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Wetlands! Wetlands! Wetlands! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Do Do Do. We'll have a book coming out and
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  Speaker 1: So you can order it everywhere you buy books. Pre
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  Speaker 1: order now and we appreciate you. Welcome to Stuff you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works, Hey,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Charles
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and Jerry's over there, and this is Stuff you Should Know,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: The Dripping Wet edition in these wet Lands. What I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: knew that you would not get that is that a
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Seeger reference. Oh gosh, why do you have to say
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: seeker when you always mean Springsteen? Was that Springsteen? It's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: bad lands? Okay, baby, These wetlands are born to run. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: run water. I don't. I don't like myself anymore. Run water.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: That was a great save, Chuck. So we're talking wetlands.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I have to say, um, we have to give a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: shout out to Tom Peterman, the foul Mouth wetland biologist
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: who keeps asking us to do this episode. How was
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: that where this came from? It was Tom peterman suggestion,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: although I had already wanted to do it anyway. So yeah,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, we love our scienist man. This one was
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I was just smiling from ear to ear. Can you
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: imagine watching a Blacksmith Ford something in a wetland, in
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  Speaker 1: a flooded woodland? Just Nirvana right there? Really, So we're
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: talking wetlands everybody, And um Dave Russ helped us put
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  Speaker 1: this one together. And Dave likes to pop in jokes
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  Speaker 1: every once in a while, and he said does He said, um,
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  Speaker 1: what makes a wetland wet water? And then he says,
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  Speaker 1: in all seriousness, that's basically that the water has to
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  Speaker 1: be um largely present at least some parts of the
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  Speaker 1: year in the soil in such amounts that you would
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  Speaker 1: call something wet land. I mean, think of the name
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  Speaker 1: wet land. It's about his earthy a term as science gets. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and he um front loaded this with a few stats,
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  Speaker 1: and I won't go through all of them, but I'll
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  Speaker 1: go through a few that, uh kind of are instructive
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  Speaker 1: as to why I love wetland so much. Uh. Years. One,
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  Speaker 1: Although wetlands make up only five percent of the land
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  Speaker 1: surface of the the United States, they are home to thirty
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  Speaker 1: of our plant species. Yeah, not bad. One third of
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  Speaker 1: America's threatened or endangered species species live only in wetlands.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I would propose that that's slightly misleading. I think they're
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  Speaker 1: endangered because they live in wetlands, and wetlands are endangered,
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  Speaker 1: as we'll see. Hmmmm, think about it, Chuck, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: I took it more as like they're all hiding out
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  Speaker 1: in the wetlands because it's a terrible place to hide out. No,
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  Speaker 1: it's not bad because it's got thirty one of the
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  Speaker 1: plant species. I mean, it's a pretty rich, bio diverse
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  Speaker 1: area to live in. If you're an endangered species for sure.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well, we'll have to um hear from Thomas
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  Speaker 1: Peterman the foul Mouth Wildlife for wetland biologists who can
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: let us not What does he say, like do f
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and wet lands already? Yes, that kind of thing. Yeah,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I like this guy. I think that's an exact quote. Yeah,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: he's my kind of dude. Uh So another stat that
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  Speaker 1: I thought was pretty interesting that well, well just kind
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  Speaker 1: of needs to form the basis or the undercurrent of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this whole episode, is that, so we keep talking about
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  Speaker 1: the U S. There's wetlands found all over the world,
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  Speaker 1: of different types of varieties and different climates and different
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  Speaker 1: um different continents, every continent except the Antarctica. But in
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  Speaker 1: the United States in particular, we have a long history
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  Speaker 1: of filling in and draining wetlands for other purposes, so
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  Speaker 1: much so that, um, let's see, I believe I don't
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  Speaker 1: know how much we've lost, but in the sixteen hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: the Lower forty eight States were covered with two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and twenty million acres of wetlands, which is eleven percent
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  Speaker 1: of the total surface area of the Lower forty eight States.
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  Speaker 1: And I think starting in the fifties, we were doing
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  Speaker 1: away with wetlands at a rate of about sixty thousand
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  Speaker 1: of those acres per year. Yeah, and it's gotten better
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  Speaker 1: since then. But yeah, in the boy up until the
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  Speaker 1: Clean Water Act, it was just like, hey, you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: it looks great. They're a resort with like three golf
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: courses and a bunch of tennis. That's been such a
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  Speaker 1: driving force, Like it's it's like looking at land or
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  Speaker 1: ecosystems are being like our humans making money off of it. No, well,
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  Speaker 1: then drain it and repurpose it. Set it on fire
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and repurpose it. Stop it from burning, and repurpose it. Like,
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  Speaker 1: if we can't make money off of it, it can't
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  Speaker 1: possibly be useful. And luckily, since the environmental movement really
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  Speaker 1: started in the seventies, we've realized that that's not necessarily true.
