The last episode of Season 4 is a review of the season “Animals and Waste.” Herre de Bondt, Rebecca Shen, and Claudia Hirtenfelder touch on some of the common themes to emerge in the season. These include how animals are valued as well as the mobility and accumulation of waste.

Recorded: 14 August 2024.

Herre de Bondt has done research on rats in Amsterdam, crows in Tokyo, and gulls in The Hague. His work has now brought him to London where his PhD project is concerned with urban bird feeding practices. From hanging up fatballs for chirpy robins to tossing seed to flocks of ‘flying rats’, Herre is determined to investigate the inherently multispecies practice of bird feeding. He is particularly interested in the ways non-human animals inform and shape the contemporary city in collaboration with – and in defiance of – humans. You can connect with Herre via Twitter (@HerreBondt).

Rebecca Shen is a landscape designer and researcher as well as an Assistant Content Producer and Designer at The Animal Turn. Rebecca is inspired by design as pursuits of worldmaking, especially to advance interspecies justice and collectivity during times of challenge. She graduated with a Master in Landscape Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2023, where she completed her design thesis, Sanctuary State: California’s Cowscape in Transition, which envisions the transformation of an 800-acre industrial “cattle” feedlot into a cow sanctuary, a site for interspecies confrontation, healing, and codesigning. Through her design work, Rebecca explores human-animal relationships in the built environment, ecological restoration, and regenerative food systems. You can find out more about Rebecca on her website or connect with her via email at beccshen@gmail.com.

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

In this Highlight, Herre looks at how nuclear waste has impacted the lives of wild boars living in Japan. More specifically, he discusses how, following the 2011 triple disaster, boars responded to the departure of humans from the Fukushima area and how the animals are being impacted by their slow return.

Recorded: 15 May 2024.

Featured:

• Evaluation of DNA damage and stress in wildlife chronically exposed to low-dose, low-dose rate radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident by Kelly Cunningham et al.
• Fukushima Daiichi Accident on The World Nuclear Association.
• Rewilding of Fukushima's human evacuation zone by Phillip C Lyons et al.
• Disproportionately High Contributions of 60 Year Old Weapons-137Cs Explain the Persistence of Radioactive Contamination in Bavarian Wild Boars by Felix Stäger et al.
• Radioactive Boars in Fukushima Thwart Residents’ Plans to Return Home on The New York Times.
• The dogs of Chernobyl: Demographic insights into populations inhabiting the nuclear exclusion zone by Gabriella J. Spatola et al.
• Rare look at the wildlife thriving in North Korea's DMZ on The Natural History Museum.

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

In this episode Herre de Bondt discusses Singapore’s metropolitan macaques and how they use the city and its waste as a valuable resource that is not only important for their survival but contributes to the design of the city.

Recorded: 15 May 2024.

Featured:

• Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas
• Catastrophic extinctions follow deforestation in Singapore by Barry W. Brook et al.
• Characterizing human–macaque interactions in Singapore by Agustín Fuentes et al.
• Macaque–human interactions and the societal perceptions of macaques in Singapore by John Chih Mun Sha et al.
• Macaque too smart for anti-pilferage bin on The Dire Straits.
• Macaquess high rise robbery on Tik Tok.
• Waste is not “matter out of place” by Max Liboiron
• Monkeys at Northshore Drive on You Tube.
• Waste, environmental politics and dis/engaged publics by Myra J Hird

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

When it comes to talking about waste and its impacts on animals it is hard to not think about plastic. In this episode, Herre de Bondt tells us how sea turtles have been entangled with the politics of plastic.

Recorded: 27 November 2023.

Featured:

• Dave the Diver
• Sea Turtle with straw in nostril

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Fiddler crabs, with their one giant claw, are considered ecosystem engineers in mangrove environments. Herre de Bondt gives us a glimpse into the world of these incredible crustaceans.

Recorded: 27 November 2023.

