Stefan grew up in Germany. At the age of 15, he had a fascination for photography and nature. By 17-19 years old, he had his own black and white photographic laboratory and was exhibiting in galleries. He was also interested in history and worked as part of a youth group in a local museum. The museum’s director was a politician and this sparked an additional interest in politics; by the age of 21 Stefan became involved in the city parliament. Stefan remembers at this age being head strong, opinionated and rebellious towards authority. He says he was “bad in school”; if he thought a teacher was not teaching them well he would rebel. He says of his time between the ages of 17-22 that he was “looking at where my life was going, not consciously maybe, but trying out lots of different things including different religions, youth groups, photography, graphic design, history, politics…”
Stefan left school without high enough grades to go to university immediately; this meant he would have to wait a few years before he could apply. Two years of compulsory military service was looming. However, an ethical dislike for this option coupled, he admits honestly, with a greater desire to rebel against the wishes of his father, led to him successfully applying for civil service instead. This involved working in a hospital for two years, with his jobs including “carrying dead body bits in bags to the crematorium and cleaning the room with the dead people in it”. I guess you could say he did not get out of military service lightly.
After civil service, Stefan began learning a profession. He worked in the printing industry for three years… remember his interest in graphic design? But it was also during this time that events transpired to lead him away from art and towards conservation. He happened to go to a presentation one day. The presentation was given by a local Greenpeace supporter group and was about the ozone layer. Stefan remembers feeling very angry afterwards… not about the ozone layer but about what he considered to be a terrible presentation. He remembers thinking “This is such an important problem and I could have delivered it better than them!”
So he set out to do just that. He joined a local supporter group and within one month was one of four elected leaders, becoming a specialist in delivering presentations about whales. He took advantage of his auto-didactic learning style, teaching himself by reading everything he could and deepening his learning by teaching what he learnt. Maybe not surprisingly Stefan was also by this time an elected member of parliament for the Social Democratic party.
With three years experience with Greenpeace already under his belt, Stefan was now eligible to apply for university. He remembers thinking, “Conservation is far more interesting than graphic design!” So, not surprisingly, he applied to study biology. On their first day at the university students were given a tour of the site and as part of this tour were shown the monkey laboratory. The professor working there was conducting behavioural research. In nature, a group of monkeys will grow to a certain size and then split into two. But in this experiment the scientist was taking the dominant animals from two groups, putting them together and attempting to establish a new hierarchy. Stefan remembers his instinct telling him how “Ugly and not right” it felt, and how it was “Terrible, like a concentration camp”.
Stefan knew that simply complaining about it as a first year student would achieve nothing. He decided the best course of action would be to work in the laboratory, acquire the facts and find a way to improve the situation, ideally by closing the laboratory.
During his first two years at university Stefan assisted the professor in the lab, slowly gaining his trust. For the first year his main job was to “Clean the **** out of the cages”. At this time he was also working within the professional arm of Greenpeace, assisting on their fisheries campaign. He also met a man called Ilja Weiss, executive director of one of Germany’s biggest animal rights groups and the leading figure in the political animal rights movement in Germany. Stefan spoke to Ilja about the laboratory and the need for something to be done. Shortly after, Stefan was hired as the assistant executive director within the organisation. At the age of just 24 Stefan was now “Studying, working and involved in an undercover operation”.
After nearly two years working in the lab, Stefan had succeeded in gaining the professor’s trust. While the professor was in India on a conference for a month, Stefan was given the keys to allow him access to the office. During that month he made copies of every single document within the office, (his camera and photography studio suddenly became very useful). It was a huge risk, but once he had the copies he was able to look through them at his leisure. Stefan found two useful angles: the professor had violated health regulations by allowing a pregnant student to clean the cages of animals who were infected with diseases, so allowing the possibility of the disease being transferred to humans; he had also been privately selling monkeys to zoos and illegally not putting this through the university accounts. Stefan knew that the legal matter was what he needed to win over the powers that be; the fact of animal mistreatment would simply be the “Emotional salt in the wound”.
