Animals often struggle to navigate the roads, fences, buildings, and other architecture girdling the planet. But as scientists and conservationists work to better understand the ways our infrastructure intersects with the natural world, solutions are emerging to help wildlife thrive within these systems. With support from The Bernard Osher Foundation, award-winning author and journalist Ben Goldfarb spent three years reporting a series of stories on the people and projects re-envisioning infrastructure to benefit wildlife. Each dives deep into a different element of the human-made world—the roads and dams, buildings and fences that we’ve placed in front of animals, as well as the work being done to reduce the impacts of those obstacles.
Death by a Thousand Dams
Tens of thousands of small barriers hamper fish recovery in the northeastern United States. But while the demolition of big dams out west gets the most attention, a similar revolution is revitalizing northeastern streams and rivers—one tiny dam at a time.
Feature | by Ben Goldfarb | September 22, 2026
Living in the Sprawl
As housing developments devour open space in the western United States, can local governments stave off habitat loss?
News | by Ben Goldfarb | April 16, 2026
Entangled
Laid end to end, the world’s fences would reach the sun. What are they doing to wildlife?
Feature | by Ben Goldfarb | July 29, 2024
City of Glass
Meet the dedicated cadre of experts and volunteers working to protect birds from glass in the window-strike capital of the United States.
Feature | by Ben Goldfarb | October 31, 2023
No Country for Old Ocelots
Can wildlife crossings save America’s most endangered feline?
Feature | by Ben Goldfarb | September 20, 2023
To read more of Ben Goldfarb’s reporting on wildlife and human infrastructure, check out…
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Atonement in the Kitchen
In Search of Suckers
They Will Build It
Free-Flowing, For Now
The Birds and the Bombs
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