30% Wild

A special message for listeners at the end of Season 1 of "30% Wild," and looking forward to Season 2!

You can find all the new developments at thirtywildpod.com, as well as the episode notes for all the Season 1 episodes.

Thanks for listening!

You love wildlife and you want to do something to help it, but what can you do? If the problems facing wildlife look insurmountable, this episode is for you! Plus make a peaceful backyard refuge from everything else scary for yourself, a tiny vacation you can take daily. Learn how to make a difference, one backyard at a time, and (re)build for wildlife in the places where we live.

Take a trip into the past of your own neighborhood, and see the hidden world of your town, viewed as a fox or a bear.

A special how-to episode translating the insights of “Scary Animals in the Backyard” into pro tips and practical steps for your own local space. From real live landscape architect - creator and host Susan Dieterlen.

Listen to “How to (Re)Build Your World for Wildlife,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• Five ways to provide for wildlife in our space
• Four changes to make right now
• How saving wildlife saves us
• Changing what you can, and why it’s worth it
• Avoiding conflict with your local wildlife…and your neighbors
• Revisiting The Doom, and how to make a refuge from it
• Peace on demand is a potent tool for resilience to pretty much anything
• Help your neighbors love your backyard habitat – and want one of their own
• Fighting The Doom with small changes

What is it we see, when what we see is “impossible”? Have you ever had something unsettling happen in the woods that you couldn’t explain? Whether animals way out of place, cryptids, or mysterious noises and lights, we wander through the possibilities of what’s going on when you can’t believe what you see.

We also take a nighttime stroll through a legendary woods where everything depends on the eye of the beholder.

With snippets from here and there, including the guests on our previous episodes, about being “unsettled” by the impossible, out there.

Listen to “Impossible Scary Animals: Seeing What’s Not There,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• False wildlife reports, and what’s behind them
• Perception vs reality
• Imagination and seeing what you want to see
• The need for awe
• Hoaxes through the ages
• What your brain wants you to see
• A real true ghost story
• Cryptid or creature?
• What unsettles experts out in the woods
• Includes the original story, “Beasties”

Wily hero, despised villain, or something in between? Love coyotes or hate them, don’t bet against them being in your backyard, under your porch, or even trotting down your city’s streets. What makes these wild canines icons of resilience?

We also watch a race on those city streets, myth vs myth, to see who spreads fastest or maybe who cheats best.

Peggy Anesi, Educator on Natural Resources, Environment, and Energy with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Extension, makes a special return guest appearance to make the case for coyotes, talk about her decades-long love for them, and share a few really disturbing facts about owls.

Listen to “Never Bet Against Coyotes,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• What coyotes do for us
• How humans “make” wildlife
• Are coyotes dangerous, to us or our pets?
• Coyote packs, or not
• Coyote howls, sings, and calls
• “Babysitter” coyotes
• Coyotes vs foxes vs wolves vs dogs
• Wrestling with Smiley the friendly coyote
• What to do when you see a coyote, and why they follow people
• Why cities have more, not fewer, coyotes, and why we’re seeing them more
• Know your enemy - learn all you can about wildlife you hate or fear
• Chicago coyotes and the Urban Coyote Project
• Wildlife values, and how you get yours
• Includes the original story, “Home Field Advantage”

Wily hero, despised villain, or something in between? Love coyotes or hate them, don’t bet against them being in your backyard, under your porch, or even trotting down your city’s streets. What makes these wild canines icons of resilience?

We also watch a race on those city streets, myth vs myth, to see who spreads fastest or maybe who cheats best.

Peggy Anesi, Educator on Natural Resources, Environment, and Energy with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Extension, makes a special return guest appearance to make the case for coyotes, talk about her decades-long love for them, and share a few really disturbing facts about owls.

Listen to “Never Bet Against Coyotes,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• What coyotes do for us
• How humans “make” wildlife
• Are coyotes dangerous, to us or our pets?
• Coyote packs, or not
• Coyote howls, sings, and calls
• “Babysitter” coyotes
• Coyotes vs foxes vs wolves vs dogs
• Wrestling with Smiley the friendly coyote
• What to do when you see a coyote, and why they follow people
• Why cities have more, not fewer, coyotes, and why we’re seeing them more
• Know your enemy - learn all you can about wildlife you hate or fear
• Chicago coyotes and the Urban Coyote Project
• Wildlife values, and how you get yours
• Includes the original story, “Home Field Advantage”

Is that dark shape outside your window a bear or just your imagination? As black bears move into new places and get closer to humans, the answer may surprise you. Are backyard bears dangerous, and when will they arrive in your town?

We also spy on a woodland meeting between five very different bears, all headed for YOUR house.

Dr. Tracy Rittenhouse, Associate Professor with the Department of Natural Resources & the Environment at the University of Connecticut, joins us to discuss wildlife in the exurbs, who’s thriving in our backyards and who’s not, while revealing the tiny menace that scares even people who work with bears.

Listen to “Bear-anoia,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• The most dangerous bears in North America, and how close they are to you.
• Why bears are moving into new areas
• Bears near people, in our yards, shopping centers, and even inside houses!
• Our common frenemy, Nature
• Storybook bears vs real life bears
• How common are bear attacks, and how to stay safe
• Will warmer winters stop bears from hibernating?
• A scary snake encounter
• How to stay safe from ticks in the woods, and why you want to
• Includes the original story, “The Five Bears.”

