Mike Wise tells Ira about a run he went on one winter night with his dog, years ago along the C&O Canal in DC. It was late.

The birds Edwin Rist stole were valuable and collected in the mid-1800s by one of the greatest scientific explorers of his time: a man named Alfred Russel Wallace.

Heather and her girlfriend lived with a cat named Sid. The girlfriend showed all sorts of affection toward Sid that she never showed toward Heather.

Nature photographer David Slater went to Indonesia. While he was there, he got some stunning photos of monkeys.

Charles Foster has always been obsessed with trying to figure out how animals see the world. So he decides to find out—by living life as a badger.


Ira visits an 83-year-old man named Dick Paterniti who’s been waging a long and lonely war against a woodpecker.

As a California game warden Terry Grosz went to great lengths — and some depths — to stop illegal fishing. Terry also tells this story in his book Wildlife Wars.

Comedian Mike Birbiglia, his wife, and his cat take a trip together and meet some parasitic zombie mice.

Ben Loory reads his short story about an unlikely friendship that forms between a moose and a man. It's from his fiction collection Stories for the Nighttime and Some for the Day.

Ira admits there is a question he’s wanted to know the answer to since he was a kid in Hebrew school: Why is it that Jews don’t sacrifice animals anymore? Especially since the Old Testament is so clear that God wants it? Ira talks to religious studies scholar Jonathan Klawans to find out. Jonathan is the author of a book covering this subject, Purity, Sacrifice and the Temple.

Ben Loory wrote and tells this story, which begins with a duck falling in love with a rock.