The Wild with Chris Morgan

Who let the 200-pound python out? 

Today, the origin of the Burmese python problem in the Everglades. And how science is being used to try to solve what seems like a losing battle. 

I'm back in South Florida, in the Everglades, on the side of a dirt road next to a canal. It looks pretty similar to where I met Anthony Flanagan and Kevin Pavlidis - the two python bounty hunters from the last episode.

Out in front of me are miles and miles of marshland. Today, we're diving back into the Burmese python problem. But this time...we're doing something a little different. We're letting the pythons go.

With the focus being the urgent removal of Burmese pythons from the Everglades, it might seem counterintuitive that we are now releasing one back into the ecosystem that it's destroying. But there's a good reason why. 

This snake will lead researchers towards all sorts of important information that might just save this ecosystem from an impending ecological collapse.

Behind the scenes footage of releasing the 16-foot python and our run-in with the alligator.

Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife

In the Florida Everglades, the Burmese python is an invasive species that's close to triggering an ecological collapse. But not if these python hunters have anything to do with it.

Burmese pythons are huge compared to the native snakes in Florida. They can measure up to 20 feet and weigh 200 pounds. The females lay up to 100 eggs. And they eat just about everything, from animals as small as a mouse to as big as a bobcat or an alligator.

And they’re causing immense destruction throughout the Everglades ecosystem. So much so, that there is a team of bounty hunters out to catch and kill as many as they can. So I’ve traveled to South Florida to meet two of the best.

Check out at my YouTube channel @ChrisMorganWildlife the behind the scenes footage of the 10-foot Burmese python capture.

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On this episode, join me in Ireland for a very Irish tale! 

If you’re from where I live in the Pacific Northwest, squirrels might not seem very special. It seems like all I have to do is look out my window and I’ll see one, bounding across the grass. But in the British Isles, the red squirrel is a bit of a “British darling.” They’re a species on the brink of extinction. It seems like everyone wants to see this fluffy-eared, threatened species bounce back. (including me … I did my master's degree on them after all in the 90s). 

And the tale of this creature has become very curious here in Ireland.

The red squirrel population is mysteriously recovering, thanks to another furry creature … who happens to be their own predator.

The pine marten. Even though this player is a predator that eats squirrels, it’s turning things around for the resident reds. I’ve traveled to Ireland to unravel this riddle, and to tell a tale of one squirrel against another. How a wily carnivore called the pine marten is coming back, restoring balance and actually helping its prey return to the Emerald Isle.

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Whenever I'm out doing field work or on a hike, I’ve not only got my eyes wide open, but my ears too. There’s a lot going on in a forest or under the sea - the sounds of nature. So many of those sounds in nature are about communication.

Personally, I love to chat with ravens. I like to think that we have lovely conversations. I know I’m fooling myself... but there’s something happening that might change that.  

There’s a tech company out of Silicon Valley that is hoping to make that dream of communicating with animals a reality. Earth Species Project is a non-profit working to develop machine learning that can decode animal language. Basically, artificial intelligence that can speak whale or monkey...or perhaps even raven?

So we are doing something a bit different on The Wild today - fun to mix things up now and then. For this episode I’m not outdoors among the wild creatures, but in my home studio, talking with two fascinating people about the latest developments in technology that are being created to talk to wild animals. We’ll also explore the ethics of this technology. What are the downsides to playing the role of Digital Dr. Dolittle? 

Guests: 

Aza Raskin, co-founder of Earth Species Project and co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology.

Karen Bakker, professor at the University of British Columbia where she researches digital innovation and environmental governance. She also leads the Smart Earth Project.

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This past summer, I was in Alaska in a little coastal town called Seward - a gorgeous spot on the Kenai Peninsula tucked between the ocean and some giant glacier-covered mountains. I met a guy named Dan Olsen, who records killer whale calls using an underwater hydrophone. 

Olsen gets all kinds of information from his recordings. The calls bring the underwater world of orcas alive. But there's a lot more going on in these clicks and whistles than you might think. Like, how their dialects, their languages, evolve, and even become part of orca family "culture.”

Jay Julius, a member of the Lummi Nation, says there's something deeper going on in the conversations among orca pods in the Pacific Northwest.

