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Rewilding Earth Podcast
Episode 142: Nadia Steinzor On Northeast Carnivore Recovery and Coexistence Through State Wildlife Agency Plans
00:40:06
Nadia Steinzor is an environmental consultant with 25 years of experience in policy analysis, research, writing, and communications. She has developed and managed projects to investigate the oil and gas industry’s impact on the climate and communities,...
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- [00:06]
Nadia Steiner
You know, there are these amazing wild canids that are already roaming across the Northeast and particularly in the northwoods of Maine. There's documentation, and that's incredibly heartening. And so you look at these animals and they are playing a role and they're out there doing what they want to do. And I've been privileged to spend time in the woods at night when you hear that, the sounds and the smells and the screeches and the howls, and it is incredibly exciting. And so I do dream of a day of knowing that our largest carnivores, who are so critical to ecological resilience, are there as well. And then sometimes I think maybe they are. And part of what we need these agencies to do is admit that they might be and then also create mechanisms for them to return.
- [01:14]
Jack
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. Nadia Steiner is an Environmental Consultant with 25 years of experience in policy analysis, research, writing and communications. She's developed and managed projects to investigate the oil and gas industry's impact on the climate and communities, secure governmental protections for air, water, land and wildlife, and engage the public in advocacy efforts. Nadia works with the Rewilding Institute to ensure that one day wolves, mountain lions, and other carnivores will thrive and roam in the Northeast and beyond. Today's episode reveals the work of often unsung heroes of wildlife conservation across the US People like Nadia working to ensure state agencies prioritize coexistence with predators, in part through state wildlife action Plans, which you'll learn about here. To learn how you can support work like Nadia's in your state. Be sure to listen until the end for action items you can start on today. Nadia, thanks for stopping by the Rewilding Earth podcast.
- [02:24]
Nadia Steiner
Thank you so much, Jack, for having me. I'm very happy to talk about the Northeast carnivore work that I'm doing on behalf of Rewilding Institute and the amazing work that many of our partner organizations are doing as well. 2025 is a critical year for these state Wildlife Action Plans. They only get revised every decade and then they last for the full decade. So there are key plans and they were adopted out of the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service in 2005 was the first time we've had a plan, so we're on the third iteration of them now. There was 2005, 2015, and now 2025. And they are required by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for any states that wish to receive federal funding under the State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program. So if as A state, you want to get federal funding for conservation and protection of your wildlife, you need to submit one of these state wildlife action plans, or swaps, as they're colloquially known. And so far, every state and US Territory has submitted them. So right now we are in the process of we, the collective we around the country, everyone is in a process of developing those plans. So wildlife agencies are hard at work getting those plans done. And one element of the plan that's required is to have some sort of public participation process. Those vary from state to state, but that has opened up the door for advocates such as Rewilding Institute and other organizations and individuals who care about wildlife to engage in this process of revising these plans. So it's a really critical time for public engagement with their state wildlife agencies.
- [04:22]
Jack
What if the plan isn't right five years down the road? It makes sense to make a plan for 10 years, but also how does it adjust? How does it change with things that must come up?
- [04:34]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, those are really good questions and they're really tough ones for the agencies as well. So these plans are essentially blueprints for the agencies to follow in terms of which species they consider to be most important to protect. And also to set out plans for how they're going to enhance biodiversity and prevent species from declining and becoming endangered, which they don't have complete control over. But they do set that out. And so it is a challenge for them to pick and choose the species. There are hundreds of species of different types, bird, mammals, vertebrates, fish, all over the map, insects that are included in these plans. And each one that is considered a priority for the coming decade is called a species of greatest conservation need. And those species get then these really detailed profiles developed by the agencies. And so, you know, it's not to your question of what happens in the decade coming, if there are major declines in a species or there are new species discovered, or the habitat for those species changes, or the climate changes, for example, which we know is happening all the time, it does not preclude the state from taking actions outside of the plan. For example, New York is talking about the next policy process coming down the pike, which is a revision of the state threatened and endangered species list. So there are other processes underway and other ways in which state wildlife agencies can work to protect species. This isn't the only bite at the apple they get for a decade, but they at any time can take more action. I think the concern with the swaps is that they don't get implemented and that all the measures that the states lay out don't happen in the course of a decade for both funding and practical purposes. And I will add that I looked up the numbers of dollars that go to the states and it's significant. There was $72 million dispersed from the federal government to the states for implementation of these swaps. But by the program's own estimates, that's just a fraction of what's actually needed to implement the plans. There's been estimates that well over a billion with a B is needed every year to implement the swaps across the country. So that's all to say that the states can and probably should and need to take other actions in the meantime. And then the reason I've gotten involved in this through the Rewilding Institute and in partnership with other organizations is because they really do offer tremendous opportunity for public engagement with the agencies over which species we see as priorities and important and the actions that states can take. And we at the Rewilding Institute are of course, particularly concerned with returning and protecting carnivores across the landscape. And my particular neck of the woods is the Northeast. I live in New York State, in the Catsville. And we're looking at particularly four states, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, and how those swaps can be developed to include these carnivores, in particular cougar and wolf, and to some degree lynx that are native to the region, that are incredibly important for forest health and biodiversity, and yet are considered to be gone or missing from the landscape. And so we are pushing hard to get those species included in the plan so that states take action to protect them and to start restoring them.
