"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 end. These are blood sports. This is something that we should be way beyond as a society." - Collette Adkins

Collette Adkins is the carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. She focuses on combating the exploitation and cruel treatment of wolves and other rare wildlife.

I wanted to talk to Collette because it's been a while since we've talked about wolves on here, and unfortunately their situation is as dire as ever. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are killing them as fast as they can and in more horrific ways. One of those ways is that in Idaho, they're shooting wolves from helicopters. And Collette is the primary author of a petition to get this banned.

Please listen and share.

In gratitude,

Elizabeth Novogratz

"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 million people have food allergies. And, as you know, the food insecurity and malnourishment in the country is growing, unfortunately, particularly with our kiddos." – Brett Matthews

Brett Matthews is the CEO of Kate Farms, organic plant-based nutrition shakes and formulas that have helped hundreds of thousands of children and adults along their journeys towards health.

Brett's son had severe health issues in high school, and proper nutrition was critical in his healing. Brett learned about the power of food to heal and invested in Kate Farms in 2014, became Chairman and later CEO.

There are thousands of stories of children and adults whose lives have been dramatically improved because of Kate Farms. They are a game-changer for bringing healthy nutrition into our hospitals and our homes.

katefarms.com

"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 was an expensive Fendi bag. And I looked at it and I'm like, 'this is not leather. This is the skin of an individual. This is a scam.'" – Rebecca Cappelli

Rebecca Cappelli is an award-winning filmmaker and an animal rights activist. Her most recent film, SLAY is a hugely powerful documentary that follows Rebecca through seven countries as she uncovers the dark side of the fashion industry. What she finds will leave you thunder-struck. At least, it did me.

With her, we learn what the industry is doing to our planet, to its workers and to the animals that are killed for fur, leather and wool. I think that most people have seen or heard stories in the media about the harms that fashion causes to both the planet and the people in the industry, but it's rare to hear about the animals, even though 2.5 billion of them are killed every year for our shoes, bags and clothing. Somehow and not by accident, they've remained invisible. Until now.

SLAY will change you, I promise.

Please listen, share and go watch SLAY.

LINKS:

SLAY.film

Letusbehereos.com

SLAY is available on:

Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/SLAY-Bandana-Tewari/dp/B0B8MG6B1T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DL14WZ5RK9EZ&keywords=slay+documentary&qid=1700070198&sprefix=slay+documentary%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1

Apple TV and iTunes: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/slay/umc.cmc.14tluhp4jkjzjxaj5w7juyn79

See SLAY for free on WaterBear @waterbearnetwork https://join.waterbear.com/slay

"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 environmental organizations, all the family farm and rural community organizations that push back against factory farming. It wipes out all of the progress that they've made."

Aaron Cohen is the senior director of advocacy at Farm Sanctuary. I asked Aaron to come on the show because I wanted to talk about some important things happening in our government right now. Starting with the delayed passage of the Farm Bill.

The Farm Bill covers laws that govern food and farming and has a tremendous impact on farming livlihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of food are grown.

A group of Congressional lawmakers are pushing to include the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act as part of the 2023 Farm Bill. If passed, the EATS Act would have serious implications for animal welfare and every ounce of progress that the animal protection movement has made against factory farming. It could also have a huge effect on farmer well-being, worker safety, the spread of zoonotic diseases and pollution. It'd be disastrous.

"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 is, amongst many other things, an interspecies musician. That means he makes music with whales and birds and insects and even with many plants and animals that reside in ponds.

He's also a writer, he's written many books, including Why Birds Sing, Whale Music and Nightingales in Berlin, which was also made into a film. And he is a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Please listen, share and then go outside and listen to the music being made by the many non-human animals around you.

"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 a vegan handbag, you get to buy a beautiful handbag and it's vegan." Annick Ireland

Even though it's 2023 and it feels like much of the world is at least dipping their toes into all things plant-based, it can still be a challenge to navigate the world of vegan fashion.

Shoes, boots, bags, coats and anything else that was once made with animal products, are now being made with sustainable, cruelty-free and stunningly beautiful materials, but because this industry is still in its infancy, finding the brands can be tricky.

Enter Annick Ireland, the co-Founder & CEO of Immaculate Vegan, an online vegan marketplace that is changing the world for animal loving shoppers.