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  Speaker 1: That even if you are just a heartless dummy, there's
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  Speaker 1: still a lot of benefits that humanity has given from
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: things like wetlands that seem problematic or nonproductive. You know. Yeah,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: that was one of danger fields big lines in Caddyshack,
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  Speaker 1: as al servit was golf courses and cemeteries the two
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  Speaker 1: biggest waste of prime real estate. That's a good one.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about wetlands. He said that they are
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  Speaker 1: only some of them are only wet for short periods,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes when there's snow, melts or just rain. Yeah, those
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  Speaker 1: are called ephemeral wetlands, which is a cool term. It's
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  Speaker 1: a great term. Some are wet all the time. And
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  Speaker 1: the key parts of being a wet land or the
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  Speaker 1: key characteristic is that it's either permanently or periodically flooded
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  Speaker 1: or wet, and that the soil is got it's called
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  Speaker 1: hydric soil and is dominated by anaerobic processes, meaning it
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  Speaker 1: loves water and the plants there love water. But which
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: is weird because you used another word that shouldn't really
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  Speaker 1: jibe with plants, and that's called anaerobic, which means there's
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  Speaker 1: very little to no oxygen present um. And we'll explain
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  Speaker 1: why later. But the fact that there are plants means
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  Speaker 1: that those plants have adapted to the wetlands. Yes, and
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  Speaker 1: its hydrophytic, and we'll talk about those plants later. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's another Another thing I love about wetlands is just
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  Speaker 1: that it really underscores the remarkable evolution that something will
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  Speaker 1: go through to survive, very cool, very very awesome. Yep
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: so Um, there's also so but you hit upon something
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  Speaker 1: like they're not necessarily wet year round, right, So there's
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  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different types of wetlands or wetland
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  Speaker 1: environments that fill those that check those boxes. UM. One
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  Speaker 1: of the ones that most people think of when they
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  Speaker 1: think of wetlands or coastal wetlands, like marshes and a
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  Speaker 1: marsh is basically like this area between inland and the ocean.
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  Speaker 1: It's like a transition zone, a buffer zone. And because
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  Speaker 1: it's because of its proximity to the ocean, UM, it's
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  Speaker 1: usually salty or at least brackets, which is a mixture
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  Speaker 1: of salt water and fresh water. And one of the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: one of the ones that really come to mind if
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  Speaker 1: you're thinking coastal wetlands, you're thinking marsh lands, and you're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: thinking tidal marsh lands, probably especially if you're a Pat
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Conroy fan. What was the name of her character that
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: he repeats over and over in a whisper. I think
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I remember Umber Chuck. It was Bobby Jim, Bobby Jim.
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  Speaker 1: This is one of those scream at the uh at
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  Speaker 1: the pod player moments. Was it in. Was it in
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  Speaker 1: the Prince of Tides? Yeah, Lowenstein? Was that it? You're
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: sure it wasn't Bobby Jim. I think it was Lowenstein.
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  Speaker 1: Was it his oh his shrinks his shrink girlfriend's name, yeah,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Babs Okay, yeah, I don't remember. I think it was Lownstein. Alright,
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  Speaker 1: So anyway, title Marsha's yes, Prince of Tides. They obviously
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  Speaker 1: you're it's because they're title. They're gonna come in and
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  Speaker 1: out with the high and low tide. And like you said,
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  Speaker 1: they're generally saltwater, and the salt marshals are are very
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  Speaker 1: nutrient rich, and they do have a lot of diversity,
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  Speaker 1: but obviously only the kind of things that can tolerate
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  Speaker 1: the salt um as far as plants and animals go,
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  Speaker 1: which is a pretty short list really, because salt is
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  Speaker 1: not conducive to life. Instead, there are some plants that
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  Speaker 1: have figured out how to deal with salt um. But
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  Speaker 1: most of the time when you're king at salt marshes,
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  Speaker 1: you're looking you're the plant life is is basically grasses
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  Speaker 1: of some sort. Um. There's also freshwater tidal marshes, which
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  Speaker 1: um they are either connected to the saltwater marsh, but
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  Speaker 1: they're far enough inland that the saltwater doesn't make its
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  Speaker 1: way in there. Um, so it's a freshwater marsh, but
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  Speaker 1: it's still is affected by the tides. And then I
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  Speaker 1: had no idea about this, um, And I used to
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  Speaker 1: vacation on Lake Erie. But apparently the Great Lakes are
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  Speaker 1: so big that they have tides themselves. You didn't know that.
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  Speaker 1: I had no idea. I even knew that. And I'm
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  Speaker 1: a dumb dumb when it comes to the Great Lakes. Well, Chuck,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I think you got me beat big time in this case,
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  Speaker 1: because I could know a million other things about the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes. And if you knew that one thing and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't, you have me beat. Yeah, I knew that.
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  Speaker 1: And so that means that they do have those tidal
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  Speaker 1: marshes the Florida Everglades or another good example, um, and boy, Florida.
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  Speaker 1: Just there's a lot of different types of wetlands in Florida. Well,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of coastline, a lot of coastline, and
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  Speaker 1: a lot of interior. Um wetness. Yeah, we have a
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  Speaker 1: lot of wetlands around our place in Florida, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: And there's mangroves and all sorts of stuff that we'll
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: talk about. Well, we're at mangroves. I love those things.