Featured:

• Fiddler Crabs by Jochen Zeil et al.
• Burrow-Morphological Characters of the Fiddler Crab and Ecological Correlates in a Lagoonal Beach on Pulau Hantu, Singapore by Shirley S. L. Lim and C. H. Diong.
• Effects of Fiddler Crab Burrows on Sediment Properties in the Mangrove Mudflats of Sungai Sepang, Malaysiaby Mohammad Mokhtari et al.
• Contrasting Effects of Two Burrowing Crabs on Sediment Composition and Transport in Estuarine Environments by F. Botto and O. Iribarne.
• State of the World’s Mangroves by the Nature Conservancy.
• Bigger is Better by National Geographic.

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

House finches in Mexico City use discarded cigarette butts in the lining of their nests to fend of parasites, Herre de Bondt tells us more abut this interesting behaviour and some of its potentially worrisome impacts.

Recorded: 30 October 2023.

Featured:

• All that breathes
• Lively Cities by Maan Barua.
• Killer Cities by Nigel Thrift.
• An experimental demonstration that house finches add cigarette butts in response to ectoparasites by Monserrat Suárez-Rodríguez, Constantino Macías Garcia.
• Interacting effects of aromatic plants and female age on nest-dwelling ectoparasites and blood-sucking flies in avian nests by G Tomás et al.
• Incorporation of cigarette butts into nests reduces nest ectoparasite load in urban birds: new ingredients for an old recipe? By Monserrat Suárez-Rodríguez, Isabel López-Rull and Constantino Macías Garcia
• Smoking and Lung Cancer by Tonya Walser et al.
• There is no such a thing as a free cigarette; lining nests with discarded butts brings short-term benefits, but causes toxic damage by M. Suárez-Rodríguez, C. Macías Garcia
• Mexico tightens ban on smoking in public places by Will Grant on the BBC

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Wormeries are becoming increasingly popular in cities so in this episode Herre de Bondt considers a creature at the center of this trend, worms, and how their lives are entwined with practices of composting.

Recorded: 2 October 2023.

Featured:

• Vermicomposting makes your garden grow on Homegrown
• Earthworms are more important than pandas (if you want to save the planet) by Sarah Johnson.
• Waste recycling: Utilization of coffee grounds and kitchen waste in vermicomposting by A.J. Adi and Z.M Moor.
• Technical and user evaluation of a novel worm-based, on-site sanitation system in rural India by Claire Furlong et al.
• Reactor performance and pathogen removal during wastewater treatment by vermifiltration by Arora Sudipti Arora and A.A. Kazmi
• Urban Metabolism with Catherine Oliver on The Animal Turn.
• Swedish firm deploys crows to pick up cigarette butts by Daniel Boffey on The Guardian
• Animal waste work. The case of urban sewage management in Sweden by Tora Holmberg.
• Defending Animals by Kendra Coulter.
• Feeding the worms by Danusha Laméris.

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Herre de Bondt joins the show as a co-host of Season 4 of the Animal Highlight to discuss the intricate relationships of animals and waste. He kicks off the season looking at pigeons considering how urban waste impacts them, particularly their feet.

Recorded: 21 September 2023.

Featured:

• Unseen City by Nathanael Johnson.
• Urban pigeons losing toes due to human activities by Frédéric Jiguet et al.
• Pigeon Rescue Netherlands
• London Pigeon Stringfoot and Rescue
• Interesting Pigeons on The Animal Highlight

Credits:

• Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer and host
• Herre de Bondt, co-host and co-editor
• Christiaan Mentz, sound editor and producer
• Rebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)
• Gordon Clarke, bed music composer
• Learn more about the team here.

Support the podcast via:

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/join/TheAnimalTurn
• Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theanimalturn
• Buzzsprout: https://theanimalturn.buzzsprout.com/

Send us a text

The Animal Highlight is a spinoff and sister podcast to the award winning show, the Animal Turn Podcast.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.