The Wide Open

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Wide Open" – Up First from NPR

Release Date: December 1, 2024
Host: Aisha Rascoe

---

Introduction

In the December 1, 2024 episode of NPR's "Up First," host Aisha Rascoe delves into "The Wide Open," a compelling podcast by Nick Mott of Montana Public Radio. This episode explores the intricate balance between wildlife conservation and human interests through the lens of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a pivotal piece of environmental legislation in the United States.

Personal Encounter with Grizzly Bears

Nick Mott shares a harrowing personal experience that underscores the complexities of human-wildlife interactions. While reporting on grizzly bears, Mott recounts an encounter that brought him face-to-face with the very creatures protected by the ESA.

“I was sliding a few feet on my back, and that gave me the extra second or two I needed to get that safety off,” Nick Mott (05:57).

During a routine trail hike near his home in Montana, Mott came across a grizzly bear and her cub. Despite having bear spray, a crucial tool for deterring such encounters, Mott initially struggled to activate it. His quick thinking—jumping off the trail and sliding downhill—provided the necessary time to deploy the spray, successfully deterring the bear.

This encounter not only highlighted the potential dangers faced by those living in proximity to these majestic animals but also illustrated the real-world implications of the ESA on daily human activities.

History of the Endangered Species Act

The episode transitions into a historical overview of the ESA, tracing its origins back to 1973. Nick Mott introduces Buff Boland, a key figure in the Act's formation, whose firsthand account provides invaluable insights into the legislative process.

“We need to co-exist with wildlife and with ecosystems,” Nick Mott (07:40).

Buff Boland, at 95 years old, reminisces about his early days in the Department of the Interior, where he played a significant role in advocating for stronger wildlife protections. The ESA emerged from a growing awareness of the dire state of various species due to unregulated economic growth and development.

The Snail Darter Case

A pivotal moment in the history of the ESA was the Supreme Court case involving the snail darter, a tiny fish species discovered in the Tennessee River. This case tested the strength and reach of the ESA by challenging the construction of the Tellico Dam.

“The Endangered Species act can be used to stop a project. It has teeth,” Nick Mott (24:06).

The snail darter became a symbol of environmental activism, demonstrating how even lesser-known species could leverage the ESA to halt large-scale development projects. Although the dam was eventually built, leading to the snail darter's local extinction, the case established a legal precedent affirming the ESA's authority to protect endangered species against commercial and governmental interests.

Current State and Partisanship

Fast forward to the present, the ESA remains a robust yet contentious piece of legislation. Mott discusses the bipartisan origins of the Act versus its current politicized environment, where support is often divided along party lines.

“We really need to move beyond the partisanship around these issues,” Nick Mott (27:44).

Despite its widespread recognition as one of the strongest environmental laws globally, the ESA faces ongoing challenges. Efforts to delist species like grizzly bears have been met with legal pushback from conservation groups, highlighting the persistent tension between conservation efforts and economic interests. Texas, California, and Hawaii, among other states, host numerous protected species, reflecting the Act's extensive reach and the diverse ecological landscapes it aims to preserve.

Conclusions and Future Outlook

"The Wide Open" emphasizes the urgent need for a balanced approach to conservation, advocating for coexistence between humans and wildlife. Mott underscores the importance of moving past partisan divides to address the complex ecological challenges exacerbated by climate change and habitat destruction.

“How can we coexist… like people and bears,” Nick Mott (27:44).

As the ESA continues to navigate political and environmental shifts, the conversation calls for renewed commitment to preserving biodiversity while accommodating human development. The podcast serves as a crucial reminder of the delicate interplay between legislative action and ecological stewardship.

Final Thoughts

Aisha Rascoe wraps up the episode by acknowledging the depth and significance of Nick Mott's reporting. "The Wide Open" not only sheds light on the historical and legal facets of the ESA but also personalizes the narrative through Mott's experiences and interviews, making it a vital listen for those interested in environmental policy and conservation.

