When We Talk About Animals

When We Talk About Animals is a series of in-depth conversations with leading thinkers about the big questions animals raise about what it means to be human. Supported by the Law, Environment & Animals Program at Yale Law School and the Yale Broadcast Studio.

Episodes

Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction

April 11, 2023 • 65 mins

Fiction can provide the most profound, incisive truths about the absurdities of our reality. In his most recent novel, Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman, a master of finding the humor and the fantastical in even the most devastating facets of human nature, has crafted a chilling—and deeply funny—look into what our future relationship with animals might …

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Ep. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas

February 21, 2023 • 51 mins

Upon seeing an adorable Koala sitting on an eucalyptus branch in Australia, few would expect the beloved marsupial to emit a booming bellow to alert potential mates or rivals of its presence. But this powerful roar is just one of koalas’ many surprises, which delight and astonish in Australian biologist Danielle Clode’s new book, “Koala: …

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Ep. 49 – Dog Cognition Expert Alexandra Horowitz on the Quiddity of Puppies

October 5, 2022 • 63 mins

Most books on puppies are dog-improvement manuals, guiding readers ‘How to Raise the Perfect Dog’ or how to achieve ‘Perfect Puppy in 7 Days.’ Alexandra Horowitz’s profound and totally delightful new book is not that type of book. It’s an unprecedented look at the complex, chaotic, fascinating, and often hilarious journeys of puppies becoming themselves. …

Ep. 48 – Patrick Rose on the Fight to Save Florida’s Manatees

August 2, 2022 • 62 mins

Grazing peacefully through shallow waterways, the Florida manatee is one of the state’s most beloved creatures. Due to a multitude of compounding, human-caused crises, the last couple years have been some of the deadliest on record for manatees. Years of worsening water quality from Florida’s unfettered agricultural pollution and real estate development have resulted in …

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Ep. 47 – Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing love letters to nature

May 24, 2022 • 56 mins

Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s exuberant book of essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, has unlocked protective passion for nature among readers since its release in 2020. In the book’s thirty dazzling essays, Nezhukumatathil weaves love stories about being a daughter, a partner, a mother, and a teacher with reverence …

Ep. 46 – Paleobiologist Thomas Halliday on the Animals of Ancient Worlds

March 21, 2022 • 57 mins

The fossil record acts as both a memorial to life’s spectacular possibilities and as a warning to humanity about how fast dominance can become forgotten history, according to our guest, Scottish paleobiologist Dr. Thomas Halliday. Halliday’s research investigates long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. In his magnificent and daring new book “Otherlands: …

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Ep. 45 – Rob Dunn on what the laws of biology predict about our future

February 2, 2022 • 60 mins

Amid the cataclysms of the Anthropocene, an era defined by humans’ attempts to control the natural world, it’s easy to forget that we remain as subject as ever to the ecological laws that govern living things. Like the laws of physics, paying attention to our planet’s biological laws empowers us to understand how the world …

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Ep. 44 – Rick McIntyre on the stories of Yellowstone’s greatest wolves

November 22, 2021 • 85 mins

In 1995, the U.S. government took unprecedented actions to restore the wolf population of Yellowstone National Park, which it had brutally destroyed seventy years prior. More than thirty wolves from multiple packs were captured in Canada, transported to the park, and released in a grand experiment that would become the most successful wildlife reintroduction effort …

Ep. 43 – Cynthia Barnett on our world of seashells

September 22, 2021 • 63 mins

From tiny cowries to giant clams, seashells have gripped human imaginations since time immemorial. In her magnificent new book, The Sound of the Sea, journalist Cynthia Barnett tells the epic history of humanity’s interactions with shells and the soft-bodied animals who make them. These stories of how we have treasured, traded, plundered, and coveted shells …

Ep. 42 – Edie Widder on the ocean’s spectacular light

August 16, 2021 • 50 mins

Most of us land-lubbers assume that light-making among ocean creatures is an exotic and rare phenomenon. But that’s wrong. The majority of animals in the ocean, which means the majority of animals on the planet, are capable of making light. From top to bottom, the ocean is teeming with unforgettably beautiful and extraordinarily diverse light …

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Ep. 41 – Ecologist Hugh Warwick on Loving Your Hedgehogs

May 27, 2021 • 57 mins

Hedgehogs, despite being consistently voted the most beloved mammal in the United Kingdom, have suffered great population losses as industrial agriculture and other human impacts destroy their hedgerow habitats. Our latest guest, Hugh Warwick, has studied, celebrated, written about, and fought to protect hedgehogs for more than 30 years, leading a groundswell of local and …

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Ep. 40 – Michelle Nijhuis on the history of the wildlife conservation movement

