Mankind has caused such terrible destruction. He has de-natured himself;he has half-domesticated himself. He is obviously unfit for the imperium which he has grasped from the world and I am filled with nothing but foreboding for the future. I must say that I am among that group of people who, to borrow an expression from Teddy Goldsmith, would regard a demo-catastrophe as an eco-bonanza. In other words, I would be very happy to see 3 ½ billion humans wiped from the face of the earth within the next 150 or 200 years and I am quite prepared to go myself with this majority. Most of you sitting here are redundant in every possible sense of the word. Even though your may be the vanguard of the youth politik of the rights of animals, you are as redundant and as unnecessary as are most other human beings, when you come to it.
Let us all look forward to the day when the catastrophe strikes us down! With what resounding applause would the rest of nature great our demise!
John Aspinall, 1926-2000, founder of Howletts Zoo Park and Port Lympne Wildlife Sanctuary in Kent, England. The above is the conclusion of an unscripted speech made at “The Rights of Animals” symposium organized by the RSPCA at Trinity College, Cambridge on August 18 – 19, 1977.
