Species Unite
Stories that change the way the world treats animals.
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Rebecca Bose: Undoing an American Extinction
01/21/2026
Rebecca Bose: Undoing an American Extinction
“I don't know of another animal mammal that does not protect their young. Everybody protects their young. A wolf does too if another predator came. Of course they would protect their young. But with humans, they are that afraid of us, that they will leave their den. They will leave.” – Rebecca Bose At a moment when gray wolves in the United States are once again under serious threat, with the House just voting to delist them, it's worth asking a question that we seem determined to forget Once we remove protections and populations collapse. Do we really think history won't repeat itself? This conversation is with Rebecca Bose, curator at the , where she has spent the last 25 years working at the intersection of recovery and survival for some of the most endangered wolves on the planet. Rebecca is deeply involved in the painstaking effort to undo past mistakes, helping recover Mexican gray wolves and red wolves, two species that were nearly wiped out entirely by government sanctioned killing. Rebecca walks us through what bringing wolves back actually means - decades of captive breeding, genetic management, pup fostering operations that involve private pilots, biologists hiking for hours into remote wilderness, and an enormous amount of human labor all to give a handful of animals a chance to survive in a world that is still deeply hostile to them. And we talk about who wolves actually are: parents, teachers, sentient beings with relationships and roles that shape entire ecosystems. This is a conversation about memory, responsibility, and what happens when we repeat history instead of learning from it.
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Gemunu de Silva: Industry Standard
01/14/2026
Gemunu de Silva: Industry Standard
"I grew up and I became vegetarian listening to punk albums because there was a real punk scene which talked about vegetarianism, which talked about veganism, which talked about the peace movement. And that really influenced me. And there was one record specifically by a band called, Conflict that I listened to and I went vegetarian, and that's the power of music. You know, it's not traditional advocacy. So in a way, I'm kind of paying homage to how I got into animal rights. And I want this album not to be a traditional advocacy tool." - Gemunu de Silva For nearly four decades, Gemunu de Silva has gone where almost no one else will: inside factory farms, slaughterhouses, fur farms, laboratories, and the hidden corners of global animal industries. Gem is one of the world's most experienced undercover investigators, his work has exposed cruelty across six continents, helped shut down industries and change laws, saving millions of animals in the process. But after 37 years of investigations, he began to realize something unexpected. It wasn't only the images that stayed with him. It was the sounds. The outcry of the animals, the hum of machinery, the clatter of metal, the silence and the noise that animals are forced to live inside every day. In this conversation, Gem joins us to talk about his most unconventional project yet, Industry Standard, an album built from real recordings gathered during decades of undercover investigations. Part music, part journalism, part art, the record captures the industrial soundscape of animal exploitation in a way that no one has ever done before. It’s not just an album — it’s evidence. And once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. Links: INDUSTRY STANDARD: Advocacy and Use - Sound as a Tool for Change Industry Standard is more than an album. It is a resource for advocacy, education, and campaigning. Built on authentic field recordings from investigations, it offers a new way to engage audiences emotionally and viscerally, especially in spaces where imagery may not be possible, appropriate, or effective. This is sonic storytelling with a purpose. Each track bears witness to real places, real animals, and real suffering, but also offers a reflective space to process, feel, and act. Ways to Use the Album Podcasts, Radio, and Media We welcome opportunities for interviews, audio features, or creative collaborations. Gemunu de Silva is available to talk about the making of the album, the field recording process, and how it connects to broader investigations and activism. Exhibitions and Installations Industry Standard can be adapted for gallery and museum settings. The tracks can be played with or without accompanying visuals. We can also provide the full eight-page insert artwork for display or digital projection. Outreach and Awareness The album can be shared at stalls, events, and festivals, either as a conversation starter or as part of a deeper listening experience. QR codes to the album and visuals can be printed on flyers, zines, or posters. Campaigning The sounds and visuals can be paired with specific investigations or issues to deepen public understanding. They are especially powerful in campaign launches, press events, or screenings. Education and Talks Use the tracks in schools, universities, or activist training settings to highlight the realities behind animal industries in a unique and memorable way. Listening together can be a powerful shared act of learning. Get Involved If you are part of an animal group, educational body, media outlet, or cultural space and would like to use Industry Standard, please get in touch. We can help tailor the experience to your needs. 📩 gem@tracksinvestigations.org📦 Vinyl copies available on request for partners and educational use🔊 Digital versions can be supplied with or without visuals Thanks & Partners This project, and the 300+ investigations behind it, would not have been possible without the collaboration and trust of more than 40 animal advocacy organisations around the world. We would like to thank all our partners, past and present, who have supported, commissioned, and shared our work. Tracks has conducted investigations for: A Promise to Animals, Animals Angels, Animals Australia, Animal Equality, Animal Protection Agency, Animal Welfare Foundation, Born Free, Brigitte Bardot Foundation, Brooke, BUAV, CAPS, Cats Protection, Canadian Horse Defence, Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), Change for Animals Foundation, Cruelty Free International, Dogs Trust, Eurogroup for Animals, Equine Rescue France, Four Paws, Franz Weber Foundation, Forsøgsdyrenes Værn, GAIA, Greenpeace, Hunt Investigation Team, Humane Society International, IFAW, International Animal Rescue, Marchig Trust, Mercy for Animals, One Voice, PETA, Princess Alia Foundation, Respect for Animals, Sinergia Animal, Surfers Against Sewage, Tierschutzbund Zürich, Varkens in Nood, World Animal Protection (WAP), WAP Canada and WAP Australia.
