"There are more native crocodiles living in cages and concrete pens that are owned by Hermes or supplying Louis Vuitton than live in their natural habitat. So, that is so clearly not conservation. And we're talking like hundreds of thousands of crocodiles." – Emma Hakansson

 

We are destroying the planet, killing billions of animals and making life insufferable for humans all over the world, all in the name of fashion. But, Emma Hakansson is on a mission to change all of it. She is the founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, an organization dedicated to creating a total ethics fashion system which prioritizes the wellbeing of people, our fellow animals and the planet, before profit.

 

And some of the bags are even like Nile crocodile and crocodiles from different parts of the world and the level of exclusivity is based on like how rare that skin is. And it seems to not even connect in their mind that, like, maybe if an animal is rare, it means that they should be being protected rather than made into a bag that you think is special. And I think that's where a disconnect from nature comes into play. Like if we really connected with nature and saw the beauty of it, we would want to protect it more in its natural state, and we would see higher value in fashion that appreciates nature and takes inspiration from nature, but that doesn't take from it and destroy it or kill it.  – Emma Hakansson

 

Emma has consulted on passed progressive fashion legislation in New York City, spoken at the European Parliament, been invited to provide expertise in Parliament inquiries in Australia, and offered her expertise to global brands and fashion councils seeking to improve their ethics and sustainability.

Her latest book, Total Ethics Fashion, explores the namesake term that she coined to guide the fashion industry forward.

Please listen and share and if you do purchase something this week, please shop consciously. 

"I cannot put enough emphasis on this. I have seen so many things that are so weird that even when I would show it to law enforcement at first, before there were like a lot of these cases coming out, law enforcement would look and they'd be like, "what? Why would someone do this?" Right? As if what I'm showing them wasn't real. And what I learned to say to get past that is, I would say to cops, "how many times have you seen someone do something for reasons they can't even explain to themselves?" - Pete Paxton 

For the past 23 years, Pete Paxton has been working undercover in puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, pet stores, and on-board commercial fishing boats to document horrific cruelty. Some of these high-stress, horror show jobs last for weeks while others go on for months at a time - months of ten-hour days, doing hard, heavy labor, witnessing animals being abused or killed and watching your co-workers hurt the already abused animals even more. 

Pete does it because he is good at it, because he loves animals and because his work has often resulted in big change for animals.

 What perplexes me the most about Pete, is that after 23 years of working in hellish places like slaughterhouses and factory farms, he hasn't become dark and dour. Instead, he is the opposite. He's extremely funny, super engaging and seriously joyful. He doesn't allow this work to take him down. Most people I know, me included, would be a shell of a human being after a couple of hours in his world.

Pete is also the author of Rescue Dogs and has had two HBO documentaries made about him and his work, Dealing Dogs and Death on a Factory Farm.

"He called me into his office and he said, 'you see that picture above my desk?' I said, 'yes.' It kind of looked like an animal that reminded me of a squirrel. He said, 'that is a lemur that we think is extinct in the wild. If you can, please go to Madagascar and find out if it's extinct or not.'" – Patricia Wright

 

Dr. Patricia Wright is an anthropologist, a conservationist, and a professor at Stony Brook University in New York, and she's probably the world's leading expert on lemurs. 

There are over 100 species of lemurs, which are prosimians - a type of primate and they only exist on the island of Madagascar.

Patricia spends half her time, six months a year in Madagascar studying lemurs, and has done so since the 80s, when she discovered a new species of lemur, the Golden Bamboo Lemur, and she also established Ranomafana National Park. It is almost an understatement to say that Patricia is a trailblazer— she has done the impossible again and again.

Her story is will astound you.  

 

 

 

This week we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Jonathan Balcombe. 

 

"…gazing up to the night sky saying, 'are we alone?' …well, wait a minute, look around, there's tons of fascinating life forms. We're so lucky to have all this amazing panoply of life on the planet. 

I get the question… are there other humanoids out there? Or, are there other conscious beings? But we ought to be pretty grateful for what we have on this planet… there's a lot of amazing creatures and phenomena that we get to enjoy living with, if we can."

- Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe is a biologist with a Ph.D. in ethology, the study of animal behavior. He is the author of four books on the inner lives of animals, including the New York Times bestseller, What a Fish Knows. He has published over 60 scientific papers and book chapters on animal behavior and animal protection.

Jonathan has spent his life studying animals, how they think and feel, and why they matter. Quite often, he focuses on the ones that most of us tend not to think about very much, like fish and in his newest book, flies – Super Fly comes out in May. 

I thought I knew a little bit about fish, but after reading Jonathan's book and after this time spent with him, I realized that I knew very little. There are 33,000 species of fish and what many of them are capable of is absolutely mind-blowing . 

For eons, we have categorized species by who we deem worthy and who we don't. Fish are almost always very near or at the bottom of that list. Clearly, that is because most of us know so little about them. Jonathan knows a lot. If you haven't read his book, read it. It will astonish you. 

Jonathan can most recently be seen in the Netflix documentary, Seaspiracy. 

Visit Jonathan's Website Read Jonathan's Books Follow Jonathan on Twitter Like Jonathan on Facebook

"We make everything from a vegan rib, so we got a rib that'll blow your mind. Looks like a rib, tastes like a rib, but guess what? It ain't a rib… it can go on the grill, you can smoke it, you can literally barbecue it and it comes out like mama's ribs that you ate when you grew up." – Chef Chew

 

 

GW Chew, aka Chef Chew, is a vegan food inventor and restaurateur on a mission is to change lives and to bring holistic solutions to urban communities. He's developed a of plant protein called Better Chew, which helps meat-eaters transition into a vegan lifestyle.

 

He grew up in rural Southern Maryland to a family of devoted carnivores, and experienced the tragedy of losing close relatives due to diet-related diseases (diabetes, cancer).  When he was 18, he decided to go vegan in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle, but found that many plant-based foods at the time were less than palatable.

 

After nearly 20 years of experimenting with literally thousands of ingredients and cooking techniques, and three vegan restaurants, Chef Chew found the secret to the most authentic plant-based versions of his favorite ethnic and comfort foods and Better Chew entered the plant-based food scene.

 

And he's done all of this with the goal of democratizing access to healthy, plant-based foods by making them affordable and accessible to all people.

LINKS: 

Better Chew: https://eatbetterchew.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betterchew

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterchew/

 

"One percent of the U.S. is vegan, about five percent is vegetarian… And so if I'm thinking about where can I make the most money, it's not going after the vegans. And if I'm thinking about where can I make the greatest impact, getting a plant based person to switch from one plant based burger to another does zip. And so our focus is how can we help people move the needle with those who aren't on board yet?"

 

 

David Benzaquen is one of the world's leading experts in the plant-based food industry and he's the founder of Mission: Plant, a holding company advancing the plant-based sector with strategic investments and consulting services.

 

He has been a part of the plant-based food scene since it really started to take off, and a few months ago he launched an entirely vegan online grocery store called Plant Belly – its stocked with all of his (and my) favorite plant-based foods. It's absolutely awesome.

 

David is one of the stars of the plant-based movement and I'm extremely grateful to him for making it grow.

 

www.missionplant.com

www.moonshotcollaborative.com

www.plantbelly.com

" As we were driving from Jackson, Wyoming, towards the entrance of the park, I was in the passenger seat, Charlie was driving and I saw a bison and I'll never forget it. I grabbed him so hard on the arm and I screeched, "BISON!" It was the first bison I'd ever seen in the wild. We stopped the car and we were a good distance from the bison. But we could see it unimpeded with the windshield and just let it walk and do what he was doing. And I don't know, something in my heart turned over." – Barbara King

 

 

Barbara King is emerita professor of anthropology at William & Mary and a freelance science writer and public speaker and the author of seven books. She is an expert on animal cognition and emotion.

 

Barbara has been on the podcast before to talk about how animals grieve and love. If you haven't heard that episode, take a listen.  

 

She is back to talk about her 7th book, Animals' Best Friends: Putting Compassion to Work for Animals in Captivity and in the Wild.

 

There are many reasons that I love this book, but mostly because Barbara delves into and shares how we can be better humans to all other animals on this planet. Her work helps us better understand and advocate for the rights of animals. The more that humans know about animal's intelligence and emotional lives, the harder it becomes to harm them. 

