Briony Penn

"There is no doubt in my mind about which type of vulture I want attendant upon my death. Any funeral industry catalogue will provide you with a long list of the unwelcome vultures. A book on the birds of the west coast will supply you with the one species I would be happy pick over my bones — the . There are few selfless acts toward the natural world available to human beings and the one that would cause us the least inconvenience is illegal — the simple act of being consumed by nature's prime scavengers."

"In these interviews I got a privileged glimpse into his century — and what a century. In mathematical terms, the population-savvy would have noted that 1910 to 2010 represents one of the steepest trajectories in rates of extinction the world has ever experienced, rivaling the . In his lifetime the number of humans had escalated from 1.75 billion to just under 7 billion, consuming proportionally more resources than in the past ten millennia to achieve a rising standard of living but also an obscene inequity. In poetic terms, Cowan the photographer and writer had captured the beauty and diversity of the wildlife and landscapes devoured. The loss of them was profound. What captured my imagination was that he was both early witness to and participant in these changes. He was the last of the naturalist-hunters and the first of the alarmed scientists."

"The in had disappeared by around 1983. They just suddenly stopped. They were just nowhere."