Species Unite
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“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
“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 https://thesciencebank.org/.
“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. 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 https://www.safinacenter.org/.
“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.
Dr. Faraz Harsini has been advocating for animal rights for over a decade. He is the CEO and founder of Allied Scholars for Animal Protection (ASAP), a non-profit organization that supports students who are interested in advocating for animal protection and pursuing careers that can make a difference. He is also a Bioprocessing Senior Scientist at the Good Food Institute, where he works on advancing scientific and technological methods to produce alternative proteins on a large scale. Dr. Harsini's educational background includes a Bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, with a focus on process design and nanobiotechnology. He also has a Master's degree in biotechnology and cancer research, as well as a PhD in Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics. Before joining GFI, he worked in the biopharmaceutical industry, developing therapeutic proteins for diseases such as Covid19, influenza, cancer, and inflammatory diseases. Dr. Harsini collaborates with organizations like PCRM to promote alternatives to animal testing and to combat animal exploitation. He speaks at colleges about his personal experience as an immigrant, a first-generation college student, and a member of the LGBT community, connecting the oppression of animals to other forms of oppression. Dr. Harsini believes that the root cause of many global issues affecting humans and animals is linked to the food system. Therefore, he aims to change the food system through his work at GFI and to train and support students to become future leaders in animal protection through ASAP. LINKS: alliedscholars.org instagram.com/alliedscholars/ gfi.org
“…but what's happening lately is that mink on fur farms have been starting to be infected with H5n1 bird flu. So, the World Health Organization is worried that this disease is now changing to better infect mammals. Of course, we are mammals. And of course, if it's on fur farms, there's human mammals on the fur farms who can be infected by the bird flu, just the same way that COVID kept pinging back and forth between animals and fur farms and the humans who work there. And so this is a real concern because it’s a 60% mortality rate, I mean, that can wipe out most of humanity.” – Poorva Joshipura * Poorva Joshipura has spent her entire career at PETA. She's currently PETA's Senior Vice President of International Affairs. Poorva’s second book, Survival at Stake, was just released. It’s about how we treat animals and how our current ways of doing things, from factory farming to animal testing to the use of animals in materials and everywhere else we exploit them greatly affects us all. Our treatment of animals is linked to pandemics, epidemics, antibiotic resistance, climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and many other horrors that humans and the planet are currently facing. It’s all connected and unless we change how we treat animals, and remove them from all of the systems that they’re innocent victims of, things don’t look so good for our survival as a species.
"The stonefish is the most toxic, venomous fish on the planet. The stonefish is one of the only fish stings that has been known to kill people. Now, I knew this going in, right? I did my homework. So that was one where I went on a limb, perhaps? Maybe too far." - Mark Vins Mark Vins is an Emmy Award winning wildlife and adventure filmmaker, and the co-founder of the Brave Wilderness YouTube channel. Mark and his co-founder, Coyote Peterson, created the Brave Wilderness Channel to bring people closer to animals and nature and crazy encounters all over the world. Some of them include things like watching Mark and Coyote get stung and bitten by some of the most painful stings and bites out there. Brave Wilderness has 21 million subscribers and their videos have had more than 4 billion views. Mark is also one of the leading ambassadors for Leonardo DiCaprio's organization Re:wild https://www.rewild.org/. Mark made a documentary with Re:wild called Brave Mission. It's about Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the mountain gorillas who live there and the women and men who protect them. This single video has raised over $700,000 to help the rangers in Virunga. Please listen, share and watch Brave Wilderness but don’t attempt any of those bites or stings at home. Brave Wilderness: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6E2mP01ZLH_kbAyeazCNdg Brave Mission https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gynj76XsUQ&list=PLbfmhGxamZ80F53Ezr5CPifRPmiSzm_a7&index=1 Mark Vins: https://www.youtube.com/@BraveMarkVins
