Podcast Summary: The Journey On Podcast

Episode: Revisited: Amelia Thomas

Released: January 2, 2026
Host: Warwick Schiller
Guest: Amelia Thomas – Naturalist, Journalist, Author of "What Sheep Think About the Weather"

Episode Overview

This episode features the return of Amelia Thomas, Cambridge-educated naturalist and journalist, discussing her new book, What Sheep Think About the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say. The conversation explores Amelia’s immersive year-long journey into listening to animals—across three dimensions: science, training, and intuition. Through stories of earwigs, cockroaches, fruit flies, hummingbirds, pigs, octopuses, prairie dogs, and world-renowned experts, Thomas and Schiller reflect on the depth of animal sentience, the challenge of shedding human-centric perspectives, and the transformative power of listening—not just to animals, but to the interconnected world.

Structure

1. Amelia’s Book: The Backstory and Central Question
2. Science of Animal Sentience: Personality, Communication & Consciousness
3. Why Listen to Animals? Ethical, Practical, and Existential Reasons
4. Training & Communication: From Cockroaches to Parrots & Horses
5. Intuition, Tracking, and ‘Other Ways of Knowing’
6. Notable Quotes & Moments
7. Key Timestamps

1. Amelia’s Book: The Backstory and Central Question

• The book’s central question: What are animals trying to say to us? (04:44)
  • Amelia describes the chaotic day of moving to her farm, which inspired her to embark on a year of listening deeply to animal “listeners”—scientists, trainers, trackers, and intuitives.
  • The book is structured in three parts: The Science, The Training, and The Intuitives.

Quote:
“It was a year of deep listening—really deeply to animal listeners and to the animals themselves—and trying to figure out how much more we can hear if we know how to listen.” – Amelia (06:04)

2. Science of Animal Sentience: Personality, Communication & Consciousness

a) The Spark: Simona Kossack – Living Among Animals (07:21)

• Simona, a Polish naturalist, inspired Amelia’s approach to deep listening: “She was just a really good listener." (09:00)
• Encouraged Amelia to see all creatures—even piglets, her new farm companions—as individuals.

b) How Small Does Personality Go? Earwig Experiments (12:26)

• Amelia and her son Indy, inspired by cockroach/fruit-fly research, tested if earwigs have personalities.
  • Even without scientific rigor, they found earwigs displayed distinct, repeatable behaviors.
  • Supported the idea that individuality in animals exists on a continuum down to insects. (16:23)

Quote:
“You can’t unsee it. Once you see a horse’s stress indicators, you can’t just jump on it…” – Warwick (18:34)

c) The Fruit Fly Guy: Cloning Individuality (18:43)

• Oxford neuroscientist on why cloned fruit flies don’t behave identically:
  • There’s “the inherent chaos of brain wiring” – individual differences are a roll of the dice.
  • Nature and nurture “stacked on top” of a base level of chance.

d) Expanding Empathy: What Science Resists (24:16)

• Amelia discusses philosophers and some scientists who resist animal sentience and logical reasoning in animals (e.g., “Animals don’t dream.”).
• The tension between anthropomorphism and scientific objectivity; changing tides in animal behavior science.
• Jane Goodall and others shifting the paradigm toward naming animals and recognizing individual lives.

e) Blocked Empathy and the Circles of Compassion (35:26)

• Peter Singer’s philosophy of ever-widening circles of compassion: “every creature… encompassed in this circle of compassion.”
• The human psychic need to draw boundaries between “us” and “others”—reflected in our relationships with both animals and people.

f) Surprising Animal Communication Discoveries (37:29–39:35)

• Baby turtles communicate before hatching; mothers call from the water
• Elephants’ infrasound, mice’s ultrasonic love songs
• Even infants were once thought not to feel pain—paradigms change.

3. Why Listen to Animals? Ethical, Practical, and Existential Reasons

a) Soundscapes and the Health of Ecosystems – Bernie Krause (52:22)

• Bernie mapped environmental health through sound, categorizing:
  • Anthrophony (human sounds)
  • Biophony (animal/biological sounds)
  • Geophony (natural but not biological sounds)
• Highlighted how human noise pollution disrupts natural communication and synchrony in wildlife (57:37).
• “You can hear the sounds of extinction better than you can see them.” (53:23)

Quote:
“Night is magical. It’s how we got our spirituality. People didn’t know what they were hearing, so they made up tales about gods in the forest.” – Bernie Krause (58:40)

