When We Talk About Animals
59 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 67 ratingsWhen We Talk About Animals is a series of in-depth conversations with leading thinkers about the big questions animals raise about what it means to be human. Supported by the Law, Ethics & Animals Program at Yale Law School, Yale University’s Human Nature Lab, and the Yale Broadcast Studio.
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Episodes
Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction
April 11, 2023 13:20 - 1 hour - 89.7 MBFiction can provide the most profound, incisive truths about the absurdities of our reality. In his most recent novel, Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman, a master of finding the humor and the fantastical in even the most devastating facets of human nature, has crafted a chilling—and deeply funny—look into what our future relationship with animals might … Read More Read More
Ep. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas
February 21, 2023 16:00 - 51 minutes - 70.7 MBUpon seeing an adorable Koala sitting on an eucalyptus branch in Australia, few would expect the beloved marsupial to emit a booming bellow to alert potential mates or rivals of its presence. But this powerful roar is just one of koalas’ many surprises, which delight and astonish in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s new book, “Koala: … Read More Read More
Ep. 49 – Dog Cognition Expert Alexandra Horowitz on the Quiddity of Puppies
October 05, 2022 13:43 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBMost books on puppies are dog-improvement manuals, guiding readers ‘How to Raise the Perfect Dog’ or how to achieve ‘Perfect Puppy in 7 Days.’ Alexandra Horowitz’s profound and totally delightful new book is not that type of book. It’s an unprecedented look at the complex, chaotic, fascinating, and often hilarious journeys of puppies becoming themselves. … Read More Read More
Ep. 48 – Patrick Rose on the Fight to Save Florida’s Manatees
August 02, 2022 17:06 - 1 hour - 85.3 MBGrazing peacefully through shallow waterways, the Florida manatee is one of the state’s most beloved creatures. Due to a multitude of compounding, human-caused crises, the last couple years have been some of the deadliest on record for manatees. Years of worsening water quality from Florida’s unfettered agricultural pollution and real estate development have resulted in … Read More Read More
Ep. 47 – Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing love letters to nature
May 24, 2022 14:49 - 56 minutes - 78 MBPoet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s exuberant book of essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, has unlocked protective passion for nature among readers since its release in 2020. In the book’s thirty dazzling essays, Nezhukumatathil weaves love stories about being a daughter, a partner, a mother, and a teacher with reverence … Read More Read More
Ep. 46 – Paleobiologist Thomas Halliday on the Animals of Ancient Worlds
March 21, 2022 08:00 - 57 minutes - 79.4 MBThe fossil record acts as both a memorial to life’s spectacular possibilities and as a warning to humanity about how fast dominance can become forgotten history, according to our guest, Scottish paleobiologist Dr. Thomas Halliday. Halliday’s research investigates long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. In his magnificent and daring new book “Otherlands: … Read More Read More
Ep. 45 – Rob Dunn on what the laws of biology predict about our future
February 02, 2022 10:00 - 1 hour - 83.5 MBAmid the cataclysms of the Anthropocene, an era defined by humans’ attempts to control the natural world, it’s easy to forget that we remain as subject as ever to the ecological laws that govern living things. Like the laws of physics, paying attention to our planet’s biological laws empowers us to understand how the world … Read More Read More
Ep. 44 – Rick McIntyre on the stories of Yellowstone’s greatest wolves
November 22, 2021 18:13 - 1 hour - 117 MBIn 1995, the U.S. government took unprecedented actions to restore the wolf population of Yellowstone National Park, which it had brutally destroyed seventy years prior. More than thirty wolves from multiple packs were captured in Canada, transported to the park, and released in a grand experiment that would become the most successful wildlife reintroduction effort … Read More Read More
Ep. 43 – Cynthia Barnett on our world of seashells
September 22, 2021 18:16 - 1 hour - 87.3 MBFrom tiny cowries to giant clams, seashells have gripped human imaginations since time immemorial. In her magnificent new book, The Sound of the Sea, journalist Cynthia Barnett tells the epic history of humanity’s interactions with shells and the soft-bodied animals who make them. These stories of how we have treasured, traded, plundered, and coveted shells … Read More Read More
Ep. 42 – Edie Widder on the ocean’s spectacular light
August 16, 2021 08:00 - 50 minutes - 69.4 MBMost of us land-lubbers assume that light-making among ocean creatures is an exotic and rare phenomenon. But that’s wrong. The majority of animals in the ocean, which means the majority of animals on the planet, are capable of making light. From top to bottom, the ocean is teeming with unforgettably beautiful and extraordinarily diverse light … Read More Read More
Ep. 41 – Ecologist Hugh Warwick on Loving Your Hedgehogs
