Species Unite

"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 nam e it."  - Kartick S atyanarayan   Kartik S atyanarayan is the co-founder and CEO of Wildlife SOS , an o...

 " 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...

"We don't know one case where a lion which was hand fed or bottle fed was released successfully in the wild. Of course, if they see humans and they understand that humans is the connection to food, it will be always a danger to put those lions back in the wild. And many of those companies use that as an excuse why this conservation project is important, but we don't think so and we don't believe t...

"I think to some extent it shows that we don't want to have knowledge that will make us uncomfortable or make us feel that we're doing something wrong. And I get that from people quite often, you know, that don't really know me very well, but they ask me what I'm doing and I mention something about I've written about animals and the way animals raised for food are treated. And then they'll say, 'O...

"It's like comparing hells - it's a different type of hell, right? It's just like one hideous place where you're neglected and you have all manner of suffering to another place where it's a different set of conditions of suffering and misery. " – Dr. Alka Chandna This conversation took place a couple of weeks ago as a live event. It's with me and Dr. Alka Chandna, PETA's Vice President of Laborato...

" We'd never worked in this industry. We'd not got any prior experience in fashion ourselves. But we thought, how hard could it be? Famous last words. How hard could it be to design a handbag? Turns out very hard, very hard." – Natalie Deana Natalie Deanna is the co-founder of Frida Rome , a conscious luxury brand that makes stunning vegan handbags, handbags inspired by and designed for, "bad girl...

"It's very disappointing when I see these menus that are from starter to main courses, all animal proteins… How can you not have like 30% of the menu be plant based? For what reason? Do you need to have animal proteins in every single dish? There's no need for it… People don't need that. The planet doesn't need that." - Verde Camilla Parmigiani Verde Camilla Parmigiani is the founder of Vegan Set...

"So, if you listen to the experts, we're to be raising dramatically more animals for food in the future. The only way around that, I think, is through technologies that will render the exploitation of these animals obsolete. I mean, technologies have changed so much about how we live here on Earth today. Instead of whipping horses, we now use bikes and cars. Instead of harpooning whales, we now us...

"What I did not expect to see from farmed monkeys being bought and transported into the US,  were monkeys who were coming in with things like Ebola like viruses, malaria, tuberculosis, simian retrovirus, herpes viruses, salmonella, Yersinia, Campylobacter, unnamed deadly diarrheal diseases. They were coming in with Tier 1 Select agents. I mean, we're talking pathogens so deadly that the government...

" I also heard the sounds of killer whales. They were calling to each other loud and clear. these melodious whistles and calls which went right into my ear pieces. I realized that even if I couldn't see them, they were there somewhere beneath me in the ocean. They were communicating with each other. They were staying in contact. It was like a big family ." - Hanne Strager   Hanne Strager is a biol...

"Our cultures are built around stories, right? We connect through stories, we learn through stories and stories are often stronger when they have characters, characters we can connect with. And I think that that been a struggle for many, many animals, all kinds of animals, that they don't have a face or a character that people can connect with." – Mark Elbroch   Before I met Mark Elbroch and read...

"Our bodies have co-evolved over millennia with the help of all these other beautiful animal species, with the millions of species of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that live on our bodies and inside our bodies ." – Parneet Pal   This episode is a little bit different than what we usually do at Species Unite. We are still talking about an animal, but this time it's the human animal.  Parneet Pal is...

"And then instead of heroes, we started being referred to as terrorists. But that made no difference to us. I mean, we kind of carried on regardless, and we started trying to do as much damage as we could to inflict economic loss on these companies. " – Ronnie Lee     Ronnie Lee founded the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) in 1974. The Animal Liberation Front is a global movement dedicated to the lib...

There's a fundamental mismatch between how we make plant-based meat and the facilities that are making it . Whe n you're using the wrong tool, when you're trying to use a spoon to cut a piece of vegetable, it just doesn't work. It's the same kind of thing for making plant-based meat. " – Christie Lagally   Christie Lagally is the founder and CEO at Rebellyous Foods , a food manufacturing technolog...

"But what the tour guide told us, was that eventually, as they grew, they now have their own octopus catchers. They called them the octopus whisperers, and they said that these people know exactly where the octopuses are going to be and when, so they know how to go get them and bring them back to the facility. "   – Laura Lee Cascada     In October of last year, Laura Lee Cascada published an inve...

"It's almost like the Animal Welfare Act is like a safety, a security blanket, because it's like, 'Oh, we have the Animal Welfare Act to protect the animals, they're okay.' And they don't realize that it's actually not very strong and that it's not being very aggressively enforced. " – Rachel Fobar   In February, Eric Kleinman from the Animal Welfare Institute was on the podcast. He came on to tal...

" There was a law on the books [in New York], even back in 1917, that required that every publicly funded elementary school needs to provide instruction in the humane treatment and protection of animals. "   - Meena Alagappan Meena Alagappan runs an organization called, Humane Education Advocates Reaching Teachers, otherwise known as HEART. Heart is a full service, humane education provider in New...

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

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

"There is this long history, and what's important about history is history informs the present. History shows this is how we got here. Fred Colston was like a villain out of central casting. I mean… it's almost like he was twirling his mustache… And he blamed me. He blamed me for bankrupting his lab. I mean, that's in documents from the federal government, not me by name, but In Defense of Animals...

"If you really do understand science and persons - such as humans and orangutans, you must realize that that love is certainly not unscientific thing to give." -Leif Cocks   In December, I spent ten days in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park in Central Sumatra. I was there with Leif Cocks, the founder of The Orangutan Project and hundreds of orangutans.   We were deep in the rainforest, surrounded by a...

"These animals are being held captive in a laboratory. They have none of what they need for their own physical and mental well-being. And there is an enormous amount of research suggesting that the biology and the behavior of animals in laboratories is nothing like even those animals in the wild. I mean, right down to their heart rate and their core temperature and their microbiome. So basically,...

"So then, you know, you have the Twisted Sister crew doing yoga and eating kale salad. it's so good. Like, now I'm literally known as the plant-based bassist." -Tanya O'Callaghan     Tanya O' Callaghan, aka, the Plant-based Bassist, has toured, recorded, written and worked with legends such as Maynard James Keenan (Tool/APC), Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) Steven Adler (Guns N' Roses) Nuno Bettencour...

"I said, 'let's go on Zappos and look up Zappos and vegan.' And so I searched it… and I said, 'let's see what you get when you search that.' And they had gardening clogs, they had like a croc shoe. And I said, 'why don't you guys go look at how many people opt out after they see that and then you might buy my shoes.' That was a Friday and Monday they bought 18 styles." Rebecca Mink     Rebecca Min...

"There are written documents that talk about how the same wolf follows a flock of sheep for 300 miles and they come back again with that flock of sheep. And those shepherds can identify those wolves. And within the group, they've even given the names to those wolves…   And they have this saying: Don't do something wrong, the Wolf God is watching you." - Prabhat Sinha     Prabhat Sinha grew up swim...