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  Speaker 1: So mangroves I think they at least deserve a short
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: stuff because they're one of the most amazing plants of
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  Speaker 1: all time. But they're they're they're a type of coastal
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  Speaker 1: um coastal wetland themselves, a mangrove forest, or if you've
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: never seen a mangrove forest, there are these kind of um.
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  Speaker 1: They have a growth habit for their the shrubbery on
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: top of like the hair that umpa lumpa has in
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: the original, the original Willy Wonka, the good one. And
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  Speaker 1: they're the trunks split out into these cool like long
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: roots and legs that stick up out of the water
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  Speaker 1: and they form this huge tangle, this riot of like
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  Speaker 1: sh a woody shrub um, and they do all sorts
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of amazing things to help the aquatic life and us
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: humans as well up on land just by being present. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they're really cool looking. Uh. And this is another good one,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: sort of like the oregami that if you're able and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you're sitting still to look up a lot of these
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  Speaker 1: things as you go, because these mangrove for us, it
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: looks like it looks like a shrub. That's like, I
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: really want to be a shrub, but i don't want
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  Speaker 1: to get wet, so I'm just gonna dip my legs
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  Speaker 1: in a little bit. Yeah, that's really great. It's just
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  Speaker 1: very cool looking. And and again just the adaptability that
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: these mangroves really want to live where they live even
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  Speaker 1: though it's not very suited for them, and they become
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: suited for it. Right, if you've been sleeping on mangroves,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Welcome to reality. Well it's a T shirt if I
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: ever heard one. Yeah, that's all. I could use a
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: little work, But there's there's the beginnings of one in there.
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  Speaker 1: You also got your inland wet lands. These are not
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  Speaker 1: coastal in this case. We're talking about swamps and marshes
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and bogs and fens at e n and marshes uh.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of these you'll find near rivers, near streams,
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  Speaker 1: uh lowland depressions, and they might periodically fill up depending
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  Speaker 1: on rain what's going on, or or different types of
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  Speaker 1: flooding that might happen. And they can be a few
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: inches deep, they can be several feet deep. Yeah, they're
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: most of the non title. Inland marshes are ephemeral wetlands,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: so they're dry a lot of the year. Um they
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: might fill up seasonally, they might fill up with the rains,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: they might fill up with the nearby river flooding. It's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: like my backyard, and they, oh, really is that right? Yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: it's it doesn't drain. Well, I've got a drainage problem. Okay,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to you, it's a problem to nature. It's wonderful because
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: we'd like things that drain really quickly and dry and
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: then we can walk on them and the grass is fine.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of like benefits to things that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: take their time, like um uh, there's something called the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: old pool, which is a kind of non tidal marsh,
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  Speaker 1: an ephemeral wetland, and it's basically just like say a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: stretch of woods that had that's a little bit depressed there,
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  Speaker 1: so that when it rains or river floods, it fills
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  Speaker 1: with water. And because the underlying bedrock or clay is
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: not very poorous, it takes a while for that water
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  Speaker 1: to go through. But that water is also not going
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: further downstream, so it prevents flooding from being as bad
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: as it could because a lot of the water collects
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and stays there, and it also slowly recharges the groundwater.
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  Speaker 1: And because it does get dry, it can't sustain fish,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: which makes it a really great nursery for things like
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: newts and salamanders and frogs um things that that fish
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: eat their eggs. But since there's no fish, this is
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: like a really great place for them to to get
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a good foothole and a brand new life. Uh, you've
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: also got your prairie pot holes. Uh, this is when
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you should definitely look up. These are usually in the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: upper midwest of the United States that codas Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: and these are where glaciers, ancient glaciers left these big
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: depressions in the landscape and they fill up sometimes during rain,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: during the spring, during snow melt. And they're not small
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: like our our prairie pothole. And I got a vision
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: in my head, but if you look it up online,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: they're beautiful and just they're very large though, and they're
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: kind of interconnected, just these big round holes scattered through
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  Speaker 1: like a big open area full of water. And these
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: are great for migrating birds because that could be a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: stopover that they might not have had had those potholes
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: not been there, And when they're flying over the Dacota
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: as they say, look, I see Van Nostran's house, our
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: buddy van nostran Um. And then there's also we said
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that that wetlands occur in all different kinds of climates.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: They also occur in the desert. There's something called pla lakes,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: which are these depressions that apparently no one has any
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: idea exactly how they formed. It could have been from
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a ocean, it could have been from an ancient sinkhole.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: But there are depressions that are deep enough that when
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the seasonal rains come, the water is held in there.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And just like the prairie potholes, it's very useful for
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: migratory birds to stop over. At um can really plays
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a huge role in this ecosystem where there's almost no water,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, there's water, and it's
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: in this nice little lake. So let's all go gather
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: there and have a social hour. But but but responsibly
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: six ft apart. That's right, I think we should take
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: a break and we will talk a little bit about
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: inland swamps right after this. Alright, so inland swamps we
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: promised to talk about that these are are, for my money,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: some of the coolest areas in the country, because I
