THE ANNUAL LEOPOLD LECTURE features a distinguished environmental thinker who inspires audiences to explore today's critical environmental issues. The Annual Leopold Lecturers enhance the influence of the growing network of writers and respected environmental leaders who have been touched by the Leopold Writing Program.

"GOLDEN-EYED LIGHTNING ROD: A WOLF STORY"draws inspiration from Dan Flores's award-winning book, Wild New World: The Epic Story of Animals and People in North America, and will discuss wolf evolution beginning with the role the animals played in Native America and Europe and concluding with the 20th-century battle between the U.S. Biological Survey, charged with wolf erasure, and the new science brandished by ecologists. Through a historical and ecological lens, the lecture will explore the mythology of the wolf and the stories we have told ourselves about the wolf-human relationship.The Lecture will be followed by a Q&A session and book signing. Books will be available to purchase at the venue.

DAN FLORESis a Santa Fe-area writer originally from Louisiana who spent much of his career as a University of Montana professor. The author of 11 books, he has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine. Along with appearances on Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown and Joe Rogan’s podcasts, Flores was also featured in Ken Burns's 2023 American Buffalo documentary. 

His most recent books are American Serengeti, winner of the Stubbendieck Distinguished Book Prize in 2017; Coyote America, a New York Times Bestseller, winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Prize, and Finalist for the 2017 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award; and Wild New World, winner of the 2023 Rachel Carson Environment Book Prize, winner of the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature, and Finalist for Phi Beta Kappa’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize.