Olivier Rubers (3:59)

And Olivier wondered, where did the beavers go? Then after work one day, he was reading one of the many nature magazines he was subscribed to, and his eyes landed on something that reminded him of what his friend Achille had said.

Achille (4:14)

The title of the article was Notre Bievre or beaver. And then the article described that the beaver is an indigenous animal and has lived in Belgium. The beaver was everywhere in Europe, everywhere and had disappeared because the beaver fur in the 18th century was of very high value. And that's why the beaver almost disappeared on the Eurasian continent.

Olivier Rubers (4:41)

Olivier was fixated on what this article was telling him the beaver could do.

Achille (4:46)

So the beaver build dams, so it creates wetlands and create nice habitats for all kinds of fish, frogs. Almost all animals take advantage of the beaver activity here.

Olivier Rubers (4:59)

Most people would just say, that's interesting, and put down the article, not Olivier. Olivier saw an opportunity.

Achille (5:09)

So I thought if we would bring beavers back, we would reintroduce a kind of an engine that would produce nature.

Olivier Rubers (5:20)

And Olivier had loved nature his whole life. Every chance he got, he escaped to the Alps, climbing peaks, camping, kayaking. He even built an igloo at the top of Mont Blanc one time. But he didn't have a degree in biology or environmental science. He worked in a cubicle.

Achille (5:39)

Very interesting job. I was a so called product manager. A quite nice job actually. But I was not happy with my job. I had a feeling that my life was nothing great really. And I had not a family, I had not a wife or child or something. I wanted to achieve something.

Olivier Rubers (5:59)

So how would Olivier bring the beaver back to Belgium? Well, he started by doing as much research as he could, but now I.

Achille (6:08)

Have to check a few points. What are the needs of the beaver? What does he need? Is it a very picky animal that can eat only very special plants or something?

Olivier Rubers (6:18)

Turns out Belgium's abundance of deciduous plants would be a great fit for the beaver's palate.

Achille (6:25)

Just imagine a beaver is just living in the vegetation a little bit, as if you were living surrounded by pizzas, by French fries.

Olivier Rubers (6:34)

And where would he get the beavers? Well, he looked into regions that did have them, like Bavaria, a state in Southeast Germany. He called around and actually got in touch with a Bavarian beaver supplier who said he was happy to help him out as long as he got the necessary paperwork.

Achille (6:51)

I have spent many days to build up an official project. And so I wrote to the Minister at the time of nature conservation, and I said, okay, look, the beaver, according to the Belgian law, is indigenous, is protected. Let's bring this animal back. And my idea, in my dreams, I was reintroducing beavers with the minister and we were shaking hands. I would say, oh, great, beaver is back in Belgium. And I was shaking his hand in my dreams that that is what would have happened. But actually the administration said, no, I don't give you the authorization to bring beavers back. Oh, we agree with the comeback of the beaver, it's a good idea. We will study that. But you're not a biologist. You're just a commercial engineer. You don't have the profile to do that.

Olivier Rubers (7:46)

Olivier was disappointed. Not only did the Ministry say he didn't have the right qualifications for this job, but he was so sure that this project, if left up to them, would never get done.

Achille (8:00)

Well, I was afraid to be trapped in a process of. In French we say an encomissionment. So it's a kind of a process where you are involved in scientific studies and there are many steps, and then at the end of the day, it leads to nothing. Why should we wait?

Colin Washington (8:20)

Why?

Olivier Rubers (8:22)

Olivier was still feeling the bitter sting of rejection when the Bavarian beaver supplier called him up and said, Mr. Rubers.

Achille (8:32)

Did you receive finally the authorization for the transport, because we have beavers for you. And then I had to give an answer. And I said, well, we have all the authorizations we need, which means none.

Olivier Rubers (8:48)

During his research, Olivier found a little bit of a loophole. See, the Belgian Ministry of Conservation pointed to a European directive saying that he needed authorization. But this ministry only has jurisdiction in Belgium, and Belgium had no official rules about this specific kind of work.

Achille (9:08)

They wanted to fool me. You know, in my studies as commercial engineers, I had a good formation about law. And I learned that a European directive, as long as it is not enforced in the national country, has no value.

Olivier Rubers (9:25)

And between that and what the Belgian Ministry themselves had said, surely there was enough wiggle room to make this work. Right?

Achille (9:32)

They even said, voila, we agree that it would be good that the beaver would come back.

Olivier Rubers (9:38)

So if he just decided to Reintroduce beavers on his own. Wouldn't everybody really get what they want?

Achille (9:46)

And the idea came together, as we say in French, the Frank fell. I have to bring the beaver back.

Colin Washington (9:58)

Now. When Snap returns, it looks like Olivier is about to take matters into his own hands. Stay tuned. I love finding a gift for someone they wouldn't splurge on for themselves, but you know, the minute they unwrap it, they're gonna love it. And quality gifts at an affordable price. Well, my go to is Quint's. Whatever you're looking for, Quint's items are all priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman. In fact, this is complete coincidence, but I'm wearing my Quince Flowknit Breeze performance long sleeve polo right this moment. And if someone happened to get me that Quince leather Harrington jacket, I would not be mad. Gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price Tag. Go to quints.com snap for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com snap to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints snap judgment is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. You're listening to the Belgian Beaver bandit episode. So the Belgian government said no, but Olivier's got other plans. Snap Judgment.

Achille (11:57)

Most of animals, they don't have to be smuggled because they can just come back by themselves. Beavers have legs, but they have flippers and they don't like to walk. They want to follow the rivers.

Olivier Rubers (12:09)

And the river Olivier set his sights on was the Viroin.

Achille (12:13)

If we reintroduce it in the Viroin, it was good, okay? Because all these rivers are connected anyway. So when you put beavers in river A or river B or river C, on the long term they'll be everywhere. The Viroin is flowing through belgium, but for 2km is flowing through France.

Olivier Rubers (12:37)

Those 2km of French country meant he would be free from Belgian authorities. So Olivier's plan was to do the beaver drop in France, knowing full well the beavers would flow down the river into Belgium. So he called the mayor of Vieira Morlan a village on the French side to get the okay.

Achille (12:57)

It was organized officially with this mayor and it was even planned to have the local press to film the release of the beavers.

Olivier Rubers (13:06)

Olivier had the drop off spot secured. Now he needed to go to Bavaria to get the beavers. He had the road trip all planned out, but he decided he couldn't do this alone. So he called the one guy who started his beaver fascination in the first place.

Achille (13:23)

I contacted Achille and I said, achille, we can get beavers. We can get four beavers. Okay, can we go and pick them together? And he said, okay, yes, go, go, go. He was never afraid of anything.

Olivier Rubers (13:40)

Olivier and Achille were now skirting Belgian law, which meant the two men had to be careful. If caught, they could be fined, denied access to beaver suppliers, or worse.

Achille (13:51)

Even worse than getting no beavers from beaver suppliers would be that the police or the forest rangers would catch us and take the beavers and possibly kill them. That would be the worst case.

Olivier Rubers (14:08)

The only other thing Olivier needed was a car big enough to transport the beavers. So he asked his dad if he could borrow his car.

Achille (14:16)

And I said, daddy, I bought your car because my car was not big enough to transport so many beavers.

Olivier Rubers (14:22)

He told his dad about the project and it turns out following your heart, not the law, it runs in the rubber's family.

Achille (14:30)

So he said, well, just do for it. And if some people of the administration don't agree, well, that's absolute proof it's a good project, so just do it. Did I agree with my dad? No. Sometimes the authority, the government is right, makes some nice decisions, but I mean, we don't have to follow rules like German Nazis, you know. And so we went to pick up the beavers and we drove during the whole night we drove through eastern Germany and then we arrived at the address and we slept in the car. And then the following day, the guy opened his door, he saw us in the car sleeping, and they invited us for breakfast.

Olivier Rubers (15:14)

The man they were meeting was a conservationist named Gerhard Schwab. He was raising beavers on his property and giving them to clients like the Bavarian government. So he was the real deal.