The orca story is one of human misunderstanding and generational trauma. But it's also a story of celebration, family, and a sense of place. Exploring their chatty underwater world might just help us understand how they are communicating… and what they are trying to say.

Follow us on Instagram @thewildpod and @chrismorganwildlife

Welcome (back) to The Wild. New episodes start on March 14!

Host Chris Morgan is back with another season of The Wild. Join him on new adventures from around the Pacific Northwest and the world. He’ll take you through the Irish countryside to learn how one endangered species is helping another endangered species to thrive.

We will follow the journey of two young bear cubs as they gain strength at a wildlife rehabilitation center after the tragic death of their mother. And we will learn about the healing powers of nature as we talk to one man who is using bees to recover from the loss of his brother.

Season 5 of The Wild will be full of the great storytelling you’ve come to love, from the songs of Orcas, snake hunting in Florida, and how the coyote conquered North America.

Hi all - Chris here - I’ve missed you! I hope you’re doing well and finding a way to get out and enjoy a bit of nature….maybe a hike in the mountains, or a walk around your city park? There really is wildlife all around us, no matter where you are. We're busy working on Season 5 (! wow can’t believe that!)....and we’ve got some enticing episodes shaping up from the PNW, Ireland, England, the Arctic, and the Everglades! All places we're traveling to to uncover some really fascinating people and species. Season 5 will launch in March, so hang tight.

And it’s a really important time right now for the species we share this planet with. Because this week, world leaders are gathering at the UN Biodiversity Conference in Montreal. You can learn more about the conference by following this link. Also, a great video link just out from the Guardian that is about everything I talk about and COP!

Nature sounds in this episode provided by Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker.

One recent September I stopped at the side of highway 20 that crosses Washington state’s North Cascade Mountains. At the side of the road was a sign that grabbed my attention. About a storied fire lookout cabin on top of Desolation Peak in the distance, where author Jack Kerouac spent some time in the 50s. The irony was that I couldn’t see the peak because of the forest fire smoke in the air that day. But it fired my imagination….the mountain was calling me. This episode of THE WILD is the result.

The American west is a fire landscape. Since 1983, there’s been an average of 70,000 wildfires every year in the United States. And the wildfire season is getting longer. Warmer springs and long dry summers are the cause.

Things are changing fast in this ancient landscape…So how have wildfires and our philosophy of fighting them changed over the decades?

To answer that, I’ve climbed to the top of this mountain, to the famed fire lookout at Desolation Peak, to speak to Jim Henterly. He is the fire watchman who’s stationed at the lookout. Desolation Peak has long been a place to look for answers. I’m hoping to find a new perspective through him.

The job of a fire lookout is to be a step ahead, ever watchful - observe all around you - and warn of danger. But maybe also to remind us of our role in the ever evolving ecology of fire.

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 

Join me as I squeeze on a dry suit, don a snorkel, and jump into an icy mountain river.

“That's what I'm amazed by, that a little tiny stream, not even knee deep, is a whole world if you get under there with it.,” that’s what CWU professor Paul James told me as we snorkeled our way through the fast moving current.

Dr. James is surveying the number of fish in the river after a recent restoration project. Gold Creek is an important tributary to the Yakima River and serves as a breeding ground for many fish that are important to the Yakama Nation.

Joe Blodgett learned how to fish from his father. He mastered the technique of dipnetting a fish out of the Yakima River, the traditional kind of fishing for the Yakama Nation.

“We were directed by our leadership to make it like it was before we started destroying their habitat and before we started destroying the flows,” Joe told me. “Make it like it was as a directive from our tribal council years ago.”

Easier said than done when you are facing a generation of infrastructure changes to the landscape and waterways. But this story is about just that, the mission to restore a watershed -  starting with a single river - to truly ‘make it like it was.’

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 

I was trained as a traditional scientist, to look at the world through that perspective. Analytical, and clinical. In this “western science” you have to toe the line and keep personal experience and emotions out of it. Science is run as a pretty tight ship. There's a good reason for that, of course.

But for indigenous people, there’s something that comes with spending time in nature that helps to understand it in a different way. Often it’s knowledge from generation after generation of experience. Knowledge of creatures and habitats.

There’s a way to understand nature through both these perspectives alongside each other….indigenous knowledge, and western science. It’s a concept known as two eyed seeing.

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