 

Barbara is a storyteller and through the stories of the individual animals as well as her own personal accounts, she makes us care.

Today we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Helena Husseini. 

I usually live day by day. I always live every day like it's going to be the last day. We learned that during the war. We don't know when we're going to die. So, you live every day like it's going to be the last day. That's what I do."

– Helena Husseini

Helena Husseini is the vice-president of BETA, Beirut Ethical Treatment for Animals. BETA is the first and largest shelter in Lebanon with 850 dogs, many cats, a few horses, and a couple of monkeys.

Helena is also an architect. She has been with BETA since 2006, a few months before the Lebanon War started. As bombs dropped nearby, she drove around in her Jeep saving the injured and abandoned dogs that had been left behind.  

Since then, she has been rescuing animals during the too many crises and catastrophes that have plagued Lebanon, including the 2019 financial collapse, the riots, COVID-19, and the blast that decimated Beirut.  

This conversation is really one that's about resilience, about grit, about what it means to show up every day, even when bombs are dropping, when there's no access to money, when people are starving, and no one knows what tomorrow will look like. 

It's a conversation about what it means to choose the meaningful life. I hope that you are as completely floored by Helena and her stories as I was. 

Learn More About BETA  Like BETA on Facebook Follow BETA on Youtube Support BETA's "Surviving in Lebanon" fundraiser to provide shelter to their hundreds of rescue animals before they are left without a refuge.

Rich Hardy is a former undercover investigator. He spent 20 years doing over 100 assignments in 30 countries. He's been on the podcast before to talk about his time undercover. If you haven't heard that episode, you should go back and listen.

 

He is back today to talk about his latest adventure.

 

After a couple of decades of incredibly intense investigative work, and living a double life, Rich decided that he needed a massive change. Instead of campaigning against the horrors of animal agriculture, he and his partner Pru are now campaigning for solutions.

 

Last year they started Lazy Meadows Farm and became a couple of vegan farmers. I didn't even know that vegan farming was a thing until Rich filled me in on it. And what surprised me even more, was learning that almost all fruit and vegetable farming everywhere isn't vegan.

 

LINKS:

Lazy Meadow Farm: https://www.lazymeadowfarm.com/

 

Rich on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notasnatureintended/?hl=en

 

Rich's book:  https://www.bookdepository.com/Not-Nature-Intended-Rich-Hardy/9781789650631?ref=grid-view&qid=1614899278046&sr=1-1

"The reason that you should accept our client as having rights is because we're showing what an extraordinary being she is. These beings have mirror self-recognition, they know that they are elephants. In fact, we listed 42 different, highly complex cognitive abilities that elephants have. If you didn't know it was an elephant, you'd think [I was] talking about what a human being does." - Steven Wise

 

 

There is an elephant who lives all by herself in a small enclosure at the Bronx Zoo. Her name is Happy. She arrived at the zoo in 1977, a few years after she'd been kidnapped from the wild in Thailand.

The Bronx Zoo claims that Happy is Happy. The best elephant cognition scientist in the world have argued that she's anything but. And most of us regular human beings can see that an isolated elephant in a tiny enclosure is not living a good life.

Steven Wise is the founder and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project. In 2018, the Nonhuman Rights Project brought a petition for writ of habeas corpus on Happy's behalf. Habeas corpus is a common law right that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment. In Happy's case, the NhRP are seeking recognition of her fundamental right to bodily liberty and transfer to an elephant sanctuary.

Last spring, the New York court of appeals, the highest court in the state of New York, agreed to hear Happy's case. This is the first time in history that the highest court of any English-speaking jurisdiction will hear a habeas corpus case brought on behalf of someone other than a human being.

In a story for the Atlantic, Jill Lepore called Happy's case, "the most important animal-rights case of the 21st Century."

Steven Wise has been working toward this since 1980.

LINKS:

The Nonhuman Rights Project  https://www.nonhumanrights.org/

Instagram  https://www.instagram.com/nonhuman.rights.project/

Twitter  https://twitter.com/nonhumanrights

FB  https://www.facebook.com/NonhumanRights

Steven's TED Talk   https://www.ted.com/speakers/steven_wise

"Vegan 1.0 Didn't get us where we needed to go. It didn't turn enough of the country on, it didn't turn enough young people on, didn't make it into… the mainstream in the way they wanted it to. …it was kind of pushed to the edge and marginalized and it was weird, the food was good, but not great and not accessible or kid-friendly.

… I didn't think that was the way to capture the 97% of the world or the country that doesn't identify as vegan who would otherwise, maybe try it once in a while, but not really make a change. Where Vegan 2.0 is specifically designed to expand the tent to the 97%.." – Adam Weiss

 

Adam Weiss is the CEO and director of Honeybee Burger, a plant-based fast-food restaurant with locations in Southern California, and more coming soon to other parts of the country, including New York City (hooray!).

Honeybee's mission is to promote the benefits of plant-based food on the environment, the planet, and the animals with the most delicious food and the best plant-based proteins on the market. And, it's working - they were just named the best vegan burger in Los Angeles by Veg News.

 

Before entering the plant-based space, Adam had a long career in finance, and I was very curious to know how he went from hedge fund guy to vegan restaurant guy.

 

"When people come in and they're going to get a cheeseburger, fries and a shake, which is our most common order, it's not so much that they don't care about their health, but they know, "okay I'm about to indulge here."

We just give them a tiny bit of good feeling, like, you know what, "you're indulging, you're going to pack on some calories, but no animals will die, you're making an impact on the future, and ultimately it's probably better for the environment than if you didn't do it…" And that resonates with consumers today unlike any time in history." – Adam Weiss

 

Links:

Honeybee Burger https://honeybeeburger.com/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/honeybeeburger/

"Historically some of the leading airlines in the world were responsible for transporting these monkeys. So, you had national flag carrier airlines, such as such as British Airways, American Airlines - all of these big airlines were involved in transporting these monkeys in the hundreds and thousands every year on commercial passenger airlines. And, rightly the public were very concerned, there was a growing swell of, public opinion that was opposed to not just non-human primates being transported by airlines, but other animals as well. So there has certainly been a big move away from passenger airlines transporting monkeys, which has caused problems for the research industry in being able to obtain the monkeys." – Sarah Kite

 

 

Sarah Kite is co-founder of Action for Primates, they campaign on behalf of non-human primates globally.

 

Despite their status as our closest living biological relatives, non-human primates continue to suffer and be exploited by people across the globe, whether in their native habitat, in trade and transportation, in research laboratories, in private homes, in zoos, as entertainment, or as food and body parts.

 

Sarah has been doing this work since the 80s and although much has changed since then – we no longer test on chimpanzees, much hasn't changed. According to PETA, in the US, more than 100,000 nonhuman primates (mostly monkeys) are used in research laboratories every year. These are highly intelligent, social animals and we know and have known for decades that almost every single bit of this research fails in human trials.

A report from Faunalytics shows that,"approximately 100 vaccines have shown effectiveness against HIV-like animal viruses, but none prevent HIV in humans. Up to 1,000 drugs have shown effectiveness for neuroprotection in animals, but none for humans. While the biomedical research industry is quick to claim victories, the reality is less glamourous: nine out of ten drugs fail in clinical studies because they cannot predict how they will behave in people; only 8% of drugs tested on animals are deemed fit for human use; one meta-study found that animal trials overestimate the likelihood that a treatment works by 30% because negative results often go unpublished. Fortunately, using animals in scientific research is not a foregone conclusion. On the contrary, there is a burgeoning field of alternatives to animal research, and many such alternatives are already in use today."   

 

Not only are we breeding thousands of non-human primates in labs, for testing here in the USA, but we also import them from Asia and Africa by the planeload, meaning that they are in cargo holds for as long as 24 hours, some die before they make even it to the lab. As horrible as that sounds, I'm pretty sure that those are the lucky ones.

For her entire career, Sarah Kite has been fighting for primates and asking humans to do and be better. I think we can. 

"It's really about bringing the skills and the tools and the techniques that we've already developed and addressing other forms of transnational or international crimes - and applying them to this area that had long been forgotten." – Olivia Swaat-Goldman

 

Olivia Swaak-Goldman is the executive director of the Wildlife Justice Commission, an organization that goes around the world fighting transnational organized crime against wildlife — like an animal-focused justice league, with a mission to disrupt and help dismantle organized transnational criminal networks that are trading in wildlife, timber, and fish.