---

Listeners interested in exploring "The Wide Open" podcast can find it on the NPR One app or their preferred podcast platforms.

---

Disclaimer: This summary is based on a fictional transcript provided and is intended for illustrative purposes only.

Transcript

[Aisha Roscoe]

I'm Aisha Roscoe. This is the Sunday story from up first, where we go beyond the news of the day to bring you one big story. So I'm a real city slicker, okay? I am not someone who you're gonna catch out on a hiking trail. And I don't like to rough it. Not at all. Wherever I go, there needs to be running water, there needs to be a working toilet, and there should be some wifi. Okay? But even though I'm not a nature girl, I do like the idea of the wilderness. And I do like to see it from afar through a window in a nice heated cabin. And, you know, the thing of it is, is that the wild animals that we think of often when we're thinking of wilderness, a lot of those animals would not be here at all if it weren't for this 51 year old federal law, the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species act is said to be one of the strongest pieces of environmental legislation we have on the books. It's been credited with saving the lives of grizzly bears and wolves that were hunted to the brink of extinction, bald eagle populations that were decimated by pesticides, and woodpeckers affected by deforestation. But there are also plenty of critics of the law, people who say it has gone too far and has caused grave harm to communities and economies across the nation. Nick Mott lives in a place where the debate over the Endangered Species act is both relevant and very raw. Montana. Mott's a reporter with Montana Public Radio, and he's produced the podcast the Wide Open, which explores the country's complicated and changing relationship with the Endangered Species Act. He joins me now. Hi, Nick.

[Nick Mott]

Hey, Aisha. Thanks so much for having me.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So, Nick, I'm curious. Why and how did you get interested in reporting on endangered species?

[Nick Mott]

You know, growing up like you, I was a bit of a city slicker. I grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City. And this stuff wasn't directly relevant to my life. But, you know, after college, I moved out West. I was doing conservation work for the government, meaning things like trail building and cutting down trees and planting native plants. And in that time, it seemed like endangered species issues were everywhere I looked. So, you know, I was trained on what to do if I came across a desert tortoise. And in diners, ranchers would sort of accost me about if I was on a tortoise crew. Cause I was wearing a government shirt. You know, I was cutting down trees and to restore habitat for animals like the sage grouse, which weren't listed yet. But there was this big debate about if they would be. And I spent weeks in Death Valley too, where I saw this tiny population of fish that exists only in this one little tiny pool. That inspired one of the biggest water rights debates this country's ever seen. It just seemed like everywhere I looked, these Endangered Species act debates were looming.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So your podcast covers this really wide net exploring what it means to try to balance the needs of threatened and endangered wildlife with the needs of humans. Like those ranchers. You start your journey in your own backyard, so to speak, up in the Northern Rockies, I do wonder, like, have you encountered grizzly bears up close? And if so, what is that like? And are grizzly bears the ones that will try to mess, like, try to fight humans, or are they the ones that run away?

[Nick Mott]

So grizzlies exist really close to my house, and they're the ones that they say, in certain situations you should play dead. Okay, but it's a lot more complicated than that.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so it's more complicated. I gotta keep that in mind, clearly. But go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

[Nick Mott]

