Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping the Future of Our Planet

by Ben Goldfarb

Huijser, it occurred to me, was attempting to inhabit other beings’ Umwelt, their subjective lived experience. Road ecology was an act of interspecies imagination, a field whose radical premise asserted that it was possible to perceive our built world through nonhuman eyes. How does a moose comprehend traffic? What sort of tunnel appeals to a mink? Why do grizzly bears prefer crossing over highways while black bears go under? These questions had empirical answers, but they also required ecologists to think like wild animals—empathy manifested as science.