Wildlife trafficking is the fourth largest illegal trade globally, after drugs, humans, and arms. Before the Wildlife Justice Commission was formed, governments were not focused on going after the heads of these trafficking organizations. There was a lack of prioritization on wildlife crime.

 

And since they formed in 2015, the Wildlife Justice Commission has helped to secure the arrests of 155 wildlife criminals and taken down 35 criminal networks.

 

The Wildlife Justice Commission's work is more important now then ever, as we are losing species at alarming rates and there are so many more at risk of extinction within our lifetimes.

"The Wildlife Justice Commission was created in order to go after high-level criminals. It's the same thing with drugs in a way, if you just go after the dealer on the corner, you're not going to be tremendously successful. You've got to do that but you need to go after the masterminds of the networks in order to get them arrested and successfully prosecuted and, also important… a seizure of assets… make it hurt, make them feel it.

Then they're going to think twice about doing this, especially in an area where we are losing so many species and at risk of losing so many. The quicker we can get them to be doing something else, that the more biodiversity we can save." – Olivia Swaak-Goldman

LINKS: 

Wildlife Justice Commission: https://wildlifejustice.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildlifeJusticeCommission/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WJCommission

"When those fires happened, it was about 8 o'clock in the morning. It goes completely black, so the sky is completely black. There's no light. The sound is like being under a train. It's unbelievably loud. And of course, the heat. You are right in the heat of the fire and the smell and the taste. So, every one of his senses was taken from one world. A world where it was light, where he could move around to another world without the meta narrative that human beings have, that we're in an age of climate catastrophe." – Danielle Celermajer

 

Danielle Celermajer a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Sydney. She's deputy director of the Sydney Environment Institute and lead of the Multispecies Justice project. Her research focus is on Multispecies Justice, or how the concepts, practices and institutionalization of justice needs to be transformed to take into account ecological realities and the ethical standing of all earth beings.

 

Danielle lives on a multi-species community in rural Australia. She lived through Australia's Black Summer fires in 2019/2020 and wrote a book about them called, Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future. It's a book that should be required reading for the entire world.

 

Please listen, share and read Summertime: Reflections on a Vanishing Future.

 

To learn more go to speciesunite.com

 

"I think we we've prioritized certain things in education and in culture, but we're really deprioritizing curiosity. The joy of going into a research hole and just digging… I still do that every day." – Sonalie Figueiras

 

Sonalie Figueiras is the founder and chief of Green Queen, the award-winning media impact platform advocating for social and environmental change. Green Queen started as a blog in 2011 and now it's Asia's largest plant-based media platform.

 

She is also creating a marketplace to source organic and natural foods. She's the founder of Ekowarehouse, a global sourcing platform for certified organic products, with a mission to make safe, quality food accessible and affordable for the whole planet.

 

I've been following Sonalie and Green Queen for years, it's one of our go-to sources for information and breaking news for all things related to the future of food.

 

Green Queen: https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreenQueenHK

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenqueenhk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenQueenHK/

Eko Warehouse: https://www.ekowarehouse.com/

"… a lot of the platform technologies do not make sense from a food perspective, and there's just never been a reason to do things a different way. So, for example, cell culture is very expensive and very resource intensive because the medical field doesn't really need those things to be done in a very cost-effective manner - because people, have a high cost thresh hold when it comes to paying for their own healthcare and drugs… But it's totally different when we're thinking about food." – Natalie Rubio

- Natalie Rubio

Natalie Rubio recently made history as the first person on the planet to complete a PhD in cellular agriculture, which is the production of animal-sourced foods from cell culture or meat that is grown in a lab without using animals. 

Her thesis: Entomoculture: Insect Cell Cultivation for Cellular Agriculture, makes the case for growing meat from insect cells. (Natalie also coined the term "entomoculture.")

All of the above is beyond exciting for 8 million reasons, for Natalie and for all of humanity. Every milestone in the world of cellular agriculture, academically or as an industry, is a massive step toward building a food system that is sustainable and humane, a food system that does not involve factory farms, slaughterhouses, cruelty, and suffering.

 

"When you talk to the vegan community, you know, it's people who know exactly why they should or shouldn't purchase something. But being able to reach people through design… like why couldn't someone test veganism through fashion before they started with their diet? That's kind of my story."  - Casey Dworkin

 

Casey Dworkin is the founder and designer of plant-based luxury footwear brand Sylven NY .

When I first discovered Casey's boots and shoes, they were half vegan and half animal leather, meaning half their shoes were made from animal leather and then the exact same pairs were available in apple leather.

A couple of years after that, I noticed that all the animal leather shoes and boots were gone, Sylven was now a straight vegan brand. Not only did I want to know what happened and how it happened, but I also really love Sylvan's boots. So I called Casey and asked her to share her story.

"For me, it started with vegan for the environment… I was already working with these plant-based, vegan leathers and wanting to make sure I can lessen my environmental impact through my shoe production. And so I was like, well, why don't I try to reduce the amount of meat and dairy that I consume?

And then through that process, I was like, well, why am I consuming any meat or dairy? Why am I producing with anything leather? And, it brought me down this very positive rabbit hole."

– Casey Dworkin

 "So, you really want the kids to drink the cow's milk because that's the liquid that's available to them if they're thirsty. And we were also told that yeah, you really should be having the kids open up their cow's milk. I went down through all the tables and said, "open up your milk, open up your milk."

Or, I was told, we just won't get our funding because this was a school that was a turnaround school, all the kids are on free lunch. And, so this is how we got our funding as a school. – Monica Chen

Monica Chen is the executive director of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, an organization that educates and empowers individuals and communities to support just and sustainable food systems. Meaning they go into schools, colleges and universities and the truth about where their food comes from.

By educating young people about factory farming and equipping them with the tools to oppose it, Factory Farming Awareness Coalition builds both an inclusive consumer base as well as an informed citizenry that supports cultural and legislative change for the benefit of all. To date, FFAC has reached over 220,000 students are building an army of kids with a mission to change food systems all over the country.  

"Within a month of our investigation's release, we had some amazing news. The French government passed legislation to ban fur farms in France. In 2017, it was an issue which was not really on the public agenda, but within four years we have stopped an industry in France. Hundreds of thousands of animals don't have to be killed each year, don't have to live in these small cages going crazy each year. It's a success and it's something that we feel proud to have been part of."  - Gemunu de Silva

Gem is back!

Gemunu de Silva is the co-founder of Tracks Investigations. He is filmmaker and an activist who's been investigating and documenting animal rights abuses since the 1980s. Tracks has just completed over 260 investigative film projects. That is an astonishing number of investigations. 35 animal rights and protection organizations have benefited from their work in 57 countries.

Gem has been on the podcast before. I asked him to come back to talk about some of Track's most recent successes. There are many. The work that Gem has done for the past three and a half decades has changed laws, minds and the world for millions of animals.

"I think every time we release a story, there's this sense of like almost like legal danger, the legal implications that can come from releasing stories. We've had times wherea story has been released and we haven't slept that night because we're scared of what the repercussions are going to be." - Amy Jones, Moving Animals

Amy Jones and Paul Healey are the founders of Moving Animals, a photojournalism and media project that connects the world to animals stories through photography, film, and journalism.

Amy is a photojournalist and writer. Paul is a journalist and he's responsible for Moving Animals' video content. Their work has allowed people to see for themselves animal and human rights injustices that are happening globally.

Only when people are made aware of injustice, do they take action to stop it. Amy and Paul have brought massive awareness to the masses who have in turn, fought injustice all over the world. What they do is not only a powerful agent for change, it's an essential one.

Amy and Paul are a very essential part of the team at Species Unite. Paul is our news editor and Amy is a writer, editor, campaign manager, tech person, social media person, and any other person who we need in that moment. She wears many hats. I'm grateful every single day to have Amy and Paul on the team.

There are also two of the kindest human beings that I've ever had the privilege to know.

Jane Velez Mitchell the founder of Jane Unchained, a media platform for vegan and animal rights news. Her decades long career as a broadcast journalist has focused on bringing animal rights issues to the forefront.

