Jeremy Loeb

When I first met Taj Uppal, he came across to me as soft-spoken but confident and determined. I remember being unsurprised to later see a video of Taj, now an attorney, attempting to give a police officer animal cruelty evidence of a Meyenberg goat milk factory farm in California. Taj had just helped to rescue emaciated baby goats from the Whole Foods supplier and had returned, along with his fell...

Back when I started my podcast two years ago, I'd always ask my guests if they had a channel to recommend. Numerous times, guests brought up That Chip Guy. And it's easy to see why. He's a phenomenal vegan street outreacher and debater who also works collaboratively with other activists. Cip and I have discussed doing a podcast for awhile, but for one reason or another hadn't gotte...

Darius Fullmer had plenty of reason to withdraw from the animal rights movement, having served prison time as one of the SHAC 7. The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences was an inflection point in the movement, notable for the tremendous successes achieved by grassroots activists, ultimately undone by severe government repression. Six activists from the campaign...

Logging onto social media as an animal rights activist can be a drag. The algorithm knows what to show you, and oftentimes it's grim photos of animal suffering. That's why I'm grateful for people like Danny Ishay. Over the years, Danny's made me laugh numerous times with his witty satirical takes on common anti-vegan arguments and misinformation. Whether it's another ex-vegan n...

I got to know the incredible attorney Steffen Seitz when I had the privilege of serving on Wayne Hsiung's legal team during his trial for organizing mass open rescues of animals in Sonoma County, California. Steffen was fresh out of Yale Law School and there to be of assistance in any way he could. And his positive impact was immediately felt, by myself and the whole team. What I found in Stef...

I've wanted to have Jeremy Beckham on my podcast for awhile to talk about his deep research into how beagles became the dogs used as lab experiments. Now with there being so much focus on beagle breeder Ridglan Farms due to a March 15 open rescue that got 22 dogs to safety, it's the perfect time to speak with him and look at the big picture. It was likely Jeremy himself who largely put Rid...

Matthew Zirbel is one of the lead researchers on a newly released interactive website map of factory farms in California called Factory Farm Watch . Matthew is an organizer with the grassroots animal rights group Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) and it's through them that I've gotten to know him. For a while, Matthew was just someone who I'd often see at demonstrations. After getting to...

Roger Yates has had so many titles over the years that it's difficult to even know where to begin. So I just settled on introducing Roger as a longtime animal rights advocate. But to dig in a bit more, Roger was once a spokesperson for the Animal Liberation Front, a committee member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, and founder of numerous groups. He's also a sociologi...

For my last episode of the holiday season, I thought it would be appropriate to take stock of the incredible achievements of the animal rights movement in 2025. And the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT) was a huge part of it. Orchestrating a dizzying number of wins that just keep rolling in, CAFT has shown what a relatively small group of committed activists can achieve with the right amou...

Alex Hershaft was just a child when he and his family were forced into the Polish Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis. Fortunately, Alex survived where so many others perished, making his way to America. Years later, while inspecting a slaughterhouse, he was taken back to images he remembered from the Holocaust. He would dedicate his life to saving animals, organizing a national conference in 1981, a huge...

Dr. Richard D. Ryder coined the term "speciesism" in the late 1960s at a time when there were new terms such as "racism" and "sexism" more widely beginning to permeate the culture, describing a prejudice based on morally insignificant traits. This concept started to bounce around a small group of intellectuals at the University of Oxford, including the young philosoph...

Melanie Kaplan's new book "Lab Dog" is a crowning achievement. The book is a story of Melanie's research project she undertook with her co-pilot beagle Hammy, the titular "lab dog" himself. It was to find out where Hammy came from and what had been done to him. That project ballooned into an incredibly well-researched exposé into the world of animal testing. And while s...

It would be impossible for me to capture in words the amount of gratitude I feel towards Ingrid Newkirk. The co-founder of PETA is simply a giant of the animal liberation movement. It could be argued that everything I do as an animal rights activist can be traced back in some way to Ingrid laying the groundwork. On August 1st, PETA announced that Ingrid would be stepping aside as president and rem...

