Authors’ Note
Every instance of cruelty to animals dramatized in this novel is based on documented real-world occurrences, from the use of gorilla hands as ashtrays in Africa to the capturing of dogs to be used for food in Asia to the training methods of orcas in North America. Nothing has been exaggerated; more’s the pity.
People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mahatma Gandhi
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal … In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning.
Mark Twain