I’ll Be Dammed: Beavers Fighting Climate Change

Science Vs

Spotify Studios

Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 12.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2023

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we give a dam about beavers. These busy rodents don’t just chill and go with the flow — it turns out their grabby paws are actually helping hands in the fight against climate change. We dive into how this works with ecologists Dr. Emily Fairfax and Dr. Ben Dittbrenner. Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsBeavers In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Intro: How beavers “beaver away” (02:22) Chapter One: How beavers can help (06:18) Chapter Two: Can we move beavers for the better? This episode was produced by Disha Bhagat, with help from Michelle Dang, Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and R.E. Natowicz. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Wendy Zukerman is our Executive Producer. Gimlet’s managing director is Nicole Beemsterboer. Fact checking by Eva Dasher. Mix and sound design by Catherine Anderson. Music written by Bumi Hidaka, Emma Munger, and Bobby Lord. Science Vs is a Spotify Original Podcast and a Gimlet production. Follow Science Vs on Spotify, and if you want to get notifications every time we put out a new episode, tap the bell icon in your app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Michelle Deng, and you're listening to Science Vs from Gimlet.
0:07.0	I'm filling in for one e today, and we've got a bit of cutting-edge science for you to
0:11.7	non.
0:14.7	We're going to talk about a surprising new soldier in the battle against climate change.
0:22.5	It's the beaver.
0:25.6	The government nerds are so excited about their potential.
0:28.7	They're pouring millions of dollars into beavering up the U.S.
0:32.6	Okay, do you tell us about this beaver thing?
0:37.2	We wanted to talk to Emily Fairfax.
0:40.5	She's an assistant professor at California State University, Channel Islands.
0:45.8	Originally an engineer, which she didn't really like, Emily fell into her love of beavers
0:51.3	by accident.
0:52.3	I was sitting on the couch feeling mopey, and a documentary came on called Leave It To Beavers.
0:59.0	I was so hooked.
1:00.0	I didn't know beavers did this much.
1:01.7	I'm like, I need to know more about beavers.
1:04.6	And so I quit my job and went to grad school to study beavers, and I've not looked back.
1:11.5	Right off the bat, Emily told us beavers are freaking adorable.
1:16.0	And we have to agree here.
1:18.0	They kind of look like lovely fat squirrels with big buck teeth and a tennis racket for
1:23.6	a tail.
1:25.0	Is there a reason that they're so chunky and flobby?
	...

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