Shows
The Animal HighlightS5E10: Heck Cattle - Where Nazi Eugenics Meets Modern RewildingFierce, controversial, and caught between worlds—Heck cattle embody the complex intersection of dark history and modern conservation. This final episode of Season 5 of the Animal Highlight explores how these bovines were deliberately bred by Nazi zoologists in the 1920s and now find themselves at the center of rewilding debates across Europe.Recorded: 14 December 2023 Featured: Season 6 Grad Review on The Animal TurnThe Cow with Ear Tag #1389 by Kathryn Gillespie From “Nazi Cows” to Cosmopolitan “Ecological Engineers” by Jamie Lorimer and Clemens DriessenConceptualizing the multispecies triadby Andrea Petitt American Cows i...2025-08-0415 min
The Animal HighlightS5E9: Red Kites - Conservation and The Ethical Dilemmas of Wildlife TranslocationVirginia explores how the recovery of red kites in Britain has been shaped by international efforts and cross-border collaborations between governments and NGOs. Thinking about these birds, Virginia raises questions and concerns about translocation, culture, and species conservation. Recorded: 14 December 2023 Featured: International Relations with Andrea Schapper on The Animal TurnNatural EnglandRoyal Society for Protection of Birds Animal Culture with Carl Safinaon The Animal TurnBears on Displayat Queen’s University Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is...2025-07-2813 min
The Animal HighlightS5E8: Wolf Rewilding - Rethinking Risk and CoexistenceVirginia tells us how grey wolves are reclaiming territories across Europe and North America through a process known as auto-rewilding—autonomously returning to lands from which humans once drove them out. This powerful expression of nonhuman agency challenges our conventional approach to wildlife management and invites us to reconsider what coexistence means in the Anthropocene. Recorded: 22 November 2023 Featured: S6E8: Re-Animalization with Krithika Srinivasan on The Animal TurnRe-animalising wellbeing: Multispecies justice after development by Krithika SrinivasanRespecting Nature’s Autonomy in Relationship with Humanity by Ned Hettinger V...2025-07-2112 min
The Animal HighlightS5E7: Mink Concerns - The Cost of Fur Through a Photographer's LensIn this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas uses one of Jo-Anne McArthur’s images as her inspiration. She compares and contrasts the lives of mink kept for fur with those of wild mink before reflecting on some of the ethical and environmental concerns that emerge from using mink for fur. Recorded: 12 October 2023 Featured: S6E7: Animal Photojournalism with Jo-Anne McArthur on The Animal Turn. We Animals MediaCovid Outbreaks On Mink Farms Stir Controversy Among Scientists on NBC News NOWAmerican Mink and the Cost of Fur by Virginia Thomas...2025-07-1410 min
The Animal HighlightS5E6: Brown Dog - The Forgotten Terrier Who Sparked a MovementIn this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas talks about Brown Dog, a canine who in 1903 was subjected to vivisection at University College London. Two activists brought his plight to the attention of the International Antivivisection Society and what ensued was a series lengthy legal and social battles commonly referred to as "The Brown Dog Affair."Recorded: 26 October 2023 Featured: S6E6: Social Movement Mobilization and Feminism with Corey Lee Wrenn on The Animal Turn.S5E5: Animal Testing and its Alternatives with Thomas Hartung on The Animal Tur...2025-07-0716 min
The Animal HighlightS5E5: Honeybees - Exploited Labour and Sticky EthicsIn this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas discusses honeybees and the ways in which they are exploited for their honey. She notes how much labour goes into making honey and the scale of the industry that relies on it. Because of the violence and exploitation in the industry vegans do not eat honey.Recorded: 26 October 2023 Featured: S6E5: Abolition with Gary Francione on The Animal Turn. The Bees of the World by Charles D Michener.World Bee Day by the FAO. Bees and the Politics of Honey by Virginia Thoma...2025-06-3010 min
The Animal HighlightS5E4: European Wildcat - Dilemmas of ConservationIn this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas discusses the European Wild Cat and their entangled relationships with domesticated cats. She notes how the interbreeding between these two species has conservationists worried and has resulted in a range of, oftentimes, violent interventions into their animals’ lives.Recorded: 12 October 2023 Featured: S5E3: Feral and Invasive Species with Lauren van Patter on The Animal Turn.S6E4: Violence with Dinesh Wadiwel on The Animal Turn. Scottish ‘Highland Tiger’ wildcat more endangered than Asian cousin on the BBC.Giraffe Marius slaughtered in Copenhagen Zoo, fed t...2025-06-2314 min