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Gail Eisnitz: Out of Sight
12/17/2025
Gail Eisnitz: Out of Sight
“These workers were so courageous to go on camera to talk about what they were being forced to do, and we had a whistleblower attorney there to protect them. And then Dateline just killed the story. What I heard through the grapevine was they were afraid that people would change the channel. It's so interesting to me that you can have stabbings and starvation and murders and all sorts of stuff on TV, but if it happens to animals, they won't do it.” – Gail Eisnitz Most of what happens to animals in this country is designed to stay hidden. The violence, the speed, the scale — all of it kept out of sight, behind doors the public is never meant to open. For more than forty years, has documented some of the worst abuses in industrial agriculture: animals skinned alive, pigs entering scalding tanks fully conscious, workers forced to brutalize animals at speeds no living being could withstand. Her investigations exposed a system built on secrecy, protected by powerful industries, and ignored by institutions charged with enforcing the law. Her work has forced congressional action, shut down factory farms, held corporations accountable, and revealed to the world what really happens on the kill floor — not in rare moments, but every single day. And now, in her new book , Gail shows us the full story: the whistleblowers the industry tried to silence, the media outlets that backed away because the truth was “too disturbing,” and the personal toll she carried while uncovering evidence no one else had the courage to gather. This conversation is about a system that harms billions of animals and dangerous workers, misleads the public, and operates with almost no meaningful oversight. Gail's work makes one thing undeniable we can't fix what we refuse to see.
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Melissa Hoffman: Eat Your Ethics
12/10/2025
Melissa Hoffman: Eat Your Ethics
A lot of people think that kosher means that animals were treated significantly better than animals that enter the non-kosher market. And largely, this is just not true, because kosher is very much now a part of the same systems that produce 99% of the animal products that get into our grocery stores, and therefore could be categorized as factory farmed.” Rabbi Melissa Hoffman Rabbi Melissa Hoffman is the director of the , an organization bringing ancient Jewish values about land, animals, and nourishment into the realities of today’s food system. At the Center, Melissa works with synagogues, schools, summer camps, and community institutions to shift their food practices through plant-based defaults and culturally rooted changes that align with Jewish values of compassion, sustainability, and justice. She also tackles widespread misconceptions — like the belief held by half of American Jews that kosher automatically means humane. In this conversation, we talk about how Jewish communities can rethink food in ways that are joyful, practical, and deeply values-driven — and why these small shifts can bring people together while transforming the food system from the inside out. https://www.jewishfoodethics.org/
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Brett Mitchell: The Man Who Freed the Elephants
11/26/2025
Brett Mitchell: The Man Who Freed the Elephants
“It just makes everything worthwhile with what we did. It just highlights how flexible elephants are and how adaptable they are from captivity to wild, and that when given the chance, they will choose freedom. And they will choose autonomy.” - Brett Mitchell For nearly thirty years, Brett Mitchell has lived alongside elephants — first in captivity, then, eventually, in the wild. His story begins in the mid-1990s, when he managed elephant-back safaris in Zimbabwe and South Africa. But as the captive industry grew more commercialized — and cruel — Brett found himself on the front lines, witnessing wild elephants being taken from their herds and funneled into tourism and entertainment. It was a tipping point. Instead of accepting that reality, Brett made a decision that no one in South Africa had ever attempted at scale: he would return a full group of long-captive elephants back to the wild. What followed was a decade-long experiment in patience, trust, and determination. Brett developed a gentle, step-by-step “soft release” process — walking with the elephants each day, letting them choose their waterholes, teaching them how to be wild again, and slowly removing himself from their world until one morning… they simply walked away.
