Linda Lutton and her eleven year old daughter Pirecua explain what happened the year Pirecua begged for a gift that she turned out to be allergic to. Linda is a reporter at our home station, WBEZ Chicago.

Producer Lilly Sullivan used to feel such a strong kinship with “the loneliest creature on earth” that one of her first radio pieces seven years ago was about him. (9 minutes) You can read Lilly's 2013 report about this whale.

Producer Dana Chivvis follows the night zookeeper at the Denver Zoo as she doles out snacks and tucks the animals in.

We turn to those who are truly spineless, and I mean literally, they are creatures that have no spines. Also featured in this story: the people who study them who, like us all, could sometimes use a little more spine.

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.

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.