Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Latif. Earth Day is coming up on April 22nd. So this week I wanted to bring you a story that is just a wholehearted celebration of nature from Radiolab's spinoff, Terrestrials. We released it last fall in the Radiolab for Kids feed. But look, I am a card-carrying grown-up.
Chapter 2: What positive impact do beavers have on the environment?
And I really enjoyed this one. And I think you will too, no matter how young or old you are. Lulu will tell you more in a second. So without further ado.
Wait, you're listening. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab.
For kids.
Radiolab. From WNYC.
See?
Yep.
Three, two, one. Imagine. You wake up in the dark. Your eyes dart around to see. A little circle of blue shimmering light. You waddle over on your webbed feet and realize it's water. So you dive in head first. Shh. As you kick and glide, you grow fur. Really thick fur. And an extra set of eyelids. That act like goggles underwater.
And then you look behind you to find... A big, black, scaly paddle. It's your tail, which you can slap on the water with a nice, loud... You have become... A beaver. Okay, now is the part where I make you sing the theme song with me. Okay, I'm ready. Terrestrials, Terrestrials, we are not the worst, we are the... First. Try again. Opposite of worst is... The best. Bestrials. Yeah, you got it.
Okay, I like it. Terrestrials is a show where we uncover the strangeness waiting right here on Earth. I am your host, Lula Miller, joined as always by my song bud... Take me to the river. Alan. Swimming with the beaver. So here we are kicking off this brand new season of terrestrials. While all around us, really hard things are going on. Wildfires, wars, climate change.
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Chapter 3: Who is José the beaver and what is his story?
Sharing rent on the river, sharing groceries, you know, cutting down the same trees together. And it gets better. I can't imagine it getting any better. But it does. Because you've maybe heard of a little-known pop star named Justin Bieber? Well, they held a naming contest and... And the second beaver was named Justin Beaver.
Ha ha!
Thank you, Alan. Jose and Justin lived together for years, munching on wood, swimming with their eyes, peeking out of the water, and slowly but surely increasing the biodiversity of the river and the forest around it. And as time has ticked on, the river has only grown healthier, welcoming back snapping turtles and sunfish, and even, as was spotted in 2023...
two dolphins swimming around in the Bronx River.
No. Yes. Dolphins? Uh-huh. Yep. Okay, go beavers. I can, I mean, imagine if like everywhere you walked, you just sprouted flowers and life followed you. That would be nuts. I mean, how long does it actually take? Like once a dam goes in, is it years before you start seeing this greening effect? No, that's the thing. It's super fast.
Like within a couple of months, there'll be cattails and lily pads and swamp roses blooming. Wow. Okay, so just to recap everything these funky little guys are doing to the world around them. Their dams are cleaning the water, cooling the air, making the soil richer, and increasing biodiversity in these pretty dramatic ways. Yep. But that's it, right? There can't be anything else.
There's so much more. Our next storyteller thinks beavers can even fight fire. Find out how after this break.
You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's... beavers? Parachuting down from the clouds?
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Chapter 4: How did the Bronx River change over time?
I have burned one to see if it could burn and it burned just fine. Now that's what I call a useful nugget.
Hi, my name is Tyler. I'm 39 years old. I am trying to figure out how do beavers raised in captivity know how to build a dam, even if they've never seen a river?
They learn from their instincts and also from following around their parents and brothers and sisters and trying to do what they do. Wait, so are there regional differences in architectural style, like how you get Swedish modernism or Southwestern adobe? Anecdotally, yeah, there are. And some of them built some really weird dams. Really? Like how so?
Like at like 90 degree angles from one another, like zigzagging instead of having nice curvy shapes. They like teach their kids what's available to build with. It could be garbage, mud. I have seen cow bones. I have seen all sorts of interesting things. Oh, spooky. A dam made out of bones? Like a skeleton dam? No joke.
I saw that on a Halloween field tour and I thought someone had like set it up for me. Haunted lodge. Yeah. Haunted dam. There's like cow knuckle bones and a femur and they're just like integrated into this dam. It was like unreal. And that's where we got to leave it, with the Spooky Beaver Dam.
And I won't tell you that vanilla ice cream, candy, yogurt, and many perfumes used to be made with an oil that came from the beaver's booty. It was called castoreum, and that's true if you used to eat vanilla ice cream or certain candies back in the time of your great-great-grandparents. you are actually tasting beaver bum.
I won't tell you that because I'm nice, but I did learn it in beaver believer Ben Goldfarb's great book called Eager, The Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter. Highly recommend you check it out. And that'll do it for today. Terrestrials was created by me, Lulu Miller, with WNYC Studios. Our executive producer is Sarah Sambach. This episode was produced by the naughty...
gnawing on wood uh anna gonzalez tail slappingly good sound design by mira burtwin tonic our team also includes alan gofinski tanya chala and joe plourd fact checking by diane kelly she would not let us get anything wrong would spell w o o d Support for Terrestrials is provided by the Simons Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and the John Templeton Foundation. Thank you.
We have got new episodes turning out every two weeks. We hope you'll listen and subscribe to the Radiolab for Kids feed and tell your friends. It really helps our chances of getting to keep going. We also have social media where Alan drops Frog Fact Friday videos every Friday. Frog Fact Friday!
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