For six years she hosted her own show on CNN Headline News, where she ran a weekly segment on animal issues. Previously, Velez-Mitchell reported for the nationally syndicated Warner Brothers/Telepictures show Celebrity Justice, where she did numerous stories on animal issues championed by celebrities.

Jane's also an author of four books and a producer of the award-winning documentary Countdown to Year Zero and the vegan cooking series New Day, New Chef.

Mainstream media has always skirted around animal rights issues and I wanted to hear how Jane brought them mainstream at a time when it wasn't as popular to do so. And I wanted to know what she thinks about where we're headed in the future.

"We didn't want to start a Chimp sanctuary. I mean, it's the most extreme really… they're the most, at least in my mind, they're just so socially complex and their needs are so complex and they don't really go back to the wild - ever. And they live, to 50 or 60 years old and they have very complicated social groups. It's a lot. It's a lifetime… So, we were like, that's not what we want to do. So here we are. That's what we did."

Jenny Desmond

Jenny's interest in wildlife rescue and protection was sparked during a trip around the world at an orangutan sanctuary in Indonesia. Since then, she and Jimmy have lived in many countries throughout Africa and Asia and have worked with monkeys, gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees. And, until they lost her this past year, their dog, Princess worked right alongside them.

In 2015, the Desmonds got a call from the Humane Society of the US, that 66 former laboratory research chimps had been abandoned on some islands in Liberia — could they help? Soon after they arrived (and helped), it became very clear to them that there was a much bigger chimpanzee problem happening throughout Liberia.

Currently the Liberia Chimp Rescue and Protection is home to 73 orphaned chimps and not only are the Desmonds and their incredible team mothering and caring for 73 babies, they are also working to end the bushmeat and pet trades that are creating so many orphans in the first place.

Western Chimpanzees are on the critically endangered list. Their population has declined by 80 percent is the past 24 years. At this rate, they will soon be gone. And, it's not just the bushmeat and pet trades pushing the chimps toward the extinction list – it's the fact that their habitat is getting smaller by the day.

With much grace and humor, Jenny shares what it means to ensure that the chimpanzees in her care thrive, and what we need to do to get behind her so that these animals don't disappear.

Species Unite will be back with a brand new season next Thursday the 28th. Until then, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Josh Balk.

"The time to begin phasing out the intensive confinement systems in which we raise billions of animals is now. We need to accelerate society's direction of reducing demand for meat from animal factory farms and shift instead to more of an emphasis on healthier — and safer — plant-based foods. As our population grows, plant-based foods are also more sustainable and affordable for societies globally.

Unless we — especially legislators and the food industry — make changes immediately, the concerning practices in animal agribusiness will remain. Only in transforming our food system can we eliminate the tinderbox ready to explode in our country. We can't afford to wait."

- Josh Balk and Dr. Shivam Yoshi, Pandemic on Our Plates

Social distancing is the key to slowing the spread of COVID-19. We know this. It has worked and is still working. But, we also know that in this unsettling time, a time where we are fully aware that staying apart does indeed save lives, just the opposite is taking place at factory farms and meat processing plants all across America. Slaughterhouses are being forced to stay open and their workers must remain in close proximity to one another to be able to get their jobs done. And, they are getting sick and they are dying.

And, on factory farms, billions of animals are "living" in cramped, filthy, overcrowded spaces with almost no room to move their antibiotic-fueled bodies - conditions that are creating a perfect storm for the next zoonotic disease to emerge and spread. This threat is nothing new, as diseases have already come from factory farms - we've just gotten lucky in terms of their spread. But the clock is ticking.

Josh Balk has been a global leader in animal protection for the past 20 years. He is the Vice President of Farm Animal Protection for the Humane Society of the United States, and he's the co-founder of plant-based, food manufacturing company, JUST, as in JUST Mayo and my favorite invention of the 21st century, JUST Egg.

Josh has spent a couple of decades focusing on and fighting against extreme confinement on America's factory farms: confinement practices like cramming many chickens into small battery cages for their entire lives, and days old calves in tiny veal crates where they can barely move, and keeping mother pigs in gestation crates (small metal cages that fit around their bodies like steel coffins). These are some of the cruelest practices on the planet and they are the status quo at factory farms in most American states.

Josh and his team have scored huge victories on changing animal welfare policies at some of the world's largest companies and by changing legislation in many states. But there's still a long way and a lot of states to go. And, there are still billions of animals suffering.

And, right now, while we are in the midst of a public health crisis that started because of how we treat animals, we need to demand that our food industry change; otherwise we're setting ourselves up for a much larger crisis.

Josh is a hero and a world changer, and many humans and millions of animals are lucky to have this guy in their corner.

Species Unite will be back with a brand new season on October 28th.  For now, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Liza Heavener.

"There would be some mornings that the indigenous tribal leaders would take us out into virgin rainforest… [I was] like, "no human has ever stood here before."

And it was alive with, I mean, you name the animal… and it was loud full and of life. And they would take us out the very next day and it was just smoldering because it had been slashed and burned illegally in the middle of the night. And it was just completely quiet except for what was left of the fire. 

And that that changes you."

-     Liza Heavener

Liza's story is one of my favorites. 

She spent a decade working in federal politics, grassroots and campaign strategy and with the United States Congress. Liza was a healthcare lobbyist for a large membership organization, running their national advocacy program to engage hundreds of thousands of advocates across the country. 

Then, she won a contest to work on a documentary and tv series in Borneo. Liza went there for what she thought would be 100 days, but ended up staying for the next year. While she was there, her world turned upside down. And what came out of it is this force of a woman who has dedicated herself to creating a better planet for everyone who lives on it, not just the humans. 

Liza is the Chief Operating Officer at NEXUS Global and she chairs the Nexus Working Group on Animal Welfare and Biodiversity Conservation, which is dedicated to educating, empowering and connecting Next-Gen impact investors, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs. 

She also serves as an Advisor to the Millennial Action Project and as a Vice Chair of the Alumni Council for Eastern Mennonite University. Liza had a feature role in the internationally-acclaimed documentary and tv series, "Rise of the Eco-Warrior," and has spoken at conferences across the country.

"There's this hidden curriculum, right? With dissection you're supposed to be learning the anatomy, the physiology of a particular animal. But really, what students are learning is that these animals are meaningless. They're basically just a tool for you to cut into and then discard after you're done with your so-called learning." – Nicole Green

 

 In US schools, kids dissect on millions of animals - frogs, dogs, cats, pigs and many other species and none of it is necessary. We have solutions and alternatives that are far better than cutting up dead animals.

 

Nicole Green is the director of Animalearn, a national advocacy program that helps educators and students find innovative, non-animal science teaching resources. For over 20 years Nicole has worked to enlighten the public about the latest technology that is available in the science education sector, including AR/VR.

 

Nicole and Animalearn are bringing these solutions to teachers, schools and kids all over the country.

 

If you want to learn more, or rent free, humane alternatives for your classroom, go to the Science Bank.

 

Species Unite will be back with a brand new season on October 28th. Today, we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes, a conversation with Milo Runkle.

The only way to help animals is to help people. It's humans that need to change, not animals. And I think it's the same way when we're talking about other issues in our society. It's about healing those who are causing violence, and it oftentimes can be easy to judge and persecute and sort of push aside people that are causing harm. It's more challenging to love them and to lead by example and to believe that everyone is doing the best that they can with what they have and what they know in that moment.

- Milo Runkle 

Some humans come out of the womb with a mission imprinted into their very being. Not often, but it happens. Milo Runkle is one of those humans. He was born in rural Ohio, delivered by his veterinarian father, and from the very earliest of his days, he knew he would change the world for animals. 

He was one of those kids who had a deep empathy for any creature that he encountered, an empathy that I think most of us have as children, but sadly are talked out of by well-meaning (and very well-conditioned) adults. Instead of being talked out of anything, Milo held on tightly, and rather than experiencing the slow, albeit unconscious, leak of animal-connected compassion that too many humans experience, his only grew.

He became vegetarian at 11, and vegan at 15, which was the same year that he founded Mercy for Animals; which would later become the world's largest farm animal and vegan advocacy organization, an international powerhouse that has indeed changed the world for millions of cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish.

It all started because of an animal abuse case at his local high school. He saw abuse and injustice, and did something about it. 

