Jane Velez Mitchell the founder of Jane Unchained , a media platform for vegan and animal rights news. Her decades long career as a broadcast journalist has focused on bringing animal rights issues to the forefront. For six years she hosted her own show on CNN Headline News, where she ran a weekly segment on animal issues. Previously, Velez-Mitchell reported for the nationally syndicated Warner Brothers/Telepictures show Celebrity Justice, where she did numerous stories on animal issues champion...
Nov 04, 2021•33 min•Season 7Ep. 2
“We didn't want to start a Chimp sanctuary. I mean, it's the most extreme really… they're the most, at least in my mind, they're just so socially complex and their needs are so complex and they don't really go back to the wild - ever. And they live, to 50 or 60 years old and they have very complicated social groups. It's a lot. It's a lifetime… So, we were like, that's not what we want to do. So here we are. That's what we did.” Jenny Desmond Jenny’s interest in wildlife rescue and protection wa...
Oct 28, 2021•40 min•Season 7Ep. 1
Species Unite will be back with a brand new season next Thursday the 28th. Until then, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Josh Balk. “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 foo...
Oct 21, 2021•46 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Species Unite will be back with a brand new season on October 28th. For now, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Liza Heavener. “There would be some mornings that the indigenous tribal leaders would take us out into virgin rainforest… [I was] like, “no human has ever stood here before.” And it was alive with, I mean, you name the animal… and it was loud full and of life. And they would take us out the very next day and it was just smoldering because it had been sl...
Oct 14, 2021•37 min•Season 5Ep. 1
Species Unite will be back with a brand new season on October 28th. Today, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Milo Runkle. The only way to help animals is to help people. It’s humans that need to change, not animals. And I think it's the same way when we're talking about other issues in our society. It's about healing those who are causing violence, and it oftentimes can be easy to judge and persecute and sort of push aside people that are causing harm. It's more...
Oct 07, 2021•43 min•Season 4Ep. 20
“My family was really suffering from all types of diet related health issues. I had an aunt who had multiple amputations before it took her life because of type two diabetes. I had a 40-year-old uncle who had a heart attack. My grandpa, who helped raise me, died of complications in a triple bypass surgery. All over the place there was suffering and it's really hard to, not feel like you have not the answer, but the direction to go in to reclaim your health, and not be taken seriously.” – Toni Ok...
Sep 30, 2021•29 min•Season 6Ep. 23
“Let me tell you, there were no bounties when wildlife management became a discipline and it's never been a part of wildlife management, but, but these are the crazy kooks at the absolute extreme of the hunting spectrum. And they got together and held fundraisers and started giving out thousand-dollar bounties on wolves.” – Erik Molvar Eric Molvar is the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project. He was on the podcast recently to talk about the wild horse crisis in the American West. ...
Sep 23, 2021•48 min•Season 6Ep. 22
“So, the irony is that meat that people are so obsessed about their cat needing… Yeah, in the wild cats needs meat because in the wild, that meat is a source of the nutrients that a cat needs. But on a commercial bag of pet food, those nutrients, those core key nutrients that the cat needs, they're not coming from the meat, they're coming from the pre-mix that is largely a synthetic mix of vitamins and minerals that have been lost from the meat.” – Shannon Falconer Shannon Falconer is the CEO an...
Sep 16, 2021•29 min•Season 6Ep. 21
“…because animal advocacy has now escaped advocacy and is entering different types of work, really science-oriented work… maybe that was all it took in the first place. We just had such limited roles in the traditional sense of animal advocacy before. Because it was so communications driven… And so that's another reason why I'm so proud of how this field has developed is I think we've turned people into animal advocates by creating jobs that let that happen. It's such a special thing to be part ...
Sep 09, 2021•38 min•Season 6Ep. 20
“…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...
Sep 02, 2021•42 min•Season 6Ep. 19
This week we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes - a conversation with Carl Safina about beauty, wonder and why animals matter. "Beings who've succeeded on earth for millions of years, don’t seek, and should not require, our approval. They belong as well as we do. We do ourselves no favors by asking whether their existence is worth our while. We are hardly in a position to judge, hurdling and lurching along as we are with no goal, no plan except: bigger, faster, more. If we had the coura...
