Our Wild World

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 ...

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...

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: CITES A Treaty for our Times with Dr. Ronald Orenstein Part 2

“For the worst possible reasons, elephants and rhinoceroses are front-page news today, the poster children for the worst excesses of organized wildlife crime. The present crisis is the outcome of some 40 years of history, some of it acted out in nature and some at international meetings where the rules defining the fate of species are endlessly fought over.” What has changed dramatically is the landscape of highly organized crime, of which the sole purpose is economics: get rich. When at the ...

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

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

The recent trend is that CITES is outdated, that it has no teeth, that the very trade in endangered and threatened species is causing them to slip toward extinction. On the face of it that would seem a compelling argument., WildiZe Observers had the opportunity roam the halls, and like many others; we came away with more questions than answers. I felt it imperative to better understand CITES from those more knowledgeable than myself. Dr. Ronald Orenstein is a highly involved participant and ...

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...

Encore: Commission of Evil USFW Wolf Policy with Stephen Capra

With returning guest Stephen Capra, we delve into a topic full of myths and outdated policies: that of wolves and wildness and ranching. Stephen explains with clarity why conservationists have not been able to make any traction with ranchers who have received the benefit of grazing their livestock on public lands and adopt a shoot to kill approach with predators. How do you negotiate with a group that is very good at saying no to any changes to an arcane system that greatly benefits them? And...

Extinction Vortex with Tiffany Yap

Scary words. What does this look like? My guest Tiffany Yap, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), explains with California cougars. Tiffany is one of the authors of the petition to add cougars to the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). The listing would create the umbrella for lions, by factoring in connectivity between genetically distinct sub-populations in fractured landscapes with impenetrable boundaries the likes of mega-freeways and housing developments, wh...

The Carrot or the Stick? 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: Wolves Are Here To Stay with Mike Phillips

Wolves are one of the most misunderstood, maligned and hated animals to roam the earth, yet revered to the point of mythological status. 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 c...

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...

Encore: The Wild Effect

What is the importance of our wildlife, especially predators, to our ecosystems? Healthy ecosystems means a healthy planet, which in the end, means healthy populations- people and wildlife, and ultimately the survival of all of us. With science, data, and expertise, new updates and recent findings, and also just plain commons sense and asking the right questions, we can begin to common ground between what may seem opposing camps. Over the past century a lot has changed, for the better, yet we...

Encore: The Wild Effect

Encore: Where Wild Things Are

When engaging in wildness through travel, work or vacation, there comes the time when one crosses the line from the urban mentality into heightened awareness where the wild things are- animals, habitats and ecosystems. How we choose to behave and live our lives in our urban and sub-urban life-ways and life-paths has a dramatic effect on how wildness, wilderness and wildlife thrive - whether we are engaging or recreating in it or not. Some stories of how folks behave when out of their element...

Through Lions Eyes with Phil Johnston

Cougar biologist and professional tracker, Phil Johnston joins us today with a glimpse into the world as seen through the eyes of Cougar. From learning the ways they communicate their gender, their needs, their territory in signaling other lions- for mating opportunities to telling a young male to keep on moving. Phil’s expertise teaches us to understand what lions are doing and why and where, that we can co-exist without the fear and thus reduce and prevent human-livestock-lion conflicts. T...

Encore: When Wild Things Come Out From the Wild

The urban wilderness: The bear, raccoon, beaver or the lion in your yard, patrolling your neighborhoods and nearby recreation areas, and rising numbers of risky and close encounters with the wild animals in our backyards, and those when we’re in what we have designated as 'their space.' These rising encounters signify changes both environmentally and culturally, of our rapidly growing human footprint causing fuzzy boundaries of our understanding and attitudes toward wildlife, and those betwee...

Wildlife in the Crosshairs with Camilla Fox Project Coyote

My guest Camilla Fox, founder of Project Coyote, leads national advocacy efforts to outlaw killing contests in states across the US using scientific data and compelling documentaries, indicating people no longer tolerate the cruel and wasteful behavior of a few that treat our carnivores as vermin, and not the critical and essential ecosystem architects with roles in the web of life. The North American Wildlife model is weighted to protect game species for economic value, leaving fur-bearing,...

