel that you kill in jest dies in earnest.”
– Henry David Thoreau
“The bloodlust of modern-day hunters is a disaster for the planet.”
– Philip Hoare
“Many people are aware that wild animals such as penguins, elephants and jaguars are threatened by extinction. However, few know that livestock production fueled by consumer demand for cheap meat is one of the biggest drivers of species extinction and biodiversity loss on the planet.”
– Philip Lymbery
“Governments throughout the world provide approximately US $5.3 trillion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry each year, according to the International Monetary Fund. I for one would prefer not to be subsidizing climate change — I happen to like polar bears…”
– Donald Crane
“I’m always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, we should treat them with respect.”
– Jane Goodall
“According to the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, fish have feelings too. Whenever my sons go fishing they always tell me, ‘Dad – it doesn’t hurt a fish to get hooked.’ Well I watch and I see and I believe it’s painful for the fish.”
– Donald Trump
“We took their land away from them. We forced them to live on reserves. We gave them only limited legal rights. Their numbers plummeted and their societies collapsed.”
– Paul Taylor
“Sometimes a species is no longer considered endangered when its population rebounds to the point of consisting of a few dozen members. I wonder what status would be assigned to Homo sapiens if its population consisted of only a few dozen members.”
– Daniel Miller
“The natural world is in serious trouble and it needs our help as never before. We continue to lose the precious wildlife that enriches our lives.”
– David Attenborough
“Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species that we will never know — that our children will never see — because they have been lost forever. The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity…We have no such right.”
– Pope Francis
“Wildlife conservation doesn’t have to cost a cent. All we have to do is leave them alone…”
– Scott Levy