Aug 26, 2021•1 hr•Season 6Ep. 19
“It made me feel like I wished that I had some sort of a super power, so that I could just picked them up and take them somewhere safe. But unfortunately, I'm not strong enough to have done that. So what I did was decide, at 11 years old, that I was going to commit my life to safeguarding the species… that I'll do everything in my power.” – Jamal Galves Jamal Galves grew up in a small village in Belize that's famous for its Manatee population. When he was 11 years old, he saw a research boat nea...
Aug 19, 2021•29 min•Season 6Ep. 19
“It's kind of like light… you flick a light switch on in the room and when you flip that switch, what you want is the experience of a lit room. You're not thinking about whether it comes from renewable energy or fossil fuels. You just want light. Well, I think most people just want meat. They don't care if animals are slaughtered. In fact, they probably would prefer that they not be slaughtered for it.” – Paul Shapiro Paul is the founder and CEO of the Better Meat Co. , an alternative protein co...
Aug 12, 2021•41 min•Season 6Ep. 18
Tuesday, August 10th is World Lion Day, so we are re-sharing this conversation with Beverly and Derek Joubert. "When we were born, there were 450,000 lions, and today there are 20,000 lines. So that's a ninety-five percent decline. There were 750,000 leopards, and now maybe 45,000 leopards left. Cheetah numbers have dropped below 7,000. Tigers have had a little bit of a resurgence, but still under 5,000 and that's really worrying. We could lose a lot of these animals in the next 10 or 15 years" ...
Aug 04, 2021•44 min•Season 6Ep. 17
“It is not hyperbole to say that livestock grazing on Western public lands is the single biggest and most important environmental impact that does the most damage. And, also causes the most widespread impact of any of the things that damage public lands, including oil and gas development, including strip mining and mountaintop removal, including, damming, the rivers. Livestock raising is the most pervasive and the most ecologically harmful - and it's everywhere.” - Erik Molvar In the United Stat...
Jul 29, 2021•44 min•Season 6Ep. 17
“You can't get to a point where you're so sensitive that you don't call out cruelty and torture when you see it, whether it's to a human being or to the planet or to an animal, you can't just stay silent, but you have to approach in the right way.” N -Nina Jackel Nina Jackel is an activist and journalist and the founder and president of Lady Freethinker , a media organization that provides news and grassroots action for a free and compassionate world - for every species. In 2013 Lady Freethinker...
Jul 22, 2021•42 min•Season 6Ep. 16
“And then a letter arrived in the mail. It was from a woman who had heard about my work to help zoo animals. She said, ‘there's these two bears living in a cage in the town near my house. It's on a creek that floods every year. It's horrible conditions. I have no idea what to do. Can you help?’ I don't think she knew that I was a 13-year-old.” – Justin Barker Justin is an activist, a director, a producer, and the author of Bear Boy, The True Story of a Boy, Two Bears and the Fight to Be Free . W...
Jul 15, 2021•34 min•Season 6Ep. 15
“So, we had 87 women come in for what we call pre-selection, the interviews... And I can say that after all the shit that I've been through in my life, that was some of the hardest two days of my life, listening to those stories. And, it was hard in a way because they were genuinely tough stories, but it was also hard in a way to know that even though I hadn't done anything directly to these women, I was part of a culture that had kept women just like this oppressed, the boys club, the macho clu...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 6Ep. 14
Planted. Not Buried. That is how Eric Adams has chosen to see himself through the darkest moments of his life. The first occurred at age 15, when he and his brother were beaten by the police. Four years later he became a police officer and spent the next 22 years on the force, working to help reform NYC policing from the inside. He retired as a captain and now he serves as the President of the Borough that I call home - Brooklyn. Yes, Brooklyn has a President , an incredibly busy and very much i...
Jul 01, 2021•29 min•Season 4Ep. 17
“…by the way, today, there might be an ick factor associated with it, but there might come a day that people will wonder, why are we drinking other species milks… If you have access to the real thing or the stuff that's in the real thing. I mean, it's these special proteins… these amazing different complex sugars and proteins that are found in human milk that are super valuable.” - Max Rye Max Rye spent more than 15 years helping businesses scale with technology. He was the CEO of a Silicon Vall...
Jun 24, 2021•25 min•Season 6Ep. 13
Edwina Von Gal is a landscape designer and an indomitable steward of the planet. She spent her career designing landscapes for the rich and famous and collaborating with architects and artists like Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Frank Gehry. A little over a decade ago, Edwina had an epiphany about the chemicals that we are pouring into our lawns, landscapes, and backyards. She decided right then that it would become her life’s mission to change the way that we treat our land and founded the Perfec...