- [08:37]
Jack
How useful is it to then use the swap that you had input on in helping to create during the 10 years where you're obviously going to be seeing them going very slow, if not at all, in areas that you wish they would move a lot faster on?
- [08:53]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, I think you're getting it to the heart of what any kind of regulation or required process in policy and state or federal level does and accomplishes. And this, the golden word is always accountability. And so I think the way I think about it, I've done a lot of work on regulations in different sectors, including the energy industry, for a lot of years. And I would say the same idea applies to these swaps of they're not. It's not a complete ticket. Like having the regulation or having the swap in place is not a complete ticket to. Absolutely. Then this measure that's detailed in the plan is going to happen. But in the absence of These plans or in the absence of a regulation, then you definitely do not have a lever for accountability. So they do provide something to say to the state, you said you were going to do this. The swaps are not binding. There's no like enforcement mechanism. Groups can't sue and say, you said in 2015 you were going to do this and now it's 2025 and you haven't. But it does provide a way to underscore that the state said this species or this type of action could be habitat protection, it could be pollution abatement, could be restoration of a particular natural feature like a wetland. They could say what they're going to do and it is a way to then point at point to them. You said based on your best science and extremely hard work by your scientists and your staff that you intended to do this, but you didn't. So please explain why or conversely to say, yay, you took action. Thank you very much. And here's where we need to go next. So I think it can work both ways. But you know, it is the truth about the swaps that they are non binding and they are guidelines. They're guidances, like a blueprint. Like if you were building a house and you had a blueprint, your contractor might get part of the way through the where the living room is supposed to be and say, I actually think it should be 10 square feet bigger or we need to move it over there. So it's a guidance. And that. That's just the truth of the matter.
- [11:11]
Jack
We've had lots of guests talk about the need for state wildlife management reform. I picture as you're talking about this, some conservationist that's been working all their life in Montana just laughing a full guttural laugh about ha, yes, we have these plans, but you should see these guys out here. Not a single scientist on the board are they really happy for the government funding, but they really slow things down because of their attit being hunting and fishing organizations or how does all that work?
- [11:42]
Nadia Steiner
Obviously you're pointing to a really tough aspect of these state wildlife agencies. But there are different divisions. And so like there's a lot of staff who work on endangered species protection. There are biologists who are developing these swaps. So it's not necessarily the same people who are making decisions about, for example, how many wolves you can kill in a season in Montana. That is a we're going to pick on Montana. That's a different group of people who would be making those decisions. I think there is probably a question about are there particular species? And I would say the top predators fit into this category where there are more political, with a small p political decisions made at the top agency level. And that's part of what we're concerned about, that they should not be considered species of greatest conservation need because of the interests that are influencing the agency more broadly. As you're pointing out, that raises the concerns of governance. For example, I took a quick look at the the database associated with these swaps and how many states listed wolf, cougar and Lynx in their 2005 plans versus their 2015 plans. And there was a marked decline in the number of states that listed those predators. Now, is that driven by politics? Is it driven by the fact that there are actually recovery plans in place now in some states, like, for example, Colorado has a plan now and but you know, the other thing that we have seen, unfortunately, is that there was a change within agencies from 2005 to 2015 with regard to carnivores, where they listed a lot of species in the swaps in 2005 on the basis of their importance to the ecological health and biodiversity. And now there's a little bit more of an emphasis on the species that are here today on the ground. So they're not quite as visionary. And whether that's a product of politics or funding and realities or both, that is still a concerning trend. Because in the world of species protection, endangered species protection, yes, we can't do it all the time and help everybody, every species. But I would hope there could still be some vision brought to the process of like the animals that we need to have on the landscape to ensure the best level of ecological resilience and biodiversity. And not just like a pragmatic assumption that we have to have a hunting season and that's going to get in the way or we have to. They're not here right now. I mean, that's the argument made about the carnivores in the Northeast, that we don't have absolute definitive proof that they're here. So we're not going to bother including them in the swaps. And that's a concern.
