Guest host: Ron Beard
Studio Engineer: Amy Browne

Issue: Community concerns and opportunities

Program Topic: Sharing the Landscape: People and Wildlife

Key Discussion Points:

Jim tells a a bit about his career and connection to Maine…and what factors led to his interest in the increasingly fractious interactions between people and wildlife, leading him to write Nature Wars

Jim explains some of the roots of the modern-day problem of people encroaching on wildlife and wildlife encroaching on people

Landscape—cutting colonial era forests to forests re-growing since the Civil War- present day eastern forest, land conservation
Where people lived and worked– rural to urban and suburban, outdoors- indoors
How we have “managed” wildlife—abundance, slaughter, scarcity, protection, benign neglect, over abundance
How people relate to wildlife—hunting source of food, threats to agriculture, slaughter for fashion, hunting for sport, romantic portrayals in literature and film, observing nature from indoors, wildlife as pets
The current commercialization of wildlife – feeding birds and other wildlife

Jim tells the story of how fictional “East Burbia” approaches its deer situation

Reporters are charged with finding the story, laying out all the dimensions… where do you see this story leading us… what are our responsibilities in relation to wildlife?

Are there any bright spots that give you hope for a shared landscape?

Guests by name and affiliation:

Jim Sterba, foreign correspondent and national reporter for the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, author of Nature Wars, published by Crown Publishers, 2012, and Frankie’s Place: A Love Story
See also www.JIMSTERBA.com

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