WEBVTT - What is an invasive species? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.000 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.919 There's childs of You Bryant, There's Jerry Do Do Do 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.119 Do Do Do do do this Stuff You Should Know 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:26.400 Action Edition. I gotta laugh out of Jerry, at least giggle. 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:31.280 I got a a derisive snort. How about that. That's 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.320 what it was. How you doing, I'm great. Well, I'm 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.400 concerned about the Earth. You're concerned about the Earth. Yes, 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:45.920 more than usual? Yes, because of this podcast? Yes, okay, yeah. Man. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:52.440 So before we get started, you've heard of the anthroposcene, right, Uh? 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.600 I know you have. You definitely have. We've certainly mentioned 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.360 it before on the episode or on the podcast. So 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.400 there's this eight right now over whether we've entered a 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:13.880 new geological age from uh, the one to the Anthropocene? Right. Um. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.960 I really wish I could remember what the current one 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:18.679 is because people are going to write it and be like, 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:23.160 it's this a million times over, which thank you everybody 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.600 for writing out. I mean to sound ungrateful, um, But 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.479 the the idea is that we've entered this period. Some 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:33.520 people place it starting at the Industrial Revolution, a lot 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:35.960 of people place it more at nine fifty, when there 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:41.920 was apparently a huge spike in the presence of humanity 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:46.360 from radioactivity, plastics, all this stuff in the environment as 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:52.200 a whole. So where our presence has so muddied the 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:57.520 geological record that we've effectively come up with a new age, 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:03.000 a new geological age, the Anthropocene, the age of of humans. Right. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.760 So one of the things, one of the factors that 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:11.720 people point to that suggests that we're we're changing the 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:20.720 natural geological record, thank you, Charles so Um. The the 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:25.880 idea that we we are altering what the natural course 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.200 of the Holocene, the of course it would have taken 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.160 had humans never been around. One of the ways we're 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:36.960 doing that is by shuffling species from one environment to another, 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.799 from one ecosystem to another where they've never been before, 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.000 probably never would have ended up, at least not in 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.520 any of our lifetimes. Um. And that they are altering 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:51.360 those ecosystems in radical new ways such that when those 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.760 things fossilized, those ecosystems become fossilized and can be studied, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.919 you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Hence 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.880 archaeologists would be pretty puzzled by what they were finding. Yeah, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.840 and that's the basis of the idea that we should 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.920 be calling this the anthropasy. Now I'm scared. That was 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.560 my goal. Well done, thank you all right. So what 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:19.160 we're talking about is invasive species UM. And I'm surprised 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.799 we hadn't done this one. I was too. I went 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.160 back and double checked and me to I don't And 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:31.200 I remembered what episode. I remember it was the Beagle Brigade. Oh, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.639 we talked a lot about invasive species and the Beagle 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.800 Brigade IM and we may have even said we should 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.600 do one on that. So if so, wish fulfilled. Uh So, 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.360 what we're talking about is invasive species. This is um. 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.360 This can be any type of It is not necessarily 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.480 a plant or just an animal. It could be seeds, 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.280 it could be eggs, it could be it can even 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:59.040 be a disease, right or yeah, pathogen, a past uh 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:04.080 predator or a plant just it could be anything. Yeah, 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.120 any kind of any kind of living organism that's not 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:12.200 native to a singular or a particular ecosystem. Right. But 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.920 and the house to Works article kind of leaves it 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.640 at that. But the UM National Wildlife Federation article that 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.599 you found, I think really kind of drives home that 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.679 there's like an extra couple factors involved, right, Yeah, because 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.880 you can have a non native species that we actually 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.440 kind of like like European honey bees. There are non 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.880 native species here in the United States, but we're crazy 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:41.839 for the pollinating they do, right, and the honey that 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.200 they make. Rice is not a native um crop here 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.280 in the United States, but people people love rice, so 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.000 there are just being non native isn't enough. It has 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:57.359 to actually harm the ecosystem that it's not native to 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.640 and has been introduced to in some ways, shape or form. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.839 So it's it's a non native species that's causing harm 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.560 either directly or indirectly or both to this new ecosystem. 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.200 It's it's been introduced to. That's an invasive species, right. 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:14.560 And it's not just do we grow rice in the 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.520 United States? Sure, okay uh. And it doesn't have to 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:20.480 be from another country. It can. Like we said, it's 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.920 an ecosystem, so it could be something from one area 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.440 of the United States to another area of the United States, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.960 or from Mexico to the United States. Right, Like trout 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.360 from the Great Lakes, that's their natural habitats, so they're fine, 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.120 but you take that same trout and put it in 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.479 I think the example given was the Yellowstone River, and 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:45.280 they're now competing for habitat and food with the local trout. 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:50.680 That's an invasive species, right. They come in all shapes 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.560 and sizes. As our very own article says, uh, they're 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:59.040 different names for him. God loves them all. Like some 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:03.800 people might say exotic pests or a non indigenous species, 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.080 alien species, stuff like that, but invasive species is kind 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.640 of I think that's the go to these days. Sure, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.920 that's the one you you here starting in the nineties. 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.000 Actually that's It's funny, like all of the eco stuff 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.800 that we know about, from recycling to invasive species, that 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:23.800 all was like born in the nineties, you know what 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.320 I mean. Bill Clinton, Uh, I think he wanted to 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.479 think he invented that name, but he went h. I 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.840 think he gave it. Gave him, he gave it the stamp. 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.960 What did he say though, I think he said nailed it. Yeah. 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.560 He could have been talking about any number of things 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.640 or people right there, but in that case he was 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:47.839 talking specifically about Executive Order one three one one two, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.680 where the term invasive species was first defined by the 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:54.360 United States government. And the reason that they did this, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.960 the reason that they were defining invasive species because around 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.599 about that time, the world was really waking up to 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:08.880 the fact that if you take as species of plant, animal, bacteria, pathogen, whatever, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.000 and you put it into a place, a new ecosystem 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.840 where it has no predators, it's going to create havoc 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.720 for the the the ecosystem as it was before. Yeah, 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.400 I mean, that's kind of one of the keys here 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:26.280 is that, um, generally they will cause a lot of harm, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.800 maybe to the environment, maybe to the economy, maybe two people, 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.440 maybe one, two or all three of those. Uh. And 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:39.080 another key aspect of the invasive species is that it's 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:44.480 pretty hard, if not impossible, sometimes to contain an eradicate. Yeah. 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.840 I think I get this impression from researching this Chuck 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.960 that like the second wave of waking up to invasive 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.800 species realizing like they're never going to go away. Now 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.120 they're done. It's done. Like the first wave, you don't 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.200 notice it's already happening. Right by the time we do notice, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.800 it's too late. And then now we're realizing like, okay, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:05.560 well we can we can handle this. It might be 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.080 tough and now I think we're finding now we like it. Well, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:12.120 now you can handle it. You just can't eradicate them. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.760 One of the big problems is like if you if 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.000 you say, develop a poison that kills some you know, 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:24.160 non some invasive fish that was introduced, right, say carp um, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.080 you're going to kill the other fish in the area too, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.280 or some of the other sea life or something like that. 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.640 So there's just not really any way you can target 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:36.800 these things short of shooting each one of them. And 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.760 you're gonna shoot a plant because they'll think you're crazy, 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:42.120 they'll lock you up for that, So don't even try it. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:44.840 And here's the deal is this. This is not a 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.400 new phenomenon. This nature has been doing this for years 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:53.800 on its own in various ways. Whether it's uh leaping 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:59.400 over the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand, or 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:04.000 over a channel of water like or over a mountain range. 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.120 It happens. But generally bodies of water and mountain ranges 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.360 and deserts and all these other geological features helped to 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:16.040 stop this stuff. It's really humans that are doing most 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.959 of this, uh, not necessarily on purpose, but sometimes on purpose. 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.959 Um as we will see. But sometimes it's just like 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.400 it's in the ballast water of a ship, or it's 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:31.560 in uh there's an insect in the wood of UH, 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:33.640 or it's impacking material, it's in the wood of the 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.640 what are those things called the crates the palettes, Yeah, palettes, 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.880 shipping pallets, and all of a sudden it leaps out 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:43.280 on the other side of the world and you have 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.800 an issue to the tune of fifty thousand estimated non 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.559 native species in the United States alone. Yeah, I was 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.240 looking that up. That's pretty That's one of those things 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.080 we always like give UM, you know, evidence or not evidence, 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:02.319 UM advice if you see something all over the place, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.800 like double check it. You know, no, I think it 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.839 is a real number is from so there's no telling 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.640 is we're probably at fifty thousand and like five hundred now, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.680 But it was from a guy named pim Intell, who 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:24.280 is a world famous ecologist. No, pim Intell, he's from Cornell. 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.599 I don't know if he's still at Cornell. But the 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.079 thing that this leaves out, though it's fifty thousand non 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.240 native species, but that same study from ninety nine found 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.360 that UM about forty three hundred of them could be 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.760 considered invasive. Okay, that that's what was. One of the 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.079 other ones are like the honeybe where we're like sweet 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:47.200 sure or rice don't don't forget rice? Uh? And like 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:49.560 I said, sometimes in the water, but ships hull sometimes 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.360 uh in this would and sometimes on purpose, like we said, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.880 like when the Burmese python found its way to Florida. Dude, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.960 that was no accident. Are you have you looked up 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:06.840 Burmese python Everglades recently? Yes? Did they get so big 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.480 down there? And did you see the one that had 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.280 burst itself to death eating an alligator? What? No? But 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.720 I did see the alligator and the python fighting on 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:22.840 a golf course. That's amazing. That is amazing. That makes 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.160 me glad to be alive to see something like that. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.000 You know. Well, here's the deal. While we're on that 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.160 um earlier that well, all right, more than two thousand 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.440 of these pythons have been removed. Two thousand have been 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.640 removed since two thousand two, when it was just I guess, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:48.079 recreational activity. But starting in March of last year, Florida 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:54.360 started sanctioning python hunters, and a thousand dudes applied. They accepted, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.720 So we'll pay you minimum wage, will literally pay you 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:00.680 eight bucks an hour or I think that was a 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.560 minimum wage at the time to hunt pythons. And they're 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:08.360 all like done right, and they started hunting pythons. They've 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:11.959 caught seven hundred and forty three since March of two 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:16.840 thousand seventeen and uh earlier this year or I'm sorry, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:21.120 uh late last year in December. The dude Jason Leon 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:28.160 did you see that one that he caught now seventeen 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.440 ft long, a hundred and thirty three pound Burmese python. Uh. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.880 And the reason why these are a big deal just, 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:40.440 you know, aside from just sheer terror. Uh, is there 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:44.520 eating furry creatures? A lot of them. I saw that 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:51.480 some populations down in the Everglades of Um types of deer, rabbits, um, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.640 a lot of creatures that you know and love, have 0:12:54.840 --> 0:13:00.000 gone down by up to nine in some areas because 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.360 of the Python University of Florida. And I won't say 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.400 what everyone wants me to say. Good for you man. Yeah, 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.640 that's like, how how can you be you know, possibly 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:15.280 the national champs and and throw shade at anybody below you? 