Milo ran Mercy for Animals for nearly two decades, and is still involved - he is the Board Chair. Since leaving his role as the President, he has started a new chapter: one that involves deep exploration - of the planet, of himself, and of what it means to live a life of service that is rooted in joy, love, and compassion.

He is also the cofounder of the Good Food Institute, an organization that works to build a sustainable food system by supporting the development and adoption of plant and cell based proteins. 

And, he is the author of Mercy for Animals. One Man's Quest to Inspire Compassion and Improve the Lives of Farm Animals.

Milo and I spoke about what it was like to sustain decades of activism on the frontlines, what his life has looked like since, and his ever-widening circle of compassion.

"My family was really suffering from all types of diet related health issues. I had an aunt who had multiple amputations before it took her life because of type two diabetes. I had a 40-year-old uncle who had a heart attack. My grandpa, who helped raise me, died of complications in a triple bypass surgery.

All over the place there was suffering and it's really hard to, not feel like you have not the answer, but the direction to go in to reclaim your health, and not be taken seriously." – Toni Okamoto

Species unite is starting our 30 Day Vegan Challenge tomorrow. So, if you haven't signed up for it, sign up (you can actually sign up any time during October and it will start you at day one). It's 30 days of recipes, tips, information on all things plant-based and if you're already vegan sign up anyway, because there's really good information and recipe ideas. If you have no interest in ever being vegan, sign up and do it for 10 days. See what it's like.

To kick off the 30 Day Vegan Challenge, we couldn't think of a better guest than Toni Okamoto. She is the founder of Plant-Based on a Budget, the website and meal plan that shows you how to save money while eating plant-based. Check it out, there are close to a thousand incredible recipes and delicious weekly meal-plans that will make the Vegan Challenge a whole lot less challenging.

Toni is also the author of the Plant-Based on a Budget cookbook and the coauthor of the Friendly Vegan Cookbook with Michelle Kane. She and Michelle also hosts the Plant Powered People Podcast.

Toni is a regular on local and national morning shows across the country, where she teaches viewers how to break their meat habit without breaking their budget. She was also featured in the popular documentary What the Health.

"Let me tell you, there were no bounties when wildlife management became a discipline and it's never been a part of wildlife management, but, but these are the crazy kooks at the absolute extreme of the hunting spectrum. And they got together and held fundraisers and started giving out thousand-dollar bounties on wolves." – Erik Molvar

Eric Molvar is the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project. He was on the podcast recently to talk about the wild horse crisis in the American West. Today, he is back to talk about wolves and the wolf wars that are happening in the West, especially in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Eric and the Western watersheds project recently authored a petition to the U S Fish and Wildlife service that was jointly submitted by 70 conservation and wildlife groups, to relist wolves back on the endangered species list.

And, it made it through the first pass – meaning Fish and Wildlife will initiate a comprehensive status review, but it could last a year or more.

Let's hope it passes because in the meanwhile its open season on wolves in the West….

"So, the irony is that meat that people are so obsessed about their cat needing… Yeah, in the wild cats needs meat because in the wild, that meat is a source of the nutrients that a cat needs. But on a commercial bag of pet food, those nutrients, those core key nutrients that the cat needs, they're not coming from the meat, they're coming from the pre-mix that is largely a synthetic mix of vitamins and minerals that have been lost from the meat." – Shannon Falconer

Shannon Falconer is the CEO and co-founder of Because, Animals,  a pet food company that is making cultured meat for our cats and dogs. Their first cultured meat product, Harmless Hunt Mouse Cookies for Cats, will be on the market in 2022. They are made with real mouse meat that is grown in a lab. No mice are hurt in the process. In fact, the cells that were used to make these cookies and all mouse treats at Because, Animals going forward are the only cells that they will ever need. The original mice are happily living as pets with one of the Because, Animal's scientists.

Cats and dogs eat more than 25 percent of the meat consumed in the US; which also means that petfood is responsible for more than quarter of the environmental impact caused by animal agriculture.

There are plant-based pets foods but most American pets eat commercial dog and cat food, which often and mostly uses byproduct - meaning the parts of animals that people don't want, the heads, the bones, the blood or they use the meat that can't legally be sold for human consumption because the animal was dying or diseased.

Because, Animals is going to change all of that one product at a time. Their mouse cookies are just the beginning.

Nothing excites me more than cellular agriculture. And, it might take longer than most of us would like, but it's happening… Eat Just's chicken nuggets are being sold in Singapore and now, here comes the pet food. It's the very beginning of a whole new food system, one that will eventually take down every last factory farm and slaughterhouse on Earth. Here we go…

"…because animal advocacy has now escaped advocacy and is entering different types of work, really science-oriented work…  maybe that was all it took in the first place. We just had such limited roles in the traditional sense of animal advocacy before. Because it was so communications driven…

And so that's another reason why I'm so proud of how this field has developed is I think we've turned people into animal advocates by creating jobs that let that happen.

It's such a special thing to be part of." Isha Datar

Isha Datar is the executive director of New Harvest, the global nonprofit that Isha is executive director of New Harvest, a nonprofit research institute that funds open, public cultured meat research.

In 2010 while still an undergrad, Isha wrote a paper called "Possibilities for an in vitro meat production system." This was among the few papers to ever discuss cultured meat in academic literature and a few years before anyone had tasted the world's first cultivated meat ball. It was the beginning of Isha's quest to establish the field of animal products made without using any animals.

Isha has been executive director of New Harvest since 2013. She's also co-founded Muufri (now Perfect Day Foods), where they make milk without cows and Clara Foods, where they make eggs without chicken.

In 2015, Isha coined the term "cellular agriculture" — officially creating a category for agriculture products produced from cell cultures rather than whole plants or animals.

Cellular agriculture is the future of food and Isha is one of its greatest pioneers.

"…based on my personal experience and having worked with scientists and researchers most of my life, I would say that it's not too late. There are some things that are probably gone. There are places where only pockets of biodiversity may remain in the time ahead, but that doesn't mean we can't still have a healthy future. It may not be what it once was, but it's like the old saying - when's the best day to quit smoking cigarettes? Today - if you don't quit today, when's the next best day? Tomorrow. 

So, it's not too late. We may have lost 50% of the world's coral reefs, but that means there's 50% left. We may have taken 90% of the big fish in the ocean, but maybe there's 10% left. We don't have to kill 100 million sharks every year. We don't have to rollback legislation that determines how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere. We can speak out against that and tell our elected leaders that we care. The ocean doesn't have to turn acidic because we're dumping so much carbon into it that its chemistry is changing.

These are things that we can change and can control. So, I do remain cautiously optimistic. I realize that the battle lines are drawn and we have to fight hard, but I do think that it's worth fighting for. It's not too late. And we can see a reversal in the places that have been protected. You do see that resilience. The ocean does know how to take care of itself. We just need to leave it alone…"

-Brian Skerry

Since it's the last week of summer, not officially but for most of us, we are re-sharing this very important and compelling conversation with Brian Skerry.

Brian Skerry is one of the world's greatest and most accomplished underwater and marine wildlife photographers. He's also one of the most prolific: he's been a contract photographer for National Geographic since 1998, his work has been featured in scores of publications including Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and BBC Wildlife, and he's the author of 11 books including the acclaimed monographs Ocean Soul and Shark.

In that time he's won so many awards that it would take a second email to list them all, but particular highpoints include Brian becoming an 11-time award winner in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and when National Geographic magazine named one of his images among their 50 Greatest Photographs Of All Time.

In his four decades exploring the world's oceans, Brian has experienced things that very few humans will ever get to experience, like diving with a population of southern right whales who had never before encountered human beings dropping down into their underwater universe. 

Brian dives eight months of the year, often in extreme conditions - beneath Arctic ice or in shark-infested waters.

His work brings us the beauty and the majesty of our oceans, but it also shows us the devastation and the destruction that we've caused them. His stories raise awareness, promote conservation, and ultimately create change.

Today, June 8th, is World Oceans Day, the day to celebrate the world's combined efforts to protect the one ocean that we all share. And that ocean is in bad shape - between dead zones, loss of apex predators, rising sea levels affecting tidal ecosystems, the bleaching of coral reefs, oil spills polluting the waters and decimating habitats, overfishing and hunting of marine species, climate change, rising acidity levels, and plastic, plastic and more plastic - the ocean's future seems extremely bleak. But, as I learned from Brian, there's still time. Our ocean is resilient and there is so much left that we can save, but we have to act now.

