Carmen Milito tells Ira the story of a date she went on as a teenager, and the bird her mom brought to the occasion.

Producer Bim Adewunmi on a decades-long political battle in Florida — between the incumbent state bird and the challenger that threatens to knock it off its perch.

There are the birds who exist, and then there are the birds who may as well exist. Producer Sean Cole explains.

When a pet dies, to what degree can it be replaced by another? And to what degree can pets replace people in our lives? David Sedaris tells this story of cats and dogs and other animals.

Veronica Chater explains the conflict in her house between her love for her pet macaw—a kind of parrot—and her love for her husband and three kids. The macaw wreaks a sort of low-level chaos in the house, because it wants Veronica all to itself.

Writer Brady Udall with another story about what animals can take the place of, in our lives and in our homes—this one involving an armadillo.

Two women attempt very different transformations. One wants to become a mother.

Terriers have been bred for hundreds of years to kill rats. Ray Ray is a terrier, but he lives in a comfy apartment in New York City.

Even when an animal is not a pest, not chewing up homes or spreading disease or biting average citizens, even when it is universally loved, it can still wreak havoc when it arrives in our world. James Spring has this example from a community of harbor seals in La Jolla, California, near San Diego.

Back in the day, generally when a wild animal showed up, we’d just kill it. Take this press release the federal government put out nearly a hundred years ago.

In Anchorage, many people take pride in being able to co-exist side-by-side with wild animals. Jon Mooallem has the story of one animal that became a resident of the city in a way that few non-humans ever do.