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Speaker 1: Hi everyone. We semi recently recorded an episode about cats

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Speaker 1: being an invasive species. Oh boy, and we're gonna hear

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Speaker 1: it for that one. But I thought we'd go back

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Speaker 1: to the o G episode on invasive species from January?

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Speaker 1: What is an invasive species? Listen? Now, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's

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Speaker 1: of you, Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry Do Do Do Do

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Speaker 1: do do do do do this stuff you should Know

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Speaker 1: Action Edition. I gotta laugh out of Jerry. At least

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Speaker 1: Google I got a a derisive snort. How about that?

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Speaker 1: That's what it was. How you doing? I'm great. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned about the Earth. You're concerned about the Earth? Yes?

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Speaker 1: More than usual? Yes? Because of this podcast? Yes? Okay? Yeah. Man.

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Speaker 1: So before we get started, you've heard of the Anthropocene, right? Uh?

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Speaker 1: I know you have? You definitely have. We've certainly mentioned

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Speaker 1: it before on the episode or on the podcast. So

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Speaker 1: there's this debate right now over whether we've entered a

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Speaker 1: new geological age from uh, the one to the Anthropocene. Right. Um?

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Speaker 1: I really wish I could remember what the current one is,

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Speaker 1: because people are going to write it and be like,

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Speaker 1: it's this a million times over, which thank you everybody

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Speaker 1: for writing out I mean to sound ungrateful. Um. But

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Speaker 1: the the idea is that we've entered this period. Some

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Speaker 1: people place it starting at the Industrial Revolution. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people place it more at when there was apparently

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Speaker 1: a huge spike in the presence of humanity from radioactivity, plastics,

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Speaker 1: all this stuff in the environment as a whole. So

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Speaker 1: where our presence has so muddied the geological record that

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Speaker 1: we've effectively come up with a new age, a new

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Speaker 1: geological age, the anthroposyne, the age of of humans. Right.

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Speaker 1: So one of the things, one of the factors that

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Speaker 1: people point to that suggests that we're we're changing the

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Speaker 1: natural geological record, Thank you, Charles so. Um. The the

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Speaker 1: idea that we we are altering what the natural course

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Speaker 1: of the Holocene, the of course it would have taken

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Speaker 1: had humans never been around. One of the ways we're

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Speaker 1: doing that is by shuffling species from one environment to another,

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Speaker 1: from one ecosystem to another where they've never been before,

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Speaker 1: probably never would have ended up, at least not in

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Speaker 1: any of our lifetimes. Um, and that they are altering

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Speaker 1: those ecosystems in radical new ways such that when those

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Speaker 1: things fossilized, those ecosystems become fossilized and can be studied,

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Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Hence,

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Speaker 1: archaeologists would be pretty puzzled by what they were finding.

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Speaker 1: And that's the basis of the idea that we should

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Speaker 1: be calling this the anthroposy. Now I'm scared. That was

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Speaker 1: my goal. Well done, thank you all right. So what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about is invasive species UM. And I'm surprised

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Speaker 1: we hadn't done this one. I was too. I went

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Speaker 1: back and double checked and to think we did, I don't,

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Speaker 1: And I remembered what episode. I remember it was the

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Speaker 1: Beagle Brigade. Oh, we talked a lot about invasive species

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Speaker 1: in the Beagle brigadim and we may have even said

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Speaker 1: we should do one on that. So if so fulfilled.

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Speaker 1: So what we're talking about is invasive species. This is um.

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Speaker 1: This can be any type of It is not necessarily

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Speaker 1: a plant or just an animal. It could be seeds,

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Speaker 1: it could be eggs, it could be it can even

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Speaker 1: be a disease, right or yeah, pathogen a past predator

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Speaker 1: and a plant just it could be anything, Yeah, any

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Speaker 1: kind of any kind of living organism that's not native

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Speaker 1: to a singular or a particular ecosystem. Right. But and

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Speaker 1: the House of Works article kind of leaves it at that.

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Speaker 1: But the National Wildlife Federation article that you found, I

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Speaker 1: think really kind of drives home that there's like an

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Speaker 1: extra couple factors involved, right, Yeah, because you can have

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Speaker 1: a non native species that we actually kind of like

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Speaker 1: like European honey bees. There are non native species here

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Speaker 1: in the United States, but we're crazy for the pollinating

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Speaker 1: they do. It doesn't know its right, and the honey

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Speaker 1: that they make. Rice is not a native um crop

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Speaker 1: here in the United States, but people people love rice,

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Speaker 1: So there are just being non native isn't enough. It

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Speaker 1: has to actually harm the ecosystem that it's not native

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Speaker 1: to and has been introduced to in some way, shape

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Speaker 1: or form. So it's it's a non native species that's

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Speaker 1: causing harm either directly or indirectly or both to this

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Speaker 1: new ecosystem it's it's been introduced to. That's an invasive species, right,

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Speaker 1: And it's not just do we grow rice in the

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Speaker 1: United States? Sure? Okay? Uh? And it doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be from another country. It can. Like we said, it's

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Speaker 1: an ecosystem, so it could be something from one area

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Speaker 1: of the United States to another area of the United States,

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Speaker 1: or from Mexico to the United States. Right, Like trout

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Speaker 1: from the Great Lakes, that's their natural habitats, so they're fine.

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Speaker 1: But you take that same trout and put it in

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Speaker 1: I think the example given was the Yellowstone River, and

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Speaker 1: they're now competing for habitat and food with the local trout.