Stefan changed universities so that he could publish his findings as a witness. Initially, the Ministry of Health branded him a liar and attempted to discredit him in the press. But Stefan also knew how to use the press; he gave them his information one small piece at a time to maintain their interest in the story. It took four years, with an attempt at arresting Stefan in the process, before the case was resolved. Stefan succeeded; the laboratory was closed and the professor dismissed. As far as Stefan knows, this was the first and only time that a student has ever succeeded in closing a laboratory and forcing the dismissal of a university professor.
By this time Stefan was deeply involved in the political animal rights movement in Germany. He authored a picture book and written book about animal captivity. As both a biology student and activist, Stefan had access to a wealth of information on psychological suffering, animal behaviours, biological functioning etc. His books were the first in Germany on the subject of animals suffering in captivity in zoos. In 1994 Stefan was involved in campaigning against zoos and he formed his own NGO to end dolphin captivity. Out of the seven aquariums in Germany with captive dolphins, three were closed as a result of his work. Not surprisingly, his studies took longer than expected because of all the extra work he was carrying out.
When Stefan was 28 years old, there came a crisis. Ilja was in love with the President of his NGO and was planning to propose to her. However, he discovered there had been a misuse of funds. Ilja and Stefan knew they had no choice but to have a new president elected in her place, and Ilja would no longer propose to her. Unfortunately, she found out about their plans and rallied her supporters. She succeeded in having both Ilja and Stefan thrown out of the organisation and in discrediting them within the animal rights community.
For the previous ten years Stefan had been involved in the animal rights movement, undercover work, exposing bad practise, running an organisation, writing, lobbying… He had seen corruption, in-fighting and some of the worst traits of human nature. As he says, you have to have a “stubborn, dominant, focussed, unforgiving, fighting character with a strong conviction in your own abilities and judgement” to be involved in such work. But now, he’d had enough. He had been burned in the German press with his reputation damaged and he wanted nothing more than to leave the world of conservation and build a new life. To become a scuba diving instructor… become a travel journalist… move to a new country… live a ‘lighter’ life…
Then Stefan received an email from a woman in Peru called Nina Pardo which would prove to be the spark to ignite a new fire; one that would lead to an almost unbelievable romance and the start of the next chapter in both their lives.
But who is Nina Pardo? Find out more about her role in this unfolding story next time…
To be a real conservationist takes passion and the same energy that at times tears me apart; the drive to do things no matter what because it is just right to do them. If someone wants to prevail in conservation they need to be a person who can bear an enormous amount of frustration on many levels; I know many people who do this work for a few years and then get burned out. I know very few people who have worked for 25 years or more, and believe me some of these people become frustrated and angry personalities.
And then there is the other half of me; I have been and will always be a conservationist. I have done everything: undercover work, activism, political lobbying, directing multimillion dollar NGOs, being grassroots, volunteering and participating in police raids. I have always done what I thought had to be done without caring for the consequences. I will always stay like this. Conservation has become me. I am so full of peace when I am out there at sea with the animals and I enjoy making people happy; I love getting home and seeing the happy faces of people who had a great day with the animals. And there are some wonderful people involved in the conservation world. I want my children to have the same healthy world that I enjoy, so no matter what, there is no choice for me anymore, it is too late to turn around! And maybe I should not complain too much as in the end dolphin conservation made me find the love of my life, my wife Nina; but that´s a story to tell another time…
What does our daily work look like? Not at all exciting! Often in front of a computer and sometimes doing scientific stuff. When we are at sea it is hard work, you have to be a tough person for this kind of work as we do everything by ourselves; carrying diving equipment, driving the boats, cleaning the boats, diving to clean the hulls, washing the equipment…
Read all about 
When the feral girl saw him for the first time he was coming out of his door and into his garden oasis. He moved with a softness to every step and a calm steadiness of posture. He paused outside his doorway for a moment. The feral girl could sense him feeling the freshness of the world around him, opening his eyes, ears, lungs and skin to the new day. He took some long, gentle breaths, looking up at the sky and greeting the sun with his glance. A bird chose that moment to sing its own welcome to the new day and he turned to it with a smile, uttering a few soft sounds which the feral girl could not hear.