The Animal HighlightS5E3: Pale Male - Manhattan's Famous Red-Tailed HawkVirginia Thomas tells us about a red-tailed hawk named Pale Male who sparked controversy and admiration when he built his nest on a luxury Fifth Avenue apartment building in New York City. Pale Male is a celebrity whose story illuminates questions about animal habitat rights in urban environments.Recorded: 12 October 2023 Featured: Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog.S6E3: Moral Imagination and Habitat Rights with Steve Cooke on The Animal Turn.The Legend of Pale Male, a documentary.2025-06-1612 min
The Animal HighlightS5E2: Misunderstood Magueys - Thinking about Multispecies JusticeVirginia Thomas introduces the red maguey worm; a caterpillar often mistakenly called the "tequila worm.” She explores their biology and ethical implications of using these metamorphosing creatures as novelty ‘items’ in alcoholic beverages.Recorded: 18 September 2023 Featured: Cosmopolitanism with Angie Pepper on The Animal Turn.Perdido Street Station by China Melville.The Life Cycle of Butterflies and Moths by Butterfly Conservation.Cosmopolitan 'Worms' by Virginia Thomas.Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interaction...2025-06-0916 min
The Animal HighlightS5E1: Citizen Dogs - Reimagining Canine-Human SocietiesIn this Animal Highlight, fellow Virginia Thomas focuses on the domestic dog and the ways in which they might be thought of as citizens. She thinks about some of dogs' history and discusses the work of Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka. Recorded: 18 September 2023 Featured: Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rightsby Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka.Biosecurity with Steve Hinchliffe on The Animal Turn.Politics with Will Kymlicka on The Animal Turn.Cosmopolitanism with Angie Pepper on The Animal Turn.Canine Good Citizen with the American Kennel Club. The biopo...2025-06-0218 min
The Animal TurnBonus: Sensory Pollution with Brett Seymoure and Jennifer PhillipsIn this crossover episode from The Deal With Animals Podcast, Marika S. Bell talks to two experts about the impacts of sensory pollution on animals. Sensory pollution from artificial light and noise has profound effects on wildlife behavior, reproduction, and survival. Brett Seymour and Jennifer Phillips share insights about how everyday choices impact everything from insect flight patterns to bird nesting success.Date Released: 7 May 2024Dr. Jennifer Phillips is an assistant professor at Washington State University. Jenny's research focuses on animal behavior communication and the...2025-04-2858 min
The Animal TurnBonus: Big Cat Trade with Vanessa AmorosoThe global big cat trade encompasses both legal and illegal networks, with South Africa standing as the world's largest exporter of big cats including both live animals and parts. Vanessa Amoroso from Four Paws International explains how captive breeding facilities create a "conveyor belt of cubs" that fuels tourism attractions while obscuring the darker reality of what happens to these animals. Together Claudia and Vanessa discuss how loopholes in CITES allows for the large-scale legal breeding and trade of big cats, which also has numerous slippages into the illegal trade of the animals and exacerbates their exploitation. 2025-04-1451 min
The Animal TurnS7E10: Grad Review with Rashmi Singh Rana and Priyanshu Thapliyal Rashmi Singh Rana and Priyanshu Thapliyal join Claudia on the show to discuss some of the key themes to emerge in Season 7, Animals and Multispecies Health. These include thinking beyond anthropocentric understandings of health; considering how geography and context shape health relations; and the importance of discourse in both imaginative and material impacts.Date Recorded: 29 January 2025 Priyanshu Thapliyal is a PhD Researcher based in the school of GeoSciences at University of Edinburgh. In his project, he is thinking with and for people and street dogs living in an Indian Himalayan village to...2025-02-241h 38
The Animal TurnS7E9: Dogs’ Health with Jessica PierceIn this episode Jessica Pierce joins Claudia to explicitly discuss dogs’ health. They discuss everything from end-of-life care for dogs, to breeding practices, and discourses about dogs’ purpose in society. They unfurl some of the overlapping and similar health needs of street- versus pet-dogs and surmise that in general dogs are facing a range of both physical and psychological challenges. Date Recorded: 2 September 2024. Jessica Pierce is an American bioethicist known for her work in the field of animal ethics and the philosophy of human-animal relationships. She has written a number of books...2025-02-101h 19