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Speaker 1: That's an invasive species, right. They come in all shapes

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Speaker 1: and sizes. As our very own article says, uh, they're

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Speaker 1: different names for him. God loves them all. Like some

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Speaker 1: people might say exotic pests or a non indigenous species,

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Speaker 1: alien species, stuff like that, but invasive species is kind

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Speaker 1: of I think that's the go to these days. Sure,

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Speaker 1: that's the one you you here starting in the nineties. Actually,

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Speaker 1: that's It's funny, like all of the eco stuff that

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Speaker 1: we know about, from recycling to invasive species, that all

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Speaker 1: was like born in the nineties, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, Uh, I think he don't think he invented

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Speaker 1: that name, but he went h I think he gave it,

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Speaker 1: gave him, he gave it the stamp. What did he say, though,

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Speaker 1: I think he said nailed it. Yeah. He could have

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Speaker 1: been talking about any number of things or people right there,

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Speaker 1: but in that case he was talking specifically about Executive

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Speaker 1: Order one three one one two, where the term invasive

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Speaker 1: species was first defined by the United States government. And

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Speaker 1: the reason that they did this, the reason that they

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Speaker 1: were defining invasive species because around about that time, the

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Speaker 1: world was really waking up to the fact that if

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Speaker 1: you take a species of plant, animal, bacteria, pathogen, whatever,

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Speaker 1: and you put it into a place, a new ecosystem

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Speaker 1: where it has no predators, it's going to create havoc

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Speaker 1: for the the the the ecosystem as it was before. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of one of the keys here

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Speaker 1: is that, um, generally they will cause a lot of harm,

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Speaker 1: maybe to the environment, maybe to the economy, maybe two people,

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Speaker 1: maybe one, two or all three of those. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: another key aspect of the invasive species is that it's

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Speaker 1: pretty hard, if not impossible, sometimes to contain an eradicate. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think I get this impression from researching this Chuck

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Speaker 1: that like the second wave of waking up to invasive

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Speaker 1: species realizing like they're never going to go away. Now

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Speaker 1: they're done. It's done. Like the first wave, you don't

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Speaker 1: notice it's already happening, right, Yeah. By the time we

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Speaker 1: do notice, it's too late. And then now we're realizing like, okay,

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Speaker 1: well we can we can handle this. It might be tough,

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Speaker 1: and now I think we're finding now we like it. Well,

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Speaker 1: now you can handle it. You just can't eradicate them.

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Speaker 1: One of the big problems is is like if you

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Speaker 1: if you say, develop a poison that kills some you know,

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Speaker 1: non some invasive fish that was introduced, right, say carp um,

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Speaker 1: you're going to kill the other fish in the area too,

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Speaker 1: or some of the other sea life or something like that.

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Speaker 1: So there's just not really any way you can target

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Speaker 1: these things short of shooting each one of them. And

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Speaker 1: you're gonna shoot a plant. They'll think you're crazy, they'll

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Speaker 1: lock you up for that. So don't even try it.

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Speaker 1: And here's the deal is this. This is not a

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Speaker 1: new phenomenon. This nature has been doing this for years

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Speaker 1: on its own in various ways, whether it's uh leaping

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Speaker 1: over the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand or

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Speaker 1: over a a channel of water, like or over a

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Speaker 1: mountain range, it happens. But generally bodies of water and

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Speaker 1: mountain ranges and deserts and all these other geological features

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Speaker 1: helped to stop this stuff. It's really humans that are

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Speaker 1: doing most of this, uh, not necessarily on purpose, but

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Speaker 1: sometimes on purpose um as we will see. But sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's just like it's in the ballast water of a ship,

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Speaker 1: or it's in uh there's an insect in the wood

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Speaker 1: of uh, or it's in packing material, it's in the

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Speaker 1: wood of the what are those things called the crates

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Speaker 1: the pallets, Yeah, palettes, shipping pallet, and all of a

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Speaker 1: sudden it leaps out on the other side of the

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Speaker 1: world and you have an issue to the tune of

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Speaker 1: fifty thousand estimated non native species in the United States alone. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was looking that up. That's pretty That's one of

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Speaker 1: those things we always like give um, you know, evidence

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Speaker 1: or not evidence, um advice if you see something all

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Speaker 1: over the place, like double check it. You know, no,

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Speaker 1: I think it is a real number. Is from so

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Speaker 1: there's no telling is we're probably at fifty thousand and

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Speaker 1: like five hundred now. But it was from a guy

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Speaker 1: named Pim Intell who is a world famous ecologist. No,

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Speaker 1: pim Intell. He's from Cornell. I don't know if he's

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Speaker 1: still at Cornell. But the thing that this leaves out

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Speaker 1: though it's fifty thousand non native species, but that same

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Speaker 1: study from ninety nine found that um, about forty three

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Speaker 1: hundred of them could be considered invasive. Okay, that that's

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Speaker 1: what I was. One of the other ones are like

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Speaker 1: the honeybee, where we're like sweet sure or rice don't

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Speaker 1: don't freak a rice? Uh? And like I said, sometimes

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Speaker 1: in the water of a ship's hule. Sometimes uh in

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Speaker 1: this would and sometimes on purpose like we said, like

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Speaker 1: when the Burmese python found its way to Florida, Dude,

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Speaker 1: that was no accident. Where you have you looked up

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Speaker 1: Burmese python everglades recently? Dude? They get so big down there.

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Speaker 1: And did you see the one that had burst itself

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Speaker 1: to death eating an alligator? What? No, But I did

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Speaker 1: see the alligator and the python fighting on a golf course.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing. That is amazing. That makes me glad to

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Speaker 1: be alive to see something like that. You know. Well,

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Speaker 1: here's the deal. While we're on that um earlier, that well,

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Speaker 1: all right, more than two thousand of these pythons have

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Speaker 1: been removed. Two thousand have been removed since two thousand

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Speaker 1: two would it was just I guess recreational activity. But

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Speaker 1: starting in March of last year, Florida started sanctioning python

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Speaker 1: hunters and a thousand dudes applied. They accepted twenty five

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Speaker 1: So we'll pay you minimum wage, will literally pay you

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Speaker 1: eight bucks an hour or I think that was a

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Speaker 1: minimum wage at the time to hunt pythons. And they're

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Speaker 1: all like done right, and they started hunting pythons. They've

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Speaker 1: caught seven hundred and forty three since March of two

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Speaker 1: thousand seventeen, and uh earlier this year or I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: uh late last year in December, the dude Jason Leon,

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Speaker 1: did you see that one that he caught No. Seven

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Speaker 1: sevent ft long a hundred and thirty three pound Burmese pythons? Uh.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why these are a big deal just,

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Speaker 1: you know, aside from just sheer terror, uh, is there

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Speaker 1: eating furry creatures, A lot of them. I saw that

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Speaker 1: some populations down in the Everglades of types of deer, rabbits, um.

