She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback through salt marshes, and lives in a hand-built cabin on a remote stretch of barrier island, surrounded by snakes, sea turtles, and the ghosts of gilded-aged tycoons.

They call her the wildest woman in America. To some, she was a backwoods eccentric. To others, a dangerous woman

with blood on her hands. But to those who paid attention, to the biologists, the conservationists,

and the generations who now walk a protected wilderness, she's something else entirely, a warrior.

Carol Rutashel isn't famous. She doesn't have a statue or a stamp, but she is the reason Cumberland Island, a vast stretch

of untamed wilderness off the coast of Georgia, isn't paved over with boardwalks, gift shops, and luxury hotels.

She stood her ground, not just against developers and politicians, but against the National Park Service itself.

And she won. She also went head to head with some of the wealthiest families in America.

People who saw Cumberland Island as their personal playground.

She wasn't rich, she wasn't connected, she had no official title, no institutional power, not even a college degree.

What she had was conviction, science, and an unwavering belief that wild places should be protected,

no matter who, stands in the way. This is the story of how one barefoot, self-taught biologist

helped change the course of a national seashore and how the fight nearly broke her.

Welcome to National Park After Dark.

Welcome. Hello, everyone and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I'm Danielle. I'm Cassie. We're so happy you're here. And we're back. We're back. We, uh, I mean, this probably doesn't feel like we're back for you guys. But for us, this is the first time we were recording in a while because we were out on our own adventures recently. Yeah. We were out in Montana and Colorado for a few weeks. It was lovely. We did kind of a combo personal trip slash National Park After Dark group trip out in Colorado. So we've been here there and everywhere

and we're finally settled back. It feels weird. I forgot how to like hook up our equipment

this morning. I'm like, what am I doing?

Like, have I ever done this before? Yeah, it's been like a month. It has been a while.

So before this, we recorded a ton. I mean, every day, we were recording. And then because we were

going to be gone for a while. And then now we're back and we're kind of just getting back

into the swing of things but we did visit glacier national park for the very first time and we went to

granite park chalet which if you listen to night of the grizzlies you know what what a feat that is

...