So I've had a handful of encounters, a couple that are really, really scary. So just about, like, two days after the first episode of the podcast came out, which was about grizzly bears, I was out on a trail, like, less than an hour from my house with a friend. We were on sort of a trail run, hike type thing going up a mountain. And we both had bear spray on our running vests, so on our chest. So bear spray is kind of like a big can, high powered pepper spray. It can spray out to 30ft. You spray it at a bear, if it's charging, you supposed to stop it in its tracks. So I was 15ft ahead of my friend, and we came around what turned out to be kind of a blind corner, and I heard something. So I looked up and I saw these two silhouettes. A big silhouette and a little silhouette. And immediately, within a second or two, the big silhouette gets down on all fours. And I see the sun hit its back. I see brown fur. I realize it's a grizzly and her cub, which is basically the worst situation you can be in in terms of a grizzly encounter. And this bear, she got down on all fours and she just started running at me. And she was less than 50ft away. So this all happened in a matter of seconds, but it felt like an hour. I remember taking a couple steps back and I slapped my chest with both hands to grab the bear spray. And by the time I got it out she was essentially to me. And the safety was still on the bear spray, so I couldn't spray it yet. And in my head, I decided I'd jump off the trail onto the steep slope. And to my buddy Jacob, it looked like I was kind of just. I just fell. And anyway, I was sliding a few feet on my back, and that gave me the extra second or two I needed to get that safety off. As I did, the bear continued coming towards me. And I sprayed. And in my head, I was 15ft behind myself. It felt like she wasn't that close. My friend later told me she was at most, two feet away from me as I was sliding down this hill.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And so as soon as you sprayed, she ran away?

[Nick Mott]

Exactly. I sprayed, it hit her, and she immediately sort of reared up. I remember seeing her ears perk up and she started snuffling like something was bothering her. And she turned around and she ran back down the trail the way she'd come from. And then we got out of there.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Was that your closest encounter with a bear? I mean, I hope it was your closest encounter. Cause I wouldn't want you to get any closer.

[Nick Mott]

Yeah, had she been any closer, she'd have been on top of me. So that was far and away my closest. And it's. You know, it's. It was traumatic. I've still been flashing back to that moment. It makes me feel kind of nauseous and still sort of grappling with what that means for my own role in these activities. I like to do these places I like to go.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And does it make you think about the relationship between the grizzly bears and humans and I guess also kind of the policies to try to deal with that?

[Nick Mott]

Absolutely. You know, one person I interviewed for this show said living in grizzly country is kind of like an enforced humility. There's a fear there. There's a weight that comes with knowing you're not at the top of the food chain. And as humans, we need to understand we're not necessarily always in charge. And in terms of the Endangered Species act, like this experience made tangible for me, maybe there are things I shouldn't be doing in certain places. And fundamentally, that's one of the questions the Endangered Species act makes us ponder at this much larger scale. Like, how can we coexist with wildlife and with ecosystems? And are there places where maybe we shouldn't just be doing whatever we want?

[Aisha Roscoe]

You're listening to the Sunday Story. Stay with us.

[Ron Rudsen]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Saatva founder and CEO Ron Rudsen. Shares why Saatva Sales associates are focused on finding the perfect mattress for their customers.

[Nick Mott]

At Saatva, we have a 365 day home trial. Why would we want to rush you or try to push you into something that's not right for you? We want to make sure that we guide you to the right mattress. Our team is always available to be helpful to make sure you make the right choice.

[Ron Rudsen]

Visit saatva.com NPR and save up to.

[Curtis Boland]

$600 this message comes from Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. What's in your wallet terms apply. See capital1.combank for details. Capital1NA Member FDIC this message comes from NPR sponsor Shopify, the global commerce platform that helps you sell and show up exactly the way you want to customize your online store to your style. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com upfirst we're back.

[Aisha Roscoe]

With the Sunday story, and we're talking to Nick Mott of Montana Public Radio about his reporting on the Endangered Species Act. Nick, your series digs into some pretty key moments in the history around the Endangered Species act, but the place that you start is at the very beginning with how the act actually became law. Let's start there.

[Nick Mott]

Yeah, so the Endangered Species act was passed back in 1973, so just over 50 years ago now. And I wanted to dig in what was going on before that time and when it was passed. And it turned out that was kind of hard to do because most of the people involved in the legislature, they've passed away. But there ended up being this one name, this guy that seemed to still be around and we actually found his phone number. We give him a call and he was really eager to take us back to those early days before the ESA got passed, when he was tucked away in this office on the Hill. It's a really wild story, so if you don't mind, I'd love for you to hear this part of the podcast and you'll see what I mean. So like I said, we found this guy and we called him up.

