Podcast Coming Soon!
May is International Respect for Chickens Month, so this show is all about chickens!
Is Exploitation of Chickens Ever Ethical?
We start off with a round-table discussion on some of the many ways in which humans attempt to justify using chickens for their flesh and their eggs, and the ethical problems with these justifications. We dissect labels such as “cage free,” “free range,” and “organic,” talk about some of the issues with the “backyard hen” trend, and share a few of our favorite alternatives to chicken flesh and eggs.
Dr. K-lynn Smith, Leading Chicken Researcher
Our feature interview is with biologist and animal behaviorist Dr. Carolynn “K-lynn” Smith, PhD, a researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She is one of the world’s leading researchers on chicken behavior and cognition, and her work has been featured in Scientific American magazine as well as on Australia’s ABC news network. She speaks to us about some of the fascinating things she and her colleagues have discovered about how chickens think, feel, and communicate with one another, and the ethical ramifications of these discoveries.