If you’ve been a longtime listener of THE WILD then you know that I’ve been a champion of bringing back grizzly bears to the North Cascades of Washington here in the mountains near where I live. On April 25, 2024 that dream has taken a massive step towards becoming reality. The National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have announced that they will be restoring the grizzly population that called this place home for thousands of years. They were a key part of this ecosystem befor...
Apr 26, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this special one hour of THE WILD with Chris Morgan, I'll explore natural silence, and how being quiet out in the natural world and having places to do that can be pretty transformative. I'll also spend time in the trees with a forest therapist and talk to author Florence Williams about the healing powers of nature and I’ll go searching for the one of the quietest places in the world in Olympic National Park. THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan Wildlif...
Nov 07, 2023•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this one-hour special of THE WILD with Chris Morgan, Chris explores the mighty beaver and its role in reshaping our landscapes and entire ecosystems. Then we plunge into the waters along the pacific coast to follow a sea lion’s journey from California all the way up the Columbia River in search of salmon, in what has become a controversial story of survival between two protected species. THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan Wildlife and Wildlife Media. ...
Oct 31, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this one-hour special of THE WILD with Chris Morgan, Chris shares tips on how to stay safe in the wild and explores the psychology of animals with author Richard Louv. THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan Wildlife and Wildlife Media. It is produced by Lucy Soucek and Matt Martin, and edited by Jim Gates. This special episode was produced by Brandi Fullwood. It is hosted, produced and written by Chris Morgan. Fact checking by Apryle Craig. Our theme musi...
Oct 24, 2023•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a special one-hour special of THE WILD with Chris Morgan featuring favorite episodes like the first time Chris caught a grizzly bear. In Part One of this episode Chris recounts catching a grizzly bear while conducting research in the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies. In the second part of the show, Chris shares the history of grizzlies in the North Cascades and how they became known as ghost bears. THE WILD is a production of KUOW in Seattle in partnership with Chris Morgan Wildlif...
Oct 17, 2023•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast We learn about calorie counting for polar bears and what the future could look like for the Hudson Bay polar bear population. We’re back in the helicopter with polar bear researchers Dr. Nick Lunn and Dave McGeachy, searching for mother bears with cubs. This is springtime over the huge, frigid landscape. Mother bears are waking up after eight months of fasting and heading out to the sea ice of Hudson Bay. Looking across this hostile environment - nothing but ice and biting cold ...
Jun 20, 2023•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast How the changing seasons of our planet are shifting the traditions of the place, the polar bears, and the people of the north. This sea ice of Hudson Bay is what makes life possible for polar bears. It’s as important to them as the air they breathe. Every year, hundreds of bears move through this area and they’re forced to come ashore in the summer when the ice melts — a grueling annual migration that pushes the bears from ice to land and back to ice again. But there’s one group of bears that’s ...
Jun 06, 2023•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast How these canids survive among city skyscrapers and sidewalks. And what that can teach us about saving the planet. In April of 2007, a coyote walked into a Quiznos in downtown Chicago . It walked inside the front door, right into a fast food restaurant full of people. And then, it sat in a soda cooler for an hour. It was an event so rare, it made the evening news. Why did the coyote walk into the Quiznos? How was it so tolerant of people? It's not normal for a wild animal to be less than s...
May 23, 2023•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Who let the 200-pound python out? Today, the origin of the Burmese python problem in the Everglades. And how science is being used to try to solve what seems like a losing battle. I'm back in South Florida, in the Everglades, on the side of a dirt road next to a canal. It looks pretty similar to where I met Anthony Flanagan and Kevin Pavlidis - the two python bounty hunters from the last episode. Out in front of me are miles and miles of marshland. Today, we're diving back into the B...
May 09, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the Florida Everglades, the Burmese python is an invasive species that's close to triggering an ecological collapse. But not if these python hunters have anything to do with it. Burmese pythons are huge compared to the native snakes in Florida. They can measure up to 20 feet and weigh 200 pounds. The females lay up to 100 eggs. And they eat just about everything, from animals as small as a mouse to as big as a bobcat or an alligator. And they’re causing immense destruction throughout the Ever...