Living with Lions with Dr. Quinton Martins

The protected Mountain lions in California live in highly fragmented habitats, where sport hunting is illegal. Yet lions are legally killed with depredation permits, easily obtained for killing pets or livestock. Audubon Canyon Ranch’s Director of Living with Lions, Dr. Quinton Martins, leads community lion conservation programs in the North Bay. What we learn is, depredation isn’t ‘problem lion’ behavior, as all lions will take the opportunity to kill unsecured potential prey, therefore, re...

Encore: Wild Neighbors with Dr John Hadidian HSUS

As our human communities develop and encourage green spaces and living alongside and in nature and natural landscapes, we now often find ourselves face to face with our wild neighbors who have taken a liking to our homes. As much as wildlife and the natural environment are important to our psyche and well being, our wild neighbors also find our communities fulfill their needs very nicely. That’s also where the conflicts can arise- the raccoon whose made its nursery in our chimneys or the dee...

Encore: Wild Neighbors with Dr John Hadidian HSUS

Encore: Caught In The Middle- Seized Wildlife with Bill Clark

Encore: Caught In The Middle- Seized Wildlife with Bill Clark

We hear of orphans being taken in all the time, but the larger problem is that which is causing more orphans- the taking of wildlife in the international illegal trade, and even in legal trade What happens to all the confiscated wild animals- seized by Interpol, Customs, USFW- when an illegal trafficker is busted at a border- an airport, a port, state lines, international boundaries? With my guest Bill Clark, we discuss the rules and guidelines that govern the international trade in wildlife ...

Tracking the Ghost Cat with Phil Johnston

Mountain lions capture our attention and imagination – their beauty and our fear of them. With my guest Phil Johnston, cougar biologist and certified professional Track and Sign Specialist, we dispel many of the false portrayals of mountain lions and gain perspective of the “ghost cat” through their eyes and their habitat and competition with other carnivores and increasing human encroachment into sub-rural areas. Mountain lions are coming down populated neighborhoods because we provide every...

Encore: Carnivore and Human Conflict: The Sledgehammer Effect

One of the oldest conflicts is that between humans and carnivores and whether we are willing to share resources with them. As increased meat production on both public and private lands that historically provided prey in abundance for carnivores is turned to livestock ranching, we see increased conflicts and competition for the resources the land provides- for us and for wildlife. My guest today, Ron Thompson has been intimately involved with large carnivore conservation can tell you that ki...

Encore: EXPOSED: The U.S. Secret War on Wildlife with Brooks Fahy

Wildlife Services-a barbaric, wasteful and misnamed agency within the US Department of Agriculture, has been having their way for almost a century, our government’s secret war on wildlife has been killing millions of native predators and birds as well as maiming, poisoning, and brutalizing countless non-targeted and endangered species, along with quite a few pets and seriously injuring people. Brooks Fahy, the man behind Predator Defense and the landmark film, “EXPOSED”, brings three former f...

Encore: April Fools 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 Extinction and Global crises are over, and We’ve Won! We don’t have to worry about environmental collapse or losing our polar bears and elephants, and our world turning into one big corporate machine, because humanity came to its senses the other day - we all pulled together and turned our wild world around! Each of us one day said to the other, well… here’s what I did today, and I’m going to do it ever...

Encore: American Lion, Looking For Love In A Land Of Fear, William Stolzenburg

Our story today revolves around a heroic journey of one cat that apparently walked (and swam) from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the green estates of Greenwich, CT, looking for love. The Connecticut lion serves as vehicle for the larger story of the would-be repatriation of the East by mountain lions making forays from the eastern edge of the Rockies across the Great Plains, where they haven’t lived for a century or more. Reminiscent of US war on predators in the early 1900’s, bogus scie...