May 27, 2021 13:13 - 57 minutes - 79.5 MBHedgehogs, despite being consistently voted the most beloved mammal in the United Kingdom, have suffered great population losses as industrial agriculture and other human impacts destroy their hedgerow habitats. Our latest guest, Hugh Warwick, has studied, celebrated, written about, and fought to protect hedgehogs for more than 30 years, leading a groundswell of local and … Read More Read More
Ep. 40 – Michelle Nijhuis on the history of the wildlife conservation movement
April 28, 2021 14:27 - 53 minutes - 73.7 MBIn “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction,” science journalist Michelle Nijhuis chronicles the history of the wildlife conservation movement through the stories of the extraordinary people — both legendary experts and passionate amateurs — who shaped its evolution and expanding ambitions. Nijhuis introduces us to the Swedish scientists who devised the … Read More Read More
Ep. 39 – Bernie Krause on saving the music of the wild
February 24, 2021 10:00 - 1 hour - 90.1 MBIn 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause was leading a booming music career. A prodigiously talented musician and early master of the electronic synthesizer, Krause was busy working with artists like the Doors and the Beach Boys and performing iconic effects for blockbuster films. Then Warner Brothers commissioned him to create an album incorporating the sounds of … Read More Read More
Ep. 38 – Margaret Renkl on discovering wonder, grief, and inspiration in backyard nature
December 09, 2020 10:00 - 51 minutes - 71.4 MBIn the long months we’ve all been confined to our homes, many people have become reacquainted with the vibrant life just outside their doors, finding unexpected joy, companionship, and hope through partaking in the cycles of love and loss that happen in the skies and yards around us. It is this wonder to be found … Read More Read More
Ep. 37 – Monica Gagliano on plant intelligence and human imagination
November 04, 2020 10:00 - 53 minutes - 73.9 MBAre plants intelligent? Can they think? Can they hear, see, feel, smell and taste? Throughout history, most Western philosophers and scientists answered those questions with a resounding “no.” Plants have long been treated as passive, inanimate objects that form the backdrop to our active lives, rather than highly sensitive organisms with intelligence and agency of … Read More Read More
Ep. 36 – Rebecca Giggs on the world in the whale
September 28, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 90.4 MBIn 2013, a sperm whale washed up dead on Spain’s southern coast. In its ruptured digestive tract, scientists found an entire flattened greenhouse that once grew wintertime tomatoes, complete with plastic tarps, hoses, two flower pots, and a spray canister. The whale also contained an ice cream tub, mattress parts, a carafe, and a coat … Read More Read More
Ep. 35 – J. Drew Lanham on finding ourselves magnified in nature’s colored hues
September 02, 2020 09:02 - 59 minutes - 82.2 MBAs Dr. Joseph Drew Lanham writes in his beautiful and deeply moving memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, from his earliest days growing up in the piedmont forests and fields of Edgefield, South Carolina, he dreamed of flight. This fascination with the aerial journeys of the blue jays … Read More Read More
Ep. 34 – Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme
July 20, 2020 08:00 - 59 minutes - 48.4 MBBorn in Paris to an African-American GI and a French woman at the end of World War II, Dr. Daniel Pauly rose from a difficult and extraordinarily unusual childhood in Europe to become one of the most daring, productive, and influential fisheries scientists in the history of the field — and the first to illuminate … Read More Read More
Ep. 34 – Dr. Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme
July 20, 2020 08:00 - 59 minutes - 48.4 MBBorn in Paris to an African-American GI and a French woman at the end of World War II, Dr. Daniel Pauly rose from a difficult and extraordinarily unusual childhood in Europe to become one of the most daring, productive, and influential fisheries scientists in the history of the field — and the first to illuminate … Continue reading Ep. 34 – Dr. Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme →
Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-led land and wildlife stewardship
June 15, 2020 08:00 - 55 minutes - 31.5 MBAs wildlife across Canada face unprecedented pressures from climate change and industrial development, Indigenous Peoples, who have relied upon and managed these animals for millennia, are leading the way on ensuring their protection. From Newfoundland and Labrador to the Yukon Territory, groundbreaking Indigenous-led protection initiatives are ensuring Canada’s treasured species like the boreal caribou and … Read More Read More
Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-Led Land and Wildlife Stewardship
June 15, 2020 08:00 - 55 minutes - 31.5 MBAs wildlife across Canada face unprecedented pressures from climate change and industrial development, Indigenous Peoples, who have relied upon and managed these animals for millennia, are leading the way on ensuring their protection. From Newfoundland and Labrador to the Yukon Territory, groundbreaking Indigenous-led protection initiatives are ensuring Canada’s treasured species like the boreal caribou and … Continue reading Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-Led Land and Wildlife Stewa...
