Speaker 1: Do Do Do. We'll have a book coming out and
Speaker 1: we would love it if you bought it, That's right,
Speaker 1: that'd be great. It's called Stuff you Should Know colon
Speaker 1: and that's it, just colon, Okay. Uh, well, I think
Speaker 1: there's a little bit more to it, and I'll be
Speaker 1: the one to say it. Then. It's called an Incomplete
Speaker 1: Compendium of mostly interesting Things and the title is just
Speaker 1: a flat outlie because it's all interesting, Chuck, it is,
Speaker 1: and it's a really fun book. We're really proud of it.
Speaker 1: It's got great illustrations from our new friend Carlie Minardo. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was co written with us with a great guy
Speaker 1: named Nils Parker, and the team all came together to
Speaker 1: produce something that we're just super super proud of. That's right.
Speaker 1: So you can order it everywhere you buy books. Pre
Speaker 1: order now and we appreciate you. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works, Hey,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Charles
Speaker 1: and Jerry's over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know,
Speaker 1: The Dripping Wet edition in these wet Lands. What I
Speaker 1: knew that you would not get that is that a
Speaker 1: Seeger reference. Oh gosh, why do you have to say
Speaker 1: seeker when you always mean Springsteen? Was that Springsteen? It's
Speaker 1: bad lands? Okay, baby, These wetlands are born to run. Sure,
Speaker 1: run water. I don't. I don't like myself anymore. Run water.
Speaker 1: That was a great save, Chuck. So we're talking wetlands.
Speaker 1: I have to say, um, we have to give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Tom Peterman, the foul Mouth wetland biologist
Speaker 1: who keeps asking us to do this episode. How was
Speaker 1: that where this came from? It was Tom peterman suggestion,
Speaker 1: although I had already wanted to do it anyway. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we love our scienist man. This one was
Speaker 1: I was just smiling from ear to ear. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine watching a Blacksmith Ford something in a wetland, in
Speaker 1: a flooded woodland? Just Nirvana right there? Really, So we're
Speaker 1: talking wetlands everybody, And um Dave Russ helped us put
Speaker 1: this one together. And Dave likes to pop in jokes
Speaker 1: every once in a while, and he said does He said, um,
Speaker 1: what makes a wetland wet water? And then he says,
Speaker 1: in all seriousness, that's basically that the water has to
Speaker 1: be um largely present at least some parts of the
Speaker 1: year in the soil in such amounts that you would
Speaker 1: call something wet land. I mean, think of the name
Speaker 1: wet land. It's about his earthy a term as science gets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he um front loaded this with a few stats,
Speaker 1: and I won't go through all of them, but I'll
Speaker 1: go through a few that, uh kind of are instructive
Speaker 1: as to why I love wetland so much. Uh. Years. One,
Speaker 1: Although wetlands make up only five percent of the land
Speaker 1: surface of the the United States, they are home to thirty
Speaker 1: of our plant species. Yeah, not bad. One third of
Speaker 1: America's threatened or endangered species species live only in wetlands.
Speaker 1: I would propose that that's slightly misleading. I think they're
Speaker 1: endangered because they live in wetlands, and wetlands are endangered,
Speaker 1: as we'll see. Hmmmm, think about it, Chuck, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I took it more as like they're all hiding out
Speaker 1: in the wetlands because it's a terrible place to hide out. No,
Speaker 1: it's not bad because it's got thirty one of the
Speaker 1: plant species. I mean, it's a pretty rich, bio diverse
Speaker 1: area to live in. If you're an endangered species for sure.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we'll have to um hear from Thomas
Speaker 1: Peterman the foul Mouth Wildlife for wetland biologists who can
Speaker 1: let us not What does he say, like do f
Speaker 1: and wet lands already? Yes, that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like this guy. I think that's an exact quote. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's my kind of dude. Uh So another stat that
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty interesting that well, well just kind
Speaker 1: of needs to form the basis or the undercurrent of
Speaker 1: this whole episode, is that, so we keep talking about
Speaker 1: the U S. There's wetlands found all over the world,
Speaker 1: of different types of varieties and different climates and different
Speaker 1: um different continents, every continent except the Antarctica. But in
Speaker 1: the United States in particular, we have a long history
Speaker 1: of filling in and draining wetlands for other purposes, so
Speaker 1: much so that, um, let's see, I believe I don't
Speaker 1: know how much we've lost, but in the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the Lower forty eight States were covered with two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty million acres of wetlands, which is eleven percent
Speaker 1: of the total surface area of the Lower forty eight States.
Speaker 1: And I think starting in the fifties, we were doing
Speaker 1: away with wetlands at a rate of about sixty thousand
Speaker 1: of those acres per year. Yeah, and it's gotten better
Speaker 1: since then. But yeah, in the boy up until the
Speaker 1: Clean Water Act, it was just like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: it looks great. They're a resort with like three golf
Speaker 1: courses and a bunch of tennis. That's been such a
Speaker 1: driving force, Like it's it's like looking at land or
Speaker 1: ecosystems are being like our humans making money off of it. No, well,
Speaker 1: then drain it and repurpose it. Set it on fire
Speaker 1: and repurpose it. Stop it from burning, and repurpose it. Like,
Speaker 1: if we can't make money off of it, it can't
Speaker 1: possibly be useful. And luckily, since the environmental movement really
Speaker 1: started in the seventies, we've realized that that's not necessarily true.
