Scott Hardy—co-founder of Hardy Hayes Refuge, a mom-and-pop rescue-rehab operation with sizable ambitions, and accomplishments to match—outlines his lifelong love of animals, describing a childhood where the insights gleaned from trying to treat a locust as a pet...
Kathy Stevens—founder and director of Catskill Animal Sanctuary, which sprawls over 148 acres in New York’s Hudson Valley, providing refuge to about 300 farmed animals rescued from cruelty, neglect, and abandonment—recalls a childhood growing up on a horse farm in...
For this edition of “Talking Animals,” I scrapped the usual format to present two discussions about sexism, sexual harassment and misconduct within the animal welfare world—against the backdrop of what seems like an endless flurry of disturbing reports about this...
Dr. Gregory Berns—author of multiple books, including The New York Times bestseller “How Dogs Love Us”—discusses his new book, “What It’s Like To Be A Dog: And Other Adventures In Animal Neuroscience.” A professor of psychology at Emory University (and an M.D.),...
Kathy Finelli—the director of Gainesville Rabbit Rescue, a nonprofit founded by two university of Florida students nearly 20 years ago—recalls her first rabbit: someone’s pet bunny that somehow ended up in her backyard; she contacted Gainesville Rabbit Rescue...
Dr. Jillian Johnson—a chiropractor and owner of Farmhouse Chiropractic, a Tampa-based mobile practice that involves treating humans and animals (her slogan is “chiropractic care for you and the horse you rode in on”)—recalls being a fervent animal lover since she...
Dr. Eleanor Spicer Rice—an entomologist and writer who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and who just published four new guides on ants—recalls growing up having a fascination with ants (and other insects), but unlike most kids, she never lost that for bugs. Spicer...
For this edition of “Talking Animals,” we broke format and did something a little different: Setting aside our customary approach of a long-form guest interview and, often, a shorter second interview, I opened the phone lines and invited listeners to Call In To...
Patti Ragan—the founder of The Center For Great Apes, a 120-acre sanctuary in Wauchula, FL that houses nearly 50 chimpanzees and orangutans—recalls how she first became interested in great apes. That history, Ragan explains, dates back to 1984, when he volunteered...
Dr. Keith Lindsay—the conservation biologist whose career reflects a longstanding dedication to studying elephants—recalls how he got started in 1977 at the Amboseli Elephants Research Project, in southern Kenya, by something of a fluke. He notes that he returned...
