And I'm curious if you feel like you're seeing similar things happen where maybe like some of the science of what beavers are doing in the landscape is either oversold or maybe there's like misinformation that people are kind of taking to, you know, these small towns where it's like we want to, you know, discuss this issue and people just don't even really understand the facts.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting.

In my book, I kind of compare beavers and fire.

I think they're analogous in some ways, right? That they're both these forces of disturbance in a sense, right? They transform landscapes often in ways that we don't like, but they're also fundamentally beneficial forces, right? We know that fire is this force of ecological restoration and rejuvenation.

And beavers are doing the exact same thing by creating wetlands and spreading water around.

The problem is that we as a society are really bad at dealing with dynamic landscapes, I think.

We've got our roads and power lines and railroad tracks and towns and farms and infrastructure.

But what is the trade-off, right? What are the things that we can do to be a net positive, right?

Can you tell us a little bit about forest roads and the genesis of the roadless rule?

Certainly.

So I think unbeknownst to a lot of people, the Forest Service operates 370,000 miles of road, which for perspective means you could drive to the moon and partway back on Forest Service Road.

So how did we get there? How did that happen? And I think that You know, there really there are two primary eras, I would say, of Forest Service road building.

The first occurred in the early 1900s.

And, you know, one of the interesting historical ironies or coincidences is that the Forest Service really comes of age starting in 1905 at its founding, which is a period that more or less overlaps with the rise of the personal automobile industry.

on American landscapes, right? So, you know, the early Forest Service is trying to give people places to drive to, basically, building all of these roads, largely for recreation as well as forest management and other purposes.

I'm going to turn it over to Ben.

So what's happening in Croatia in terms of wildlife crossings?

Yeah, you know, this, this is a, a, a really neat story that I learned about when I was working on my book, and unfortunately, it didn't, didn't have space to, uh, include it in the book and was really excited to, uh, be able to work it into this article.

So there, that, that story was told to me by a guy named, uh, named Josip Cusack, who's a wildlife biologist in, in Croatia, and he studies wolves and other large carnivores primarily.

And at some point in the nineteen nineties, he was out in this remote valley surveying wolves, and he saw these, these stakes in the ground and realized that those stakes were the root of this new proposed highway that was gonna run through the middle of this incredible valley.

And he knew that was gonna be really harmful.

He also knew that there wasn't much that he could do about it.

But he went to the highway authority and basically said, you know, "Hey, can I consult on this new highway?" And kind of incredibly, they said, "Sure, yeah, we'd love to hear your plans." And so he basically proposed all of these, uh, you know, underpasses and bridges and animal-friendly infrastructure and, and, uh, the highway authority essentially did all of it, uh, and ended up with this incredibly permeable highway.

How would you describe sort of the trajectory of it over the course of your reporting?

So what's happening in Croatia in terms of wildlife crossings?

Yeah, you know, this, this is a, a, a really neat story that I learned about when I was working on my book, and unfortunately, it didn't, didn't have space to, uh, include it in the book and was really excited to, uh, be able to work it into this article.

So there, that, that story was told to me by a guy named, uh, named Josip Cusack, who's a wildlife biologist in, in Croatia, and he studies wolves and other large carnivores primarily.

And at some point in the nineteen nineties, he was out in this remote valley surveying wolves, and he saw these, these stakes in the ground and realized that those stakes were the root of this new proposed highway that was gonna run through the middle of this incredible valley.

And he knew that was gonna be really harmful.

He also knew that there wasn't much that he could do about it.

But he went to the highway authority and basically said, you know, "Hey, can I consult on this new highway?" And kind of incredibly, they said, "Sure, yeah, we'd love to hear your plans." And so he basically proposed all of these, uh, you know, underpasses and bridges and animal-friendly infrastructure.

How would you describe sort of the trajectory of it over the course of your reporting?

And that's what our films talk about.

I got really fascinated around 2014.

I was living in Seattle working as a journalist, and I was looking for something to write about, and, you know, somebody sent me this advertisement for a, a beaver workshop.

I didn't know what a beaver workshop entailed, but it sounded cool, so I went to this beaver gathering.

It was amazing.

It was one scientist after another talking about all of beaver's ecological benefits.

Of course, you know, these are animals who build dams, uh, and those dams create ponds and wetlands, and those ponds and wetlands are filtering out water pollution, attenuating floods, and mitigating against drought, right? They're these little reservoirs.

Within five to 10 years, we can stabilize the climate through regenerative agriculture and through how we choose to eat and through how we choose to protect what's wild and biodiverse, and that's what our films talk about.

