Candace Savage > Quotes

“On average, grasses produce three or four times more roots by weight than they do leaves and stems, giving them a root-to-shoot ratio that is ten times as high as that of a forest.”
― Candace Savage, Prairie: A Natural History of the Heart of North America

“drought specialists, and while humid conditions prevailed, they had been confined to small patches of ground that had somehow been deprived of abundant rainfall. Now, not only were the tropical rains failing because of a global drying trend, but the North American plains were under a special disadvantage. With the Rockies in place, storms that rolled in from the Pacific tended to drop their precipitation as they swept up the western slopes. By the time they reached the plains, they were pretty much wrung out. But grasses don’t require much moisture, and this characteristic gave them a competitive edge. Over the next several million years (between about 24 million and 3 million years ago), grasses gradually became the dominant plants across the Great Plains.”
― Candace Savage, Prairie: A Natural History of the Heart of North America

“For their size, crows are among the brainiest organisms on Earth, outclassing not only other birds (with the possible exception of parrots), but also most mammals.”
― Candace Savage, Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World

“She has, however, noticed one important difference between crows and us: their families are generally more peaceful than ours sometimes are. No matter what the provocation, family members usually work out their differences without violence or any other signs of overt aggression.”
― Candace Savage, Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World

“Strictly speaking, anthropomorphism refers to the too-easy ascription of human emotions and mental processes to nonhuman animals. …But the term is often used, more loosely, to condemn any suggestion that sophisticated awareness may occur outside our own species. As such, not only does it serve to police the boundaries of orthodox science, it also protects our sense that human beings are uniquely superior. Having defined ourselves as something other than “dumb animals,” we have a lot invested in keeping the animals dumb.”
― Candace Savage, Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays

“According to the ancient Greeks, the god Apollo banished the raven to the constellation Corvus after the bird tried to blame his own misdeeds on Hydra, the water serpent.”
― Candace Savage, Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World