Species Unite Elizabeth Novogratz

"I had no question in my mind that here's a gift that has come to the door, and I will give this gift whatever it requires. And what came back? Many times what was required of me. My life has been enlarged, enriched, ennobled." - Paul Bochner

We live alongside wild animals all the time. We see deer at the edges of roads, in fields, disappearing into the woods. We might stop for a moment to admire them, but rarely do we think about who they are, what their lives are like, or what they might be feeling.

Paul Bochner spent more than twenty years living beside a piece of land where deer came to give birth. He watched them, admired them, and left them alone. Until one day, a young deer with a badly injured leg appeared at his back door.

He named her Penelope.

Paul has written a beautiful book about that relationship, Penelope: A Love Story. But it's about so much more than one man and one deer. It's about trust, love, loss, and the rich emotional lives of animals that we so often overlook.

And it's about how much we might discover if we were willing to pay closer attention.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/840903/penelope-by-paul-bochner/

"India is extraordinary in the sense that we already see a lot of sort of cultural reverence for species and some inherent tolerance in society. And just adding a little bit of knowledge to that means they know that it is not an intentional act on the part of the animal to come and destroy you. A lot of the injuries and deaths are purely accidental. And once that little bit of understanding adds on… these people already care. It's not like they don't care for wildlife." – Dr. Krithi Karanth

Imagine living in a place where elephants can destroy your family's crops overnight, where leopards sometimes kill your livestock, and where an encounter with a wild animal can mean the difference between life and death.

Now imagine being asked to help protect those same animals.

This is the reality for millions of people living alongside wildlife in India. And it's the challenge that Krithi Karanth has spent much of her life trying to solve.

Krithi is the CEO of the Centre for Wildlife Studies in India and was recently named National Geographic's Explorer of the Year.

What makes Krithi's work so impactful is that she knows that if we want to save wild animals, we have to find ways for people to live alongside them. 

Which is exactly what she is doing, on an extraordinary scale.

https://cwsindia.org/

"That transformation from a guy from the Midwest that was really into a lot of meat and potatoes, like a lot of us are. That transformation and experience was the closest experience that I had to feeling like a real life superhero." - Dominick Thompson

Dominick Thompson is a man who has lived the kind of life that is now being made into a movie.

He grew up on the West side of Chicago, started hustling at a young age, and eventually ended up in federal prison. What came after was a complete reimagining of his life. Today, Dominick is an author, endurance athlete, entrepreneur, and animal advocate.

And now his life is a subject of the upcoming film Beyond the Walls, directed by Shaun Monson and starring Tyler Lepley as Dominick and Tabitha Brown as his mother. Dominick's story is one of transformation, but it's also about strength, masculinity, compassion, and the choices thatwho shape who we become.

Links:

https://beyondthewallsmovie.com/

https://www.instagram.com/beyondthewallsfilm/

https://www.instagram.com/domzthompson/

"Everything is a story. Every belief that we have, every entity or institution is a story that we've told ourselves and each other. And so really identifying ways on how companies that have grown to be so large and successful, how they have taken storytelling and been able to apply it to building out their awareness, consideration and lead generation and conversions, ultimately to have lifetime value of their customers. We're not necessarily selling a product by any means, but we are giving people an opportunity to, what I feel is, be given the same gift I felt like I was given, which was an awareness and a set of values around aligning how I show up in the world and aligning them to the values that I have on a day to day basis." – Arash Yomtobian

Most people don't change the way they eat overnight. It usually starts with something small. They see something they can't quite forget. They start wondering where their food comes from. They switch the milk in their coffee, eat a little less meat, or learn something about factory farming that makes it hard to look at dinner in quite the same way again.

Arash Yomtobian believes those moments matter. He is the CEO of Mercy for Animals, and after years of working in technology, he thinks a lot about how we reach people, not just the people who already agree with us, but everyone else.

Because if we want to change a food system that causes suffering on an almost unimaginable scale, we need a movement big enough to change it. And that means meeting people where they are, telling better stories and moving beyond the idea that you have to be all in before you're welcome.

In this conversation. Arash and I talk about what it actually takes to change people and systems.

https://mercyforanimals.org/

"As I stood about six feet away from him, looking at his beautiful little brown eyes, and Tuffy looked right back into my eyes and actually through my soul. And at that moment, I felt like it was quite emotional, and it really felt like he knew what was going on and understood everything that was going on." – Ana Paula Tavares

For decades, chimpanzees in the United States were used in biomedical research, sent into space, kept as pets, and made to perform for our entertainment. Many spent years, some most of their lives, in cages, separated from other chimpanzees, and denied almost everything that would have made their lives their own.

Save the Chimps exist to give some of those lives back. On 150 acres in Florida, more than 200 rescued chimpanzees live in large family groups on island habitats. Some arrive knowing exactly what to do with grass and open sky. Others have spent so long on concrete and behind bars that it can take months or even years before they feel safe enough to step outside.

Ana Paula Tavares is the CEO of Save the Chimps. She came to the sanctuary after a career that took her from studying dance in New York to working in conservation around the world. But until Save the Chimps, she had never even met a chimpanzee.

In this conversation, we talk about Taffy, Tonka, Vanilla, and some of the other extraordinary chimpanzees at the sanctuary. What happens when an animal has spent decades in captivity and sees open sky or feels grass for the first time. And what chimpanzees can teach us about friendship, forgiveness, family, and second chances.

As Ana Paula says, "for many of the chimpanzees at Save the Chimps, the greatest gift we can give them isn't the islands or the open space. It's each other."