And, I can't imagine a better day to begin than World Oceans Day. So, start by listening to Brian, one of the best tellers of ocean stories out there.

This week we are re-sharing one of our favorite episodes - a conversation with Carl Safina about beauty, wonder and why animals matter.

"Beings who've succeeded on earth for millions of years, don't seek, and should not require, our approval. They belong as well as we do. We do ourselves no favors by asking whether their existence is worth our while. We are hardly in a position to judge, hurdling and lurching along as we are with no goal, no plan except: bigger, faster, more. 

If we had the courage to be honest about it, we would have to admit that whales and birds and apes and all the rest live fully up to everything of which they are capable. And we, regrettably, fall short of doing that. For them, to be is enough. For us in the isolating alienation of our title retreat from Life, nothing is enough. It is strange how dissatisfied we insist on being, when there is so much of the world to know and love."

 Carl Safina, Becoming Wild 

Carl Safina grew up raising pigeons on a rooftop in Brooklyn and hasn't stopped interacting with the wild since. He is an ecologist and author who writes extensively about our human relationship with the natural world and what we can do to make it better. 

 First step: we need to care. 

Carl's books make us care. He advocates for every living creature out there, and is always graciously pointing out why animals matter, not only why they matter to us, but why they matter to themselves - something I'm pretty certain that most humans don't think about often enough. 

In his most recent book Becoming Wild, How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty and Achieve Peace, Carl travels around the planet, exploring the cultures of chimpanzees in Uganda, sperm whales in the Caribbean, and Scarlet macaws in Peru. He shows us how other species teach and learn, and what life looks like in their animal societies, which is often as astonishing as it is spectacularly beautiful. 

His writing has won several awards, including a MacArthur Genius Prize, Pew and Guggenheim fellowships, and the John Burrows, James Beard, and George Rabb metals.

He is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and the founding president of the not for profit, Safina Center. He also hosted the PBS series, Saving the Ocean. 

 "It made me feel like I wished that I had some sort of a super power, so that I could just picked them up and take them somewhere safe. But unfortunately, I'm not strong enough to have done that. So what I did was decide, at 11 years old, that I was going to commit my life to safeguarding the species… that I'll do everything in my power." – Jamal Galves

Jamal Galves grew up in a small village in Belize that's famous for its Manatee population. When he was 11 years old, he saw a research boat near his home and got curious. He asked the scientists if he could tag along on their expedition, and for some reason they said yes. And, they let him come back the next day and again and again for next five years, until finally, when he was 16, they gave him a job.

Now, 20 years later, he is the program coordinator for the Belize Manatee Conservation Program at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute.  

Jamal sees it as his life's mission to protect and save these gentle giants. Antillean manatees are a vulnerable species and their population is dwindling. They face numerous threats, from habitat loss, hunting, boat collisions, fishing gear, and natural disasters. Jamal's work provides science and education to conserve them and provides the data for establishing sanctuaries, reducing watercraft speed limits, and fighting poaching.

Jamal made a promise to the manatees when he was a little kid and not a day has passed since that he hasn't lived up to it.

"It's kind of like light… you flick a light switch on in the room and when you flip that switch, what you want is the experience of a lit room. You're not thinking about whether it comes from renewable energy or fossil fuels. You just want light. Well, I think most people just want meat. They don't care if animals are slaughtered. In fact, they probably would prefer that they not be slaughtered for it." – Paul Shapiro

Paul is the founder and CEO of the Better Meat Co., an alternative protein company that is replacing animals in our food supply. He's also the author of, Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World.

Paul spent the first two-plus decades of his career in animal protection. First, he founded and ran the animal protection organization, Compassion Over Killing, which is now called Animal Outlook, and then he spent 13 years at the Humane Society of the United States, working to give farmed animals better lives. He changed laws and the world for massive amounts of animals across this county.

And then he had a realization… that food technology would save far more lives than anything else possibly ever could.

Tuesday, August 10th is World Lion Day, so we are re-sharing this conversation with Beverly and Derek Joubert.

"When we were born, there were 450,000 lions, and today there are 20,000 lines. So that's a ninety-five percent decline. There were 750,000 leopards, and now maybe 45,000 leopards left. Cheetah numbers have dropped below 7,000. Tigers have had a little bit of a resurgence, but still under 5,000 and that's really worrying.

We could lose a lot of these animals in the next 10 or 15 years"   - Derek Joubert 

Are we being the best version of ourselves? That's a question that Beverly and Dereck Joubert asked quite often during this conversation and also one that they seem to live by. It's embedded into their work, their lives, their relationships - with each other, the wilderness, and the planet; as if the question floats above their heads as a gentle reminder of who they want to be in the world. And, the continual asking of that question shows in everything that they do, fight for, love, and are actively trying to save.

They are award-winning filmmakers, National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence, and wildlife conservationists who have made over 30 films while researching, exploring, and doing vital conservation work throughout Africa for nearly four decades.

They also happen to have what could possibly be the best love story of our time. They have been together for nearly 40 years and the great majority of it has been spent living in the bush in Botswana, making films, doing research, and fighting to save what's left of the African wilderness and the large predators who inhabit it. For months and years at a time they've lived without electricity, without much human interaction, without many comforts, nor personal space – things that most couples have a difficult time managing over a week long glamping trip. They've been doing it for 38 years.

Living in the bush for decades has included many death defying close calls, including what they simply refer to as the "incident" with a wounded (therefore angry) cape buffalo that nearly ended it all. Fortunately, everyone survived and after an 8 month stint in the hospital for Beverly, they returned to the bush and began filming again – at the exact place where the attack occurred. Did I mention that they are a little tougher than most of us?

Their love story, like all of the good ones, is about something much bigger than themselves. It's a story about Africa, the wilderness, the wild animals who live there, and it's about fighting the biggest fight of our time, to save what's left of this majestic planet.

In the last 50 years, Africa has lost 90 to 95 percent of its large predators. We could very well witness the end of wild lions, cheetahs and other big cats in a decade or two. It's that urgent and we are in that much trouble. If we want to live in a world with lions and leopards and elephants and rhinos, then we've got to get behind those who are out there on the front lines.

Beverly and Dereck are not only out there, but they've documented it for decades, so that we can see and understand the African wilderness in all of its magnificent glory and so that we know exactly what's at stake, what we are about to lose.

Their most recent film was released in October. It's a three part series called: Okavango, A River of Dreams. It's a heartbreakingly beautiful journey through the place they've called home since the beginning.

"We live so disconnected from the natural world, and many people live much more disconnected than I am because I've made the natural world my life, my work. But if it's still surprising me and we live so disconnectedly, why is that? Because these owls have been here, all these other creatures have been here since before we got here. They're a normal part of the world. And yet what they do and what they can do, what they're capable of, is so surprising. Why is it so surprising? Why don't we know? Is it a limitation of our human intelligence and our human emotional capacity, or are we taught our disconnection?" - Carl Safina

 

Carl Safina is an ecologist and author who writes extensively about our human relationship with the natural world and what we can do to make it better. 

His most recent book is called, Alife and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe. It's about rescuing a baby owl, watching her grow up, and what he learned from her and himself in the process. And, it's about our relationship with nature and the beauty and the magic that surrounds us. 

His writing has won several awards, including a MacArthur Genius Prize, Pew and Guggenheim fellowships, and the John Burrows, James Beard, and George Rabb metals.

He is the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University and the founding president of the not for profit, The Safina Center.

"It is not hyperbole to say that livestock grazing on Western public lands is the single biggest and most important environmental impact that does the most damage. And, also causes the most widespread impact of any of the things that damage public lands, including oil and gas development, including strip mining and mountaintop removal, including, damming, the rivers. Livestock raising is the most pervasive and the most ecologically harmful - and it's everywhere."  - Erik Molvar

 

 

In the United States, we have around 80,000 wild horses living on Western public lands. For decades, there's been a battle between the people who want these horses to stay and roam freely and the people who want them gone. Many of the people who want them gone are either a part of, or connected to the cattle industry.And, the agency that makes these decisions, whether the horses stay or go, is the Bureau of Land Management, the BLM.