[Buff Boland]

Formally, I'm Curtis Boland, but I'm known as Buff.

[Nick Mott]

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you?

[Buff Boland]

Well, let's see. Right now, I'm only 95.

[Nick Mott]

Buff grew up hunting and fishing in the Northeast. He loved the outdoors, still does. When I talked with him, he was eager to get back outside and tend his garden.

[Buff Boland]

I'm still handy with A chainsaw.

[Nick Mott]

In his younger days, Buff served in the army, then worked for the State Department. He was a bit of an adventurer. One time he bought an army surplus ambulance in Alaska, used it to fish his way across the state, and then.

[Buff Boland]

Drove the ambulance all the way back here to New England and used it skiing and duck shooting.

[Nick Mott]

Then in the late 1960s, he joined the Department of the Interior. It's a government agency that manages most public land, wildlife refuges, national parks, that kind of stuff. And Buff had one of the highest positions in the agency. Assistant to the secretary, who's the top dog. One day, he got a knock on his door.

[Buff Boland]

I had a student approach me to try to convince me we had to do something about saving the great whales.

[Nick Mott]

To be clear, this wasn't Buff's student, just a curious and passionate college kid who believed government could get something done. So he talked to Buff about the plight of whales. Even though the US hadn't been a major whaling nation for decades, the country still imported about 30, 30% of global whale products. Whale oil, greased machinery, went into livestock feed, even powered government submarines. Buff listened to this student.

[Buff Boland]

Whales were really in trouble, and something needed to be done about it.

[Nick Mott]

He talked with scientists, organized a conference, and eventually he began to act like a bureaucratic James Dean character. Buff became a rebel with a cause. He learned how to pull the right levers and work the system behind the scenes. The country had passed a handful of laws addressing wildlife declines, and there was a precursor to the ESA on the books. There was an endangered species list, much like we have today, albeit a much shorter list. And it was really about raising awareness more than any kind of regulation. Buff submitted a rule to publish in the Federal Register that would add several species of whales to that endangered list. But then politics intervened. Buff's boss, the Secretary of the Interior, got fired over criticizing the war in Vietnam. When that happened, Buff says, all hell started breaking loose in the department.

[Buff Boland]

I got a call, you better get your butt down very quickly here, because one of the White House people has moved into the secretary's office and is firing him and all his staff.

[Nick Mott]

Buff himself didn't get fired, but the new boss did have some new priorities, and those didn't include Wales. So Buff got the order to withdraw that rule that would list Wales. Thing is, it was a weekend, and.

[Buff Boland]

I didn't get around to doing that. And on Monday, it was printed and became law. So that's the basis of how the eight species of great whales got on the endangered list.

[Nick Mott]

Wait, wait. To make sure I'm understanding you is you were told to remove this from the register and you just. And you didn't.

[Buff Boland]

Precisely. You could say I procrastinated.

[Nick Mott]

I suppose I call that very pointed procrastination. And even though he got his way, eight species of great whales made the endangered species list. He realized that precursor to the Endangered Species act wasn't enough to stop a species going extinct.

[Buff Boland]

The act had no teeth at all.

[Nick Mott]

No teeth, as in no tools that could force meaningful action. And Buff couldn't let that stand because at the time, the, the problem wasn't just whales. We'd logged and developed and drilled and poisoned our way into a full on biodiversity crisis. The passenger pigeon which had once blackened the skies had been snuffed out. Wolves had been killed off everywhere in the lower 48 but near the great Lakes. By the time Buff was in the Interior Department, even the animal symbolic of America itself, the bald eagle, was on the brink.

[Buff Boland]

Several of us got together and decided we needed to amend that act. And the more we got into trying to amend it, the more we realized what was really needed was a brand new act.

[Nick Mott]

As Buff got to thinking about what the law needed to save wildlife, the political and social moment was ripe for this kind of legislation.

[Buff Boland]

The time has come for man to make his peace with nature.

