Speaker 1: School of humans.
Speaker 2: Deep in the mountainous rainforests of southeastern Brazil, not far
Speaker 2: from the village of Domingos Marchings, grows a plant. Its
Speaker 2: stalks are long and narrow, a crown of dangling green.
Speaker 2: It grows out of the mist below the canopy, slowly
Speaker 2: creeping up the trunks of trees. As it matures. It
Speaker 2: hangs above the ground like a chandelier. The blades of
Speaker 2: each leaf splayed like the wings of an angel. The
Speaker 2: plant's name is philodendron. Spirit is sancty Latin for holy ghost.
Speaker 2: It is one of the rarest plants in the world.
Speaker 2: Only a few specimens grow in the wild. To plant collectors,
Speaker 2: the words spirit is sancty illicit goosebumps. The plant's name
Speaker 2: is spoken with hushed religious reverence. Many call it the
Speaker 2: holy Grail of philodendrons.
Speaker 3: It's only found in the wild in one small town
Speaker 3: in Brazil at this point, as far.
Speaker 2: As we know, that's doctor Arinovi. He's the president and
Speaker 2: CEO of the San Diego Botanic Garden.
Speaker 3: A big part about why it has such value to
Speaker 3: collectors is it has very beautiful long leaves. It looks
Speaker 3: fantastic and it's incredibly hard to propagate.
Speaker 2: A botched cutting, for example, could kill the entire plant,
Speaker 2: and that's why captive Spirit of Sancty specimens are best
Speaker 2: handled by professionals, people like doctor Novi and the folks
Speaker 2: at the garden in San Diego.
Speaker 3: We have about five thousand a little over five thousand
Speaker 3: individual plant taxa or species that are represented within our collections.
Speaker 3: It is an ungodly diversity of plants.
Speaker 2: This collection includes rare and endangered species like the Hawaiian
Speaker 2: Hibiscus aka Hibiscus rosa sinensis, the Bastard quivertree or Alliodendron pilancie,
Speaker 2: and of course the Holy Relic of southern Brazil. For years,
Speaker 2: the Spirit of Sancty was one of San Diego's centerpieces.
Speaker 2: It hangs high above the ground, delicately suspended from the
Speaker 2: greenhouse's ceiling, far out of reach of passers by. At
Speaker 2: least that's what they thought. One morning in May twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: a garden employee stepped into the greenhouse, peered up and
Speaker 2: witnessed a blasphemy.
Speaker 3: Our director of porta Culture at the time was in
Speaker 3: the garden and he felt like that basket looked a
Speaker 3: little less who eventually got out a ladder and climbed
Speaker 3: up and saw that this plant had been kind of
Speaker 3: hacked off.
Speaker 2: It became clear what had happened, and the dead of
Speaker 2: night somebody had broken into the garden, grabbed a pole
Speaker 2: saw or a long pair of lappers, and hacked off
Speaker 2: pieces of the treasured plant. The heist seemed meticulously planned.
Speaker 4: There were no signs of breaking or entering.
Speaker 3: There are other valuable plants in that space that they
Speaker 3: were not targeted, but it certainly seems like somebody was
Speaker 3: aware of our habits, you know, somebody was, for lack
Speaker 3: of a better term, kind of tasting the joint.
Speaker 4: For a while.
Speaker 2: The reason they targeted the spiritus money.
Speaker 3: That was probably the single highest value plant in the
Speaker 3: collection of the Botanic Garden in terms of what you
Speaker 3: could get for resale value. This plant could sell for
Speaker 3: between ten and fifteen thousand dollars on the open market.
