Our Wild World

The Missing Links with Brian Czech, CASSE

Despite the incredible successes in conservation, overall, something isn’t working. We are losing ground. What are the missing links? Delving deeply into this question, we keep butting up against the fundamental conflicts between economic growth and wildlife conservation. With my guest Brian Czech, we tackle this subject head-on., Brian documented the causes of species endangerment for US Fish and Wildlife Services only to have his findings squelched as a taboo subject in any conversation in ...

A Wild Idea- A look back at where we started

A Wild Idea: It is easy to think that conservation is something going on in places so far away and exotic that it seems unimaginable that one person could have any significant impact on the greater outcome of a child, a community or even an entire species. This is an encore of our very first episode, the goal to help folks understand and learn about the big picture of what is involved in making conservation happen, and provide a platform to engage listeners to speak up about what is important...

Encore Game Changer with Glen Martin

Are conserving wildlife and protecting animals the same thing? Award winning environmental reporter, Glen Martin, guides us as this question applies to Africa's mega fauna. Conservation planning of large landscapes and species survival includes the cascades of biodiversity that depend upon them. Animal rights, animal activists, and animal welfare consider each individual life as critical, and that none should die because of us. Animal rights restrictions present a challenging paradox for maki...

Encore Bostwana Predator Conservation Trust with John and Leslie McNutt

Botswana Predator Conservation Trust is one of the longest running conservation research projects in Africa, and one of a handful of its caliber worldwide. Founded in 1989 as the Botswana Wild Dog Research Project, today it covers all the large carnivore species in Botswana. The goal of BPCT is to preserve Africa's large predators-African wild dog, cheetah, leopard, lion and spotted hyena-and their habitats by using scientific inquiry to better understand the behaviors and communication syste...

Who Owns The Wildlife with John Laundré

With cougar biologist John Laundré, today we discuss the matter of who owns wildlife. More and more we must consider the public costs of wildlife mismanagement in the United States, with increasing conflicts and polarization between hunting and anti-hunting, animal rights and animal welfare groups. From hunting groups invoking the European mindset of colonizers they contend the right to hunt is undeniable and essential to sound management of wildlife. Anti-hunting groups contend the ‘need’ to...

Wolves and the West with Mike Phillips

As Coloradans face this 2020 election, we must consider the role of wolves in our western states. My guest Mike Phillips is one of the world?s foremost experts on why wolf restoration is critical to balancing western ecosystems and the reality of co-existing with wolves is far from the perpetuated livestock industry?s fear-based myths. At issue is diffusing the grossly misunderstood myths of people, livestock and wolves co-existing, that this challenge can and has been mitigated with a variet...

Science vs Policy- Future of the Mexican Wolf with David Parsons

The saga of the Mexican Grey Wolf is a story of how politics interferes in the efforts of independent scientists to recover an endangered species. With my guest David Parsons, who formerly led the USFWS efforts to reintroduce the Mexican Grey Wolf to the American Southwest from 1990-99, we learn how difficult it is to reintroduce a species and save it from extinction when powerful vested interests who control legislators hijack the policy process down to even the scientific modeling results ...

Wolfer with Carter Niemeyer

Both reviled and loved, our history with the wolf is complex and emotional and the stuff of legends. Today, we have an opportunity to learn from one of the most knowledgeable wolf biologists around, Carter Niemeyer, author of “Wolfer” which should be prerequisite reading for everyone involved in the back and forth of the wolf debate! We’ll get into the politics and policies that surround wolf management to human interaction and conflict, to public perceptions vs. those of ranchers and the ves...

Wild DaZe the Movie, with Phyllis Stuart and Andrea Crosta

It Doesn’t Challenge You, It Can’t Change You. This fast-paced and richly stitched documentary, employing mesmerizing visuals driven by Keith David’s commanding narration, and fueled by dozens of engaging experts. Five years in the making and filmed across 9 countries, the feature-length documentary depicts the dire threats facing African wildlife. Survival hangs in the balance. This powerful cinematic call to action demonstrates the dire challenges facing species who depend on biodiversity, ...

Encore WHO LIVES, WHO DIES, AND WHY: COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATION TO THE RESCUE

With special guest Professor Emeritus Marc Bekoff, we will discuss that increasing our compassionate footprint will improve our overall relationship to animals and our earth, thus also improve conservation outcomes. As our species causes deep and enduring pain all over our amazing planet, there is growing evidence that we need to ask ourselves how other animals feel about the loss of their homes. Solid science now tells us they suffer as we do without a safe and peaceful place to live, thrive...

