First Tuesday: Road Ecology with Ben Goldfarb

When: Tuesday, January 5 at 7pm Where: Online via Zoom (Registration coming soon) Join us for a talk by Ben Goldfarb discussing the vast ecological challenges posed by the roadways we often take for granted, and the ways we can utilize our understanding of road ecology create a better, safer world for all living beings, including in the Methow Valley. Some 40 million miles of roadways encircle the earth, yet we tend to regard them only as infrastructure for human convenience. While roads are so ubiquitous they’re practically invisible to us, wild animals experience them as alien forces of death and disruption. More than a million animals are killed by cars each day in the U.S. alone; creatures from antelope to salmon are losing their ability to migrate in search of food and mates; and the very noise of traffic chases songbirds from vast swaths of habitat. Today road ecologists are seeking to blunt that destruction through innovative solutions. Conservationists are building bridges for California’s mountain lions and tunnels for English toads, engineers are deconstructing the labyrinth of logging roads that web national forests, and community organizers are working to undo the havoc highways have wreaked upon American cities. In his talk, Ben Goldfarb will discuss the ecological harms wrought by transportation and the movement to redress them.