Speaker 2: Fifteen thousand dollars. A Spirit of Sancty is more than
Speaker 2: a plant. It's a status symbol, an investment, a limited
Speaker 2: edition Rolex that knows photosynthesis, and that price tag has
Speaker 2: done much more than simply drained the pockets of rich
Speaker 2: plant lovers it's fueled a spree of crime and lies
Speaker 2: and deceit. I'm Summer rain Oaks. On this episode, a
Speaker 2: look inside a booming craze for house plans and how
Speaker 2: a cultural obsession and the human instinct to keep up
Speaker 2: with the joneses might be killing the things we love
Speaker 2: the most. From School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. This
Speaker 2: is Bad Seeds. It's twenty twelve and a small crowd
Speaker 2: is gathered for the International Alloyd Society Fall Show and
Speaker 2: Sale in Florida. It's an annual banquet and this year
Speaker 2: doctor Tom Crowet of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Tom Moore,
Speaker 2: founder of the Tropical Fern and Exotic Plant Society, are
Speaker 2: holding a plant they call the Piece de Resistance.
Speaker 4: Mortgage your house, Tell your children on this plant. It's
Speaker 4: been a little stock market.
Speaker 2: It's a spiritus sancty, a small one, but a spirit
Speaker 2: is nonetheless. And then the bidding begins.
Speaker 4: World works your money tonight.
Speaker 5: You have fifty dollars opening bed. Come.
Speaker 1: I got two hundred, three hundred three, I got four hundred,
Speaker 1: I got four hundred back.
Speaker 4: I got four hundred back.
Speaker 5: You're gonna let this go for four hundred.
Speaker 2: Dollars, of course not. The bids keep rising. Five hundred
Speaker 2: seven hundred, nine hundred nine.
Speaker 6: Fifty I got nine fifty nine seventy seven to got money.
Speaker 7: I got what.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go.
Speaker 4: One thousand, once, one thousand, twice.
Speaker 7: So.
Speaker 2: One thousand dollars for a potted plant with just six leaves.
Speaker 2: This again, was twenty twelve, just over a decade later.
Speaker 2: That price seems quaint now. I remember when I first
Speaker 2: learned about the Spirit of Sancty. It was five years
Speaker 2: ago and I was doing a tour with a popular
Speaker 2: arroid grower, end A Falter. During that tour, I got
Speaker 2: to see the plant for the first time.
Speaker 6: This is the awesome Spirit of Sancty, one of the
Speaker 6: most rare philodendrons in the world. It's not in a
Speaker 6: lot of collections, and it's hard to get a hold
Speaker 6: of one.
Speaker 2: Actually, she tried to convey just how rare this plant was,
Speaker 2: but to be honest, I didn't really grasp it at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 6: Well, they're first, they're expensive, and they're hard to get.
Speaker 6: There's only a few people that even wouldever have one
Speaker 6: to sell.
Speaker 2: You've got few would ever loan you at cutting either.
Speaker 2: That scarcity however, drives an aggressive market for the rare plants.
Speaker 2: It keeps prices high. In fact, if you bought and
Speaker 2: held onto that plant auctioned off in Florida, its value
Speaker 2: would have yielded an annual rate of return of about
Speaker 2: twenty eight percent, beating out gold. Prices have been turbocharged
Speaker 2: in the past few years, so much so that it's
Speaker 2: taken experts like doctor Arinovi by surprise.
Speaker 3: We knew that that plant prices were going up, and
Speaker 3: that during the pandemic, you know, people were getting more
Speaker 3: enthusiastic about house plants and even some rare plants, which
Speaker 3: mostly we looked at as a wonderful thing. But you know,
Speaker 3: we started looking at eBay and other things and being like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. We didn't realize that the same plant
Speaker 3: that you used to be able to buy for fifteen
Speaker 3: dollars at home depot now goes for.
Speaker 4: Three four hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Driving this boom is classic supply and demand. There aren't
Speaker 2: many plants, but there are a ton of people who
Speaker 2: want them, so prices go up. In fact, one online
Speaker 2: plant store in Britain saw sales surge five hundred percent
Speaker 2: during lockdown. But who are these people driving up prices.
