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June 18th is Save a Fish Day, June 19th is Father’s Day, and this week is Animal Rights Awareness Week!
To start the show, in recognition of Father’s Day this week, we discuss how this special day is largely marketed in the media with the undertones of animal exploitation (ie. “Treat your father with the perfect steak” or “Perfect leather goods for Father’s Day”). We present some alternatives to honouring fathers without the stereotypical male rhetoric that tends to exploit animals.
Then we talk about why we need an Animal Rights Awareness Week (and maybe why every week should be dedicated to raising awareness of the plight and rights of animals).
Michael Webermann on the Animal Rights 2016 National Animal Rights Conference
For our first interview, we have Michael Webermann on the show. Michael is the Executive Director of the Farm Animal Rights Movement, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that works to end the use of animals for food through public education and grassroots activism.
FARM is the organizer of the Animal Rights National Conference, which is the world’s largest and longest-running event dedicated to the liberation of animals from all forms of human exploitation and use. This year’s conference will take place in Los Angeles from July 7th to 10th, and are excited to attend!
Michael is here today to tell us all about the conference, as well as a few other campaigns of FARM. He also gives this thoughts on the progression of the animal rights movement, for Animal Rights Awareness Week.
Enjoy this short video with Michael about this year’s AR Conference:
Jonathan Balcombe, author of “What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins”
For our feature interview, we have ethologist Dr. Jonathan Balcombe back on the show. He is the director of animal sentience at the Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy and the author of four books, including “Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals” and “Pleasurable Kingdom: Animals and the Nature of Feeling Good”.
He has most recently written a book called “What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins”. The book draws upon the latest science and also shares many stories about fishes in their mysterious ocean world to help us understand them. The discoveries are plentiful, and Jonathan speaks to us about some of these insights, such as how fishes hear and appreciate music; the secret of the navigation feats of salmon; evidence to support that fishes, of course, feel pain; and peculiarities of their sex lives.
He also addresses the public stigma against fishes and our gross misunderstanding of them. And while people do appreciate the beauty of a fish, do films such as “Find Nemo” and “Finding Dory” (due out this week in theatres) promote the exploitation of fishes by keeping them in aquariums? Jonathan gives us his thoughts about keeping fishes in captivity and how we can appreciate them otherwise.
Happy Save a Fish Day!