Bruce Beehler Quotations

We stood in awe as the male romped about in the saplings around our entrance trail, flicking his wings and white flank plumes, and whistling his sweet two-note song for the female-plumaged bird. I was too spellbound to go get my camera.

It has a fairyland quality. It's a spectacularly beautiful Garden of Eden.

Large mammals that have been hunted to near extinction elsewhere were here in abundance. We were able to simply pick up two long-beaked echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal that is little known.

We just scratched the surface. Anyone who goes there will come back with a mystery.

Everyone was so transfixed. You are seeing a bird that no Western scientist has ever seen. I was shouting. This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime series of shouting experiences.

Any expedition visiting in the dry season would probably discover many more butterflies. I suspect there are some areas like this in Africa, and am sure that there are similar places in South America.

This is one of the last new places to go. This mountain range generates its own species, a little bit like the Galapagos.

This mountain range is big enough and complex enough to actually be a generator of new species. It's actually producing new diversity.

There was not a single trail, no sign of civilization, no sign of even local communities ever having been there.

It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth.

It really was like crossing some sort of time warp into a place that people hadn't been to.

No logging permits are given to this area, there is no transport system, not a single road. But clearly with time everything is a threat. In the next few decades there will be strong demands, especially if you think of the timber needs of nearby countries like China and Japan. They will be very hungry for logs.

They were as astounded as we were at how isolated it was. As far as they knew, neither of their clans had ever been to the area.

I know the Bush administration is talking about going back to the moon and going to Mars. But there are plenty of new things to look for right here, in our rain forests, in our oceans. There are whole worlds that are unknown to us.

By some miracle of the stars, everything came together and we were able to spend two weeks on the mountain. I'm still pinching myself that it could work.

By some miracle of the stars, everything came together.

The first time I saw the face of that honeyeater with those wattles was a heart-stopping moment.

The first bird we saw at our camp was a new species. Large mammals that have been hunted to near extinction elsewhere were here in abundance.