Speaker 1: That even if you are just a heartless dummy, there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of benefits that humanity has given from
Speaker 1: things like wetlands that seem problematic or nonproductive. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one of danger fields big lines in Caddyshack,
Speaker 1: as al servit was golf courses and cemeteries the two
Speaker 1: biggest waste of prime real estate. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about wetlands. He said that they are
Speaker 1: only some of them are only wet for short periods,
Speaker 1: sometimes when there's snow, melts or just rain. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: are called ephemeral wetlands, which is a cool term. It's
Speaker 1: a great term. Some are wet all the time. And
Speaker 1: the key parts of being a wet land or the
Speaker 1: key characteristic is that it's either permanently or periodically flooded
Speaker 1: or wet, and that the soil is got it's called
Speaker 1: hydric soil and is dominated by anaerobic processes, meaning it
Speaker 1: loves water and the plants there love water. But which
Speaker 1: is weird because you used another word that shouldn't really
Speaker 1: jibe with plants, and that's called anaerobic, which means there's
Speaker 1: very little to no oxygen present um. And we'll explain
Speaker 1: why later. But the fact that there are plants means
Speaker 1: that those plants have adapted to the wetlands. Yes, and
Speaker 1: its hydrophytic, and we'll talk about those plants later. It's
Speaker 1: it's another Another thing I love about wetlands is just
Speaker 1: that it really underscores the remarkable evolution that something will
Speaker 1: go through to survive, very cool, very very awesome. Yep
Speaker 1: so Um, there's also so but you hit upon something
Speaker 1: like they're not necessarily wet year round, right, So there's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different types of wetlands or wetland
Speaker 1: environments that fill those that check those boxes. UM. One
Speaker 1: of the ones that most people think of when they
Speaker 1: think of wetlands or coastal wetlands, like marshes and a
Speaker 1: marsh is basically like this area between inland and the ocean.
Speaker 1: It's like a transition zone, a buffer zone. And because
Speaker 1: it's because of its proximity to the ocean, UM, it's
Speaker 1: usually salty or at least brackets, which is a mixture
Speaker 1: of salt water and fresh water. And one of the
Speaker 1: one of the ones that really come to mind if
Speaker 1: you're thinking coastal wetlands, you're thinking marsh lands, and you're
Speaker 1: thinking tidal marsh lands, probably especially if you're a Pat
Speaker 1: Conroy fan. What was the name of her character that
Speaker 1: he repeats over and over in a whisper. I think
Speaker 1: I remember Umber Chuck. It was Bobby Jim, Bobby Jim.
Speaker 1: This is one of those scream at the uh at
Speaker 1: the pod player moments. Was it in. Was it in
Speaker 1: the Prince of Tides? Yeah, Lowenstein? Was that it? You're
Speaker 1: sure it wasn't Bobby Jim. I think it was Lowenstein.
Speaker 1: Was it his oh his shrinks his shrink girlfriend's name, yeah,
Speaker 1: Babs Okay, yeah, I don't remember. I think it was Lownstein. Alright,
Speaker 1: So anyway, title Marsha's yes, Prince of Tides. They obviously
Speaker 1: you're it's because they're title. They're gonna come in and
Speaker 1: out with the high and low tide. And like you said,
Speaker 1: they're generally saltwater, and the salt marshals are are very
Speaker 1: nutrient rich, and they do have a lot of diversity,
Speaker 1: but obviously only the kind of things that can tolerate
Speaker 1: the salt um as far as plants and animals go,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty short list really, because salt is
Speaker 1: not conducive to life. Instead, there are some plants that
Speaker 1: have figured out how to deal with salt um. But
Speaker 1: most of the time when you're king at salt marshes,
Speaker 1: you're looking you're the plant life is is basically grasses
Speaker 1: of some sort. Um. There's also freshwater tidal marshes, which
Speaker 1: um they are either connected to the saltwater marsh, but
Speaker 1: they're far enough inland that the saltwater doesn't make its
Speaker 1: way in there. Um, so it's a freshwater marsh, but
Speaker 1: it's still is affected by the tides. And then I
Speaker 1: had no idea about this, um, And I used to
Speaker 1: vacation on Lake Erie. But apparently the Great Lakes are
Speaker 1: so big that they have tides themselves. You didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I had no idea. I even knew that. And I'm
Speaker 1: a dumb dumb when it comes to the Great Lakes. Well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think you got me beat big time in this case,
Speaker 1: because I could know a million other things about the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes. And if you knew that one thing and
Speaker 1: I didn't, you have me beat. Yeah, I knew that.
Speaker 1: And so that means that they do have those tidal
Speaker 1: marshes the Florida Everglades or another good example, um, and boy, Florida.
Speaker 1: Just there's a lot of different types of wetlands in Florida. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of coastline, a lot of coastline, and
Speaker 1: a lot of interior. Um wetness. Yeah, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of wetlands around our place in Florida, for sure.
Speaker 1: And there's mangroves and all sorts of stuff that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about. Well, we're at mangroves. I love those things.
Speaker 1: So mangroves I think they at least deserve a short
Speaker 1: stuff because they're one of the most amazing plants of
Speaker 1: all time. But they're they're they're a type of coastal
Speaker 1: um coastal wetland themselves, a mangrove forest, or if you've
Speaker 1: never seen a mangrove forest, there are these kind of um.
Speaker 1: They have a growth habit for their the shrubbery on
Speaker 1: top of like the hair that umpa lumpa has in
Speaker 1: the original, the original Willy Wonka, the good one. And
Speaker 1: they're the trunks split out into these cool like long
Speaker 1: roots and legs that stick up out of the water
Speaker 1: and they form this huge tangle, this riot of like
Speaker 1: sh a woody shrub um, and they do all sorts
Speaker 1: of amazing things to help the aquatic life and us
Speaker 1: humans as well up on land just by being present. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're really cool looking. Uh. And this is another good one,
Speaker 1: sort of like the oregami that if you're able and
Speaker 1: you're sitting still to look up a lot of these
Speaker 1: things as you go, because these mangrove for us, it
Speaker 1: looks like it looks like a shrub. That's like, I
Speaker 1: really want to be a shrub, but i don't want
Speaker 1: to get wet, so I'm just gonna dip my legs
Speaker 1: in a little bit. Yeah, that's really great. It's just
Speaker 1: very cool looking. And and again just the adaptability that
Speaker 1: these mangroves really want to live where they live even
Speaker 1: though it's not very suited for them, and they become
Speaker 1: suited for it. Right, if you've been sleeping on mangroves,
Speaker 1: Welcome to reality. Well it's a T shirt if I
Speaker 1: ever heard one. Yeah, that's all. I could use a
Speaker 1: little work, But there's there's the beginnings of one in there.
