SEATTLE — Sightings of retired "Far Side" cartoonist Gary Larson are about as rare as the exotic vipers, rhinos and cheetahs that graced his daily strip for its 15-year run from 1980 to 1995.

Like deer avoiding gun-toting hunters in his panels ("Do I know this guy? ... I've got to think," one says as he hides behind a tree), Larson is elusive prey. He rarely gives interviews. He refused to have his picture taken for this article, preferring to remain anonymous in his home of Seattle, where his T-shirt-and-jeans wardrobe give him protective camouflage against would-be fans who might beg him to pick up his pen again.

But he agrees to endure a face-to-face interview ("Going into it, my only goal was to survive," he says later in an e-mail) for something he cares deeply about — wildlife. Larson's cartoons abound with animals: elephants, wildebeest, frogs, bears, horses, salmon, birds, alligators. The world, however, hasn't been as kind to such creatures. Larson's hope that his work might aid in ending the destruction being wrought upon them and their habitats, especially in Southeast Asia, has brought him a tiny way out of retirement.

Not to get hopes up: He's not drawing again. But for the first time in four years, he is releasing a page-a-day calendar of some of his greatest hits, in stores now.

All his earnings from the 3 million calendars printed, about $2 million according to publisher Andrews McMeel, will go to Conservation International 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 threatened species for exotic dishes, traditional medicine and for pets. There are also projects in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries as well.

Species are going extinct about 1,000 times faster today than they did a few hundred years ago, according to the United Nation's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment released last year. It found that in the past 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."

"I can't imagine how we'll be remembered by future generations if we allow this to happen," says Larson. It's a holocaust, he says, only instead of killing off people, we'll be "the flora and fauna Nazis."

Dubbed "the unofficial cartoonist laureate of the scientific community" by Natural History magazine, Larson stepped away from his drawing table and retired from cartooning 15 years ago. He still put together greatest hits page-a-day calendars but stopped even that in 2002.

"The daily calendar seemed, to me, like a kind of cartoon black hole, and you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know that that couldn't be sustained indefinitely. That's why I pulled the plug on that one after the '02 edition. Kind of a pre-emptive strike," he says.

But in early 2006, his publisher approached him about doing another one, and Larson had an idea.

CALENDAR FOR A CAUSE

For many years Larson — along with a good number of the scientists he so lovingly lampooned — had become increasingly concerned about the environment. On a diving trip in the Galapagos a decade ago, he met someone who worked with an international nonprofit group called Conservation International. He liked what he heard and became a donor.

But he wanted to do something bigger. When his publisher, McMeel, called, "I knew I had to open my mouth and say something," he says.

That said, the unassuming Larson isn't convinced of his appeal, even 26 years after becoming a cartoon superstar who was syndicated in more than 900 newspapers, receiving several National Cartoonists Society awards for best syndicated panel and having a biting louse — Strigiphilus garylarsoni — named in his honor.

"At least (the calendar) can die on the vine for a good cause," he says.

Species may go extinct, but not his fans. "Far Side" calendars sell "four to five times more than any other calendar we have," says Borders' Linda Jones. "I call it the Harry Potter of calendars."

About 350,000 copies of a massive two-volume set of his entire collected works — at $135 a copy — have been sold. It was the most expensive New York Times best-seller ever at the time it was published, says Hugh Andrew of Andrews McMeel.

Each of his 23 books of collected cartoons are still in print, and they've sold a combined 45 million copies.

Larson and his wife, Toni Carmichael, like things low-key. One of the reasons they chose Conservation International is because it seemed to be flying "under the radar."

"We started thinking who would be a good organization to work with. We like them because they seem to be doing conservation in the trenches. They seemed more into doing the work than making glossy magazines."

MUSIC A LONGTIME LOVE

Larson has thinning blond hair and a slightly sheepish attitude. He arrived a few minutes late for an interview that took two months of careful negotiation with the very protective FarWorks staff that runs his legacy.

"I was worried, because we were late. I thought you might leave," he says.

This is not a rock star.

But he'd like to be. Well, not a rock star. A jazz guitarist.

Actually, he is a jazz guitarist.

Since retiring, he's occupied his time with travel and some scuba diving, but more and more, he's gravitated back to a long-time love: music.

"I actually find a lot of parallels in jazz and cartooning. (Maybe the greatest one being how you can suddenly find yourself in deep doo-doo)," he says later via e-mail.

After college in the early 1970s, he and a friend started a band named Tom and Gary, which friends immediately dubbed "two guys as exciting as their names." Tom played the trombone, Gary the banjo.

But needing to pay the bills, he went to work as an animal-cruelty investigator. His cartoons bear the inspirational hallmarks of encounters with pets and owners.

It was during this period that Larson really started working on cartooning. He first sold a weekly panel to the Seattle Times, and then, in 1979, was offered a syndication deal with the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chronicle Features Syndicate. "It was no guarantee, but it was a foot in the door," he says.

While he appealed to all, his focus on animals and bumpy guys in lab coats has meant that scientists harbor a special soft spot for the "Far Side." "There's something wonderfully sardonic about the human characteristics he gives to animals," says Don Kennedy, editor in chief of the prestigious journal Science.

One of the nation's pre-eminent biologists, E. O. Wilson at Harvard University, notes proudly that Larson, too, began his training as an entomologist (that would be a bug scientist), just as he did.

"Tell him if he ever wants to start drawing cartoons again, he'll have an eager audience awaiting him," Wilson says.

But Larson says he doesn't miss it. "It was 15 years of deadlines," he grimaces.

Larson's last cartoon ran on Jan. 1, 1995, and he now lives a quite happy, undeadlined life, in Seattle with his wife. "It was a good gig," he says.

CHILDHOOD DAYS

Larson says his interest in science, or at least creepy-crawly things, probably had its start at his grandparents' house on Fox Island in Puget Sound, just off the Tacoma shore.

"They lived by a great swamp. Today it would be called a wetland. But it was a textbook swamp: Crystal-clear water, sandy bottom, salamanders everywhere." It was fed by a small creek, and right behind the high-tide drift line. The "frosting on the cake" was that the area was a major habitat for western fence lizards.

It was a "wondrous place" where he spent hours playing as a boy, Larson says.

Today the swamp is gone. "Filled in and a house or two now stands there, and the creek is just a landscape feature through someone's yard. But the other creepy thing is that, while the drift line is obviously still there, the lizards are all gone. I've gone looking for them, walking among the driftwood on a warm, lizardy kind of day. Not a one."

And that's the problem, he says. 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 rain forest (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.