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Speaker 1: A lot of creatures that you know and love have

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Speaker 1: gone down by up to in some areas because of

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Speaker 1: the python University of Florida. And I won't say what

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Speaker 1: everyone wants me to say. Good for you, man, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's like, how how can you be you know, possibly

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Speaker 1: the national champs and and throw shade at anybody below you?

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Speaker 1: You know. So the obviously Florida and Gainesville did a

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Speaker 1: project they released this makes me so sad. They released

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Speaker 1: ninety five rabbits uh into the Everglades and they these

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Speaker 1: were all tracked. And it's not like when these rabbits

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Speaker 1: didn't turn up a year later and there we can't

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Speaker 1: find them. I guess snakes eate them. They know that

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Speaker 1: snakes ate them, So snakes did. A year later, seventy

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Speaker 1: seven percent these rabbits were eaten and dead from these pythons. Wow.

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Speaker 1: So it's a problem. That is a sad study. It is.

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Speaker 1: Can you imagine like opening that was crates and being like,

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Speaker 1: all right, free go you live your new life. It's

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Speaker 1: an adventure. Oh man, it's so sad. So that's just

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Speaker 1: one example of the most horrific uh. And that's not

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Speaker 1: one that's like costing two billion dollars in damage a year,

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Speaker 1: but that is an estimate from professor at Cornell. That's

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Speaker 1: the same one pimentel. Yeah, okay, um, that's the estimate

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Speaker 1: from him that it's costing the United States between a

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Speaker 1: hundred and two hundred billion dollars a year in damage

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Speaker 1: from all these invasive species problems. Yeah, that's a lot

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Speaker 1: of dough, it really is. And the Burmese python is

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Speaker 1: is a good example also of people just releasing like

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Speaker 1: a pet that you don't want anymore. That's probably how

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Speaker 1: they re establish That's absolutely how it was established. There's

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Speaker 1: other there's another there's a lizard called the tagu which

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Speaker 1: is a big problem in all of Florida apparently as well.

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Speaker 1: Um they're just a huge lizard that were originally pets

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Speaker 1: and we're released and now they've established a feral population

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Speaker 1: in Florida and they apparently will eat your cat. They've

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Speaker 1: been known to do that. They'll um storm your house,

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Speaker 1: they'll come into your house. It's just a bad jam right.

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Speaker 1: There's also the Neutria swamp rats, which were originally grown

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Speaker 1: for their fur in in the in Louisiana. So they

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Speaker 1: use rat for apparently in Louisiana or to keep warm

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Speaker 1: and um that when the rat for industry went under

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Speaker 1: in the thirties. I think they released these things into

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Speaker 1: the swamps. And then last most recently, feral hogs were

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Speaker 1: imported so that they could hunt them. And there's a

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Speaker 1: huge population that's wrecking their the ecosystems they've been introduced too.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of times humans are lunkheads when it

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Speaker 1: comes to shuffling animals into ecosystems where they're they're not native.

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Speaker 1: That snakes too big, Put it behind the house, right loose.

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Speaker 1: Then let a bunch of rabbits loose and see what happens.

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Speaker 1: We see who wins? Snake wins, snake wins. Should we

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Speaker 1: take a break? Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Well,

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Speaker 1: actually quickly, before we take a break, I talked about

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Speaker 1: how much it was costing the U. S. Department of Interior,

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Speaker 1: spending about a hundred million bucks or more a year

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Speaker 1: trying to fight this in various ways, all to very

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Speaker 1: little success. All right, So now with that stat we

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Speaker 1: will we will take a break. So, Chuck, we talked

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Speaker 1: about people releasing um animals purposefully, and you mentioned some

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Speaker 1: other ways, but one of the things that gets me

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Speaker 1: is ballast water, Like, how is this allowed to go

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Speaker 1: on where a ship will take on water to balance

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Speaker 1: out its cargo load because you know, different cargo is

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Speaker 1: going away different, It's going to be laid out differently,

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Speaker 1: so you need new ballasts every time to to balance

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Speaker 1: it out, which makes sense, But surely there can be

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Speaker 1: some other technology because you're you're like in Eastern Europe

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Speaker 1: picking up a bunch of water to balance your your

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Speaker 1: ship out, and that that cargo is bound for Detroit.

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Speaker 1: So you enter the Great Lakes and you're like, oh, well, waters, water,

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Speaker 1: I'll just release it here once I unload my cargo.

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Speaker 1: And whatever animals you picked up in Eastern Europe now

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Speaker 1: live in the Great Lakes. And this actually happened with

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Speaker 1: the zebra muscle which is a huge, huge problem in

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Speaker 1: the Great Lakes. Now, Yeah, the zebra muscle and the

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Speaker 1: quagga muscle, Yeah, which apparently are almost the same thing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And how they act there from Eastern Europe and they're small,

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Speaker 1: and that's exactly how they ended up in the Great Lakes,

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Speaker 1: like you said, and they boy talk about spreading are there,

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Speaker 1: Like how many are these? Like a trillion? A trillion

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Speaker 1: at least the reason why it is like a quagga

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Speaker 1: will live or quagga zebra muscle will live about five years,

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Speaker 1: and the female in that time will produce five million eggs.

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Speaker 1: There's ten trillion of them, A hundred that's so many muscles,

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand of those that of those eggs will

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Speaker 1: reach adulthood. And so the offspring of one single muscle

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Speaker 1: will produce about half a billion adult offspring. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: ten trillion is a pretty reasonable number. And they just

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Speaker 1: entered the Great Lakes in the I think the nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: so just within what forty years? God, can you believe

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Speaker 1: the eighties were like forty years ago were coming up

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Speaker 1: on it? Um? It doesn't seem that long ago to me,

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Speaker 1: but man, that's crazy. Well, and the problem with these

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Speaker 1: is you're like, wait, wait, I'm reminiscing stiff. All right,

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Speaker 1: I'm done. The problem with these is like, big deal.

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Speaker 1: That are these tiny little muscles, but they are blanketing

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the Great Lakes. Uh. And they're eating

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Speaker 1: plankton because they love to eat plankton, which makes the

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Speaker 1: water nice and clear. Everyone's like, look, how shimmery like

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Speaker 1: Michigan is. Have you seen pictures of like Michigan recently?

