The COVID-19 pandemic’s ripple effects are broad; leaving virtually no industry, economy, or continent immune. As travel and tourism has been brought to a standstill, many wilderness areas are left vacant and workers left with the uncertainty of personal income. This “perfect storm” of conditions is leaving many endangered animals highly vulnerable to wildlife crime. – Beverly and Derek Joubert, Project Ranger In the last 50 years, Africa has lost 90 to 95 percent of its large predators. We coul...
Jul 23, 2020•36 min•Season 4Ep. 18
“…I checked into rehab and within 72 hours I was diagnosed with type two diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, erectile dysfunction, bipolar disorder, suicidal depression, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorders, sleep disorder and ADHD.” – Adam Sud There was a point when Adam Sud’s life was completely out of control with food and drug addiction; so much so that he found himself cycling between amphetamine benders and fast food binges until things got so bad that ...
Jul 09, 2020•39 min•Season 4Ep. 16
"What's sad about it is… a lot of people think it's the norm… that's what I thought. Diabetes was something my grandmother had and my mom was pre-diabetic so I thought, oh diabetes and clogged arteries and high cholesterol, they’re just my destiny - that's a normal part of life because that's what I saw happening to everyone around me.” -Jasmine Leyva Heart disease, diabetes, and obesity have been rising at alarming rates all across the country, but the numbers are disproportionately higher in A...
Jul 02, 2020•32 min•Season 4Ep. 15
When the pandemic first hit and tourism all over the world shut down, thousands of captive elephants across Asia went from being very much in demand to being out of work, meaning they are struggling and many of them are in dire situations. Whether these elephants are from places where their lives are really good, like certain sanctuaries, or from places where their lives are incredibly difficult, where they are forced to give rides, perform tricks and spend they rest of the day on horribly small...
Jun 25, 2020•44 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Lauren Ornelas is the founder and the executive director of the Food Empowerment Project , a nonprofit food justice organization that spotlights the abuse of animals on farms, unfair working conditions for produce workers, and the unavailability of healthy foods in communities of color and low-income areas. She and I spoke earlier in the pandemic. She had just written an article on Medium called, We Are All Connected . It was written back in April, but it could not be more relevant now, with the...
Jun 18, 2020•30 min•Season 4Ep. 13
“There’s no question that Beyond Meat IPO was a watershed event. You cannot overstate enough how big of a deal that was, because before then you had a relatively small group of folks, including myself, leading the parade, cheering as loudly as we could, and largely falling on deaf ears outside of small pockets here and there. When that [IPO] happened, everybody on Wall Street started to take notice, not just because it went public, but it was the most successful IPOs since I think 2001 or someth...
Jun 11, 2020•25 min•Season 4Ep. 12
“…based on my personal experience and having worked with scientists and researchers most of my life, I would say that it's not too late. There are some things that are probably gone. There are places where only pockets of biodiversity may remain in the time ahead, but that doesn't mean we can't still have a healthy future. It may not be what it once was, but it's like the old saying - when's the best day to quit smoking cigarettes? Today - if you don’t quit today, when's the next best day? Tomor...
Jun 08, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 11
“The time to begin phasing out the intensive confinement systems in which we raise billions of animals is now. We need to accelerate society’s direction of reducing demand for meat from animal factory farms and shift instead to more of an emphasis on healthier — and safer — plant-based foods. As our population grows, plant-based foods are also more sustainable and affordable for societies globally. Unless we — especially legislators and the food industry — make changes immediately, the concernin...
May 28, 2020•44 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Rachel Nuwer has spent a decade writing about, reporting on, investigating, and going undercover in the illegal wildlife trade. She is a freelance journalist whose work often focuses on wildlife trafficking and poaching and appears in publications like the New York Times and National Geographic. She also wrote the book Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking . It’s a book for anyone who is interested in a planet that still has tigers, elephants, rhinos and thousands of other speci...
May 21, 2020•35 min•Season 4Ep. 9
We all have a food story; the story that we tell ourselves about what we eat and why we eat it. It’s that story that runs the show when it comes to how we shop, cook, and feed our children. It was most often taught to us by our parents and their parents, most who thought they were passing on good values and deep traditions and were only doing what was best for their kids. But our food story is more than that. It was also passed on to our parents and to us from advertisers, marketers and a food i...
