More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
the reason wolves seemed so much smarter than deer was that they would starve to death if they weren’t.
predators must actively—and consciously—contrive successful hunting scenarios by adapting to, and manipulating, random events within a constantly shifting environment.
Seen from this point of view, Southern Africa was not so much the Cradle of Humankind as it was the crucible.
when thunder rolls, lions will roar back. What other creature, besides the lion, the tiger, and the whale, can answer Creation in its own language?
The brandname Viagra is derived from vyaaghra, the Sanskrit word for tiger.
“Optimists study English; pessimists study Chinese; and realists learn to use a Kalashnikov.”
When a questionnaire was sent around to local hunters seeking advice on what people should do if they ran into a tiger, Smirnov ignored the list of carefully crafted questions and scrawled SHOW NO FEAR across the blank side.
Smirnov approaches tigers the same way he approached hooligans in the back alleys of Moscow. “An animal is an animal,” he said simply. “A predator can smell fear very well. If you show fear, you’re finished.
“Over time, I realized that if you have accumulated more anger inside yourself than a tiger has in him, the tiger will be afraid of you.
just look him in the eye, but with such hate that he would turn around and go away.
Many human tribes have met the same fate since then, and many more are meeting it now. Today, it occurs not so much by death as by dilution: through resettlement, religious and economic conversion, and intermarriage, gradually the skills, stories, and languages fade away.
The only other warm-blooded creature that rivals us in number is chickens. After that, you must go to rats and mice to find a comparably numerous species. In terms of our collective impact on the planet, one would have to look to asteroids and supervolcanoes in order to find a comparison.