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: think I talked about it at some point. But I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: took a very special fund trip many many years ago
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: to the Okefinokee Swamp and did one of those canoe
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: trips where you have to rent. You know, there's no
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: place to stop in the Okefinokee Swamp if you're like,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I think I'll camp here, it's like in the water.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: So they had these camping pads built up. The essentially
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: just decks um that are like six ft above the water,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: and you have to reserve those. They are not just
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: wide open for anyone um because there's nothing else out there,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: so you have to reserve them for specific nights on
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: these specific pathways or you know, paddleways. And me and
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a couple of buddies did it one year and we
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: canoed from from deck to deck and uh, it was amazing.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Like one of the coolest trips I've ever taken. That
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: is very cool was ned Baity with you. No, but
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you do wake up surrounded by alligators. It's just a
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: little creepy. Yes, alligators are very creepy. Like you wake
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: up on that pad and and p off the dock
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: and they're growling at you. Yeah, and you do not
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: want to get too close because they can move faster
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: than you think. Yeah, they can. It was It was
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun though, but not for the faint
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of heart, because you know, you don't realize until you
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: get out there a how bad the sun is gonna
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: beat you up because there's no shade, and be how
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: tough it is to paddle all day long without like,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: you know, let me get out and stretch my legs.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, there is no getting out. You just you
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: just go and go and go, and by the time
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you finally reach that jankie deck, it is like, uh,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: might as well be the Plaza Hotel, you know. Nice.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: But what I'm talking about in the case of the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Oki Finocchi, I thought it was a forest's or a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: bottom bottom land hardwood swamp, you think from reading this,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: But apparently it's called a non riverine swamp forest and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: that is a forested swamp that fills up from non
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: river sources basically the rain or groundwater, right right, So
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the what would make a forested swamp like a bottom
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: land hardwood swamp is a proximity to a river that
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: floods its banks or that is just so so big
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it kind of spills over into some of the surrounding land,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and that surrounding land is swamp. I want to look
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: that up, though I'm not quite sure Dave's right. So well,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: it's okay. It's so it's either river fed or groundwater
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: fed or precipitation fed. And if you're talking bottom land
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: hardwood swamps, that's or a river fed swamp. There's usually
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: also a shrub swamp, which is a transition or buffer
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: zone between the forested swamp and you know, somebody's backyard,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: which is it's just dominated by shrubs, but it's all
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the same thing. It's all fresh water swamp. Yeah, I
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: think I bet you anything that. Okay, Finocchi has several
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: different types of these would be my guess, because they
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: were full on lakes that we paddled through. Yeah, um
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: so that would be my guess. And I also think
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: if I had a country band, they would we would
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: be the bottom land hardwood swamp rats. Oh that's a
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: good one. That sounds like an all star band, you know.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Um So, another kind of wetland that you're going to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: find all over the place, especially in Europe, which when
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I think of bogs and fens, I think of Europe,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: but apparently there's plenty of them in the United States too.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: But um, bogs and fens are kind of their own thing.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Bogs in particular are very unique as far as wetlands go,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: because not only are they anaerobic, which by definition of
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: wetland is anaerobic soil, they're like very little nutrient and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: very high acidity. I've I've heard like the kind of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: acid that is put out by the peat that's created
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: in the bog has the same acidity roughly of vinegar.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's like, a yeah, it's really really acidic stuff, and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: yet some plants prefer it. Like you can grow cranberries
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and blueberries in a bog. You can preserve a body
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: from the Iron Age forward and bog. Do we ever
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: recover that the bog bodies? I feel like we did.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Maybe it might have been one of our video things
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: on YouTube. Maybe mummies, because I think, if I remember correctly,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: our mummy episode covered more than just Egyptian mummies and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: be covered like Inco mummies, and I'm sure we did.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: We saw some then when we went to uh on
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: our our UK trip, We've got to visit some of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: those cats, like firsthand, like right there in that in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that glass, right, like you know I have to do
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: is smash it with a hammer and it's yours, yeah,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: or at least whatever you can grab like a bog
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: ear right, it just crumbles and in your hand. But
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, okay, why why are
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the bogs so great for preservation? Part of it, from
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: what I understand, is that acidity that the bodies are
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: actually pickled. But another part is the the um aerobic
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: life is so devoid there. There's just anaerobic bacteria and
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: they don't decompose nearly well as aerobic bacteria, so the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: decomposition doesn't set in and the remains are pickled. So
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: like you can preserve a body in a really great
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: state for a very like toall End band, you could
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: his whiskers are still intact on his face. Yeah, Like
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that was the level of preservation, and he was sacrificed
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: into a bog, which is a very specific kind of wetland. Yeah,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and a fin like I said, it's f e n
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like a bog, and that it is
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a peat pet wetland. But they're a little bit different