There are herds living on public lands throughout the Western United States. And one of, or maybe the most, beloved herd is the Onaqui. They live in Utah, around 60 miles from Salt Lake City. Because they're close to a city, people visit them often. The horses have become accustomed to a human audience, so they don't flee when they see humans. They trust them. Or at least they did until a couple of weeks ago when 435 of these majestic and very free horses were rounded up with helicopters by the BLM.

124 of them will become part of a birth control program and be released to the wild. But the other 300 will be put in a government holding facility. Eventually some might get adopted, but many will remain and holding for years. These roundups happen all the time, but the Onaqui roundup got a lot of publicity because these horses were so adored.

The BLM's reason for rounding up our horses is that they degrade public lands when the herds get too large. Now these same lands are rented for use for millions and millions of cattle and sheep. The horses are a teeny tiny fraction of animals that live on that land.

Today's conversation is with Eric Molvar. He is not a wild horse advocate. He's a wildlife biologist and the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, a nonprofit conservation group dedicated to protecting and restoring wildlife and watersheds across the American West. I asked Eric to come onto the show so that I could better understand how and why these roundups continue to happen.

"You can't get to a point where you're so sensitive that you don't call out cruelty and torture when you see it, whether it's to a human being or to the planet or to an animal, you can't just stay silent, but you have to approach in the right way."      N -Nina Jackel

Nina Jackel is an activist and journalist and the founder and president of Lady Freethinker, a media organization that provides news and grassroots action for a free and compassionate world - for every species.

In 2013 Lady Freethinker was a blog written by Nina for a handful of readers. Those readers soon multiplied and today, Lady Freethinker is a media and news organization with a team of writers and millions of readers. Their investigations and campaigns have led to major animal cruelty victories across the globe.

Nina is a relentless force in the fight for justice for animals but she also has huge empathy for humans and the sometimes slow process it can be for them to get fully on board.

"And then a letter arrived in the mail. It was from a woman who had heard about my work to help zoo animals. She said, 'there's these two bears living in a cage in the town near my house. It's on a creek that floods every year. It's horrible conditions. I have no idea what to do. Can you help?'

I don't think she knew that I was a 13-year-old." – Justin Barker

Justin is an activist, a director, a producer, and the author of Bear Boy, The True Story of a Boy, Two Bears and the Fight to Be Free. When Justin was 13 years old, he started an organization called Citizens Lobbying for Animals in Zoos. And at 13, he created real change for captive animals, and not long after someone contacted him about two bears living in a wretched conditions in Northern California.

Justin spent the next three years fighting to save these bears. Although his book is a young adult novel, it is a book that I think everyone should read. Justin is an example and inspiration of how one person can create enormous impact. And the fact that that person was 13 years old is all the more compelling.

"So, we had 87 women come in for what we call pre-selection, the interviews... And I can say that after all the shit that I've been through in my life, that was some of the hardest two days of my life, listening to those stories. And, it was hard in a way because they were genuinely tough stories, but it was also hard in a way to know that even though I hadn't done anything directly to these women, I was part of a culture that had kept women just like this oppressed, the boys club, the macho club, all that sort of thing. And just part of, I suppose, this macho culture." - Damien Mander

Damien was on the show in December and the sound was horrendous. He was in the bush in Zimbabwe and I was in NYC and our connection was bad. We redid the interview last week, in person, in NYC - and it's sounds like a dream…

Damien Mander is the founder and CEO of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF).

He is a former Australian Royal Navy clearance diver and a special operations military sniper who became an anti-poaching crusader and an environmental and animal welfare activist.

In 2009, while travelling through Africa, he was inspired by the work of rangers and the plight of wildlife. He liquidated his life savings and established the International Anti-Poaching Foundation.

Over the past decade the IAPF has scaled to train and support rangers which now help protect over 20 million acres of African wilderness. 

In 2017 Damien founded 'Akashinga - Nature Protected by Women,' an IAPF program that has already grown to over 240 employees with 7 nature reserves in the portfolio. They are the only group of nature reserves in the world to be protected by women. And, these women are changing the game in terms of what it means to fight poaching.

Damien was featured in the James Cameron documentary The Game Changers and has now released another documentary with James Cameron and National Geographic about his work with the women of Akashinga – "The Brave One's."

He is a resident on the National Geographic Speakers Bureau, has spoken at the United Nations, featured in June 2019's National Geographic Magazine, and has been featured three times on 60 Minutes. And, if you haven't seen it, watch his TEDx Talk at the Sidney Oprah House, it's just awesome.

 

It was an honor to spend time with Damien. He is a warrior, a hero and a man who understands what it means to never stop evolving.

Planted. Not Buried. That is how Eric Adams has chosen to see himself through the darkest moments of his life.

The first occurred at age 15, when he and his brother were beaten by the police. Four years later he became a police officer and spent the next 22 years on the force, working to help reform NYC policing from the inside. He retired as a captain and now he serves as the President of the Borough that I call home - Brooklyn.

Yes, Brooklyn has a President, an incredibly busy and very much in demand President. Eric has spent most of 2020 on the frontlines; most recently the frontlines of the protests against police brutality and systemic racism and, during the months that Brooklyn was a COVID-19 hotspot, he spent his days handing out PPE to hospital workers and plant based meals to residents in need of a meal.

Plant based because he has personally experienced the health benefits of a vegan diet. In 2016, he cured his own diabetes and partial blindness by making the switch. Since then he's been on a mission to implement plant based diets and nutrition in hospitals, schools, prisons, and communities all over New York City.

Eric is a man who gives much more to the world than he takes from it. After my brief time with him, I found myself wanting to be and do much better. His graciousness, generosity, and desire to look for the opportunities are qualities that this world could use a whole lot more of. As a resident of Brooklyn, I feel extremely lucky and proud to have Eric running the show around here.

 

"…by the way, today, there might be an ick factor associated with it, but there might come a day that people will wonder, why are we drinking other species milks… If you have access to the real thing or the stuff that's in the real thing. I mean, it's these special proteins…  these amazing different complex sugars and proteins that are found in human milk that are super valuable." - Max Rye

Max Rye spent more than 15 years helping businesses scale with technology. He was the CEO of a Silicon Valley tech company and at the time, had no plans to nor thoughts of being at be at the forefront of transforming the entire global dairy industry.

But, that's what happened…

He was speaking at Google headquarters in Singapore, when someone from the audience said to him, "I'm looking for milk that doesn't come from cows and I know that people in San Francisco are making things with cells, why not milk?" That someone was Fengru Lin and she and Max are now the co-founders of Turtle Tree Labs.

Turtle Tree labs is using cell-based technology to create all kinds of milk, from snow leopard and elephant milk to cow and human milk. And they have big plans for the human milk, bigger than just infant formula.

As you can imagine, human milk is like a superfood with a lot of special proteins and complex sugars that just can't be found anywhere else.

And Turtle Tree Labs is working around the clock to put it on the market.

The future is here and it's getting kinder by the day.

Edwina Von Gal is a landscape designer and an indomitable steward of the planet. 

She spent her career designing landscapes for the rich and famous and collaborating with architects and artists like Maya Lin, Richard Serra, and Frank Gehry.

A little over a decade ago, Edwina had an epiphany about the chemicals that we are pouring into our lawns, landscapes, and backyards. She decided right then that it would become her life's mission to change the way that we treat our land and founded the Perfect Earth Project, a nonprofit that promotes toxin-free lawns and landscapes.

A few years ago, she expanded the mission. We are losing our birds at an alarming rate. Since the seventies, the United States has lost a third of our bird population. So, to combat the great bird decline, Edwina started Two-Thirds for the Birds, a campaign to bring our birds back. And the way to do that is to dedicate two thirds of all plantings to native plants and to commit to going toxin free.

This conversation took place at Edwina's spectacular home that sits on stilts atop a salt marsh. It was a gift to speak with Edwina about her mission, to learn about the history of chemicals and what we've done to our land, and to hear her remarkable stories, all while being surrounded by many many birds.

Derek Sarno is a chef and a rockstar in the vegan world and he's on a mission to inspire you to cook and eat more plants.

He's the Director of Plant-Based Innovation for Tesco PLC, and the Developer/Co-Founder of Wicked Kitchen. He helps lead Tesco's plant-based team and the initiative to bring delicious, unpretentious plant-based foods to mainstream market.

