Talking Animals

Oct 29 2024 74 ep. 3k
Talking Animals Podcast artwork

Hosted by Duncan Strauss, Talking Animals is a weekly radio show about animals and animal issues. It currently airs Wednesdays, from 10-11am ET, on WMNF (88.5 FM), a 70,000-watt NPR affiliate in Tampa. The core of Talking Animals is a long-form interview with prominent figures in the animal world or notable folks in other fields who have ties to animal welfare. Past guests include Jane Goodall, Alec Baldwin, Temple Grandin, Dr. Neal Barnard, Lily Tomlin, Bob Barker, Neko Case, Nathan Runkle, Dr. Lori Marino, Jackson Galaxy, Paula Poundstone, Brian May, and Sy Montgomery. Alongside the interview, Talking Animals is rounded out by animal news and announcements, animal songs, animal comedy, and a quick quiz feature, Name That Animal Tune. https://talkinganimals.net

  Society & Culture  Kids & Family
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Jodie Wiederkehr, Founder-Executive Director of the Chicago Alliance for Animals

Oct 29 2024
Jodie Wiederkehr–veteran animal advocate and Founder-Executive Director of the Chicago Alliance for Animals (CAA)—recounts details of how CAA was formed, in 2015. (She has recalled in a previous “Talking Animals” conversation how her earliest professional animal advocacy work began in 1997.) Wiederkehr explained that she and her initial CAA cohort decided that aiming to ban

Mara Hvistendahl, New York Times reporter: “The Panda Factories”

Oct 23 2024
Mara Hvistendahl, a The New York Times reporter who wrote “The Panda Factories”–an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism probing the impact of China’s gambit nearly 30 years ago to send pandas to zoos in other countries, hoping the visiting animals would breed, ultimately resulting in pandas that could be returned to the wild–recounts the genesis of the story. O

Nancy Murrah, President of The Raptor Center of Tampa Bay

Oct 15 2024
Nancy Murrah—President of The Raptor Center of Tampa Bay (RCTB), which rescues, rehabilitates, and releases hundreds of native birds of prey annually—describes the preparations required at RCTB before something like Hurricane Milton, and how the facility fared through the storm. This led to a discussion of why tending to a veritable battalion of squirrels constituted a major po

Melissa Zepeda, attorney, animal rights advocate, Amendment 2 foe

Oct 01 2024
Melissa Zepeda–an attorney and accomplished animal rights advocate, with a notable breadth of interests and topics that have animated her activism—recalls growing up in family that revered animals, then being stopped in her tracks when a fellow high school debate-club member asked her how Zepeda could love her dog yet eat a hamburger. Zepeda not only didn’t recoil at that cha

Marion Gwizdala, CEO of Advocates for Service Animal Partners Inc. (ASAP)

Sep 17 2024
Marion Gwizdala, CEO of Advocates for Service Animal Partners Inc. (ASAP)—a Tampa-based national nonprofit dedicated to securing, protecting, and advancing the rights and responsibilities of service animal handlers and the businesses they patronize—recalls receiving his first service dog in 1987, and just days later, encountering discrimination when a restaurant he frequented p

Cathryn Michon, author of “I’m Still Here: A Dog’s Purpose Forever”

Sep 10 2024
Cathryn Michon–the showbiz hyphenate who co-wrote with husband W. Bruce Cameron “A Dog’s Purpose,” the film adaptation of Cameron’s New York Times bestselling novel, considered the most popular live-action dog movie of all time—reflects on the dizzying number of dog books (including children’s books) and films that constitute the collective Michon/Cameron juggernaut.

Dr. Gregory Berns, neuroscientist, professor, author of “Cowpuppy”

Aug 27 2024
Dr. Gregory Berns—author, neuroscientist, professor of psychology at Emory University (and an M.D.)—addresses the change he was seeking when he and his wife decided to buy a farm outside of Atlanta, a saga that’s among the experiences chronicled in Berns’ new book, “Cowpuppy: An Unexpected Friendship and A Scientist’s Journey into The Secret World of Cows.” Part of th

Will Braden, curator of CatVideoFest

Aug 21 2024
Will Braden, filmmaker—and curator of CatVideoFest 2024, a 75-minute compilation of short cat videos, edited into a briskly-paced reel, screening at theaters across the country, including the Tampa Theatre Aug. 23 & 25-27—recalls what first drew him to film. Studying film, at first informally, then later in film school, he realized that he was particularly intrigued by structu

Mark Devries, documentary filmmaker, “Humans and Other Animals”

Aug 13 2024
Mark Devries–the documentary filmmaker (https://markdevries.com/) who specializes in exploring the realm of animals and animal welfare—expands on the final line (the fate of our kin is up to us) of his new film, “Humans and Other Animals.” Laying out an eloquent and philosophical operating principle—which permeates his new film, as it did his debut doc, “Speciesism: Th

Art Shaul, founder of Safe Paws Rescue

Aug 06 2024
Art Shaul—founder-director of Safe Paws Rescue, a small but mighty rescue serving the Tampa Bay Area—recalls growing up watching his Dad bring home ill, injured, sometimes “bedraggled” animals, caring for these critters, then making them family members. Observing these paternal acts of kindness clearly made a profound impression on Shaul (he gets a bit emotional recounting