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.

In this episode of Shepherds of the Wild, filmmaker Tom Opre sits down with Montana rancher and outfitter Matt Wickens to talk about the hard truths facing rural America. From razor-thin ranching margins to the rise of the American Prairie Reserve and the loss of working lands, Wickens lays bare the challenges of keeping family operations alive in a changing landscape. The two discuss the economics of local beef, the value of outfitting to small towns like Winifred, and what "rewilding" really means for those who live on the land.