The Belgian Beaver Bandit

Sacré bleu! The damn beavers are on the loose! Belgium authorities are hot on the tail of Oliver Rubbers. A renegade with a wild mission... bring the beaver back. Thank you, Olivier Rubbers, for sharing your story with us! Olivier now lives with his wife and kids in Belgium and is still engaging in nature advocacy work. Produced by David Exumé, original score by Renzo Gorrio, special thanks to Isobel Cockerell, artwork by Teo Ducot. Season 15 - Episode 56 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:30Glynn Washington?

  I know a guy who wanted to build a deck on the back of his house. Just a deck. And to get the homeowner association's approval, to get the zoning approval, the building permit, the environmental review, the septic review, the department of whatever it is that day. It took four years before anyone raised a hammer. Four years for a deck. Well, today, we're gonna meet a guy who doesn't have four years to do what he has to do. Today's Snap proudly presents the Belgian Beaver Bandit. My name's from Washington, and here at Snap headquarters,

• 3:14Glynn Washington?

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• 3:22Glynn Washington?

  The Snap Judgment.

• 3:27Glynn Washington?

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• 3:47Speaker 01

  The year was 1998. Olivier Rubbers was 29 years old, living in Belgium. And one day, he visited a friend.

• 3:56Speaker 02

  This friend of mine, Achille, he has a farm, not a farm to breed animals, but he has a farm for educational activities for the children of the city nearby. And the name of his farm is Ferm de Castor, the Farm of the Beavers. I said, "Why do you call your farm Farm of the Beavers? Why don't you choose the name of an indigenous animal?" You know, Farm of the Beavers sounded to me like Farm of the Kangaroos. I mean, we don't have kangaroos. They have kangaroos in Australia, but not in Belgium. And he said, "What? No, I mean, the beavers is indigenous. And the river, which is flowing along the farm, is called the Bml, which etymologically refers to the beaver."

• 4:40Speaker 01

  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 Ashiel had said.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  The title of the article was "Notre beaver", "This Our 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.

• 5:22Speaker 01

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

• 5:27Speaker 02

  So the beaver built dams, so it created wetlands and created nice habitats for all kinds of fish, frogs. Almost all animals take advantage of the beaver activity.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Here, most people would just say, "That's interesting", and put down the article. Not Olivier. Olivier saw an opportunity.

• 5:49Speaker 02

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

• 6:00Speaker 01

  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.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  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 a child or something. I wanted to achieve something.

• 6:40Speaker 01

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

• 6:48Speaker 02

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

• 6:59Speaker 01

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

• 7:06Speaker 02

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

• 7:15Speaker 01

  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.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  I have spent many days to build up an official project. And so I wrote to the Minister of the Time of Nature Conservation, and I said, OK, look, the beaver, according to the Belgian law, is indigenous, is protected. Let's bring this animal back.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  And in my dreams, I was reintroducing beavers with the minister. We were shaking hands. I would say, oh, great, the beaver is back in Belgium. I was shaking his hand. In my dreams, that is what would have happened. But actually, the administration said,

• 8:08Speaker 02

  No, I don't give you the authorization to bring beavers back.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  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.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  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.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Well, I was afraid to be trapped in a process of, in French, we say, un en-commissionnement. 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? Why?

• 9:03Speaker 01

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

• 9:12Speaker 02

  "Mr. Rubris, 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."

• 9:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 9:50Speaker 02

  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.

• 10:06Speaker 01

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

• 10:13Speaker 02

  They even said, "Voilà, we agreed that it would be good that the beaver would come back."

• 10:18Speaker 01

  So if he just decided to reintroduce beavers on his own, wouldn't everybody really get what they want?

• 10:27Speaker 02

  And the idea came together. As we say in French, "The franc fell." I have to bring the beaver back.

• 10:39Glynn Washington?

  Now, when Snap returns, it looks like Olivier is about to take matters into his own hands. Stay tuned.