Encore Let's Get Science Out of the Lab Into The Communities with Dr. Kathy Alexander

Transferring data and knowledge gained through research into a journal that sits on a shelf won’t carry us through to creating the interdisciplinary and collaborative results we in the real world- from research and science in the field and the lab into the hands and households of the communities where it is needed to best take advantage of all dimensions and perspectives for an inclusive understanding and creative solutions of the challenges that real people and real communities face on a dai...

Why Wildlife Laws Matter with Dr. Peter Li

The dangers of global wildlife trafficking have made global headlines. From an obscure wildlife wet market in Wuhan China, a frightening message jumped from the wild and right into a global pandemic crisis: COVID-19, a new zoonotic virus highly contagious to humans.My guest Dr. Peter Li specializes in Northeast Asian security, U.S.-China relations; China’s environmental governance and animal welfare politics of the People’s Republic of China. Dr Li’s decades of work highlight the direct relat...

Trading What's Left of Life- Nick Lynch and Tim Gorski

Current data tells us our world has slid past far tipping points of no return. Viable populations of wildlife across the board are disappearing. Our human response for sustainable development and environmental goals are not compatible nor conducive to the continuance of ecosystem earth. We need intensive multilayered actions for creative solutions, options and alternatives. Today’s rebroadcast provides necessary background to remind us of critical changes that have happened in just 6 years, a...

Encore Science vs Policy- Future of the Mexican Wolf with David Parsons

The saga of the Mexican Grey Wolf is a story of how politics interferes in the efforts of independent scientists to recover an endangered species. With my guest David Parsons, who formerly led the USFWS efforts to reintroduce the Mexican Grey Wolf to the American Southwest from 1990-99, we learn how difficult it is to reintroduce a species and save it from extinction when powerful vested interests who control legislators hijack the policy process down to even the scientific modeling results f...

Encore Act Locally Think Globally with Philip Tedeschi

With this rebroadcast from 2015, we see so many parallels, as so many is global crises converge. My guest, clinical social worker, Philip Tedeschi, Denver University, Institute for Human Animal Connection (IHAC) provides real-world situations for graduate students and continuing programs and presentations to the public, which offer solutions that provide for healthy avenues to recognize challenges, and grow the social skills for youth and adults to clearly understand the relationships and b...

Can You Hear Me Now?

Eli wrote this episode six years ago, March 2014, and it aired as The Wild Effect. We are now living in the consequences of a global pandemic caused by human intersection and our ever-increasing intersections fracturing ecosystems importance of our wildlife, especially predators. Healthy ecosystems are the glue that binds a healthy planet, which in the end, means healthy human and wildlife populations, and ultimately the survival of all of us. We have the tools: science, data, and expertise, ...

Loving Wildlife to Death with Glen Martin

Are conserving wildlife and protecting animals the same thing? Award winning environmental reporter, Glen Martin, guides us as this question applies to Africa's mega fauna. Conservation planning of large landscapes and species survival includes the cascades of biodiversity that depend upon them. Animal rights, animal activists, and animal welfare consider each individual life as critical, and that none should die because of us. Animal rights restrictions present a challenging paradox for maki...

Encore Do You See What I See with Nick Brandt and BigLife Foundation

“East Africa, is just a microcosm, where you can still see open plains shared by so many different people and creatures has a visceral impact on most humans who see it, and fill the most jaded of us with a profound sense of wonder. If we follow our present path of development and rate of destruction, we will see the unique megafauna of Africa disappear. We are living through the antithesis of genesis right now. All those billions of years to reach a place of such wondrous diversity, and then ...

Encore April Fool’s Day- Are we really so foolish?

Rewilding Our Hearts with Marc Bekoff

Rewilding has long been a conservation term for connectivity and creating corridors for wildlife movement. In recent decades, it is the concept finding suitable existing habitats for species on the brink of extinction that may exist outside of where they currently live or are being extirpated. Today there is a new meaning. With Marc Bekoff, and his newest book, ‘Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence’. Rewilding in this sense brings us to an understanding if not...