Is that dark shape outside your window a bear or just your imagination? As black bears move into new places and get closer to humans, the answer may surprise you. Are backyard bears dangerous, and when will they arrive in your town?

We also spy on a woodland meeting between five very different bears, all headed for YOUR house.

Dr. Tracy Rittenhouse, Associate Professor with the Department of Natural Resources & the Environment at the University of Connecticut, joins us to discuss wildlife in the exurbs, who’s thriving in our backyards and who’s not, while revealing the tiny menace that scares even people who work with bears.

Listen to “Bear-anoia,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• The most dangerous bears in North America, and how close they are to you.
• Why bears are moving into new areas
• Bears near people, in our yards, shopping centers, and even inside houses!
• Our common frenemy, Nature
• Storybook bears vs real life bears
• How common are bear attacks, and how to stay safe
• Will warmer winters stop bears from hibernating?
• A scary snake encounter
• How to stay safe from ticks in the woods, and why you want to
• Includes the original story, “The Five Bears.”

When is a pig not a pig? When it’s the worst invasive species anywhere. Whether wild boar, razorback, or wild pig, feral swine top the list of ecological worries across most of the US, and much of the world. What makes feral pigs so scary and so very hard to control, and are they coming to a backyard near you?

We also look through the eyes of a very special escapee from a very particular ship, centuries ago.

Peggy Anesi, Educator on Natural Resources, Environment, and Energy with University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Extension, joins us and reveals the shocking way feral swine get to Illinois and why she never eats wild pork, plus a tale of mysterious pawprints in the snow.

Listen to “Apocalypse Pork: Feral Pigs,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• How feral pigs arrived and spread
• Are feral swine in your backyard?
• Rototillers and the rise of the machines
• The search for the perfect book cover pig
• The pros and cons of eating invasive species
• Why pig diseases matter to you
• Always carry a pocketknife in cougar country
• Kids in the woods
• Free range pigs vs feral pigs
• Dangers of feral pigs and how to stay safe
• Conquistadors and pigs
• Bears vs mountain lions vs wolves
• Includes the original story, “First Step”

Fluffy cow or climate hero? Which is scarier - how much our past and future depends on the bison’s unbelievable impact, or how close we came to losing that impact forever? Or maybe the scariest thing is a 2000 lb buffalo thundering toward you with ill intent?

While you ponder, come with us on a visit to a barnyard where the full moon remembers the prairie’s past a little *too* well.

Trevor Edmonson, Stewardship Lead with The Nature Conservancy in northern Indiana, gives us an inside look at bison and their impact on the restored prairie complex of the Kankakee Sands preserve, and talks vanished lakes, “land snorkeling,” and how the prairie built the Midwest.

Listen to “Eat Burgers, Save the World: Bison,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• How we nearly lost bison forever, and how they came back
• Native American plains tribes and the bison, in good times and bad, and today
• Mammoths and the ancient origins of your daily highway commute
• The Plains today are all about the bison of the past
• The eco-miracle that bison bring to grasslands
• What prairies do for you
• Reading bison body language
• 20,000 acres of wild Indiana, cattle barons, and The Grand Kankakee Marsh
• How you can help preserve and restore prairie, at home, in your community, and on the road
• How eating bison meat affects conservation of the species - and your health
• Why are bison the most dangerous animals at the national parks?
• The value of not being the top of the food chain outdoors
• Is that Mountain lion inside your head or on the trail cam?
• Alligators as the scariest animal, the wetland nightmare
• Are you a land snorkeler?
• The rewards of being a very slow hiker in the quiet landscapes of the Midwest
• Includes the original story, “Midsummer Prairie Moon.”

Fluffy cow or climate hero? Which is scarier - how much our past and future depends on the bison’s unbelievable impact, or how close we came to losing that impact forever? Or maybe the scariest thing is a 2000 lb buffalo thundering toward you with ill intent?

While you ponder, come with us on a visit to a barnyard where the full moon remembers the prairie’s past a little *too* well.

Trevor Edmonson, Stewardship Lead with The Nature Conservancy in northern Indiana, gives us an inside look at bison and their impact on the restored prairie complex of the Kankakee Sands preserve, and talks vanished lakes, “land snorkeling,” and how the prairie built the Midwest.

Listen to “Eat Burgers, Save the World: Bison,” and subscribe to “30% Wild” at www.thirtywildpod.com

• How we nearly lost bison forever, and how they came back
• Native American plains tribes and the bison, in good times and bad, and today
• Mammoths and the ancient origins of your daily highway commute
• The Plains today are all about the bison of the past
• The eco-miracle that bison bring to grasslands
• What prairies do for you
• Reading bison body language
• 20,000 acres of wild Indiana, cattle barons, and The Grand Kankakee Marsh
• How you can help preserve and restore prairie, at home, in your community, and on the road
• How eating bison meat affects conservation of the species - and your health
• Why are bison the most dangerous animals at the national parks?
• The value of not being the top of the food chain outdoors
• Is that Mountain lion inside your head or on the trail cam?
• Alligators as the scariest animal, the wetland nightmare
• Are you a land snorkeler?
• The rewards of being a very slow hiker in the quiet landscapes of the Midwest
• Includes the original story, “Midsummer Prairie Moon.”