- [15:00]
Jack
You're listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. Did you know we also publish insightful and inspirational content from leading rewilding scholars, poets, artists and organizers from around the world. You can visit rewilding.org and sign up for our weekly digest to receive brilliant, fresh insights on everything rewild wilding. You'll find over a decade of articles and news from the front lines of wildlands Protection and all kinds of restoration efforts. Check us out@rewilding.org and don't forget to share it with friends. We just had Paul Ehrlich on late last year and he was talking about it's laudable to bring back endangered species, but we have to remember that just because we have some on the ground doesn't mean that they're providing the same impact as when they were at full strength. And he was making the point that we need to be talking about much bigger things like we need to bring their populations back in order for them to have the effect in, in, in the ecosystem that they traditionally did. We may have some mountain lions, we may have some wolves, but what kind of populations are we talking about? That's what I figure is the visionary type thing that you probably feel is lacking.
- [16:12]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, to some degree, absolutely. I think that there is some work going on like within regions and across states to bring their swaps into more alignment. There, there has been, I would say the improvement since I was just criticizing the changes from 2005 to 2015. But one area that where there has been improvement in this process is a focus on connectivity and sort of landscape scale conservation. The kinds of things we talk about at the Rewilding Institute and other partner organizations, the need for larger landscape protection and then also connections so that you're not just bringing back, as you're saying, a species from the brink or adding a handful more of those particular individual animals to the landscape, but you're actually providing a network of habitats for them to find mates and migrate and actually hopefully survive, you know, more successfully and more vibrantly. There's, it's hard to. Because these plans, just like our endangered species laws, are very much focused on like species by species and state by state. And you do need the collective knitting together of how the species interact and bring back their habitats as well. And that can only be done on a more coordinated basis across states.
- [17:35]
Jack
So let's go down to a 3,000 foot view and talk about the work that you're doing and how it's affected what we've talked about so far with swaps and the different agencies that all work together or do not sometimes work together very well. What are you embroiled in at any given time of the year when you're just doing regular old, okay, we have a swap, we're in the middle or we're beginning a 10 year swap. And we worked really hard to do the best we could to help advise in that. Now it's on the ground, now it's going, what are you concerned with?
- [18:11]
Nadia Steiner
Just by dint of what we're doing at the Rewilding Institute, we have made a decision internally that the work I do is going to be focused on making sure that we get these top carnivores into the swaps, in particularly Wolves and Cougar. And I can talk more about those and what we'd like to see for them in the swaps and beyond. And focused on those four states I mentioned New Hampshire, Vermont, New York and Maine. And right now we have a group of organizations that are collaborating on comments and public participation and sharing information about the swap processes in their states. So far, New York is the only state that has right now, as we're talking at the end of January, opened up a full blown public participation process. So there have been drafts of some of the information going into the swaps that people can comment on and invitation for stakeholders and individuals to weigh in on those drafts. And you can pick your taxa and your species to comment on. But we are starting to see the other states starting to schedule and starting to talk about their public participation process. So I'm trying to be a little bit of a thorn, a small thorn in the side of the agencies to push them to announce the timing and the plans for public participation and then to get meetings with them to talk about the drafts. So we've been really active on the New York process together with a lot of other partner organizations. We did some really detailed comments on the need for Wolves on the landscape and submitted those to New York in collaboration with Project Coyote. And then we also worked with the Cougar Rewilding foundation on comments on Cougar to New York. And we see those as very useful documents for the agencies and also for our advocacy work going forward.
- [20:10]
Jack
So we are coordinating. I was going to ask you about what does that look like with everybody having individual input. And Project Coyote is going to talk about things a little bit differently based on their organization's mission. So you guys aren't stepping on each other's toes so much. And it seems more like a coordinated and organized effort.