May 14, 2020•42 min•Season 4Ep. 8
“…This is not a surprise in many ways and, for decades, not just animal rights activists, but public health experts have been sounding the alarm bells about this kind of risk. And you know, my concern is in many ways people are referring to this as a once in a century event or the black swan or something, but it's like rolling dice and rolling snake eyes once doesn't have any effect on rolling. And in fact, we're rolling the dice even faster now. The main reason is because we are in so much cont...
May 06, 2020•51 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Rich Hardy is a former undercover investigator who spent two decades working in 28 countries, exposing animal cruelty of many of the worlds worst industries – including fur trapping in North America, monkey breeding farms in Asia, and slaughterhouses and factory farms across the globe. His images and videos have been used by more than 20 international animal organizations helping to change minds and laws about how we treat animals. Most of the industries Rich worked in are hidden from the public...
Apr 30, 2020•34 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Justin Goodman is the Vice President of Advocacy and Public Policy at White Coat Waste Project , a two and a half million member, taxpayer watchdog group that is working to end twenty billion dollars in taxpayer funded animal experiments. Justin and I met in D C in February, pre-social distancing. And, it just so happened that on the very morning that we met, White Coat had released footage of National Institute of Health experiments that had been going on for decades. It was a gift for me to be...
Apr 24, 2020•42 min•Season 4Ep. 5
There’s not much that we can be certain about in such uncertain times but there are a few things. One is that unless we change the way that that we treat animals, the next pandemic is most definitely coming. Only next time, it could be much worse, much more infectious and even more fatal than the current crisis we’re now facing. COVID-19 most likely started at a wild animal market in Wuhan, China and was transmitted to a human from an animal, probably a pangolin. Wild animal markets are breeding...
Apr 20, 2020•27 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Today’s episode was recorded on Wednesday April 15th as a live webinar conversation between Pei Su, the Executive Director and Co-founder of ACTAsia and myself. It’s unedited and somewhat messy sound-wise but we wanted to get it out as soon as possible. There are a lot of rumors and misinformation getting passed around the globe in terms of China’s wildlife trade and markets: what has been banned, what hasn’t, and what all of it means. In today’s conversation, Pei Su answers many of my questions...
Apr 16, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Season 4Ep. 3
“…but why do we treat animals like “animals”? We shouldn't be treating animals like animals, by which that means devalued under appreciated beings.” – Lori Gruen Lori Gruen is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University and the Coordinator of Wesleyan Animal Studies. She is also the author and editor of 11 books, most recently Critical Terms for Animal Studies and Animaladies . Her work in practical ethics and political philosophy focuses on issues that impact those often ...
Apr 09, 2020•46 min•Season 4Ep. 2
When it comes to fashion and good design, Joshua Katcher, the man behind the sustainable luxury fashion label, Brave GentleMan, cares a lot about beauty; but not in the way that most people think about it. He defines beauty not only as the end result - the dapper suit or the stylish boots; instead, he only deems something beautiful when the entire process that has created that something is beautiful, meaning ethical, sustainable, and made with materials and processes that never hurt anyone - hum...
Apr 02, 2020•55 min•Season 4Ep. 1
“As children, we learnt respect for our elders and for authority, we learnt etiquette too, but rarely was it suggested that we extend any feelings towards animals, or indeed that animals have feelings. And because of this, many children in Asia grow up assuming animals exist to serve us, feed us, entertain us and clothe us; animals are useful ‘moving objects’, a literal translation of the Chinese word for animal.” - Pei Su Pei Su is truly a pioneer. In the early 90s, she was involved with the fo...
Jan 30, 2020•32 min•Season 3Ep. 8
In neighborhoods all over the United States, there are homes with large predators, venomous snakes, and wild animals from every country on the planet. The desire to own and “master” some of the worlds most dangerous creatures, from lions to wolves to pit vipers, started to boom in the 90s – mostly because of reality TV. It’s big business and it’s very legal in many parts of the country. Not only is it incredibly dangerous for humans – the owners as well as the first responders who get the call w...
Jan 23, 2020•32 min•Season 3Ep. 7
There is a tiger problem in the USA. There are more tigers in captivity in the US then exist in the wild. The number of American tigers lies somewhere between five and ten thousand. We don’t know the actual number because they mostly go unregulated. Sadly, most of these tigers live in cages in private homes, backyards, garages, or in cages in roadside zoos. Many of them are inbred, malnourished, and sick. There is absolutely no reason that this should be the fates of one of the most majestic cre...
