The Animal Turn

22/10/2025

In this Animal Highlight, Virginia 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.

Listen to more of this Animal Highlight wherever you get your podcasts!

17/10/2025

Emily Major, Debra Merskin, and Lu Liu help to think through how animals are manufactured as “pests” and “icons” in media and how those labels shape empathy, policy, and everyday cruelty towards animals.

In this clip you can hear Emily Major discussing how some animals are protected from pest status and the negative media connotations that come with that.

Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

11/10/2025

In this animal highlight Virgina talks about wolves and auto-rewilding. It is a fascinating episode that discusses how amazing wolves are and questions how risk is distributed between species.

Tine in to hear more!

07/10/2025

Jo-Anne McArthur's haunting photographs capture mink trapped in cramped cages—animals designed for solitude and swimming forced into crowded battery farms. What's the true cost of that fur coat?

Listen to Virginia Thomas on The Animal Highlight to learn more about American Mink.

29/09/2025

Carrie Freeman and Christopher Eubanks join Claudia on the show to explore animal (mis)representation in media. They examine some of the ways in which animals are represented in activist messaging and the interconnections of animal rights with other social justice movements.

29/09/2025

Brown Dog is the forgotten terrier who sparked a movement. In 1903 his plight, at the hands of medical students at the University College London, helped to motivate the antivivisection movement in England. Learn more about "The Brown Dog Affair" on this Animal Highlight with Virginia Thomas.

25/09/2025

Following the conversation with Gary Francione on The Animal Turn, Virginia highlights honey bees to explain why vegans don't eat honey. She notes how political animal labour and human diets are.

Find The Animal Highlight and The Animal Turn wherever you get your podcasts.

22/09/2025

09/09/2025

Is conservation always ethical? This animal highlight with Virginia Thomas explores how saving the critically endangered European wildcat involves practices that raise difficult questions about consent, coercion, and violence. Where do we draw the line between care and control?

You can find The Animal Highlight wherever you listen to podcasts.

08/09/2025

In S6E3 of the Animal Turn, Steve Cooke said people should recognise animals as individuals, worthy of concern for their own sake. This is important to upholding animals' individual rights, rather than simply thinking of them as worthy of concern because they're members of certain groups or species. When we recognise animals as individual beings who matter for their own sake we recognise that they can (and indeed should) have rights, including habitat rights.

This conversation got Virginia thinking about a red tailed hawk in New York City known as Pale Male. Pale Male has an interesting story - he was recognised in the city as an individual worthy of concern and who had a claim to his urban space.

Learn more about Pale Male on The Animal Highlight or read about him on our website: https://www.theanimalturnpodcast.com/post/animal-highlight-recognising-pale-male

Co-hosts: Claudia Hirrenfelder and Virginia Thomas
Artwork: Rebecca Shen
Producer and Editor: Claudia Hirtenfelder
Sponsored: Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law, and Ethics