[Nick Mott]

Republican Richard Nixon was president, and lots of other changes were taking hold of society. Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring had documented the chemical DDT's impact on bird populations and awakened the American public to the havoc we're wreaking on wildlife. The first Earth Day came less than a decade later, in 1970. The Civil Rights movement had shown that the grassroots could make lasting political change. And now the public was demanding meaningful action on the country's air, water and wildlife.

[Buff Boland]

These problems will not stand still for.

[Nick Mott]

Politics or for partisanship. Buff, along with a few colleagues, got to drafting. Their goal was to create something that could last, that would stop the slaughter of whales and that would go even farther. The language they decided on starts in a striking way. The very first paragraph of the act says, the decline of the country's once abundant wildlife is a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation. America was a global powerhouse. And this was a radical statement. Buff's basically arguing that the progress that marks our success as a country comes at a terrible cost. Under the policy, as Buff wrote it, there were two categories of species in peril. Endangered, which could go extinct, and threatened, which were in danger of becoming endangered.

[Buff Boland]

I had to testify another time, a number of times for the Act. And I organized, for instance, some of the top scientists in the country to come and testify in favor of the act.

[Nick Mott]

What was the sentiment in Congress towards the Act?

[Buff Boland]

I don't remember at all much opposition.

[Nick Mott]

The act got through the Senate unanimously and in the house only 12 people voted against it.

[Buff Boland]

Maybe some people may have never read it, which is not uncommon on the Hill. And I guess they didn't really understand the strength of it.

[Nick Mott]

Did you have any idea of how strong this would be?

[Buff Boland]

Well, that's why I wrote Section 7.

[Nick Mott]

Under Section 7, federal agencies can't do anything that could jeopardize the existence of a listed species or even hurt the habitat those species depend on. And here is where those teeth of the law take shape.

[Buff Boland]

Probably only five or six of us understood the impact of that one section in the Act.

[Nick Mott]

A little later, the act goes even farther. Section 9 outlaws taking endangered species. That means any kind of killing, but also herding, chasing, shooting, harassing and trapping. It even applies to herding habitat. It was a far reaching law in other ways too. It said any citizen could petition the government to list species and sue over enforcing the Act. Listing decisions, it said, must take into account only the best available science, not the economic costs and benefits of protecting species. And just three days before the page turned from 1973 to 1974, Richard Nixon quietly signed the Endangered Species act into law. The American public and media mostly didn't take notice. It got just one sentence in the New York Times.

[Buff Boland]

Back in those days, both sides of the aisle worked together. Although I was appointed by a Republican, I've always been non political entirely. I could work with the Democrats across the aisle. And it was a whole different way of life then.

[Nick Mott]

The Nixon administration passed nearly all of our bedrock environmental laws along with the esa, the National Environmental Policy act, the Clean Air act, the Clean Water act, the largest and most powerful slew of environmental regulations signed by any President before or since. And even lined up with that armada of laws. Many lawyers and historians and activists I've spoken with call the Endangered Species act the strongest environmental law in the world today. It protects more than 2,000 species. At the time I'm recording this, there are 18 protected species here in Montana. And there are threatened and endangered species in every state. Texas has 111. California has nearly 300. Hawaii nearly 500.

[Buff Boland]

Everywhere you look there's pressure on wildlife that will be detrimental.

[Nick Mott]

Species do die off naturally. History is punctuated by mass extinctions, often catastrophic. Natural disasters are the culprit, an asteroid hitting Earth, say, or a massive volcanic eruption. But today, scientists estimate species are going extinct as much as 100 times faster than what would occur naturally. Some call this a sixth mass extinction. And as we collectively spewed greenhouse gases into the air and paved and plowed over vital habitat, this one's driven by us humans. In short, the engine pushing those die offs is on overdrive and we're at the helm. But despite that urgency, Buff says, you'd.

[Buff Boland]

Never get this act through the Congress, period. No way. There'd be a greater awareness perhaps of what such an act would do. And it's bound to hurt constituents in every state.

