I believe that animals have rights which, although different from our own, are just as inalienable. I believe animals have the right not to have pain, fear or physical deprivation inflicted upon them by us ... They have the right not to be brutalized in any way as food resources, for entertainment or any other purpose. Roger Caras ABC-TV news December 1988
Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, 1908
We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. William Ralph Inge, The Idea of Progress, 1922
The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men. Émile Zola
If one small and odd lineage of fishes had not evolved fins capable of bearing weight on land (though evolved for different reasons in lakes and seas,) terrestrial vertebrates would never have arisen. If a large extraterrestrial object – the ultimate random bolt from the blue – had not triggered the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago, mammals would still be small creatures, confined to the nooks and crannies of a dinosaur's world, and incapable of evolving the larger size that brains big enough for self-consciousness require. If a small and tenuous population of proto-humans had not survived a hundred slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and potential extinction) on the savannas of Africa, then Homo sapiens would never have emerged to spread throughout the globe. We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction. Stephen Jay Gould
A Powdered Quaker. Get that for a name ... Victorian clergy named these moths ... Even a True Lover’s Knot. Bill Oddie, cited Night on Film: An A-Z Of The Dark, BBC 2011
James W Tutt: he was about to apply Darwin’s ideas to resolve one of the environmental mysteries of the industrial age. James R Tutt was an enthusiastic Darwinist who devoted his life to the study of moths. Devoted, enthusiastic, more than 900 articles, mainly on moths; 20 books – moths again. But he’s remembered for just one thing he noticed about one moth ... the Peppered moth ... the darker version was now very well camouflaged and it thrived and multiplied. Tutt suggested that by polluting the environment man was affecting natural selection for the Peppered moth. Andrew Marr, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, BBC 2009
Coconut crabs begin life in the ocean before moving on shore. They weigh up to four kilograms and can have a legspan over a metre. Oceans VI: Indian Ocean – Coastal Waters, BBC 2008
A hundred million visitors each year. Western civilisation developed around these shores, but now human activity is threatening to ruin this sea. Oceans VII: Mediterranean Sea
Sharks are crucial to the health of our oceans. ibid.
The Sixgill: one of the largest predatory sharks in the world. ibid.
The clearer the water the less plankton there is. ibid.
Pregnant and newborn Great Whites have been sighted. ibid.
Great Whites rarely attack humans. ibid.
Humankind is encroaching more and more on this sea. ibid.
But remember that up until recently people refused to believe in the Mountain Gorilla, the Okapi, the Komodo Dragon. They were all discovered in this century [20th]. Even the Panda is a new arrival ... Who would have believed the current stories of a sabre-toothed killer loose even now in the Australian bush if we didn’t have evidence on film that the ferocious Tasmanian tiger – this is the last one known – was still alive in Hobart Zoo in 1933. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World
One [Giant Octopus] came ashore on this Florida beach in 1896. It was a local doctor, Dewitt Webb, who took charge of the carcass ... He and his helpers had to use four horses plus three sets of blocks and tackle to move the body, six tons or more, up the beach. The mere stump of the one remaining tentacle was truly awesome – thirty-two feet long. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World
What can we make of claims that some animals have extraordinary, even supernatural skills? These include mathematical horses, dogs that can diagnose illnesses, and domestic pets with the navigational know-how to track down their owners over miles of unfamiliar countryside. Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious Universe
We’re off to the zoo today. Derek s2e4, Hannah, Channel 4 2014
All animals are my favouritist animals. Except spiders. ibid. Derek
I loves every dog in here. I love every animal ... Makes me feel funny. Derek s2e5
All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable, eternal law. Jainas Sutras
This is the quintessence of wisdom: not to kill anything. Now this to be the legitimate conclusion from the principle of the reciprocity with regard to non-killing. ibid.
All things dull and ugly
All creatures short and squat
All things rude and nasty
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons
Each little wasp that stings
He made their brutish venom
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet
Each beastly little squid
Who made the spiky urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!
All things scabbed and ulcerous
All pox both great and small
Putrid, foul and gangrenous
The Lord God made them all. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
This is the Namib desert in south-west Africa. Namib means vast … It’s the harshest place n the world for elephants to live … The herd is recovering; two young calves have just been born. Natural World s25e3: Elephant Nomads of the Namib Desert, BBC 2007
The big male leads a separate, solitary life. ibid.
An island paradise teeming with life. But they soon found out this new-found wealth was exhaustible. Natural World s25e9: Hawaii: Message in the Waves, BBC 2007
Of all the ecosystems they depended on, the reef was the most important and the most fragile. ibid.
About a million residents but a further seven million people arrive each year for a few weeks in paradise. ibid.
‘Call some place paradise and kiss it goodbye, yeah?’ ibid.
Deep in this Devon Valley lives one of the best-loved wild animals in Britain. There are over 300,000 of them living across the country yet surprisingly few people have ever seen a badger alive. Natural World s26e7: Badgers: Secrets of the Sett, BBC 2008
More than half the badger’s diet consists of earthworms. ibid.
Down below, they dig a labyrinth. ibid.
Outside the British Isles, from France to Japan badgers live a more solitary life. ibid.
The highlands of Scotland have witnessed many upheavals. But they’ve seen nothing like what’s happening in the glens north of Inverness. Here one man is trying realise a big idea – Paul Lister is trying to bring back wild animals that were once common in Scotland: mammals such as moose, wolves and bears that were wiped out centuries ago. Natural World s26e12: Moose in the Glen
To create a wilderness reserve: plant trees to join up the fragmented woodland, and populate the two glens with moose, lynx, bear and wolves, creatures that were once common here. ibid.
400 years ago boars were common in Scotland. ibid.
In the mist of the Andean cloud forest in South America there’s a shy, mysterious beast. It’s one of the largest animals in these forests, yet it’s so elusive until recently very little was known about it. It’s a spectacled bear. Natural Word s26e14: Spectacled Bears: Shadows of the Forest
It’s forest home is disappearing fast. ibid.