Matthew Glover is the founder of Veganuary, Million Dollar Vegan and now Veg Capital, an investment fund for companies striving to replace the use of animals in the food system. Veganuary launched in 2014 with 3,300 people pledging to go vegan for the month of January. Veganuary in 2021 has seen over 1 million people in 192 countries making that pledge. In this podcast Matthew chats with us about his introduction to vegetarianism, veganism and animal rights activism what inspired him to start...

 Alexandra Horowitz is a professor at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she teaches seminars in canine cognition, creative nonfiction writing, and audio storytelling. As Senior Research Fellow, she heads the Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard.Alexandra has long been interested in how the world is experienced by dogs and her research and writing is aimed to answer the question of what it's like to be a dog. And her book, Inside of a Dog, was a New York Times bestseller for 65 weeks. In...

Mark Rowlands is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Miami.He is the author of seventeen books and has spent much of his career exploring the ethical and moral questions related to animal rights. His books, Animal Rights, Animals Like Us, and Can Animals be Moral are essential reading for anyone looking to understand the philosophy of animal rights, and his memoir, The Philosopher and the Wolf, became an international bestseller and charts the...

Melissa Liszewski is a Senior Program Manager for Community Engagement at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). She has loved animals and wanted to help them for as long as she can remember, and that passion has seen her deliver some of the most progressive, sustainable and impactful animal welfare programs in communities around in the world.In this podcast, Melissa talks about her early love of animals and campaigning her parents to get her first dog. Her journey through her...

Dave Neale is the Animal Welfare Director for Animals Asia. He travels extensively to head up their campaign to improve animal welfare at zoos and safari parks in China, and also works to increase general veterinary and animal welfare standards and promote animal-welfare education in schools and universities.Dave chats to us about his career after graduating in Environmental Science and Conservation Biology, when he worked as an ecologist for a river restoration charity in England. He talks...

Gene Baur has been hailed as “the conscience of the food movement”. A pioneer in the field of undercover investigations and farm animal rescue, Gene has visited hundreds of farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, documenting the deplorable conditions.His pictures and videos exposing factory farming cruelties have aired in the United States and internationally, educating millions about the plight of modern farm animals, and his rescue work inspired an international farm sanctuary movement.Gene...

John Goodrich is the Chief Scientist for Panthera, an organisation that is leading the way in global wild cat conservation science and strategy.John is acknowledged as one of the world’s preeminent tiger biologists.  He has over 30 years of experience in wildlife research and conservation focused on Siberian tigers and other large carnivores. While living in Siberia, John directed research and conservation projects on Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East, including the world’s longest...

Louie Psihoyos is the Oscar winning director of The Cove, the director of The Game Changers and Racing Extinction and the founder of Oceanic Preservation Society. Louie is recognised as one of the top still photographers in the world, having created iconic images for National Geographic for 18 years. Louie chats with us about his career, his lifelong passion for the ocean, the environment, conservation and animal welfare and the incredible journey that saw him become one the the most...

Leah Garcés is the president of Mercy For Animals and author of the bestseller, Grilled: Turning Adversaries into Allies to Change the Chicken Industry. She has nearly 20 years of leadership experience in the animal protection movement and has partnered with some of the world’s largest food companies on her mission to end factory farming.Leah oversaw international campaigns in 14 countries at the World Society for the Protection of Animals and launched Compassion in World Farming in the...

Jill Robinson is the founder of Animals Asia, one of the most pioneering and inspiring animal welfare organisations in the world today. Jill has worked in animal welfare for over 30 years but in 1993, a visit to a bear farm in southern China changed her life forever.In 1998, she created Animals Asia to end the barbaric practice of bear bile farming and improving the welfare of animals in China and Vietnam by promoting compassion and respect for all animals, and working to bring about...

In collaboration with international Cat Care, this special International Cat Day episode we chat with Ian Macfarlaine. Ian is one of the most significant and important figures in international cat welfare. He has run pioneering cat population management projects around the world, not only improving the welfare of countless cats but providing training and building local capacity in across communities. In this episode, we chat to Ian about his decades of work in animal welfare and stray cat...

Paul Watson is one of the most influential and pioneering activists of marine wildlife and environmental conservation. Co-founder of Greenpeace and Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul has spent his entire life fighting injustice.Since its foundation, Sea Shepherd's innovative direct-action tactics have exposed and confronted illegal whaling, fishing, shark finning, hunting and poaching activities on the high seas. In this podcast, Paul chats about his lifetime of activism....