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Nina Jackel and Blake Moynes: The Cruelty Behind the Selfie
11/19/2025
Nina Jackel and Blake Moynes: The Cruelty Behind the Selfie
“You look at these animals, and they're just so far removed from the life that I want them to have, that they should have that, we would hope that wild animals have. And they're just humiliated and degraded and they're so utterly powerless.” - Nina Jackel Today, we’re taking you inside one of the darkest corners of the animal tourism industry — places where wild animals are stolen, broken, and paraded for human amusement. Nina Jackel, founder of , an organization exposing and ending animal cruelty worldwide, and Blake Moynes, wildlife conservationist and founder of , who recently went undercover in Thailand to document the hidden realities behind elephant rides, tiger selfies, and orangutan “shows.” What they found is heartbreaking — and it’s happening far more often than most of us realize. Together, they’re shining a light on the cruelty behind “cute” tourist attractions and building a movement to change what people see — and share — online. Links:
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Amy Jones: Skin and Bones
11/12/2025
Amy Jones: Skin and Bones
“It was a really surreal experience because I didn't know what to expect from a tiger farm. I've been in a lot of industrial farms of other animals. I sort of thought to myself, ‘surely it can't be, it can't be actually a farm like what we see, how we raise pigs and chickens and cows.’ But it was it was literally a factory farm - a prison, essentially just row after row after row of tiger.” - Amy Jones There are moments when a single photograph can change how we see the world. For photojournalist Amy Jones that moment came inside a dark, airless building on the border of Thailand at a tiger farm. That's where she met Salamas, a 20-year-old tiger who had spent her entire life in a concrete cell. Bred over and over again for the tourist and medicine trades. Amy's photograph of Salamas, a tiger who was skin and bones pressing her head against a cold wall, has gone on to win some of the most prestigious awards in photography, and brought international attention to an industry that almost no one knew existed, the factory farming of tigers. This conversation is about the rescue of that tiger, about the power of visual storytelling and what it means to bear witness even when it breaks your heart.
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Thom Norman: How $23 a Month Could Dismantle Factory Farming
11/05/2025
Thom Norman: How $23 a Month Could Dismantle Factory Farming
“Because we're kind of lowering the stakes. We're saying it's okay to admit to yourself that you care about factory farming and you care about animals because we're not going to try and trick you into going vegan or whatever. And so it allows them to engage with the issue, maybe for the first time in a really serious way. I think what we want to do is, just try and make it easier for more people to really engage with their values, and be an invitation to people to say, I know you care about this. I know when you see factory farming on you know, those annoying ads on your Instagram that show you what's going on, that you feel sad and you feel horrible about it. Let us help you do something about that in a way that fits your life and fits your lifestyle.” – Thom Norman Most of us agree that factory farming is one of the greatest sources of suffering on Earth. We hate it. We don’t want to support it. And yet — it persists. Today’s guest, Thom Norman, is trying to change that. He’s the co-founder of , an organization that’s asking a radical question: What if we stopped making compassion so hard? Instead of telling people what not to eat, FarmKind is inviting everyone to help dismantle factory farming — not by guilt or purity tests, but through collective action. With their , just $23 a month has massive impact for animals. It’s simple, inclusive, and it’s working. In this conversation, Thom and I talk about how factory farming got so bad, why lifestyle change alone isn’t enough, and how shifting from shame to solidarity could open the biggest door yet — for animals, for people, and for real change. Tom and his cofounder Aidan Alexander were on the show a year ago shortly after farm kind launched. A lot has happened in a year.
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30,000 Monkeys in Our Backyard
10/29/2025
30,000 Monkeys in Our Backyard
This week, we’re doing something a little different. Instead of a conversation, we’re sharing something we’ve been working on for the past year — our new short documentary, 30,000 Monkeys in Our Backyard. It tells the unbelievable true story of how a small town in Georgia became ground zero for a proposed facility that would have housed 30,000 monkeys for laboratory testing — and how a group of everyday people stood up, fought back, and changed the course of their town’s future. The film is a story about courage, community, and what happens when people refuse to stay silent. 30,000 Monkeys in Our Backyard premieres November 1st on YouTube — and you can watch it, share it, and take action at speciesunite.com/30000monkeys
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Melanie Kaplan: Lab Dog
10/22/2025
Melanie Kaplan: Lab Dog