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:17.640 You know, So the Ovius in Florida and gains Well 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.960 did a project they released this makes me so sad. 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:25.040 They released ninety five rabbits uh into the Everglades and 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.240 they these were all tracked. And it's not like when 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.120 these rabbits didn't turn up a year later and there 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.600 we can't find them. I guess snakes eate them. They 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.880 know that snakes eate them, so snakes did. A year later, 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.000 seventy seven percent of these rabbits were eaten and dead 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:45.680 from these pythons. Wow, that's a problem. That is a 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.240 sad study. It is. Can you imagine like opening that 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:55.040 was crates and being like all right, free, you live 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:59.160 your new life. It's an adventure. Oh man, it's so sad. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.520 So that's just one example of the most horrific uh. 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:08.319 And that's not one that's like costing two hundred billion 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.160 dollars in damage a year. But that is an estimate 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.880 from professor at Cornell. That's the same one Pimentel. Yeah, 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.640 okay um, that's the estimate from him that it's costing 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.600 the United States between a hundred and two hundred billion 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.800 dollars a year in damage from all these invasive species problems. Yeah, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.720 that's a lot of dough. It really is. And the 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.200 Burmese python is is a good example also of people 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.280 just releasing like a pet that you don't want anymore. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.720 That's probably how they are established. That's absolutely how it 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.080 was established. There's other there's another there's a lizard called 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.520 the tagu which is a big problem in all of 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.320 Florida apparently as well. Um they're just a huge lizard 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.760 that were originally pets and we're released and now leave 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.280 established a feral population in Florida. And they apparently will 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.360 eat your cat, they've been known to do that. Will 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.560 um storm your house, They'll come into your house. It's 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:08.680 just a bad jam right. There's also the Neutria swamp rats, 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:13.760 which were originally grown for their fur in in the 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:18.080 in Louisiana. They use rat fur apparently in Louisiana or 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.840 to keep warm, and um that when the rat fur 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.320 industry went under in the thirties, I think they released 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.080 these things into the swamps. And then last most recently, 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.320 feral hogs were imported so that they could hunt them 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.640 and there's a huge population that's wrecking there. The ecosystems 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:40.800 they've been introduced to. So a lot of times humans 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.160 are lunkheads when it comes to shuffling animals and ecosystems 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.640 where they're they're not native. That snakes too big, put 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:53.400 it behind the house, right right, then let a bunch 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.480 of rabbits loose and see what happens. He wins, snake winds. 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.600 Snake winds. To take a break. Yeah, I was gonna 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.280 say the same thing. Well, actually quickly before we take 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.160 a break, I talked about how much it was costing 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.640 the U. S. Department of Interior spending about a hundred 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.640 million bucks or more a year trying to fight this 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:20.240 in various ways, all to very little success. All right, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.560 so now with that stat we will we will take 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:59.600 a break. So, Chuck, we talked about people releasing um 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.560 animals purposefully, and you mentioned some other ways. But one 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.320 of the things that that gets me is ballast water, Like, 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.800 how is this allowed to go on where a ship 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.320 will take on water to balance out its cargo load, 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.040 because you know, different cargo is going away different, It's 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.639 gonna be laid out differently, so you need new ballasts 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.760 every time to to balance it out, which makes sense, 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.640 But surely there can be some other technology because you're 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:31.919 you're like in Eastern Europe picking up a bunch of 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:35.800 water to balance your your ship out and that that 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.399 cargo is bound for Detroit. So you enter the Great 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.439 Lakes and you're like, oh, well, waters, water, I'll just 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.920 release it here once I unload my cargo. And whatever 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.280 animals you picked up in Eastern Europe now live in 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.040 the Great Lakes. And this actually happened with the zebra muscle, 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.520 which is a huge, huge problem in the Great Lakes now, 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.480 the zebra muscle and the quagga muscle, Yeah, which apparently 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.320 are almost the same thing. Uh, and how they act 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.360 there from Eastern Europe and they're small, and that's exactly 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.160 how they ended up in the Great Lakes, like you said, 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.479 and they boy talked about spreading are there, Like how 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.920 many are these? Like a trillion? A trillion at least. 