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Poopitalism: The Exploitation of Dung · Street Smart Naturalist

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Greetings,
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: this is David B.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Williams and the podcast of my newsletter,
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Street Smart Naturalist, Explorations of the Urban Kind.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I share my observations and adventures with the human
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode returns to a topic that has long interested me, guano.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: To learn more about my work,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: including my new book,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: A Human and Natural History of Washington's Cascades,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: please go to my website, geologywriter.com.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: You will also find a link to my Substack newsletter and my previous five and
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: a half years of newsletters, as well as images tied to this week's episode.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining me on this adventure,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: and welcome to Podcast 92 of the Street Smart Naturalists.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Poupitalism.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Exploitation of Dung, September 17, 2026.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Marjorie reminded me that I hadn't written about poop in a while.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, that is correct, so I thought I'd remedied a situation.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Her comment came when we were walking along an ocean beach and observed
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: a small outcrop of rock covered in generations of deposits by the residents.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: In this case,
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  SPEAKER_00: the producers were primarily brown pelicans and branch cormorants,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: though I suspect that various species of gulls and perhaps a crow
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: or two also contributed to the whitewashing of the islet.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen and smelled,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly below the Visitor Center at Cape Disappointment,
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  SPEAKER_00: where the aroma of fishy poop is quite spectacular,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: similar guanified rocks on many if not most coasts I have visited.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the splatters cover rocks such as I saw, merely a small pimple of land.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But other times, the poop covers islands big enough to merit a name.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the most common officially recognized monikers
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  SPEAKER_00: for these sea bird poop covered locations is Bird Island.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: The name can refer to the nesters and or to the coprogenic products.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I haven't come across other modifiers,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: or middle names if you will, between the first name and surname.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that you can imagine that terminology so won't belabor the point.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, cairns are another location preferred by birds as landing and depositing points.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Birds may rest, preen themselves, stand and scan for terrain, or dine.
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  SPEAKER_00: When birds consistently perch on a cairn,
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  SPEAKER_00: their depositional habits can also have a quite cheery effect on the landscape.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Droppings add nutrients that several species of Ornithocoprophyllis
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  SPEAKER_00: or bird-dung-loving lichen exploit.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: The elegant sunburst lichen,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: a name derived from their resplendent yellow and orange coloring,
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  SPEAKER_00: is often encountered on cairns at higher elevations and higher latitudes.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you see this sunny patch of color on a cairn,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can feel confident that some bird or some mammal,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: such as a marmot or pica,
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  SPEAKER_00: spent some quality time high above his or her surroundings.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have not read of Ornithocoprophyllis lichens exploding bird poop on oceanic rocks,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: but do know of another species that relishes said guano.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: That species is Homo sapiens, and we have sought out these deposits for thousands of years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like lichens, we wanted the nutrients, in particular nitrogen, to use as a fertilizer.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: In contrast to humans,
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  SPEAKER_00: who produce water-soluble urea that we pee out to eliminate excess nitrogen,
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  SPEAKER_00: birds produce uric acid,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is insoluble and mixed with feces to generate the white paste found in
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  SPEAKER_00: the rocks I saw.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Few groups of birds are better at creating bird islands than cormorants and pelicans.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Both species,
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  SPEAKER_00: of which there are quite a few species,
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  SPEAKER_00: are colonial,
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  SPEAKER_00: gregarious,
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  SPEAKER_00: and piscivorous,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: a trifecta of attributes that results in them nesting and resting together,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes in great quantities and often generation after generation.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, they have created guanocytes long utilized by people.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not surprisingly,
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  SPEAKER_00: our species' penchant
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  SPEAKER_00: for poop has had significant negative consequences ecologically and politically.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: In 2024,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Mauricio Betancourt,
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  SPEAKER_00: an environmental sociologist,
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  SPEAKER_00: published a paper titled Guano and the Rise of the American Empire.
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  SPEAKER_00: His aim was to expand an ecological imperialism theory by showing the centrality
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  SPEAKER_00: of guano for the origin and development of the U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: Empire.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right now,
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  SPEAKER_00: we are in a rising tide of crap,
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  SPEAKER_00: so it seems fitting to discuss the connections between shit and the United States.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Betancourt's focus is at the guano on Peru's Chincha Islands,
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  SPEAKER_00: some of the best and largest in the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: The island's deposits totaled 15 million tons,
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  SPEAKER_00: about as much feces as modern residents of New York City would produce in 37 years.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Beginning in 1845, the U.S. started to exploit the poop.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Over the next decade,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: guanomania and guano spread across the country,
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  SPEAKER_00: particularly in states planting tobacco and cotton.
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  SPEAKER_00: In that 10-year period,
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  SPEAKER_00: the U.S. imported twice as much guano as coffee and five times more than tea.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So valuable was the white gold that President Franklin Pierce signed
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: the Guano Islands Act in August 1856.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: The GIA eventually led to the US claiming about 70 islands, mostly in the Pacific Ocean.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Still on the books,
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  SPEAKER_00: the law states that if a US citizen finds guano on a territory not within
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: the jurisdiction of another nation and claims it, it may be considered US soil.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: As the demand for guano heated up, it led to warfare, labor exploitation, and abuse of power.
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  SPEAKER_00: I know, gentle reader, that you are shocked by this.
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  SPEAKER_00: Extraction also destroyed habitat for birds,
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  SPEAKER_00: prevented uncountable numbers of birds from nesting,
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  SPEAKER_00: removed an important nesting material, and led to the wanton killing of birds.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Similar to birds,
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  SPEAKER_00: our species eventually figured out a way to produce tidy packets of nitrogen
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  SPEAKER_00: and we no longer rely on guano.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: we now produce so much excess nitrogen that is causing new environmental problems.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But back to the poop.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now that we no longer value the white gold,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: these guano islands are the domains of birds who can live their lives and defecate
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: in peace, and naturalists and birders who can admire the birds.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Once again,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: this is David B.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Williams,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: author and voice of The Street Smart Naturalist,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Explorations of the Urban Kind,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: a weekly newsletter and podcast focusing on the human
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: and natural world around Seattle, Puget Sound, and the Pacific Northwest.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like more details about my walks, talks,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: and books,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: including In the Range of Fire and Ice,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: along with a link to sign up for my newsletter and podcast,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: check out my website, geologywriter.com.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to slow down, pay attention, and enjoy the world around you.