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Speaker 1: It looks like the Caribbean, really white sand, beautiful sea

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Speaker 1: through like turquoise water. That's good people, gorgeous. No, it

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Speaker 1: looks really amazing, But ultimately, no, it's not healthy because,

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Speaker 1: like you were saying, they eat all the plankton that's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be on top and on the bottom two

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Speaker 1: and the the sunlight can penetrate all the way to

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Speaker 1: the bottom, causing algae blooms, deadly algae blooms. I just

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Speaker 1: just happened to run across an article yesterday, Chuck, and

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Speaker 1: I understood why I was seeing what I was seeing.

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Speaker 1: But the article was about how the like Michigan has

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Speaker 1: become so clear that you can see shipwrecks on the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the lake from the air. If you're flying

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Speaker 1: over it, you can clearly see shipwrecks. And the reason

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Speaker 1: why is because the zebra muscles have doubled the clarity

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Speaker 1: of the water since the nineties. Well, and not only

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Speaker 1: is it just the plankton, but they're eating the plankton.

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Speaker 1: Is is causing salmon to go hungry whitefish. Um, So

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Speaker 1: if you you know, it's just it's wrecking the ecosystem

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Speaker 1: down there, right, Thank you, intern Europe. That's say yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: thank you ship captain who took on that water as ballast.

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Speaker 1: Another ballast story I ran across too, was, um, uh,

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Speaker 1: fire ants the worst thing in humanity? Right, that's pretty bad.

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Speaker 1: Fire Ants are native to South America, and they think

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Speaker 1: that they stowed away on dirt that was scooped up

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Speaker 1: as ship's ballast and released in New Orleans. Really yeah,

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Speaker 1: and like the thirties or forties, but that's where the

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Speaker 1: fire ants came from. They shouldn't be here. Didn't that

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Speaker 1: make them even worse? Hate those things? So, um, here's

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Speaker 1: another one. You wanna talk about the Asian carpet. Sure.

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Speaker 1: So in the nineteen seventies, and I think, like in Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: there were some u some farmers, fish farmers that is,

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Speaker 1: who said, uh, let's get some of these Asian carpon

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Speaker 1: here to filter the water. And they did. That sounded

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Speaker 1: identical what the researchers from the University of Florida sounded

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Speaker 1: like in my head, right, And they all sounded like

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Speaker 1: Bill Clinton, who was from Arkansas. Right. So, Asian carp

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Speaker 1: were introduced. I guess they did a pretty good job

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Speaker 1: of filtering the pond water, but then they started spreading

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Speaker 1: and that's the deal is is you know, like with

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Speaker 1: the the zebra muscle. You know, they get in these

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Speaker 1: waterways like in Chicago, these man made waterways that they

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Speaker 1: said basically like expressways where they get in the Mississippi

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Speaker 1: River and it just it's like all right here, here

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Speaker 1: we go rest of the country. Yeah. And so Asian

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Speaker 1: carp Uh, it's a it's sort of a catch all

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Speaker 1: name for a bunch of species of carp from Southeast Asia.

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Speaker 1: But here's their problem is they're very dense. They consume

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Speaker 1: about of their body weight each day in plankton. They

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Speaker 1: can be as big as a hundred pounds, which is

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Speaker 1: very large for a for a fish, if you haven't noticed.

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Speaker 1: And uh, they're all over the place now. They went

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Speaker 1: up the Illinois River. They are almost or maybe even

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Speaker 1: are invading the Great Lakes now. Is that they didn't

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Speaker 1: have enough problems. And there are another one. They lay

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Speaker 1: about a half a million eggs each time they spawn, right,

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Speaker 1: and they eat a lot of plankton. And there's this

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Speaker 1: guy um that they're a good example because they're they're

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Speaker 1: so thoroughly crowd out um the rest of the ecosystem,

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Speaker 1: for the rest of the animals, in the ecosystem that

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Speaker 1: it actually like kind of recks the whole ecosystem. They're

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Speaker 1: they're an example of like a UM grade three or

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Speaker 1: level three, I think you call it level level three

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Speaker 1: invasive species. Right, there's this dude. He was he is

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Speaker 1: a marine biologist. And I don't know if you could

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Speaker 1: tell or not, but I'm stalling while I look for

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Speaker 1: his name. Is it coming across everybody? Um? So I

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Speaker 1: cannot find the dude's name. Anyway, you don't have it either. Well,

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Speaker 1: he came up with Okay, doctor doctor Javago came up

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Speaker 1: with these basically four levels of of impact that an

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Speaker 1: invasive species can have on bio diversity in an ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: And the first level is basically like they're just a

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Speaker 1: new species. They're not doing anything. You could even make

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Speaker 1: a case that it's it's a good thing that they're

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Speaker 1: there now because they've improved or increased the bio diversity

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Speaker 1: of the habitat, right. So level one is they're just there,

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Speaker 1: nothing bad has happened yet. Level two is when they

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Speaker 1: start to have a an effect on the on the

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Speaker 1: ecosystem in some very specific way. And doctor Javago gives

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Speaker 1: this really great example of the eastern North American gray squirrel,

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Speaker 1: which was inexplicably introduced in eighteen seventy six to England

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Speaker 1: and since then it is basically out competed the native

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Speaker 1: red squirrel there um, But it's just the native red

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Speaker 1: squirrel that's been affected. The rest of the ecosystem is

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Speaker 1: basically the same as if the North American squirrel had

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Speaker 1: never showed up. It's just the red squirrel who are

385
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Speaker 1: trying to go around and tell everybody like, doesn't it suck?

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Speaker 1: The North American squirrels are here and it's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's fine with me, I don't care, And the red

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Speaker 1: squirrel just can't get any kind of ally on this.