Speaker 2: If you read the headlines, it seems pretty obvious.
Speaker 3: California hipster plants at the center of smuggling crisis.
Speaker 4: What is it with millennials and cactuses?
Speaker 1: If only hipsters had stuck to their handlebar, mustaches and
Speaker 1: craft beer, this never would have happened.
Speaker 2: Yep, the same people who got blamed for killing the
Speaker 2: napkin industry, mayonnaise, the nine to five workday, and lately,
Speaker 2: well pretty much everything else. Millennials.
Speaker 3: We saw a whole generation of young people who previously
Speaker 3: weren't that engaged in house plans get excited about it,
Speaker 3: and again, that is ninety nine percent awesome. The only
Speaker 3: thing about it that's not awesome is that it did
Speaker 3: lead to a market that encouraged theft den poachings.
Speaker 2: The pandemic, of course, deserves a lot of blame too.
Speaker 2: Millions of us, trapped inside and craving something to do,
Speaker 2: began transforming our homes into sanctuaries, and it wasn't long
Speaker 2: before viral posts on TikTok began touting the plant mom
Speaker 2: and plant dad lifestyle. But the question I keep coming
Speaker 2: back to is is that the real reason this plant
Speaker 2: craze is happening? Or is there something about human nature,
Speaker 2: something dark, that just makes us crazy for plants. Here's
Speaker 2: the thing about our recent plant obsession. It's nothing new.
Speaker 2: Just ask Charles Mackay. In the eighteen forties, Mackay, a
Speaker 2: Scottish journalist, became fascinated with herd behavior, how certain interests
Speaker 2: or beliefs grew to overtake entire cultures. So in eighteen
Speaker 2: forty one, Mackay published the first volume of his book
Speaker 2: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, witch Hunts, Alchemy,
Speaker 2: the Crusades. The book plum the Darkest Recesses of the
Speaker 2: Human Mind, and in it Mackay concluded that these trends
Speaker 2: and obsessions are just part of a cultural cycle.
Speaker 5: Millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion and
Speaker 5: drawn after it till their tension is caughked by some
Speaker 5: new folly more captivating.
Speaker 4: Than the first.
Speaker 2: One. Such folly, he wrote, was an irrational mania for plants,
Speaker 2: specifically tulips. It's the sixteen thirties, Holland. New trade routes
Speaker 2: just opened to the Ottoman Empire, leading the Dutch to
Speaker 2: quote unquote discover new foods, new spices, new ideas, and
Speaker 2: of course new plants. It's an exciting time and people
Speaker 2: are positively enchanted with everything coming out of the Far East,
Speaker 2: including a vibrant flower native to the lush valleys of
Speaker 2: my China and Afghanistan, the tulip. Within years, everybody in
Speaker 2: Holland wanted to get their hands on some tulips. According
Speaker 2: to Mackay, speculators began buying up bulbs, not with the
Speaker 2: intent of planting them, but in the hopes of just
Speaker 2: reselling them for a profit. And this rich scheme it worked.
Speaker 2: The cost of tulip skyrocketed, with some bulbs fetching more
Speaker 2: than a single year's wage. One bulb was valued to
Speaker 2: cost as much as twelve acres of corn. But then
Speaker 2: the craze stopped. People came to their senses the bubble burst,
Speaker 2: Speculators panicked and prices, according to some estimates, collapsed as
Speaker 2: much as ninety nine percent, and some people lost everything.
Speaker 2: Now it's important to note that Mackay had a habit
Speaker 2: of bending the truth a bit. His reports that this
Speaker 2: tulip mania plunged Holland into economic ruin are exaggerated, but
Speaker 2: the obsession was very real, as was another plant madness
Speaker 2: growing right outside Mackay's front door. This time it was ferns.