Achille (15:26)

He was a kind of a German Indiana Jones, you know, like somebody always in the forest, always in the nature, really. A wildlife man, like an Indiana Jones, but without the violence, you know.

Olivier Rubers (15:39)

The three men had a hearty Bavarian breakfast and then started talking beavers and.

Achille (15:45)

Then he asked for the paper.

Olivier Rubers (15:47)

Olivier knew he had to show Schwab something, so he came prepared with some Official looking papers.

Achille (15:54)

And then I gave him just a full cardboard of paper.

Olivier Rubers (15:57)

Here are all the documents stamped and in French. That in no way said he had the approval, but Schwab couldn't tell. French was not his first language and it was enough. Schwab took Olivier and Achille behind his house to an enclosure with a garden. And in the garden there were four.

Achille (16:19)

Beavers, two parents and two cubs milling.

Olivier Rubers (16:23)

About rolling mud with their feet swimming, patting down dams.

Achille (16:28)

I had never seen a beaver before. Never?

Olivier Rubers (16:32)

Yup. The man who had tasked himself with bringing the beaver back to Belgium had never seen one.

Achille (16:40)

Wow, it's huge. It's big. A beaver has about the volume of, of an 11 year old child, has a weight of about 26 kilos. The body itself is 1 meter long and with the tail 1 meter 30.

Olivier Rubers (17:01)

One beaver alone could stand up to about Olivier's shoulders and he was close enough to them to see their webbed paws, their long fingers and their sharp teeth.

Achille (17:11)

And then the German Indiana Jones told us that we had to catch them.

Olivier Rubers (17:17)

Actually, Schwab gave Olivier in a shield two large butterfly nets and said, go.

Achille (17:24)

Get them, Catch first the parents, because if we would catch the cubs, the parents would attack us.

Olivier Rubers (17:35)

The two men scrambled around Schwab's muddy garden, butterfly nets and hands, trying to catch four critters that are basically human sized.

Achille (17:43)

I feel sorry that he's stressed, it's ridiculous. But I tried to talk to him and I said, come on, beaver, we are going to bring you to nice place.

Olivier Rubers (17:52)

Eventually, Olivier got it down to a science.

Achille (17:56)

The beaver goes in the corner of the enclosure, you get him in the corner and then hop and you get him in the net and then he's in the net and he's very heavy because he's about 26 or 30 kilos or something and he has his nose against the net.

Olivier Rubers (18:16)

The four beavers each got their own cage and were put in the back of his dad's car.

Achille (18:21)

We were kind of afraid because Achilles didn't build so good cages and the animals with their hands, they have, you know, hands like human hands, and they were shaking the top of the cage like this, you know, we were really afraid they would escape and bite us. And you know, when beavers bite, they have such powerful and long teeth. It's like you get stabbed by a knife. But actually we solved this problem through covering the cage with a blanket. And then when it's dark, they immediately relaxed and then we could drive. Relaxed ourselves.

Olivier Rubers (19:00)

Olivier and Achille were on their way to the French village of Vera Molin to drop off the beavers and talk to the press. And then they got a phone call. It was from the secretary of Achille's farm.

Achille (19:14)

She said, well, we've been called by journalists, we've been called by the administration. They know you're on your way, you've gone to Germany to pick up some beavers. They will be driving around the river and they will catch you if they see you there, and they will seize the beavers.

Olivier Rubers (19:34)

It turns out the Belgian authorities got wind that Olivier was going to drop off beavers just across the border and they were going to intercept him.

Achille (19:43)

And so we decided to take a totally different direction and to bring the beavers in a totally different place, actually.

Olivier Rubers (19:52)

Thinking quick, Olivier remembered a secluded part of eastern Belgium that he had previously hiked. The two men pulled a 180 and drove over 100 miles in the opposite direction to eastern Belgium.

Achille (20:06)

We arrived in a region which is mostly covered by forests. No house, no village, nothing. Just forest and a river. And then we took the cages out of my dad's car and we brought the cages close to the river. And then we released the beaver. First the cubs, then the parents to kick them out in the river. Just a kick in the ass of beavers. And that's all I did. So nothing great. And then we stayed until the beavers swam away. And I just love this moment to watch the beaver swim. And Sunday morning at 9 o'clock I had to be in the office.

Olivier Rubers (20:53)

Olivier and Achille had tried to do the kind of right thing by dropping the beavers in France, but they kind of ended up doing the not so right thing. And there were now, unofficially beavers in Belgium, four of them. And Olivier and Achille didn't even get caught. So mission accomplished, right?

Achille (21:16)

I felt the project was not achieved at all because we had released four beavers. And four beavers is a little bit little for a successful reintroduction.

Olivier Rubers (21:27)

Because again, the goal here is to have enough beavers in Belgium to propagate form a population. So Olivier and Achille decided to step up their game and head back to Bavaria.

Achille (21:41)

We hide a van, and then Achille, in his farm, asked one of the person working there to build 15 cages. A few months later, we introduced again 15 beavers in other rivers.

Olivier Rubers (21:58)

But why stop there?

Achille (22:01)

Sometimes I went pick up 19 beavers. Another time, 11. Another time, four. One time in Bavaria, they called me. We have one beaver. Do you want to have him? Yes, of course. I didn't want to miss just one beaver.

Olivier Rubers (22:15)

When Olivier wasn't at his day job, beaver smuggling became all he did.

Achille (22:21)

Then the beavers were popping up everywhere in the country. Every time that beaver popped up, we went with the press to make a promotion of the beaver, saying, the beaver is back, but it's great because it's doing this, he's doing that.

Olivier Rubers (22:36)

Olivier made sure to never admit to his beaver smuggling activities while on camera. But he was putting a spotlight on himself. And Belgium's Ministry of Nature Conservation was starting to put two and two together.

Achille (22:53)

It's not in my temper to be discreet. Unfortunately, I have. My natural temper is to communicate. And unfortunately that has played against me. Between 1998 and 2000, the authorities were indeed kind of following me.

Olivier Rubers (23:09)

If Olivier got caught smuggling beavers, the consequences could be pretty serious for him and the people around him.

Achille (23:19)

And I had some people even from the family, from close friends, that told me, oliver, stop it, stop it. We have enough beavers now.

Olivier Rubers (23:30)

But against all the naysayers was Olivier's day one partner in crime, Achille, the.

Achille (23:38)

Only one that said, no, let's go further. He said in French, je les ang? Cule royalement. I don't know how you could translate that. All these people from the administration, I them in the royally. That's what I wanted to hear, really. And you have a feeling like an athlete that would achieve something great in sport. You have a feeling that you have to go further. If I have beavers from Bavaria, I mean, who could resist?

Colin Washington (24:14)

Oh, yes, we've got beavers coming in. Life is good. But how long will Olivier be able to keep free of the cops? Stay tuned. After years of fine print contracts and getting ripped off by overpriced wireless providers, if we've learned anything, it's that there's always a catch. So when I heard that all Mint Mobile Wireless plans are $15 a month when you purchase the three month plan, I thought, what's the catch? But there isn't one. Except paying less money for more service. In fact, I spend a lot of time off the grid, and Mint Mobile has better coverage in the middle of nowhere than my previous provider. I always thought I'd have to switch phones in order to switch plans. But I already have a phone. So do you. Mint Mobile lets you keep your phone if you want to. So ditch overpriced wireless and get mint mobile for three months of premium wireless service for $15 a month to get this new customer offer and your new three month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month. Go to mintmobile.com snap that's mintmobile.com snap cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com snap $45 upfront payment required. Equivalent to 15 bucks a month. New customers on first three month plan only speeds slower above 40 GB on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. Now then, when Lasby left Oliv, he was on top of his beaver smuggling game. But can he keep it up? Snap judgment.

Olivier Rubers (26:07)

For two years now, Olivier's been driving to Bavaria, picking up beavers and releasing them in Belgium.

Achille (26:16)

Myself, I was living in Brussels at that time with my girlfriend.

Olivier Rubers (26:20)

And one day when Olivier was driving to Achilles farm to initiate another beaver pickup.

Achille (26:27)

I arrived with my car at Achilles Farm and directly I saw there was a lot of police cars. I thought there was something wrong going on there and so I wanted to drive further. But then car of the driver, rangers blocked me with this car.

Olivier Rubers (26:47)

Both of the cars stopped. The ranger got out, walked over to Olivier's car and said, you have to.

Achille (26:56)

Follow me and to go to the farm. Yeah, we are here to search your house and to search your car because we have a mandate of the judge.

Olivier Rubers (27:05)

The Ministry of Nature Conservation was closing in on him. They were looking for any evidence proving that he was the one bringing these beavers back to Belgium.

Achille (27:15)

Let us look for these documents and then everything will be fine, huh?

Olivier Rubers (27:22)

The ranger ushered Olivier back onto the farm. There was a swarm of rangers all over the yard. Some were talking to Achille and others were searching the front offices of the farm.

Achille (27:35)

From the time the building search begins, you have to stay there. You cannot move. And as I was in Achilles Farm, my mother called me to. She said, oliver, Oliver, they are searching a house here about the beaver. I wanted to warn you. I said, yes, mother, I know, they search us as well here.

Olivier Rubers (27:57)

Olivier calmed his mom down, told her there was nothing at her house that could get her incriminated.

Achille (28:05)

However, the only documents that could have incriminated me were at Ash's farm, standing.

Olivier Rubers (28:13)

Still, watching park rangers yank out and upturn drawers, spilling papers on the floor. Olivier was nervous.

Achille (28:22)

Actually, there was a room which I used as an office where we had a file with letters and mails with beaver suppliers.

Olivier Rubers (28:33)

The rangers weren't satisfied yet. They wanted to go deeper into the house and they told Achille to guide them.

Achille (28:42)

And then Achilles told to the officer, yes, follow me, I will show you all the rooms. And then Achilles went in front of the offices quite quick, said, look There, look there, there. And he drew their attention to other rooms and other offices. They were searching in old documents. They were searching everywhere.

Olivier Rubers (29:02)

Then they got to the office.

Achille (29:06)

They asked to Achille, what's this door?

Olivier Rubers (29:08)

And Achille did some quick thinking.

Achille (29:11)

That's the cellar. You want to search it? No, no, no, no. All right, follow me. And then Achille brought them somewhere else. And they didn't search the room where I had all the documents. Achilles helped me out. Indeed. Yes, yes.

Olivier Rubers (29:27)

The police left empty handed. At least that's what Olivier thought.

Achille (29:33)

A few weeks later, maybe two, three weeks later, they called me at the police building.

Olivier Rubers (29:39)

The police sat Olivier down and then one of the officers pulled out a photo which he slid across the table.

Achille (29:49)

There was one picture, one picture of me releasing a beaver. You see me kind of wet because it was raining. And I was with the cage and you could see the beaver in the cage and I was with my hands around the cage. They say, you say you didn't reintroduce beavers in Belgium. Look at this picture. What do you think of it?

Olivier Rubers (30:17)

Olivier looked at the officers and immediately.

Achille (30:21)

Said, that doesn't prove anything. He said, yeah, Willis, a beer. Yes, but what's the problem? Ah, you admit you released beavers. It was not in Belgium, it was in France. And they said, okay, where in France are you a French officer? I mean, you're not. So I will tell it to a French officer, not to you. They were kind of angry because they thought, well, he's making fun of us or he's playing with us. I mean, if the French authorities are not happy with it, they can contact me. And he knew, of course, no French officer would ever ask me.

Olivier Rubers (31:03)

And the Belgian officers did contact the French authorities.

Achille (31:07)

The French authorities didn't give a. Despite the fact we did introduce quite a few beavers on the French side. They have many beavers in France. In other regions of France, I mean, beaver is no big deal. They didn't care in France, so they couldn't really jail me or they couldn't really ask a big financial penalty.

Olivier Rubers (31:30)

Olivier bid them adieu and walked out a free man, which was impressive considering how many beavers he'd actually gotten away with reintroducing.

Achille (31:42)

Exactly 101. Like the Dalmatians, you know, 101.

Olivier Rubers (31:46)

If he could reintroduce that many beavers and still walk free, of course he wouldn't be done yet. But when he went to contact his buddy, the German Indiana Jones, to set up his next beaver pickup, he got some unexpected News Gerhard Schwab told me.

Achille (32:05)

The Belgian administration got in contact with the Bavarian administration and they said, stop delivering beavers to these Oliver Rubers, Olivier's.

Olivier Rubers (32:17)

Number one beaver supplier, was compromised.

Achille (32:21)

We stopped because Bavaria didn't want to, was a lot more cautious. I wish I could have gone further with the beavers and I could have reintroduced in other European countries. Then I would have been finished.

Olivier Rubers (32:36)

And the hits just kept coming. See, Olivier thought that with beavers back in Belgium, everybody would be as happy as he was. But that wasn't exactly how it played out.

Achille (32:48)

So some people are crying, are shouting, the beavers are destroying my land, are destroying my home, and so on. I had a guy, all my poplar trees are cut by the beaver, okay? Came to visit this poplar tree. I saw about a hundred poplar trees standing. And then the guy said, look, three poplar trees. The beaver had cut them, okay? So you have a hundred papa trees and now you are crying like a baby because you've got three that the beaver have cut.

Olivier Rubers (33:17)

And because Olivier had made himself the face of Belgian beavers, by 2003, civilians had started suing him.

Achille (33:25)

There were civil parties and they demanded a huge amount of money, €300,000 or something, of so called beaver damages was totally bull, but, well.

Olivier Rubers (33:43)

Olivier was stuck in a legal limbo of appeals and counter appeals for 10 years. He didn't end up paying all €300,000, but he did end up owing the government a small fine.

Achille (33:59)

I had to pay a fine of €500, which is about €5 per beaver, and they forgot to claim this money. So at the end of the day, I didn't pay a single penny.

Olivier Rubers (34:11)

To this day, Olivier is a controversial figure in the field of nature. Rewilding.

Achille (34:17)

There was a scientist and he got mad that we, according to him, we introduced the beaver without scientific study.

Olivier Rubers (34:26)

The long term environmental impact of these 101 beavers is still being explored. But one thing is Olivier brought the beaver back.

Achille (34:39)

All beavers in Belgium, they come from my reintroductions.

Olivier Rubers (34:43)

For sure, Olivier isn't as much of a beaver spokesperson these days. He's married with kids. But it doesn't seem like he's learned his lesson. He still can't resist the call of the beaver.

Achille (35:00)

Recently, for three years, I get regularly beavers legally that come from wildlife rehabilitation centers and these centers call me. The last month I've been reintroducing a few beavers on the branch side and I was surprised how scared I was. I was alone, it was night, I had the feeling that everybody would look at me. I was almost disappointed. I said, how a coward you are. I mean, I was really scared. But if I can contribute to the comeback of the Beaver in a big watershed, the risk is worth it, you know.

Colin Washington (35:44)

Olivier Rubbers. Thank you for sharing your story. Olivier now lives with his wife and kids out in Belgium and is still engaging in nature advocacy work. Special thanks to Isabel Cockrell. The original score for that piece was by Renzel Goriot. It was produced by David Exme, SNAP Nation. It snuck up on me. It's hard to believe that somehow, someway, thanks to your support, we are now marking 15 years of SNAP storytelling. SNAP this year launched Mind you'd own with Lupita Nyong'o Fire Escape. We launched a brand new season of Spooked. And we've got more stuff in the hopper. I want to say thank you. Thank you for listening to the show and thank you to the people who entrust us with their stories. Honestly, it is the best gift of all. Big love from all of us at SNAP. KQED in San Francisco is SNAP's orbiting hall of justice. SNAP is brought to you by the team that would never release an animal species into the wild without explicit official authorization. Except, of course, for the producer, Mr. Mark Ristich. I have told him repeatedly that Monkees and Michigan do not mix. Now there's Nancy Lopez, Patricine Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goriot, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Theodor Cott, Flo Wylie, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exime, and Regina Berriago. I understand this is not the new no way. It's just a new fact. You could know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who is a Beaver supplier and you would still still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PR.