Alexander Skutch

“Asociacion Ornitologica de Costa Rica”

“Centro Científico Tropical”

“Dr. Alexander Skutch - Bibliographic notes from Tropical Science Center”

“NPR: Alexander Skutch Remembered”

“Alexander Skutch, a Naturalist in Costa Rica”

“New York Times: Alexander Skutch, 99, Expert On Central American Birds”

“That evolution has accomplished much that is splendid and admirable, it would be ungrateful to deny. That the means it has employed have often been ruthlessly harsh is a proposition to which every compassionate person will attest.”

“[If evolution had been guided, the Earth would have become] the abode of a vast diversity of creatures dwelling in concord (instead of) a place of mixed character, where beauty and ugliness, peace and fear, happiness and horror, mingle together in the most perplexing contrasts.”

“The evolutionary impulsion to increase fecundity, technically known as fitness, at whatever cost is responsible for most of the ugliness, strife, and suffering that afflict the living community on the fairest planet illuminated by the Sun.”

“Earth has no more distressing spectacle than that of a predator suddenly striking down some defenseless creature innocently singing or attending its young, no sight more pitifully repulsive than the hideously mangled remains of what, a few hours before, was a beautiful animal enjoying its life.”

“[Predation is] a great evil that a wise or benevolent creator would have avoided.”

“I have come to view vegetarianism as a standing protest against predation, which is life's greatest evil. If there were no other argument in its favor, that would be sufficient.”

“After long pondering, I believe that I can define good and evil in terms to which even a biologist of the mechanical school can hardly take exception. At least, I fancy that I can do so for evil. The great evil of life is parasitism.”