How the Road Crossed the Land

Published January 30, 2024 at 11:52 AM MST

Roads are such a common feature of the landscape that you can forget that they aren’t natural at all — that is, unless you’re an animal trying to cross one.

It’s hard to overstate the impact that roads have on wildlife. Drivers kill millions of animals daily, and that’s just the death part. The vast web of highways and interstates breaks animals’ migration patterns, too, which affects their ability to find food and mates. Even the sheer dirtiness of the road can affect the nearby environment. The journalist Ben Goldfarb calls this relationship between roads and animals “road ecology,” and he’s joining us this week to talk about it.

GUEST –

Ben Goldfarb | Author and environmental journalist. His new book is “Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet” [Amazon|Bookshop].

Airdate: Jan. 31, 2024 at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.