Speaker 1: You also got your inland wet lands. These are not
Speaker 1: coastal in this case. We're talking about swamps and marshes
Speaker 1: and bogs and fens at e n and marshes uh.
Speaker 1: A lot of these you'll find near rivers, near streams,
Speaker 1: uh lowland depressions, and they might periodically fill up depending
Speaker 1: on rain what's going on, or or different types of
Speaker 1: flooding that might happen. And they can be a few
Speaker 1: inches deep, they can be several feet deep. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: most of the non title. Inland marshes are ephemeral wetlands,
Speaker 1: so they're dry a lot of the year. Um they
Speaker 1: might fill up seasonally, they might fill up with the rains,
Speaker 1: they might fill up with the nearby river flooding. It's
Speaker 1: like my backyard, and they, oh, really is that right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't drain. Well, I've got a drainage problem. Okay,
Speaker 1: to you, it's a problem to nature. It's wonderful because
Speaker 1: we'd like things that drain really quickly and dry and
Speaker 1: then we can walk on them and the grass is fine.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of like benefits to things that
Speaker 1: take their time, like um uh, there's something called the
Speaker 1: old pool, which is a kind of non tidal marsh,
Speaker 1: an ephemeral wetland, and it's basically just like say a
Speaker 1: stretch of woods that had that's a little bit depressed there,
Speaker 1: so that when it rains or river floods, it fills
Speaker 1: with water. And because the underlying bedrock or clay is
Speaker 1: not very poorous, it takes a while for that water
Speaker 1: to go through. But that water is also not going
Speaker 1: further downstream, so it prevents flooding from being as bad
Speaker 1: as it could because a lot of the water collects
Speaker 1: and stays there, and it also slowly recharges the groundwater.
Speaker 1: And because it does get dry, it can't sustain fish,
Speaker 1: which makes it a really great nursery for things like
Speaker 1: newts and salamanders and frogs um things that that fish
Speaker 1: eat their eggs. But since there's no fish, this is
Speaker 1: like a really great place for them to to get
Speaker 1: a good foothole and a brand new life. Uh, you've
Speaker 1: also got your prairie pot holes. Uh, this is when
Speaker 1: you should definitely look up. These are usually in the
Speaker 1: upper midwest of the United States that codas Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and these are where glaciers, ancient glaciers left these big
Speaker 1: depressions in the landscape and they fill up sometimes during rain,
Speaker 1: during the spring, during snow melt. And they're not small
Speaker 1: like our our prairie pothole. And I got a vision
Speaker 1: in my head, but if you look it up online,
Speaker 1: they're beautiful and just they're very large though, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of interconnected, just these big round holes scattered through
Speaker 1: like a big open area full of water. And these
Speaker 1: are great for migrating birds because that could be a
Speaker 1: stopover that they might not have had had those potholes
Speaker 1: not been there, And when they're flying over the Dacota
Speaker 1: as they say, look, I see Van Nostran's house, our
Speaker 1: buddy van nostran Um. And then there's also we said
Speaker 1: that that wetlands occur in all different kinds of climates.
Speaker 1: They also occur in the desert. There's something called pla lakes,
Speaker 1: which are these depressions that apparently no one has any
Speaker 1: idea exactly how they formed. It could have been from
Speaker 1: a ocean, it could have been from an ancient sinkhole.
Speaker 1: But there are depressions that are deep enough that when
Speaker 1: the seasonal rains come, the water is held in there.
Speaker 1: And just like the prairie potholes, it's very useful for
Speaker 1: migratory birds to stop over. At um can really plays
Speaker 1: a huge role in this ecosystem where there's almost no water,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, there's water, and it's
Speaker 1: in this nice little lake. So let's all go gather
Speaker 1: there and have a social hour. But but but responsibly
Speaker 1: six ft apart. That's right, I think we should take
Speaker 1: a break and we will talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: inland swamps right after this. Alright, so inland swamps we
Speaker 1: promised to talk about that these are are, for my money,
Speaker 1: some of the coolest areas in the country, because I
Speaker 1: think I talked about it at some point. But I
Speaker 1: took a very special fund trip many many years ago
Speaker 1: to the Okefinokee Swamp and did one of those canoe
Speaker 1: trips where you have to rent. You know, there's no
Speaker 1: place to stop in the Okefinokee Swamp if you're like,
Speaker 1: I think I'll camp here, it's like in the water.
Speaker 1: So they had these camping pads built up. The essentially
Speaker 1: just decks um that are like six ft above the water,
Speaker 1: and you have to reserve those. They are not just
Speaker 1: wide open for anyone um because there's nothing else out there,
Speaker 1: so you have to reserve them for specific nights on
Speaker 1: these specific pathways or you know, paddleways. And me and
Speaker 1: a couple of buddies did it one year and we
Speaker 1: canoed from from deck to deck and uh, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: Like one of the coolest trips I've ever taken. That
Speaker 1: is very cool was ned Baity with you. No, but
Speaker 1: you do wake up surrounded by alligators. It's just a
Speaker 1: little creepy. Yes, alligators are very creepy. Like you wake
Speaker 1: up on that pad and and p off the dock
Speaker 1: and they're growling at you. Yeah, and you do not
Speaker 1: want to get too close because they can move faster
Speaker 1: than you think. Yeah, they can. It was It was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun though, but not for the faint
Speaker 1: of heart, because you know, you don't realize until you
Speaker 1: get out there a how bad the sun is gonna
Speaker 1: beat you up because there's no shade, and be how
Speaker 1: tough it is to paddle all day long without like,
Speaker 1: you know, let me get out and stretch my legs.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is no getting out. You just you
Speaker 1: just go and go and go, and by the time
Speaker 1: you finally reach that jankie deck, it is like, uh,
Speaker 1: might as well be the Plaza Hotel, you know. Nice.