The Animal TurnS7E8: Pavlov’s Dogs with Matthew AdamsMatthew Adams joins Claudia on the show to talk about the dogs who were used by Ivan Pavlov in his extensive laboratory operations in St Petersburg. They discuss the importance of psychology and psychological experimentation in debates about multispecies health, also pointing to the importance of art-based research that challenges anthropocentricism. Recorded: 10 September 2024. Matthew Adams is an academic in the School of Humanities & Social Sciences at the University of Brighton, UK. He teaches classes in ecopsychology, the psychology of human-animal relations, posthumanities and creative methods. Mathew’s research challenges conventional perceptions of a...2025-02-061h 26
The Animal TurnS7E7: Urban Health Histories with Heeral ChhabraIn this episode we delve into how urban health histories can help us to understand changing multispecies health. Heeral Chhabra tells us how the welfare of free-roaming dogs in India was caught up with the colonial history of the country and how rabies saw drastic changes in human-dog relations. Date Recorded: 27 September 2024. Heeral Chhabra is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with the Remaking One Health: Decolonial Approaches to Street Dogs and Rabies Prevention in India Project at University of Liverpool. She was awarded PhD from the University of Delhi (2022) for her thesis Ani...2025-01-201h 17
The Animal TurnS7E6: Compassionate Conservation with Daniel RampThis episode dives into the principles of compassionate conservation, emphasizing the importance of recognizing individual lives and experiences in conservation efforts. Daniel Ramp outlines how traditional conservation often overlooks the welfare of specific animals, leading to harmful outcomes, and presents compelling arguments for integrating compassion into conservation policies and practices. Date Recorded: 1 November 2024. Daniel Ramp is a behavioural ecologist, welfare expert, and conservation biologist specializing in transdisciplinary approaches to coexistence and sustainability. He is the Founder and Director of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), wh...2025-01-131h 46
The Animal TurnS7E5: Marginalized Multispecies Collectives with Oswaldo Santos BaqueroJoin us for a conversation with Oswaldo Santos Baquero about marginalized multispecies collectives. He explains the complexities of biological taxonomy and challenges traditional definitions of species to instead think about how collectives operate. By critically analyzing health practices through the lens of multispecies marginalization, Oswaldo challenges us to reconsider the economic interests that often overshadow the well-being of both animals and humans. Date Recorded: 28 August 2024. Oswaldo Santos Baquero is a professor in the Department of Preventive Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health at the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Sã...2024-12-231h 51
The Animal TurnS7E4: Behavioural Ecology with Anindita BhadraAnindita Bhadra joins Claudia on the show to explain what behavioural ecology is and how it has been applied to understanding the free-roaming dogs in India. They discuss the interconnections between domestication and evolution, the social organization of free roaming dogs, and dogs relationships with urban ecologies. Date Recorded: 16 August 2024. Anindita Bhadra is a behavioural biologist, working on free-ranging dogs in India. She founded The Dog Lab at the Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata in June 2009. She has written about dogs in leading journals su...2024-12-031h 14
The Animal TurnS7E3 - Species Story with Mariam Fraser MotamediIn this episode Mariam Motamedi-Fraser joins us in the show to discuss ‘species story’ a concept she developed in her book Dog Politics. We discuss how the human-dog bond has been established and maintained through modern day practices and scientific discourses which have implications for how dogs can live. Date Recorded: 31 July 2024. Mariam Motamedi Fraser is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the interdisciplinary research group UCL Anthropocene, in the Department of Geography. Her research is located in the field of animal studies. She is particularly interested in the implications, for animal...2024-11-181h 33