“You're seeing young men going to prison or getting buried in the ground because they're out there poaching rhinos. And, it just drove a bigger wedge between conservation efforts and the communities. There’s only so many times you can look into the eyes of a woman who’s lost a brother or a husband or a father or an uncle and expect that we’re going to have some sort of relationship with that community. It was the same as Iraq, you've got an occupying force there, which is what we were as a conservation body, and there were no hearts and minds. So, we started doing a lot of research into, what was the most effective tool in community development in Africa. And what we found was an overwhelming body of evidence that said empowering women was the single greatest force for positive change, not only in Africa but across the world.” - Damien Mander Damien Mander is the founder and CEO of Akashinga, an organization that is changing everything we ever thought we knew about how conservation works. Formerly known as the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF), Akashinga is a nature conservation organization that creates resilient ecosystems where nature, wildlife and communities will thrive together for years to come. Akashinga Rangers are Africa's first plant-based all women anti-poaching unit, and they are revolutionizing the ways that animals are protected, the communities are supported and that wilderness landscapes are restored and safeguarded. Damien is an Iraq war veteran who served as a Naval clearance and special operations sniper for the Australian Defense Force. In 2009 he founded the IAPF which later became Akashinga. Damien is the winner of the 2019 Winsome Constance Kindness Gold Medal. He was featured in the James Cameron documentaries “The Game Changers” and National Geographic’s “Akashinga – The Brave One’s’” about his work with the women of Akashinga. LINKS: AKASHINGA.org https://www.instagram.com/weareakashinga/ https://twitter.com/weareakashinga https://www.facebook.com/weareakashinga
"In Montana they allow using dogs to chase down wolves, which essentially becomes like state sanctioned dog fighting. You have this horrible scenario where the packs of dogs are surrounding the wolf pack, and it just comes to a bloody end. These are blood sports. This is something that we should be way beyond as a society." - Collette Adkins Collette Adkins is the carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. She focuses on combating the exploitation and cruel treatment of wolves and other rare wildlife. I wanted to talk to Collette because it's been a while since we've talked about wolves on here, and unfortunately their situation is as dire as ever. Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are killing them as fast as they can and in more horrific ways. One of those ways is that in Idaho, they're shooting wolves from helicopters. And Collette is the primary author of a petition to get this banned. Please listen and share. In gratitude, Elizabeth Novogratz
“In the US alone, there are 100 million people with prediabetes or diabetes, 33 million people with some kind of chronic or various stages of kidney disease, 122 million people with cardiovascular disease, 10 million with GI issues, and 50 million people have food allergies. And, as you know, the food insecurity and malnourishment in the country is growing, unfortunately, particularly with our kiddos.” – Brett Matthews Brett Matthews is the CEO of Kate Farms https://www.katefarms.com/, organic plant-based nutrition shakes and formulas that have helped hundreds of thousands of children and adults along their journeys towards health. Brett’s son had severe health issues in high school, and proper nutrition was critical in his healing. Brett learned about the power of food to heal and invested in Kate Farms in 2014, became Chairman and later CEO. The are thousands of stories of children and adults whose lives have been dramatically improved because of Kate Farms. They are a game-changer for bringing healthy nutrition into our hospitals and our homes. katefarms.com
“I was at a restaurant, and I was like, ‘really, the veal chop?’ In an instant, the curse broke and I could see for the first time. ‘Oh, wow, I'm eating body parts.’ And I turned around and I saw my bag and it was an expensive Fendi bag. And I looked at it and I'm like, ‘this is not leather. This is the skin of an individual. This is a scam.’” – Rebecca Cappelli Rebecca Cappelli is an award-winning filmmaker and an animal rights activist. Her most recent film SLAY, is a hugely powerful documentary that follows Rebecca through seven countries as she uncovers the dark side of the fashion industry. What she finds will leave you thunder-struck. At least, it did me. With her, we learn what the industry is doing to our planet, to its workers and to the animals that are killed for fur, leather and wool. I think that most people have seen or heard stories in the media about the harms that fashion causes to both the planet and the people in the industry, but it’s rare to hear about the animals, even though 2.5 billion of them are killed every year for our shoes, bags and clothing. Somehow and not by accident, they’ve remained invisible. Until now. SLAY will change you, I promise. Please listen, share and go watch SLAY. LINKS: SLAY.film Letusbehereos.com SLAY is available on: Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/SLAY-Bandana-Tewari/dp/B0B8MG6B1T/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DL14WZ5RK9EZ&keywords=slay+documentary&qid=1700070198&sprefix=slay+documentary%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1 Apple TV and iTunes: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/slay/umc.cmc.14tluhp4jkjzjxaj5w7juyn79 See SLAY for free on WaterBear @waterbearnetwork https://join.waterbear.com/slay
“I call the act a poison pill, because really, what it is, is if it ever gets inserted into the farm bill or if it gets passed on its own, it prevents all of the animal centered organizations, all the environmental organizations, all the family farm and rural community organizations that push back against factory farming. It wipes out all of the progress that they've made.” Aaron Cohen is the senior director of advocacy at Farm Sanctuary. I asked Aaron to come on the show because I wanted to talk about some important things happening in our government right now. Starting with the delayed passage of the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill covers laws that govern food and farming and has a tremendous impact on farming livlihoods, how food is grown, and what kinds of food are grown. A group of Congressional lawmakers are pushing to include the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act as part of the 2023 Farm Bill. If passed, the EATS Act would have serious implications for animal welfare and every ounce of progress that the animal protection movement has made against factory farming. It could also have a huge effect on farmer well-being, worker safety, the spread of zoonotic diseases and pollution. It’d be disastrous.
“I really felt like I turned into a bird. The way I was playing was changed. Like I played the way nobody would play a clarinet unless they had spent weeks listening to nightingales.” – David Rothenberg David Rothenberg is, amongst many other things, an interspecies musician. That means he makes music with whales and birds and insects and even with many plants and animals that reside in ponds. He's also a writer, he's written many books, including Why Birds Sing, Whale Music and Nightingales in Berlin, which was also made into a film. And he is a professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Please listen, share and then go outside and listen to the music being made by the many non-human animals around you.
“Fashion is a really easy way to get in because it doesn't really involve any sacrifice, does it? I think for a lot of people, the thought of going vegan food-wise just seems like a really big deal. Whereas buying a vegan handbag, you get to buy a beautiful handbag and it's vegan.” Annick Ireland Even though it’s 2023 and it feels like much of the world is at least dipping their toes into all things plant-based, it can still be a challenge to navigate the world of vegan fashion. Shoes, boots, bags, coats and anything else that was once made with animal products, is now being made with sustainable, cruelty-free and stunningly beautiful materials, but because this industry is still in its infancy, finding the brands can be tricky. Enter Annick Ireland, the co-Founder & CEO of Immaculate Vegan, an online vegan marketplace that is changing the world for animal loving shoppers. Immaculate Vegan was launched in 2019 by Annick and her co-founder, Simon Bell because they wanted to help people to make better choices that positively impact animals, people and the planet when they shop. They offer a 100% vegan, highly curated collection of premium fashion using the most innovative and sustainable materials — all made ethically, and amplified by original content and an engaged community of changemakers. LINKS: ImmaculateVegan.com SpeciesUnite.com
“Ultimately, this is a dumping ground. The industry is not going to be spending money on horses that are going to be killed for human consumption, so ultimately, in their last six months, they suffer. They suffer terribly.” – Gemunu de Silva In the United States we do not eat horse meat and we do not slaughter our horses, but we seem to be fine with letting other countries slaughter and eat our horses. We send our live horses to Mexico and Canada to be slaughtered and their meat is then sent to Europe and Japan for consumption. This makes zero sense for a horse loving country. What are we doing? Why are we letting other countries torture, kill and eat our horses? There's a way to stop this madness. A bipartisan bill called the Save Americans Forgotten