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.760 The reason why it is like a quagga will live 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.080 or quagga or zebra muscle will live about five years 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.639 and the female in that time will produce five million eggs. 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.840 There's ten trillion of them, a hundred that's so many muscles, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:37.120 a hundred thousand of those that of those eggs will 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.560 reach adulthood, and so the offspring of one single muscle 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.800 will produce about half a billion adult offspring, So yeah, 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.280 ten trillion is a pretty reasonable number. And they just 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:53.080 entered the Great Lakes in the I think the nineteen eighties, 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.880 so just within what forty years gosh, can you believe 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.199 the eighties or like forty years ago were coming up 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.520 on it? Um? It doesn't seem that long ago to me, 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.480 but man, that's crazy. Well, and the problem with these 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.040 is you're like, wait, wait, I'm reminiscing stuff. All right, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.680 I'm done. The problem with these is like, big deal. 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.480 There are these tiny little muscles, but they are blanketing 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.120 the bottom of the Great Lakes. Uh. And they're eating 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.760 plankton because they love to eat plankton, which makes the 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.720 water nice and clear. Everyone's like, look, how shimmery like 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:27.760 Michigan is. Have you seen pictures of like Michigan recently? 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.240 It looks like the Caribbean, really white sand, beautiful sea 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.040 through like turquoise water. It's good, people, gorgeous. No, it 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.399 looks really amazing. But ultimately, no, it's not healthy because, 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:43.479 like you were saying, they eat all the plankton that's 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.840 supposed to be on top and on the bottom two 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.159 and the the sunlight can penetrate all the way to 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:55.199 the bottom, causing algae blooms, deadly algae blooms. I I 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.520 just just happened to run across an article yesterday, Chuck, 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.520 and I und stood why I was seeing what I 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.840 was seeing. But the article was about how the Lake 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:09.760 Michigan has become so clear that you can see shipwrecks 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.199 on the bottom of the lake from the air. If 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.720 you're flying over it, you can clearly see shipwrecks. And 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.199 the reason why is because the zebra muscles have doubled 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:21.960 the clarity of the water since the nineteen eighties. Well, 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.800 and not only is it just the plankton, but they're 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:31.000 eating the plankton. Is is causing salmon to go hungry whitefish. Um, so, 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.080 if you you know, it's just it's wrecking the ecosystem 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.680 down there, right, thank you. In Europe that's say, yeah, well, 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.960 thank you ship captain who took on that water as ballast. 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:46.040 Another ballast story I ran across too was um uh, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.040 fire ants the worst thing in humanity, right, that's pretty bad. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.600 Fire Ants are native to South America, and they think 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.639 that they stowed away on dirt that was scooped up 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:03.120 as ship's ballast and released in New Orleans. Really yeah, 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.360 and like the thirties or forties, but that's where the 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.560 fire ends came from. They shouldn't be here. Didn't that 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:15.920 make them even worse? Hate those things? So, um, here's 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.480 another one. You want to talk about the Asian carp Sure, 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.640 So in the nineties seventies, and I think like in Arkansas, 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.479 there were some u some farmers, fish farmers that is, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.400 who said, uh, let's get some of these Asian carp 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.960 in here to filter the water. And they did. It 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:40.159 sounded identical what the researchers from University of Florida sounded 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:41.960 like in my hat, right, and they all sounded like 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:48.080 Bill Clinton, right, who was from Arkansas. Right. So Asian 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:50.760 carp were introduced. I guess they did a pretty good 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:53.240 job of filtering the pond water. But then they started spreading. 