“Maybe when we started doing this with animals, researching on them and studying them for human benefit hundreds of years ago, we didn't know about their sentience. We didn't know that they had emotions and feelings and felt pain. And we know all that now. We can't ignore that.” – Melanie Kaplan When journalist agreed to foster a beagle named Hammy, she knew he’d just been released from a research lab. What she didn’t know was how profoundly his story — and the world he came from — would change her own. In her new book, , Melanie takes readers deep inside the hidden world of animal testing — one that quietly breeds and experiments on tens of thousands of dogs each year, mostly beagles, chosen for their size and gentle nature. Through her journey with Hammy, she unravels how these animals end up in labs, what happens to them there, and what it takes to help them heal once they’re free. Our conversation explores the long and often secretive history of animal testing in the U.S., the shocking revelations behind the Envigo case — where 4,000 beagles were rescued from a breeding facility in Virginia — and the growing movement toward humane, non-animal alternatives. Links: Melanie Kaplan: Lab Dog: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/melanie-d-g-kaplan/lab-dog/9781541604988/
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Annick Ireland: The Future is Immaculate
10/15/2025
Annick Ireland: The Future is Immaculate
“All those kinds of brands in food and in fashion helped pave the way for where we are now. So, on the one hand, it's crushing that they no longer exist, but on the other hand, part of the reason they don't exist is because it has also become a bit more mainstream, you know? So, you know where we are right now in East London, there used to be an amazing vegan food market, and it went on for a number of years and then it died. But actually the founder of that vegan market said, ‘guys, it's not a bad thing. The reason we don't exist anymore is because it's easy to find vegan food everywhere now. And it wasn't when we started, right?’ That need is being met by way more people. It's becoming mainstream.” – Annick Ireland Today’s conversation is with Annick Ireland, founder of —the world’s leading destination for ethical, sustainable, and cruelty-free fashion. What started in 2019 with women’s shoes and handbags has grown into a global platform featuring over 140 brands across categories from clothing to kids, pets, and even homeware. Annick and her team are proving that style and ethics not only can go hand in hand—they’re reshaping the mainstream fashion industry itself. In this episode, we talk about the rise of vegan fashion, the power of conscious consumers, the exciting new wave of bio-based materials, and how inclusivity—not perfection—is what drives real change.
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Suzanne Lee: Grown, not Extracted
10/08/2025
Suzanne Lee: Grown, not Extracted
“You know, you walk through a forest. Every leaf on every tree is unique. And that's what biology does. We are all unique, right? Everything about us that biology does, it's so magical. It's so special. And we now have the ability to harness biology in the way that nature does.” – Suzanne Lee Suzanne Lee is the founder of and for more than two decades she’s been uniting scientists, designers, artists, and dreamers to prove that biology isn’t just inspiration — it’s the next frontier of design. She’s leading a movement to replace plastics, leather, and petrochemicals with materials born from life itself — brewed, cultivated, and created in harmony with nature. I just spent a few days in London at , a celebration of biology-based technologies and the innovators behind them. These weren’t the usual alternatives to leather or plastic. Imagine a world where textiles aren’t manufactured from fossil fuels, animal skins, or even plants — but grown from microbes, mycelium, algae, and engineered proteins. There were fabrics brewed in vats, colors grown by living microbes, perfumes made with the DNA of extinct flowers, and leather-like sheets made from banana waste and mycelium. Each innovation not only reimagines what we wear and use, but also reshapes how we think about design, beauty, and even culture. After the fair, Suzanne and I sat down to debrief — to talk about how far this movement has come, what’s next for biofabrication, and how growing the materials of the future might just change everything. Links: Biofab Fair Website https://www.biofab.world/ Biofabricate Website https://www.biofabricate.co/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/biofabricate/ Materials and brands mentioned in episode: Ephea https://ephea.bio/ Polybion https://www.polybion.bio/ Uncaged Innovations: https://uncagedinnovations.com/ Spyber: https://spiber.inc/en Holon Bionics Banofee AB In Bev MM Limited https://www.mm-greentech.com/aboutus
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Alex Woodard: Ordinary Soil
10/01/2025
Alex Woodard: Ordinary Soil
"Now more than ever, a lot of farmers are caught in between this kind of industrial complex that that is difficult to pay the bills with - so you got to get subsidies, and the very real problem of being exposed to all the chemicals that they have to use to make anything grow in soil that's been hammered and depleted." - Alex Woodard This episode isn’t about animals. It’s about the ground beneath our feet — and what happens when we forget that our own health, our food, and our future are all rooted in the soil. In his novel Ordinary Soil, Alex Woodard tells the multigenerational story of a farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle, tracing how decades of industrial agriculture and chemical dependence have unraveled both the land and the people living on it. The result is a sweeping and deeply human narrative that blends science, history, and fiction to show just how interconnected we are with the earth that feeds us. This conversation is about more than farming. It’s about resilience, healing, and the choices we still have to turn things around — for ourselves, our communities, and the planet.