Ep. 32 – Gene Baur on changing hearts, minds and laws about farm animals
May 18, 2020 09:00 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MBAmid the systematic cruelties and alienating conditions which define our factory farm system, Farm Sanctuary stands out as an exemplar of human kindness. Over the past thirty years, Farm Sanctuary — co-founded and led by our guest, Gene Baur — has rescued thousands of farm animals from short, tortured lives in industrial confinement and allowed … Read More Read More
Ep. 31 – Zak Smith on ending the international wildlife trade
April 27, 2020 09:00 - 54 minutes - 39.1 MBThe repercussions of the international wildlife trade, which is a primary driver of our planet’s biodiversity crisis, have recently hit close to home. With the society-altering impacts of Covid-19, which scientists think originated in wild animals, and the cultural storm around the Netflix hit “Tiger King,” the true cost of the wildlife trade and the … Read More Read More
Ep. 30 – Sonia Shah on how animal microbes become human pandemics
April 06, 2020 09:00 - 59 minutes - 81.7 MBRoughly two-thirds of emerging infectious diseases — including COVID-19 and almost all recent epidemics — originate in the bodies of animals. Microbes have spilled over from animals to humans for time immemorial, but, as our species dominates the biosphere and transforms the frequency and nature of human-animal interactions, the rate at which microbes are jumping … Read More Read More
Ep. 29 – Amanda Hitt on why the animal agriculture industry needs whistleblowers
March 09, 2020 19:51 - 59 minutes - 94.8 MBIn an age where almost everything we eat is produced outside of public view, whistleblowers are critical to maintaining the integrity of our food systems. These principled insiders are often the first people to warn the public — often at grave personal cost — when food is unsafe, when workers face inhumane conditions, when food … Read More Read More
Ep. 28 – Bathsheba Demuth on capitalism, communism and arctic ecology
February 10, 2020 08:00 - 59 minutes - 94.8 MBIn her acclaimed first book, “Floating Coast,” historian Bathsheba Demuth explores how capitalism, communism and ecology have clashed for over 150 years in the remote region of Beringia, the Arctic lands and waters stretching between Russia and Canada. Demuth trekked through the landscape and historical archives in search of answers to questions such as: How … Read More Read More
Ep. 27 – Ed Yong on telling the grand, urgent and surprising stories of animal worlds
January 13, 2020 09:00 - 1010 MBNonhuman beings, and the passionate people who study them, animate Ed Yong’s vast, award-winning and kaleidoscopically varied body of journalism. His vivid stories explore the lives of scientists, the origins of life, social policy, whale hearts, the sixth extinction, the individuals we lose when a species vanishes or populations shrink, and the communities of tiny … Read More Read More
Ep. 26 – Ian Urbina on the Outlaw Ocean
December 16, 2019 10:00 - 54 minutes - 87.8 MBOver 40 percent of the Earth’s surface is open ocean that is over 200 miles from the nearest shore. These waters exist outside national jurisdiction and are almost entirely beyond the reach of law. Our guest, investigative journalist Ian Urbina, spent five years risking his life in these anarchic places to chronicle the lives he … Read More Read More
Ep. 25 – Doug Kysar and Jon Lovvorn on law in the Anthropocene
November 18, 2019 09:00 - 50 minutes - 80.4 MBProfessors Doug Kysar and Jonathan Lovvorn are the Faculty Co-Directors of the Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School. Launched in fall 2019, LEAP is a multidisciplinary “think-and-do” tank dedicated to empowering Yale scholars and students to produce positive legal and political change for animals, people and the environment upon which they … Read More Read More
Ep. 24 – Christopher Ketcham on the abuse of the American West
October 21, 2019 13:11 - 50 minutes - 81.2 MBFor the past ten years, journalist Christopher Ketcham has documented the confluence of commercial exploitation and government misconduct on public lands across the West, the role of the livestock and energy industries in their despoliation, and the impact of rampant federal land management agency capture on wildlife. We speak with Ketcham about his fierce new … Read More Read More
Ep. 23 – David Rothenberg on playing music with whales and nightingales