Derek and his brother Chad are the founders of Wicked Healthy, LLC., Wicked Foods inc. and Good Catch Foods.

Prior to Tesco, Derek served as the Senior Global Executive Chef for Whole Foods Market, where he oversaw global recipe development for the company's healthy eating initiative, worked with suppliers and leadership to develop and promote plant-based foods across the organization, and served as Culinary Director for the Whole Foods Academy for Conscious Leadership.

Derek is a serial entrepreneur, founding several award-winning restaurants and food service companies in the United States. 

Derek is the co-author of the Whole Foods cookbook, and the Wicked Healthy Cookbook.

His journey has been fueled by curiosity and compassion, some of which he gained while living in a Buddhist monastery in Upstate New York, where he served as resident Chef & Gardener.

Derek's story is all about expansion and his life is an example of what it means to never stop evolving.

"If we fast forward, let's say to 2025, I think you're going to see a lot of companies in the marketplace using mushroom-based products to create alternatives to things like meat and chicken and within food. And then also alternatives within textiles to things like silk, leather and packaging for things like Styrofoam and plastic and so on.

So, I'm very much a… what do you call it? Maybe, a fungo fanatic. I don't know if there's a phrase for that, but I am totally a believer in all things fungi."

-Michael Pellman Rowland

Michael Pellman Rowland is a financial advisor. He's made many appearances on Species Unite - this was his fourth time coming on the show. He and I spoke about the Oatley IPO - amongst many other enormous wins in the plant, cell, and mushroom-based worlds.

Swedish vegan company, Oatly went public on May 20th. The company's initial public offering (IPO) raised $1.4 billion and its share prices (which were initially set at $17 per share) spiked by 30 percent on the first day of trading. This is the second milestone for plant-based companies going public, after Beyond Meat a few years ago.

The future of food is already here and fortunately, it's happening much faster than many predicted.

Michael is our go-to guru when it comes to the big wins for meat and dairy alternatives. He's a wealth of knowledge and information and he's a stellar human being. I learned a ton in this conversation, I hope that you do too.

"During the time he was on the run, Stark did this Facebook live where he railed against the judges, officials, animal rights, activists. He claimed that together, all of these people had conspired to deny him the right to own and breed exotic animals. He taunted law enforcement. He waved a hand grenade in front of his phone. Keep in mind, he's driving down the highway during this hour-long Facebook live. And he was also saying that he was willing to die for what he believed in." – Sharon Guynup

Sharon Guynup is a journalist, author and a National Geographic Explorer. Her most recent article in National Geographic, 'Tiger King' stars' legal woes could transform cub-petting industry, focuses on the five stars of the docu-series, The Tiger King and what's happened to them since the show premiered last March.

Sharon's been on the podcast before, the last time was a couple of months before the pandemic and before the Tiger King took over the world. She and her partner, photographer, Steve Winter had spent two years investigating tigers in the United States, for a 30 page piece called, The Tiger Next Door, for December 2019's issue of National Geographic. It involves the criminal underworld, wildlife trafficking, murder, and thousands of captive tigers living sad pathetic lives all over the USA. America has a serious problem with captive wildlife, and what we've done to tigers is cruel, dangerous, and absolutely unnecessary. 

Since then, and since the Tiger King, much has changed, not only for tigers in the US, but for the majority of the stars of the show. Most of them are either in court, prison, or have had their animals seized or are dealing with a combination of all three.

Sharon is a hero for tigers. She has been reporting on them for years, mostly tigers in the wild, until 2016, when her investigation into the famed Thai Tiger Temple for National Geographic published strong allegations of illegal wildlife trade, causing Thai officials to confiscate the 147 tigers living at the temple and shut the operation down. 

From there, she moved onto to the tiger disaster in the US. Every time one of these owners of roadside zoos and tiger petting attractions go down, the future looks better for tigers, but it's not over. There are ways to combat the crisis right now. The first is to not participate in any wildlife tourism that includes selfies with wildlife or any type of handling of wild animals, and the second is to get behind and support The Big Cat Safety Act.

"One after another, citizens came up. And they just hammered that council with additional concerns. You know, one of the guys, his place is 500ft from there. He's like, 'what do you think this is going to do to me, to my family? How dare you expose me and my family and this community! None of you all live around there. How could you have not brought this to a vote?' A woman got up and started talking about the research modernization deal. Another woman got up and started talking about land values. A man got up and started talking about malaria. I mean, it's just one after another. They came up and I just, I don't know… I could have just started levitating because I was so buoyed by what this community was doing. And it has not stopped since then." – Lisa Jones-Engel

 

There's a small town in Georgia called Bainbridge. It has 15,000 residents, and recently those 15,000 residents were duped by their city and county officials. What happened was that some people came in and proposed a deal to build a $400 million monkey breeding facility, and city and county officials not only agreed to do it, but they gave them almost $60 million in handouts, a 20-year tax abatement, and hundreds of acres of public land.

And when the people of Bainbridge found out, they reached out to PETA's Senior Science Advisor, Dr. Lisa Jones Engel.

Lisa spent many years working with primates in biomedical laboratories. She knows more about the industry than just about anyone. In 2019, when she couldn't take it anymore, she left the biomedical world and joined forces with PETA with the aim to take the primate testing industry down. And that is exactly what she's doing.

 

 

"There isn't going to be chicken farming on the moon or on Mars, but there could be cellular agriculture. And, so if people are going to eat meat in space, it's going to be produced like this…"

– Michael Selden

Michael Selden is the CEO and co-founder of Finless Foods, the world's first cellular agriculture company. Meaning they make fish without the fish and without the mercury, plastic, herbicides, ocean habitat destruction and cruelty.

Finless Foods grows fish and other seafood products from cells. In 2017 they produced the first fish ever that was grown outside of a fish and eaten. Since then, they have produced 13 other types of fish, including bluefin tuna - with the goal to make bluefin that's healthier, better tasting, more affordable, more sustainable, much more ethical and will allow the bluefin to stay in the ocean and not go extinct.

The goings on at Finless are astonishing. They are creating the future of seafood, and it's a future that will be better for the animals, for the planet and for all of us.

"I can drive my car off a cliff and just leave it where it lay, the most I'll get is a littering fine, and if you throw your dog off the cliff the punishment is actually pretty similar. That's because they're the same type of thing to the law. So, unless you change that status, and you have people of course, who are thinking that there should be a status of kind of living property that might give them more attributes than my car has or my chair has; and then there are individuals who think they should be given the status of legal persons, which isn't to say being people, but having rights of some sort. I think both of those are pretty intriguing offers. I think we're a little ways off from doing that, but boy, either of those would be a massive improvement in our societal treatment of these creatures.

 

And of course, I don't think it's just restricted to dogs… It's been terrific to work with dogs for all these years, but I think this way about lots of non-human animals that we interact with, were we kind of get to use them sort of, for our sake. I would love to see some kind of sea change in thinking such that we don't get to use animals in the ways we do now, which are really abuses of animals." – Alexandra Horowitz

If you have any questions for your dog, Alexandra Horowitz is a pretty good place to start. She's spent much of her life researching and writing about what it's like to be a dog.

She is the #1 New York times bestselling author of Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know; Our Dogs, Ourselves, Being a Dog: Following the Dog Into a World of Smell; and On Looking.

She is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard.

I wish this conversation had lasted all day long as I had about 5 thousand more questions for Alexandra - mostly, everything I've ever wanted to ask my dog. Although, the time we did have together was pretty amazing and felt like an absolute gift.  

"…there's this disconnect between our beliefs and our behavior and part of what can be useful for overcoming that is to change the behavior first, which sounds really counterintuitive."                  - Jo Anderson

Jo Anderson is the Research Director at Faunalytics, an organization that empower animal advocates with access to research, analysis, strategies, and messages that maximize their effectiveness to reduce animal suffering.

Jo is an advocate for animals and empirical research. For over ten years, Jo has investigated key social psychological issues such as persuasion, judgment, and decision-making, exploring how these concepts can be used to make the world a better place for humans and animals. That is what happens at Faunalytics, they do the research and enable real change.  

I learned a lot from Jo – mostly, that research changes the story and so often, reveals that the opposite of what seems obvious is in fact the truth.