Tom Mangelsen is one of the most gifted and prolific wildlife photographers of our time. He may be best known for documenting the life of Grizzly Bear 399 in and around Teton National Park in Wyoming. I’ve spent thousands of hours alongside, and guiding some of the best wildlife photographers in the world, but I’ve never been lucky enough to spend time in the wild with Tom. And he has always seemed to possess a connection with animals that is rare. Whether it be gorillas, penguins, t...
Feb 04, 2025•41 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast You can’t come to Yellowstone without thinking about the grizzly bear. This thriving ancient ecosystem is like a sacred space for them. And a critical source for food which they are constantly in search of in order to get the needed calories that will sustain them through their long winter sleep. But what many grizzly bear lovers might not think about are the fish at the heart of the bear feeding frenzy. Yellowstone has the largest high elevation lake in North America, and under the surfac...
Jan 28, 2025•45 min•Ep 24•Transcript available on Metacast Behind most wildlife documentaries is someone who has spent countless hours, often in challenging conditions, waiting for that perfect shot. Chris talks to filmmakers Jeff Wilson and Mark Smith about their experience filming Adelie penguins for four months in Antarctica. With wind gusts up to 150 miles per hour it is one of the coldest and harshest continents on earth. We’d love to hear what you think of THE WILD. Which shows did you like the best? What would you like to hear mo...
Jan 21, 2025•30 min•Ep 23•Transcript available on Metacast Maybe you’re eating an apple, or a piece of lettuce right now. Could be a broccoli stem or perhaps a lovely juicy tomato. If you are, are you wondering how intelligent that plant is? I’d guess not. But here’s a conversation that might make you think twice. Zoë Schlanger, a science writer for the Atlantic, has written an eye-opening book on the topic. It’s called The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Lif...
Jan 14, 2025•51 min•Ep 22•Transcript available on Metacast Melting ice is usually bad news, but this place in Alaska has turned from frozen to flourishing in just 200 years. Nestled in southeast Alaska, the stunning and famous Glacier Bay National Park is often called a “living laboratory.” Scientists from all over the world come here to study ecological succession: the step-by-step return of plants, insects, forests and animals. It’s a unique place to do that because just a couple hundred years ago, this whole landscape was cov...
Jan 07, 2025•48 min•Ep 21•Transcript available on Metacast We are taking a break over the holidays in order to finish up our series about national parks. We’ll be back in your feed on January 7 with a visit to Glacier Bay National Park in southeast Alaska. We’ll learn how the trickles of chilly glacial meltwater are creating a flourishing ecosystem. But in the meantime, I wanted to share an episode from a podcast I think you’ll really like called How Wild . It’s from our friends at KALW Public Media and the NPR Network. The...
Dec 10, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast It started as a glacier. Then, about 13,000 years ago, it was a trickle, then a stream, and eventually a rushing river meandering through the Olympic Peninsula. For thousands of years, life thrived off the ecosystem served by the Elwha River that fed into to the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Then it stopped. A century ago, a dam was built to harness the power of the water and convert it into electricity. The salmon that the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe relied on were cut off from their spawning grounds. ...
Nov 19, 2024•30 min•Ep 20•Transcript available on Metacast Nature writer Leigh Ann Henion has spent countless hours uncovering mysteries of the darkness that unfold while we’re asleep. She’s explored bats, moths, glow worms, spotted salamanders, and she’s written a new book about it called Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark. Today, Chris talks with Leigh Ann Henion about what we can find in the darkness and how we can preserve it, even from our own back porch. This show would not be possible without list...
Nov 12, 2024•29 min•Ep 19•Transcript available on Metacast Once a year they come out, by the thousands. Fireflies. But these aren’t just any fireflies. These are Photinus Carolinas, also known as synchronous fireflies They blink on and off together . It’s an amazing site. On this episode, I head to Great Smoky Mountains National Park to experience the synchronous fireflies and learn how light from human development is threatening the future of these delicate, glowing insects and what the park is doing to try to protect them. This show would not be possi...
Nov 05, 2024•47 min•Ep 18•Transcript available on Metacast Four times in the past decade Lake Abert has completely dried up, a barren lakebed encrusted with salt. Salt lakes are among the world's most threatened ecosystems. Lack of water could lead to many of these lakes permanently drying up in the American West. But there is one tiny bird that could change all that. The Wilson’s Phalarope depends on salt lakes on their 6500-mile migration between North and South America. There is a movement to get the phalarope listed as a threatened species by the fe...
