Wayne Pacelle

"Having hunters oversee wildlife is like having Dracula guard the blood bank."

"If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would."

"I don’t love animals or think they are cute."

"We equate speciesism—the belief that one’s species is superior to all others—with racism and sexism."

"Animals have their own rights. We’re animals too."

"Animals are no one’s property, and they have the right not be ‘taken,’ ‘harvested,’ or ‘culled’ or any other euphemism for murder that wildlife managers use. They are no one’s property, just as you and I are no one’s property other than our own."

"Interviewer: [W]ould you let people hunt for food if they did it respectfully?"

"Interviewer: How about pets, Wayne? Would you envision a future with no pets in the world?"

"I’ve always had an affinity for wildlife, and the direct assault made on that wildlife by hunters and trappers has always infuriated me … At the same time, I don’t have a hands-on fondness for animals. I did not grow up bonded to any particular nonhuman animal. I like them and I pet them and I’m kind to them, but there’s no special bond between me and other animals…"

"If society says that it doesn’t want the recreational killing of wildlife then we should do away with it, just the way we’ve done away with cockfighting and dogfighting."

"Interviewer: About fishing … do you avoid campaigning against it because there isn’t a ground-swell movement in our culture to eliminate it?"

"Animals for the most part just need to be left alone."

"The whole ‘rights’ thing is fraught with so much. I’m not sure I believe in any natural right."

"There are lots of gun rights groups, but the one that you hear about and the one that is feared is the NRA. I'd rather be loved -- and feared."