Shepherds of the Wild Podcast

Allan Savory is the Godfather of regenerative agriculture.  In the first part of this three-part series, filmmaker Tom Opre talks to Allan about what brought him to wildlife, wild places, and the wise use of natural resources.  They'll discuss his start, the cultural climate in Africa during the mid-19th century, during the demise of colonialism, and the trials and tribulations of trying to convince the world that we've been doing it wrong all this time.

In this episode of the Shepherds of the Wild Podcast, Tom goes in-depth with Roland Norton of Makasa Safaris.  As documented in Tom's film "Killing the Shepherd", over a decade ago, at the behest of the area's chieftainess, Roland and Makasa Safaris moved into the lower Luano Valley in Zambia to help restore wildlife numbers.  After a decade spent fighting poaching, and engaged in community projects, the people of the lower Luano, and the wildlife are starting to rebound in a big way.  But a few vital, endemic species have not returned.  So the next step is Project Return of the Wild.  Tom and Roland discuss the problems, the solutions, and the best way to get involved.

In this episode of the Shepherds of the Wild podcast, filmmaker Tom Opre has a frank discussion with Pete Geddes.  Pete is the Chief External Relations Officer for American Prairie, a non-profit dedicated to "restoring" a large swath of Montana to its previous state, before Lewis and Clark's Discovery of the Great Montana Plains. They'll discuss bison, land acquisition, the area's current residents, as well as the overall impact on the environment, the economy, and the people.

In this episode of Shepherds of the Wild, filmmaker Tom Opre sits down with Garrett Budds, Chief Conservation Officer of American Prairie, for a direct and wide-ranging conversation about one of the most ambitious conservation projects in North America. Budds explains American Prairie's vision to assemble a large, functioning prairie ecosystem in north-central Montana and addresses hard questions around land acquisition, grazing allotments, bison reintroduction, predator expansion, water rights, public access, and hunting. This episode explores what "rewilding" really means on the ground—and how conservation, agriculture, wildlife management, and rural communities collide in the modern American West.

In this episode, conservationist and filmmaker Tom Opre sits down with Mark Sather, a longtime Montana sportsman and employee of the Sieben Livestock Company, to unpack one of the most volatile and misunderstood issues in Western conservation: access, entitlement, and responsibility.
Raised hunting the Gates of the Mountains and the Bob Marshall, Sather brings a generational sportsman's perspective shaped by years working inside a large, wildlife-rich cattle operation. He speaks candidly about what happens when public wildlife, private land, federal agencies, state managers, and modern hunting technology collide—sometimes literally—with helicopters, drones, and rising tensions in the field.
The conversation moves deep into block management, helicopter access to landlocked public ground, changing hunter behavior, and the real-world consequences ranchers face when gates are left open, cattle are displaced, and trust breaks down. Sather also explains how proactive management—cow elk harvests, hazing with drones, and collaboration with Fish & Game—can reduce conflict while still putting meat in freezers.
This is not a theoretical discussion. It's a ground-level look at how conservation actually works—or fails—when emotion, politics, and entitlement replace humility, stewardship, and dialogue.
If you care about hunting, public land, private land, and the future of wildlife in the American West, this is a conversation you need to hear.