Between the Species was founded as a print journal in 1985, published by the Schweitzer Center of the San Francisco Bay Institute/Congress of Cultures.

It is published by the Philosophy Department and Digital Commons at the California Polytechnic State University; Joseph Lynch is the current editor-in-chief.

[3] The journal was published by the Schweitzer Center of the San Francisco Bay Institute/Congress of Cultures with funding from the Animal Protection Institute, and was initially edited by Abbe, Steve F. Sapontzis and John Stockwell.

The editors were responsible for much of the production, which was done by hand: Stockwell explained that "In late 1984 [Sapontzis] bought a new ball for his dot-matrix printer, and dedicated part of his sabbatical year to typing out the articles that would appear in BTS.

These he would print out in three inch wide continuous columns, which I would then cut with scissors and strip into pages, afterwards adding the graphics and titles.

[5] The latter publication was established in 1980 as the journal for the Society of the Study of Ethics and Animals and was edited by Harlan B. Miller,[6] with Jeanne Keister and Suzie J. Vankrey serving as managing editors.

[24] Between the Species is one of several journals that emerged in conjunction with the rise of the field of human-animal studies; others include Anthrozoös and Society & Animals.