Apr 25, 2023•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode, join me in Ireland for a very Irish tale! If you’re from where I live in the Pacific Northwest, squirrels might not seem very special. It seems like all I have to do is look out my window and I’ll see one, bounding across the grass. But in the British Isles, the red squirrel is a bit of a “British darling.” They’re a species on the brink of extinction. It seems like everyone wants to see this fluffy-eared, threatened species bounce back. (including me … I did my master's d...
Apr 11, 2023•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Whenever I'm out doing field work or on a hike, I’ve not only got my eyes wide open, but my ears too. There’s a lot going on in a forest or under the sea - the sounds of nature. So many of those sounds in nature are about communication. Personally, I love to chat with ravens. I like to think that we have lovely conversations. I know I’m fooling myself... but there’s something happening that might change that. There’s a tech company out of Silicon Valley that is hoping to make that dr...
Mar 28, 2023•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This past summer, I was in Alaska in a little coastal town called Seward - a gorgeous spot on the Kenai Peninsula tucked between the ocean and some giant glacier-covered mountains. I met a guy named Dan Olsen, who records killer whale calls using an underwater hydrophone. Olsen gets all kinds of information from his recordings. The calls bring the underwater world of orcas alive. But there's a lot more going on in these clicks and whistles than you might think. Like, how their dialects, th...
Mar 14, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Welcome (back) to The Wild. New episodes start on March 14! Host Chris Morgan is back with another season of The Wild. Join him on new adventures from around the Pacific Northwest and the world. He’ll take you through the Irish countryside to learn how one endangered species is helping another endangered species to thrive. We will follow the journey of two young bear cubs as they gain strength at a wildlife rehabilitation center after the tragic death of their mother. And we will learn about the...
Feb 24, 2023•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hi all - Chris here - I’ve missed you! I hope you’re doing well and finding a way to get out and enjoy a bit of nature….maybe a hike in the mountains, or a walk around your city park? There really is wildlife all around us, no matter where you are. We're busy working on Season 5 (! wow can’t believe that!)....and we’ve got some enticing episodes shaping up from the PNW, Ireland, England, the Arctic, and the Everglades! All places we're traveling to to uncover some really fascinating pe...
Dec 07, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast One recent September I stopped at the side of highway 20 that crosses Washington state’s North Cascade Mountains. At the side of the road was a sign that grabbed my attention. About a storied fire lookout cabin on top of Desolation Peak in the distance, where author Jack Kerouac spent some time in the 50s. The irony was that I couldn’t see the peak because of the forest fire smoke in the air that day. But it fired my imagination….the mountain was calling me. This episode of THE WILD is the resul...
Jul 01, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join me as I squeeze on a dry suit, don a snorkel, and jump into an icy mountain river. “That's what I'm amazed by, that a little tiny stream, not even knee deep, is a whole world if you get under there with it.,” that’s what CWU professor Paul James told me as we snorkeled our way through the fast moving current. Dr. James is surveying the number of fish in the river after a recent restoration project. Gold Creek is an important tributary to the Yakima River and serves as a breeding ground for ...
Jun 21, 2022•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast I was trained as a traditional scientist, to look at the world through that perspective. Analytical, and clinical. In this “western science” you have to toe the line and keep personal experience and emotions out of it. Science is run as a pretty tight ship. There's a good reason for that, of course. But for indigenous people, there’s something that comes with spending time in nature that helps to understand it in a different way. Often it’s knowledge from generation after generation of experienc...
Jun 07, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast To most of us, coral reefs conjure up magical places full of colorful species and life. They are unknown and otherworldly. Their beauty is perhaps a reason why coral reefs have become one of the more famous victims of climate change, warming oceans. Most people have heard that the future for coral reefs is in total jeopardy. And this is a problem, because about 25% of the ocean’s fish depend on healthy coral reefs. Scientists are now warning that the Great Barrier Reef could be gone&n...
May 23, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’ve thought about this stuff a lot as I listen to the northern flicker woodpecker tapping noisily away on the rain gutter outside my bedroom window. And not just rain gutters of course. Woodpeckers will peck at a tree up to 12,000 times a day and just one woodpecker peck produces about 15 times the force needed to give a human a concussion. So, how do woodpeckers bang their heads so much, and so hard and not come away with brain damage? The WILD is a joint production of myself and K...