What Is Cougar Habitat with Dr. Jay Tischendorf

A modern day “Silent Spring” is sweeping across our world as humans and toxins infiltrate wild places, which have cascading consequences across all trophic levels, and have become a major problem for predators and their prey. My guest Dr. Jay Tischendorf, renowned wildlife veterinarian and I discuss what takes from us to provide the three pillars of “cougar habitat” that allow our iconic American lion a future. Through creative thinking we discuss possibilities about where alternative avenues...

Encore: Less Than Human? The Ethics of Our Treatment of Others with Annette Lanjouw, Arcus Foundation

We humans have a long history of doing violence to one another and of doing violence to other species, including our closest relatives, the Great Apes, as we continue to avert our gaze to the destruction around us. Arcus Foundation is a leading global foundation advancing the connectedness between social justice and conservation issues, and is built upon the cornerstones that regardless of race, gender, socio-economic class, gender identity or sexual orientation, we must honor the inherent di...

Dark Truth- Carnivore Control with Ted Williams

Today with conservation journalist, Ted Williams, author of the monthly TNC “Recovery” column, we expose dark truths hidden right before our eyes. Oft disguised as wild beauty and conservation– there is an ugly underbelly invading social and print media: Canned ‘wild’ life photography of our iconic carnivores, and its crossover into canned hunting. This inhumane business of keeping wild animals in subpar enclosed conditions. In these days of instant gratification, rather than doing the arduou...

Encore: What do Wolves Have to do with Africa?

While we spend millions toward the legal battles and conservation of wolves, we are also spending millions of policies to eradicate them. What drives policy and who benefits? How do our protective wildlife laws get lost in the ever increasing political shifts and the need for resources? The plight of the wolf is, in short, a parable for African conservation and the future of conserving our world's predators.

Cougar Rewilding with John Laundre

With returning guest cougar behaviorist and ecologist John Laundré, we examine how recolonization of cougars in the Eastern United States could happen and why reintroducing cougars would not only be a sound decision from a scientific and ecological perspective but would also have a positive effect on society by reducing the exploding deer and elk populations and the negative impacts that arise such as deer-car collisions and increased cases of Lyme disease. The science is clear that carnivore...

Climate Accountability with Rick Heede

In 2014 with my guest Rick Heede, of the Climate Accountability Institute, we discussed that it is approximately 90 companies world-wide in the fossil fuel and other mega industries, that are responsible for 2/3 of all emissions on earth. Rick joins me today as we discuss the rapid changes that have happened in just 4 years, help connect the dots as to how we account for climate change, and a radical proposal that would alleviate much of the burden on those areas places most impacted by clima...

Our Recreation Impacts the Wild

With my guest today, Will Roush, Executive Director of Wilderness Workshop, a non-profit advocacy organization based in the Roaring Fork Valley, CO, we talk about the citizens movements that are required to protect our beloved back country and public lands, which are under siege in unprecedented fashion under current administrations’ “energy domination” agenda. But there is another sector deeply impacting the wilderness – those who recreate in it – often loving it to death through detrimental...

American Lion: When is enough... enough?

The elusive, solitary and imperiled American Lion: puma concolor, cougar, panther, ghost cat, is the largest of the small cat species and roamed the full range of the continental United States and Europe, that is until the late 1600s when practically every nation on earth put out a bounty on them. By 1931 the US Congress passes the Animal Damage Control Act, giving the Secretary of Agriculture broad authority to expand the destruction of mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs,...

Encore: Twisted Balance Sheet with Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson

In the brief time scale since humans have occupied Earth we’ve managed to from interrupt climate and tip the scales of species loss and extinctions. It is this ‘model’ of Western civilization, led by the technological society, and its rain forest felling, atmospheric carbonization, and oceanic acidifying temper, that has upturned the planet’s normal metabolism. It is said we have until 2020 to turn things around. The Paris conference on climate change next year must be the definitive statemen...

Encore: The Changing Paradigm of Human to Non-Human Relationships

With Special Guest Philip Tedeschi , Clinical Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver. We’ll explore the changing paradigm of recognizing incorporating the bond and relationships between people and non-human beings and and the implications for animal abuse to public health and human security. Our relationships with animals has become an enduring feature in so many families, homes, and communities. For centuries, the importance of animals in people’s lives has been rec...