Species Unite – Détails, épisodes et analyse

"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.

"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 Lady Freethinker, an organization exposing and ending animal cruelty worldwide, and Blake Moynes, wildlife conservationist and founder of The Save Our Species Alliance, 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: 

https://ladyfreethinker.org/

https://thesosa.com/

"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, Free Bird: Flaco the Owl's Dreams Take Flight. 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/

"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 inflict economic loss on these companies." – Ronnie Lee

Ronnie Lee founded the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in 1974. The Animal Liberation Front is a global movement dedicated to the liberation of animals from human oppression. They engage in and promote non-violent direct action in protest against incidents of animal cruelty.

Ronnie served three prison sentences in the 70s and 80s for actions he took against places like animal testing facilities and breeding facilities for testing.

He has been vegan for 51 years and is still out there every day fighting for animals.

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. It's the same kind of thing for making plant-based meat." – Christie Lagally

Christie Lagally is the founder and CEO at Rebellyous Foods, a food manufacturing technology and production company. They make delicious plant-based chicken, but they also make production equipment. Up until now, almost all plant-based meat has been made in animal meat production facilities, which just don't have the capability or function to make plant-based meat.

Five years ago, Christie left her job as an engineer at Boeing so she could transform everything that we know about producing plant-based meat. She's done it and later this year, Rebellyous is launching the Mock Two, production equipment that is not only going to transform the entire plant-based meat space, but it's also going to allow for price parity with animal meat. A game changer for the entire industry.

Rebellyous Foods: https://www.rebellyous.com/

"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 be and when, so they know how to go get them and bring them back to the facility."  – Laura Lee Cascada

In October of last year, Laura Lee Cascada published an investigation into the Kanaloa Octopus Farm on the Big Island in Hawaii. The Kanaloa Octopus Farm was capturing wild Hawaiian Day octopuses and keeping them in these tiny, isolated tanks while also conducting breeding experiments, under the guise of conservation.

What made it even more bizarre was that they were also a tourist attraction. People could pay to come to the octopus farm and see and touch and pet the octopuses in these tiny tanks. So, it was like an octopus petting zoo/breeding farm.

What they were really doing was trying to figure out how to breed these octopuses, which is really difficult to do in captivity. But it's the first step to US octopus factory farming.

In January, they received a cease and desist letter because they did not have the required permits for the above. So, for the moment, their octopus program is temporarily shut down. We need to keep it shut down and we need to ban octopus farming in this country before it really starts.

The world's first octopus factory farm is set to open in the Canary Islands this year, adding to the very long list of cruel and abusive industries across the planet. Let's not let that happen here.

I asked Laura to talk about her investigation and what all this really means for octopuses and for the future of farming them for food.

Links:

Laura Lee Cascada: http://www.lauraleecascada.com/

Every Animal Project: https://www.everyanimalproject.com/2022/10/09/octopus-farming/

Articles on Kanaloa Octopus Farm:

https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/02/08/state-serves-kona-octopus-farm-with-cease-and-desist-order-lack-permits/

https://bigislandnow.com/2023/02/04/kanaloa-octopus-farm-in-west-hawai%CA%BBi-receives-cease-and-desist-letter-from-state/

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-15/hawaii-says-octopus-farm-operated-without-proper-permits

"It's almost like the Animal Welfare Act is like a safety, a security blanket, because it's like, 'Oh, we have the Animal Welfare Act to protect the animals, they're okay.' And they don't realize that it's actually not very strong and that it's not being very aggressively enforced." – Rachel Fobar

In February, Eric Kleinman from the Animal Welfare Institute was on the podcast. He came on to talk about the Envigo Dogs - the 4000 beagles that were rescued last summer from a breeding facility for lab animals, and trafficked monkeys, and the many many failures of the USDA to enforce the Animal Welfare Act.

Before Eric and I met, he sent me a ton of articles on much of the above, and many of them were National Geographic stories written by Rachel Fobar. Rachel is a National Geographic reporter who covers wildlife crime and exploitation, everything from the USDA's failures to roadside zoos to monkeys being forced to work in Thailand's coconut trade.

I asked Rachel to come on the show because I want to better understand why it is that we are allowing the USDA, who almost never does their job, to be in charge of the Animal Welfare Act.

LINKS: 

Rachel Fobar: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/meet-the-team-wildlife-watch?loggedin=true&rnd=1677336327384

Rachel's Articles for National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.com /author/rachel-fobar

"There was a law on the books [in New York], even back in 1917, that required that every publicly funded elementary school needs to provide instruction in the humane treatment and protection of animals."  - Meena Alagappan

Meena Alagappan runs an organization called, Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers, otherwise known as HEART. Heart is a full service, humane education provider in New York City, Chicago and Indianapolis. 

I met Meena because we, Species Unite are doing a wolf education program, so I asked her for some help and for some resources. She was beyond generous with both, and in the process I learned a lot about the work that HEART is doing - and what they're doing is changing thousands upon thousands of students lives and should be required in every classroom in this country.

LINKS: 

HEART: https://teachheart.org/

HEART Educator Resources: https://teachheart.org/library/

"I have often asked myself, 'why is it that wolves don't kill people?' Every year there are records of lions, tigers, bears and other large carnivores killing people. For wolves it very rarely ever happens. They are certainly quite capable of hauling down much larger prey than ourselves such as moose and bison. I think it has a lot to do with the dramatically different way that wolves raise their young compared to most other large carnivores." - Paul Joslin

Dr. Paul Joslin is a wildlife biologist who has spent decades with wolves and other predators in the US, Canada, India and Iran. His wolf research began in Ontario in the 1960s at a time when we did not know a lot about the daily lives of wolves. His is stories are extraordinary. He lived alone in the wilderness for months at a time, tracking wolves to gain a deeper understanding of their lives. He did this before google maps, before there were even trails in many of these places, so he created his own. His knowledge and wisdom on wolves go deep, while his work took him all over the world.

I have been on a quest to understand the wolf hatred that seems to permeate the United States, especially Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, where we are currently slaughtering all of our wolves, but it's not just here, wolf hatred is global – as humans everywhere seem to abhor these remarkable animals.

So, I asked Paul to come on the show and give his two cents as to why so many humans fear and hate an animal that does almost zero harm to us.

"I give a presentation to law students on animal law every now and then, and I tell them I can teach you everything you need to know about federal animal protection law in 10 seconds. I say there isn't really much. There are very few laws, especially at the federal level, protecting farmed animals." - Chris Wlach

Chris is an attorney and he is an animal welfare and humane education advocate. He's a major force in New York City animal law and has advocated for many of the city's non-human animals, including the carriage horses in Manhattan. The carriage horse issue has been going on for decades, horses are hit by cars, they collapse in the street, it's a horribly abusive industry. 

Chris also advocates for animals up to the federal level. He came on the show to talk about animals and our legal system, its many limitations, and the places where he finds hope.  

Links: 

NYC Bar Animal Law Committee: https://www.nycbar.org/member-and-career-services/committees/animal-law-committee

HEART: https://teachheart.org/