Speaker 1: But what I'm talking about in the case of the
Speaker 1: Oki Finocchi, I thought it was a forest's or a
Speaker 1: bottom bottom land hardwood swamp, you think from reading this,
Speaker 1: But apparently it's called a non riverine swamp forest and
Speaker 1: that is a forested swamp that fills up from non
Speaker 1: river sources basically the rain or groundwater, right right, So
Speaker 1: the what would make a forested swamp like a bottom
Speaker 1: land hardwood swamp is a proximity to a river that
Speaker 1: floods its banks or that is just so so big
Speaker 1: it kind of spills over into some of the surrounding land,
Speaker 1: and that surrounding land is swamp. I want to look
Speaker 1: that up, though I'm not quite sure Dave's right. So well,
Speaker 1: it's okay. It's so it's either river fed or groundwater
Speaker 1: fed or precipitation fed. And if you're talking bottom land
Speaker 1: hardwood swamps, that's or a river fed swamp. There's usually
Speaker 1: also a shrub swamp, which is a transition or buffer
Speaker 1: zone between the forested swamp and you know, somebody's backyard,
Speaker 1: which is it's just dominated by shrubs, but it's all
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's all fresh water swamp. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I bet you anything that. Okay, Finocchi has several
Speaker 1: different types of these would be my guess, because they
Speaker 1: were full on lakes that we paddled through. Yeah, um
Speaker 1: so that would be my guess. And I also think
Speaker 1: if I had a country band, they would we would
Speaker 1: be the bottom land hardwood swamp rats. Oh that's a
Speaker 1: good one. That sounds like an all star band, you know.
Speaker 1: Um So, another kind of wetland that you're going to
Speaker 1: find all over the place, especially in Europe, which when
Speaker 1: I think of bogs and fens, I think of Europe,
Speaker 1: but apparently there's plenty of them in the United States too.
Speaker 1: But um, bogs and fens are kind of their own thing.
Speaker 1: Bogs in particular are very unique as far as wetlands go,
Speaker 1: because not only are they anaerobic, which by definition of
Speaker 1: wetland is anaerobic soil, they're like very little nutrient and
Speaker 1: very high acidity. I've I've heard like the kind of
Speaker 1: acid that is put out by the peat that's created
Speaker 1: in the bog has the same acidity roughly of vinegar.
Speaker 1: It's like, a yeah, it's really really acidic stuff, and
Speaker 1: yet some plants prefer it. Like you can grow cranberries
Speaker 1: and blueberries in a bog. You can preserve a body
Speaker 1: from the Iron Age forward and bog. Do we ever
Speaker 1: recover that the bog bodies? I feel like we did.
Speaker 1: Maybe it might have been one of our video things
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Maybe mummies, because I think, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: our mummy episode covered more than just Egyptian mummies and
Speaker 1: be covered like Inco mummies, and I'm sure we did.
Speaker 1: We saw some then when we went to uh on
Speaker 1: our our UK trip, We've got to visit some of
Speaker 1: those cats, like firsthand, like right there in that in
Speaker 1: that glass, right, like you know I have to do
Speaker 1: is smash it with a hammer and it's yours, yeah,
Speaker 1: or at least whatever you can grab like a bog
Speaker 1: ear right, it just crumbles and in your hand. But
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, okay, why why are
Speaker 1: the bogs so great for preservation? Part of it, from
Speaker 1: what I understand, is that acidity that the bodies are
Speaker 1: actually pickled. But another part is the the um aerobic
Speaker 1: life is so devoid there. There's just anaerobic bacteria and
Speaker 1: they don't decompose nearly well as aerobic bacteria, so the
Speaker 1: decomposition doesn't set in and the remains are pickled. So
Speaker 1: like you can preserve a body in a really great
Speaker 1: state for a very like toall End band, you could
Speaker 1: his whiskers are still intact on his face. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: that was the level of preservation, and he was sacrificed
Speaker 1: into a bog, which is a very specific kind of wetland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a fin like I said, it's f e n
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a bog, and that it is
Speaker 1: a peat pet wetland. But they're a little bit different
Speaker 1: than bogs. The water supply doesn't come primarily from rain,
Speaker 1: and it comes from the ground, So it's not it's
Speaker 1: gonna be less acidic because I don't think we mentioned mentioned.
Speaker 1: I know it's um partially because of the peat, but um,
Speaker 1: the acidity also comes from the fact that there's acid
Speaker 1: and rain that gets filling up, that fills up these bogs,
Speaker 1: but not the case in a fin now, because that
Speaker 1: groundwater is able to kind of dilute it a little bit.
Speaker 1: So they're much more New Trent rich than a ball
Speaker 1: get so they're gonna have much a much wider diverse
Speaker 1: range of plants and animal life. Yeah, and this I
Speaker 1: love that. This next section from day was called other
Speaker 1: fun types of wetlands. Yeah, mud flats, Yeah, you get
Speaker 1: your mud flat. It's another good country band. Um. My
Speaker 1: favorite are seeps. These are just gorgeous little pieces of nature.