The Animal HighlightS4E8: Animals and Waste ReviewThe last episode of Season 4 is a review of the season “Animals and Waste.” Herre de Bondt, Rebecca Shen, and Claudia Hirtenfelder touch on some of the common themes to emerge in the season. These include how animals are valued as well as the mobility and accumulation of waste. Recorded: 14 August 2024. Herre de Bondt has done research on rats in Amsterdam, crows in Tokyo, and gulls in The Hague. His work has now brought him to London where his PhD project is concerned with urban bird feeding practice...2024-11-1837 min
The Animal TurnS7E2 - Healthy Publics with Melanie Rock and Gwendolyn BlueGwendolyn Blue and Melanie Rock join Claudia on the show to discuss ‘healthy publics.’ They explore how the idea of ‘public health’ has persistently been conceived of as human and unpack some of the opportunities and challenges with conceiving of multispecies health. From the historical roots of the ‘One Health’ to the modern challenges of public participation and representation, Melanie and Gwendolyn offer thought-provoking perspectives on stretching health frameworks beyond humans. Date Recorded: 2 July 2024. Melanie Rock is a professor at the University of Calgary is in the Department of Community Health Sciences. Sinc...2024-11-111h 52
The Animal HighlightS4E7 - Radioactive BoarsIn this Highlight, Herre looks at how nuclear waste has impacted the lives of wild boars living in Japan. More specifically, he discusses how, following the 2011 triple disaster, boars responded to the departure of humans from the Fukushima area and how the animals are being impacted by their slow return. Recorded: 15 May 2024. Featured: Evaluation of DNA damage and stress in wildlife chronically exposed to low-dose, low-dose rate radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident by Kelly Cunningham et al.Fukushima Daiichi Accident on The World Nucle...2024-11-1118 min
The Animal TurnS7E1: Multispecies Health with Guillem Rubio-Ramon and Krithika SrinivasanGuillem Rubio-Ramon and Krithika Srinivasan join Claudia to kick of Season 7 which is focused on “multispecies health.” They discuss human-dog relations and how multispecies health involves components of care, indifference and violence. Date Recorded: 7 June 2024. Guillem Rubio-Ramonis a Research Associate in Human Geography at the University of Edinburgh. His research integrates more-than-human geographies and political ecologies to study the reciprocal influence of animals and humans on each other's socio-cultural, economic and political lives. He is currently involved in the Remaking One Health – Indies project, which explores everyday interactions between...2024-11-041h 28
The Animal HighlightS4E6: Metropolitan MacaquesIn this episode Herre de Bondt discusses Singapore’s metropolitan macaques and how they use the city and its waste as a valuable resource that is not only important for their survival but contributes to the design of the city. Recorded: 15 May 2024. Featured: Purity and Danger by Mary DouglasCatastrophic extinctions follow deforestation in Singapore by Barry W. Brook et al. Characterizing human–macaque interactions in Singapore by Agustín Fuentes et al. Macaque–human interactions and the societal perceptions of macaques in Singapore by John Chih Mun Sha et al. Macaque...2024-11-0415 min
The Animal TurnBonus: Exploring Dog Cognition with Alexandra HorowitzClaudia talks to scientist and author, Alexandra Horowitz about dogs’ cognition. They discuss everything from dogs’ sense of smell and capacity to play to how anthropomorphisms sometimes skew human understandings of what dogs are doing. Date Recorded: 15 August 2024 Alexandra Horowitz heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College, where she also teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know and four other books, mo...2024-11-031h 15
The Animal TurnBonus: Kindred Creatures with Monica Murphy and Bill WasikMonica Murphy and Bill Wasik join Claudia on the show to talk about their recent book Our Kindred Creatures. They discuss how the late 19th century was a time of immense change for Americans and their relationships with animals became increasingly contradictory. Date Recorded: 15 July 2024 Bill Wasik is the editorial director of The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times...2024-10-281h 17
The Animal HighlightS4E5: Entangled Sea TurtlesWhen it comes to talking about waste and its impacts on animals it is hard to not think about plastic. In this episode, Herre de Bondt tells us how sea turtles have been entangled with the politics of plastic. Recorded: 27 November 2023. Featured: Dave the DiverSea Turtle with straw in nostril Credits:Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editorChristiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)Gordon Clarke, bed music composerLearn more a...2024-10-2816 min