I visit a forest of trees so old, they were around before the last wolf was killed in the 1700s.

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One man in Scotland is on a mission. He wants to rewild the Scottish Highlands. His plan includes planting more than a million trees. But it is not just about the trees, it is about a whole ecosystem that comes with a forest…perhaps someday even including the return of the wolf…a truly wild Scotland again.

You can learn more about the work of Paul Lister and his team at The European Nature Trust.

It takes a lot of resources to produce these stories. If you are able, I’d like you to consider making a donation of any size to help support this work. Find out more information at our donation page.

If you want to find an owl, first you need to find some voles.

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It takes a lot of resources to produce these stories. If you are able, I’d like you to consider making a donation of any size to help support this work. Find out more information at our donation page.

When Europeans first came to North America centuries ago there were 19 different species of owl. Today...there are still 19. Owls are resourceful and resilient but some species are under threat. Author and wildlife photographer Paul Bannick has documented and studied owls for nearly two decades and will take us to one of his favorite places to observe these amazing creatures and learn about their unique connection to the landscape.

We’ll be back next week with a new episode, but this week we wanted to share an episode from one of our favorite podcasts called Sidedoor. Sidedoor is brought to you by the Smithsonian Institution. This episode caught our attention because it is about one of the most influential early explorers and naturalists that you’ve probably never heard of: Alexander von Humboldt. The man who used science to show how everyone and everything in nature is connected.

Not to mention that he was an inspiration to a fella named named Charles Darwin?

I hope you enjoy this episode of Sidedoor.

I visit a prison on the Olympic Peninsula where incarcerated individuals catalog wildlife videos for local biologists.

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As technology has advanced in the research community, scientists are now faced with an ironic issue: they have become so overwhelmed with data that it is a challenge to analyze it. In one case researchers on the Olympic Peninsula have turned to prisoners to cull through hundreds of images of animals by hand and categorize the  different species. In this episode we’ll take a look at new developments in artificial intelligence similar to facial recognition that will make it possible for computers to “read” wildlife images and quickly sort through vast amounts of data.

I meet biologists who can track multiple cougars in the forest, thanks to some special collars, GPS, and the click of a mouse.

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Over the years the ways that researchers have used technology to study animals have changed dramatically. Just a few decades ago, scientists would tie a string to a chicken leg then attach the other end of the string to a camera shutter. When an animal pulled at the bone, the camera would be triggered. Today, far more sophisticated cameras and devices are used to study animals. We’ll look at how this has evolved and see first hand how technology is used to track a cougar.