Speaker 1: If you ask me, um, it's if you have a
Speaker 1: spring that comes up out of the ground. Uh, it
Speaker 1: spills over into the ground. So the surrounding ground is wetland,
Speaker 1: and it's called a seep. That's right. It's where gnomes
Speaker 1: like go and shower. Yeah, and it's not uh like
Speaker 1: you said, it's a spring, so it's not like a creek. No,
Speaker 1: it's actually coming up from the ground. You ever drink
Speaker 1: from a natural spring? I did when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and my mom fired the babysitter that like took a
Speaker 1: drink from a spring. Yeah. Who she was like, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? It was either spring or like a
Speaker 1: river in Ohio, and either way very different things. It's
Speaker 1: like a Kyaga river. Ever, then you're in bad. It
Speaker 1: was on fire while we were drinking. But I mean,
Speaker 1: we have creeks. If if you're listening, you've never been
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, Atlanta has creeks all over the place. Like
Speaker 1: all of the Intown neighborhoods just are riddled with creeks.
Speaker 1: They're just sort of out of view. Um. But like,
Speaker 1: we have a creek, you know, a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: ft from our house, which might have something to do
Speaker 1: with our drainage, who knows. And it's spring fed. No,
Speaker 1: it's just uh, you know, just a part of the
Speaker 1: Atlanta probably all comes from the Chattahoochee at some point.
Speaker 1: So chuck, if that creek behind your house started meandering
Speaker 1: in a different direction and left a body of water
Speaker 1: where it originally flowed, it would be an oxbow lake.
Speaker 1: But if you were in Australia and you were calling
Speaker 1: it it's proper Aboriginal name, you'd call it a billabong,
Speaker 1: which I had no idea. What does that have to
Speaker 1: do with surfing? Oh? I think they just probably co
Speaker 1: opted the name and it became more associated with surf
Speaker 1: and surf gear than then It's true. Meaning that doesn't
Speaker 1: seem right now, let's take it back, But that's what
Speaker 1: an oxbow lake is in Australia. Among the Aborigines, it
Speaker 1: is a billabong, which is great. That was some like,
Speaker 1: along with op was one of the prime uh T
Speaker 1: shirts to have when you were a kid in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you were cool. I had this amazing
Speaker 1: ope long sleeve blue shirt that they wore with my
Speaker 1: parachute pants were the best my British nights. Remember those
Speaker 1: long sleeve OP shirts. Yeah, they're good, gorgeous, so chuck.
Speaker 1: One of the things we've been talking about is um
Speaker 1: the kind of the characteristics that make a wetland a wetland.
Speaker 1: It's not just the fact that the soil table or
Speaker 1: the ground is either flooded or almost completely flooded up
Speaker 1: to the surface level UM with water. That's that's not
Speaker 1: the entirety of it. Like, different wetlands are characterized by
Speaker 1: by how that water gets to it. Like we said,
Speaker 1: you know, some kinds of swam so are fed by groundwater,
Speaker 1: others are fed by precipitation UM summer tidal. So there's
Speaker 1: a whole group of scientists out there that are called
Speaker 1: UM wetland hydrologists, and what they study is how that
Speaker 1: water gets into a wetland to create a wetland, what
Speaker 1: happens to it while it's there, and then where it goes,
Speaker 1: and how all these things kind of interact to form
Speaker 1: this very unique ecosystem. Yeah, and we talked early on
Speaker 1: about the kyd of the kind of soil. Hydric soil
Speaker 1: is saturated with water, and so if it's saturated with water,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna have nearly as much oxygen and usually
Speaker 1: oxygen and soil or in these little tiny air pockets,
Speaker 1: remember we talked about it in our soil episode. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And in the case of a wetland, then those air
Speaker 1: pockets are going to be filled with water or just
Speaker 1: collapsed all together, and then you've got your anaerobic condition.
Speaker 1: But if your plant, you need CEO two and oxygen,
Speaker 1: and you'll get a little bit of that from photosynthesis
Speaker 1: in the leaves, but the roots are like, what about
Speaker 1: me down here? I need oxygen too. And if it
Speaker 1: was an aerobic soil like we talked about in the
Speaker 1: In the Soil podcast, the roots can get it from
Speaker 1: those air pockets. But in wetlands they have to really
Speaker 1: really adapt to become hydrophytic or water loving plants and
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing ways. So I just have to say
Speaker 1: that this is like a lifelong mystery solved and solved
Speaker 1: in like the simplest way possible. Like it's anaerobic because
Speaker 1: there's water there instead of air. The air can't be
Speaker 1: in there because the water is there, ipso facto anaerobic.
Speaker 1: I just I just think that's brilliantly simple. Did you
Speaker 1: get that intuitively? Because I never did. Always thought it
Speaker 1: was something mysterious, like we're talking about a whole different
Speaker 1: type of soil or something else. No, I think I
Speaker 1: got it. Okay, Well it was if I've been around
Speaker 1: for forty four years and wondered it until just now, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm forty nine, so I might have warned that in
Speaker 1: the last five years. So, um, the plants that we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like, they like you said, the roots still
Speaker 1: need oxygen. So they said, okay, well, I really like
Speaker 1: it here. I like this wet land area. This is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing place to live. I'm going to change so
Speaker 1: that I can stay here. And some of the ways
Speaker 1: that plants have have adapted. Um, well, one good example
Speaker 1: is a cat tail. Right. Cat tails are pretty much
Speaker 1: synonymous with marsh lands. Yeah, they're beautiful. They're that long,
Speaker 1: thin stem with like a big fat thing on top,
Speaker 1: like a hot dog that's ready to be roasted on
Speaker 1: the fire. Yeah. I grew up with those. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was a Southern thing, but there. They
Speaker 1: can be decorative items in the home. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: grew up, I feel like, with a lot of cat
Speaker 1: tails in vases and stuff. Okay, so um that in
Speaker 1: in wasps nests. So cattails have this thing called um
Speaker 1: airin ici Um No, I've got aeron nickima erin Akaima Erinakaima.