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: than bogs. The water supply doesn't come primarily from rain,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and it comes from the ground, So it's not it's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: gonna be less acidic because I don't think we mentioned mentioned.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I know it's um partially because of the peat, but um,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the acidity also comes from the fact that there's acid
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and rain that gets filling up, that fills up these bogs,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: but not the case in a fin now, because that
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: groundwater is able to kind of dilute it a little bit.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: So they're much more New Trent rich than a ball
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: get so they're gonna have much a much wider diverse
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: range of plants and animal life. Yeah, and this I
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: love that. This next section from day was called other
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: fun types of wetlands. Yeah, mud flats, Yeah, you get
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: your mud flat. It's another good country band. Um. My
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: favorite are seeps. These are just gorgeous little pieces of nature.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: If you ask me, um, it's if you have a
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: spring that comes up out of the ground. Uh, it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: spills over into the ground. So the surrounding ground is wetland,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and it's called a seep. That's right. It's where gnomes
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: like go and shower. Yeah, and it's not uh like
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you said, it's a spring, so it's not like a creek. No,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: it's actually coming up from the ground. You ever drink
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: from a natural spring? I did when I was a kid,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: and my mom fired the babysitter that like took a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: drink from a spring. Yeah. Who she was like, what
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: are you doing? It was either spring or like a
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: river in Ohio, and either way very different things. It's
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: like a Kyaga river. Ever, then you're in bad. It
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: was on fire while we were drinking. But I mean,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: we have creeks. If if you're listening, you've never been
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to Atlanta, Atlanta has creeks all over the place. Like
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: all of the Intown neighborhoods just are riddled with creeks.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: They're just sort of out of view. Um. But like,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: we have a creek, you know, a hundred and twenty
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: ft from our house, which might have something to do
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: with our drainage, who knows. And it's spring fed. No,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: it's just uh, you know, just a part of the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Atlanta probably all comes from the Chattahoochee at some point.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So chuck, if that creek behind your house started meandering
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in a different direction and left a body of water
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: where it originally flowed, it would be an oxbow lake.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But if you were in Australia and you were calling
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it it's proper Aboriginal name, you'd call it a billabong,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: which I had no idea. What does that have to
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: do with surfing? Oh? I think they just probably co
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: opted the name and it became more associated with surf
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and surf gear than then It's true. Meaning that doesn't
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: seem right now, let's take it back, But that's what
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: an oxbow lake is in Australia. Among the Aborigines, it
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: is a billabong, which is great. That was some like,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: along with op was one of the prime uh T
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: shirts to have when you were a kid in the eighties.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you were cool. I had this amazing
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: ope long sleeve blue shirt that they wore with my
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: parachute pants were the best my British nights. Remember those
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: long sleeve OP shirts. Yeah, they're good, gorgeous, so chuck.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: One of the things we've been talking about is um
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the kind of the characteristics that make a wetland a wetland.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It's not just the fact that the soil table or
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the ground is either flooded or almost completely flooded up
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to the surface level UM with water. That's that's not
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the entirety of it. Like, different wetlands are characterized by
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: by how that water gets to it. Like we said,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you know, some kinds of swam so are fed by groundwater,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: others are fed by precipitation UM summer tidal. So there's
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a whole group of scientists out there that are called
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: UM wetland hydrologists, and what they study is how that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: water gets into a wetland to create a wetland, what
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: happens to it while it's there, and then where it goes,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and how all these things kind of interact to form
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: this very unique ecosystem. Yeah, and we talked early on
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: about the kyd of the kind of soil. Hydric soil
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: is saturated with water, and so if it's saturated with water,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna have nearly as much oxygen and usually
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: oxygen and soil or in these little tiny air pockets,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: remember we talked about it in our soil episode. Yeah, exactly,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And in the case of a wetland, then those air
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: pockets are going to be filled with water or just
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: collapsed all together, and then you've got your anaerobic condition.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But if your plant, you need CEO two and oxygen,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and you'll get a little bit of that from photosynthesis
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: in the leaves, but the roots are like, what about
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: me down here? I need oxygen too. And if it
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: was an aerobic soil like we talked about in the
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: In the Soil podcast, the roots can get it from
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: those air pockets. But in wetlands they have to really
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: really adapt to become hydrophytic or water loving plants and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: some pretty amazing ways. So I just have to say
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that this is like a lifelong mystery solved and solved
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: in like the simplest way possible. Like it's anaerobic because
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: there's water there instead of air. The air can't be
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: in there because the water is there, ipso facto anaerobic.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I just I just think that's brilliantly simple. Did you
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: get that intuitively? Because I never did. Always thought it
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: was something mysterious, like we're talking about a whole different
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: type of soil or something else. No, I think I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: got it. Okay, Well it was if I've been around
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: for forty four years and wondered it until just now, Well,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I'm forty nine, so I might have warned that in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the last five years. So, um, the plants that we're
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: talking about, like, they like you said, the roots still
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: need oxygen. So they said, okay, well, I really like
