Fierce, controversial, and caught between worlds—Heck cattle embody the complex intersection of dark history and modern conservation. This final episode of Season 5 of the Animal Highlight explores how these bovines were deliberately bred by Nazi zoologists in the 1920s and now find themselves at the center of rewilding debates across Europe.

Recorded: 14 December 2023 

 Featured: 

Season 6 Grad Review on The Animal TurnThe Cow with Ear Tag #1389 by Kathryn Gillespie From “Nazi Cows” to Cosmopolitan “Ecological Engineers” by Jamie Lorimer and Clemens DriessenConceptualizing the multispecies triadby Andrea Petitt American Cows in Antarctica by Elizabeth Leane and Hanne Nielsen 

Virginia Thomas is an environmental social scientist with a PhD in Sociology. She is interested in people’s interactions with their environment and with other animals. Virginia’s work explores the social and ethical questions in human-animal relationships. She is currently a research fellow on the Wellcome Trust funded project ‘From Feed the Birds to Do Not Feed the Animals’ which examines the drivers and consequences of animal feeding. This leads on from her previous research which examined human-animal relations in the media (as part of zoonotic disease framing) and in rewilding projects (in relation to biopolitics and human-animal coexistence). You can connect with Virginia via Twitter (@ArbitrioHumano).

 

Credits:

Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer, editor and co-host Virginia Thomas, script write, narrator and co-hostRebecca Shen, content producer and designer (logo and episode artwork)Gordon Clarke, bed music composerSound clips taken from: BBC Sound Effects, xeno canto: https://xeno-canto.org/species/milvus-milvus  Learn more about the team here. 

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A.P.P.L.EAnimals in Politics, Law, and Ethics researches how we live in interspecies societies and polities.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

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

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Erscheinungs­datum: 4.8.2025, 10:00:00