4. Training & Communication: From Cockroaches to Parrots & Horses

a) The Science of Training and Learning (46:03–47:54)

• The debate between Skinner (conditioning) and Chomsky (innate language).
• Individuality complex; personality as “a consistent display of individual behavior to a given stimulus” (47:54).

b) Parrots as Teachers – Irene Pepperberg & ‘Alex’ the African Grey (79:16)

• Alex learned not just to parrot words but to comprehend and use language for teaching others and for self-awareness (81:43).
• Parrots teach back, show generalization, and even ask questions—complex, conscious communication.
• Body language—“always look where a parrot is looking”—is fundamental to understanding both parrots and horses (85:05).

c) Human-Animal Interactions and Trust (88:27)

• Parallels between parrots and horses: true trust stems from mutual awareness, respect for body language, and appropriate touch.
• Obedience is not the same as trust and safety—horses (and presumably parrots) desire “parallel activity” over intrusive petting or inappropriate touch.

5. Intuition, Tracking, and ‘Other Ways of Knowing’

a) The Mystique of Tracking and Shapeshifting – Louis Liebenberg (112:32)

• Master trackers access states of “becoming the animal”—perceptions akin to shamanic shapeshifting, possibly rooted in deep rhythmic persistence and attention.
• Tracking posited as the origin of science: forming and testing hypotheses in real-time (116:05).

b) Phenomena at the Edge: Animal Communication & Interspecies Knowing

• Cat MacDonald’s guided “Horse Nation” experience (127:55); department of Intuitive Interspecies Communication at the University of Saskatchewan
• The third part of the book: exploratory, documenting phenomenological/subjective experience, not “proving” psychic communication but acknowledging lived reality.

Quote:
“When a First Nations person tells you that an owl spoke to them, then an owl spoke to them. We're not trying to find out why... we're interested in that experience itself.” – Professor (129:45)

6. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Sorry listeners, but life’s getting harder—once you see individuality, you can’t unsee it.” – Warwick (22:50)
• “Animals aren’t just alive, they have lives. They don’t just have biology, they have biographies.” – Jonathan Balcombe via Amelia (65:48)
• “Listening to animals created culture.” – Bernie Krause, via Amelia (59:45)
• “You become part of nature rather than apart from nature.” – Amelia (122:11)
• “Tracking is the origin of science.” – Louis Liebenberg (116:05)
• “If you want to feel connected, you gotta listen. But if you listen, you’ll feel connected.” – Warwick (70:22)
• “My experience is my truth… If you discount those other ways of knowing, that’s epistemological ignorance.” – Amelia, citing professor (131:06)
• “You can please some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time… I’m not trying to convince anybody. This was a burning question.” – Amelia (134:38)
• “It’s very Malcolm Gladwelly—joins all the dots in a way that’s informative and entertaining at the same time.” – Warwick, about Amelia’s book (144:19)

7. Key Timestamps (Selected Highlights)

• 04:44 – Amelia introduces the genesis and structure of her book.
• 07:21 – Simona Kossack: the inspiration behind the journey.
• 12:26–16:23 – Earwig experiments: discovering personality at the insect level.
• 18:43 – Fruit fly research: individuality is a dice roll.
• 24:16 – Philosophical resistance to animal sentience.
• 35:26 – Circles of compassion; Jain Buddhists and non-violence.
• 53:23–58:40 – Bernie Krause on the soundscape of extinction and the origins of culture/spirituality.
• 79:16 – Irene Pepperberg and Alex the African Grey parrot.
• 85:04–89:51 – Parrot and horse body language: the parallel needs for awareness and trust.
• 112:32–122:11 – Tracking, shapeshifting, and the spiritual practice of becoming the animal.
• 127:55 – Visiting the “Horse Nation” with Cat MacDonald—shamanic/interspecies communication.
• 134:38 – Bravery, subjectivity, and the value of sharing one’s journey.

Final Note

Where to Buy:
What Sheep Think About the Weather is available worldwide—Amazon, independent bookstores, and as an audiobook recorded by Amelia Thomas herself (146:10).

Closing Reflection:
This episode is both an inspiring journey through animal consciousness and a meditation on how listening—really listening—shifts everything. Through stories, science, and self-inquiry, Amelia Thomas and Warwick Schiller remind us: the answers to humanity’s deepest questions may have been whispered all along, if only we learn how to listen.

For more, follow Warwick Schiller on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, and check out his full-length training videos at videos.warwickschiller.com.