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Chris Morgan

Host, "The Wild"

About


Chris Morgan is a British-American ecologist, conservationist, filmmaker, TV host and podcaster. His stories from six continents have reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide as part of his mission to connect listeners to nature and to help conserve our beautiful planet.

For over thirty years his ecology and conservation work has focused on bears and other large carnivores worldwide, from the Rockies to Pakistan, and Spain to Ecuador. He emigrated to the US from the UK in 1997 and established Chris Morgan Wildlife for his wildlife research and environmental education work. In 2000, he co-founded the award-winning community-based education program, the Grizzly Bear Outreach Project (GBOP; now Western Wildlife Outreach, WWO), which was designed to bring scientifically credible information about grizzly bears and restoration to local communities of the North Cascades in Washington State.

Through his work as a wilderness guide, he has escorted hundreds of people into wild locations around the world from the Arctic to Antarctica, to share the wonder of nature, and trigger conservation initiatives.

He is the co-founder of Wildlife Media, the non-profit organization that produced BEARTREK, a feature-length documentary (premiered in 2018) that follows Chris’ journey by motorcycle to Alaska, Peru, the Canadian north, and Borneo. The film’s campaign has generated support and exposure for critical bear conservation projects in these areas. Wildlife Media is a proud sponsor of THE WILD. Chris co-created THE WILD podcast with KUOW in 2019 and loves the craft of creating and voicing immersive audio stories that bring people back to nature through their ears, hearts, and minds.

Podcasts

Stories

  • caption: Eba getting a close up view of orca in Puget Sound. Orca poop will float for up to 30 minutes. That is how Eba is able to smell it on the surface of the water.

    The power of poop

    I take a look at three ways biologists are using scat to understand and protect wildlife, including poop parties, a dog on a boat, and an international crime fighter.
  • caption: Mike Sheldon, a wildlife technician with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, prepares to use a dart gun to tranquilize Moses, a 6.5 or 7-year-old male cougar, on Wednesday, January 29, 2020, on the Olympic Peninsula.

    So you caught a cougar, now what?

    I visit a prison on the Olympic Peninsula where incarcerated individuals catalog wildlife videos for local biologists.
  • caption: Houndsman Greg Jones, left, and Chris Morgan, host of The Wild, right, hike after an attempted cougar capture mission of Bramble, a 3-year-old female cougar, on Tuesday, January 14, 2020, on the Olympic Peninsula.

    How to catch a cougar

    I meet biologists who can track multiple cougars in the forest, thanks to some special collars, GPS, and the click of a mouse.
  • caption: A performance by Children of the Setting Sun.

    The ancient wild

    The "salmon people" have lived on the Pacific Coast for more than 10,000 years. Through their long history, stories have been their lifeblood.
  • caption: Teton, a 10-week-old Karelian bear dog, waits for his handler, Nils Pederson, at the final "find" during a field-test. The "find" is a taxidermied bear.

    The wildlife super dog

    I meet an adorable puppy that may be the key to saving bears and people.
  • caption: Michael McHenry, right, a fish habitat manager with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe operates an electrofisher as Martin Liermann, a statistician and fish ecologist with the watershed program follows to put the fish into a bucket before measuring and weighing them, on Wednesday, September 4, 2019, along the Brannon side channel on the Elwha River near Port Angeles.

    A river runs through it ... once again

    Almost 30 years after an act of Congress called for the Elwha dams to come down, the ecosystem is recovering. Species are returning and staying.