It's wild times, y'all. Just as we're getting ready to go hiking and camping this summer, national parks and forests are facing the biggest staff and budget cuts in history under the Trump administration. In this interview, How Wild host Marissa Ortega-Welch shares what she's been hearing from park and forest rangers, biologists, and custodians about how these cuts will impact the nation's public lands.

This interview originally aired on KALW Public Media's Crosscurrents on May 15, 2025.

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It may not be designated capital "W" wilderness, but the ocean is an incredibly wild place.

We're sharing an episode about the ocean from The Wild with Chris Morgan, produced by our friends at KUOW. The Wild is about the wonders of our natural world and the people working to protect it. On this episode, Chris takes us to Biscayne National Park off the coast of Florida to see how scientists are trying to restore one of the world's largest coral reefs.

If you like this episode, find more at https://omny.fm/shows/the-wild-with-chris-morgan

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What if the next time you were in wilderness looking at the sky on a clear, dark night, you saw more visible satellites than stars? What if the Big Dipper and Orion were drowned out by a satellite traffic jam, criss-crossing through space?

More satellites are being launched into space than ever before. And as they become more common, they're changing the experience of looking at the night sky and raising questions about who regulates the stuff we put up there. We think about how to protect the environment here on earth. Shouldn't that extend to how we think about outer space?

We're sharing a story from Outside/In, a podcast that gets curious about the natural world. If you like How Wild, we think you'll like Outside/In, too. It's a thoughtful, fun show that tells fascinating stories about the outdoors. Everything from whether it's better to pick up your dog poop or bury it to how planting trees can be a tool of colonization. Check out more episodes of Outside/In here.

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How wild? We don't have the foggiest idea. In this final episode of season one, we go to California's Point Reyes National Seashore on a cloudy day to think about the nebulous feeling of wilderness and its future. "Capital W" wilderness is a useful land management tool, but wilderness as a feeling is different for everybody.

Photo by Janet Rosen (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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Not everything fits into neat little boxes. Sometimes you have to check "other."

What are other perspectives on wilderness?

We visit the country's first tribal wilderness in the Mission Mountains of Montana to hear how it's managed by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe.

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Do you have all your gear to head into nature? What about your smartphone?

Technology helps people access wilderness, but it can also get in the way.

We're hitting the Pacific Crest Trail with hikers and a Search and Rescue team who have mixed feelings about technology in wilderness, and we meet a recreator who wouldn't be able to be here without it.

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Do you have a permit?

We're going to a popular trail in Colorado's Maroon Bells to talk about the slippery feeling of solitude and what to do about more people on the trail.

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We're tired from hiking and taking a break at an art museum to ponder how nature got framed.

We're exploring how artists like Ansel Adams and thinkers like John Muir shaped Americans' ideas of what "authentic nature" should look like and who belongs in it."

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What do you mean by "undeveloped" — weren't there people living here?

We're wading through rivers in the nation's first wilderness in New Mexico's Gila National Forest to learn how the idea of capital "W" Wilderness came to be.

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Untrammeled. No, that's not a typo. We don't mean untrampled.
Wilderness areas are supposed to remain free from human intervention unless absolutely necessary. But in a world where every part of the planet is affected by climate change, how do we decide when to intervene? We're heading off-trail in Sequoia National Park with land managers and environmentalists who are at odds.

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