Imperiled Animals / Navajo Rangers

About the show

In the first half, Dr. Aysha Akhtar, a certified neurologist and fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, spoke with George Knapp about the important role of animals as emotional companions and the many ways that society mistreats them. Reflecting on her first pet, a rescue dog, she revealed that "it was my empathy for Sylvester that not only saved him, but also saved me." This close emotional bond comforted Akhtar during a difficult time when she could directly relate to Sylvester's past abuse, allowing them both to heal.

Akhtar addressed the historical misconceptions of animal consciousness, noting the primitive views of philosophers such as Aristotle and Descartes who dismissed animals as mere automatons. "They absolutely are sentient... they feel love, sadness, loneliness, grief," she emphasized. "It's pretty arrogant of us to think that only we are equipped with the ability to feel and think." This idea, she argued, has encouraged the scientific exploitation of animals, particularly in medical research where their suffering is often ignored for the sake of progress.

Akhtar went on to discuss animal mistreatment as a potential source of new pandemics, which she sees as karmic retribution. "The ways in which we harm animals come back to hurt us... in a very real, tangible, medical way," she warned. "Three-fourths of emerging or new infectious diseases are coming from other animals," explained Akhtar, who underscored the abhorrent sanitary conditions in factories and wildlife markets. She predicted that without more protective regulations, "the next pandemic is going to stem from a factory farm." Akhtar described the horrific sights she witnessed during her visit to one of these establishments. "Chickens were so tightly packed... they could barely turn around," she recalled, stating that the stench was overwhelming.

The conversation also touched on the correlation between animal abuse and serial killers, as well as the transformative role that animals have when interacting with prison inmates.

----------------------

In the second half, Stanley Milford Jr. discussed how the paranormal became part of his job when he joined the Navajo Rangers — a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are police officers, conservationists, and historians. He recounted how he was thrust into the role of investigating supernatural phenomena during a case where an elderly woman claimed a Bigfoot stole her laundry. "You may not understand these cases... but people are asking for help," he explained.

Milford spoke candidly about his upbringing that straddled two cultures: Navajo and Cherokee. "It was kind of a clash of two worlds," he noted. His experiences on the reservation informed his understanding of Navajo traditions, including the serious implications of witchcraft. He recalled a chilling encounter with a skinwalker, a shape-shifting entity. "At that point, there was like ice water running through my veins," he shared. "Shape-shifting... is a part of witchcraft, black witchcraft," he said.

Milford also outlined the daunting task of enforcing the law with only eight officers available across the 27,000-square-mile Navajo reservation. "You didn't have somebody standing there holding your hand," he recounted, before describing a harrowing manhunt for fugitives who killed a police officer. "I spent the next month out there crawling in the river bottoms... learning what it meant to be a tactical operator," he recalled. Milford then went on to detail a bizarre investigation involving the mysterious deaths of 26 sheep. "All of these sheep were dead, but you didn't see the telltale evidence of a predatory kill," he noted, describing how the sheep were precisely slit open and drained of all blood. A veterinarian on the scene was equally baffled, leading Milford to connect the case to cattle mutilations seen elsewhere.

----------------------