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• 13:45Glynn Washington?

  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.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  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.

• 14:10Speaker 01

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

• 14:14Speaker 02

  If we introduce it in the Vireuil, 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 Vireuil is flowing through Belgium, but for two kilometers, is flowing through France.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Those two kilometers 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 Viremonne, a village on the French side, to get the okay.

• 14:59Speaker 02

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

• 15:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  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.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  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.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  And I said, Daddy, may I borrow your car? Because my car was not big enough to transport so many beavers.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  He told his dad about the project. And it turns out, following your heart, not the law, it runs in the Rubbers family.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  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.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  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.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  It 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?

• 17:41Speaker 01

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

• 17:46Speaker 02

  And then he asked for the paper.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Olivier knew he had to show Schwab something. So he came prepared with some official-looking papers.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  And then I gave him just a full cardboard of paper. Here are all the documents.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  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 Ashille behind his house to an enclosure with a garden. And in the garden.

• 18:19Speaker 02

  There were four beavers, two parents and two cubs.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Milling about, rolling mud with their feet, swimming, patting down dams.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  I had never seen a beaver before, never.

• 18:33Speaker 01

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

• 18:41Speaker 02

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

• 18:59Speaker 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. And then?

• 19:14Speaker 02

  The German Indiana Jones told us that we had to catch them, actually.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Schwab gave Olivier and Ashille two large butterfly nets and said, "Go get them."

• 19:27Speaker 02

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

• 19:36Speaker 01

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

• 19:45Speaker 02

  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 a nice place."

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Eventually, Olivier got it down to a science.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:18Speaker 01

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

• 20:23Speaker 02

  We were kind of afraid because Ashil 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're immediately relaxed. And then we could drive relaxed ourselves.

• 21:02Speaker 01

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

• 21:15Speaker 02

  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.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  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.

• 21:45Speaker 02

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

• 21:54Speaker 01

  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.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  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.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  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 I kicked 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 loved this moment to watch the beaver swim. And Sunday morning at 9 o'clock, I had to be in the office.

• 22:55Speaker 01

  Olivier and Ashil 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 Ashil didn't even get caught. So mission accomplished, right?

• 23:18Speaker 02

  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 introduction.

• 23:29Speaker 01

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

• 23:43Speaker 02

  We hide a van. And then Ashil, 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.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  But why stop there?

• 24:03Speaker 02

  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.

• 24:17Speaker 01

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

• 24:23Speaker 02

  And 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 or saying, "The beaver is back, but it's great because it's doing this, it's doing that."

• 24:38Speaker 01

  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.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  It's not in my temper to be discreet. Unfortunately, I have a, 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.

• 25:11Speaker 01

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

• 25:21Speaker 02

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

• 25:32Speaker 01

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

• 25:39Speaker 02

  The only one that said, no, let's go further. He said in French, je les encule royalement. Does, I don't know how you could translate that. All these people from the administration, I [bleep] them in the [bleep] 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?

• 26:15Glynn Washington?

  Oh, yes. We've got beavers coming and life is good. But how long will Olivier be able to keep free of the cops? Stay tuned.

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  Use code SNAP at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code SNAP. Today's episode is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Americans United has spent the last 80 years defending your right to live as yourself and believe as you choose, so long as you don't harm others. Through film screenings, speaking engagements, and valuable resources like the Know Your Rights and Public School Guides, AU empowers people nationwide to recommit to the separation of church and state, protecting individual freedoms and strengthening our democracy for all.

• 28:02Glynn Washington?

  Freedom without favor and equality without exception. Learn more at au.org/TENC. Now then, when last we left Olivier, he was on top of his beaver smuggling game. But can he keep it up? Snap judgment.

• 28:28Speaker 01

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

• 28:39Speaker 02

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

• 28:44Speaker 01

  And one day, when Olivier was driving to Ashil's farm to initiate another beaver pickup.

