The Wild Idea

The Wild Line: Pearce Confirmed for BLM, Cyanide Bombs Return to Public Lands, Kash Patel Dives Pearl Harbor

This week on The Wild Line, we’re tracking the Senate confirmation of Steve Pearce as Bureau of Land Management director, the Trump administration’s restoration of cyanide trap devices on public lands, new reporting on how automated bots are locking everyday users out of Recreation.gov permits, the launch of a free community shuttle connecting Colorado residents to outdoor destinations in the Golden and Morrison area, and FBI Director Kash Patel’s coordinated snorkel tour of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. From FY27 appropriations markups to Conservation Alliance lobbying in Washington, these stories trace a week of compounding movement on federal lands and wildlife policy. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com [https://thewildidea.com].

John Leshy: The Hollowing Out of America’s Public Lands

John Leshy has spent sixty years tracking the arc of federal public land policy, which makes his assessment of the current moment unusually grounded and unusually sobering. He is an Emeritus Professor at UC Law San Francisco, former Solicitor of the Interior Department under President Clinton, and the author of Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands (Yale University Press, 2022).   In this conversation, Leshy traces the founding-era origins of America’s public lands, from the thirteen colonies’ negotiation over western land claims to the Great Transition of 1890, when Congress first authorized presidents to reserve lands for protection. He then turns to the present, naming the Trump administration’s approach not as a policy disagreement but as something new: a deliberate strategy to hollow out the agencies that manage these lands, make the management visibly bad, and use public disillusionment to justify divestiture. He also examines why Bears Ears National Monument drew an immediate public backlash while rescinding the Roadless Rule has not, and what that difference means for conservation organizers. The hollowing out of agencies is not something that can be reversed quickly; rebuilding the expertise and capacity that has been stripped away could take a decade. Whether public support, which Colorado College’s annual western polls show remains strong and even growing across the political spectrum, can translate into political action remains, in Leshy’s words, “a big, gigantic question mark.” Learn more about today's conversation and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com [https://thewildidea.com/episode-61].

The Wild Line: Public Lands Rule Rescinded, Right Whale and Roadless Rule Hearings Loom, and Wins in Colorado and New Mexico

This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the Bureau of Land Management's rescission of the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's congressional testimony — including his description of designated wilderness areas as "death sentences for forests" — a House bill that would block North Atlantic right whale protections through 2035, the authorization of chainsaws in the Frank Church Wilderness, and state-level wins in Colorado and New Mexico.  Find the details and links mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com [https://thewildidea.com/wild-line-48]

Gregg Treinish & Lara Birkes: Turning Adventure into Conservation Data

In this episode, Bill and Anders sit down with Greg Treinish, founder of Adventure Scientists, and Lara Birkes, the organization's newly appointed executive director, for a wide-ranging conversation about what happens when outdoor skill meets scientific purpose.  Greg launched Adventure Scientists 15 years ago after growing restless on expeditions across the Andes and Appalachian Trail, feeling that the time and effort spent exploring wild places could be put to better use. What began as a scrappy nonprofit driven by personal relationships and viral outdoor media has grown into a global network of more than 10,000 trained volunteers collecting data across projects spanning microplastics, antibiotic resistance, endangered species, coral reef restoration, illegal timbering, and high-altitude fungi. A central theme of the conversation is data quality: how Adventure Scientists has built protocols rigorous enough to hold up in court, and how that credibility has forced a broader reckoning in the scientific community about what community-gathered data can actually achieve. Greg and Lara also discuss the frontier of new tools, from eDNA sampling to LIDAR drones flown by indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon, and how these technologies extend the reach of field science without replacing the irreplaceable value of boots on the ground. Learn more and find the links and resources mentioned today on our website [https://thewildidea.com/episode-60].

The Wild Line: Pearce Nomination Heads to Senate Floor, American Prairie Permit Battle, Alaska Land Transfer, and Ted Turner's Legacy

This week on The Wild Line, we're tracking the Senate's imminent floor vote on Steve Pearce's nomination as BLM Director, Montana's escalating campaign against American Prairie's bison grazing permits, a federal land transfer tied to the Ambler Road corridor in Alaska, an Alaska court ruling allowing unlimited bear killing in southwest Alaska, a pending Forest Service decision on chainsaw use in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, and the death of conservationist Ted Turner. From nomination fights to wilderness policy to bison restoration, the pressure on public lands is building on every front. Find the links and resources mentioned today at our website, thewildidea.com [https://thewildidea.com/]