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Speaker 1: That's leveled two. Shall I continue? Please? Level three is

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Speaker 1: where the species become so dominant, spreads so fast, so wide,

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Speaker 1: reproduces so quickly and so massively that they begin to

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Speaker 1: impact the entire ecosystem as a whole. Right, we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about that in a second. And then the fourth level

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Speaker 1: is where they have upset the ecosystem that they are

395
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Speaker 1: not native to, but have established themselves in so thoroughly

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Speaker 1: that it now impacts other ecosystems, either nearby or that

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Speaker 1: are somehow connected to that ecosystem. And then level five

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Speaker 1: is when you wake up covered in a thunderd squirrels, Right,

399
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Speaker 1: I'll just quietly staring at you. Can you imagine? No,

400
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Speaker 1: have you ever seen those black squirrels in Brooklyn? Yes,

401
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: I've seen them in like Toronto usually DC. I love

402
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Speaker 1: those things. Yeah, they're pretty cool guys too. They'll like, yeah,

403
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Speaker 1: they'll they'll like, they'll charge you. They don't take any

404
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,440
Speaker 1: guff No, but see you if you brought some to Georgia,

405
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Speaker 1: it could be bad for the squirrels here because it's

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Speaker 1: a non native species, even though it's in the same country. Yeah,

407
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Speaker 1: but man, we got so many squirrels in Atlanta. I

408
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Speaker 1: wouldn't mind seeing a few of those guys. And I

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Speaker 1: love all furry things. Well, you know how I feel

410
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Speaker 1: about squirrels. Well, that's why it's gonna haunt your dreams,

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Speaker 1: waking up being covered by a hundred squirrels. Yeah, it'd

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Speaker 1: be more. It would be worse if I had a

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Speaker 1: dream where a hundred squirrels covered my bird feeder. That's

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Speaker 1: worse to me. I'd rather them cover me, cover me

415
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Speaker 1: instead leave my bird feeder. Will They would be so

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Speaker 1: happy to chow down on you, though the little tails

417
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Speaker 1: would be all flitty. They would be so excited, they'd say,

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Speaker 1: this is a long time coming, Josh. They'd store some

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00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: of you for the winter and their haunches, but then

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00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 1: they'd forget except for about a third of me where

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Speaker 1: they put it exactly stupid squirrels. Uh So those are

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00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 1: the four levels. We're kidding about the fifth. And I

423
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: feel bad for Dr Chivago because what if that dude

424
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 1: listens and he's like, oh, they're gonna say my name, yeah,

425
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: doctor Chivago, or maybe he's gonna start going by that maybe,

426
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: So we just changed that dude life. Alright. So, uh

427
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about how some of these

428
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: can affect things like eating plankton um. What are some

429
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:51,640
Speaker 1: of the other uh deleterious effects deletrious So there's well,

430
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: I mean you can basically categorize the effects that these

431
00:27:54,600 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: things have in two categories. There's direct and indirect ones. Right,

432
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: So direct would be like, if you like, let's say

433
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:09,640
Speaker 1: those Asian carp eat um, the eggs of the other

434
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: fish that's competing with that would be a direct impact

435
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:17,440
Speaker 1: that would make the other fish very unhappy, right, um.

436
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: They could also be a bug that carries a disease

437
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:26,680
Speaker 1: that kills trees like UM. I can't remember what bug

438
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: carries like Dutch elm disease, but there's there's bugs that

439
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: carry diseases that kill treats. That's directly impacting the trees

440
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: in the ecosystem. Then there's like indirect ones too, right,

441
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: So like let's say you have like a grass that

442
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: grows really well and its new habitat and non native

443
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: grass so much so that it outcompetes the other grasses. Well,

444
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: this new grass is really good at growing in this ecosystem,

445
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 1: but it's terrible as far as like nutrient density is concerned,

446
00:28:57,160 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: and it's choked. The rest of the grass is out,

447
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,560
Speaker 1: which means that the sweet little deer and the rabbits

448
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: that are about to be eaten by snakes don't have

449
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 1: those grasses to eat anymore, and they can't eat the

450
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: new grass. That's an indirect impact. So suddenly the populations

451
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: of these higher animals are going to thin out, either

452
00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: because they're gonna die off, they don't reproduces fast, or

453
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: they just move UM. So that's an indirect impact of

454
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: of an ecosystem. Or like that cocoon grass, huh, which

455
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: is the one here in the southeast. It's the Asian plant.

456
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: Like that one does the one thing you're talking about,

457
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: no food value for the wildlife. But it also burns

458
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: really hot and fast, more so than native grasses. So

459
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: it's like it has this dormant danger of being a

460
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: wildfire hazard. Right. Yeah, it's just's so another one called

461
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: cheatwheat has the same thing, and it's it's altered the

462
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: wildfire cycle. I think in the Southwest where it's growing

463
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: from like um, fifty to seventy years to something like

464
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: three to five five years now, they have like massive wildfires.

465
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: Is because it burns so fast and it's so dense.

466
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: It's just such a great fuel that. Um. Yeah, there's

467
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: a there's another way that they can indirectly affect an

468
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: ecosystem too. Um. A lot of plants that are non

469
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: native come in and alter the composition of the soil.

470
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:22,959
Speaker 1: They either change the amount of nutrients they are available,

471
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: they change the pH they just alter the soil chemistry.

472
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: And I mean like the soil that's like the building

473
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: block of an ecosystem. You start altering that, everything from

474
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 1: the soil up is affected and impacted in some way

475
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: or another. Well, and then that soil can then be

476
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: transported to another ecosystem you know, right, yeah, which stuff spreads. Yeah,

477
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,680
Speaker 1: that's actually one of the tips for something you can

478
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: do is not move soil very long far distances that

479
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: can cut down an invasive species transferred to All right, well,

480
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: let's take another break and then we will talk a

481
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: little bit about the two ways to try I manage this, yes,

482
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: and what you can do and the story of kad Zoo,

483
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: which is probably not quite what you think. Oh all right,

484
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: So as far as management UM, there are a couple

485
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: of main ways that we're trying to control invasive species.

486
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: Proactive management and reactive proactive. If you go to California

487
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 1: and you have to stop at the California border and

488
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: they say do you have any fruits or vegetables from

489
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: outside the state, that would be an example of proactive management.

490
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: UM is trying to keep it from happening to begin

491
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: with by not allowing stuff and that shouldn't be in Yeah,

492
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: I guess apparently. In this how Stuff Works article, the

493
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: author talks about how they quarantine firewood sail up in

494
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: Connecticut Emerald ash boards from making their way through the

495
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: state um or Guam. Guam has this huge brown tree

496
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: snake problem. We must have talked about this in the

497
00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: in the Beagle Brigade, but they've like basically killed off

498
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: the population of every other animal on the island. It's

499
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: a little bit of an exaggeration, but it's not too

500
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: far off. They've really had a huge impact on it.