Here's a little promo of what's in store for Season 2 of the Animal Chat podcast!

David Mech is a world renowned researcher and expert on wolves, wolf behaviour and wolf conservation. He is a senior research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota.David has studied wolves since 1958 in locations including northern Minnesota, Isle Royale, Alaska, Yellowstone National Park, Ellesmere Island and Italy, and has published some 450 articles and 11 books on the subject. He is the founder and vice-chair of the Board of...

Liz Tyson is the Programs Director for Born Free USA and Director of the Born Free USA Primate Sanctuary. Prior to that she was International Director for the Palestinian Animal League and Director of the Captive Animals Protection Society (CAPS). She has a PhD in animal welfare law and has been an active advocate and voice for animals for over 15 years. Liz spent 2 years working with indigenous Amazonian Tikuna communities in South America on primate conservation.In this podcast, Liz chats...

Dr Trent Grassian earned his PhD in Social Policy from the University of Kent in 2019 by conducting research with non-profit organisations promoting meat reduction and veganism, in the largest study of its kind and has given presentations all over the world about the project. The full dissertation is freely available online, as well as a summary report.He wrote a book chapter, Food Policy: Where does environmental nutrition fit in? in the seminal volume Environmental Nutrition.He also runs...

Peter Egan is a beloved English film, television and theatre actor with a career spanning more than 50 years. Famous for roles in Chariots of Fire, Ever Decreasing Circles, Downton Abbey and After Life, in more recent years, he is equally well know for his animal activism. Peter dedicates an enormous amount of his life to supporting animal rights and animal welfare causes and organisations around the world. In this podcast, Peter talks about his lifelong love of animals, his journey into...

Amy Dickman is an internationally renowned conservation biologist. She’s dedicated her life to saving big cats in the wild, working in Africa for over 20 years on carnivore ecology and how to resolve human-wildlife conflict.Amy is the Kaplan Senior Research Fellow in Wild Cat Conservation at Oxford University’s WildCRU. She worked at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia before moving to Tanzania, where she established the amazing Ruaha Carnivore Project in 2009, which works closely with...

For 25 years, Charles Vinick worked with Jean-Michel and Jacques Cousteau, helping the ocean explorers establish, grow and sustain their initiatives. As a co-founder of the Cousteau Centers, Charles oversaw development and management of Parc Oceanique Cousteau in Paris and shepherded the growth of the Cousteau Society.Charles also served as director of the Keiko Project, a pioneering effort that marshalled public and media support to reintroduce to the wild the captive orca made famous...

Brian Faulkner’s is one of the world's foremost experts on dog population management and his experience animal control and welfare spans more than 30 years.After serving in the Royal Navy, Brian worked for local government in the UK where he was responsible for stray dog control and enforcing dog control legislation.In 1999, he began working for the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and managed many of their stray dog control programmes across the globe.Since 2003, he has...

Lori Marino is a neuroscientist and expert in animal behaviour and intelligence, and is internationally known for her work on the intelligence in dolphins and whales. In 2001, she co-authored a ground-breaking study offering the first conclusive evidence for mirror self-recognition in bottlenose dolphins, after which she decided against further research with captive animals.Lori is the Founder and Executive Director of The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, which focuses on bridging the gap...

In 2006, while Sam Green was visiting Sri Lanka, she came across a street dog that seemed minutes away from death. She wasn't able to walk away from the dog (who she later named, Mango) and instead, got to work contacting vets and animal experts and paying for the dog to receive the medical attention it needed.  That was the birth of what would become Dogstar Foundation. An organisation that, in the following 14 years, has become one of the most innovative, impactful and expertly run dog...

In this episode, Harry and Matt chat with Lola Webber.Lola has been a driving force behind the anti dog meat movement for the past decade and in this chat, Lola talks about her early love of animals, her passion for animal welfare and her personal and inspiring journey that led to her tireless work to end the dog meat trades across Asia. Lola is a Co-founder and Director of Change For Animals Foundation and consultant for Humane Society International and was the winner of the 2017 Animal Hero...

Exotic pet ownership is something that many people will have found out more about recently thanks to the new Netflix documentary series, Tiger King about roadside zoo owner, Joe Exotic and the increasingly bizarre cast of characters that inhabit this world.Someone that knows more about this world than almost anyone is our guest on this Animal Chat podcast - Tim Harrison.Tim Harrison is a retired police officer, firefighter and paramedic for the city of Oakwood, Ohio and was the central focus...