Jan 16, 2020•41 min•Season 3Ep. 6
If you were to take a brief look into Allison Argo’s life, you’d see the definition of what it means to follow your passion - written in large neon letters. She grew up in the theater on Cape Cod and as soon as she was old enough and able, she moved to NYC with a hundred bucks in her pocket ready to pursue her dream of acting. She walked dogs and cleaned apartments until she landed on her first role on Broadway. After acting in a few Broadway productions, she moved to Los Angeles and had another...
Dec 19, 2019•37 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Jo-Anne McArthur is an award winning photojournalist and the founder of We Animals Media . For 20 years she has been photographing and bearing witness to our complex relationship with animals. She’s worked in over 60 countries in just about every industry one can imagine - including: fur farms, factory farms, bear bile farms, zoos, rodeos, circuses, and marine parks with the mission to make the lives of these invisible animals visible. Her images tell the stories of unseen suffering, the stories...
Dec 12, 2019•36 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Natasha Daly is a writer and editor at National Geographic where she covers animal welfare, exploitation, and conservation. She wrote National Geographic’s June cover story, Suffering Unseen, the Dark Truth Behind Wildlife Tourism. If you haven’t read it yet, read it. It is the story of the bleak reality that is daily life for so many captive wild animals, including: elephants, tigers, sloths, dolphins, whales, even polar bears. And, it’s the story of why so many wild animals are living miserabl...
Dec 05, 2019•36 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Many of us who have animals in our lives know that they experience emotion, we know because we’ve seen it. We’ve witnessed our dogs express joy when we walk through the door, watched them display jealousy toward another animal, or we’ve seen them mourn the loss of a companion. When someone asks, “how do we know?” usually, most of us say something along the lines of, “we just know... it’s obvious.” But, that’s not how it works in science. Science needs proof and for too many years proof wasn’t an...
Nov 21, 2019•33 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Are we being the best version of ourselves? That’s a question that Beverly and Dereck Joubert asked quite often during this conversation and also one that they seem to live by. It’s embedded into their work, their lives, their relationships - with each other, the wilderness, and the planet; as if the question floats above their heads as a gentle reminder of who they want to be in the world. And, the continual asking of that question shows in everything that they do, fight for, love, and are acti...
Nov 13, 2019•43 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In the United States we still use millions of animals in laboratory experiments. It’s a secretive industry and I think, many people are under the impression that it ended years ago. Not only is it still huge, but we test on just about every type of animal one can imagine, including dogs. 70,000 dogs a year are used in laboratory experiments and a great majority of them are beagles. The heartbreaking reason that beagles are so often the dog of choice is because they’re docile, sweet, trusting, an...
Aug 01, 2019•39 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Elephants, great apes, dolphins, and whales are incredibly complex, social, and intelligent creatures, but our legal system considers them to be “things,” meaning they have no more rights then a can of beans does. For too many years these animals have been taken from the wild, held captive, lived for decades in confinement, tested on, tortured, abused, isolated, or neglected. Kevin Schneider is Executive Director of the Nonhuman Rights Project, an organization that is fighting to secure actual l...
Jul 19, 2019•45 min•Season 2Ep. 7
On Sunday, June 23rd the winter racing season at Santa Anita racetrack in Southern California finally came to a close. And on Saturday June 22nd the 30th horse died in racing or training at Santa Anita this year. That’s a lot of horse deaths. But there are a lot of horse deaths every year. In 2018, 493 thoroughbreds died in racing or training. And so, there’s been a lot of talk about reforming horse racing. But the reforms that have been put in place aren’t really working: horses are still dying...
Jul 11, 2019•35 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Mike Wolf spent four years working undercover on factory farms. He has seen thousands of animals living in deplorable conditions and witnessed abuse that I think few of us can even imagine. He’s now Director of Investigations for the animal protection organization, Compassion Over Killing. Mike has led investigative efforts into meat, dairy, and egg facilities. He has overseen multiple investigations that have gone viral, sparking a national conversation about the treatment of farmed animals, an...
Jun 27, 2019•37 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Delcianna Winders is an animal law attorney, scholar, and professor. She has recently joined the Lewis and Clark Law School for Animal Studies where she will lead the newly formed animal law litigation clinic focused on the legal protections and rights of farmed animals. This is the nation’s first-ever clinic focused exclusively on animal law litigation, and with its creation, Lewis & Clark Law School becomes the first law school in the world to host two separate clinics devoted to animal la...
Jun 20, 2019•28 min•Season 2Ep. 4