Living with Bears with Sharon Baruch-Mordo

What is an urban bear? Sharon Baruch-Mordo helps us answer this question as a result of a multi year experiment and study in Aspen, CO that evaluated on-site education in residential and construction sites; Bear Aware educational campaigns in neighborhoods; and elevated law enforcement, and using the carrot and the stick approach to get people to secure garbage to reduce confrontations. Interestingly, the study found little support for education or enforcement in the form of daily patrolling...

Encore April Fool's Day - Are we really so foolish?

Wouldn’t it be great if today’s headlines were : It’s okay. We can all come out now! the Global crises are over, and We’ve Won! because humanity came to its senses the other day. With the COVID19 pandemic our latest crises, this previous broadcast is as relevant as ever. In these unprecedented times we must globally come together to turn our wild world around to create a paradigm shift for the future. Each of us can say to the other, here’s what I did today, and I’m going to do it every day...

Virus: Lessons From the Wild To the World with Dr. Peter Li

The dangers of global wildlife trafficking have made global headlines. From an obscure wildlife wet market in Wuhan China, a frightening message jumped from the wild and right into a global pandemic crisis: COVID-19, a new zoonotic virus highly contagious to humans.My guest Dr. Peter Li specializes in Northeast Asian security, U.S.-China relations; China’s environmental governance and animal welfare politics of the People’s Republic of China. Dr Li’s decades of work highlight the direct relat...

Encore Wicked Problems with Ashwell Glasson

Today, with returning guest Ashwell Glasson, we address deep seated Wicked Problems as a root cause of civil unrest and social disruptions that are occurring globally, as a result of unrestrained economic growth leading to environmental problems. We gain an understanding that we cannot isolate environmental issues to a specific region as they have far reaching effects and lead to interconnected series of problems on national and global scales. We must break our cycle of short term thinking an...

Are We There Yet? NonHuman Rights with Steven Wise

Today we’re discussing civil rights, however, probably not what first comes to your mind, considering these turbulent times. With my guest Steven Wise, the founder and president of The Nonhuman Rights Project, the only civil rights organization in the United States working gain legally recognized and fundamental rights for nonhuman animals in the courtroom. One by one, these cases of law of personhood are gaining a groundswell of movement, a paradigm shift of how we interact and perceive the ...

The Revelator 2020 with John Platt and Tara Lohan

Today we talk with John Platt and Tara Lohan, with the Revelator, a publication under the Center for Biological Diversity, and the column Extinction Countdown. John and Tara highlight what stories they’ll be paying attention to in 2020, a run-down of the 2019 Extinction Countdown and what we can learn from them for the years ahead and current events which wouldn’t be complete without discussing Australia bushfires, water and consequences of EPA rollbacks and upcoming election. An award-winn...

Where Have the Tigers Gone with Chris Slappendel

My guest is Chris Slappendel, founder of Wildlife Advocates Foundation and administrator of the Facebook page, I Am A Tiger Advocate, a leading warehouse of all things tiger, news and articles about tigers world-wide joins me. Chris visited 24 countries where tigers once lived or still live: Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, China, Kazakhstan, South Korea Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, India and Nepal where he was interviewed more than a 100 times by journalists for T...

Glyphosate Hysteria with Ted Williams

Many environmental protection products are buried within layers upon layers of various corporate stakeholders that are distanced from the end consumer, who often gets confused and misled by competing interests in a world mostly driven by soundbites and social media. One product jumps out above others: Glyphosate- an ingredient of Roundup, who’s maker is Monsanto, who’s parent company is Bayer. Through intense lobbying and social media, well-meaning NGOs disseminate damaging misinformation abo...

Encore Possibilism with Michael Soule

Our guest Michael Soule, the father of conservation biology, shares his deep insights from decades working in conservation. Over the past several decades, as a society, we spend more time living through devices than connecting with tangible nature. Michael helps us to understand that connecting with nature is spending time being in and listening to the wild. That the responsibility lies with each of us and our institutions to care about the environment to get our communities, especially child...

Rattlesnake Roundups with Bill Rulon-Miller

Our Wild World often focuses upon the charismatic and iconic species, their roles within our ecosystems, and how we relate to them. Today, with my guest Bill Rulon Miller, herpetologist and naturalist educator, we’re going to discuss one of our perhaps less charismatic species- the rattlesnake. We’re going to highlight another outmoded and inhumane behavior, Rattlesnake killing contests. These roundups as well as the history of snake bounty hunting and extermination campaigns have impacted r...

