Hillary Rosner - Why Wildlife Needs Room to Roam
Mountain & Prairie with Ed Roberson
Mountain & Prairie Media
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Hillary Rosner is an award-winning journalist and author whose work combines science, storytelling, and the natural world. She's been writing about environmental issues for decades, with bylines in publications like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and National Geographic. Her new book, "Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World," explores one of the most urgent—and often overlooked—challenges in conservation: the loss of connectivity across the landscape, and what that means for the movement and survival of wildlife.
Like so many fascinating people, Hillary's path into this work wasn't a straight line. She grew up in New York City, far from the wide-open spaces she now writes about, but spent formative summers in the Adirondacks and Berkshires that quietly shaped her connection to nature. After getting her start in fast-paced daily journalism at places like the New York Post and The Village Voice, she realized she wanted something deeper—slower, more immersive storytelling. That shift eventually led her west to Boulder, where she pursued environmental studies and built a career focused on long-form environmental journalism.
In this conversation, Hillary and I dig into the big ideas behind "Roam," including why movement is so essential to life on Earth and how human infrastructure—from highways to fences—has fractured the natural world. We talk about surprising barriers to wildlife, like roads that even birds won't cross, and explore solutions ranging from wildlife corridors to collaborative conservation efforts with local communities. We also get into the realities of modern journalism, the importance of "bearing witness" in difficult times, and why curiosity, empathy, and action are still the most powerful tools we have for building a more connected and hopeful future.
I loved the book, and I loved this conversation. Hope you enjoy both as much as I did!
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- Hillary Rosner
- Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World
- Full episode notes and links: https://mountainandprairie.com/hillary-rosner
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THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:
Mountain & Prairie is listener supported via Patreon, and brought to you with support from the Freeflow Institute, The Nature Conservancy in Colorado, and the Well Done Foundation for their generous sponsorship.
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TOPICS DISCUSSED:
- 0:00 - Introducing Hillary Rosner and highlighting TNC Colorado
- 6:09 - Book congrats and growing up in NYC
- 9:03 - The heading West bug
- 11:20 - More long-form journalism
- 13:36 - Making money in journalism
- 16:41 - Ted Scripps fellowship
- 19:01 - Patagonia publishing
- 21:20 - Roads are only good for people
- 28:20 - Why this should matter to you
- 35:23- SLOSS
- 38:39 - Doing everything you can
- 40:52 - Fence removal project
- 43:50 - Virtual fencing
- 44:57 - Author's note
- 49:47 - Poignant
- 53:16 - Out of the box thinkers
- 58:15 - Book recs
- 1:00:36 - Wrapping up
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I believe that curiosity breeds hope also. And so just going out in the world and noticing what's around you and then becoming curious and asking questions about it is a way to stay hopeful and maybe be motivated to take action. Maybe if we can kind of start to see other species with empathy, we can start to have more empathy for the other humans around us. |
| 0:27.1 | This is the Mountain and Prairie podcast. I'm Ed Robertson. My guest today is Hillary Rosner. |
| 0:33.7 | Hillary is an award-winning journalist and author whose work combines science, storytelling, and the natural world. |
| 0:40.6 | She's been writing about environmental issues for decades, with bylines and publications like the New York Times, the Atlantic, and National Geographic. |
| 0:49.5 | Her new book, Rome, Wild Animals, and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World, explores one of the most |
| 0:56.3 | urgent and often overlooked challenges in conservation, the loss of connectivity across the landscape, |
| 1:03.1 | and what that means for the movement and survival of wildlife. Like so many fascinating people, |
| 1:08.8 | Hillary's path into this work wasn't a straight line. |
| 1:12.0 | She grew up in New York City, far from the wide open space that she now writes about, |
| 1:16.5 | but spent formative summers in the Adirondacks and Berkshires that quietly shaped her connection to nature. |
| 1:23.1 | After getting her start in fast-paced daily journalism at places like the New York Post and |
| 1:28.0 | the Village Voice, she realized she wanted something deeper, slower, more immersive storytelling. |
| 1:34.5 | That shift eventually led her west to Boulder, where she pursued environmental studies and |
| 1:39.7 | built a career focused on long-form environmental journalism. |
| 1:43.8 | In this conversation, we dig into the big |
| 1:46.1 | ideas behind Rome, including why movement is so essential to life on earth and how human infrastructure |
| 1:53.0 | from highways to fences has fractured the natural world. We talk about the surprising barriers to wildlife, |
| 2:03.3 | like roads that even birds won't cross, |
| 2:09.1 | and explore solutions ranging from wildlife corridors to collaborative conservation efforts with local communities. We also get into the realities of modern journalism, the importance of |
| 2:14.7 | bearing witness in difficult times, and why curiosity, empathy, and action |
| 2:19.9 | are still the most powerful tools we have for building a more connected and hopeful future. |
| 2:25.8 | I really enjoyed her book, Rome, so I highly recommend that you check it out. |
... |
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