However much you know giraffes, to see one in the wild for the first time feels prehistoric.

For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can ever describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected.

To me, cruelty is the worst of human sins. Once we accept that a living creature has feelings and suffers pain, then by knowingly and deliberately inflicting suffering on that creature, we are guilty, whether it be human or animal.

Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs...

You have to realise that touching is a real violation of personal space.

One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.

When I was a child, the African forest sounded like a dream to me, because it was full of animals and it was wild.