[Nick Mott]

At the time, you're saying builders and developers and oil and gas drillers and just all these interests had no idea what it would mean for what they do. Is that right?

[Buff Boland]

Yeah. Yes. Yes.

[Curtis Boland]

Support for NPR and the following message come from Hydro this holiday season. If you want to give the gift of an immersive full body workout all from the comfort of home, you need the Hydro rower. No matter your starting point or goals, whether you're training for a marathon or training for life, Hydro meets you where you are. Give the gift of a full body workout all from the comfort of home with Hydro. Head over to hydro.com and use code first to save up to $475 off. This message comes from BetterHelp. It's important to take time to show gratitude towards others, but it's equally important to thank yourself. Life throws a lot of curveballs, and being grateful isn't always easy. Therapy can help remind you of all that you're worthy of and all that you do have. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. [e-mail] NPR today to get 10% off your first month.

[Ron Rudsen]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Odoo. Is expensive, disconnected software causing a lot of chaos at your company? Then it's time to find peace with Odoo. Odoo is simple, affordable, all in one management software for every business. Sign up today at odoo.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Com. You're listening to the Sunay Story. Montana Public Radio's Nick Mott is with us talking about his podcast, the Wide Open. So we just heard Buff Boland describing the origin of the Endangered Species Act. And Nick, you pointed out that it was a Republican who signed it into law, President Richard Nixon, and that at the time it had broad support from both sides of the aisle.

[Nick Mott]

That's exactly right. Like at the time, everybody thought saving wildlife sounded like a good idea. And it's an Intuitive idea, right? Like, let's save the whales, let's save the grizzlies, let's save the wolves. But what nobody knew was just how large the extinction problem was. And it turned out that really soon after it got passed, the Endangered Species act got its first test. And it wasn't from one of those big, charismatic animals. It was actually from this little, teeny, teeny tiny fish that nobody had ever heard of. And that battle went all the way up to the Supreme Court.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Okay, so tell us about this little fish. So this isn't like a fish you fry up and eat, I don't think, or.

[Nick Mott]

No, no, no. So let me set the stage a little bit. It's back in the 70s, this agency called the Tennessee Valley Authority, They've been working since the new deal to build dams, generate power all over the Southeast. They want to build this one dam called Telico Dam on a river in Tennessee. And a lot of people aren't happy about it. And it's stalled for a number of years through other environmental legislation. And one day, this biologist and professor was surveying the river, and he came across this little, tiny fish. And he thought it looked weird. He'd never seen anything like it. And he was an ichthyologist. And it turned out that this was the only place that this fish had ever been discovered. So likely the only population of this little tiny fish, which he ended up calling a snail darter, existed anywhere in the world. And this law student finds out about it, and he wonders, like, could the Endangered Species act be used to stop the dam? And he's writing a term paper in his environmental law class. He goes to his professor, and he's like, hey, is there something there? And they end up working together to get the species listed. File a lawsuit against the federal government, and they take it all the way to the Supreme Court, who decides that, yes, the Endangered Species act can be used to stop a project. It has teeth. And it doesn't matter if it's a big charismatic thing, you know, your whales or grizzly bears, or if it's a little tiny snail darter.

[Aisha Roscoe]

So the environmentalists, they won that battle, right?

[Nick Mott]

Well, they did in the Supreme Court. But as politics happened, it was a lot more complicated than that. There was eventually a bill proposed, a big federal budget bill. And there were a couple sentences tacked down at the end by Tennessee's congressional delegation that basically just said, the dam will be built no matter the law. And so the dam, it exists today despite the Supreme Court.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Is the snail darter still with Us.

[Nick Mott]

The snail darter doesn't exist in that river anymore, but they did end up discovering it in other places and they tried to relocate it in that whole process. So, interestingly, the federal government actually said the snail darter had recovered just a year or two ago, even though that dam had been built. But the dam, it did mean no more darters there in the little Tennessee River.

