By Chris Maccini
(Nonfiction, 2023)
Ben Goldfarb writes the kind of books that will fundamentally change the way you see the world. He did it first with 2018’s “Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,” which not only challenged my thoughts on beavers (which previously weren’t many), but altered the way I see every creek I cross while hiking or river I follow on my way to a trailhead.
Goldfarb’s newest book, “Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet,” does for roads what “Eager” did for watersheds. Each chapter considers the ecological impact of roads from a different perspective, ranging from those you might expect (e.g. disrupting the migrations of deer) to those you’ve likely never considered (e.g. how road shoulders actually create narrow, interconnected strips of prairie habitat in America’s heartland). Along the way, Goldfarb traces how roads became such a dominant force in the natural world, from incursions into National Parks in the first half of the 20th century to the myriad efforts in recent decades to mitigate their ecological impacts.
Consistent across both books is Goldfarb’s engaging prose and entertaining style. While “Crossings” is deeply researched, it’s no snoozy survey of scientific literature. Goldfarb is as likely to quote from a Mary Oliver poem as a recent study in “Science.” And he gets his hands dirty: scraping snakes off highways in Costa Rica, carrying buckets of frogs across roads in suburban Oregon, hiking the mountains of Southern California on the trail of a cougar, and so much more. Come along for the ride, but know that you may never see a road the same way again.