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.199 And that's the deal is is you know, like with 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.160 the the zebra muscle, you know, they get in these 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.920 waterways like in Chicago, these man made waterways that that 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:07.760 said basically like expressways where they get in the Mississippi 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.840 River and it just it's like all right, here, here 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:16.720 we go. Rest of the country. Yeah, and so Asian carp. Uh, 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:18.320 it's a it's sort of a catch all name for 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.159 a bunch of species of carp from Southeast Asia. But 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.080 here's their problem is they're very dense. They consume about 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.400 of their body weight each day in plankton. They can 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.840 be as big as a hundred pounds, which is very 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.040 large for a for a fish, if you haven't noticed. 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:40.159 And uh, they're all over the place now. They went 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.359 up the Illinois River. Uh, they are almost or maybe 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:45.840 even are invading the Great Lakes now. Is that they 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.320 didn't have enough problems. And there are another one. They 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:50.919 lay about a half a million eggs each time they spawn, 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.679 and they eat a lot of plankton. And there's this 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.360 guy um that they're a good example because they're they're 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:03.199 so thoroughly crowd out um the rest of the ecosystem, 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:05.280 for the rest of the animals in the ecosystem that 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.280 it actually like kind of recks the whole ecosystem. They're 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:14.000 they're an example of like a UM grade three or 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:17.879 level three I think you call it level level three 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.320 invasive species. Right, there's this dude, he is he is 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.920 a marine biologist, and I don't know if you could 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:29.159 tell or not. But I'm stalling while I look for 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:34.639 his name. Is it coming across everybody? Um, so I 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:39.320 cannot find the dude's name. Anyway, you don't have it either. 0:23:40.359 --> 0:23:44.760 Well he came up with Okay, doctor doctor Jivago came 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:49.600 up with these basically four levels of of impact that 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:53.280 an invasive species can have on bio diversity in an ecosystem. 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:55.960 And the first level is basically like, they're just a 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.640 new species. They're not doing anything. You could even make 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:02.080 a case that it's it's a good thing that they're 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:05.560 there now because they've improved or increased the bio diversity 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.399 of the habitat right. So level one is they're just 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:13.720 they're nothing bad has happened yet. Level two is when 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.320 they start to have a an effect on the on 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:22.400 the ecosystem in some very specific way. And doctors Javago 0:24:22.480 --> 0:24:26.080 gives this really great example of the eastern North American 0:24:26.200 --> 0:24:30.960 gray squirrel, which was inexplicably introduced in eighteen seventy six 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:35.760 to England and since then it is basically out competed 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:40.879 the native red squirrel there um. But it's just the 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:43.320 native red squirrel that's been affected. The rest of the 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:47.560 ecosystem is basically the same as if the North American 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:50.080 squirrel had never showed up. It's just the red squirrel 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:52.240 who are trying to go around and tell everybody like, 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:54.720 doesn't it suck? The North American squirrels are here, and 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:56.400 it's like, oh, it's fine with me, I don't care. 0:24:56.760 --> 0:24:58.639 And the red squirrel just can't get any kind of 0:24:58.680 --> 0:25:02.640 ally in this. That's leve two. Shall I continue? Please? 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:07.800 Level three is where the species become so dominant, spreads 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:12.320 so fast, so wide, reproduces so quickly and so massively 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:17.040 that they begin to impact the entire ecosystem as a whole. Right, 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:20.280 we'll talk about that in a second. And then the 0:25:20.320 --> 0:25:24.720 fourth level is where they have upset the ecosystem that 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:27.440 they are not native to, but have established themselves in 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:32.600 so thoroughly that it now impacts other ecosystems, either nearby 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:35.520 or that are somehow connected to that ecosystem. And then 0:25:35.600 --> 0:25:37.960 level five is when you wake up covered in a 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:43.600 thundred squirrels. Right, I'll just quietly staring at you. Can 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:47.160 you imagine, No, have you ever seen those black squirrels 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:53.400 in Brooklyn? Yes, I've seen them in like Toronto. Usually DC. Yeah, 0:25:53.440 --> 0:25:57.120 they're pretty cool. They're tough guys too. They'll like, yeah, 0:25:57.160 --> 0:26:00.880 they'll they'll like, they'll charge you. They don't take any 0:26:00.960 --> 0:26:05.000 guff No. But see, if you brought some to Georgia, 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:07.640 it could be bad for the squirrels here because it's 0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:11.000