May 10, 2022•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join me among the crashing waves of the Pacific Northwest coast in Washington State. This unique wildlife story starts, not there, but with a nuclear explosion, literally. During the late 60s and early 70s, three atomic weapons were tested on Amchitka Island in a remote part of Alaska. The blast registered a 7.0 on the Richter scale. over 10,000 fish were killed in the island’s lakes, streams and ponds. But thanks to a little imagination, right before the nuclear test, a last minute program was ...
Apr 26, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Happy Earth Day to you all. For a while now I've wanted to share a short piece like this, and Earth Day seems like the right time! I hope you can kick back and listen to a relaxing 10 minute journey all about our precious home. If you enjoy it, please share it with others. After all, we're all in this together. Thank you for the inspiration to: Conservationists everywhere. Everyone working on ‘30x30’ - protecting 30% of the planet by the year 2030. The team at ‘Earth Emergency’ - check out their...
Apr 22, 2022•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast One thing that I love about my work is that I get the opportunity to talk to so many interesting people working with wildlife around the world. For today’s episode I wanted to share with you one of those conversations. Some of you might remember our episodes on “how to catch a cougar” back in season 2. If you do, the name Dr. Mark Elbroch will probably sound familiar. Mark is a good friend of mine and a cougar biologist with Panthera - he took us out into the forests of WA State to radio collar ...
Apr 12, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode you may notice a lot of heavy breathing - because I’m on the trail of a wolverine high up in the mountains. Here’s the story…. In the summer of 2020, there was some big news for wildlife in the pacific northwest. In the wild spaces of Mount Rainier National Park, a female wolverine was discovered along with two babies. The wolverines were back. It is believed that these tenacious predators haven't been in the park for over a century. Dr. Jocelyn Akins is a wolverine biologis...
Mar 29, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Like so many carnivores around the world, through history the Iberian lynx was persecuted as a menace or a threat to livestock and lifestyle: they were shot, poisoned, trapped, hunted. And misunderstood. The cats have those really characteristic long tufted ears, black spots dappled across their tawny coat and an old fashioned beard that can stretch down in two long triangles each side of their chin. But despite it’s regal flare, it’s still endangered, and a real focus of attention. But things a...
Mar 15, 2022•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Shark reputations have never quite been the same since the movie Jaws came out nearly 50 years ago. Sharks face some very direct threats. They are killed for their prized fins and caught in fishing nets all over the world. 99% of some populations have already been wiped out. So how do you change hearts and minds about these feared but endangered creatures nearly half a century after the movie Jaws that got us all riled up? The answer seems to be one shark, and one person at a time. Rachel Graham...
Mar 01, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Anne Innis Dagg is a tough, straight-talking, trailblazing woman, dedicated to science and social justice. In 1956, she went to South Africa to study giraffes. She wrote a book after her time in Africa that is still considered to be the giraffe bible by many in the field. But there’s a good chance you don’t know her. She was actually in Africa observing wildlife before Jane Goodall. So why has she been forgotten? What is the story of Anne Innis Dagg? She is the revolutionary biologist and women'...
Feb 15, 2022•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast “So there are two important days in your life, the day that you're born, and the day you find out why. I know why I was born, for the owls. So I'm going to work with owls until my very last breath.” - David Johnson David is founder of the Global Owl Project to protect endangered owl species all over the world. And one lucky owl species that’s been David’s main focus for these past 12 years is the little burrowing owl. A burrowing owl reaches only six inches in height and weighs less than h...
Feb 01, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast I do love a good border crossing, so join me as I travel to Northeast Portugal, into the Coa River Valley, to witness a really interesting story that is unfolding there. The dense old forests that were there are now mostly gone. Cut down and replaced with pastures for sheep and olive groves generations ago. And now the shepherds and other farmers are abandoning this region in droves. This checkered history has led to a poor economy, brush instead of trees and an explosion of wildfires. Join me a...
Jan 18, 2022•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re back! I am so excited to share our new season with all of you. New episodes of THE WILD begin on Tuesday, January 18th. My team and I have been hard at work finding stories and interviewing passionate people who are making a difference for nature….and our planet. We’ve traveled the world this season to bring you stories about lynx in Spain, Caribbean sharks, owls that live underground and even how a nuclear explosion in Alaska led to sea otters returning to the west coast of America. Get y...
Jan 04, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
