Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction
Fiction can provide the most profound, incisive truths about the absurdities of our reality. In his most recent novel, Venomous Lumpsucker,...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsScience & Medicine
When We Talk About Animals
When 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 & A...
Episodes
20 of 52 episodesEp. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas
Upon seeing an adorable Koala sitting on an eucalyptus branch in Australia, few would expect the beloved marsupial to emit a booming bellow...
Ep. 49 – Dog Cognition Expert Alexandra Horowitz on the Quiddity of Puppies
Most books on puppies are dog-improvement manuals, guiding readers ‘How to Raise the Perfect Dog’ or how to achieve ‘Perfe...
Ep. 48 – Patrick Rose on the Fight to Save Florida’s Manatees
Grazing peacefully through shallow waterways, the Florida manatee is one of the state’s most beloved creatures. Due to a multitude of compou...
Ep. 47 – Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing love letters to nature
Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s exuberant book of essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishme...
Ep. 46 – Paleobiologist Thomas Halliday on the Animals of Ancient Worlds
The fossil record acts as both a memorial to life’s spectacular possibilities and as a warning to humanity about how fast dominance can beco...
Ep. 45 – Rob Dunn on what the laws of biology predict about our future
Amid the cataclysms of the Anthropocene, an era defined by humans’ attempts to control the natural world, it’s easy to forget that we remain...
Ep. 44 – Rick McIntyre on the stories of Yellowstone’s greatest wolves
In 1995, the U.S. government took unprecedented actions to restore the wolf population of Yellowstone National Park, which it had brutally d...
Ep. 43 – Cynthia Barnett on our world of seashells
From tiny cowries to giant clams, seashells have gripped human imaginations since time immemorial. In her magnificent new book, The Sound of...
Ep. 42 – Edie Widder on the ocean’s spectacular light
Most of us land-lubbers assume that light-making among ocean creatures is an exotic and rare phenomenon. But that’s wrong. The majority of a...
Ep. 41 – Ecologist Hugh Warwick on Loving Your Hedgehogs
Hedgehogs, despite being consistently voted the most beloved mammal in the United Kingdom, have suffered great population losses as industri...
Ep. 40 – Michelle Nijhuis on the history of the wildlife conservation movement
In “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction,” science journalist Michelle Nijhuis chronicles the history of the wild...
Ep. 39 – Bernie Krause on saving the music of the wild
In 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause was leading a booming music career. A prodigiously talented musician and early master of the electronic synthesiz...
Ep. 38 – Margaret Renkl on discovering wonder, grief, and inspiration in backyard nature
In the long months we’ve all been confined to our homes, many people have become reacquainted with the vibrant life just outside their doors...
Ep. 37 – Monica Gagliano on plant intelligence and human imagination
Are plants intelligent? Can they think? Can they hear, see, feel, smell and taste? Throughout history, most Western philosophers and scienti...
Ep. 36 – Rebecca Giggs on the world in the whale
In 2013, a sperm whale washed up dead on Spain’s southern coast. In its ruptured digestive tract, scientists found an entire flattened green...
Ep. 35 – J. Drew Lanham on finding ourselves magnified in nature’s colored hues
As Dr. Joseph Drew Lanham writes in his beautiful and deeply moving memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Natu...
Ep. 34 – Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme
Born 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 extraordin...
Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-led land and wildlife stewardship
As wildlife across Canada face unprecedented pressures from climate change and industrial development, Indigenous Peoples, who have relied u...
Ep. 32 – Gene Baur on changing hearts, minds and laws about farm animals
Amid the systematic cruelties and alienating conditions which define our factory farm system, Farm Sanctuary stands out as an exemplar of hu...