Peter Matthiessen Quotes
Have you seen the snow leopard? No! Isn't that wonderful?
Matthiessen, Peter. The Snow Leopard. Viking Press, 1978.
Many of the wildlife poachers are armed with heavy weapons and modern qeopositioning equipment. The think nothing of killing Wildlife Rangers who try to stop them from killing elephants and rhinos for their tests and horns which are highly prized in Asia. Much of the funding to protect the wildlife of Africa comes from United State Non Profit Organizations for whom spending resources to train Wildlife Rangers to use heavy weapons is not very comfortable. But Kalron and others argue that if the local authorities cannot confront the poachers, there is no practical way to preserve the wildlife.
In 2006 at the age of 44 he was killed while televising and underwater scene with stingrays who are not very dangerous usually. Most people recover from a stingray barb even though it has a mild toxin. However in a very rare occurrence, he was stung right in the heart.
His lesson was that in order to have a society that will protect animals, we must first enable citizens to know about the animals and then to love the animals.
Peter Matthiessen was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA officer. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review, he was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both nonfiction (The Snow Leopard, 1979, category Contemporary Thought) and fiction (Shadow Country, 2008). He was also a prominent environmental activist.