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it here. I like this wet land area. This is
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: pretty amazing place to live. I'm going to change so
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: that I can stay here. And some of the ways
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that plants have have adapted. Um, well, one good example
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: is a cat tail. Right. Cat tails are pretty much
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: synonymous with marsh lands. Yeah, they're beautiful. They're that long,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: thin stem with like a big fat thing on top,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: like a hot dog that's ready to be roasted on
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the fire. Yeah. I grew up with those. I don't
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: know if it was a Southern thing, but there. They
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: can be decorative items in the home. Uh. And I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: grew up, I feel like, with a lot of cat
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: tails in vases and stuff. Okay, so um that in
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: in wasps nests. So cattails have this thing called um
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: airin ici Um No, I've got aeron nickima erin Akaima Erinakaima.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I think I got it. Anyway, they like these um
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: these channels that basically direct air from the leaves and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: the stem and every other part of the cattailed down
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to the roots. So's here you go roots, here's some
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: oxygen fresh from the leaf. Yeah, so that that cat
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: tail can have as much roots as it once down
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in this an aerobic soil. It doesn't matter because it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: getting it's oxygen from the air through the leaves. Yeah.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: One of my favorites is the speckled alder. Uh. You
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: just look up a picture of that, and they have
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: these enlarged pores called lenticels, and they allow for the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: passage of oxygen directly into that wood. And if you
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: look up a picture and you see those, you go, oh,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that's what those are. That's what those are for. There.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: They look like someone took a knife, and they're just
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: tiny little horizontal slits all up and down the alder, guess,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and it's it's their breathing basically. Yeah, that's creepy as heck,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: but it's like really neat little mouths, little slitty mouths.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: So um. The grasses that we talked about growing in
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: salt marshes um just like an iguana sneezes out excess
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: salts as part of digestion, Things like cord grass that
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: grow in these salt marshes. Um. They actually excrete salts
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: through their leaves, so they can sit there and take
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: all the nutrients they need from this sylinic environment um
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: and still not get overloaded with salt. It's just pretty
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: amazing that they can do that. Yeah. And then to me,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: maybe the most amazing, and this is where the mangroves
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: kind of come back in. Although the mangroves apparently utilize
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: all these to stick around, but the bald cypress they
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: grow in those forested swamps where there's always water, and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: they are deciduous conifers, and they grow this root structure
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: um that they call a knee. It's a new metaphor,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: but like a knee on your leg is how it's spelled.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: And they just sit above the water line and take
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: in oxygen. And that's what those I guess, mangroves, man creves.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: There's a salt train joke in there somewhere. It struck
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: me as like a terrible jam band's name. Yeah, God,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: you're right that that plays somewhere in Florida probably probably.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: But the man grove uses, like I said, a lot
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: of these tricks, and I think certainly when you see
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: those roots, they're using those knees, Yeah, which is basically
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a way to get oxygen
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: from the surrounding air down to the roots. The mangroves
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: do it. The bald cypresses do it. Mangroves have all
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: those adapt adaptations different species things. They can do things
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: like excrete salt. They can draw oxygen and from the environment.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: They have channels where they can pump oxygen from one
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: part of the plant to the other. Um. The one
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that gets me though, I'm just fascinated by box. So
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: we said that there it's an acidic um anaerobic, nutrient
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: depleted environment, and yet there's still plants that live there.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: And one of those plants, one kind of plant is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: carnivorous plants. They get their nutrients not from like the soil,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: but from eating bugs. So they can just lived there
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: like a picture plant or a venus fly trap or
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, those are nate nature. It wasn't
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Venus fly trap one of the DJs on w k
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: r P. That's a great DJ name. Yeah, well he
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: was a great DJ. All right, So let's take our
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: final break and we'll talk about why wetlands are important
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and what you can do to help them do their
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: thing right after this, Okay, Chuck, so um, just the
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: fact that wetlands are as amazing as they are means
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: that they should be saved. Um. But there's also like
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of benefits that we figured out. Like you
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: said that the fifties of the seventies were really rough
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: time for wetlands in the United States because we're filling
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: them in for crop land for real estate. Uh. And
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: even previous to that, we filled in a lot of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: marshland in the US and built cities over from like
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: d C was built largely on marshland. Um. The fact
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: that mosquitoes tend to live in wetland areas uh, kind
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: of justified filling in a lot of the wetlands because
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: we were dealing with malaria at the time, so it
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: made a lot of sense. Get rid of the mosquito's
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: habitat you get rid of the mosquitoes. And it worked.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: But we've paid a heavy price for it because over
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: time we've realized these wetlands provide some really important benefits
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: to to the local ecosystems and in turn humans who
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: live around them. Yeah, I mean helping flood conditions is
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a big one. They are big, big natural sponges when
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: it comes down to it, and flooding would be way
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: way worse. And we still have floods obviously, but to
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: be way worse if we didn't have wetlands, they'd be
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: far more destructive if they weren't around to soak in
