George Schaller's Grand Plan to Save the Marco Polo Sheep

An interview with George Schaller, a field and conservation biologist

Some of my favorite parts:

Has any animal gained a special hold on your affections?
When you are near a mountain gorilla, you recognize it as kin. You feel as though you might put your arm around it and have a chat. When I first saw a gorilla, I felt a desire to communicate with him, to let him know that I intended him no harm and only wanted to be near him. And I wondered if he shared this feeling of kinship with me. Never before had I had that feeling meeting an animal. You don’t get that feeling when you see a tiger, but your mind almost glows with the sight—they’re absolutely gorgeous—and to see a tiger is one of the great wildlife experiences. I can also get enamored of capybaras, which are giant rodents and look like big guinea pigs, and even wild pigs. I have had two kinds of pig, a warthog and a white-lipped peccary, as pets. They are just as intelligent and social as dogs. I have an attachment to all the animals I’ve studied and keep involved in what’s happening with them. Emotionally, they cannot leave me.

A lot of the conservation news seems very grim these days. How do you keep going in moments of discouragement?
I don’t get up each morning and say, “I’ve got to save the world, starting with the United States government.” I have very specific projects, where I can see progress. And that keeps you going because, in a small way, I see that I can have an influence. And especially if you teach others, and have students and assistants to work with, and can find a way they can continue the work—that’s satisfying.

What about steps we can take right here in the United States?
We have an overabundance of everything. I’ve got two cars sitting in the garage. People must understand that everything they do is an ecological act. How much does it cost to bring grapes here from Chile (pdf)? Not just the grapes, but the fuel spent in carbon emission? If you have a cup of coffee, that means some rain forest in Colombia is being cut down to make coffee plantations. Do you have a cell phone? OK, inside it there’s a mineral called coltan, mined mostly in the eastern Congo by a lot of the Rwandans who fled after the genocide, and they’re living in the forest, and they’re killing gorillas and elephants for meat because they don’t have much else to eat. I’ve got two lights on in here. [Gets up and turns off a light.] I don’t need two lights on in here! You know, this is endless

You’ve said that there are no final victories in conservation.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a good example. It’s been a continual battle since the 1970s to keep the oil companies out. We claim to be the richest, most educated country in the world, and we can’t keep one little fraction undamaged? You think you have something, and the minute you look away, somebody is trying to destroy it. Look at what has happened recently with tigers, which were safe in a number of reserves. Almost overnight, they were completely wiped out of several places, because, suddenly, there was a demand for skins. When something is so beautiful and valuable, you can never turn your back.

Read the whole interview


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