The Animal Highlight

Set around specific themes, The Animal Highlight offers glimpses into the wonderful and complex worlds of animals. This is a spinoff of The Animal Turn Podcast, a podcast that unpacks important concepts in animal studies.

The Animal Highlight is a science podcast hosted by Claudia Hirtenfelder, with 56 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Claudia Hirtenfelder hosts The Animal Highlight, a science show with 56 episodes published.

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  Episode #8

  S6E8: A Review of Museum Collections and Objects

  May 4, 202653 minS6

  <p>Herre de Bondt and Rebecca Shen are back on the show to discuss Rosa Dyer’s season “Animal Collections/’Objects”. We delve into some of the key themes and tensions to emerge in the season including questions of value, colonization, ethics, and practices of preservation. We revisit a season that follows birds, bodies, and objects across museums and beyond, asking how ethics, beauty, and decay shape what gets collected, displayed, and believed. The talk moves from drawers of parrots to a living hippo, mapping the gap between preservation and care. </p>Natural history Museum in LondonSmithsonian MuseumPitt Rivers MuseumRe-Animalization with Krit...

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  Episode #7

  S6E7: Moo Deng – Questioning if Zoos are Living Collections

  Apr 27, 202627 minS6

  <p>Rosa questions whether zoos could be thought of as “living collections” that objectifying animals in ways that are similar to the animal objects one finds in a museum or archive.  She considers the internet sensation Moo Deng and asks whether her fame as achieved much in the way of the conservation goals for pygmy hippos. </p>Meet Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo taking the internet by storm by The Today Show. <p><br/></p><p><b>Credits:</b></p>Recorded: 3 June 2025Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host Rosa Dyer, script writer, narrator and co-hostRebecca Shen, episode artwork and logo...

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  Episode #6

  S6E6: Feather Heists and Questions of Value

  Apr 20, 202627 minS6

  <p>Rosa returns to feathers in this episode, this time to discuss the infamous 2009 “feather heist”, in which Edwin Rist stole an invaluable collection of bright-coloured feathers from tropical birds. She uses the heist to open a deeper consideration of the value of feather collections for science and the ethics of collecting and maintaining such collections. </p> Pitt Rivers MuseumSmithsonianNatural history Museum in LondonThe Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson<p> </p><p><b>Credits:</b></p>Recorded: 28 May 2025Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host Rosa Dyer, script writer, narrator and co-hostRebecca Shen, episode artwork and logoGordon Clarke, bed musicOth...

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  Episode #5

  S6E5: Moths and Wasps – Tasty Collections and ‘Confused’ Insects

  Apr 13, 202623 minS6

  <p>In this episode Rosa steps away from feathered objects to consider how museum collections and archives should be thought of as living ecosystems. She discusses how webbing clothes moths are understood as ‘pests’ and some of the strategies curators are trying to employ to manage them: including sexual confusion and the introduction of parasitoid wasps. </p>Pitt Rivers MuseumOxford University Natural History MuseumNational Trust launches pest-control trial combining wasps and moth pheromonesThe Lion’s Historian by Sandra Swart<p> </p><p><b>Credits:</b></p>Recorded: 28 May 2025Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host Rosa Dyer, script writer, narrator and co-ho...

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  Episode #4

  S6E4: The Oxford Dodo - Science, Myth, and a Fragmented Afterlife

  Apr 6, 202627 minS6

  <p>In this episode Rosa focuses on the Oxford Dodo, attempting to trace the life history of a bird whose only trace is a fragile head and foot in the Oxford University of Natural History. She unpacks some of the competing routes the bird might have taken – from being hunted and shipped from Mauritius to being kept in an urban menagerie. She also follows the afterlife of the museum object itself once again raising questions about the interconnections between power, possession, and knowledge. </p>Pitt Rivers MuseumOxford University Natural History MuseumLewis Carroll’s Alice in WonderlandThe TradescantsMurder most fowl: Oxford dodo...

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