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Amber Canavan: The Labels That Lie
09/17/2025
Amber Canavan: The Labels That Lie
“That is no life for these birds and it is definitely not what the consumer is thinking or assuming. When they see these nice labels and they think, ‘oh, I'm paying so much more for this, that change must be going for the animals, right?’ No, it's lining the pockets and it's keeping that status quo of that factory farm going.” Amber Canavan Most of us want to make choices that are kinder—to animals, to the planet, to ourselves. But in today’s food system, kindness is often buried under labels like “cage free,” “humane certified,” or even “climate-friendly beef.” These terms are designed to make us feel good, but as PETA’s Amber Canavan reveals, they hide the same suffering and environmental destruction. For more than a decade, Amber has led campaigns that expose this “humane washing” and push companies—from Starbucks to Whole Foods—to do better. This conversation is about pulling back the curtain on the myths we’ve been sold, and about the power each of us has to choose differently. One of the simplest, most impactful ways to take action is with what’s on our plate. That’s why, this October, we’re inviting you to join Species Unite’s Plant-Powered Challenge—a 30-day adventure to try delicious, cruelty-free food, reduce your climate footprint, and stand with the animals. Because real change doesn’t come from labels. It comes from us.
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Christine Mott: Free Bird
08/19/2025
Christine Mott: Free Bird
“How could this owl, who was born in captivity, lived his whole life in a cage, how could he possibly survive? He's going to be dead in a few days. That's what everybody thought.” – Christine Mott In February 2023, a Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco made headlines—and captured hearts—when he escaped from his small enclosure at the Central Park Zoo. Born in captivity and unable to fly or hunt, Flaco defied every expectation. In just weeks, he taught himself to soar across the Manhattan skyline, hunt for his own food, and live as freely as an owl could in a city of concrete and glass. For more than a year, New Yorkers spotted him perched in Central Park, on high-rises, even outside apartment windows—cheering him on as a symbol of resilience and freedom. Today’s guest, attorney and lifelong animal advocate Christine Mott, has immortalized Flaco’s story in her new children’s book, . Told from Flaco’s perspective, the book celebrates courage, hope, and the right of all animals to live free—without cages or confinement—while gently encouraging young readers to see captivity through an animal’s eyes. This conversation is about Flaco’s extraordinary journey, the lessons he left behind, and how one small owl sparked big changes for animals in New York and beyond. Links: https://lanternpm.org/book/free-bird/
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Edita Birnkrant and Tracy Winston: The Horse Who Collapsed in the Street
08/13/2025
Edita Birnkrant and Tracy Winston: The Horse Who Collapsed in the Street
“I could be walking in Central Park and come up on one of these horse and buggies. I don't think twice about it because I see it as part of the New York attraction. You know, you have the Statue of Liberty, you have Times Square, and you have these romantic horse and buggy things where people get married in the park and they ride these carriages. And tourists, they take these rides in Central Park. It's romantic, it's something beautiful to see. But I never thought for one second that these horses are abused.” – Tracy Winston, juror from Ryder’s trial New York City has a big, visible animal cruelty issue: horses forced to pull carriages, carrying heavy loads for long hours in all types of weather in the middle of chaotic traffic. Three years ago, a carriage horse named Ryder was a victim of this cruelty. He collapsed on a Manhattan street after being worked for hours in the summer heat. Two months later, he was euthanized. His story sparked global outrage. Ryder’s driver, Ian McKeever, was charged with animal cruelty The trial took place a few weeks ago, but McKeever was ultimately acquitted. This conversation is with Edita Birnkrant, the Executive Director of and Tracy Winston, one of the jurors from Ryder's trial. New York’s weak and outdated animal protection laws have not changed since Ryder died— and because of this, another avoidable death that occurred just a week after we recorded this interview. On August 5th, a horse named Lady died while pulling a carriage in Manhattan. This conversation is about accountability, about corruption and about what happens when justice fails the most vulnerable. It's too late for Ryder and Lady. But it is not too late to act. If you live in New York, please call your City Council members and tell them it’s time to bring Ryder’s Law, Intro 967, up for a vote and pass this vital bill to protect carriage horses from suffering and death on the city’s streets. To find your council member, go to: NYCLASS: https://nyclass.org/
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Mari Andrew: How To Be A Living Thing
08/06/2025
Mari Andrew: How To Be A Living Thing
