When We Talk About Animals

When We Talk About Animals


Latest Episodes

Ep. 51 – Novelist Ned Beauman on venomous lumpsuckers and the price of extinction
April 11, 2023

Fiction can provide the most profound, incisive truths about the absurdities of our reality. In his most recent novel, Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman, a master of finding the humor and the fantastic

Ep. 50 – Australian Biologist Danielle Clode on the Extraordinary World of Koalas
February 21, 2023

Upon seeing an adorable Koala sitting on an eucalyptus branch in Australia, few would expect the beloved marsupial to emit a booming bellow to alert potential mates or rivals of its presence. But this

Ep. 49 – Dog Cognition Expert Alexandra Horowitz on the Quiddity of Puppies
October 05, 2022

Most books on puppies are dog-improvement manuals, guiding readers How to Raise the Perfect Dog or how to achieve Perfect Puppy in 7 Days. Alexandra Horowitzs profound and totally delightful new

Ep. 48 – Patrick Rose on the Fight to Save Florida’s Manatees
August 02, 2022

Grazing peacefully through shallow waterways, the Florida manatee is one of the states most beloved creatures. Due to a multitude of compounding, human-caused crises, the last couple years have been

Ep. 47 – Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil on writing love letters to nature
May 24, 2022

Poet Aimee Nezhukumatathils exuberant book of essays, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, has unlocked protective passion for nature among readers since its

Ep. 46 – Paleobiologist Thomas Halliday on the Animals of Ancient Worlds
March 21, 2022

The fossil record acts as both a memorial to lifes spectacular possibilities and as a warning to humanity about how fast dominance can become forgotten history, according to our guest, Scottish paleo

Ep. 45 – Rob Dunn on what the laws of biology predict about our future
February 02, 2022

Amid the cataclysms of the Anthropocene, an era defined by humans attempts to control the natural world, its easy to forget that we remain as subject as ever to the ecological laws that govern livin

Ep. 44 – Rick McIntyre on the stories of Yellowstone’s greatest wolves
November 22, 2021

In 1995, the U.S. government took unprecedented actions to restore the wolf population of Yellowstone National Park, which it had brutally destroyed seventy years prior. More than thirty wolves from m

Ep. 43 – Cynthia Barnett on our world of seashells
September 22, 2021

From tiny cowries to giant clams, seashells have gripped human imaginations since time immemorial. In her magnificent new book, The Sound of the Sea, journalist Cynthia Barnett tells the epic history

Ep. 42 – Edie Widder on the ocean’s spectacular light
August 16, 2021

Most of us land-lubbers assume that light-making among ocean creatures is an exotic and rare phenomenon. But thats wrong. The majority of animals in the ocean, which means the majority of animals on