Speaker 2: In nineteenth century Britain, ferns were inescapable botanic gardens overflowed
Speaker 2: with fern specimens. Readers gobbled up literature on the subject
Speaker 2: and turned niche fern collecting books into best sellers. People
Speaker 2: subscribed to fern magazines and joined fern societies, with fern
Speaker 2: loving propagandists arguing that owning ferns was proof of intelligence
Speaker 2: that improved virility and mental health. But beyond all that,
Speaker 2: they were just another way to show off well to do.
Speaker 2: Collectors hired explorers to trot around Panama, Honduras and Tasmania
Speaker 2: to find rare ferns. Meanwhile, the middle class trekked towards
Speaker 2: coastal hillsides and dug up the plants themselves. It was
Speaker 2: like a treasure hunt, and it wasn't always fun in games.
Speaker 2: According to the September eighteen sixty seven Floral World and
Speaker 2: Garden Guide, one British woman, Miss Jane Myers, plunged off
Speaker 2: a cliff one hundred and seventy feet to her death
Speaker 2: while trying to pick a fern like tulips. The price
Speaker 2: of foreign ferns exploded, with some selling for more than
Speaker 2: one thousand dollars in today's money. Crook's cut wind pretty fast.
Speaker 2: Knowing they could earn an easy shilling, they started poaching ferns.
Speaker 2: It got so bad that botanists started to worry about
Speaker 2: the plant's survival. In his book The Flora of Cornwall,
Speaker 2: the botanist H. Davy wrote, it's.
Speaker 6: A shameful plundering has gone on that I now hesitate
Speaker 6: to speak or write about localities where the royal fern grows.
Speaker 2: As the naturalist Peter da Boyd tells us, it wasn't epidemic,
Speaker 2: with careless poachers catering to the demand of fern enthusiasts.
Speaker 5: The search for wild species led to the plundering of
Speaker 5: woodlands and hillsides, stream sides and whole woodlands would be
Speaker 5: effectively destroyed as regards their ferns by collecting literally tons
Speaker 5: of fern plants where unscrupulous collectors didn't think about what
Speaker 5: effect it might have on the environment. For most of
Speaker 5: the nineteenth century, there was no law against collecting ferns, but.
Speaker 2: That changed in February eighteen ninety six, a periodical called
Speaker 2: The Gardener's Chronicle documented the punishment for a pair of
Speaker 2: fern thieves.
Speaker 8: Fern stealers William Moby and Charles Williams of Bexley, Kent,
Speaker 8: were engaged with the horse and cart and the wholesale
Speaker 8: removal of ferns. Moby was sentenced to six weeks hard
Speaker 8: labor and Williams to one month.
Speaker 2: The wholesale plunder of ferns would turn the whole British
Speaker 2: countryside into one big crime scene, and that sparked the
Speaker 2: conservation movement.
Speaker 5: Such damage led to the first legal plant protection in Britain.
Speaker 2: Some of those laws, however, would arrive too late. The
Speaker 2: Killarney fern or Trichomani's speciosum, admired for its lacy, almost
Speaker 2: translucent leaves, nearly went extinct in Scotland. And that brings
Speaker 2: us back to the present day and our pandemic induced
Speaker 2: plant mania. It reminds me of something that doctor Arinovi
Speaker 2: told us.
Speaker 3: But you buy it illegal plants, you may be financing
Speaker 3: the destruction of an irreplaceable ecosystem that cannot come back.
Speaker 3: So the stakes are kind of high, and like I said,
Speaker 3: we unfortunately now have evidence that this big plant craze
Speaker 3: during the pandemic may have wiped out several species around
Speaker 3: the world just just from poaching.
Speaker 4: So it's it's not trivial.
