Our Wild World

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, removing the lion does not solve the problems. With a strong outreach program, Living with Lions educates locals and hobby farmers to be proactive in prevention of lion conflicts, using creative methods he devised while observing and conserving leopards in South Africa, that lead to zero depredation. Conservation solutions are about people. We have to do things differently, as coexisting with our iconic lions translates into maintaining functioning ecosystems, which is essential for us all.

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 everything their prey needs. Understanding that artificial numbers of prey in human areas is a direct result of our alteration of the landscapes, as well as the deep and cascading and fatal consequences resulting from the poisons we put into the ecosystems from our homes, gardens and lawns. As we continuously expand into wilderness areas to live and recreate, we have the responsibility to make good choices when we go out into our wild world, where the wild ones live.

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 for funding for conservation can be found that include the interests of the large percentage of non-consumptive wildlife advocates whose contributions can provide a voice for the wildlife watchers and those of us who enjoy our public lands and parks and the corridors that wildlife needs. Let’s inspire all to be stakeholders and motivate young people to capitalize on this momentum via social media, and finding the common ground, that we all want wildlife, and engage our perceived nemeses.

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 arduous work, lazy journalists and photographers can take a short cut and rent live exotic animals in outdoor settings and often editors and readers are none the wiser. When these captive animals are no longer useful, they are then turned over to the ‘game-ranchers’ for canned hunts. We then cross over into the really ugly business of killing contests, targeting coyotes, foxes, bobcats, wolves and lions in the name of livestock protection.

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 that can well affect the continued existence of earths’ megafauna from elephants and rhinos to lions to sharks and whales, to insects. Is de-extinction possible? What are the ramifications? What are the positive trends in science conservation communication? Where can the public turn to learn more and take meaningful action every day, from wherever we are, to do something whenever we can, and just how important social networking is to converse with each other verse ‘clickavism’.

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 carnivores have stabilizing effects on ecosystems, but the social and political will is lacking as we have lived for so long without them. Sport and Hunter-led policies of management to increase game-species without apex predators, is nothing short of an ecological crime. Apex predators are essential to ecosystem health and sustainability of North America’s wildlife and habitats and without them we face unparalleled trophic cascades with severe consequences.

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 kill wildlife is unjustified and barbaric. However, the vast majority of citizens- wildlife watchers- are without influence and left completely out of the management decision making processes. As a result, the financial interests in ‘game species’ have disproportionate influence on our bureaucratic decisions, with severe consequences that fail to consider the public good and the intrinsic value of all wildlife, non-game species and the critical role of predators in our landscapes and ecosystems.

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 climate change: That the companies responsible for these emissions be held financially accountable for the damage they have knowingly caused, and take the lead in mitigating the worst effects of the resulting disasters costing the world billions of dollars, with the most pressure on those who can’t afford it. Rick presents the reality that we cannot stop what is already in motion –but there are efforts that can be taken so the world is still an inhabitable place decades from now.

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 impacts on landscapes and how this affects wildlife. Will and I discuss these impacts and how each of us can, and that the outdoor industry is stepping up to be a protector of public lands, as their business model depends on having wild places out there. Ultimately, we need education about our impacts and understand the wild is not solely our playground and entertainment, but a complex ecological bio-system upon which we all depend for life, as we know it.

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, gophers, ground squirrels, jackrabbits, and other animals injurious to agriculture, horticulture, forestry, husbandry, game, or domestic animals, or that carried disease. The program was only dismantled after cougars could no longer be found. Although they are still hunted today, the mountain exists because it is so good at hiding from us. With our guests Lynn Cullen and Korinna Domingo of the Mountain lion foundation, we discuss the current threats facing this enigmatic cat of many names. By 1931 the US Congress passes

With returning guest Stephen Capra of Bold Visions Conservation, we discuss the state of the world – from what the US mid-term election results mean for wild places, wildlife and the environment to the mentality that is spreading across world leaders and CEO’s participating in the ecological genocide of our planet modeled on profiting off every last natural resource while it is still possible. What we need is bold leadership to fight for the health of our planet; ourselves, and a livable future for Biosphere Earth. Business as usual must end, as it simply raises false notions that we can have “mixed uses” –the paradox of infinite corporate profits based upon finite resources that must be protected at all costs. We all must engage in the processes. We only protect what we love, and to love something, we must experience it and reconnect with nature; educating ourselves, and young generations on what is at stake by losing the natural world as we know it.

How has species survival become about law enforcement? With my guests today, filmmaker Phyllis Stuart, and Elephant Action League Founder and Director Andrea Crosta, we talk about a groundbreaking and compelling new documentary wildlife film, Wild Daze, directed and produced by Stuart, that unveils what is really happening in the world of illegal trafficking in wildlife and the complexity of the models in place to protect nature. Wild Daze leads audiences through Africa’s complex and murky complicity and corruption, to understand the toll human activity has on the wild. Crosta, Elephant Action League, and creator of WildLeaks, shares how conservationists alone cannot succeed as law enforcement against illegal trafficking without the political will and support of the countries involved. Today’s forces make it critical to shift conservation models to supports local people living with wildlife – as we keep saying on this show, Conservation IS about People.