“It was just this love I developed of life, all life and how much life can be a joy to witness and experience if we're not severing ourselves or severing other lives from our own. And then you start to see all the connectedness and it's like a drug.” - Mari Andrew What if healing wasn’t about fixing yourself—but about remembering what it means to be alive? This conversation is with writer artist, speaker, teacher, and deep feeler Mari Andrew about her new book, How to Be a Living Thing— an exploration on animals, embodiment, and the wild, wondrous mess of being human. Through stories of rats and oysters, cardinals and bears, Mari explores the quiet wisdom of creatures who live without apology, who don’t shrink themselves to be loved, who remind us what it is to be curious, connected, and enough. Links: Mari Andrew: How To Be A Living Thing: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0593831667?tag=randohouseinc7986-20
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Dr. Shirley Strum: The Echoes of Our Origins
07/30/2025
Dr. Shirley Strum: The Echoes of Our Origins
"So I think this whole idea of cumulative culture is a way to make humans exceptional. But it's clear to me that humans are exceptional, and seeing it through baboon glasses, I can understand in a different way why they're exceptional. But many of the things that we think are uniquely human are actually present in other animals." - Dr. Shirley Strum Dr. Shirley Strum is a groundbreaking anthropologist who has spent over five decades living alongside wild baboons in Kenya. Her work has transformed our understanding of these intelligent, socially complex animals — their relationships, their adaptability, and the intricate societies they create. In her new book, Echoes of Our Origins, Shirley challenges long-held beliefs about evolution, the human-animal divide, and what it truly means to coexist. This conversation is about science — but it’s also about humility, hope, and the messy, beautiful complexity of life on Earth. Links: https://anthropology.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/faculty-profiles/shirley-strum.html
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Jeffrey Reed: Cry Wolf: Decoding the Language of the Wild
07/23/2025
Jeffrey Reed: Cry Wolf: Decoding the Language of the Wild
“I sit in the camp that is going to defend wildlife, and I will live and die in that space. Even though what I see is in the West, wolves have a bad reputation. It's still there…" -Jeffrey Reed What if we could understand wolves? How they communicate, what they might be saying? Jeffrey Reed, is a computational linguist, naturalist, and technologist who’s doing just that—using artificial intelligence to decode the wild. Jeff is the founder of the , a groundbreaking bio acoustic study capturing hundreds of thousands of hours of wolf vocalization across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. From howls and chorus howls to teeth clacking and whines, Jeff's work is uncovering the complex ways wolves and many other animals communicate with one another. His company, , is creating cutting edge tools to help people and wildlife share the land more peacefully and intelligently. This conversation is about wolves, language, the future of wild soundscapes, and how technology might help us become better neighbors to the beings that we've long misunderstood. LINKS: How individuals can donate to Yellowstone National Park's Wolf Project via this link: Grizzly System's conservation technology: Jeff's forthcoming (2026) book on wolf communication, via this link: Jeff's TED Talk: Jeff's social presence: , , , and
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Trevor Ritland: The Golden Toad
06/24/2025
Trevor Ritland: The Golden Toad
I think you could probably go back and track the stages of grief, probably that is what I went through. But I think if you do it right, you end up at acceptance. And that's where I ended up. And that's not to say that I've fully accepted the idea that the golden toad is extinct. Personally, I do still hold out hope that it could still be out there in those forests." - Trevor Ritland This conversation is with Trevor Ritland, who—along with his twin brother Kyle—authored The Golden Toad. The book chronicles their remarkable journey into Costa Rica’s cloud forest, once home to hundreds of brilliant golden toads that would emerge for just a few weeks each year—until, one day, they vanished without a trace. What began as a search for a lost species soon became something much more profound: a confrontation with ecological grief, a meditation on hope, and a powerful call to protect the natural world while we still can. Links: SpeciesUnite.com Kyle and Trevor: Instagram: Goodreads - Amazon -
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Reuven Bank and Andrew Kim: When the Ocean Lost Its Stars
06/12/2025
Reuven Bank and Andrew Kim: When the Ocean Lost Its Stars
"72 juveniles is 28% of the current population of sunflower stars under human care in California. More than a quarter of them are at our facility. If you had asked us that question about a year and a half ago. The answer would be zero at our facility, and the answer across California would be six total." - Andrew Kim In 2013, one of the largest marine disease outbreaks on record, sea star wasting syndrome swept through echinoderm populations, laying waste to sunflower stars across their historic range. Once common in California, sunflower stars are now functionally extinct there. This devastating population crash is one of the leading drivers of the 96% decline in kelp forest cover in Northern California in the last decade, as sunflower stars are no longer prowling rocky reefs and scaring purple urchins, who graze on kelp. Sunflower Star Laboratory was founded by a group of concerned citizens who watched California's kelp disappear before their eyes and were inspired to take action. This conversation is with Reuven Bank and Andrew Kim from Sunflower Star Laboratory, where they are actively growing sunflower stars with the aim to bring the stars and the kelp forests back to the ocean.