The feral girl was mesmerised by the sight of the old man and intoxicated by the closeness of his presence. He stayed in the garden all day tending to his plants, and the girl remained there all day watching him. He continued to move calmly with a lightness that belied his age. Often he was quiet, with a wonderful spreading outwards kind of silence that brought peace flowing into her being as she watched. At other times he talked to himself, the plants and the world around him. Sometimes he sang a lilting song which rippled delicately through the girl, tugging on her vocal chords, willing her to utter her own melody alongside his. Often he smiled and occasionally he laughed to himself, a warm, rich laugh, that melted out of his mouth and into the world. The feral girl felt soothed to her core. The chaotic contrast of the other villagers’ lives and her own attempts to understand them had created a strange turmoil inside her which this man alone was able to quieten.
Tentatively she sent her inner sense probing once more and, once more, recoiled from the shock. A strange new fear overcame her. Not a bad fear as such, but a realisation that his inner world was beyond her. The old man’s inner realm was in tune with his outer one in a far greater way than the feral girl’s. And it was vast. Infinite even. It included more than she had ever known, ever sensed, or ever dreamed existed. His world encompassed an awareness that emanated from deep within and extended outwards to places so distant she could not begin to imagine them. She would touch into it and find the breath taken from her body as if she had fallen out of a tiny box into an expanded universe so vast as to be indescribable.
She wanted desperately to stay and meet the old man. She could not imagine slinking silently back to her forest now and leaving the one person who brought her such peace and such wonder. She trembled at the thought of approaching him. What if he had seen her? What if he was angry at how she had spied on him? What if he told her to go away? What if she was rejected by the only human being she had ever wanted to step out of the shadows to meet?
This post is a personal moment about me, not a post about conservationists or the feral girl story. I am about to leave California and head down to Peru, so it feels like an appropriate time to add a few reflections of my own on my experiences so far. I have absolutely loved being in Monterey doing what I’ve been doing for the last month. Living, working, writing about and becoming friends with Peggy has been amazing. She is now family and we are already plotting how to enable me to return here in the future.
Thank you to those of you who have already left comments on my blog or sent me messages and emails. I am glad that some of you have expressed how you feel like you know Peggy personally from having read my blog, and that you have found her story to be inspiring. You have no idea how happy that makes me. I chose to do what I am doing with the hope that my writing would do just that. (If you are inspired enough to donate some money to Peggy, please 
How do I feel about going to Peru? Sad to be leaving Peggy and California, excited and nervous to be heading to Peru and meeting Stefan. I think it will be very different, I think it may be more intense. I can’t imagine starting a whole new process of being in a new place, getting to know someone, learning how to work for them and finding the right style to write about them. I am nervous about feeling isolated; I do not speak Spanish so will not be able to befriend every other person I meet in the street and fall instantly into easy conversation. I wonder how writing about Stefan will be. Both the content, tone and style of my writing reflect the person I am writing about. The posts about Peggy were light, fun, flowing and easy to write. How will it be to write about Stefan? I will soon find out and, as readers, I think you may see a big difference.
“Besides the love I have for her as my partner, I have the utmost respect for Peggy as one of the very few people I have ever met, that, when she says she is going to accomplish something — she actually does.”
Peggy Stap is one of the most positive, generous hearted people I know. She always has a smile for people, be that friends, strangers or even those who have displayed animosity towards her. She can also, at her own admission, sometimes live in a bubble and not notice the less well intentioned motives of others. With all this in mind, I asked her what she thought about us humans and our role on this planet.