September 23, 2019 09:00 - 51 minutes - 83 MBPhilosopher and musician David Rothenberg has spent decades collecting and studying the calls of birds and whales. In the early 2000s, he began playing along with them, taking his clarinet and saxophone to some of the furthest corners of the planet. The result is a new form of music that invites us to question where … Read More Read More
Ep. 22 – Ferris Jabr on reviving the Gaia hypothesis
August 27, 2019 13:12 - 53 minutes - 86.2 MBIn the 1970s, scientists proposed what has become known as the Gaia Hypothesis: the idea that earth is best understood not as a passive substrate or background to life but as a life form in its own right. Our guest, journalist Ferris Jabr, believes the time has come to revive that idea. To understand how … Read More Read More
Ep. 21 – David Barrie on the wonders of animal navigation
August 05, 2019 09:00 - 59 minutes - 95.7 MBAuthor and sailor David Barrie voyaged around the globe and through scientific literature to learn about the awe-inducing and still mysterious navigational powers of animals. Barrie writes of mysteries such as how birds employ “map and compass” type navigation, how Box jellyfish use some of their twenty-four eyes to keep track of trees and other … Read More Read More
Ep. 20 – Gabriela Cowperthwaite on the legacy of “Blackfish”
July 15, 2019 15:18 - 47 minutes - 76.2 MBFilm director and producer Gabriela Cowperthwaite did not set out to make a film that would force a national moral reckoning over how we keep whales in captivity, slash the profits of Sea World, and make her the unexpected enemy number one of a multi-billion dollar industry. But that’s what happened. Her acclaimed film Blackfish … Read More Read More
Ep. 19 – Robert Macfarlane on being good ancestors across deep time
June 24, 2019 09:00 - 48 minutes - 78.4 MB“Books, like landscapes, leave their marks in us,” Robert Macfarlane once wrote. “Certain books, though, like certain landscapes, stay with us even when we left them, changing not just our weathers but our climates.” Macfarlane’s writing has done this for us and for millions of readers. It has shifted our climates for the better, deepened … Read More Read More
Ep. 18 — Anthony Weston on animals, aliens and the silence of the universe
June 10, 2019 09:00 - 54 minutes - 86.7 MBIn 1950, a physicist posed the question that has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox: given the high mathematical probability that other intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, why is there no evidence that they exist? In his blazingly original paper, “Radio Astronomy as Epistemology,” our guest, philosopher Anthony Weston, formulates … Read More Read More
Ep. 17 – Fabrice Schnoller on free diving with sperm whales
May 27, 2019 10:00 - 53 minutes - 49.4 MBIn 2007, our guest, Fabrice Schnoller, was sailing off the coast of Mauritius when he had an encounter that would change his life and open a new frontier in marine biology. As his boat neared land, huge pillars of steam burst out of the water. When Schnöller jumped in to investigate, he was overwhelmed by … Read More Read More
Ep. 16 – Thomas Seeley on the Lives of Bees
May 13, 2019 16:12 - 49 minutes - 45 MBIn the spring of 1963, when our guest Dr. Thomas Seeley was not quite 11 years old, he lived — as he still does today — in a wooded stream valley just east of Ithaca, New York. One day, he heard a loud buzzing sound and saw a bread-truck-sized cloud of honey bees swarming an … Continue reading Ep. 16 – Thomas Seeley on the Lives of Bees →
Ep. 16 — Thomas Seeley on the lives of bees
May 13, 2019 15:12 - 49 minutes - 45 MBIn the spring of 1963, when our guest Dr. Thomas Seeley was not quite 11 years old, he lived — as he still does today — in a wooded stream valley just east of Ithaca, New York. One day, he heard a loud buzzing sound and saw a bread-truck-sized cloud of honey bees swarming an … Read More Read More
Ep. 15 – Gay Bradshaw on Charlie Russell, grizzly bears, and the search for truth
April 29, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 55 MBBears, like other carnivores, are typically cast as unthinking, emotionless killers. But the late naturalist Charlie Russell believed this tragic misperception hides the truth about who bears really are. Charlie’s life story changed how humans perceive grizzly bears. While other scientists and naturalists were studying bears from a distance, tranquilizing them and tagging them with … Read More Read More
Ep. 14 – David Wolfson on pioneering the field of farm animal law