Speaker 1: I think I got it. Anyway, they like these um
Speaker 1: these channels that basically direct air from the leaves and
Speaker 1: the stem and every other part of the cattailed down
Speaker 1: to the roots. So's here you go roots, here's some
Speaker 1: oxygen fresh from the leaf. Yeah, so that that cat
Speaker 1: tail can have as much roots as it once down
Speaker 1: in this an aerobic soil. It doesn't matter because it's
Speaker 1: getting it's oxygen from the air through the leaves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites is the speckled alder. Uh. You
Speaker 1: just look up a picture of that, and they have
Speaker 1: these enlarged pores called lenticels, and they allow for the
Speaker 1: passage of oxygen directly into that wood. And if you
Speaker 1: look up a picture and you see those, you go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what those are. That's what those are for. There.
Speaker 1: They look like someone took a knife, and they're just
Speaker 1: tiny little horizontal slits all up and down the alder, guess,
Speaker 1: and it's it's their breathing basically. Yeah, that's creepy as heck,
Speaker 1: but it's like really neat little mouths, little slitty mouths.
Speaker 1: So um. The grasses that we talked about growing in
Speaker 1: salt marshes um just like an iguana sneezes out excess
Speaker 1: salts as part of digestion, Things like cord grass that
Speaker 1: grow in these salt marshes. Um. They actually excrete salts
Speaker 1: through their leaves, so they can sit there and take
Speaker 1: all the nutrients they need from this sylinic environment um
Speaker 1: and still not get overloaded with salt. It's just pretty
Speaker 1: amazing that they can do that. Yeah. And then to me,
Speaker 1: maybe the most amazing, and this is where the mangroves
Speaker 1: kind of come back in. Although the mangroves apparently utilize
Speaker 1: all these to stick around, but the bald cypress they
Speaker 1: grow in those forested swamps where there's always water, and
Speaker 1: they are deciduous conifers, and they grow this root structure
Speaker 1: um that they call a knee. It's a new metaphor,
Speaker 1: but like a knee on your leg is how it's spelled.
Speaker 1: And they just sit above the water line and take
Speaker 1: in oxygen. And that's what those I guess, mangroves, man creves.
Speaker 1: There's a salt train joke in there somewhere. It struck
Speaker 1: me as like a terrible jam band's name. Yeah, God,
Speaker 1: you're right that that plays somewhere in Florida probably probably.
Speaker 1: But the man grove uses, like I said, a lot
Speaker 1: of these tricks, and I think certainly when you see
Speaker 1: those roots, they're using those knees, Yeah, which is basically
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a way to get oxygen
Speaker 1: from the surrounding air down to the roots. The mangroves
Speaker 1: do it. The bald cypresses do it. Mangroves have all
Speaker 1: those adapt adaptations different species things. They can do things
Speaker 1: like excrete salt. They can draw oxygen and from the environment.
Speaker 1: They have channels where they can pump oxygen from one
Speaker 1: part of the plant to the other. Um. The one
Speaker 1: that gets me though, I'm just fascinated by box. So
Speaker 1: we said that there it's an acidic um anaerobic, nutrient
Speaker 1: depleted environment, and yet there's still plants that live there.
Speaker 1: And one of those plants, one kind of plant is
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants. They get their nutrients not from like the soil,
Speaker 1: but from eating bugs. So they can just lived there
Speaker 1: like a picture plant or a venus fly trap or
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, those are nate nature. It wasn't
Speaker 1: Venus fly trap one of the DJs on w k
Speaker 1: r P. That's a great DJ name. Yeah, well he
Speaker 1: was a great DJ. All right, So let's take our
Speaker 1: final break and we'll talk about why wetlands are important
Speaker 1: and what you can do to help them do their
Speaker 1: thing right after this, Okay, Chuck, so um, just the
Speaker 1: fact that wetlands are as amazing as they are means
Speaker 1: that they should be saved. Um. But there's also like
Speaker 1: a lot of benefits that we figured out. Like you
Speaker 1: said that the fifties of the seventies were really rough
Speaker 1: time for wetlands in the United States because we're filling
Speaker 1: them in for crop land for real estate. Uh. And
Speaker 1: even previous to that, we filled in a lot of
Speaker 1: marshland in the US and built cities over from like
Speaker 1: d C was built largely on marshland. Um. The fact
Speaker 1: that mosquitoes tend to live in wetland areas uh, kind
Speaker 1: of justified filling in a lot of the wetlands because
Speaker 1: we were dealing with malaria at the time, so it
Speaker 1: made a lot of sense. Get rid of the mosquito's
Speaker 1: habitat you get rid of the mosquitoes. And it worked.
Speaker 1: But we've paid a heavy price for it because over
Speaker 1: time we've realized these wetlands provide some really important benefits
Speaker 1: to to the local ecosystems and in turn humans who
Speaker 1: live around them. Yeah, I mean helping flood conditions is
Speaker 1: a big one. They are big, big natural sponges when
Speaker 1: it comes down to it, and flooding would be way
Speaker 1: way worse. And we still have floods obviously, but to
Speaker 1: be way worse if we didn't have wetlands, they'd be
Speaker 1: far more destructive if they weren't around to soak in
Speaker 1: that excess water and then kind of slowly trickle it
Speaker 1: to the water table below. Uh. And the same it
Speaker 1: was obviously true of hurricanes and and big storm surges.
Speaker 1: The wetlands basically operate as big storage tanks for water. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw somewhere I can't find it now, but that like,
Speaker 1: oh there it is an acre of wetlands can hold
Speaker 1: up to about a million and a half gallons of
Speaker 1: water just just one acre. So you've got to think
Speaker 1: like that water is staying put there and it's not
Speaker 1: flooding some human habitation instead, which is a good reason
Speaker 1: to keep wetlands around just for that that buffer area,
Speaker 1: or to slow down the surge like you were saying, Um,
Speaker 1: I also saw that. We found out the same thing
Speaker 1: goes for beaver dams that they build there like a
Speaker 1: temporary artificial wetland and they provide a lot of the
Speaker 1: same functions that natural or other I guess naturally occurring
Speaker 1: or growing wetlands provide too. Um and I think we
Speaker 1: should do a whole episode on beavers. Okay, totally way
Speaker 1: into beavers. So water filtration is is an is it water?