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that excess water and then kind of slowly trickle it
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to the water table below. Uh. And the same it
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: was obviously true of hurricanes and and big storm surges.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: The wetlands basically operate as big storage tanks for water. Yeah.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: I saw somewhere I can't find it now, but that like,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: oh there it is an acre of wetlands can hold
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: up to about a million and a half gallons of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: water just just one acre. So you've got to think
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: like that water is staying put there and it's not
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: flooding some human habitation instead, which is a good reason
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: to keep wetlands around just for that that buffer area,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: or to slow down the surge like you were saying, Um,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I also saw that. We found out the same thing
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: goes for beaver dams that they build there like a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: temporary artificial wetland and they provide a lot of the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: same functions that natural or other I guess naturally occurring
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: or growing wetlands provide too. Um and I think we
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: should do a whole episode on beavers. Okay, totally way
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: into beavers. So water filtration is is an is it water?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I'm getting you back for the oregonic thing. So water
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: filtration is as another big service that wetlands provide. I
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: don't remember where we talked about this, but we talked
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: about it recently. Um where the water oh, I think
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: it was water treatment plants. The water is brought in
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: and it's got all the sediment and gunk and muck,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: and it's cloudy and turbid, and then it slows down.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: They slow it down like running it through some grates
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and as it slows down, the sediment that
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: is making the water turbin and polluted and everything has
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: a chance to settle the bottom. Well. Wetlands provide that
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: same function naturally, So when you have a bunch of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: like polluted water basically come through there that it slows
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: down when it hits all those mangrove roots or tree
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: trunks or whatever it is, and it gives it a
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: chance for that seven sediment to fall to the bottom.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: It's gets sucked up by the tree roots and stored
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: in the trees. Um or the microbial life can break
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff down too, And there's definitely
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: a limit to where you can very easily overload the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: um wetlands ability to filter the water. But if you
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: if you gave it like a manageable supply, that is
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: a major service that it does. Is it cleans our water.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: They call wetlands the kidneys of the earth. Yeah, And
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: they they've even done studies where they tried to, uh,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I guess, sort of monetize what an area of wetland
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: might do if it were a treatment plant. And there's
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: one in South Carolina called the Congaree bottom Land Hardwood Swamp.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: These are just all country bands is They said that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: that is basically um equivalent to about a five million
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: dollar water treatment plant just sitting there being a wetland
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: doing its thing. Thank you Nature. Pretty amazing. I saw
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: that beavers provide the the dams that that they build
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that end up being temporary wetlands that somebody estimated it's
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: worth about a hundred grand if a human tried to
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: build an artificial one, which we do that if you
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: just let beavers do their thing, they will, UM, they
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: will do the same thing for free. That's right. You
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: don't have to pay a hundred grand Nope. UM. There's
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: also because there's so much going on UM in a wetland,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: there's so much life, they kind of form like these
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: metropolis is for all sorts of different types of animals
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: on all the way up the food chain UM, including plants, animals,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: microbial life, worms, fish, larger predators like dolphins and alligators, UM,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and all of them are sitting there providing food for us.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: If you like gator tail, buddy, you better preserve those wetlands. Yeah,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: it's UM. Dave points out here that the commercial fishing
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: industry in the US, the fish and shellfish harvested here
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: UM had fish that at least had a temporary home
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: in the wetlands, and that recordationally, if you're a recreational
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: fish person fisher person, then UH nine of the U
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: S fish catch UH is at least the breeding ground
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: lies in the wetlands for those fish. And the same
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: thing goes for birds too. They're they're enormously important habitats.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: For birds, um, some permanent but also migratory too, because
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: if you're flying along and you're a bird, and you
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: are a water bird and you need a place to land,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: not only you're looking for water, but you might really
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: enjoy a swamp because it offers protection from predators, it
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: offers import in the storm. It's just all around valuable
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: thing for birds too. Yeah. I mean, imagine flying from
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Canada to Texas and you're going over Oklahoma and you're
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: a little tired. You look down, you see one of
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: those which ones where those the prairie ply is the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the know, the prairie pothole, prairie potholes. Oh man, what
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a much sight. Aren't you describing a scene in Jonathan
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Living sin Segal? Probably so. Uh So. The point is
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: we need to take care of our wetlands because they
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: are um a threatened, diverse, very useful um place all
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: over the world, especially here in the United States, and um,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: if they are threatened and if things happen, there are
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: going to be all kinds of bad things, uh you know,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: vegetative damage, um, the plant life just being maybe whitened out,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: wiped out altogether, storm searches being way worse flooding being
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: way worse especially helps to see the value in them
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: if you consider them a buffer zone between us and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and the hardest ravages of nature. Yeah, and like you mentioned, pollution,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: there is a limit, but they do absorb and mitigate
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: levels of water pollution, and um it just they just
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: can't take too much of us, you know, right exactly?
