No, sorry. He’s not cartooning. According to this article from USA Today, [1] though, Larson has has recently released a calendar (of previously released cartoons), all of the profits going to help Conservation International [2]
for the organization’s work to help end the illegal trade in Asian elephants, Indochinese tigers, Asiatic black bears, pangolins, freshwater turtles, and Siamese crocodiles in Cambodia. The profits will also fund an awareness campaign in China aimed at reducing acquisition of of threatened species for exotic dishes, traditional medicine and for pets. There are also projects in Indonesia and other southeast Asian countries as well.
According to the United Nation’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [3] released last year, in the last 50 years
humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.
The USA Today article presents a nice bio of Gary Larson, reminding us of his amazing accomplishments as a cartoonist (his daily cartoon appeared in newspapers from 1980 – 1995). The reason Larson has re-emerged in public, however, is because of the desperate plight of numerous animal species:
Everything is getting filled in, dug up, overrun and generally made uninhabitable for everything but humans. Places where animals can live in peace, or at least live, are being destroyed at an increasing rate.
“Our species is rife with greed, war and destruction. But this is new. It’s all happening on our watch. It creeps me out, the rate at which we’re pushing species to extinction,” he says bleakly.
Larson clearly feels an affinity with animals, be they the “charismatic megafauna” that make us all want to race out and save the rainforest (there’s a reason the World Wildlife Fund uses the panda for its logo) or lesser newts.
So protecting wildlife is “at the top of my list,” he says. Some days he finds himself staring at the walls, wondering how things could have gone so terribly wrong for our planet. Donating the money from the calendar is one attempt at helping to fix it, and stop fixating on it.
“I’m trying to get it off my conscience,” he says.
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