Helping Animals, Finding Balance with Brent Ratkovich

Hope Bohanec (0:08)

Welcome to the Hope for the Animals podcast, a project of Compassionate Living.

I'm your host, Hope Bohanec, and we have a special treat for you today. We have a talented vegan musician joining us, Brent Ratkovich, and we are going to be featuring two of Brent's new animal rights vegan-themed songs on the show. So you'll get to enjoy Brent's songs. One is about in the middle of the episode, and that one's my personal favorite. It's called Trying, and I tear up every time I hear that song. And the other song that I love as well is called Not Enough, and you'll hear that one at the end of the episode. So just briefly, I wanna give a bit of clarification on something, you know, we talk about activism a lot on this show, and activism is often seen as a very narrow set of actions, but I wanna offer a broader view.

Yes, activism is what most people think, it's holding a sign on the street, or getting a message out in some dramatic way, or for, you know, vegan and animal rights activism, it's often seen as leafleting or protest, or doing some kind of educational table, talking to people in some way in public, and it is all of that, but it's also so much more. It could be gathering items for an auction to raise money for an animal sanctuary. It could be volunteering to help a nonprofit with their bookkeeping or their e-newsletter. It could be just going to a meeting and offering your ideas and thoughts on something. It really is much broader than what is thought of first initially in someone's mind, I think. It can even be when you ask for that vegan option at the bakery or the restaurant. I feel that is activism as well. So just know that when we talk about activism on this show, it's broad and really I feel anything that you do to further animal freedom and vegan living, that's activism. Okay, let's jump into my conversation with Brent and here's some really beautiful music. I'm so excited to share it with you and I want to congratulate Brent on his release of these really inspiring songs. Okay, here we go.

All right, I am really excited to have Brent Ratkovich on the podcast today. Brent is a passionate animal advocate who launched his solo advocacy project, One Cow Army in 2015, donning a cow mask and taking his message to the streets. Brent has worked as an animal sanctuary caregiver, co-founded an Animal Save chapter, and participated in multiple large scale rescues of thousands of hens from egg farms. Now based in Eugene, Oregon, Brent continues his commitment to animal protection, volunteering for numerous local sanctuaries, the Eugene Vegan Fest, and founding ACE, Animal Compassion Eugene, organizing outreach events and protests. A singer and guitarist, Brent has recently been focused on a recording project that will produce three animal rights vegan themed songs. They'll be finished and released as an EP called Three to Set Them Free in October of 2026

Welcome to the podcast, Brent.

Brent Ratkovich (3:58)

Hi, how are you doing Hope? Thank you so much for having me.

Hope Bohanec (4:01)

Yeah, I'm so glad to be doing this with you. We are now neighbors up in Eugene, Oregon.

And we lived in the same area, kind of. We were in the Bay Area. You were in Sacramento, and I lived in Sacramento for a while. We both have migrated north now, to the Pacific Northwest and are loving it. Do you love it?

Brent Ratkovich (4:25)

I love it here. My wife and I absolutely love it here. We love the weather. We love the people. It's a lot less people from Sacramento, that's for sure.

Hope Bohanec (4:34)

Yeah.

Yeah. Smaller town vibe for sure. And funky, funky fun vibe and artsy. And yeah, we love it too.

Brent Ratkovich (4:43)

Yeah, it's beautiful.

Hope Bohanec (4:44)

Yeah. So we always start the podcast by getting to know you with the question, why and when did you go vegan? What's your vegan origin story?

Brent Ratkovich (4:56)

Oh, well, I've been vegan for 13 years now. I went vegan August 12th of 2013

Hope Bohanec (5:04)

Oh, you know the exact date.

Brent Ratkovich (5:06)

Yeah.

Hope Bohanec (5:07)

That's awesome. Yeah.

Brent Ratkovich (5:08)

I know the exact date because it was a pretty monumentous, I mean, obviously it was monumentous for myself and my family, but it was even more so because I had just gotten so frustrated with trying to solve some health issues that I had. I have kind of a genetic issue with cholesterol. And so I went vegan in one day.