Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
Mary Roach
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Snowplows kill twice as many Canadians as grizzly bears do.”
“We are irrational in our species-specific devotions. I know a man who won’t eat octopus because of its intelligence. Yet he eats pork and buys glue traps for rats, though rats and pigs are highly intelligent, likely more intelligent—I’m guessing, for I have not seen the SAT scores—than octopuses. Why, for that matter, is intelligence the scale by which we decide whom to spare? Or size? Have the simple and the small less right to live?”
“The black bear is a ridiculously lovable species. There's a reason kids have teddy bears, not teddy goats or teddy eels.”
“So she looks in her rearview mirror,” one is saying, “and there’s a bear in the back seat, eating popcorn.” When wildlife officers gather at a conference, the shop talk is outstanding. Last night I stepped onto the elevator as a man was saying, “Ever tase an elk?”
“If the present rate of decline continues, the yellow-eyed penguin will likely be gone from the planet in ten or twenty years. It is difficult to be here watching them and not feel somewhat slammed by this information. What a thing to lose! Go look them up. The candy red beak, the pink go-go boots, the yellow mask angling back from the eyes. They’re the Flash, they’re 1970s Bowie! I don’t mean to imply that adorable, showy species are of more value or somehow deserving of more concern. It’s just … damn.”
“Californians are like, 'Lions are everywhere now!'" What's on the rise are home security cameras. Doorbell cameras are the mammograms of wildlife biology.”
“I would take delight in the optical non sequitur of a bear standing in front of a Louis Vuitton boutique. This poor goober with the burrata on its snout, innocent and utterly unaware of its likely fate, makes me want to cry.”
“But the United States is surely not the only country working on gene drive in mammals. If we’re on it, China is too. And China has not demonstrated a comforting abundance of oversight in the realm of genetic engineering.”
“Albert Ken-rich Fisher’s 1900 “Summary of the Contents of 255 Stomachs of the Screech Owl” made me feel tired and sad, though also vaguely festive, owing to the author’s “Twelve Days of Christmas”–style presentation: “91 stomachs contained mice … 100 stomachs contained insects … 9 stomachs contained crawfish … 2 stomachs contained scorpions …” Droppings provided a kinder, less taxing alternative.”
“someone who knows a little more than diddly. I’m scheduled to meet with the Center’s wildlife genetics staff, upstairs in the Long Speak Room, which is an amusingly apt name for a government conference room (except that it isn’t—a realization that will dawn when I take note of the plaque by the door, which reads: Longs Peak Room).”
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Book Keywords:
californians, scale, lions, species, security-cameras, screening, nature, mountain-lion, intelligence, suburbs, irrational, live, simple, small, right, mammograms, wildlife, teddy-bears, surveillance, size
