Air Date: Week of January 9, 1998

Audience response to our last couple of shows.

Transcript

KNOY: And now it's time to hear from you, our listeners. Sarah Rabkin, who hears us on KUSP in Santa Cruz, California, wrote to thank us for our story about using abandoned housing in San Francisco's Presidio for the Homeless. She writes, "An activist friend of mine had asked me to sign a postcard deploring plans to destroy the housing and I'd been reluctant to do so, without understanding more about the positions of various parties to the issue. Your show provided just what I needed, an apparently balanced, responsible airing of a variety of relevant perspectives." Sy Montgomery's commentary on the mink that ate her chickens resonated with Mary Schaffer, who hears us on WHYY in Philadelphia. Ms. Schaffer's chickens were also snatched up by predators.

SCHAFFER: I always felt silly about feeling so sad and devastated by their deaths until I heard this, and it just made me feel justified and validated and not so silly. And I appreciate that you put it on. Thank you.

KNOY: Some of you weren't so appreciative of us rebroadcasting a profile of beaver trappers in Wisconsin. Dr. Barry Taylor, a professor of environmental science in West Franklin, New Hampshire, writes, "Dear God, I had hoped it was an aberration that some misguided miscreant had slipped in this disgusting piece about torturing animals to death into an otherwise sensitive, insightful, and erudite show about the environment. Then you played the damn thing again." Dr. Taylor says until now he's required his students to listen to Living on Earth every week, but he writes, "That requirement just ended. I am disappointed, I am disgusted, I am out of here."

Whether it's your first time listening to the show or your last, we'd like to hear what you think. Call our listener line any time at 800-218-9988. That's 800-218-9988. Our e-mail address is LOE@NPR.ORG.