Encore Mindfulness

Life and living are processes that happen on the local scale of our bodies to the global and universal scales of adaptability and evolution. Time is both temporary and eternal, an elegant, messy, orchestrated and chaotic complex combination of cosmic, geologic, earthly, cultural individual frames of reference, whereby the clock is simply a tool of human convenience and measurement. When we embrace responsibility, accountability and ownership as actionable matters, we can realize that we have...

Encore In the Temple of Wolves with Rick Lamplugh

With my guest, author and wildlife advocate, Rick Lamplugh, we walk down the path of how deeply important the immersive aspect is to protecting our wilds and our perceptions of it, and our human need in knowing there are wild places and wild animals who thrive there. Wildness fills an essential part of our spirit, our soul, we’ve evolved with it and our ancient psyche needs it. Author of 3 award winning books, including ‘In the Temple of Wolves’, Rick takes us on a journey of what it means t...

Encore Through the Eyes of Being Earnest with Debbie McFee

“Under the bright lights, elephants perform tricks for excited humans who never wonder what happens to these massive animals after the show ends. Earnest knows.” The only things captive born elephants may ever know are zoo paddocks and circus rings. What we do know is that elephants are complex intelligent, emotive and social beings, and we know they talk to each other. Have we considered what captive born elephants might learn from their wild-born captive friends? With my guest, Debbie M...

Encore That's Life

In the eons of time immemorial, life has eked out an existence from the fundamental ingredients of Planet Earth and it’s unique essences, our nature, our wildlife and .. us. In the few short centuries of Modern Man, earth processes have shifted by orders of magnitude, and so have ours. Whether you agree or not as to humanity’s role in these shifts is almost moot, for the point is that things have changed. That’s life, right? Life is a series of societal, cultural and personal shifts, a cons...

Encore As We Do Unto Others with Ed Stewart PAWS

How we treat and relate to animals in captivity has everything to do with how we will protect them in the wild. Ed Stewart has dedicated his life to providing sanctuary and protection to abused, abandoned and retired performing animals and efforts to enforce the best standards of care for all captive wildlife, to the preservation of wild species and their habitat, and promoting public education about captive wildlife issues. Ed is a multi-talented and skilled man who with humor and aplomb, ha...

Encore How Long Must Elephants Pay The Ultimate Price with Jane High

In late 2014, approx. 33 young elephant calves were forcefully taken from the wild in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Zim is a signatory to CITES, and Zim Authorities stated that this capture complied with CITES regulations. A group of concerned Zimbabwean citizens state this was not the case, and in contravention under Zimbabwean National Law, The Prevention of Cruelty Act. Animal Welfare Inspectors were denied access to these animals at all stages of the capture, the holding area, and their...

Encore: Vanishing Footprints with Johnny Rodrigues, ZCTF

Selling off wildlife to the highest bidders where in the end both wildlife and Zimbabwe losing the balance point between ‘if it pays it stays’ eco-tourism in living landscapes where whole communities benefit from live wildlife, and ‘if it pays it plays’ consumptive utilization model, where only a few benefit from killing or exporting it for profit and entertainment, While still calling it conservation. Right now, Zimbabwe is on the global hot seat. From the silent screams of wild caught baby ...

The Sordid Trade of Wild Baby Elephants with Adam Cruise

Despite the big win for elephants at CITES in August: No more trade in live elephants outside of Africa; a loophole the size of Zimbabwe and China opened due to the critical caveat the EU added as a condition to supporting the ruling - “unless in an emergency or exceptional case” – allowing for the most recent sale and shipment of 32 baby elephants from Zimbabwe to China, for lives in captivity in “inappropriate destinations” as entertainment in super-sized theme parks. Meanwhile, why did th...

What Happened at CITES CoP18 with John Platt

2019 CITES international convention decides the trade of every endangered species, and often its very fate, and CoP18 made critical changes. As the dust settles, we can analyze the cascade of consequences of the lofty decisions made far from the wildlife they protect. We are quickly seeing the real world ramifications of these enormous decisions, and more powerfully, their relationship to illegal and black markets. Now, we are all left with the question: Is CITES enough or is more needed for ...

Dogs That Save Bears with Nils Pedersen

As we continue to infringe upon bear territory, Karelian Bear Dogs have become a way to get the attention of local communities living with bears and educate them of their responsibility to live in partnership with our wildlife. Today with my guest Nils Pedersen, of the Wind River Bear Institute and their Karelien Bear Dogs, we discuss this wholly different non-lethal approach to human-bear conflict than the standard response of removing bears from the landscape - one that addresses the root p...

