In the eyes of the world, the West’s several deserts have become defining landscapes for the modern region. But one of them, the Chihuahuan Desert, has produced the only large public lands found anywhere in Texas. Therein lies a story that shapes a state.

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Calling on the photographic record made of the American West from 150 to 100 years ago, modern photographers have repeated many of the same scenes and found remarkable differences in the ecology and look of western landscapes. The question is, why such change?

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While conservation focused national parks creation on the vertical mountains and canyons of the West, the Great Plains ended up de-buffaloed and mostly ignored. But with new, 21st century approaches to reversing that historical slight, the Plains Serengeti is on its way back.

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Almost exactly 500 years ago, a shipwrecked Spaniard named Cabeza de Vaca and three companions made the first trans-continental journey in the history of the American West. Then he wrote down his account of eight years in Native America, one of the great First Contact stories of all time.

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Religion is often at the center of historical events in the West. The founding of modern Montana, in fact, happened when Native people famously pleaded for Christian missionaries. The question was whether the Christians actually understood what the Indians were asking for.

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Future Wild is a one-on-one interview podcast pairing host, author, and outdoorsman Mark Kenyon and world-class subject matter experts to explore topics relevant to the future of wildlife and wild places, hunting and fishing, and other outdoor pursuits. Future Wild is here to answer the questions being asked by the deeply curious and passionate in the hunting, angling, and outdoor communities.

Follow now for the first episode, featuring Patagonia's Yvon Chouinard, dropping on Wednesday, May 27th on the Cal of the Wild podcast feed, soon to be called MeatEater Conservation. 

Thanks to our sponsor, Conservation First Bank.

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Charlie Russell and L.A. Huffman became famous for their nostalgic art about the Frontier world they experienced in the West. But with a fascination with what Russell called “Dreamtime Montana,” exactly what were they trying to tell us about the West’s future?

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Not only do most Americans misunderstand the great variety in western places, but many westerners are similarly clueless. This episode makes a stab at explaining nature in a part of the West unfamiliar to many, the southwestern state of New Mexico.

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A tangible and fascinating landscape record of the human past in the West exists in a form barely found elsewhere in America. So-called rock art, images incised and painted on rock faces, still reach out of the past to connect us with the thoughts, dreams, gods, and myths of ancient America.

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In the summer of 2019 a small group of us does a 12-day river descent from Alaska’s Brooks Range through the heart of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, experiencing a preserved slice of primeval western America that seems in perpetual danger of being destroyed by humanity’s relentless addiction to oil.

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