Speaker 2: But who is really to blame? Is that boom and
Speaker 2: prices and the surgeon poaching really driven by millennials. To
Speaker 2: find the answer, we had to go to the coastal
Speaker 2: cliffs of northern California. High above crashing waves and not
Speaker 2: far from the meandering curves of Highway One, rose Dudleya Farinosa,
Speaker 2: a small cliff dwelling succulent nicknamed bluff lettuce. Around twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: succulent poachers started plaguing these coasts, plucking thousands of Dudleya
Speaker 2: from the cliff side. Many of the people who were
Speaker 2: caught were Korean. One stole six hundred thousand dollars worth
Speaker 2: of succulents. Headline writers pounced. Soon news agencies were claiming
Speaker 2: that these thieves were motivated by quote, housewives and hipsters,
Speaker 2: people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for
Speaker 2: a single succulent. You might remember our friend doctor Jared
Speaker 2: margolis So.
Speaker 7: The obvious sort of narratives emerged that every housewife and
Speaker 7: hipster in South Korea wanted one of these Dudleia, and
Speaker 7: that there was this succulent mania happening in East Asia
Speaker 7: that was driving this trade, and that people just saw
Speaker 7: an opportunity to steal the plants and make a huge
Speaker 7: profit off of it.
Speaker 2: In other words, the madness of crowds was just working
Speaker 2: its magic again. But something about that narrative didn't sit
Speaker 2: right with doctor Margulis, Like, why would somebody steal Dudleya.
Speaker 7: These plants were legally available for purchase from a variety
Speaker 7: of outlets in California, and they sort of looked like
Speaker 7: a commonplace succulent, you know, they have a nice, pretty
Speaker 7: rosette shape, and they put out a lovely sort of
Speaker 7: inflorescence in flower. They're not a rare species, and so
Speaker 7: people were pretty confused why suddenly it looked like people
Speaker 7: were stealing them by the thousands from their habitat.
Speaker 2: Not to mention that bluff lettuce, it's not a beginner's plant.
Speaker 7: Dudley As are really hard to grow as houseplants, and
Speaker 7: they really require an enormous amount of specialized care to
Speaker 7: keep them alive outside of their native habitat. On the
Speaker 7: West coast of California. So these were not plants that
Speaker 7: were being bought and sold by our typical succulent consumer.
Speaker 2: This didn't sound like the madness of crowds at work.
Speaker 2: This sounded like something else. Doctor Margulis needed to know more.
Speaker 7: I decided I had to go spend some time in
Speaker 7: South Korea to try to really understand and do my
Speaker 7: best to analyze these narratives and what was really happening
Speaker 7: in the trade there.
Speaker 2: So Margoulis flew to Korea. He visited nurseries and garden
Speaker 2: centers and talked to shop owners about dudley A sales.
Speaker 2: He discovered they were not a widely popular succulent plant
Speaker 2: amongst mainstream consumers in Seoul. Margulis popped into three of
Speaker 2: the city's largest succulent markets. Only one was selling the
Speaker 2: California Succulent. The vendor complained about a lack of demand.
Speaker 2: This didn't fit the narrative played out back home.
Speaker 7: These plants are really were only being sought by highly
Speaker 7: specialized collectors with a typically with a lot of skill
Speaker 7: and capacity to care for them, owning and maintaining either
Speaker 7: professional greenhouses or renting space in someone else's greenhouse in
Speaker 7: order to keep them alive. This was not sort of
Speaker 7: being driven by mainstream consumer culture.
Speaker 2: One plant dealer told Markulla's point blank, this isn't about
Speaker 2: Chinese collectors, or Japanese collectors or Korean collectors. This is
Speaker 2: about individual collectors and what they want. Millennial plant moms
Speaker 2: and plant dads weren't driving the crime spree in California.
Speaker 2: It was a small group of collectors, hardcore hobbyists, demanding
Speaker 2: that the plant be ripped from the ground, and as
Speaker 2: it turns out, they'd do just about anything to have it.
Speaker 2: You can hear the pain in doctor Novi's voice when
Speaker 2: he thinks back to the spirit of sancty heist.