- [20:28]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are just so many organizations working on these issues and some are small, some are large. And I think Rewilding Institute really benefits from coordination of those groups and the deep knowledge benches that they all bring. And so we have been meeting regularly as a group of groups on this swap process. We check in with each other, we share information and we share draft comments if other people want to use, for example, the bibliographies that we've developed of science that we're trying to get the agencies to pay attention to, or if one organization does an action alert to get their members to write to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, then other people can use that action alert. So collaboration is really key in advocacy generally. And I would say that applies to the swap process as well.
- [21:23]
Jack
This is how you coordinate, this is how you protect carnivores and keep the discussion going and keep the awareness up and everything. And it's a very technical thing, it's a very policy thing, a political thing at times, or probably all the time. But can we talk a little bit about what it's like to talk about wolves in the Northeast and cougars in the Northeast? Because I imagine there's a lot of people listening right now going, I didn't know anybody was even talking about that. I mean, like, really, wolves and cougars? How are you even going to get that done?
- [21:53]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, whatever. When a colleague used to always tell me when I worked on oil and gas and climate issues for a long time was that it's a marathon, not a sprint. And sometimes it's multiple sequential marathons. And I think any person working on wildlife protection and habitat protection and trying to get a more balanced, vibrant, living planet and ensure that for future generations knows that it is a constant fight and you have successes along the way and then you keep fighting. I think that applies to the issue of carnivore recovery in the Northeast most. So we're not talking about all carnivores. Like you've had really successful comebacks of certain carnivores like Fisher as a way to deal with the over browsing of porcupines and they're now back on the landscape. We've got bobcats, we've got coyotes, so we're really talking about like in these swaps and beyond and the work I'm doing with the Wilding Institute, cougar and wolf in particular. And the reason we want those animals back on the landscape is they are so critical for forest health and ecological resilience. They play a very pivotal role in managing and balancing the population of deer and other animals for overbrowse so that they're not just constantly munching away all the vegetation. So they're key to forest regeneration, forest health. They also played in a really key role because they will take out the sick and weak in regulating disease. There's some fascinating studies about the role of top predators like cougar and wolves in managing chronic wasting disease and other problems in deer and so we believe that they should be restored. They are native to the Northeast, and they were here in thriving populations up until the late 1800s, when, you know, the combination of habitat conversion and loss and actual deliberate killing and extermination of those animals by ranchers and farmers and hunters. I mean, this is a case all across the country and the world to some degree. But there were deliberate campaigns to eradicate them. So we haven't had them in what the state agencies would consider viable breeding populations in a very long time. And our dream and vision, and that of a lot of partner organizations is that we would get back to that time and have them back on the landscape. There have been some public surveys and focus groups and other public opinion gauging efforts over the years, and they have all shown that with the right work and the right processes around coexistence and education, people can tolerate these large predators, particularly if they come back on their own. And there's a lot of fascination and support for them. I just always say that if wolves can live in Romania and in Italy and in Denmark and in Germany in really densely populated places with a lot of small farms, we can certainly find a way to accommodate them and to coexist with them in the Northeast.
- [25:22]
Jack
I just feel like we're always hit with these arguments, and I Wonder if after 10, 20 years of that, we start to believe it a little bit. Like, yeah, it's too dense. It's too heavily populated. These conflicts are real considerations. And we forget that there are other countries who are doing just fine, remarkably fine, in. In areas that you would never think they could coexist as well as they do with large carnivores.
- [25:51]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, I think that's part of it. That's a really good point. They are doing just fine. But, you know, those countries that I just mentioned or those provinces within those countries are. They are working super hard to have coexistence programs and education and tolerance. And on the very rare occasion when a large carnivore, you know, kills a sheep or they have depredation compensation programs, just like we do here in the U.S. though I will, of course say parenthetically that for decades, ranchers and farmers in the US have been saying that we need to eradicate top carnivores because of livestock losses. And study after study shows, and even figures from the federal government show that it's far less than 1% of livestock deaths are caused by large carnivores. So there is that reality. But so it does get blown out of proportion. I think you're right. I think there are certain landscapes that would be very hard for these large carnivores to survive in. The ones that have lots and lots of roads or lack of prey days. But what they need most is a prey base and to be left alone and not harassed and not hunted or not hunted to the degree that it breaks up packs and causes instability and makes it impossible to breed at a sustainable level, which we are. Unfortunately, we are seeing that every time there's an effort to remove these animals from the endangered species list in the United States and turn the management over to the states, you end up with these insane hunting programs that just eradicate hundreds of wolves at a time. And so right now, it's super important that wolves and cougar remain on the endangered species list. I mean, cougar is a threatened species. It's important that they have federal and state protections because there is a real desire to get rid of them. There's a lot of mythology about these animals that still persist. A lot of fear. A lot of people who see animals that have the theoretical potential to kill them. And I really emphasize a theoretical, hypothetical potential to kill them. It makes people hate animal. Hate those animals and want to take them out.