Equines Act (SAFE) that has been introduced to Congress. If it passes, it will not only ban horse slaughter in the US by law, but it would also prohibit the exportation of our horses for slaughter. This conversation is with Gemunu DeSilva. Gem’s been on the podcast before, this is his fourth appearance. I asked him to come on the show this time because his organization, Tracks Investigations, recently conducted their fourth investigation into Canada’s largest horse slaughter plant. Gem explains what happens to these US horses once they arrive in Canada. It’s worse than you can imagine. LINKS: Tracks Investigations: https://www.tracksinvestigations.org/ SAFE Act petition https://www.speciesunite.com/save-american-horses-from-slaughter SAFE Act https://www.safe-act.org/ SpeciesUnite.com
“When we do polls on this, we've got all political parties high support for ending cosmetics animal testing, from Republicans, Independents, Democrats - age gaps between the boomers and the zoomers, everybody is in agreement. You know, it's one of those issues that you cannot get more unity on a single issue.” – Monica Engebretson Monica Engebretson is the North American head of public affairs for Cruelty Free International, the leading organization working to end animal testing worldwide. They are working to end animal testing, but for this conversation, we focused on cosmetics – for two reasons: we’ve done many episodes on animals used in medical research and experimentation and not enough on cosmetics and because I think many people are unaware that even we still test for cosmetics. In the US, it’s no longer required by law that cosmetic companies test on animals, yet we are still doing it. It makes no sense that we have not banned cosmetics testing. Canada has. Mexico has. In fact, 44 other countries have. I wanted Monica to explain how and why this is still happening – and the answers are complicated. The good news is that last month, the Humane Cosmetics Act was reintroduced and if passed, it would end safety testing of cosmetic products on animals and prohibit the sale of products developed using animal testing in the United States. Please listen and share and then, if you live in the US please make a phone call to your Senators and Representatives and politely ask them to support the Humane Cosmetics Act. Find yours here: usa.gov/elected-officials Links: SpeciesUnite.com www.crueltyfreeinternational.org
“I understand that when you have been [going to] a restaurant for many years, for some customers, it's normal to think that somehow you own it a little bit, like, ‘Oh, this is my table, this is my restaurant.’ And, then when the restaurant changes completely, you feel really betrayed… I invited them. I invited a lot of people, a lot of my regular customers. I said, ‘don't worry, we have changed. But nothing has changed, you know, just come. I invite you and your family. You come and eat just like you used to do, and you are going to love it.’ And they did not. And they took revenge. Took revenge.” – Alexis Gauthier Alexis Gauthier opened his first restaurant in London when he was 24 and he received his first Michelin star a couple of years later. He’s a French chef who has run Gauthier Soho https://www.gauthiersoho.co.uk/ for many years. And for a great part of that time his restaurant served traditional French food. But, in 2016 Alexis became vegan and in 2021 he removed all animal products from his restaurant menus. This created quite the uproar. Alexis and I met in London last week and I had dinner at Gauthier Soho the day after we had this conversation. The food is even better than what he describes, truly, it was one of the best meals I've ever had. Please listen, share and then sign up for the Species Unite 30 Day Vegan Challenge. Links: Species Unite: SpeciesUnite.com Gauthier Soho: https://www.gauthiersoho.co.uk/ Studio Gauthier: https://www.studiogauthier.co.uk/ 123V: https://www.123vegan.co.uk/ 123V Bakery: https://123vegan.co.uk/bakery.php
“The truth is that in between all of those wonderful events was huge debt, maxing out 20 different credit cards and absolutely annihilating my credit, moving from that little half acre backyard into where we are now in Santa Clarita, refinancing the house five times, having people show up in the middle of the night to repo our cars, the bank trying to take the house, my parents doing literal intervention, saying, ‘Ellie, stop your nonsense.’” – Ellie Laks Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn https://www.gentlebarn.org/, a sanctuary that houses and heals some of the most traumatized animals around. And in turn, those animals heal the humans who come there. It's a pretty remarkable place. It started out on half an acre in Ellie's backyard, and it grew to many many acres and multiple locations. There's one in California, one in Tennessee and a third in Missouri. Since its inception, The Gentle Barn has saved thousands of animals and been host to over 500,000 people.