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Delcianna Winders: The Beginning of the End of Animal Testing
06/06/2025
Delcianna Winders: The Beginning of the End of Animal Testing
“We don't actually know how many animals we're testing on in this country, because most of them are not protected by any laws. There's not even a requirement that you track their numbers.” – Delcianna Winders Today, I have the pleasure of sharing some genuinely promising news. For decades, the FDA and NIH have required or relied on animal testing as the gold standard for drug development and biomedical research. But that's beginning to change. Both agencies have just announced significant steps to reduce animal testing—moves that could mark a turning point in how science is done. The FDA is beginning to phase out animal testing requirements for certain new drug applications, starting with monoclonal antibody therapies, and is pushing forward the use of more ethical, human-relevant technologies—like organ-on-a-chip systems and advanced computer modeling. At the same time, the NIH is prioritizing human-based approaches and creating a new office dedicated to accelerating the development and adoption of these new methods across biomedical research. To help us understand what all of this means, what led to these changes, and what still needs to happen, I’m joined by Delci Winders, director of the Animal Law and Policy Institute at Vermont Law and Graduate School. Delci is one of the leading voices at the intersection of law, science, and animal protection—and she’s here to walk us through this historic shift.
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Jeff Kerr: Our First Amendment Right to Receive Communications (from Monkeys)
05/29/2025
Jeff Kerr: Our First Amendment Right to Receive Communications (from Monkeys)
"It is a scientific fact that these macaques, like all other primates, including humans, are communicating. They communicate in much the same way we do - facial expressions, vocalizations, body postures, those kinds of things." - Jeff Kerr Jeff Kerr is PETA foundations Chief Legal Officer. I asked him to come on the show to talk about one of PETA’s current lawsuits against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Nathional Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). PETA is arguing that the monkeys being tested on in a government run facility are capable of communication (or “are communicating”). And that we have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to receive their communications. This could be a game changer in allowing us to see what’s really going on in labs that are funded by taxpayer money, and which have so far been censored from public view. PETA’s lawsuit follows years of NIH’s attempts to deny Freedom of Information requests banning PETA executives from its campus and illegally censoring animal advocates’ speech on NIH’s public social media pages. Through the lawsuit, PETA is seeking a live audio-visual feed to see and hear real-time communications from the macaques who have been kept isolated, used in fear experiments, and had posts cemented into their heads. Anthropologists and other scientists have studied macaque and other primate communications for decades and know that the monkeys communicate effectively and intentionally through lip smacking, fear grimaces, body language, and various cries and sounds—all of which constitute speech under the law. Primatologists can analyze that speech on a deeper level to share their stories with the world.
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Isabella La Rocca Gonzalez: Censored Landscapes
05/20/2025
Isabella La Rocca Gonzalez: Censored Landscapes
"The one that really surprised me was the organic humane Certified Egg Farm. I thought Humane Certified would at least mean that I would see some chickens running around somewhere, but it looked exactly the [00:00:30] same as any other egg facility. They were just big warehouses. You don't see a chicken anywhere in sight. And then I learned, of course, that, um, you know, the this whole free range, pasture raised terminology doesn't really mean anything." - Isabella La Rocca Gonzalez Isabella LaRocca Gonzalez is an artist, author, and activist. Her work is part of a long tradition in art and photography to bring to light and find beauty in the hidden, unconscious or disregarded. Her most recent book is called . It's a long term photographic project that unveils the hidden reality of animal agriculture.
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John Kinder: World War Zoos
05/16/2025
John Kinder: World War Zoos
John Kinder is the director of American studies and a professor of history at Oklahoma State University. And he is an author. His most recent book is called . John’s book tells a story most of us have never heard: what happened to the world’s zoos—and the animals inside them—during World War II. It’s a sweeping, deeply researched look at how zoos became sites of propaganda, patriotism, and survival, often at the expense of the animals themselves. But World War Zoos isn’t just about the past. It’s also a mirror, showing how many of the ethical blind spots that existed during wartime remain with us today. In an age of climate crisis and mass extinction, this conversation asks: what do zoos really stand for—and who are they really serving?
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Richard (Kudo) Couto: The Hidden Horror Behind a Billion-Dollar Brand
04/30/2025
Richard (Kudo) Couto: The Hidden Horror Behind a Billion-Dollar Brand
“I used to be the largest dairy consumer on the planet. I used to eat so much dairy and meat. The more that I looked into the dairy industry, the more that I saw that it was the singular, most inhumane industry on the planet, that we've all been lied to, including myself, for years. I always believed that the picture on the milk carton, the cow standing next to her calf in the green field with the red barn in the back was true. It’s certainly the complete opposite.” – Richard (Kudo) Couto Richard (Kudo) Couto is the founder of (ARM), an organization solely dedicated to investigating extreme animal cruelty cases. ARM has led high-risk undercover operations that have resulted in the shutdown of illegal slaughterhouses, animal fighting rings, and horse meat trafficking networks. Recently, they released a damning investigation into two industrial dairy farms outside of Phoenix, Arizona supplying milk to Coca-Cola’s Fairlife brand. What they uncovered was systemic animal abuse, environmental violations, and a devastating betrayal of consumer trust. While Fairlife markets its products as being sourced "humanely," ARM’s footage tells a very different story—one of suffering, abuse, and corporate complicity. Despite the evidence, this story has been largely ignored by mainstream media—likely due to Coca-Cola’s massive influence and advertising dollars.