• 28:50Speaker 02

  I arrived with my car at Ashil's 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 a car, the driver Rangers, blocked me with his car.

• 29:10Speaker 01

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

• 29:18Speaker 02

  You have to 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.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  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.

• 29:38Speaker 02

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

• 29:45Speaker 01

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

• 29:59Speaker 02

  From the time the building search begins, you have to stay there. You cannot move. And, and as I was in Ashil's farm, my mother called me. 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.

• 30:21Speaker 01

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

• 30:29Speaker 02

  The only documents that, that could have incriminated me were at Ashil's farm.

• 30:35Speaker 01

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

• 30:45Speaker 02

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

• 30:57Speaker 01

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

• 31:06Speaker 02

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

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Then they got to the office.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  They asked to Ashil, what's this door?

• 31:32Speaker 01

  And Ashil did some quick thinking.

• 31:34Speaker 02

  Ah, that's the cellar. You want to search it? No, no, no, no. All right, follow me. And then Ashil brought them somewhere else. And they didn't search the room where I had all the documents.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Ashil helped me out indeed. Yes, yes.

• 31:50Speaker 01

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

• 31:56Speaker 02

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

• 32:02Speaker 01

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

• 32:13Speaker 02

  There was one picture, the 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.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  They say, you say you didn't introduce beavers in Belgium? Look at this picture. What do you think of it?

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Olivier looked at the officers and immediately said.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  That doesn't prove anything. They say, yeah, release a beaver, yes. But what's the problem? Ah, you admit you release beavers. It was not in Belgium, it was in France. And they said, okay, we're in France. Are you a French officer? I mean, you're not. So I will tell it to a French officer, but not to you.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  They were kind of angry because they thought, well, he's making fun of us. So he's playing with us. I mean, if the French authorities are not happy with it, they can contact me. And in you, of course, no French officer would ever ask me.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  And the Belgian officers did contact the French authorities.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  The French authorities didn't give a [bleep]. Despite the fact, we did introduce quite a few beavers on the French side. They have many beavers in France and 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.

• 33:54Speaker 01

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

• 34:05Speaker 02

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

• 34:09Speaker 01

  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.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Gerhard Schwab told me the Belgian administration got in contact with the Bavarian administration and they said, "Stop delivering beavers to these Oliver Rubbers."

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Olivier's number one beaver supplier was compromised.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  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.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  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.

• 35:11Speaker 02

  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 100 poplar trees standing. And then the guy said, "Look, three poplar trees the beaver had cut them." Okay, so you have 100 poplar trees? And now you are crying like a baby because you've got three that the beaver have cut?

• 35:41Speaker 01

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

• 35:49Speaker 02

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

• 36:07Speaker 01

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

• 36:22Speaker 02

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

• 36:35Speaker 01

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

• 36:40Speaker 02

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

• 36:49Speaker 01

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

• 37:03Speaker 02

  All beavers in Belgium, they come from my reintroductions, for sure.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  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.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  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 French 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 say, how a coward you are. I mean, I was really scared.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  But if I can contribute to the comeback of the beaver in a big watershed, the risk is worth it, you know?

• 38:08Glynn Washington?

  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 Isabelle Cockrell. The original score for that piece was by Renzo Gorrio, was produced by David Exame. Snap Nation, it snuck up on me. It's hard to believe that somehow, some way, thanks to your support, we are now marking 15 years of Snap storytelling. Snap was just this year launched Mind Your Own with Lupita Nyong'o, Fire Escape. We launched a brand new season of Spooked and we've got more stuff in the hopper.

• 38:53Glynn Washington?

  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. Trent, of course, producer Mr. Mark Ristich, I have told him repeatedly that monkeys and Michigan do not mix.

• 39:37Glynn Washington?

  Now there's Nancy Lopez, Pat McMillan, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Kier DeCott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame, Regina Berriaco. Understand, this is not the news. No way this is the news. In 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 PRX.