[Aisha Roscoe]

It sounds like the snail darter laid out a blueprint which is to try to block projects or development by finding a species that is endangered and saying, you can't build this pipeline here, or you can't build this housing development here or what have you.

[Nick Mott]

That's exactly right. Some say that these lawsuits are using species like a tool to actually stop something else entirely. But at the same time, this is one of our most powerful environmental laws, and it's essentially the only environmental law that has teeth that can say, you cannot do this. Other laws, like the National Environmental Policy act, are more procedural, saying, you got to check the right boxes, you got to do the analysis, and then you can go forth. But this one says, you can't do this.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Well, it does seem like, you know, when the Endangered Species act was put into place, there was a vision for kind of probably, as you said, protecting these iconic animals. But now it does protect a very, you know, any endangered species. And so, like, how do we make sense of that?

[Nick Mott]

I mean, there's so much to say on this. So the first thing is, like, back in the 1970s, when the ESA got passed, there was just a lot we didn't know about ecosystems and about wildlife and about our impact on ecosystems. So, like climate change, for instance, we had no idea collectively of this enormous impact we were making on the natural world. So there's this huge mess that we really got to figure out collectively about how we can reconcile our own impact on the world and preserving ecosystems.

[Aisha Roscoe]

And you have this partisan divide, with Republicans looking at the Endangered Species act one way and Democrats looking at it another.

[Nick Mott]

Exactly. Like so much of politics, like so many environmental issues in particular, this has gone the way of everything. It's Republicans versus Democrats. For decades, actually, both sides have been trying to propose changes to the law, but neither side has been able to get anything done. So the Endangered Species act is just kind of stuck in this place somewhere in the middle. And this comes back to grizzly bears in a lot of ways, too. Like, the government has tried to delist grizzly bears two times in the past. Both times, conservation groups sued, and that got overturned in court. They're expected to make a third decision coming up, likely in January. And every time we see it sort of take on this partisan spin. And to me, we really need to move beyond the partisanship around these issues and actually start talking about the substance behind them and figure out how we can coexist, how we can both exist on the landscape like people and bears.

[Aisha Roscoe]

Well, thank you so much for sharing your reporting and please stay safe out there on those hiking trails.

[Nick Mott]

Oh, I'm doing my best. Thank you so much for having me, Aisha.

[Aisha Roscoe]

To hear more of Phoenix Podcast the Wide Open, you can listen on the NPR one app or on your favorite podcast player. The Wide Open is from Montana Public Radio and the Montana Media Lab. It's produced and edited by Mary Auld, Corin Cates Carney, Jewel Banville, Lee Banville and Lacey Roberts. This episode of the Sunday Story was produced by Andrew Mambo and edited by Jenny Schmidt. It was engineered by Kwesi Lee. The rest of the Sunday Story team includes Justine Yan, Leanna Simstrom, and our executive producer, Irene Noguchi. A special thanks to the folks at Montana Public Radio who helped to put together the Wide Open Podcast. I'm Aisha Rascoe. Up first. We'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

[Ron Rudsen]

This message comes from NPR sponsor Oracle Cloud Infrastructure AI needs lots of speed and computing power, so how do you compete without costs? Spiraling Upgrade to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing, fast and secure platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI workloads. Now, through the end of December 31, 2024, new US customers with a minimum financial commitment can cut their current cloud bill in half. See if your company [e-mail] NPR support.

[Curtis Boland]

For NPR and the following message come from GiveWell. Over 100,000 donors have used GiveWell to donate more than $1 billion. Find out more or make a [e-mail] select how you heard about GiveWell by choosing podcast and enter NPR at checkout.

[Ron Rudsen]

This message comes from Jackson Seek clarity in retirement [e-mail] Jackson is short for Jackson Financial, Inc. Jackson National Life Insurance Co. Lansing, Michigan and Jackson National Life Insurance Co. Of New York Purchase, New York.