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Meredith Blanchard: We’ve Cured Cancer in Mice for Decades
04/23/2025
Meredith Blanchard: We’ve Cured Cancer in Mice for Decades
“There's a drug called vioxx that was found to be safe and effective in animal trials, so they moved it on to preclinical trials in humans. Once on the market, that drug caused 88,000 people to have heart attacks and killed 38,000 people.” Meredith Blanchard We have some big news at Species Unite. In January and February, our team traveled to Bainbridge, Georgia to begin filming our first documentary. Bainbridge is a small Southern town facing a truly chilling threat: a company called Safer Human Medicine is planning to build the largest monkey breeding facility in the United States right in their backyard. If approved, this facility would hold up to 30,000 long-tailed macaques at a time—monkeys who would be bred in captivity, then sold to pharmaceutical companies for use in painful and outdated animal experiments. It’s a nightmare for the animals. But it’s also a nightmare for the people of Bainbridge: from threats to their water and soil, to dangerous zoonotic disease risks, to the loss of wildlife and community health. The people of Bainbridge are fighting back. And they’re not alone. One of our partners on this film is the , or NAVS—an organization dedicated to ending the exploitation of animals in science. Today’s guest is Meredith Blanchard, the Senior Manager of Advocacy and Policy at NAVS. I spoke with her about what’s why animal testing doesn’t work and what it will take to finally bring it to an end. Links: National Anti-Vivisection Society
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Rob Read: When the Ocean Bleeds
04/17/2025
Rob Read: When the Ocean Bleeds
“One year, we actually offered the Faroe Islanders One million pounds to stop the hunts. 1 million pounds, which would go to promoting whale and dolphin tourism to the islands and marine conservation education to Faroese kids in schools. And the Faroese response to our offer was the most emphatic no you've ever had in your life. They actually held a hunt on the 1st of January. On the first day of that offer, they went out and deliberately killed pilot whales as their official no to us.” – Rob Read Rob Read is the leader of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK, otherwise known as . He and his team have been working for years to end the suffering of many marine animals. Rob has initiated campaigns as well as actively operating boats, coordinating crew and flying drones, working on issues that include everything from seal shooting by wild salmon net fishermen around Scotland, in Japan against the Taiji dolphin hunts, in the Faroe Islands, against the drive hunts of pilot whales and dolphins, in Iceland against commercial fin whaling, and in Namibia, exposing the Namibian seal hunt. I asked Rob to come on the show to talk about the places in the world where whaling is still the norm. There are not that many left, but there shouldn't be any left. And that's what Rob and Captain Paul Watson Foundation are working to achieve. Links https://neptunespiratesuk.education/about/the-team/rob-read https://www.neptunespirates.uk/
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Andrew Stein: Living with Lions
04/10/2025
Andrew Stein: Living with Lions
“If we march into that village and we start trying to persecute people for using poison, something that's very illegal, nobody's going to talk to us. We're not going to find out where the poison came from. We're not going to be able to shut anything down. We should take the approach that people are using poison because they're desperate, because they see no other alternative.” – Andrew Stein Andrew Stein is a wildlife ecologist who spent the past 25 years studying human carnivore conflict from African wild dogs and lions in Kenya and Botswana to leopards and hyenas in Namibia. His work has long focused on finding ways for people and predators to coexist. He is the founder of , an organization based in Botswana that's working at the intersection of cutting-edge wildlife research and community driven conservation. Since its start in 2014 and official launch as an NGO in 2020, CLAWS has been pioneering science-based, tech-forward strategies to reduce conflict between people and carnivores. By collaborating closely with local communities, especially traditional cattle herders, CLAWS supports both species conservation and rural livelihoods—making coexistence not just possible, but sustainable.
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Jaap de Roode: Doctors by Nature
03/31/2025
Jaap de Roode: Doctors by Nature
"But it makes a lot of sense especially when you think about how traditional healers and shamans have worked, they haven't felt that separation from nature like Western medics do. And so to rely on the knowledge of other species actually makes a lot of sense. It's probably a lot more than we know at the moment." - Jaap de Roode Jaap de Roode is a biology professor at Emory University, and he is the author of an astonishing new book called . I say astonishing because I had no idea about so much of what he explores in his book. It never occurred to me to consider that other species use medicine and have been healing themselves forever. Jaap tells stories of animals across nature, from bumblebees to chimpanzees, how they use plants and natural substances to treat infections, to ward off parasites, to self-medicate. There's so much that we have learned from them, and there's so much more that we still can.
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