Walk in Sync with Alecia Evans

How we heal our personal traumas does affect our relationships with our animals. Intentionally working with your animal can release traumas, as animals are completely present, which helps us to clarify our intentions. Returning guest Alecia Evans, Animal Communicator, acts as a spiritual leash between canines and their humans, and while teaching us that a clear sense of self and space is needed to be able to hear what your animal is telling you. Today Alecia guides us through breathing techni...

Lessons Learned as a Wildlife Advocate with Rick Lamplugh

We are in a crisis time where science tells us that livestock production is the leading cause of climate change, and habitat destruction to wildlife loss and pollution. The science tells us wolves and apex predators are ecosystem architects, restoring ecosystems. Yet, despite these facts, outdated myths and fears about wolves persist, deeply imbedded in our culture and government. Newly drafted management plans remove carnivores in favor of livestock industry. So how do we change attitudes of...

Wild Wisdom with Alecia Evans

How do we learn to get in tune with the center of ourselves and our world in our busy lives? To tune toward our instincts, rather than rationalizing everything minds? With my guest Alecia Evans, animal communicator, we discover that by listening to the wisdom of the wild we can learn to clarify our intentions, which grants us the ability to clearly communicate when engaging with our non-human companions and our human friends. Through her 30-year career working as an animal communicator, Aleci...

In the Temple of Wolves with Rick Lamplugh

With my guest, author and wildlife advocate, Rick Lamplugh, we walk down the path of how deeply important the immersive aspect is to protecting our wilds and our perceptions of it, and our human need in knowing there are wild places and wild animals who thrive there. Wildness fills an essential part of our spirit, our soul, we’ve evolved with it and our ancient psyche needs it. Author of 3 award winning books, including ‘In the Temple of Wolves’, Rick takes us on a journey of what it means t...

Encore: Biointegrity with Chris Searles

In this illuminating discussion with Chris Searles, accomplished musician turned founder of Biointegrity, a for-profit fundraising business to empower the most efficient means of protecting the earth’s biosphere, we talk about an issue that conservation has strayed from: that to protect biodiversity and the ability for any and all life to survive on a habitable earth, we must protect the intact biosphere. Otherwise, we are just another planetary rock in the universe devoid of life. Biointegr...

Transforming Trauma with Philip Tedeschi and Molly Anne Jenkins

Have you ever looked deep into the eyes of an animal and felt entirely known? Often the connections we share with non human animals represent our safest and most reliable relationships, with unique and profound opportunities for healing through periods of hardship. This is the focus today with my guests Philip Tedeschi and Molly Jenkins, from the University of Denver, Graduate School of Social Work, Institute for Human Animal Connection (IHAC). Their newest book, Transforming Trauma, examine...

Encore: TWAS A Place Called Home with Pat Craig

Big cats in captivity can be found everywhere. From Las Vegas to shopping malls, to roadside zoos, and even in backyards and basements. There is a captive wildlife crisis and Pat Craig of The Wild Animal Sanctuary spends his life changing this. Not bred for the bullet, but in horrific circumstances none-the-less, law and licensing doesn’t always guarantee proper or humane treatment of animals and the entire captive wildlife industry stands divided by ethical views. The most effective way to a...

Encore: Dogs Dung and DNA with Dr. Samuel Wasser

International wildlife crime, illegal ivory and elephant poaching have reached all time highs decimating elephant populations to an all time low. Using highly trained detection dogs, my guest Dr. Samuel Wasser, has developed DNA mapping methods from dung samplings that can determine both the geographic origins of poached African elephants and match that to major ivory seizures. Collaborating with the Interpol Working Group on Wildlife Crime, DNA testing provides investigators with a detailed ...

Encore: What Is CITES The Long View with Dr. Ronald Orenstein Part 1

Encore: The Revelator with John R. Platt

Today with my guest John R. Platt, editor of the Revelator, an independent online environmental news and ideas initiative of the Center for Biological Diversity, we delve into and question some of the top conservation headlines: the Extinction Countdown to what is at stake for us from the knowledge that will be gone from living in an increasingly homogenous world. How we think of ‘trade in species’ as this year’s critical CITES CoP18 with an agenda of 57 species listings and the decisions tha...