An amazing thing happened last month when it was reported that the infamous Ridglan Farms would be losing its license to breed beagles to sell for animal testing. That closure would end at least that portion of the operations of the second largest beagle breeder (with Marshall BioResources in upstate New York the largest) for cruel and inhumane tests on dogs. While credit for this huge leap forwar...

For the same reason beagles are beloved family members to so many, they are exploited by researchers. Their docile, trusting and forgiving nature makes them the unfortunate targets of a callous industry that regards them as a means to an end. This horrific practice is not known by a large segment of the public, and Fiaz Ahmed is out to change that with his upcoming documentary Born on Death Row. F...

There's been a flurry of wins in the last few weeks for the grassroots animal liberation movement. Most notably: Vogue publisher Condé Nast will no longer promote fur across all their publications. Just days after that monumental win, Omni Hotels announced they will drop foie gras across their vast hotel chain. There are many people to thank for the win, but unquestionably, the main drivers we...

The Animal Liberation Front is a fascinating study. The leaderless, amorphous group of mostly young people carrying out raids on laboratories and fur farms, rescuing animals and inflicting economic sabotage, was most active in the 80's and 90's. It's incredible to learn how desperately intense the struggle for animal liberation was since before I was even born. Around 50 years since it...

In a major development, Condé Nast announced they were no longer going to promote new fur in any of their publications, which includes Vogue Magazine. This came after a nearly year long campaign by the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade (CAFT). It could be a major turning point in the culture of fashion and another nail in the coffin of the fur industry. When news of this broke, I reached out to L...

It was only recently that I even learned who Gail Eisnitz is. But I had known about her work for years. As the chief investigator at Humane Farming Association, Gail's investigations over more than four decades have been some of the most consequential for animals, leading to changes in law, closing factory farms, and garnering worldwide media attention. Her new memoir, "Out of Sight: An U...

Andy Stepanian is best known as a member of the SHAC 7. The Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign against the contract animal testing laboratory then called Huntingdon Life Sciences began in the UK, before spreading to the US, where Andy became involved. The hugely successful tactics were ultimately cracked down on by both governments leading to draconian arrests and sentencing of those involved...

Calvin Tasker came onto my radar fairly recently. It was a video from Mel and Steve's channel. They teamed up with long-time investigator Chris Hines to take his brother Colin, who was at that point not even vegan, in the dark of night onto a pig farm. That story was compelling enough that I interviewed all of them. But there was another member of that team, and it was Calvin. And after seeing...

Rod Coronado's story is one of the wildest I've ever read. As a prominent member of the Animal Liberation Front, Sea Shepherd and the Hunt Saboteurs, he saved thousands of animals and embarked on a campaign against animal exploitation industries that had massive ripple effects. One of his earliest actions was to sink two docked whaling ships in Iceland. That's quite a way to start your...

To be honest, I wasn't that excited to interview Gary Yourofsky. Yes, I admire his advocacy for animals. Yes, I recommend his speech. Yes, I think he is a hero for the animals. Yet...I wasn't stoked. And no, it's not for the reason you think. It's not because of Gary's various controversial statements. It's not because of his views on politics or war. No offense to Gary or...

You've probably seen Jo-Anne McArthur's photography, whether you knew it or not. And if you haven't seen any of her thousands of iconic images, you've probably seen some from her many collaborators at the non-profit We Animals that she founded. Jo-Anne is simply one of the most talented and driven photojournalists working today. Shortly before our interview, I asked Jo-Anne to send...

Dr. Faraz Harsini is making waves in the animal rights movement with his no-nonsense, yet approachable outreach style. His background in biomedical science lends gravitas just as his upbringing in Tehran and immigration to America is moving and inspiring. I've known about Faraz for awhile and wanted to have him on my program. But since we connected, I've learned more about him, and I now f...