Nick Mott

Railroads helped build the state we know today. Now, rail travel has all but disappeared in Montana, and many unused lines are going dormant or being abandoned. What happens to them next?

Join us for a panel discussion with experts on all sides of the grizzly debates. We'll try to find a shared vision on how to coexist with bears no matter what comes next.

Two days after The Wide Open premiered, host Nick Mott had a grizzly encounter of his own.

An oil company comes in, drills a hole and a well is born. But what if the well stops producing or the company in charge goes bankrupt, leaving behind holes that can be thousands of feet deep, spout toxic gasses and muck things up on the surface? These so-called 'orphan wells' are all over Montana.

A caterpillar crosses the road. It starts a conversation about the long view of conservation, across species and across generations.

A scientist realizes if sea ice keeps melting, polar bears will go extinct. To help them, the Endangered Species Act takes on climate change — and in this battle, the law may have met its match.

A fish killing mystery that starts with the Endangered Species Act shows how state and federal wildlife law went from a weapon used against tribes, to a tool for tribes to reclaim what was stripped away.

From grizzlies to wolves, hunting plays a controversial role in many Endangered Species Act stories. This time, an African animal on Texas ranchland shows how hunting does — and doesn’t — serve conservation.

Wolves get trapped in the wild, loaded onto an airplane, and delivered to Montana and Idaho. When they scamper off into the wilderness, they test a question central to endangered species debates: What does it mean to recover a species?

A gang of monkey-wrenching activists try a new approach in the fight to save threatened species and ecosystems: They put on suits and enter the courtroom. In doing so, they change conservation forever.