“I think the thing revolves around the control of nature. You know, I mean, you get way back to that. Some people are really uncomfortable around nature existing as it should, and they feel that we need to fix things." - Dr. Chistopher Servheen Grizzly bears are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. But Republican lawmakers in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming are trying to change that. They are pressing the Biden administration to turn management of grizzly bears back over to the states, which would mean there would be a hunting season for grizzly bears, which would probably look something like what we're doing to wolves in those same states, which is nothing short of a massacre. Dr. Christoph Servheen spent 35 years, from 1981 until 2016, fighting to bring back grizzly bears. In 1981, they were on their way out. There were only 30 breeding females in the greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Most people thought that there was no way to save them. But, because of Chris and people like him and because of The Federal Endangered Species Act, a conservation miracle occurred. They brought the bears back, an act that many consider to be one of conservations biggest success stories. But now, in 2023, because of politicians in the Northern Rockies, the future for grizzly bears could be very bleak.
“…people say, okay, recycle, and then somebody sees you throwing out a little candy wrapper. Nobody's going to point at you say, ‘Huh, I saw you threw away a recyclable piece” Right? But if I say I'm vegan and then I eat a slice of halal and halal is made with eggs, somebody will say, ‘Oh, it has eggs, you're not really vegan.’ And so that's just kind of weird. – Galina Hale Galina is a professor of economics at UC Santa Cruz. She's also the co-founder and Chief Research Officer of FSI— Food System Innovations https://fsi.org/, where her husband, David, is CEO. David was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. Galina served as a Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and as an assistant professor of economics at Yale University. Galina’s current research interests focus on attracting mainstream finance to climate solutions, the sustainability of the global food system, and international financial stability, especially with respect to climate risks. Galina has published over 30 articles in leading economics and finance peer-reviewed journals. She serves on multiple editorial boards and presents her work regularly at scholarly and policy meetings worldwide. Galina is also a long-distance athlete. She's completed multiple marathons, triathlons and the Ironman. Links: Speciesunite.com FSI - https://fsi.org/ Galina Hale - https://sites.google.com/view/galinahale/
”We’re already starting to see this happening, like there's a leather tannery in Vietnam called Isa TanTeck, where leather runs through the blood. That's what they specialize at. They came out with their own mycelium material. A leather tannery has come out with their own mycelium material. Are they in it? Are they in it for the passion of saving animals and the vegan kind of philosophies? No, they're in it because they're smart people and they've got good scientists and they've been able to create a new a new product line.” – Joey Pringle Joey Pringle is the founder and co-owner of Veshin Factory, an original equipment and design manufacturer specializing in luxury bags and accessories made from leather alternatives. They work with brands during product design and manufacturing stages to help them make the switch to next gen materials. Veshin was founded with the goal of helping brands go animal free, but because of a partnership with Natural Fiber Welding, maker of Mirum, it’s fast become a leader in plastic-free manufacturing too. Currently, Joey lives in Colombia where he is piloting Veshin Factory's second factory.