Oct 29, 2024•47 min•Ep 17•Transcript available on Metacast Chris remembers Bear 399, "The Queen" of Grand Teton National Park that was struck and killed by a vehicle near Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Tuesday, October 22. You can see the trailer of the PBS Nature documentary on Bear 399 here . Team 399 Facebook page See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 23, 2024•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the Florida Everglades, the Burmese python is an invasive species that's close to triggering an ecological collapse. We'll head out with python hunters who track down these massive snakes for a bounty. Then we wade through the waste deep murky waters of the Everglades to see what researchers are learning about Burmese pythons in their waning hopes to remove them from this fragile tropical wilderness. This show would not be possible without listener support. You can help us continue to create ...
Oct 22, 2024•51 min•Ep 16•Transcript available on Metacast Cuyahoga Valley National Park is nestled between Akron and Cleveland, Ohio. It once was an industrial wasteland, filled with debris from the nearby auto factories. The Cuyahoga river was so polluted that it literally caught fire. That fire was a moment that sparked an environmental movement. But I'm headed upstream. I'm going to follow the river and its story from its grim past to becoming a national park. We’ll look at how a toxic dump was transformed into a national park and a thriving ecosyst...
Oct 15, 2024•36 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast We’re on a short break as we finish working on our stories for our series about America’s National Parks. I can’t wait to share with you what we’ve learned. Amazing stuff. We’ll be back with new episodes on October 15. But today, I’d like to play an episode of a podcast from our friends at Montana Public Radio and the Montana Media Lab. It’s called The Wide Open and tells stories about the places where people come together and fall apart. It’s a new podcast and this is their first episode. It’s ...
Oct 01, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re taking a short break from releasing episodes so we can work on more new stories for our series on our National Parks. I hope you’re enjoying it! In the meantime, I wanted to share a special episode of a show I think you’ll really enjoy: Outside/In from our friends at New Hampshire Public Radio. Each week, the show explores topics around science, wildlife, environmentalism, and more. It takes listeners on journeys across the natural world from wherever they are – and includes a healthy dose...
Sep 17, 2024•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast A decommissioned military base in northeast Oregon provides sanctuary for a recovering burrowing owl population. David Johnson 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. His rescue mission involves some chemical weapons, an old military base, and a very large plunger. This show would not be possible without listener support. You can help us...
Aug 27, 2024•35 min•Ep 14•Transcript available on Metacast Just two hours from Rome is one of the richest ecosystems in Europe, a little island of mountains that to this day is home to wolves, wild boar and bears. It's not just wild animals that call this place home: Farms are scattered across the area as part of this ancient mosaic of life here among the wild animals. It's a place where the excesses of Italian culture mingle with the wonders of nature. This show would not be possible without listener support. You can help us continue to create this spe...
Aug 20, 2024•31 min•Ep 13•Transcript available on Metacast For the first time in 100 years, wolverines are back in Mount Rainier National Park. How did they get there? 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 known as kits. It is believed that these tenacious predators haven't been in the park for over a century. The wolverines were back. This is the story of the return of the wolverines and the woman wh...
Aug 13, 2024•34 min•Ep 12•Transcript available on Metacast Top secret military dolphins, exploding whales, and invasive green crabs. These are all things Dr. Eily Andruszkiewicz Allan is interested in learning more about. And she is doing it all with the help of a simple cup of water. It's a revolutionary bit of technology called eDNA and it is changing the way biologists are doing field work. eDNA could hold the mysteries of a new frontier in our understanding of the natural world. This show would not be possible without listener support. You can help ...
Aug 06, 2024•48 min•Ep 11•Transcript available on Metacast Chris joins a team of scuba divers...in the desert! Death Valley National Park is the hottest place on Earth and the driest place in North America. The heat that builds beneath Death Valley’s cloudless skies radiates off barren rocks and sinks into the valley bottoms, where it warms, baking everything it touches and evaporates any water foolish enough to linger at the surface. But beneath miles of dry desert land - in the largest national park in the lower 48 - is something you can't see from th...
