How America’s roads alter our ecology, with Ben Goldfarb (reprise)

Happy holidays! Thanks for tuning into THE WILD. I’m so glad you’re here.  THE WILD team is hard at work on some more brand-new episodes that will come out in the new year. But for now, I want to revisit a very popular episode from last season that I think is perfect for this busy time of holiday …

Japan's bear attacks: we unravel what's going on

Bear attacks in Japan have been in the news a lot recently. There have been over 220 attacks so far this year, and a record 13 people dead.  Why is this happening? And what can be done about it? There’s a lot of information out there, and it’s hard to separate fact from fiction when it comes to co…

50 years of Jaws: shark myths and misunderstandings

JAWS can only mean one thing! The movie that forever changed how we feel about sharks. It did me, that’s for sure. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the movie, we thought it might be time to help separate fact from fiction in a fun way……by playing audio clips from the movie and having a real s…

How our planet came to life with Ferris Jabr

“Life is earth, animated.” When I heard this statement for the first time it made me think about my relationship to our planet differently. That all life on earth is part of a giant feedback loop, a process of self-creation that has been ongoing for billions of years. This is the idea that Ferris …

The story of Whatcom Creek: an explosion, a tragedy, and a rebirth

This is not an easy story to tell. In the town where I live, Bellingham, Washington, there’s a beautiful urban creek. It flows just four miles from a lake, through a city park, down through the town to the sea. But in the summer of 1999, disaster struck. A gasoline pipeline ruptured, causing an exp…

Sniffs, scratches, sights and sounds: Ed Yong on how animals sense the world

Have you ever wondered why your dog takes such a long time to sniff a patch of grass? Or why flies buzz around so sporadically? It’s because most of what a creature actually senses is invisible to us. They perceive their world as differently as we perceive our own. Pulitzer Prize winning science w…

Tiny but tough: Hummingbirds of the Arizona desert

Blink and you’ll miss ‘em! In this episode we get to know hummingbirds eyeball-to-eyeball.  The world of the hummingbird is changing fast in the deserts of Arizona. So much so that even an animal as quick as a hummingbird is struggling to keep up. Native plant ecosystems that make up the nectar la…

Brooke Williams encountered a dragonfly and became a dreamer

Environmental author Brooke Williams believes that dragonflies are messengers of wisdom and enlightenment. This idea got my head buzzing so I invited Williams to join me at a pond near my home to talk about it. He told me he has been on a 20-year journey to forge a new relationship with nature and …

A Mexican jaguar walked into Arizona, then the US built a wall

Twenty-nine years ago cowboy Warner Glen took the first photograph of a jaguar that crossed from Mexico into Arizona. His surprising story opens our show. Today though, there is something very different happening on the border. Chris and his producer Matt Martin follow two biologists, one from Mex…

New season trailer! Welcome back to THE WILD

Welcome back to a brand new season of THE WILD! Travel with Chris as he uncovers unexpected stories from nature. Like jaguars - America’s biggest cat - trying to navigate the giant steel wall on the Mexican border; tiny hummingbirds searching to find their next meal along a landscape of nectar; a m…