Speaker 1: I'm getting you back for the oregonic thing. So water
Speaker 1: filtration is as another big service that wetlands provide. I
Speaker 1: don't remember where we talked about this, but we talked
Speaker 1: about it recently. Um where the water oh, I think
Speaker 1: it was water treatment plants. The water is brought in
Speaker 1: and it's got all the sediment and gunk and muck,
Speaker 1: and it's cloudy and turbid, and then it slows down.
Speaker 1: They slow it down like running it through some grates
Speaker 1: or whatever, and as it slows down, the sediment that
Speaker 1: is making the water turbin and polluted and everything has
Speaker 1: a chance to settle the bottom. Well. Wetlands provide that
Speaker 1: same function naturally, So when you have a bunch of
Speaker 1: like polluted water basically come through there that it slows
Speaker 1: down when it hits all those mangrove roots or tree
Speaker 1: trunks or whatever it is, and it gives it a
Speaker 1: chance for that seven sediment to fall to the bottom.
Speaker 1: It's gets sucked up by the tree roots and stored
Speaker 1: in the trees. Um or the microbial life can break
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff down too, And there's definitely
Speaker 1: a limit to where you can very easily overload the
Speaker 1: um wetlands ability to filter the water. But if you
Speaker 1: if you gave it like a manageable supply, that is
Speaker 1: a major service that it does. Is it cleans our water.
Speaker 1: They call wetlands the kidneys of the earth. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: they they've even done studies where they tried to, uh,
Speaker 1: I guess, sort of monetize what an area of wetland
Speaker 1: might do if it were a treatment plant. And there's
Speaker 1: one in South Carolina called the Congaree bottom Land Hardwood Swamp.
Speaker 1: These are just all country bands is They said that
Speaker 1: that is basically um equivalent to about a five million
Speaker 1: dollar water treatment plant just sitting there being a wetland
Speaker 1: doing its thing. Thank you Nature. Pretty amazing. I saw
Speaker 1: that beavers provide the the dams that that they build
Speaker 1: that end up being temporary wetlands that somebody estimated it's
Speaker 1: worth about a hundred grand if a human tried to
Speaker 1: build an artificial one, which we do that if you
Speaker 1: just let beavers do their thing, they will, UM, they
Speaker 1: will do the same thing for free. That's right. You
Speaker 1: don't have to pay a hundred grand Nope. UM. There's
Speaker 1: also because there's so much going on UM in a wetland,
Speaker 1: there's so much life, they kind of form like these
Speaker 1: metropolis is for all sorts of different types of animals
Speaker 1: on all the way up the food chain UM, including plants, animals,
Speaker 1: microbial life, worms, fish, larger predators like dolphins and alligators, UM,
Speaker 1: and all of them are sitting there providing food for us.
Speaker 1: If you like gator tail, buddy, you better preserve those wetlands. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's UM. Dave points out here that the commercial fishing
Speaker 1: industry in the US, the fish and shellfish harvested here
Speaker 1: UM had fish that at least had a temporary home
Speaker 1: in the wetlands, and that recordationally, if you're a recreational
Speaker 1: fish person fisher person, then UH nine of the U
Speaker 1: S fish catch UH is at least the breeding ground
Speaker 1: lies in the wetlands for those fish. And the same
Speaker 1: thing goes for birds too. They're they're enormously important habitats.
Speaker 1: For birds, um, some permanent but also migratory too, because
Speaker 1: if you're flying along and you're a bird, and you
Speaker 1: are a water bird and you need a place to land,
Speaker 1: not only you're looking for water, but you might really
Speaker 1: enjoy a swamp because it offers protection from predators, it
Speaker 1: offers import in the storm. It's just all around valuable
Speaker 1: thing for birds too. Yeah. I mean, imagine flying from
Speaker 1: Canada to Texas and you're going over Oklahoma and you're
Speaker 1: a little tired. You look down, you see one of
Speaker 1: those which ones where those the prairie ply is the
Speaker 1: the know, the prairie pothole, prairie potholes. Oh man, what
Speaker 1: a much sight. Aren't you describing a scene in Jonathan
Speaker 1: Living sin Segal? Probably so. Uh So. The point is
Speaker 1: we need to take care of our wetlands because they
Speaker 1: are um a threatened, diverse, very useful um place all
Speaker 1: over the world, especially here in the United States, and um,
Speaker 1: if they are threatened and if things happen, there are
Speaker 1: going to be all kinds of bad things, uh you know,
Speaker 1: vegetative damage, um, the plant life just being maybe whitened out,
Speaker 1: wiped out altogether, storm searches being way worse flooding being
Speaker 1: way worse especially helps to see the value in them
Speaker 1: if you consider them a buffer zone between us and
Speaker 1: and the hardest ravages of nature. Yeah, and like you mentioned, pollution,
Speaker 1: there is a limit, but they do absorb and mitigate
Speaker 1: levels of water pollution, and um it just they just
Speaker 1: can't take too much of us, you know, right exactly?
Speaker 1: Which man, if they is anything that characterized humans in
Speaker 1: the twentie and twenty one centuries, it's too much of us,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? What can we do though, well,
Speaker 1: projects we can, We can definitely do that. You can
Speaker 1: definitely do that. There's some good ones out there. Um.
Speaker 1: I believe Ducks Unlimited is one of them, the Wetlands Initiative,
Speaker 1: Natural Resources Defense Council, Wetlands International. Um. But apparently in
Speaker 1: the United States something like se wetlands or I'm privately
Speaker 1: owned property, and in the United States we have I mean,
Speaker 1: private property is one of like the fundamental tenets of
Speaker 1: American society. So if you say, I want to fill
Speaker 1: in this wetland and kill off these beavers, you're allowed
Speaker 1: to do that. Whether that's a good idea and whether
Speaker 1: that's gonna affect other people, that's a different story. So
Speaker 1: if you own private property with a wetland on it
Speaker 1: and you're doing just fine with that wetland, leave the
Speaker 1: wetland alone. It's very important. I guess this is where
Speaker 1: it gets a little tricky in definitions, because in plenty
Speaker 1: of places there are restrictions on building near water like this.
