Writing about animals in scientific journal articles is required to be dry, impersonal. Often when researchers write books about the same animals they show more feeling. George Schaller is an eminent scientist and conservationist (“You have a moral obligation to help protect what you study”) who has written about his research among animals, including mountain gorillas, pandas, and tigers. More free-ranging than journal articles, those of Schaller's books I've read still display considerable restraint.
It's different in person. At the Jhumki Basu Memorial Lecture at Stanford recently, Schaller praised tigers as “generous” (for not eating him), peccaries and pigs in general as “wonderful pets... as good or better than dogs,” and paused at a slide of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. “Aren't they beautiful?” he asked. “They have the sweetest faces. When you are near them you just feel like going up and giving them a big hug.”
Oh yes. The audience uttered a collective sigh of longing. Big biophilia hug!
It's different in person. At the Jhumki Basu Memorial Lecture at Stanford recently, Schaller praised tigers as “generous” (for not eating him), peccaries and pigs in general as “wonderful pets... as good or better than dogs,” and paused at a slide of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. “Aren't they beautiful?” he asked. “They have the sweetest faces. When you are near them you just feel like going up and giving them a big hug.”
Oh yes. The audience uttered a collective sigh of longing. Big biophilia hug!