I got really fascinated around 2014.

I was living in Seattle working as a journalist, and I was looking for something to write about, and you know, somebody sent me this advertisement for a, a beaver workshop.

I didn't know what a beaver workshop entailed, but it sounded cool, so I went to this beaver gathering.

It was amazing.

It was one scientist after another talking about all of beaver's ecological benefits.

Of course, you know, these are animals who build dams, uh, and those dams create ponds and wetlands, and those ponds and wetlands are filtering out water pollution, attenuating floods, and mitigating against drought, right? They're these little reservoirs.

Within five to 10 years, we can stabilize the climate through regenerative agriculture and through how we choose to eat, and through how we choose to protect what's wild and biodiverse, and that's what our films talk about.

I got really fascinated around 2014.

I was living in Seattle working as a journalist, and I was looking for something to write about and, you know, somebody sent me this advertisement for a, a beaver workshop.

I didn't know what a beaver workshop entailed, but it sounded cool, so I went to this beaver gathering.

It was amazing.

It was one scientist after another talking about all of beaver's ecological benefits.

Of course, you know, these are animals who build dams, uh, and those dams create ponds and wetlands, and those ponds and wetlands are filtering out water pollution, attenuating floods, and mitigating against drought, right? They're these little reservoirs.

And that's what our films talk about.

I got really fascinated around 2014.

I was living in Seattle working as a journalist, and I was looking for something to write about, and, you know, somebody sent me this advertisement for a, a beaver workshop.

I didn't know what a beaver workshop entailed, but it sounded cool, so I went to this beaver gathering.

It was amazing.

It was one scientist after another talking about all of beaver's ecological benefits.

Of course, you know, these are animals who build dams, uh, and those dams create ponds and wetlands, and those ponds and wetlands are filtering out water pollution, attenuating floods, and mitigating against drought, right? They're these little reservoirs.

With animals seemingly crossing everywhere, where do you even begin? Here's Ben Goldfarb again.

I, I think a lot about the, the geography of wildlife crossings, right? These are, these are really technologies that began in the American West.

The key thing about the West is that, you know, there are these large herds of migratory ungulates that move across the landscape in very predictable routes.

We've got mule deer and elk and pronghorn and, you know, in some cases even moose migrating.

Uh, and, you know, when you get 1,000 mule deer crossing a highway in Wyoming at the same place every single year, and, you know, there's this big pile of 50 carcasses in some places saying, you know, "Hey, put a wildlife crossing right here," right? And, you know, I think for a long time there was this perception in the Northeast that wildlife crossings didn't really make sense in an Eastern context, right? Because, you know, white-tailed deer all over the place all the time.

You know, there aren't hotspots in the same way or, you know, everywhere's a hotspot, and so it's, you know, it's hard to mitigate discrete locations.

And so I, I think that lots of DOTs historically had that, that mindset that, you know, okay, wildlife crossings are great for those guys in the West, but, you know, they don't make sense in, in an Eastern landscape.

Ben Goldfarb shared a similar perspective.

With animals seemingly crossing everywhere, where do you even begin? Here's Ben Goldfarb again.

I think a lot about the geography of wildlife crossings, right? These are really technologies that began in the American West.

The key thing about the West is that there are these large herds of migratory ungulates that move across the landscape in very predictable routes.

We've got mule deer and elk and pronghorn and in some cases even moose migrating across And, you know, when you get a thousand mule deer crossing a highway in Wyoming at the same place every single year and, you know, there's this big pile of 50 carcasses in some places saying, you know, hey, put a wildlife crossing right here.

Right.

And, you know, I think for a long time.

there was this perception in the Northeast that wildlife crossings didn't really make sense in an Eastern context, right? Because, you know, white-tailed deer all over the place all the time, you know, there aren't hotspots in the same way or, you know, everywhere's a hotspot.

Ben Goldfarb shared a similar perspective.

Like a beaver like Jose, why is it driven to go through all this work to chop down trees and make a wall that creates pools? It just feels so random.

That's a, a great question.

They're ...

I mean, a beaver out on land is basically a fat, slow package of meat.

[upbeat music] Think about wolves and mountain lions and bears and coyotes.

All of those big animals are gonna want to eat a beaver.

He and Emily both work in different ways to inspire and convince people to protect beavers.

One of the mantras of the Beaver Believer goes, "Let the rodent do the work." They'll store water for us, they'll capture pollution, they'll help us fight wildfires, they'll create habitat for all of the fish we like to eat and the birds we like to watch and so on.