Species Unite

Species Unite episodes:

• 06.25.2024

  Melanie Challenger: Animals in the Room

  “I think one of the reasons dignity matters to animals is that they are objectified. They are stripped of their agency very often, and they're also caught up in power relations with human beings that do not go...

  
• 06.12.2024

  Gene Grant: Scores of Chimpanzees Are Still Stuck in Labs

  “Anybody with half a heart could understand that this is a very bad deal for these feeling beings. Waking up every day at the same place where these horrible things happened, it's not right.” – Gene Grant  ...

  
• 05.27.2024

  Chloe Sorvino: Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed and the Fight for the Future of Meat

  “There was a farmer who I met. He had the craziest [story], but not crazy because it's happening everywhere. A hog horn rammed into him and he got a disease. No one had any idea what it was. He...

  
• 05.08.2024

  Nina Rao: Saving Wild Tigers

  “We want to know that we're not separate from all beings - because most of our grief, our fear, our anger comes from feeling separate, not feeling connected, we're constantly finding ways to connect.” – Nina Rao  ...

  
• 04.24.2024

  Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy: Our Kindred Creatures

  "I think that's often the solution when feeling sort of bogged down in the issues of our day is when you zoom out and you look at sort of the whole arc of change, you can sort of get inspired...

  
• 04.10.2024

  Suzanne Lee: BIOFABRICATE

  “Wouldn't it be amazing if you went into Nike Town and the same pair of shoes or the same style [but]each pair was different because it had been grown and was not the result of a plastic, you know,...

  
• 04.04.2024

  Dr. Patricia Wright: For the Love of Lemurs

  “He called me into his office and he said, ‘you see that picture above my desk?’ I said, ‘yes.’ It kind of looked like an animal that reminded me of a squirrel. He said, ‘that is a lemur that...

  
• 03.27.2024

  Danielle Celermajer: Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future

  “When those fires happened, it was about 8 o’clock in the morning. It goes completely black, so the sky is completely black. There's no light. The sound is like being under a train. It's unbelievably loud. And of course, the...

  
• 03.15.2024

  Nicole Green: Better Science

  “There's this hidden curriculum, right? With dissection you're supposed to be learning the anatomy, the physiology of a particular animal. But really, what students are learning is that these animals are meaningless. They're basically just a tool for you...

  
• 03.05.2024

  Carl Safina: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe

  “We live so disconnected from the natural world, and many people live much more disconnected than I am because I've made the natural world my life, my work. But if it's still surprising me and we live so...

  
• 02.21.2024

  Lisa Jones-Engel: STOP the Georgia Monkey Farm!

  “One after another, citizens came up. And they just hammered that council with additional concerns. You know, one of the guys, his place is 500ft from there. He's like, ‘what do you think this is going to do to...

  
• 02.07.2024

  Faraz Harsini: The Leaders of the Future

  Dr. Faraz Harsini has been advocating for animal rights for over a decade. He is the CEO and founder of Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP), a non-profit organization that supports students who are interested in advocating for animal protection...

  
• 02.02.2024

  Poorva Joshipura: Survival at Stake

  “…but what's happening lately is that mink on fur farms have been starting to be infected with H5n1 bird flu. So, the World Health Organization is worried that this disease is now changing to better infect mammals. Of course,...

  
• 01.17.2024

  Mark Vins: Brave Wilderness

  "The stonefish is the most toxic, venomous fish on the planet. The stonefish is one of the only fish stings that has been known to kill people. Now, I knew this going in, right? I did my homework. So that...

  
• 01.11.2024

  Damien Mander: Akashinga: The Brave Ones

  “You're seeing young men going to prison or getting buried in the ground because they're out there poaching rhinos. And, it just drove a bigger wedge between conservation efforts and the communities. There’s only so many times you can look...

  
• 12.23.2023

  Collette Adkins: They're Shooting Wolves from Helicopters in Idaho

  "In Montana they allow using dogs to chase down wolves, which essentially becomes like state sanctioned dog fighting. You have this horrible scenario where the packs of dogs are surrounding the wolf pack, and it just comes to a bloody...

  
• 12.04.2023

  Brett Matthews: Kate Farms

  “In the US alone, there are 100 million people with prediabetes or diabetes, 33 million people with some kind of chronic or various stages of kidney disease, 122 million people with cardiovascular disease, 10 million with GI issues, and 50...

  
• 11.15.2023

  Rebecca Cappelli: SLAY

  “I was at a restaurant and the veil dropped in an instant. The curse broke and I could see for the first time. ‘Oh, wow, I'm eating body parts.’ And I turned around and I saw my bag and it...

  
• 11.01.2023

  Aaron Cohen: The Farm Bill, The EATS Act and What You Need to Know

  “I call the act a poison pill, because really, what it is, is if it ever gets inserted into the farm bill or if it gets passed on its own, it prevents all of the animal centered organizations, all the...

  
• 10.25.2023

  David Rothenberg is an Interspecies Musician

  “I really felt like I turned into a bird. The way I was playing was changed. Like I played the way nobody would play a clarinet unless they had spent weeks listening to nightingales.” – David Rothenberg   David Rothenberg...

  
• 10.18.2023

  Annick Ireland: Immaculate Vegan

  “Fashion is a really easy way to get in because it doesn't really involve any sacrifice, does it? I think for a lot of people, the thought of going vegan food-wise just seems like a really big deal. Whereas buying...

  
• 10.10.2023

  Gemunu de Silva: Save America’s Horses from Slaughter

  “Ultimately, this is a dumping ground. The industry is not going to be spending money on horses that are going to be killed for human consumption, so ultimately, in their last six months, they suffer. They suffer terribly.” – Gemunu...

  
• 10.04.2023

  Monica Engebretson: Why Does the US Still Test on Animals for Cosmetics, Even Though 44 Other Countries Have Banned It?

  “When we do polls on this, we've got all political parties high support for ending cosmetics animal testing, from Republicans, Independents, Democrats - age gaps between the boomers and the zoomers, everybody is in agreement. You know, it's one of...

  
• 09.27.2023

  Alexis Gauthier: The Michelin Starred French Chef Who Turned Vegan

  “I understand that when you have been [going to] a restaurant for many years, for some customers, it's normal to think that somehow you own it a little bit, like, ‘Oh, this is my table, this is my restaurant.’ And,...

  
• 09.20.2023

  Ellie Laks: The Gentle Barn

  “The truth is that in between all of those wonderful events was huge debt, maxing out 20 different credit cards and absolutely annihilating my credit, moving from that little half acre backyard into where we are now in Santa Clarita,...

  
• 09.13.2023

  Dr. Christopher Servheen: Anti-Predator Polices Based on Bar Room Biology and Fear are Coming for the Grizzly Bears

  “I think the thing revolves around the control of nature. You know, I mean, you get way back to that. Some people are really uncomfortable around nature existing as it should, and they feel that we need to fix things."...

  
• 09.06.2023

  Galina Hale: The Most Rational Vegan

  “…people say, okay, recycle, and then somebody sees you throwing out a little candy wrapper. Nobody's going to point at you say, ‘Huh, I saw you threw away a recyclable piece” Right? But if I say I'm vegan and then...

  
• 08.30.2023

  Joey Pringle is Betting on Animal Free Leather

  ”We’re already starting to see this happening, like there's a leather tannery in Vietnam called Isa TanTeck, where leather runs through the blood. That's what they specialize at. They came out with their own mycelium material. A leather...

  
• 08.23.2023

  Jessica Kruger: Her Whole Life Changed Because Her Mom Went to Farm Sanctuary

  “And it's true that as much as online makes things much more accessible in so many ways, sometimes it's the feeling and seeing that actually really gets people over the line, because they're like, ‘Oh, wow, that feels really…...

  
• 08.16.2023

  David Meyer is Removing Animals from Our Food System (and he’s a Nine Time World Champion of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu)

  “We're the first species that has enough mixture of intelligence and capabilities to actually screw it all up. That is our distinction. You know, there's a lot of species on the planet who are now looking to us...

  
• 08.09.2023

  Karen Davis: This Conversation Will Change How You See Chickens

  “Chickens have full color spectrum vision. That means they see the entire spectrum of colors from the infrared to the ultraviolet. The reason that roosters crow when for humans it is still dark outside is because they see the sunrise...

  
• 08.02.2023

  Vicki von Holzhausen: Liquidplant

  “Somebody told me, when I was a young designer at Mercedes, they said, ‘well, it takes like... 20 cows to upholster this sedan.’ …Clearly people believe that cows, that the leather, is a byproduct of the food...

  
• 07.26.2023

  Catalina Lopez: Octopus Factory Farming is Set to Begin

  Catalina Lopez is the director of the Aquatic Animal Alliance at the Aquatic Life Institute. They're a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of aquatic animals, specifically in the food system.   I wanted to talk to Catalina about octopuses....