Jul 30, 2024•45 min•Ep 10•Transcript available on Metacast Artificial Intelligence is making the stuff of science fiction a science reality , changing how humans interact with the world. It could also change the way we interact with wildlife, giving us the ability to talk to animals...but are we ready? On this episode Chris talks to Aza Raskin, co-founder of Earth Species Project and Karen Bakker, a professor at the University of British Columbia, about animal communication and the pros and cons of the latest AI technology. This show would not be possib...
Jul 23, 2024•50 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast Here’s an episode for movie buffs, music nuts, animal lovers, and anyone dealing with anxiety. Yes, that's quite the range in a 40-minute chat, but Dr Dan Blumstein delivers them all in a fascinating conversation with Chris about FEAR. Dan is a professor of conservation biology at UCLA and author of the book The Nature of Fear: Survival Lessons from the Wild . He spent his career trying to better understand the emotion by looking at marmots. He says that animals can help us better understand our...
Jul 16, 2024•46 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast One day, Chris was on the search for a very rare animal: a single wolf that had made it to the western side of the North Cascade mountains. That day, to his amazement, he found a set of fresh tracks on a sandy riverbed. Wolves had been extinct here in Washington state for nearly a hundred years, so the find was incredible. These mythical creatures are very slowly returning to the North Cascades. It’s a sign of hope for both Jason Ransom, a biologist at the National Park, and Scott Schuyler from ...
Jul 09, 2024•45 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast Karelian Bear Dogs were bred in Finland hundreds of years ago for hunting. From bears to moose, these fearless dogs were on the frontline. Now, ironically, they are being used to save bears and other species. In some remote parts of the country grizzly bears have been known to wander into town, presenting a danger of encounters with humans. Now these Karelian Bear Dogs are being used to scare bears away and prevent future returns. We'll head to Montana to talk to the woman whose brainchild it wa...
Jul 02, 2024•31 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode we team up with Story Collider to hear real life tales of adventure and exhilarating encounters with wildlife. From a temporary life-ending jolt from the sky to a 2,650-mile hike in search of healing and solace after a personal tragedy. We'll also hear about a very close encounter with a grizzly from our WILD story telling event at McCaw Hall in Seattle. This show would not be possible without listener support. You can help us continue to create this special immersive storytellin...
Jun 25, 2024•44 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast How scientists are training corals to be ready for a warmer future. Biscayne National Park is unlike any other national park…it’s 95% underwater. It’s home to part of the third largest coral reef in the world and the only living coral barrier reef in the continental United States. But this past summer, the corals in and around this park on Florida’s coral reef experienced the worst coral bleaching event ever recorded. Water temperatures broke records, rising to over 100 degrees for two days in a...
Jun 18, 2024•39 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast A cougar biologist with Washington state once received a complaint. An old lady called him up and said, “There’s a cougar in my backyard.” And the biologist responded, “Well, that’s funny because I got a call this morning from a cougar. He told me there’s an old lady in his front yard!” Our backyards are getting bigger. And the cougar’s front yard is getting smaller. This episode, we search out some of these big cats to understand the impact cougars and humans have on each other. This show would...
Jun 11, 2024•26 min•Ep 3•Transcript available on Metacast It is safe to say that Americans love their cars. The mythology of the open road speaks to us all, calling us for adventure. But American wildlife might have something else to say about that. One million animals are killed on roads every day but the problem with our transportation system goes beyond roadkill. Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb says practically everything in the natural world is influenced by all these miles of gravel and tarmac. His latest book is “Crossings: How Road Ecology...
Jun 04, 2024•42 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast Discover why scientists are chopping down redwood trees… to save them. Redwood National and State Parks are home to some of the tallest trees on Earth, coast redwoods. These ancient California forests support hundreds of different species, and store more carbon than any other forest on the planet. But in the last century, 95% of them were cut down by loggers. Now, scientists are trying to find ways to bring old growth redwoods back and they've discovered a surprising strategy... cutting them dow...
May 28, 2024•38 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast This season's going to be a little different...we're headed to our national parks. We've got eight special episodes recorded on location in America’s national parks: stories about their biodiversity, their complex histories, and how they are protecting nature. We'll explore all sorts of different ecosystems, from the tallest trees on the planet to the hottest place on earth. Plus we've got more surprises for you including fun conversations where I try to keep up with the sharpest minds in wildli...
May 14, 2024•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