Jun 17, 2021•47 min•Season 6Ep. 12
Derek Sarno is a chef and a rockstar in the vegan world and he’s on a mission to inspire you to cook and eat more plants. He’s the Director of Plant-Based Innovation for Tesco PLC, and the Developer/Co-Founder of Wicked Kitchen. He helps lead Tesco’s plant-based team and the initiative to bring delicious, unpretentious plant-based foods to mainstream market. Derek and his brother Chad are the founders of Wicked Healthy, LLC., Wicked Foods inc. and Good Catch Foods. Prior to Tesco, Derek served a...
Jun 10, 2021•33 min•Season 6Ep. 11
“If we fast forward, let's say to 2025, I think you're going to see a lot of companies in the marketplace using mushroom-based products to create alternatives to things like meat and chicken and within food. And then also alternatives within textiles to things like silk, leather and packaging for things like Styrofoam and plastic and so on. So, I’m very much a… what do you call it? Maybe, a fungo fanatic. I don’t know if there’s a phrase for that, but I am totally a believer in all things fungi....
Jun 03, 2021•42 min•Season 6Ep. 10
“During the time he was on the run, Stark did this Facebook live where he railed against the judges, officials, animal rights, activists. He claimed that together, all of these people had conspired to deny him the right to own and breed exotic animals. He taunted law enforcement. He waved a hand grenade in front of his phone. Keep in mind, he's driving down the highway during this hour-long Facebook live. And he was also saying that he was willing to die for what he believed in.” – Sharon Guynup...
May 26, 2021•40 min•Season 6Ep. 9
“There isn't going to be chicken farming on the moon or on Mars, but there could be cellular agriculture. And, so if people are going to eat meat in space, it's going to be produced like this…” – Michael Selden Michael Selden is the CEO and co-founder of Finless Foods , the world's first cellular agriculture company. Meaning they make fish without the fish and without the mercury, plastic, herbicides, ocean habitat destruction and cruelty. Finless Foods grows fish and other seafood products from...
May 20, 2021•35 min•Season 6Ep. 8
“I can drive my car off a cliff and just leave it where it lay, the most I'll get is a littering fine, and if you throw your dog off the cliff the punishment is actually pretty similar. That's because they're the same type of thing to the law. So, unless you change that status, and you have people of course, who are thinking that there should be a status of kind of living property that might give them more attributes than my car has or my chair has; and then there are individuals who think they ...
May 13, 2021•43 min•Season 6Ep. 7
“…there's this disconnect between our beliefs and our behavior and part of what can be useful for overcoming that is to change the behavior first, which sounds really counterintuitive.” - Jo Anderson Jo Anderson is the Research Director at Faunalytics , an organization that empower animal advocates with access to research, analysis, strategies, and messages that maximize their effectiveness to reduce animal suffering. Jo is an advocate for animals and empirical research. For over ten years, Jo h...
May 06, 2021•30 min•Season 6Ep. 6
“We see 84% of moms in the U S convert to infant formula partially or entirely in that first six months of life before the recommended period of exclusive breastfeeding ends. We see two thirds of moms express extreme shame and guilt and stigma for the way they feed their children. And, we continue to see that the infant formula industry in general has really pillaged and plundered in a lot of ways on parents wanting to do what's best for their child, but really not having better options and havi...
Apr 29, 2021•33 min•Season 6Ep. 5
“…gazing up to the night sky saying, ‘are we alone?’ …well, wait a minute, look around, there's tons of fascinating life forms. We're so lucky to have all this amazing panoply of life on the planet. I get the question… are there other humanoids out there? Or, are there other conscious beings? But we ought to be pretty grateful for what we have on this planet… there's a lot of amazing creatures and phenomena that we get to enjoy living with, if we can.” - Jonathan Balcombe Jonathan Balcombe is a ...
Apr 22, 2021•40 min•Season 6Ep. 3
“A friend of mine in Germany is called Dr. Tofu. He was the first who did tofu on a commercial scale, in the eighties. They arrested him… for cooking something suspicious… He was arrested a couple of times. So, when it started in Nigeria and we opened the first vegan restaurant and there were also no vegetarian restaurants, people were saying, that's crazy. Why do you do that? But I knew kind of that time was on our side. - Hakeem Jimo Hakeem Jimo is the co-founder of Veggie Victory , Nigeria’s ...
Apr 15, 2021•38 min•Season 6Ep. 3
