Weighing Good Intentions

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an episode first released in 2010, then-producer Lulu Miller drives to Michigan to track down the endangered Kirtland’s warbler. Efforts to protect the bird have lead to the killing of cowbirds (a species that commandeers warbler nests), and a prescribed burn aimed at creating a new habitat. Tragically, this burn led to the death of a 29-year-old wildlife technician who was dedicated to warbler restoration. Forest Service employee Rita Halbeisen, local Michiganders skeptical of the resources put toward protecting the warbler, and the family of James Swiderski (the man killed in the fire), weigh in on how far we should go to protect one species. EPISODE CREDITS:Reported by - Lulu MillerSignup for our newsletter!! It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Radio Lab. I'm Lulu Miller. Over the last few months, as we've been watching public lands come under peril, massive cuts to the National Park Service, proposals to sell off millions of acres of public lands being debated. I keep thinking about this one moment in a piece I reported about 15 years ago, in a kitchen in rural Michigan,
0:23.7	I encountered one of the best defenses of conservation I've ever heard.
0:28.9	And it came from such an unexpected person that it was almost like a jump scare.
0:33.3	Anyway, I'm saying too much.
0:34.8	So I'm going to turn it over now to OG host of this here program, Jada, Boomrod, for a story we called Weighing Good Intentions.
0:43.4	Wait, you're listening.
0:44.9	Okay.
0:46.2	All right.
0:47.1	Okay.
0:48.7	All right.
0:50.2	You're listening to Radio Lab.
0:53.1	Radio Lab.
0:53.7	From W. N-Y-C.
0:56.6	See?
0:58.0	Rewind.
1:02.2	Okay, so set up this story.
1:04.0	This story happens where?
1:06.8	It's in a little town in northern Michigan called Mayo.
1:11.4	7 a.m. just drove through the Delaware water gap. That's me on my way out there from New York.
1:17.8	The sun is rising and... It's about an 800 mile drive. And it's just gorgeous out here.
1:23.6	Dude, listen to you. Lush and...
1:25.5	All into the outdoors. It's like nausea.
	...

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