- [28:08]
Jack
So Little Red Riding Hood was one of the most damaging stories ever told.
- [28:13]
Nadia Steiner
Absolutely.
- [28:14]
Jack
Continues to damage people's perceptions and ruin their perception of reality. So hard to overcome that one story.
- [28:25]
Nadia Steiner
It is really hard to overcome. And I think part of the frustration in this work, and you know, this just in conservation work in general, is it's not always about the facts and the figures. Like, I can roll out the under 1% of livestock depredations. You know, the fact that way more people die, like orders of magnitude more people die from vehicle collisions with deer than are ever attacked or eaten by a top carnivore. And actually, we need the top carnivores to control the deer population so they would have a net benefit. Like, you can talk in those terms and roll that out. But there's also just a lot of outreach and understanding and education to be done about coexisting. And to their credit, there are a lot of ranchers and farmers in the US who participate in these programs and are doing a better job and managing their livestock herds in a better way so that they can live with carnivores. So it's not all bad news, but there is. There's still an upward trajectory for the work that needs to be done. And I will say for the agencies in the Northeast, it's because of these Complexities that I think some of them shy away from taking concerted measures to protect and restore top carnivores like Wolfencruger. And yet I think many of them are also aware, certainly the scientists and the agencies are aware, that there are net benefits to doing it. And so that's what we're pushing for that latter piece to win the day with the swaps and beyond.
- [29:58]
Jack
You've been monitoring this stuff for quite some time. So you've been through probably several iterations of surveys over the years. What kind of patterns do you notice? We all know that the strongest area of support for carnivores in the Northeast is going to come from urban centers. But you did mention that there are some farmers, ranchers, hunters, people who can be worked with. But over the years, have you seen a sea change of any kind toward more people being more supportive?
- [30:31]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, I would say that as far as the Northeast goes, that there haven't been enough public opinion surveys. And. But the ones that we have seen, as I mentioned, really show that if wolves and cougar come back on their own, and there's a lot of indication that wolves at least are trying and may even be here, particularly in the form of mixed wild canids, the wolf, coyote mixes, and they're already playing a really important role. If that happens, there's a lot more tolerance. I think there's always going to be an element because of fear or because of the desire to kill and hunt animals for their fur or just for the killing, not necessarily for meat or survival, because people don't generally eat wolf meat. I think in terms of public opinion generally, I mean, we've seen a lot more interest and engagement from the public generally. And you could probably speak to this as well as I can around bringing back animals, protecting nature, protecting open space as we. Unfortunately, that public opinion has swung in that direction as we lose more and as people become aware of both the climate crisis and biodiversity loss and can see in their own backyards the loss of habitat and the overdevelopment of habitat, and people don't like it when they read about species going extinct. I'm actually quite heartened because I think a lot more of the general public is really concerned and caring about wildlife, and that does open the door to trying to beat back some of these regressive policies and move toward a future where there's more protective ones.
- [32:14]
Jack
We just had Aaron Seto on from Wildland's Network. She was talking about all of the policy advancements, funding advancements that we've seen in the last year in wildlife crossing funding and research. And I'm wondering if you're heartened by that and how much it's affecting the work that you're doing in the Northeast.
- [32:35]
Nadia Steiner
Yeah, the wildlife crossings are essential and they are key. They are key to the connectivity piece of rewilding that the Rewilding Institute and others talk about. And they are also proving to just be absolutely essential in wildlife survival in an age where the landscape is so developed. I just read a really interesting article about the tragedies that afflicted wildlife in the fires in Los Angeles. And crossings came up as a key issue, like, for the wildlife that could actually find a way out of the burn areas and seek some protection in infrastructure and then make their way to other places, they had a much better chance of survival and that those are going to become even more critical in an age of climate chaos. Wildlife crossings are proving. All the science is proving Erin's right. The funding is showing that these are essential. And fortunately, state departments of transportation and other agencies and the federal government even, I mean, they put a lot of money in the, under the Biden administration, there's a lot of money put toward these crossings and those they recognize how essential these are for the survival of species and for the survival of individual animals. So, and ecological integrity, because again, we need connected landscapes. As the landscapes change and as animals, including wide ranging animals such as cougar and wolf that really migrate long distances in search of food and mates, they really need those connections. And in a built human dominated landscape, those crossings are absolutely essential.