Speaker 1: I guess I just don't know, Like, um, you can't
Speaker 1: build in a flood zone. You can't. I mean, it
Speaker 1: depends on where you are, but in Atlanta you can't. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then with these all these creeks and streams in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: they have what's called stream buffers um fifty ft seventy
Speaker 1: hundred foot and I think, I think is the lowest.
Speaker 1: And for these you have to get variance is to
Speaker 1: do anything which your neighborhood has to approve. And I
Speaker 1: talked to a guy that apparently anything over um, anything
Speaker 1: under seventy five is pretty pretty tricky to get approved.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if they're wetlands or not, but
Speaker 1: there are restrictions on stuff like that. Okay. So that
Speaker 1: brings up the next point of what you and I
Speaker 1: and everybody else can do, which is vote for people
Speaker 1: for to local elected office. Who part of their platform
Speaker 1: is protecting wetlands. Yeah, like all of those buffer zones,
Speaker 1: all those variances, and all those probably ambitions, those are
Speaker 1: those came from Atlanta City councils over the years that
Speaker 1: decided that wetlands needed protecting. You don't find those everywhere,
Speaker 1: but once they get put in place, they usually don't
Speaker 1: get repealed very easily. So if if you make preserving
Speaker 1: wetlands part of like what you're voting for, that would
Speaker 1: have an impact for sure. And whatever you're voting for,
Speaker 1: just vote, Okay, vote, especially the presidential elections are always
Speaker 1: the big sexy votes, but the local politics matters even
Speaker 1: more almost sometimes. Yeah, I vote for all of it.
Speaker 1: Taking interest in the in your society. Okay. Uh, well
Speaker 1: you've got anything else about wetlands. I don't either. This
Speaker 1: is a good one. I'm pretty happy with it. Uh
Speaker 1: And since I said that, everybody, it's time for listener mail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this the first uh s y five
Speaker 1: k oh Yeah you see these? Yes man, Congratulations everybody
Speaker 1: who took part. Yeah. So what happened was, uh some
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Listeners got together and put together
Speaker 1: h five k stuff you should know five K and
Speaker 1: we got periodic updates from Aaron Huey, Mizzle or Myzell.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you pronounce it. I'm going with miss
Speaker 1: le Mozel. But this is um. This is the final
Speaker 1: email about how it went. Hey, guys, want to let
Speaker 1: you know that the s y five ks over. It
Speaker 1: was so nice to look at everyone's pictures and hear
Speaker 1: what episodes of stuff you should know they listened to
Speaker 1: because that was the idea imagined. Some people might have
Speaker 1: fudged that and listened to Mark Marrin or whatever. That's
Speaker 1: not like they're disqualified. I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: have suffered from a lack of human connection at this time,
Speaker 1: and the silly little virtual event gave us something to
Speaker 1: bond over. I don't think I would have tried this
Speaker 1: with any other group of people. The stuff you should
Speaker 1: know Army is wonderful and it speaks volumes in regard
Speaker 1: to you, guys. Uh. The tone that you set in
Speaker 1: your podcast interesting and funny, carries over into your fan
Speaker 1: base and it's created a little lovely corner of the internet. Um.
Speaker 1: I totally agree Aaron, And the same can be said
Speaker 1: of the movie Crush Page. Very very good people, not
Speaker 1: snipy or rude and going after each other on Facebook,
Speaker 1: which is kind of what Facebook seems to be all about.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like a garden paradise over there. And
Speaker 1: the s Y s K Army page. Yeah that's great.
Speaker 1: Uh Now, I'm not suggesting that you made these people wonderful,
Speaker 1: but the average stuff you should Know Army member is
Speaker 1: like that interesting, funny and willing to participate in a
Speaker 1: virtual five K with a complete stranger, and they love
Speaker 1: stroop waffles. I even bought thirteen stuff you should Know
Speaker 1: stickers to send out to some people as prizes. It's
Speaker 1: just a little thing, but everyone that I've been in
Speaker 1: touch with has been exceedingly kind. This is what we
Speaker 1: need right now, these small human connections. A podcast to
Speaker 1: listen to and laugh with, a walk run, bear chase
Speaker 1: to do virtually with a bunch of near strangers, and
Speaker 1: stuff you should have sticker to pull in your fridge
Speaker 1: or on your laptop. If you get a chance to
Speaker 1: go to the event page and scroll through some of
Speaker 1: the posts, they're delightful, like the woman who did our
Speaker 1: five K at three months postpartum and crushed it, or
Speaker 1: the dad who pushed his adorable daughter in a stroller
Speaker 1: on the five K while listening to his favorite episode,
Speaker 1: which was Spam. We had first timers. It was a
Speaker 1: good one. We had first timers, people recovering from injury,
Speaker 1: runners and walkers, so many smiles and Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know t shirts sign off for now, but just writing
Speaker 1: to tell you, is this a success? We might even
Speaker 1: do it again with love And that is again from
Speaker 1: Aaron Huey Mozzell and that is great. Aaron, thank you
Speaker 1: for doing this and that really does speak to UH,
Speaker 1: to the quality of our listeners in every single way, indubitably. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Aaron. It's good to hear from you,
Speaker 1: UH and everybody who participated in the s y five K.
Speaker 1: You are the champions, our friends, even if you listen
Speaker 1: to Mark Maron. But maybe that what Chuck just said,
Speaker 1: that's it. Okay. Well, if you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch of this like a and did and do something interesting,
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. You can write to
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