Ben Goldfarb is an award-winning environmental journalist who covers wildlife conservation, marine science, and public lands management, as well as an accomplished fiction writer. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times, and Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. His nonfiction writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Science, The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Orion Magazine, Mother Jones, The Guardian, High Country News, Outside Magazine, Smithsonian, bioGraphic, Pacific Standard, Audubon Magazine, Scientific American, Vox, OnEarth, Yale Environment 360, Grantland, The Nation, Hakai Magazine, VICE News, and other publications. His fiction has appeared in publications including Motherboard, Moss, Bellevue Literary Review, and The Hopper, which nominated him for a Pushcart Prize. His nonfiction has been anthologized in The Best American Science & Nature Writing and Cosmic Outlaws: Coming of Age at the End of Nature. He holds a master of environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and was a 2018 North American Congress for Conservation Biology journalist fellow. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Elise, , and his dog, Kit — which is, of course, what you call a baby beaver.

About the Book

WINNER of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers. The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. Today, a growing coalition of “Beaver Believers”—including scientists, ranchers, and passionate citizens—recognizes that ecosystems with beavers are far healthier, for humans and non-humans alike, than those without them. From the Nevada deserts to the Scottish highlands, Believers are now hard at work restoring these industrious rodents to their former haunts. Eager is a powerful story about one of the world’s most influential species, how North America was colonized, how our landscapes have changed over the centuries, and how beavers can help us fight drought, flooding, wildfire, extinction, and the ravages of climate change. Ultimately, it’s about how we can learn to coexist, harmoniously and even beneficially, with our fellow travelers on this planet.

Get your copy of Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter

The Library has ample copies of Eager circulating locally in our collection (including digital, audio and print copies). Books are available so everyone is able to check out a copy, read it and participate in the community conversations.

Borrow Eager from Bud Werner Memorial Library.

Buy a copy of Eager from Steamboat Springs' independent bookstore, Off the Beaten Path.