The Animal Highlight

In this episode we trace the conservation success story of Singapore’s otters and how their territorial claims to urban space raise important questions about ethics in a city shaped by people. We follow the Otter Wars, the role of citizen science, and the emerging push for population control as conflict among otters raises debates about the possible limits of coexistence. Featured: NParksThe urban Smooth-coated otters Lutrogale perspicillata of Singapore: a review of the rea...

A lizard who looks like a small dinosaur steps out of the water a few metres from a footpath, and suddenly “urban nature” stops being an abstract idea. We’re talking about Singapore’s Asian water monitor, one of the island’s largest terrestrial predators and a surprisingly familiar neighbour in parks, wetlands, canals, and even near housing estates. We start with the honest reaction many people have, fear, then follow how that fear can turn into curiosity once you understand what these animal...

A wild bird disappears for 140 years, then returns to one of the most urbanised places on Earth, not by accident, but because a city changes its mind about what nature is allowed to be. That’s the story we’re starting with as we launch a Singapore-focused season with landscape designer and artist Rebecca Shen, whose CAF-funded Atlas Animalia project maps the real, messy relationships between animals and urban life. Featured: Rebecca's Hornbill MapSingapore Hornbill ProjectDevoted ...

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...

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. Meet Moo Deng, the baby pygmy hippo taking the internet by storm by The Today Show. Credits: Recorded: 3 June 2025Claudia Hirtenfelder, executive producer,...