  
• 07.19.2023

  Marielle Williamson is Suing Her School District and The US Department of Agriculture

  “Despite all the information that we see promoting dairy [in school], you cannot promote plant-based milk unless you also promote dairy even more. It just goes to show that there's something more to it.” – Marielle Williamson     Mariel...

  
• 07.12.2023

  Rose Patterson: Animal Rising

  Rose Patterson is part of Animal Rising, the animal activist movement that's disrupting animal exploitation all over the UK. Animal Rising used to be called Animal Rebellion, that is until April. And since April, which is only a few months...

  
• 06.21.2023

  Kartick Satyanarayan: The Bear Man of India

  “Right from the beginning I think I was infected with this disease. It's a very, very contagious disease of not knowing how to say no to an animal in distress. So, alongside of the bears, we were rescuing everything...

  
• 06.14.2023

  Elizabeth Baker: Organs on a Chip, Reconstructed Human Epidermis, Human Simulators and other Highly Effective and Seriously Ethical Methods to Replace Animals in Research and Experimentation

   “I think we are at the point where so many of these methods have shown in studies to be more predictive for humans that it really is an issue of human health. We need to do better for...

  
• 06.07.2023

  Daniel Kaul: The Brutal Life Cycle of Captive Lions

  “We don't know one case where a lion which was hand fed or bottle fed was released successfully in the wild. Of course, if they see humans and they understand that humans is the connection to food, it will be...

  
• 05.31.2023

  Peter Singer: Animal Liberation NOW

  “I think to some extent it shows that we don't want to have knowledge that will make us uncomfortable or make us feel that we're doing something wrong. And I get that from people quite often, you know, that don't...

  
• 05.24.2023

  Alka Chandna: Comparing Hells

  “It’s like comparing hells - it's a different type of hell, right? It's just like one hideous place where you're neglected and you have all manner of suffering to another place where it's a different set of conditions of...

  
• 05.17.2023

  Natalie Deana: Bad Girls Who Do Good Things

  “We'd never worked in this industry. We'd not got any prior experience in fashion ourselves. But we thought, how hard could it be? Famous last words. How hard could it be to design a handbag? Turns out very hard,...

  
• 05.10.2023

  Verde Camilla Parmigiani: Vegan Hospitality

  “It's very disappointing when I see these menus that are from starter to main courses, all animal proteins… How can you not have like 30% of the menu be plant based? For what reason? Do you need to have...

  
• 05.04.2023

  Feeding Tomorrow: The Future of Meat

  “So, if you listen to the experts, we're to be raising dramatically more animals for food in the future. The only way around that, I think, is through technologies that will render the exploitation of these animals obsolete. I...

  
• 04.26.2023

  Lisa Jones-Engel: 1000 Monkeys

  “What I did not expect to see from farmed monkeys being bought and transported into the US,  were monkeys who were coming in with things like Ebola like viruses, malaria, tuberculosis, simian retrovirus, herpes viruses, salmonella, Yersinia, Campylobacter, unnamed deadly diarrheal...

  
• 04.19.2023

  Hanne Strager: The Killer Whale Journals

  “I also heard the sounds of killer whales. They were calling to each other loud and clear. these melodious whistles and calls which went right into my ear pieces. I realized that even if I couldn't see them,...

  
• 04.12.2023

  Mark Elbroch: The Secret Lives of Mountain Lions

  “Our cultures are built around stories, right? We connect through stories, we learn through stories and stories are often stronger when they have characters, characters we can connect with. And I think that that been a struggle for many, many...

  
• 04.05.2023

  Parneet Pal: The Human Animal

  “Our bodies have co-evolved over millennia with the help of all these other beautiful animal species, with the millions of species of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live on our bodies and inside our bodies.” – Parneet Pal   This...

  
• 03.29.2023

  Animal Rights Legend: Ronnie Lee

  “And then instead of heroes, we started being referred to as terrorists. But that made no difference to us. I mean, we kind of carried on regardless, and we started trying to do as much damage as we could to...

  
• 03.22.2023

  Christie Lagally: The Game Changer

  There's a fundamental mismatch between how we make plant-based meat and the facilities that are making it. When you're using the wrong tool, when you're trying to use a spoon to cut a piece of vegetable, it just doesn't work....

  
• 03.16.2023

  Laura Lee Cascada: The Only US Octopus Farm has been Temporarily Shut Down

  “But what the tour guide told us, was that eventually, as they grew, they now have their own octopus catchers. They called them the octopus whisperers, and they said that these people know exactly where the octopuses are going to...