501
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: And they they they trained dogs to to sniff them off.

502
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: The case from any cargo plane or ship that leaves

503
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: Guam has to be inspected by these things, by these

504
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: dogs to find the snakes, because they are taking it

505
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: that seriously because they've had such a terrible impact on Guam.

506
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: Proactive management another thing that they do, aside from like

507
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 1: border inspections and stuff like that, is basically just trying

508
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: to destroy it. And I guess in that first phase

509
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: doctor Javago's first phase. By the way, doctor Javago's name is,

510
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: I found it. Are you ready for this? I think

511
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: we should get a drum roll. Jerry, Doctor Alexander Mean

512
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: M E. I N E. S Z Marine biologists. But

513
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: he says, you can call me al or just call

514
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 1: me doctor Z like Paul Simon. Yeah sure, um, alright,

515
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: So Yeah, eradicating them in the early stages. Uh. And

516
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: this has happened before in California specifically they beat down

517
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: an invasive weed brought in from the tropics, so it

518
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: can work. But I get the feeling that in researching

519
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: this stuff, like once you're passed that for stage, you

520
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: maybe s o L Well, yeah, I have that same

521
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: cross your fingers. That is not one that will wreck

522
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: the ecosystem. So that's proactive. There's also reactive management to write.

523
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: And there's the age old well, just get your hands

524
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: on whatever it's natural predator is and then introduce that

525
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: into the ecosystem or that. That's like from that classic

526
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode, you remember that where Bart has a tree

527
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: lizard that eats birds. So they release some tree snakes

528
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: and then they release some geility the tree snakes, and

529
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: they say that a cold snap will cause all the

530
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: grills to freeze to death, so that will be that.

531
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 1: That's like, that's basically what they're what they're doing. Like,

532
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: there's this this um bug called brown marmordd stink bugs,

533
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: which are actually they they're stink bugs and they'll swarm

534
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: in your house, so they're a pest. But they're also

535
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: really bad for fruit crops and vegetable crops. Um. And

536
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 1: they don't have a natural predator here. Over in Asia

537
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: where they're from, Um, they are predated by a parasitic wasp.

538
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,479
Speaker 1: So they're thinking of bringing parasitic wasps over and it's like, oh, yeah, sure,

539
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: nothing could go wrong if you bring parasitic wasps into

540
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: an ecosystem. Man, those stink bugs, they we'll scare the

541
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: Bejesus side of you in the middle of the night, Yeah,

542
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 1: because they'll swarm well, I mean I've I've never seen

543
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: more than one at a time, but I'm just talking

544
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: about waking up because one of them is crawling over

545
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: your cheek. Well, supposedly, the brown marmorated stink bugs are

546
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: different from the Southern stink bugs that were used to

547
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: yeah and just warm. Yeah, I can't tell the difference.

548
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: I've never smelled the stink either. I haven't either. I

549
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: saw somebody say that they smell like cilantro. I'm like,

550
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:49,720
Speaker 1: that's fine, that's great. Put some of them on your tacos.

551
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 1: It's weird. They're all over the place. So I see

552
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 1: him in my bathroom, especially in the winter. Yeah, because

553
00:35:56,040 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: they come inside to stay warm. Yeah, but supposedly they

554
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 1: swarm the brown marmaradd one swarm, so they come inside

555
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:05,800
Speaker 1: your house, hang out and then just cover your face

556
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: and you fall down the stairs and then the squirrels

557
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 1: get you. Yeah, that's invasive species in a nutshell? What

558
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: else we got here? You want to talk about a

559
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 1: couple of more of these? Yeah, I want to talk

560
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: about my favorite of all time. Are you ready for this? Yes,

561
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 1: The Startling, The European Starling. Yeah. And you know what,

562
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: this is a great time to shout out one of

563
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 1: our new brother podcasts here on the network, Omnibus with

564
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:39,799
Speaker 1: Ken Jennings of Jeopardies fame and John Roderick of the

565
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: indie band Long Winters. Right, they have a new show

566
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 1: called Omnibus that is about sort of obscure history and uh,

567
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 1: they did an entire episode on The European Starling. Oh

568
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 1: they did. Yeah, well then this ties into that. It does,

569
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: so go listen to that show, subscribe and here that

570
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: is in a nutshell? Ohh okay. So back in eighteen

571
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: ninety there's this guy. He was a German immigrant to

572
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 1: the US. His name was Eugene Schifflin. Did I pronounce

573
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: it right? Eugene Schifflin was a Shakespeare enthusiast, right to

574
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: say the least, he had this idea that it would

575
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 1: be really cool. And remember this is eighteen ninety. They

576
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:26,919
Speaker 1: had no idea about invasive species at the very least

577
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think a bird would be. But he decided

578
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: that it would be really cool to release all of

579
00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: the birds mentioned by Shakespeare into North America and he

580
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: would start with the European starling. So in winter of

581
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:45,839
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety and then again like a month or so

582
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: later in he released a total of one hundred European

583
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: starlings in Central Park. Make note of that number one

584
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: were released in eighteen ninety. And now there are more

585
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: than two hundred million European Starlings in the United States.

586
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 1: And they are jerkbirds. Yeah. Yeah, they'll swarm like a

587
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: brown marmoradd stink bug. They'll swarm, but they swarm on

588
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: cattle to scare them away from their food so that

589
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: the starlings can eat their food. So these birds are

590
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: capable of scaring cattle off. Yeah, that's a big one.

591
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: They'll also crash your plane. They will, they will, they

592
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,440
Speaker 1: will swarm your airplane. Uh, it has happened before there

593
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: was one that took off from Logan. Uh there in

594
00:38:34,080 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: Boston the worst bath airport bathrooms in the world. And yeah, yeah,

595
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: it's pretty bad. I think I talked about the bathroom

596
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: stalls there. They're like three inch gaps in between the doors. Yes,

597
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: it's like literally you can just see each other pooping.