- [34:16]
Jack
The work that you do is also very essential. And I'm sure that all our listeners and supporters and subscribers are really happy for the work that you do. But I know that you do not do it alone. Hopefully you get a lot of support from people like people who are listening right now. And I imagine some of them having questions about what can they do to support the kind of work that you do in their state or even if they're in the Northeast. There has to be something that those of us who are not paying as close attention to this stuff daily as you do can do to help you and others in their state where they're doing the same kind of work.
- [34:53]
Nadia Steiner
We were just talking about crossing. So I think there's really exciting work and I know Erin talked about this a bit on her podcast and Wildlands Network has information about it, but how do you get involved in a brigade to help animals move and migrate and to advocate for crossings? But sometimes if you want to do More hands on work on the ground. There are opportunities to help the animals get across the road, literally. So I think that the depending on if somebody wants to do policy advocacy or actually on the ground work, there's a lot of exciting stuff going on with wildlife organizations or even land conservation organizations. So I would just encourage people to look, whether it's their community land trust or whether there's a species protection brigade in their area. And we can post some of those resources along with this podcast. And then on the sort of broader policy level, there are some really important organizations in the Northeast working on this. The ones I would recommend looking at the most are the Wildlands Network and also Project Coyote, which has a really active carnivore protection program. And they're running campaigns and we need as many people to engage as possible. Those campaigns can include like the banning of these wildlife killing contests, which allow people to kill large numbers of animals to compete for cash prizes. And we just got, with Project Coyote's leadership and other organizations, including the wilding institute, New York became the 10th state to ban those contests. So we're looking forward to bills to ban those contests coming into play in New Hampshire and possibly even Maine in the next year or two. So I'd look at that organization's website. And then coming down the pike, there is going to be a national wolf recovery plan that the Fish and Wildlife Service is mandated to issue. And we're hoping to see the new Northeast be part of that plan. So there'll be action opportunities around that. People should find the work that speaks to their heart and speaks to their skills. Not everybody wants to go visit a legislator, but we need people to do that. We need people to write action alerts and we need people just on the ground monitoring and following and supporting. They're critters, the critters that they love.
- [37:22]
Jack
We'll have resources, as always, in the extra credit section of this episode. So you'll want to go to rewilding.org pod and in the search bar you could just type Nadia and you'll find this episode. Nadia, one final question. Do you ever allow yourself to think about what it would be like, maybe when it would be like that you would have the privilege of actually being in wolf country, legitimate wolf country, because you know, they're on the ground whether you see them or not in the Northeast?
- [37:57]
Nadia Steiner
Absolutely, I dream of it. And I also think that as hammered and harmed that wildlife are by the actions that humans take, they are also remarkably resilient. And I mentioned before that there's you know, there are these amazing wild canids that are already roaming across the Northeast and particularly in the northwoods of Maine. There's documentation, and that's incredibly heartening. And so you look at these animals and they are playing a role, and they're out there doing what they want to do. And I've been privileged to spend time in the woods at night when you hear that, the sounds and the smells and the screeches and the howls, and it is incredibly exciting. And so I do dream of a day of knowing that our largest carnivores, who are so critical to ecological resilience, are there as well. And then sometimes I think maybe they are. And part of what we need these agencies to do is admit that they might be and then also create mechanisms for them to return. I do find a lot of solace in the idea that the critters, if we give them the space and the time and the tolerance and the coexistence, they will manage. And that's incredibly heartening.
- [39:22]
Jack
Nadia, thank you so much for taking the time to be here, and we look forward to future updates.
- [39:28]
Nadia Steiner
Thank you so much for having me. And thank you, everyone, for listening.
- [39:33]
Jack
Thanks for listening to the Rewilding Earth podcast. We do what we do because of you. This podcast is supported by listeners like you who long to live in a wilder world. Please consider donating@rewilding.org and subscribe to our weekly news and article digest. While you're there to go the extra mile, you can follow and share Rewilding Earth on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Bonus points for sharing this podcast with your friends. To listen to Powder past episodes, go to rewilding.org pod that's rewilding.org pod.