Wildlife Episodes

Journalist Kimon de Greef follows the dirty business behind psychedelic “toad medicine”: wildlife exploitation, manufactured Indigenous tradition and a global market selling ego death as transcendence.

The boundary between two ground-squirrel species preserves the memory of a wetter Mojave,and a barrier that disappeared thousands of years ago.

Only a handful of vaquitas have recently been observed, but the species doesn't have to be doomed. Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho explains why these desert porpoises remain capable of recovery, and what must change to keep them alive.

Kate Scott reports from a tree sit in Lochiel, where activists occupied the last of four landmark cottonwoods after contractors destroyed the others for double-wall construction through the San Rafael Valley.

Chris examines fireworks as a recurring source of wildland ignitions, explaining how invasive grasses and depleted firefighting capacity magnify the danger while proposing safer celebrations suited to desert communities.

Laura Cunningham and Kevin Emmerich trace Greenlink West from the Amargosa Valley toward northern Nevada, arguing that the transmission line will accelerate utility-scale solar, gas generation and hyperscale data-center development across intact desert.

Chris combines practical hot-weather safety with an examination of unequal heat exposure, contrasting voluntary recreation with the risks imposed on migrants, outdoor workers and incarcerated people who often cannot escape extreme temperatures.

A personal history of Cima opens into the evolutionary partnership between Joshua trees and Shasta ground sloths, asking how a plant adapted to past climate shifts can migrate now that its most effective seed disperser is extinct.

Desert tortoise biologist Tim Shields explains experimental tools for deterring ravens, confronting invasive schismus grass and measuring ecosystem health—work intended to give future restorationists practical ecological leverage.

Journalist Zak Podmore connects proposed nuclear-waste storage in southeastern Utah with the rapid ecological recovery emerging from Lake Powell, asking who bears the nuclear fuel cycle’s costs and what a restored Glen Canyon could become.

Mary O’Brien of Project 1100 explains how commercial honeybees compete with and spread disease to native solitary bees, why public lands are essential pollinator refuges and what genuine bee conservation requires.

Rick LoBello describes a lifelong effort to connect protected lands on both sides of the Rio Grande, using wildlife recovery, community relationships and environmental education to revive the vision of an international Big Bend park.

Chris explores desert quiet as an ecological soundscape rather than emptiness, showing how noise pollution masks wildlife, displaces animals and makes ecological loss harder for people to recognize.

Conservation biologist Nick Graver explains how climate change, invasive grasses and human-caused fire undermine Joshua tree recruitment—and why shutdowns and federal cuts obstruct the long-term research and coordination recovery requires.

Mandy Culbertson explains how state wildlife agencies and commissions govern most American wildlife, why special interests often outrank biodiversity and how public participation can make wildlife policy more democratic.

For his father's 91st birthday, Chris revisits an essay connecting a formative 1966 desert journey, the mutual dependence of Joshua trees and their moths, and the literal kinship joining every generation of life.

A monsoon in Twentynine Palms becomes an exploration of how scarce water shapes desert land and life, why rain smells so extraordinary, and how to stay safe when celebration turns into flash flooding.

Brendan Cummings explains California's Western Joshua Tree Conservation Plan, the compromises behind the 2023 law and the difficult work of protecting climate refugia while development and fire continue.

On the Dome Fire's fifth anniversary, Chris returns to Cima Dome to confront the loss of its vast Joshua tree forest, the spread of invasive grasses, uncertain restoration and his own enduring solastalgia.

Parker Lloyd tours the Nature Center at Pia Okwai, where Tracy Aviary and West Valley communities are restoring former industrial land as wildlife habitat and an environmental-justice gathering place.

Chris challenges claims that genetically edited gray wolves amount to resurrected dire wolves, asking whether de-extinction can succeed without habitat, ecological relationships and learned animal culture.

Chris Clarke talks with Greta Anderson about Hope, a Mexican wolf whose journey into northern Arizona exposed policy barriers to natural dispersal and the larger challenges facing wolf recovery.

Mexican wolves once ranged into Texas before persecution and conflicts with livestock helped eliminate them from the state. Chris Clarke talks with Rick LoBello, Erin Hunt, and Philip Sozanski about efforts to restore the lobo to suitable West Texas habitat. They explore the wolf's ecological and historical importance, persistent cultural fears surrounding predators, and efforts to build support among ranchers, landowners, and other residents. Their case for restoration rests not just on saving wolves, but on returning an important missing species to the Chihuahuan Desert ecosystem.

Chris Clarke talks with Ben Goldfarb about road ecology: roadkill, habitat fragmentation, altered hydrology, wildlife crossings, tortoises, pronghorn, and the far-reaching ecological effects of transportation infrastructure.