598
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: You could fit like a whole and he's through there. Yeah,

599
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: like you're gonna eat that bagel just man, slide it

600
00:38:54,200 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: through there. Well she she makes pretzels, delicious pretzels. Okay, um, yeah, yeah,

601
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: I wasn't saying she she made bagels, I got I

602
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,280
Speaker 1: was just trying to think of something fatter than a pretzel.

603
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: Could you fit a bagel through the stall? Is it

604
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: really that bad? You could fit a bagel flat man,

605
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: like a bigel half. No, it's not quite that bad,

606
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: but it's bad. Like I remember pooping it Logan and

607
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: making eye contact with the just stained very distressing. Yeah.

608
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 1: So anyway, birds crashed crashed a plane into Boston Harbor,

609
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: killed sixty two people startling. Yeah, that's not good. And

610
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: they are also very dense eaters apparently right like uh

611
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: like the carpet. Yes, I believe so they're definitely a

612
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: huge problem from what I understand, But they were the

613
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 1: idea that they were released in appreciation of Shakespeare I

614
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,520
Speaker 1: just find fascinating. Thank you, Eugene Schifflin. Now they're a

615
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 1: major problem. Um. There's one other one we got a

616
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 1: shout out to, Chuck is the cane toad, oh yeah,

617
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:00,919
Speaker 1: which is another um invasive species that was introduced using

618
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: the Simpsons technique because there were some cane beetles that

619
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: were harming Australia's sugar crop back in the nineteen thirties,

620
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: and so they got the idea to import some cane toads,

621
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: uh to eat these beetles, and the cane toads, from

622
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 1: what I understand, worked pretty well, but then their population

623
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,160
Speaker 1: boom from I think a hundred and seven initial ones

624
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: to again two hundred million just in in less than

625
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: a hundred years. Yeah, there's that great classic documentary on

626
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: the cane toad. And we talked about them before in

627
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 1: an episode, didn't we. Yeah. One of the ways Australia

628
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: is delightfully weird. M Yeah, we'll see you guys this fall.

629
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: That's right, your spring. Oh yeah, that's true. They're all

630
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: confused where are you right although it's their summer, well, no,

631
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: it's their September will be their spring. But oh right now, yeah,

632
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: it's the deadest summer for them. Man, wait for you

633
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: can wait to meet those people in person. So I

634
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be cool. Man. I'm gonna get me

635
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 1: a hat that has alligator teeth around the brim is

636
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 1: local custom. So Chuck, let's talk kuds. Do you want to? Yeah,

637
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:20,240
Speaker 1: we'll finish up with kudzoo. Um. This is a great

638
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: story called The True Story of kad Zoo Comma The

639
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: Vine that Never Truly Ate the South by Bill Finch

640
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,040
Speaker 1: and Uh, everyone has probably heard of kudzoo. It has

641
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: a very steeped mythology. Um. And it's one of those

642
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:39,879
Speaker 1: things where people um, especially outside of the South, uh,

643
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: talk about, oh yeah, you got your cut. You know,

644
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:44,839
Speaker 1: kud zoos is. It's just everywhere you look, there's kud

645
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 1: zoo in the South. And and if you go to

646
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: any southern town there will be a kud zoo cafe

647
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: or a kud zoo antique. There's a Kudzoo Antiques right here, indicator.

648
00:41:57,239 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: It's just one of those things. The South took it

649
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: and ran with it um as far as just like

650
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: a marketing thing. But here's the deal. Most people know.

651
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: It was introduced at the eighteen seventy six World's Fair

652
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Was a vine from Asia and

653
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:17,680
Speaker 1: the story goes that it just took over the South,

654
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: but that's not quite right. Um. In nive that was

655
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: dust storms that damaged the prairies, and Congress said, you

656
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: know what, erosion is a big problem, so let's use

657
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: cud Zoo. And they brought in seventy million seedlings to

658
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 1: grow in nurseries as soil conservation. Right remember our episode

659
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: on desertification. I think we talked about that. Yeah, so

660
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: they like, we're planting it on purpose. They were paying

661
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 1: people as much as eight dollars an acre, which was

662
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: pretty good money back then the nineteen to plant cud zoo. Uh,

663
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: flash forward a little bit. There was a radio host

664
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: for the Atlantic Constitution, UM, one of our newspapers, well

665
00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: announced a j C. Back then there were two NewSpace

666
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: person journal in the Constitution. His name was a columnist

667
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:07,360
Speaker 1: named Channing Cope that became an evangelist for this stuff.

668
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:12,280
Speaker 1: And basically, during these depression era radio broadcast would say,

669
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: you know, plant kut zoo. Uh so the South can

670
00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: live again. Yeah, you know, to restore the soil back

671
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:24,000
Speaker 1: to its its original nature. And so these farmers were

672
00:43:24,040 --> 00:43:27,439
Speaker 1: taken money from the government saying, Okay, sure I got

673
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: some land that I'm not using or that could use

674
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,399
Speaker 1: some fixing, so I'll play it this stuff for eight

675
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:35,319
Speaker 1: bucks an acre. And they did. But the problem is

676
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,439
Speaker 1: that no one could ever figure out how to make

677
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: money off of it. It wasn't a crop, it wasn't

678
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: good for grazing because apparently when cattle and horses grazed

679
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 1: on it, it died um and no one really wanted

680
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:49,879
Speaker 1: to buy it from a nursery, so there's no way

681
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: to make money off of it. So when the soil

682
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: conservation payment program ended, everybody just kind of tilled it

683
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: into the soil and cut Zu went the way of

684
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: the dying store, or it would have had it not

685
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: been for the railroad industry and the highway construction industry. Yeah.

686
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,120
Speaker 1: So the original goal was to plan about eight million

687
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: acres of the stuff around the South, but by that

688
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:19,759
Speaker 1: was just about a million acres planted. But because of

689
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:24,240
Speaker 1: the fact that cattle don't graze by the highway generally

690
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: or on the railroad. That's where it really took hold

691
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 1: uh and did envelop things like roadside signs and full

692
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: trees and if you were and this is how it

693
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: got their reputation, because people would be on the train

694
00:44:39,680 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: or they'd be driving down the highway and they would

695
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 1: that's where it was the worst, and they would see

696
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 1: it and it got this reputation as this monster vine

697
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: that was eating the South. Yeah, because it really is

698
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: disconcerting to see kut zoo growing up like a fifty

699
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: ft tree and totally covering it like it's consuming it.

