The Wild Idea Podcast
Explore All Our Episodes
Ben Goldfarb: Paving Paradise – How Roads Reshape the Wild
Environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb joins us for a wide-open conversation about how roads shape wildlife, ecosystems, and the public lands we depend on. Ben breaks down the stuff most of us never think about, like how tire dust kills salmon or how road noise stresses out songbirds. He also shares what pulled him into road ecology in the first place and how he tells big, complicated stories in a way that still leaves you feeling hopeful.
Grounded in Traditions: The Ties That Connect Us
This week ushers in “The Holidays”, the time of year that chaos and connection reign supreme. Today we’ve invited our friends to share the stories and moments they return to every year, the ones that ground them in place and bring them closer to the people they love. We hope you enjoy these stories as much as we did.
American Prairie, Part Two – A Wilder Future
In this second half of our American Prairie series, we sit down with CEO Alison Fox and Director of Rewilding Danny Kinka to look at what the project has become and where it’s headed. Our conversation today leaves us thinking about what it takes to hold a landscape this big together. How do you grow trust across fence lines. What does it mean to welcome visitors into a place that still feels wild. How does a project keep expanding while staying rooted in local communities. And what happens when a bold idea becomes a living, changing ecosystem guided by the people who call it home.
American Prairie, Part One – Wild on Purpose
In this first of a two-part conversation about American Prairie, we talk with founder Sean Gerrity about what inspired him to take on one of the largest conservation projects in North America. Sean shares how a lifetime spent outdoors and a background in business led him to the idea of rewilding millions of acres of Montana grasslands.
Malcolm Brooks: The Fallout from Ballot Box Biology
Author Malcolm Brooks joins us for a conversation that moves from the landscapes that shaped his fiction to the messy realities of modern wildlife management. We talk about how he sees place as part of his storytelling, then shift to the story he has been tracing since the mountain lion attack on his nephews and the California policy changes that may have set the stage for it. We finish with his newest project, a deep dive into the history and contradictions of Butte, America.
Frank Uekötter: Red Lines in Green Politics: Moral Lessons from Conservation History
Environmental historian Frank Uekötter joins Bill and Anders for a thought-provoking conversation about how good intentions and bad systems can collide, and what history can teach us about the moral boundaries of environmental action.
Barret Baumgart: The Desert is a Haunted House
Author and essayist Barret Baumgart joins Bill and Anders for a Halloween special that leans into the stranger side of wild nature. In a conversation that ranges from natural history to horror, they dig into what the Joshua Tree reveals about human nature, the stories we project onto wild places, and the uneasy line between wonder and fear.
Christopher Preston: Tenacious Beasts
Award-winning author, environmental philosopher, and clean energy enthusiast Christopher Preston joins Bill and Anders to discuss his book Tenacious Beasts: Wildlife Recoveries That Change How We Think About Animals. He shares stories of wolves, whales, and beavers making remarkable comebacks, offering a hopeful look at what can happen when we give nature room to recover and thrive.
Rachel Franchina: The People Powering Public Lands
Rachel Franchina, Executive Director of the Society of Outdoor Recreation Professionals, joins Bill and Anders for a conversation about leadership, resilience, and the people behind America’s favorite wild places. It’s a grounded, hopeful look at the future of the profession that keeps us all outdoors.
Joel Gill: Creation Care and the Common Good
Faith, land, and stewardship come together in this episode with Joel Gill, Executive Director of Ferncliff, a 1,200-acre camp and conference center outside Little Rock, Arkansas. Joel joins Bill and Anders for a thoughtful conversation about creation care, a faith-based approach to conservation that blends theology, ecology, and the everyday choices we make to care for the land and for one another.
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What is The Wild Idea?
Humans have been part of Earth’s natural cycle for 300,000 years, with brains much the same as ours for the past 100,000 or so. What’s evolved isn’t our biology but how we understand our place in the natural world. As small populations grew into communities and then into societies, we created cultural, religious, and legal frameworks to help explain and define our connection to the rest of life on Earth.