“And it's true that as much as online makes things much more accessible in so many ways, sometimes it's the feeling and seeing that actually really gets people over the line, because they're like, ‘Oh, wow, that feels really… that looks really good. Oh, look at it on me. Oh, you can style it like this as well. And oh, you can go over the shoulder like, yeah…’ the touch is really important for consumer goods” – Jessica Kruger Jessica Kruger is the founder of a vegan handbag company called Shaker https://shakerlondon.com/. They had a rebrand in June, they were originally founded as LUXTRA in 2018. With the rebrand, came new design and new material. Shaker’s handbags are made with MIRUM® - the first high-end leather alternative that is 100% plastic-free, which is a HUGE deal. I spent time with Jessica in London and saw Shaker’s bags in person. And they are absolutely stunning. Jessica originally started her journey of building cruelty-free businesses in 2014 when she opened ETHOS – one of London’s best loved meat-free restaurants - after her mother volunteered at Farm Sanctuary in California. speciesunite.com https://shakerlondon.com/ https://mirum.naturalfiberwelding.com/
“We're the first species that has enough mixture of intelligence and capabilities to actually screw it all up. That is our distinction. You know, there's a lot of species on the planet who are now looking to us to say, ‘Well, okay, you're the first to be there. Do you screw it up for everybody or do you figure out how to transcend this?’” David Meyer David Meyer is co-founder of Food System Innovations http://fsi.org/, and co-founder and CEO of Humane America Animal Foundation https://www.humaneamerica.org/. He has worked in animal advocacy since the ‘90s. He founded and ran Adopt-a-pet.com for over two decades. He eventually sold it so that he could focus on Food System Innovations, where the mission is to remove animals from our food system. He has been a vegan for decades and has won NINE world championships in Brazilian jiu jitsu, all on a plant-based diet. LINKS: Speciesunite.com Fsi.org humaneamerica.org
“Chickens have full color spectrum vision. That means they see the entire spectrum of colors from the infrared to the ultraviolet. The reason that roosters crow when for humans it is still dark outside is because they see the sunrise before we do, because they see infrared light. So, they're up and about in what for them is daylight, when for us it is dark out.” – Karen Davis Karen Davis is the president and founder of United Poultry Concerns. They’re an organization that promotes the compassionate and respectful treatment of domesticated birds. They also have a sanctuary for chickens in Virginia. Karen and I did this interview as a live episode in June. I wanted to talk to Karen about chickens for a couple of reasons, one because they’re the most abused land animal on the planet; but also because I wanted to know more about them. Before this conversation I knew very little about chickens. And Karen knows everything there is to know them. She has been advocating for them, studying them, saving them, and writing about them for decades. Her most recent book is called For the Birds: From Exploitation to Liberation. Every year, a staggering 70 billion chickens are raised and slaughtered for meat, and around 300 million more are kept for egg production. And every single one of them is an intelligent, sentient individual.
“Somebody told me, when I was a young designer at Mercedes, they said, ‘well, it takes like... 20 cows to upholster this sedan.’ …Clearly people believe that cows, that the leather, is a byproduct of the food industry, but that's not necessarily true. When you part out the cow, the leather is actually the most valuable component of the cow. - Vicki von Holzhausen Vicki von Holzhausen is a former car designer who decided to make a vegan leather that could rival animal leather. After much research and many experiments, she and her team developed a sustainable leather alternative. They tested it out as a handbag which then became a luxurious line of vegan handbags and accessories, called von Holzhausen https://vonholzhausen.com/. But that wasn't enough, because Vicki’s bigger mission was and is to remove animal leather from the materials system. So, they headed back into the lab and continued to create more and better leather alternatives. While they were there, von Holzhausen’s mission grew even bigger. Yes, they’d continue to develop beautiful and sustainable materials to replace animal leather, but why not replace plastic too? Earlier this year, the von Holzhausen team announced the introduction of the Liquidplant, the world’s first 100% plant-based, high-performance topcoat, making plastic-free materials a reality. Liquidplant can replace plastic topcoats in all kinds of materials, including synthetic leather paper, wood, plastic and fabric, meaning it can and will change the world. “… when you think about deforestation, the microplastic pollution, if we can start to chip away at eliminating whole areas where leather and plastic polyurethane are being used, then we will make a dramatic impact.” - Vicki von Holzhausen
Catalina Lopez is the director of the Aquatic Animal Alliance at the Aquatic Life Institute https://ali.fish/. They're a nonprofit focused on improving the lives of aquatic animals, specifically in the food system. I wanted to talk to Catalina about octopuses. This year, we're set to see the world's first octopus factory farm open in the Canary Islands. Just when it seemed humans could not get worse, we decide to farm octopuses? This is a terrible idea for so many reasons, from animal welfare to environmental concerns. It’s cruel and it’s unethical and it’s an enormous step in the wrong direction. We should be shutting down factory farms, not looking for new sentient and intelligent species to torture inside of them. https://ali.fish/
“Despite all the information that we see promoting dairy [in school], you cannot promote plant-based milk unless you also promote dairy even more. It just goes to show that there's something more to it.” – Marielle Williamson Mariel Williamson recently graduated from high in Los Angeles. This past spring, while still a student, she was told by her school that she couldn't share information about plant-based milk or be critical of the dairy industry unless she provided pro dairy content as well. So, Marielle is suing - both the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Unites States Department of Agriculture, for violating her First Amendment right.
