The Wild with Chris Morgan

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 KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 deployed to capture and save some of the sea otters. Several hundred of the sea otters were quickly relocated out of harm’s way to the north pacific coast of Washington State and Oregon.Now, over 50 years later, biologists are trying to figure out what is the fallout from this storied otter translocation . Has the nuclear otter evacuation from 50 years ago been a success? And what are the ecological ripple effects?This is a story of second chances for an impossibly adorable sea creature, and how their mere presence can support countless other species, and even help save us from climate change. Links to films I’ve hosted if you’d like to learn more:The Kelp HighwayThe Blue ForestThe WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 fascinating documentary.Greenpeace, for the poster I saw all those years ago.Thanks to the wild team Tatiana Latreille, Matt Martin, Jim gates, and Brendan Sweeney. And thank you Gordon Hempton and Quiet Parks International for the beautiful audioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 and track a cougar for those episodes. It was an incredible experience.Well, I also had the honor of interviewing him on stage at Town Hall in Seattle recently - about the fascinating lives of cougars - mountain lions - he’s on the cutting edge of some leading research about their behavior, their ecology, and how we can protect and appreciate these beautiful big cats. Mark’s just written a book called The Cougar Conundrum: Sharing the World with a Successful Predator and we’ll talk about that too.I hope you enjoy our conversationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 biologist and founder of the Cascade Carnivore Project. She has slogged and toiled through some of the most rugged terrain on earth, setting up wildlife cameras all over the high country in the hopes of proving that wolverines had returned. Eventually, after years of searching, Jocelyn was rewarded with the first images of a mother and her young inside the park.For 15 years now, Jocelyn has been on a quest to witness and document the return of wolverines to the mountains of the south cascades after a long absence. But the fact a female with youngsters is expanding into new territory could be a sign that the population is making a comeback. And it seems like there’s no creature more determined.This is a story about toughness, tenacity, and resilience, not just of the wolverines, but of the woman determined to study them.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlifeCorrection, 9:36 a.m., 3/31/2022: An earlier version of this story misspelled the last name of Dr. Jocelyn Akins. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 are turning around, there used to be only around 100 lynx in Spain but now there are nearly 1000.That’s why I’ve come to Spain - to figure out what is behind that success story - just how did what used to be the rarest cat on earth leap a staggering 1000% in number in just 20 years?Learn more about efforts to save the Iberian Lynx with CBD Habitat.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlifeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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, Founder and Executive Director of MarAlliance, works to help others understand sharks, engage local fishing communities in central America, and even instill empathy for them. She hopes this will have us all think about sharks in a whole new way.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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's rights advocate you’ve most likely never heard of. You can learn even more about her story by watching this documentary film.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlifeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“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 JohnsonDavid 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 half a pound. And as you might guess, these tiny owls live underground. But a curious domino effect has caused a worrying and widespread loss of their subterranean homes. So David is on a rescue mission to save the burrowing owl.This rescue mission involves some chemical weapons, an old military base, and a very large plunger.It’s a story about one man’s love affair with a mysterious little creature, and the things they’ve taught him about what they need to survive.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 as I meet passionate, young biologists who are bringing back the forest, ecosystems and wild animals, and creating a new, healthy space for all. To create an ecological utopia in the Coa Valley of Portugal.The WILD is a joint production of myself and KUOW Public Radio. One way to support this vital work and become part of THE WILD community is through small monthly contributions to my wildlife organization, Chris Morgan Wildlife. You can find more information at Patreon. Thank you!Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlifeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.