Animal Voices

An undercover investigation at a Manitoba pig farm led to national coverage of the pigs’ suffering on the prestigious news program W5. Twyla Francois of Mercy for Animals Canada tells us how the investigation happened and what it found. Continue reading »

Will Kymlicka is a Canada Research Chair at Queen's University, and he thinks his field, political philosophy, doesn't talk enough about animals. Join us as Kymlicka discusses how we can use concepts like citizenship and sovereignty to open up new ways of thinking about the responsibilities we owe to animals. Continue reading »

In 2010, John Fitzgerald spoke with Animal Voices about hare coursing, a “sport” in which captured wild hares are made to run for their lives from greyhounds. Now, Fitzgerald returns to tell us about a landmark event in animal protection in Ireland: the first updates to anti-cruelty laws in over a century. Animal advocates want […]

Morgan Lance describes the impending eviction of Animals Asia’s 104 rescued bears from their Vietnamese bear sanctuary. The eviction order — which appears to be predicated on the false claims of a bureaucrat who has a financial interest in the sanctuary’s lands — has drawn the ire of governments, celebrities and citizens worldwide. Lance asks listeners to […]

It all started when the children in Ruby Roth’s art class asked why she didn’t eat the cheese strings at snack break. She went looking for a book she could read with the children, one that covered the full gamut of reasons for her veganism in a child-appropriate way. When she didn’t find one, she wrote […]

Today’s Animal Voices presents two interviews. First, we welcome Paul York of the University of Toronto Animal Rights Club. With a focus on anti-vivisection work, UT-ARC has a formidable task ahead: the University of Toronto uses 90,000 animals every year, including rats, mice, dogs, and monkeys. And while the university once promised to stop using monkeys, it quickly […]

Since its establishment in 1997, the Fauna Foundation has fought to end chimpanzee research and provided sanctuary to ex-research chimps. Founder Gloria Grow tells us about the early years of the sanctuary, from her first meeting with some of the chimps at a lab in New York, to her last moments with her beloved Pepper […]

Thanks to the TV show Whale Wars, Sea Shepherd is a household name. But what is it really like to be on board a Sea Shepherd vessel? This week’s guest, Shannon Mann, takes us inside life on the ship: the tension as you try to find the whalers before their scouts find you, the sound of ice […]

Admit it: you’ve dreamed about opening an animal sanctuary. What animal lover hasn’t? Seven years ago, Jenny Brown and Doug Abel opened the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary near Woodstock, New York. In her new book, The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals, Jenny recounts — in candid and often hilarious style — her journey from […]

A post-apocalyptic cooking show? A host who dodges and battles the living dead when he’s not sneaking into abandoned kitchens and cooking up delicious vegan comfort food? It may sound like an unlikely recipe for success, but Chris and Jon, creators of The Vegan Zombie, have combined years of cooking experience with top-notch videography and makeup […]

Between his degrees in Terrorism Studies and International Peace and Conflict Resolution, and his time spent doing human rights work in Palestine, Michael Loadenthal knows a thing or two about conflicts. On this Animal Voices, Loadenthal tackles the thorny issue of defining “terrorism” and examines whose interests are served by various definitions. Just who gets labelled a villain can be surprisingly […]

“This interdisciplinary study fuses analysis of feminist literature and manifestos, radical political theory, critical vanguard studies, women’s performance art, and popular culture to argue for the animal liberation movement as successor to the liberationist visions of the early twentieth-century avant-gardes, most especially the Surrealists.” The interview introduces many of the book’s themes, focusing particularly on [...]

This week’s first guest is Lindsay Nixon, the Happy Herbivore.  Lindsay has amassed a loyal following with her blog and two cookbooks full of low-fat vegan recipes. Her second book, Everyday Happy Herbivore, took a back-to-basics approach necessitated by her move from New York City to a small Caribbean island. Her upcoming book, The Happy [...]

This instalment of Animal Voices presents two interviews you won’t want to miss. First, Ashley Maier tells us how her work with victims of gendered violence led her to realize that a mindset of entitlement underlies most injustices: “Me and those like me are better and more important than others.  Our feelings, wants, needs, desires, and [...]

Marisa Miller Wolfson discusses the inspiration for and making of Vegucated, a first-of-its-kind documentary that follows a trio of carnivorous New Yorkers through the process of becoming vegan. Wolfson, a longtime vegan and veteran food activist, describes the incredible seven-year process of making the film, during which she discovered how very complex and costly documentary [...]