April 15, 2019 08:00 - 1 hour - 29.4 MBIn the United States today, 10 billion land animals are raised and killed for food annually. That’s over 19,000 animals per minute. About 1.1 million animals during the length of this podcast. Yet as far as federal law is concerned, farmed animals do not exist. They are not counted as “animals” under the country’s primary … Read More Read More
Ep. 13 – Dr. Nicholas Christakis on the animal origins of goodness
April 01, 2019 08:00 - 559 MBFor decades, researchers have debated whether or not animals make friends. “Friends” — the taboo “f word” — was generally put in quotes if it was used at all. But if you study the social networks of elephants, whales and other animals, it is clear that they have friends just like we do, according to … Continue reading Ep. 13 – Dr. Nicholas Christakis on the animal origins of goodness →
Ep. 13 – Nicholas Christakis on the animal origins of goodness
April 01, 2019 07:00 - 559 MBFor decades, researchers have debated whether or not animals make friends. “Friends” — the taboo “f word” — was generally put in quotes if it was used at all. But if you study the social networks of elephants, whales and other animals, it is clear that they have friends just like we do, according to … Read More Read More
Ep. 12 – Novelist Lindsay Stern on “The Study of Animal Languages”
March 18, 2019 08:00 - 258 MBIn March of 2016, a group of scientists reported a startling discovery from the forests of central Japan: syntax, the property of speech that enables it to express limitless meanings, was not unique to human languages. It had been observed in the vocal system of a bird. In her acclaimed new novel The Study of … Read More Read More
Ep. 11 – Diana Reiss on recognizing the dolphins in the mirror
March 11, 2019 08:00 - 59 minutes - 27.1 MBIn mountainous regions of the world, there are human societies that use whistled languages to transmit and understand a potentially unlimited number of meanings over great distances. While in graduate school, Dr. Diana Reiss began to wonder: If humans can encode great amounts of information in whistles, perhaps much more is going on with the … Read More Read More
Ep. 10 – Dale Jamieson on love and meaning in the age of humans
February 25, 2019 09:00 - 53 minutes - 49.1 MBIn their book, Love in the Anthropocene, our guest, the environmental philosopher Dale Jamieson, and his co-author Bonnie Nadzam invite us to imagine a not-too-distant-future in which our technologies have continued to transform the face of the planet. In this world, the “sixth extinction” is long underway. Like the cities of today, rivers, lakes, forests, … Read More Read More
Ep. 9 – Being Charles Foster being a beast
February 11, 2019 08:00 - 378 MBWhat is it like to be another creature? What is it like to see, smell, hear, taste and feel the world as a different animal? Our guest today, the spectacularly imaginative writer and explorer Dr. Charles Foster wanted to find out. So, he got down on all fours and tried his best to do just … Read More Read More
Ep. 8 – Charles Siebert on translating nature’s symphony
January 28, 2019 10:00 - 58 minutes - 26.6 MBDuring his travels in South America at the close of the 18th century, the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt came upon a parrot speaking the words of a lost Indian tribe. The encounter inspired our guest, acclaimed author and New York Times Magazine writer Charles Siebert, to imagine the echoes of human language that might … Read More Read More
Ep. 7 – “Eating Animals” film director Christopher Quinn on the hidden costs of factory farming
January 14, 2019 08:00 - 59 minutes - 27.2 MBAward-winning film director, writer, and producer Christopher Quinn’s new film, “Eating Animals,” based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed nonfiction book, traces the environmental, economic and personal consequences — on human and nonhuman animals — of the rise of industrialized animal agriculture and of our country’s departure from local, sustainable farming. With bracing intelligence, empathy and imagination, the … Read More Read More
Ep. 6 – Gale Ridge on bringing peace to humans’ befuddling relationships with bugs
January 07, 2019 14:07 - 52 minutes - 48.4 MBA concert pianist-turned-entomologist and bedbug expert, Dr. Gale Ridge is an insect detective. She solves mysteries and helps thousands of perplexed, struggling people with all varieties of bug problems — from bedbugs to agricultural pests to imaginary bugs that infest our consciousness. Dr. Ridge speaks about her sleuthing and how she brokers peace between the humans that walk in her … Read More Read More