Rose Patterson is part of Animal Rising https://www.animalrising.org/, the animal activist movement that's disrupting animal exploitation all over the UK. Animal Rising used to be called Animal Rebellion, that is until April. And since April, which is only a few months ago, they’ve exploded - they are everywhere. They have disrupted horse races and greyhound races, they've broken into labs, they've stolen beagles, they've stolen King Charles's lambs. And they've received a huge amount of press because of their actions. Much of that press has been TV time, which means that conversations about how we treat animals, not just in the ways mentioned above but in our food system, are taking place all over the media in the UK. Animal Rising is changing the game for what activism looks like. Rose and I met a couple of weeks ago in London, where she lives. She and another Animal Rising activist had just tried and failed to go on a trip to the US.
“Right from the beginning I think I was infected with this disease. It's a very, very contagious disease of not knowing how to say no to an animal in distress. So, alongside of the bears, we were rescuing everything else: crocodiles, snakes, birds, deer, foxes, jackals, you know, I mean, you name it.” - Kartick Satyanarayan Kartik Satyanarayan is the co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS, an organization that was founded in 1995 with the mission to make lasting changes to protect and conserve India’s natural heritage, forests and biodiversity. Kartick and Wildlife SOS work towards protecting wildlife, conserving habitat, studying biodiversity, conducting research, and creating alternative and sustainable livelihoods for erstwhile communities that depend on wildlife for sustenance. They run several projects to support bear conservation in India, including the largest rehabilitation center in the world for sloth bears. Kartik is often referred to as the 'Bear Man of India' because of his efforts to put an end to the illegal practice of dancing bears. But in reality, he and Wildlife SOS work to protect all of India's wildlife, including the elephants. They rescue, treat and care for elephants that are exploited in the abusive tourism and “begging elephant” industries and work to end the plight of injured and sick elephants that are forced to work in unnatural conditions. Kartick’s stories are extraordinary and his love for India’s wildlife is indeed contagious. wildlifesos.org
“I think we are at the point where so many of these methods have shown in studies to be more predictive for humans that it really is an issue of human health. We need to do better for patients. We know we can and that these methods exist, so we need to use them.” -Elizabeth Baker This past season, we’ve focused quite a bit on animal research and experimentation, and a lot of our focus has been really on just how bad it is, how bad it is for the animals, how bad it is for science, and how bad it is for taxpayers who are spending so much money on this stuff. What we haven't focused enough on are solutions. And there are solutions. There are many many human relevant methods that are here to replace animal testing and there are many more on the way. Elizabeth is the director of research policy for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. They're a nationwide organization of physicians and laypersons that promote preventative medicine. They conduct clinical research, and they advocate for more effective, efficient and ethical medical research, product testing and training. pcrm.org
