Eric Goode

Director

1957-12-19

Quotes by Eric Goode

• There are times when you do have to bring animals into captivity to save a species like California Condors, or Arabian Aurochs. But they have something called species survival plans, and they do it in a very thoughtful way and are careful with the genetics.

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• The real takeaway should be to give your money to conservation programs around the world that are really working hard to save tigers in their range countries and not give your money to sanctuaries, which are really, effectively just caging tigers and cats.

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• At the end of the day, the best sanctuaries are places like the Performing Animal Welfare Society in Northern California, where he really provides his tigers large spaces. And there are people in the private sector that do a really good job with animals.

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• What you do in Oklahoma with tigers in these roadside zoos would be frowned on if it opened in the L.A. basin or New York. I think it's a lack of education. And people believe we should be able to have a tiger, because this is America - who should stop us?

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• If you keep more 230 tigers, it's like having 230 children, you don't really love them, you're just collecting them.

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• I would say the big cat people see tigers as sort of a status symbol, as you would a Ferrari or fancy car collection. They have the animals to elevate their position. It makes them special.

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• I guess you could say I'm a closeted animal person, because a lot of my life I did it in secrecy. I was always fascinated with exotic animals, particularly reptiles, from the age of 6 when I got a pet tortoise.

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• I was a kid that loved reptiles and eventually started an organization dedicated to saving turtles and tortoises, called the Turtle Conservancy, where we protect land and basically do species conservation around the world.

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• I definitely have, on paper, an unorthodox career path. And from childhood onward, I was always fascinated by the outdoors and wildlife.

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• I knew a notorious reptile dealer who would send me animals for Area. I regret that. I mean, the landlord had wolves and an arctic fox upstairs and quite possibly a tiger.

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• Unlike accredited zoos like the Bronx Zoo, San Diego Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, these are private menageries, and these people are frightened and there is an existential fear that they are going to be shut down by the government, by PETA, by HSUS, by animal rights groups. So they, generally, are very guarded.

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