Should Robots Be Granted “Personhood” Even if Most or All Nonhuman Animals Are Not? Today I discuss the ideas of altering animals’ minds to compete with robotic “intelligence” – manipulating some animals to be fit to be “persons” and others to be fit for industrialized farm life. Please join me for this brief look at a future already here and in the making ..read more

At first glance, pessimism and negativity may seem like synonymous attitudes toward the world and its prospects for improvement. Both can seem particularly applicable to animal rights activism and the prospect for animal liberation. In today’s podcast, I explain how pessimism and negativity differ from each other and why this difference matters. Please join me ..read more

In today’s episode, I tell the story of two hens who came to live in our sanctuary, one as a chick, the other as an adult, and the changes they underwent at our place. Please join me as I relive my experience with these two very endearing birds ..read more

Agribusiness portrays chickens raised for food as “happy” and “content” in the squalor of their factory-farm environment. Exploiters insist that chickens who have never known anything else cannot “miss” fresh air, sunshine, and personal space. Is this true? In today’s podcast I examine this claim including whether farmers really “know” their animals. Tune in and find out how chickens experience their dark world of incarceration, and why they cannot adapt to it ..read more

In today’s podcast episode, I discuss the plight of chickens and all farmed animals condemned to the world of genetic manipulation, a global industry devoid of ethics and empathy for animals whose bodies are being manipulated for specific culinary traits and who are being experimentally bred to appear not to mind the environmental “stressors” of filth, excessive heat, lack of personal space, disease organisms, brutal handling, and whatever else generates unlimited funding. Please join me. – Karen Davis ..read more

The question has been asked: Do chickens form intentions? Can they form intentions? In this episode I address the question by citing some key examples of intentional behavior that I have observed in the hens living in our sanctuary. Please join me for my interpretation of the minds of chickens as I watch our chickens pursue their personal interests and satisfactions, and the part played by memory and anticipation in getting what they want ..read more

In today’s podcast I discuss the advantages versus the disadvantages of Single-Issue Campaigns for animals, including the difference between Focused Campaigns and Closed-Circle Campaigns and why this difference matters.  Please join me ..read more

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Of all the cruelties inflicted on hens forced to live in battery cages, one of the worst, perhaps even the worst of all, is preventing them from standing up on their legs and feet and walking. Unconfined, chickens walk constantly and often pretty fast. And they run! Today I will tell you about a hen rescued from a battery cage who we feared would never be able to stand up let alone take steps and walk. But she had a mind to do just that. Tune in to hear Sarah’s story ..read more

Today’s podcast episode, Letter to a New Vegan, is based on an essay I wrote for an anthology of this name, addressing the person who has chosen to abandon a diet of carnage in favor of an animal-free, slaughter-free diet. While so many of the products we buy incorporate hidden animal suffering, the most blatant is food. Food is also more than anything else we consume the most personal and intimate. Determination to throw off years of culinary conditioning can be daunting at first, but it can be done and I urge that it must be done and discuss in this podcast a few of the challenges and, best ..read more