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Which man, if they is anything that characterized humans in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the twentie and twenty one centuries, it's too much of us,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? What can we do though, well,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: projects we can, We can definitely do that. You can
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: definitely do that. There's some good ones out there. Um.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I believe Ducks Unlimited is one of them, the Wetlands Initiative,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Natural Resources Defense Council, Wetlands International. Um. But apparently in
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the United States something like se wetlands or I'm privately
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: owned property, and in the United States we have I mean,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: private property is one of like the fundamental tenets of
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: American society. So if you say, I want to fill
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: in this wetland and kill off these beavers, you're allowed
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to do that. Whether that's a good idea and whether
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: that's gonna affect other people, that's a different story. So
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: if you own private property with a wetland on it
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: and you're doing just fine with that wetland, leave the
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: wetland alone. It's very important. I guess this is where
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: it gets a little tricky in definitions, because in plenty
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: of places there are restrictions on building near water like this.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: I guess I just don't know, Like, um, you can't
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: build in a flood zone. You can't. I mean, it
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: depends on where you are, but in Atlanta you can't. Uh.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And then with these all these creeks and streams in Atlanta,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: they have what's called stream buffers um fifty ft seventy
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: hundred foot and I think, I think is the lowest.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: And for these you have to get variance is to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: do anything which your neighborhood has to approve. And I
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: talked to a guy that apparently anything over um, anything
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: under seventy five is pretty pretty tricky to get approved.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if they're wetlands or not, but
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: there are restrictions on stuff like that. Okay. So that
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: brings up the next point of what you and I
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and everybody else can do, which is vote for people
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: for to local elected office. Who part of their platform
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: is protecting wetlands. Yeah, like all of those buffer zones,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: all those variances, and all those probably ambitions, those are
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: those came from Atlanta City councils over the years that
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: decided that wetlands needed protecting. You don't find those everywhere,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: but once they get put in place, they usually don't
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: get repealed very easily. So if if you make preserving
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: wetlands part of like what you're voting for, that would
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: have an impact for sure. And whatever you're voting for,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: just vote, Okay, vote, especially the presidential elections are always
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the big sexy votes, but the local politics matters even
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: more almost sometimes. Yeah, I vote for all of it.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Taking interest in the in your society. Okay. Uh, well
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: you've got anything else about wetlands. I don't either. This
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: is a good one. I'm pretty happy with it. Uh
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And since I said that, everybody, it's time for listener mail. Yeah.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this the first uh s y five
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: k oh Yeah you see these? Yes man, Congratulations everybody
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: who took part. Yeah. So what happened was, uh some
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Listeners got together and put together
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: h five k stuff you should know five K and
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: we got periodic updates from Aaron Huey, Mizzle or Myzell.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure you pronounce it. I'm going with miss
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: le Mozel. But this is um. This is the final
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: email about how it went. Hey, guys, want to let
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: you know that the s y five ks over. It
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: was so nice to look at everyone's pictures and hear
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: what episodes of stuff you should know they listened to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: because that was the idea imagined. Some people might have
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: fudged that and listened to Mark Marrin or whatever. That's
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: not like they're disqualified. I think a lot of us
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: have suffered from a lack of human connection at this time,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: and the silly little virtual event gave us something to
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: bond over. I don't think I would have tried this
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: with any other group of people. The stuff you should
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: know Army is wonderful and it speaks volumes in regard
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: to you, guys. Uh. The tone that you set in
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: your podcast interesting and funny, carries over into your fan
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: base and it's created a little lovely corner of the internet. Um.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I totally agree Aaron, And the same can be said
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: of the movie Crush Page. Very very good people, not
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: snipy or rude and going after each other on Facebook,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: which is kind of what Facebook seems to be all about.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like a garden paradise over there. And
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the s Y s K Army page. Yeah that's great.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Uh Now, I'm not suggesting that you made these people wonderful,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: but the average stuff you should Know Army member is
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: like that interesting, funny and willing to participate in a
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: virtual five K with a complete stranger, and they love
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: stroop waffles. I even bought thirteen stuff you should Know
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: stickers to send out to some people as prizes. It's
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: just a little thing, but everyone that I've been in
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: touch with has been exceedingly kind. This is what we
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: need right now, these small human connections. A podcast to
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: listen to and laugh with, a walk run, bear chase
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to do virtually with a bunch of near strangers, and
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: stuff you should have sticker to pull in your fridge
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: or on your laptop. If you get a chance to
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: go to the event page and scroll through some of
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: the posts, they're delightful, like the woman who did our
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: five K at three months postpartum and crushed it, or
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: the dad who pushed his adorable daughter in a stroller
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: on the five K while listening to his favorite episode,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: which was Spam. We had first timers. It was a
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: good one. We had first timers, people recovering from injury,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: runners and walkers, so many smiles and Stuff you Should
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Know t shirts sign off for now, but just writing
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: to tell you, is this a success? We might even
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: do it again with love And that is again from
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Aaron Huey Mozzell and that is great. Aaron, thank you
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: for doing this and that really does speak to UH,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to the quality of our listeners in every single way, indubitably. Yeah,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Aaron. It's good to hear from you,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: UH and everybody who participated in the s y five K.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: You are the champions, our friends, even if you listen
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to Mark Maron. But maybe that what Chuck just said,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: that's it. Okay. Well, if you want to get in
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: touch of this like a and did and do something interesting,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. You can write to
• 45:04
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