700
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: It's it's very much. It evoked that same feeling like

701
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:05,600
Speaker 1: seeing a snake eat like a whole whole rabbit. Right, Yeah,

702
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: it's it's it evokes the same feeling. And Um, the

703
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: thing is is most Southerners from say like the fifties

704
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: on when this was when this really started to take

705
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: root on these roadsides, their connection to the land was

706
00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:22,799
Speaker 1: no longer in the four the farms or the force.

707
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: It was in the cities, and they traveled mostly in

708
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,359
Speaker 1: their car or on trains, which is where kad zoo

709
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: was most visible. Remember, So there was this idea and

710
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,560
Speaker 1: it was a pretty understandable idea that kad Zoo had

711
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 1: taken over South. There was in the process of taking

712
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,240
Speaker 1: over the South, and the whole thing was helped along,

713
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: apparently by a garden club newsletter. Yeah, so the idea

714
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: is that there were And this is a stat that

715
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:49,799
Speaker 1: you can an incorrect stat that you can still get

716
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: that says, you know, up to nine million acres of

717
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: the of the southern United States is covered in kad zoo.

718
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: It all comes from these two books. A craft book

719
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 1: and a Culinary and Healing Guide. Are these two books

720
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: that are most frequently quoted as to that number. The U. S.

721
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: Forest Service says, actually, it's about two and twenty seven

722
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 1: thousand acres of forest land, about the size of a

723
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: small county in Georgia. Nowhere near what they're saying. It is.

724
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,400
Speaker 1: Uh And while it's still when you drive along some

725
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: of these southern highways, it looks like it's eating a

726
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: water tower and it and it is um. Once you

727
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 1: step ten feet into the forest, it stops. Yeah, because

728
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: it's terror grows terribly in shade um. And Yeah, if

729
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: you have a Kudzye problem, just get some horses or

730
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: cows and there goes your kudzee problem. It's not a

731
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: very hardy plant. It's just it has no no real

732
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: predators or anything to hold it back on those roadsides

733
00:46:51,960 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: or on those railroad embankments, which is why it grows

734
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: so wild there. So those um, those that culinary book

735
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: and the um Craft book they have to do with

736
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: kud zoos, That seriously are the most widely cited sources

737
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 1: by academic journals, by by scientists, by the government. Everybody

738
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: cites these these sources um And apparently they just made

739
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: it up, but they said that it was that it

740
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: grows at a rate of a hundred and fifty thousand

741
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 1: acres a year, and that same Forest Service report estimated

742
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: it really grows it about acres a year, which is

743
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 1: entirely manageable. Manageable. So this the but what's basically the

744
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: poster child for invasive species in the United States, kud

745
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: zoo is actually not really much of a problem at all.

746
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 1: So everybody, we we don't all drink cocola. Well that's

747
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: actually not true. Yeah we all drink it. Actually I

748
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: don't really drink it that much. But yeah, there is

749
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 1: not a kud zoo problem. Um, stop it and stop

750
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:56,360
Speaker 1: saying Hotlanta. Yeah, nobody here says that. No, I remember

751
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 1: that that again. In the nineties, there is a little

752
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 1: push for that risk yicling invasive species in Hot Lanta.

753
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 1: One of them didn't make it. That's right. Do you

754
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: anything else? No? I thought this is a good one.

755
00:48:08,719 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: I thought so too. If you want to know more

756
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 1: about invasive species, there's tons of them that we didn't

757
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: even cover. Um, So go look him up, educate yourself,

758
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: and then go save the planet and tell him Josh

759
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 1: and Chuck sent you. Uh And in the meantime, it's

760
00:48:23,440 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this very

761
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: sweet orchids story a big hello to Josh, Chuck and Jerry.

762
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: I'm writing in to say how much I love your

763
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: orchids episode and also share a bitter, sweet and pretty

764
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,840
Speaker 1: amazing thing that happened to my family. My grandmother was

765
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,319
Speaker 1: an avid gardener who had a knack for coaxing her

766
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:44,839
Speaker 1: collection of orchids into bloom again and again. I think

767
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 1: some of her orchids might have been a decade or

768
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: more old when she was diagnosed with cancer. She passed

769
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 1: along her orchids to my stepmother, who has continued the tradition.

770
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: One particularly beautiful orchid had refused to bloom after the move,

771
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,959
Speaker 1: until one day an August when it did bloom again.

772
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: When my stepmother posted the picture to Facebook that morning,

773
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: she didn't know that my grandmother was in the final

774
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:11,959
Speaker 1: process of passing away. Someone used their smartphone to show

775
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: the photo to my grandmother at hospice, and it was

776
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: one of the very last things she saw. Must have

777
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: brought her a lot of joy to know that her

778
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: orchids in fact lived on. She attached to photo, very

779
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: beautiful orchid, she said, or kids will always have a

780
00:49:25,000 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: special place in my heart. We're sensing my grandmother's last

781
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 1: day with us and each of those plants. It's a

782
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: treasured family heirloom. I hope I'll be the next to

783
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: inherit the matri ne Neal, Matrilineal, Matrilineal. I think, so yeah,

784
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: that's right. I hope I'll be the next to inherit

785
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: the Matrilineal Green thumb all the best, Maggie. That is

786
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,759
Speaker 1: a great, great orchid story. Yep, great listener mail. That's

787
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: how you get on listener mail, everybody. Yep, you just

788
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: warm our hearts, okay, or insult this. Yeah, but we

789
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 1: don't actually read those, We just make grumbly reference. That's right.

790
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,120
Speaker 1: If you want us to make a grumbly reference to

791
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 1: something you wrote, well, then write us an insulting email.

792
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: If you wanted to get read, then warm our hearts.

793
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s y s K

794
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 1: podcast uh, and you can also hit up the official

795
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,600
Speaker 1: Facebook page at Stuff you Should Know and what Else

796
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:24,960
Speaker 1: Chuck Emails. You can send us all an email, including Jerry, Noel,

797
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 1: Matt Everybody to stuff podcast at how Stuff Works dot

798
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 1: com and has always joined us at at Home on

799
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com. Stuff you

800
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For

801
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:41,560
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

802
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:44,680
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