Speaker 3: It would almost have been better if, like somebody was
Speaker 3: trying to steal our computers and like ruin the plants incidentally,
Speaker 3: because you know, you should have understand petty theft. But
Speaker 3: this is like premeditated, Let's find the rarest plant around
Speaker 3: here and steal it, taking it away from public usage.
Speaker 2: After the initial shock of the robbery, the botanic Garden
Speaker 2: notified police, who at first didn't really understand the magnitude
Speaker 2: of the crime.
Speaker 3: Probably the first second we were talking to law enforcement
Speaker 3: they probably were like, you know, this is some person
Speaker 3: in a neighborhood, and like, you know, some neighbors stole
Speaker 3: their prizes. But like, you know, as soon as we
Speaker 3: said here's who we are, this plant could sell for
Speaker 3: between ten and fifteen thousand dollars on the open market.
Speaker 3: Like they're like, oh, and I think they treated it
Speaker 3: like any object you know of that level value, if
Speaker 3: you know, if somebody called up and said, you know,
Speaker 3: someone stole my car.
Speaker 2: But the Botanic Garden was already at a disadvantage when
Speaker 2: it comes to high level plant crimes. Most local law
Speaker 2: enforcement officers are extremely inexperienced.
Speaker 3: Back in the nineteen nineties, when the Garden did have
Speaker 3: the theft of psychic heads, the garden benefited from the
Speaker 3: fact that the Sheriff's office in San Diego had an
Speaker 3: Agricultural Crimes division.
Speaker 2: That's right, an entire unit dedicated to plant crimes, which
Speaker 2: is not super common, especially these days.
Speaker 3: So there are no longer, to our knowledge, detectives within
Speaker 3: the San Diego law enforcement community that are specifically trained
Speaker 3: on and or daily dealing with agricultural, plant and animal theft.
Speaker 4: Law enforcement doesn't get to practice it as much.
Speaker 3: It means a certain kind of expertise is not present
Speaker 3: when it does happen.
Speaker 2: So to say the least, the police did not turn
Speaker 2: up many promising leads. At one point, they suggested the
Speaker 2: possibility of an inside job. The idea had merit. One
Speaker 2: prominent plant influencer online bragged that whenever he volunteered at
Speaker 2: botanic gardens, he'd steal rare clippings. The practice called proplifting,
Speaker 2: a portmanteau of propagate and shoplifting, is increasingly common. A
Speaker 2: Reddit page dedicated to legal and I Stress legal proplifting
Speaker 2: has more than two hundred thousand members. But in San Diego,
Speaker 2: the theft of the Spirit of Sancty went beyond simple proplifting.
Speaker 2: This was the work of an obsessive who knew what
Speaker 2: they were doing, and it would only be solved with
Speaker 2: the help of other obsessives. And that is when the
Speaker 2: gardens started getting tips from other plant lovers. People began
Speaker 2: trawling forums and social media looking for somebody, anybody trying
Speaker 2: to sell the famed plant.
Speaker 3: We started to get from the online aroid community saying, hey,
Speaker 3: we're seeing some chatter, you know, in some of the
Speaker 3: you know, blogs and social media. So that there might
Speaker 3: be a plant for sale that sounds like it might
Speaker 3: potentially be yours. The timing is right, the size and
Speaker 3: this and that.
Speaker 2: Pictures of the plant in question began turning up in
Speaker 2: the San Diego botanist inbox. One of them caught Novi's eye.
Speaker 3: Plant people are like dog people, and you know, we
Speaker 3: look at the plants in the same way that dog
Speaker 3: people or other pet owners, you know, or pet parents,
Speaker 3: you know, look at their pets. And so, you know,
Speaker 3: we know how many leaves that were on that one,
Speaker 3: We know the color differences between young leaves and old leaves,
Speaker 3: and so we told law enforcement and others that the
Speaker 3: plant in question looked a heck of a lot like
Speaker 3: our plant.