There are simple things which everyone can do such as pick up litter, use cloth bags instead of plastic, use metal or china cups, say no to plastic lids and containers, do not use balloons and never, ever release them into the sky, donate to organisations such as 
I asked Peggy what she thought of the view that it is our leaders and the corporate world who should be the ones making changes as they have much greater influence and power. She answered, 
Like all of us Peggy has some of all these motivations existing within her. But at the forefront is the fact that she does care and does believe in what she is doing. I have met other wonderful people here who share her beliefs and have the courage to put those beliefs into action. In particular, Peggy’s education co-ordinator Jenna Contuchio is an extraordinarily strong, intelligent woman who works as a veterinary technician and devotes all her extra hours to Marine Life Studies plus setting up her own organisation to educate people about plastic.
You may have noticed that every whale related job Peggy has ever done has been as a volunteer. Peggy calls it the 
Peggy remembers the first time she got really close to a Humpback whale while researching in Maui. On this particular day she was snorkeling with the whales, documenting their behavior on film. A Humpback chose to swim up from the depths straight to her till it was within two feet of her with one eye staring straight into hers. It then swam past her so close that its pectoral fin moved under her body as it passed her. Peggy remembers keeping the advice of another researcher at the forefront of her mind with the words 
Around 2005 Peggy was with a volunteer researching in the bay. Two Orcas were close to the boat with another one further away. The boat was stationery and Peggy was lowering the hydrophone into the water to record their vocalisations. She heard a 
In 2008, Peggy was in Maui assisting on the filming of 
The importance of research in the context of conservation is that it supplies a piece of the puzzle which, when added to other pieces of the puzzle, enables effective conservation measures to be established. As Peggy says, 
She dreams of…
There is so much that 
Over time she realised that if she maintained a clear focus and a stillness within herself she could begin to feel what and how and who each person was, just as she could feel the being-ness of the mountains and trees. As she slowly, softly, gently began to feel her way into the minds, bodies and hearts of each person, she created a delicate thread of connection with them. When she shut out all the confusion of their complicated lives, their routines and paths that criss-crossed in so many different directions, she became less disorientated and more interested in the intimate detail of each person. One by one, the people started to make sense to her, and one by one she started to feel something for them.
Other adults surprised her in a different way. Strangely, their inner and outer worlds did not match. On the outside, they displayed certain traits of character which were not the same as the currents of thought and feeling hidden within them. The feral girl had never experienced this before; an eagle was an eagle on the outside and inside, a flower was a flower in its being as much as its appearance. Not so with all the humans. She discovered that some people displayed aggressive, even brutal characters, yet when she sunk beneath these layers of hardness she found a soft pain within, like that of a child whose toys had been broken and could not be fixed. Others who appeared so large and powerful as they gave orders or sneered at their fellow villagers were often crumpled and ashamed inside. Others who were quiet and subdued in their daily lives were sometimes seething with rage beneath their placid exterior, or frozen in a state of fear. Some people smiled their way through the whole day yet inside she found deep pools of watery sadness which she could have swum in for miles.
The feral girl also discovered how diversely the villagers felt about the world around them. She had assumed that all creatures could sense the ebb and flow of life, be moved by its rhythms and feel the fine connecting threads that wove their way between everything. She could tell that some of the villagers experienced this; when she peeked into their inner world she saw swirls of light, shade and colour all dancing together. But some of the humans felt very differently. There was a gap in the thread between them and the world which made their relationship to it subtlety different. They were active within it, and smart too, but their action was all action; they were constantly doing things to it. The feral girl marveled at their invention; some of the results of their doing were a wonder to behold. But she could not understand how they could live without being able to just be in the world. Were they lacking something? Or was she the one lacking the openness to see they were just different from her and the life she had so far experienced?
So she decided to creep into the villagers’ lives at night to leave them little tokens. She left each one a white flower on their pillow as they slept. She danced around them weaving silken movements in the air to connect with their dreaming minds. She whispered to them of her life in the forest to share her life with theirs. Over time, her tokens of white flowers were remarked on by the villagers. Some people treasured these mysterious gifts, others gave a knowing smile thinking they had guessed who left them, others were angry that someone had crept into their hut at night without their knowledge. But no one guessed the truth, no one remembered the feral girl’s midnight dance or her softly whispered words. No one sensed her presence among them.
