Marty Stouffer

President, Marty Stouffer Productions Ltd (www.wildamerica.com)
(see also www.Wild-Mart.com and www.WildTent.com)

Today’s Date: 23 December 2007

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

It is very hard for me to narrow down the single interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on me. It would certainly begin with a childhood in rural Arkansas and with very understanding parents, who allowed us to keep, raise, and rehabilitate various wild animals - deer, fox, owl, beaver, etc. They also provided for us domestic animals as pets and also for husbandry. We had sheep, goats, horses, donkey, turkeys, chickens and hamsters by the thousand. At one point, we bred and raised hamsters for the pet trade as a family project. Also, as a family, we annually raised and slaughtered, cleaned and froze by the dozens, the turkeys and chickens we were to eat that year, etc. etc. We hunted and fished and ate all of that, as well. So, I began my life with a very hands on approach to wildlife and to all animals. I did not mention the dogs, cats, parakeets, monkeys, turtles, frogs, snakes, fish and etc. etc. that we also kept as "pets", since those were something that virtually everyone has and are nothing special... except the monkeys, but we even had a couple of friends with those as well (in the old days when the laws were more lax).

As I grew older, I spent time in both Alaska and Africa (Botswana) and those were powerful influences as is spelled out in the book "Marty Stouffer's Wild America". I will make no attempt to summarize here what is explained there in hundreds of pages. See note above re: Book is now online for free. [If you would like more insight, the entire Book I wrote... "Wild America" is posted on the Website at www.WildAmerica.com]

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

Regarding my favorite place in the outdoors, growing up in Arkansas, when our initial transportation was bicycles, go-carts and motorcycles, it was "the woods"... literally outside out back door, and several miles away along the banks of the Arkansas River. When we were old enough to drive, it was the nearby Fort Chaffee Military Reservation... a huge area that was completely off-limits to all civilians... and, as a result, a fabulous "de facto" wildlife preserve and refuge. Naturally, as somewhat adventurous and not-completely rule-abiding teens, it was our "Happy Hunting Ground", we knew every inch of it and were chased by armed MPs many, many times. After that, we came to know and love, forty miles to the north in the Ozark Mountains all of the land around the Buffalo River, later to become a National Scenic River.

Now? Obviously, for the past thirty years, I now live in the western U.S. at the edge of a wilderness area a few miles outside of Aspen, Colorado - the answer to my favorite place(s) these days should be obvious - it is where I have chosen to live. Having said that, I dearly love Yellowstone Park in late spring and late autumn when the tourists are virtually gone from there. I love the Baja down South. I LOVE everything about Louisiana... the pepole, their culture, the wildlife and their game recipes. Alaska is fabulous for more reasons than I could outline short of a small book, but I would never want to live there for just as many... and while I had tremendous and dramatic experiences in Botswana, Africa, the goods and the bads just about evened out over there.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is and why?

My favorite animals are the Bighorn and the Otter and I go into great detail on that topic in the book. One is a noble animal in a beautiful environment and the other lives for fun. One could not go wrong with either approach to life.

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now, and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

Too many rats in the box. China is terrifying and America is just as bad. Too many consumers making too many babies and buying them all too much junk. Sure, I love my truck, my tv and my computer, but the future in which 10 or 20 billion people will ALL want that same "stuff", plus a bottle of Coca-Cola and a Rolex watch, simply boggles the mind with its impossibility. I do not believe that Al Gore invented the Internet, Global Warming or much of anything else except some political hype and b.s. Bless his heart. I do believe its in the right place... its his Ego that has me concerned. We can wring our hands and worry about greenhouse gas, or gasoline, energy, food, water, air and all the rest, but Nature will do just fine in balancing it all out. As for humans and our natural propensity for "more, better, different..." all I can say is "Good luck". I'm really not cynical about it... I just do not think that the future will be very much like the past, in which we pretty much had whatever we wanted and whenever we wanted it. In the long run, after we burn all the fossil fuel in the earth and eat all the fish in the sea, things will not be nearly as much fun as they were in the "good ol' days".

5. If you could give one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

Here is my one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources. First a bit Rude, then a bit more Refined. Like I tell my verbose, self-righteous self-proclaimed "Environmental" friends who love to drive their internal-combustion vehicles to meetings to worry and fret about "saving the world"... if you really want to do something worthwhile... just blow your own brains out. Because You, and WE, are the problem. Without humans, there is NO problem whatsoever with "the Environment". Its not a Nature problem... its a People problem. But, thats too simple and to "Inconvenient a Truth" to even consider.

Instead, we talk about it all like Nature has something "Wrong" with it... acid rain and ozone holes and melting glaciers and dying species. Yes, of course, the U.N. and etc. etc. passes out medicine and pamphlets and condoms, but do the math. They are not getting read or used. At least, they have not limited population growth to any significant degree. Sex is still the most fun that a poor person can have. And, cruel or not to simply admit it, there are a whole lot of poor people in the world who like to have sex and who do not yet share the "first world" concerns with the environment. \

They are too busy killing things for food, or chopping things down for money or draining places to plant more food or etc. etc. Since no one actually IS going to sacrifice themselves for the Future of the Planet... (we as a species are MUCH too selfish for that grand gesture... I know for sure that I do NOT plan to do so, at least... ha ha.) and, to summarize on a more positive note, the simple answer is that we need less people on the planet...

So, to accomplish that... we would need Education/Contraception/Sterilization/Limitation ... i.e. whatever it takes to get LESS Rats in the Box. Other than that, I feel that all other efforts to even maintain the "World", much less improve it in any way... are a complete waste of time and money. But, for every family in America or even China with 1 or 2 children, there are many, many more with 5 or 10 and these days, many of them have the "first world's" donation of food and medicine to keep all of their offspring alive until they, too, are able to breed and reproduce prolifically. And on and on. Until Boom. Ouch.

Sounds a little Hitler-esque, I know to suggest ANY alternative to that, our current scenario... Human Freedom running Wild. Political correctness at its finest. And I do NOT mean it that way. Not in any sort of "Us instead of Them" cruel way. Starving and dying babies are a terrible thing. So, of course, that should be prevented at all costs. But, the answer is prevention, not perpetuation. The Catholic church still opposes contraception. That, to my mind, is beyond insane. But, I'm not Catholic.

I will stop now for fear of generating TOO MUCH additional hate mail... ha ha. Seriously, I would love for everyone to just go nuts and have sweet, sweet love with the person of their dreams, and then they could have as many kids as they wanted, and then grandchildren and great grandchildren and it would all be good. But, I am afraid that those days are over. And I am afraid that we, as the human species, have started a giant boulder rolling down a great long hill and it is now completely beyond our control. So, do I really think we will talk and plan and figure and work it out and avoid a disaster? No I do not. The last drop of gasoline will be burned by a half-drunk teenager peeling out of a parking lot in middle America. I think that the time will come when there is drastic overpopulation and human dieoffs, following on the heels of environmental destruction beyond our wildest imagination and then a hundred or a thousand years of Nature sorting it all out... and then... Life will go on. WHAT that Life will be is the question.