When did Mr. Schaller become interested in animals?

W: When did you first realize you’d be able to make a career out of following your passion?
M: Being a naturalist is the only thing I’ve ever been interested in. I started out collecting birds’ eggs, keeping snakes and other creatures, but it wasn’t until I went to university in the early 1950s that I discovered you can turn a boyhood pastime into a profession. I spent long month out with graduate students learning and just being in the wilderness. That was wonderful! So I stayed with it.
W: Have you ever felt threatened or frightened by an animal?
M: Fear is mostly in retrospect. If you do something carelessly like getting too close to a tiger or a bear and frightening the animals, so it becomes aggressive. You respond in the best possible way and you know that in most instances, the animal gives you the benefit of the doubt. It’s only afterwards that you shake your head and say how stupid you were.
W: Your efforts have helped gain protection for many wildlife reserves across the world. How have you managed that?
M: Natural history is the basis of all conservation because you need knowledge. I go out and collect information on wildlife, the people, the condition of the habitat and I give it to the government department concerned and make suggestions. Then I try to follow up. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. One of the real mistakes in the conservation movement in the last few years is the tendency to see nature simply as natural resources. Use it or lose it. Yet conservation without moral values can’t sustain itself unless we reach people through beauty, ethics, spiritual values or whatever. We are not going to keep our wilderness areas.