The more a species is rare the more we like and protect it... So what about humans?

~ Erik Tanghe

Erik Tanghe Caring Caring For Others Endangered Animals Endangered Species Human Humans Nearly Extinct Rare Rare Species Species World

The rarer they get, the fewer meanings animals can have. Eventually rarity is all they are made of. The condor is an icon of extinction. There's little else to it now but being the last of its kind. And in this lies the diminution of the world. How can you love something, how can you fight to protect it, if all it means is loss?

~ Helen Macdonald

Helen Macdonald Endangered Animals Endangered Species Extinction Loss Rarity

She asked another question: What does it matter if the rhinos die out? Is it really important that they are saved?This would normally have riled me... but I had come to think of her as Dr. Spock from Star Trek - an emotionless, purely logical creature, at least with regards to her feelings for animals. Like Spock, though, I knew there were one or two things that stirred her, so I gave an honest reply.... to be honest, it doesn't matter. No economy will suffer, nobody will go hungry, no diseases will be spawned. Yet there will never be a way to place a value on what we have lost. Future children will see rhinos only in books and wonder how we let them go so easily. It would be like lighting a fire in the Louvre and watching the Mona Lisa burn. Most people would think 'What a pity' and leave it at that while only a few wept

~ Peter Allison

Peter Allison Africa Endangered Animals Global Warming Loss Meaning Of Life

Earl: Augh! They're trying to take the wolf off the endangered list .Mooch: I know. But did you hear what they're putting back on the endangered list? Earl: What?Mooch: Empathy and compassion.

~ Patrick Mcdonnell

Patrick Mcdonnell Animal Rights Compassion Empathy Endangered Animals Hope

We are fighting now to save that endangered species-the individual.

~ Marty Rubin

Marty Rubin Endangered Animals Individuality Nonconformity The Individual

Right now, in the amazing moment that to us counts as the present, we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed. No other creature has ever managed this and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy.

~ Elizabeth Kolbert

Elizabeth Kolbert Climate Change Endangered Animals Endangered Species Environment Nature