We had an incredible opportunity to catch up again with Dr. Laurie Marker of Cheetah Conservation Fund before she heads back to Namibia. With the illegal wildlife trade so much in the spotlight now, today we highlight the lesser-known incidents of illegal pet trade and trafficking in cheetah and its’ detrimental impact across the planet on the overall wild, and captive, gene pool. An estimated 300 cheetahs are poached and smuggled each year, and illegally sold in the Arabian Peninsula pet trade, and of that only one out of six cubs survive. While we often think of rhinos and elephants as the species critically endangered by the illegal trade, the cheetah is literally fighting for its survival with fewer than 7,500 remaining across populations that are highly fragmented and 80% of those located outside protected areas, putting the cheetah at great risk for extinction. For a species with low populations numbers to begin with, losses to trafficking threaten the cheetah’s very existence.

Dr. Laurie Marker, Founder and Executive Director of Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), is a pioneer of cheetah conservation. I have known of CCF’s work since its’ inception in 1990 in Namibia, yet we never crossed paths until this year when we finally met and she stayed at my home. Dr. Marker has worked with cheetahs since 1974, beginning with captive cheetahs in the US and was the first to successfully rewild the cheetah, developing cutting edge research on re-introducing cheetahs to the wild. With CCF, she has developed a holistic approach to the cheetahs conservation and survival that involves programs ranging from education of farmers to care for their livestock and implement predator-friendly livestock management, to habitat restoration by processing encroaching bush into Bushblok, a low-emission, compact log for cooking, to development of the best practices for storing cheetah sperm and blood samples in the Genome Research Bank to provide “insurance” for the cheetah’s survival.

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. Biointegrity’s mission is to help the world’s most impactful, global environmental solutions succeed as fast as possible by investing in projects that protect tropical forests.. unlike man made technology, tropical forests absorb greenhouse gas emissions, maintain our temperate climate system and produce a quarter of our planetary life support services. It’s time for a wakeup call for us all to acknowledge that we depend on the integrity of our biosphere, for without it, life on earth cannot exist.

Today with returning guest Ken McCloud, ex-USFW special agent, we dive deep into the dark underbelly of Internet based illegal wildlife crime. The instant and global reach, the web provides cover and laundering for this illegal trade, and it happens every day. This illegal wildlife accelerates through global platforms such as eBay, Facebook and PayPal, to facilitate illegal canned hunting in the US, and trade in a multitude of endangered species. Wildlife trafficking is a serious and complex crime and needs to be treated as such by enforcement agencies, policies and the public. Wildlife crime is bigger than conservationists, rangers and NGOs- This is insidious big-time international crime, worth billions of dollars, being facilitated though social media despite efforts law enforcement and courts, and it continues unabated in the deep reaches of the Dark Web. Monitoring the illegal traffic through social media requires multi-agency cooperation and our public service to crack it down.

With his new book, 'Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do', award winning scientist and lifelong dog lover, Professor Marc Bekoff and I converse on the world of dog behavior and the deep emotional lives dogs live and how people, as their companions, need to make those lives as rich and fulfilling as possible. Our compelling conversation highlights common myths we have about dogs – dogs live in the present, for example - but also how dogs are individual beings and we need to refrain from generalizations about “the dog”. We also dig into the differences between domesticated dogs and socialized wolves and how we must not confuse a socialized wild animal with a truly domesticated one. Despite all the hype, dogs are not wolves, far from it. Ultimately, there is so much practical importance from understanding your dog’s behavior, as well as the ability to make your connection with your dog as rewarding as it can be.

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 can and has been mitigated with a variety of reasonable measures. The Rocky Mountain Wolf Project seeks to re-establish wolves in Western Colorado, creating a connectivity corridor for North American wolf population all the way from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan through Canada and Alaska, and down the Rocky Mountains into Mexico. It would be difficult to overestimate the biological and conservation value of this achievement and benefits in habitat restoration.

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 says that they will trap and torture and kill wolves in a barbaric way if they are reintroduced – which is sadly being done today in “killing contests” of wolves and coyotes in the US. Unfortunately, the conservation community has not been responding in a cohesive manner regarding wolves - which play a vital role in our ecosystem in the U.S. However, as Stephen details, the stage is being set for grass roots rebellion and now is the time to bring a bold vision forward and be strong for wildlife.

With my guest today, Ken McCloud, retired undercover special agent USFW/OLE (Office of Law Enforcement) officer that gave illegal wildlife smugglers in the US and around the world, a run for their money. Known through his career as The Chameleon, Ken introduces us to how our USFWS officers go the full distance during and after undercover operations, to take down traffickers of rare and endangered species around the world, and stop the illegal trade in wildlife. From international cartels to professors, universities and zoos, Ken takes us through spectacular cases from his journey and the follow through to prosecution that stands up to CITES mandates. With Ken, we learn of how the USFW Special Agents are not only responsible for collecting prosecutable evidence of illegal traffic, but also provide the immediate and necessary care needed and required of the seized and traumatized animals while they either to be repatriated into a zoo, or if possible, sent back to the wild.