April 28, 2021 • 53 mins

In “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction,” science journalist Michelle Nijhuis chronicles the history of the wildlife conservation movement through the stories of the extraordinary people — both legendary experts and passionate amateurs — who shaped its evolution and expanding ambitions. Nijhuis introduces us to the Swedish scientists who devised the …

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Ep. 39 – Bernie Krause on saving the music of the wild

February 24, 2021 • 65 mins

In 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause was leading a booming music career. A prodigiously talented musician and early master of the electronic synthesizer, Krause was busy working with artists like the Doors and the Beach Boys and performing iconic effects for blockbuster films. Then Warner Brothers commissioned him to create an album incorporating the sounds of …

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Ep. 38 – Margaret Renkl on discovering wonder, grief, and inspiration in backyard nature

December 9, 2020 • 51 mins

In the long months we’ve all been confined to our homes, many people have become reacquainted with the vibrant life just outside their doors, finding unexpected joy, companionship, and hope through partaking in the cycles of love and loss that happen in the skies and yards around us. It is this wonder to be found …

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Ep. 37 – Monica Gagliano on plant intelligence and human imagination

November 4, 2020 • 53 mins

Are plants intelligent? Can they think? Can they hear, see, feel, smell and taste? Throughout history, most Western philosophers and scientists answered those questions with a resounding “no.” Plants have long been treated as passive, inanimate objects that form the backdrop to our active lives, rather than highly sensitive organisms with intelligence and agency of …

Ep. 36 – Rebecca Giggs on the world in the whale

September 28, 2020 • 65 mins

In 2013, a sperm whale washed up dead on Spain’s southern coast. In its ruptured digestive tract, scientists found an entire flattened greenhouse that once grew wintertime tomatoes, complete with plastic tarps, hoses, two flower pots, and a spray canister. The whale also contained an ice cream tub, mattress parts, a carafe, and a coat …

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Ep. 35 – J. Drew Lanham on finding ourselves magnified in nature’s colored hues

September 2, 2020 • 59 mins

As Dr. Joseph Drew Lanham writes in his beautiful and deeply moving memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, from his earliest days growing up in the piedmont forests and fields of Edgefield, South Carolina, he dreamed of flight. This fascination with the aerial journeys of the blue jays …

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Ep. 34 – Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme

July 20, 2020 • 59 mins

Born in Paris to an African-American GI and a French woman at the end of World War II, Dr. Daniel Pauly rose from a difficult and extraordinarily unusual childhood in Europe to become one of the most daring, productive, and influential fisheries scientists in the history of the field — and the first to illuminate …

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Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-led land and wildlife stewardship

June 15, 2020 • 55 mins

As wildlife across Canada face unprecedented pressures from climate change and industrial development, Indigenous Peoples, who have relied upon and managed these animals for millennia, are leading the way on ensuring their protection. From Newfoundland and Labrador to the Yukon Territory, groundbreaking Indigenous-led protection initiatives are ensuring Canada’s treasured species like the boreal caribou and …

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Ep. 32 – Gene Baur on changing hearts, minds and laws about farm animals

May 18, 2020 • 52 mins

Amid the systematic cruelties and alienating conditions which define our factory farm system, Farm Sanctuary stands out as an exemplar of human kindness. Over the past thirty years, Farm Sanctuary — co-founded and led by our guest, Gene Baur — has rescued thousands of farm animals from short, tortured lives in industrial confinement and allowed …

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When We Talk About Animals

Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas

Ep. 49 – Dog Cognition Expert Alexandra Horowitz on the Quiddity of Puppies

Ep. 48 – Patrick Rose on the Fight to Save Florida’s Manatees

Ep. 47 – Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing love letters to nature

Ep. 46 – Paleobiologist Thomas Halliday on the Animals of Ancient Worlds

Ep. 45 – Rob Dunn on what the laws of biology predict about our future

Ep. 44 – Rick McIntyre on the stories of Yellowstone’s greatest wolves

Ep. 43 – Cynthia Barnett on our world of seashells

Ep. 42 – Edie Widder on the ocean’s spectacular light

Ep. 41 – Ecologist Hugh Warwick on Loving Your Hedgehogs

Ep. 40 – Michelle Nijhuis on the history of the wildlife conservation movement

Ep. 39 – Bernie Krause on saving the music of the wild

Ep. 38 – Margaret Renkl on discovering wonder, grief, and inspiration in backyard nature

Ep. 37 – Monica Gagliano on plant intelligence and human imagination

Ep. 36 – Rebecca Giggs on the world in the whale

Ep. 35 – J. Drew Lanham on finding ourselves magnified in nature’s colored hues

Ep. 34 – Daniel Pauly on why overfishing is a Ponzi scheme

Ep. 33 – Valérie Courtois on Indigenous-led land and wildlife stewardship

Ep. 32 – Gene Baur on changing hearts, minds and laws about farm animals

Popular Podcasts

Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction

Ep. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas