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Okay, Chelsea, we have talked about all the terrible pollution that comes from cars we

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don't really talk about in the past.

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I think we did a whole episode on it, in fact.

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Yeah, we did.

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I found something new that is kind of destroying the world slowly that didn't come up in that

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episode, but I thought it'd be fun.

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It's an article on the Atlantic came out September 7th, 2023 article title America

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is telling itself a lie about roadkill written by Ben Goldarb.

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Oh no.

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The great irony of roadkill is this.

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Its most conspicuous victims tend to be those least in need of saving.

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Simple probabilities dictate that you're more likely to collide with a common animal,

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a squirrel, a raccoon, a white-tailed deer, than a scarce one.

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On the roadside, dead tend to be culled from the ranks of the urban, the resilient, and

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the ubiquitous.

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But roadkill is also a culprit in our planet's current mass die-off.

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Every year, American cars hit more than 1 million large animals such as deer, elk, and

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moose, and as many as 340 million birds across the continent, roadkill may claim the lives

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of billions of pollinating insects as well.

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The ranks of the victims include many endangered species.

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One 2008 congressional report found that traffic existentially threatens at least 21 critters

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in the US, including the Houston Toad and the Hawaiian Goose.

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If the last ever California tiger salamander shuffles off this mortal coil, the odds are

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decent that it will happen on rain slick blacktop one damn spring night.

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The closer group for roadkills hitting toll are reptiles and amphibians known collectively

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as herps, which I've actually never heard before.

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No, that makes me think of something else.

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Yeah.

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I'm okay.

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Now I'm wondering if they have the same root word.

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The small bodies and secretive habits of herps conceal their dominance.

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Many forests in the eastern United States support more salamanders than small mammals

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and birds combined.

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But about one in five reptile species and two in five amphibian species are threatened

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with extinction.

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And many more are on their way.

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Snapping turtles and spotted salamanders are on the verge of vanishing altogether, but

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they become rarer and more isolated, retreating from our landscape and our lives.

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Biologists refer to localized extinctions, a pond empty of frogs here, a pool robbed

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of salamanders there, as extra patience.

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Many small losses that over time can amount to a very big one.

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So what lands advocate David M. Carroll has lamented the silence of the frogs, a hush

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as disquieting as the one that terrified Rachel Carson.

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Not quite sure what that's.

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Oh, silence of the lambs.

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Okay, I think right?

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Is Rachel the name of the person in that movie?

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Rachel.

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Oh, how to help Rachel.

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I don't think it is.

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Okay.

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Well, I'm not sure who Rachel Carson is.

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That's the first she's mentioned.

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No, this is definitely not silence of the lands.

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She's old.

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She's an American marine biologist.

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Okay, that makes sense.

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I don't know what she got up to though, so it'll be forever a mystery.

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Okay, I'm not looking into it further.

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No, that's all I need to know.

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The forces muscling the frogs and other herps are many, habitat loss, fungal disease pollution,

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but it's not a coincidence that herps are predisposed to become roadkill.

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Reptiles and amphibians move slowly and as cold-blooded creatures, they gravitate towards

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warm surfaces, whether limestone or asphalt.

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Herps lumber across lakefront streets to deposit their eggs, snake slither over highways to

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huddle in hypernacular.

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Wow, there are a lot of words I've never heard before.

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That's a good, fringy mini.

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If there are words we don't know of, then listen before.

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Worst of all, some herps, such as northern leopard frogs, don't attempt to race between

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cars as a steer-dew or avoid roads altogether, as rizzly bears do.

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Instead, they're what scientists call non-responders, animals who are unfazed by traffic even when

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prudence would serve them well.

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Amphibians whose names mean double life are especially susceptible.

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Frogs, toads, and salamanders belong to two worlds, the water in which they're born,

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and the upland forests where many species upon swapping gills for long spend their adulthood.

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When you have a toe in two realms, you must migrate between them.

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Amphibians move most frenziedly on spring nights and when rain refills the ephemeral

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pools at dimple forest floors and summon them to mate.

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Good frogs that spent the winter as cold and hard as popsicles preserved by their own natural

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antifreeze, thaw, and stir.

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Salamanders clamber from their catacombs, peepers thrill with a vehemence out of all

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proportion to their thumbnail-sized bodies.

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Thousands of miniscule lives go on the march, called by wetlands that will soon be cloudy

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with gelatinous egg masses.

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In some places, the emergence occurs over weeks, and others in a few big nights.

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And a salamander on a big night will cross any road in their path, come hell, high water,

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or Honda.

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When an aggregation of libidness, herps, boils over a road, the outcome is what some biologists

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call non-to-scientifically a massive squishing.

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Squishing statistics are both appalling and abstract in the way that astronomical death

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tolls often are.

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Nearly 28,000 leper frogs killed over two separate two-year periods on Lake Erie causeway, up

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to 10,000 red-sided garter snakes slain in one season in Manitoba, 2,500 toads flattened

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on a French road, and Indiana scientists who counted more than 10,000 crushed animals found

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that 95% were reptiles and amphibians.

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You've probably never heard one pop and eat your tires, but in many places, herps

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not deer, not squirrels make up most vertebrate roadkill.

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This does continue on for quite some time, but I think that's far enough along into

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the article to at least give you an idea of what's going on, and just a reminder that

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we do so much damage to the environment that we don't even really think about.

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I know, like, we commonly hit things with our cars.

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I don't mean that nonchalantly as in, like, just mowing down deer, but there's a reason

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there's what's called bug juice at the gas station to clean off your windshield.

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Yeah, I never really thought about it, unfortunately, and that article is sad, especially bugs.

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But we've also talked about there's less bugs, and it's probably because we've hit

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so many bugs in the past that we're just-

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It's definitely part of it.

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The big word of them one by one, even where we grew up, you would commonly see even the

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big ones, and if people are hitting the big ones, such as deer and moose and bear and

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stuff, imagine how many little things you're hitting without.

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This is sad.

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Yeah.

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Without knowing it.

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Don't worry, I have plenty of those.

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We're ruining the world in many ways.

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We don't even realize it.

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Articles in the future ready to go.

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So this is just a small taste of it.

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That's what I depend on you for.

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Please self-reflect on all of the small vertebrates that you have killed over the next 48 hours

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and pay them homage, if you will.

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48 hours, so that's it.

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48 hours.

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Yeah, that's all you need.

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In the meantime, though, we will see you all on Friday for the main episode.

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Bye.