Immaculate Vegan was launched in 2019 by Annick and her co-founder, Simon Bell because they wanted to help people to make better choices that positively impact animals, people and the planet when they shop.

They offer a 100% vegan, highly curated collection of premium fashion using the most innovative and sustainable materials — all made ethically, and amplified by original content and an engaged community of changemakers.

LINKS:

ImmaculateVegan.com

SpeciesUnite.com

"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 de Silva

In the United States we do not eat horse meat and we do not slaughter our horses, but we seem to be fine with letting other countries slaughter and eat our horses. We send our live horses to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered and their meat is then sent to Europe and Japan for consumption.

This makes zero sense for a horse loving country. What are we doing? Why are we letting other countries torture, kill and eat our horses?

There's a way to stop this madness. A bipartisan bill called the Save Americans Forgotten Equines Act (SAFE) that has been introduced to Congress. If it passes, it will not only ban horse slaughter in the US by law, but it would also prohibit the exportation of our horses for slaughter.

This conversation is with Gemunu DeSilva. Gem's been on the podcast before, this is his fourth appearance. I asked him to come on the show this time because his organization, Tracks Investigations, recently conducted their fourth investigation into Canada's largest horse slaughter plant. Gem explains what happens to these US horses once they arrive in Canada. It's worse than you can imagine.

LINKS:

Tracks Investigations: https://www.tracksinvestigations.org/

SAFE Act petition https://www.speciesunite.com/save-american-horses-from-slaughter

SAFE Act https://www.safe-act.org/

SpeciesUnite.com

"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 those issues that you cannot get more unity on a single issue." – Monica Engebretson

Monica Engebretson is the North American head of public affairs for Cruelty Free International, the leading organization working to end animal testing worldwide. They are working to end all animal testing, but for this conversation, we focused on cosmetics – for two reasons: we've done many episodes on animals used in medical research and experimentation and not enough on cosmetics and because I think many people are unaware that even we still test for cosmetics.

In the US, it's no longer required by law that cosmetic companies test on animals, yet we are still doing it. It makes no sense that we have not banned cosmetics testing. Canada has. Mexico has. In fact, 44 other countries have. I wanted Monica to explain how and why this is still happening – and the answers are complicated.

The good news is that last month, the Humane Cosmetics Act was reintroduced and if passed, it would end safety testing of cosmetic products on animals and prohibit the sale of products developed using animal testing in the United States.

Please listen and share and then, if you live in the US please make a phone call to your Senators and Representatives and politely ask them to support the Humane Cosmetics Act. Find yours here: usa.gov/elected-officials

Links:

SpeciesUnite.com

www.crueltyfreeinternational.org

"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, then when the restaurant changes completely, you feel really betrayed… I invited them. I invited a lot of people, a lot of my regular customers. I said, 'don't worry, we have changed. But nothing has changed, you know, just come. I invite you and your family. You come and eat just like you used to do, and you are going to love it.' And they did not. And they took revenge. Took revenge." – Alexis Gauthier

Alexis Gauthier opened his first restaurant in London when he was 24 and he received his first Michelin star a couple of years later. He's a French chef who has run Gauthier Soho for many years. And for a great part of that time his restaurant served traditional French food.

But, in 2016 Alexis became vegan and in 2021 he removed all animal products from his restaurant menus. This created quite the uproar.

Alexis and I met in London last week and I had dinner at Gauthier Soho the day after we had this conversation. The food is even better than what he describes, truly, it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

Please listen, share and then sign up for the Species Unite 30 Day Vegan Challenge.

Links:

Species Unite: SpeciesUnite.com

Gauthier Soho: https://www.gauthiersoho.co.uk/

Studio Gauthier: https://www.studiogauthier.co.uk/

123V: https://www.123vegan.co.uk/

123V Bakery: https://123vegan.co.uk/bakery.php

"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, refinancing the house five times, having people show up in the middle of the night to repo our cars, the bank trying to take the house, my parents doing literal intervention, saying, 'Ellie, stop your nonsense.'" – Ellie Laks

Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn, a sanctuary that houses and heals some of the most traumatized animals around. And in turn, those animals heal the humans who come there. It's a pretty remarkable place.

It started out on half an acre in Ellie's backyard, and it grew to many many acres and multiple locations. There's one in California, one in Tennessee and a third in Missouri. Since its inception, The Gentle Barn has saved thousands of animals and been host to over 500,000 people.