Speaker 2: So the police did their investigation.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement actually went to see one of the individuals
Speaker 3: who some people in the community thought either may have
Speaker 3: stolen it or somehow acquired it, you know, maybe they
Speaker 3: thought it was legal and was reselling it. Law enforcement
Speaker 3: told us that the person had an all buy or
Speaker 3: just there wasn't enough evidence.
Speaker 4: They couldn't move any further.
Speaker 2: So the investigation stalled, and Novena's colleagues resigned themselves to
Speaker 2: the fact that the plant was probably lost forever.
Speaker 3: I would put money on the fact that this plant died.
Speaker 3: I mean, this thing was so hacked up, like you know,
Speaker 3: they're very hard to root. I think somebody sold this
Speaker 3: plant for fifteen thousand dollars and the person who bought
Speaker 3: it didn't really know what they're doing, and.
Speaker 4: I think it died.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: That's like for us, you know, and when you've cared
Speaker 3: for that plant for ten or more years and it's
Speaker 3: it's pretty devastating, you know. But I think, like everything else,
Speaker 3: you know, you try to build resilience from tragedy.
Speaker 2: But that's tough. Because the theft at the San Diego
Speaker 2: Botanic Garden, it's not uncommon. The list of thefts from
Speaker 2: institutions to community gardens stretches from Jerusalem to Sydney to
Speaker 2: Penang Church, New Zealand. A single plant where three thousand
Speaker 2: New Zealand dollars was pilford in Coral Gables, Florida, robbers
Speaker 2: ran off with two thousand dollars worth of greenery in
Speaker 2: Brooklyn five thousand dollars and because of these thieves, the
Speaker 2: public has lost priceless bonzize, rare orchids, and the world's
Speaker 2: smallest water lily. The basic fact is, if you know
Speaker 2: a botanic garden, somebody has probably stolen from.
Speaker 3: This is not someone's stealing a loaf of bread because
Speaker 3: they're hungry, right, I mean, this is somebody very clearly
Speaker 3: taking something that's not theirs, that's being maintained by a public,
Speaker 3: nonprofit institution to benefit the public and posterity, and deciding
Speaker 3: to try to create personal value and wealth gain out
Speaker 3: of that theft.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think we have to dance around whether or not
Speaker 3: it's evil. Is it, you know, evil on a high level.
Speaker 3: That's a different.
Speaker 2: Question, and it's a question we're going to grapple with
Speaker 2: for the rest of this show because rhymes like this
Speaker 2: go far beyond questions of whether it's right or wrong
Speaker 2: to steal. It shows how a passionate hobby or obsession
Speaker 2: could put the planet end people's lives at risk. Next episode,
Speaker 2: we dive deeper into the shadows following a team of
Speaker 2: poachers and join the detectives who are hot on their tail.
Speaker 9: Ended up going to this really kind of sketchy pot
Speaker 9: of just flown cattail knocker territory in Mexico. I'm just
Speaker 9: gone met us on the side of the highway on
Speaker 9: his Marta black and he was departure.
Speaker 2: I'm Summer rain Oaks. Join us again next time for
Speaker 2: Bad Seeds. Bad Seeds is a production of School of
Speaker 2: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. I'm your Host Summer rain Oaks.
Speaker 2: Lucas Riley is our writer, Gabby Watts is our producer,
Speaker 2: and Amelia Brock is our senior producer. Fact Checking is
Speaker 2: by Savannah Hugely and Zoe Farrow. Music is by Claire Campbell.
Speaker 2: Sound design and score is by Jesse Niswanger. Development was
Speaker 2: by Brian Lavin and Jacob Selzer. Special thanks to our
Speaker 2: voice actors Etily's Perez, Frank Swain, Reuben wu and Paul Feiffe.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Brian Lavin, Elsie Crowley, Brandon Barr, Virginia
Speaker 2: Prescott and Jacob Selzer.
Speaker 1: School of Humans