Wetlands! Wetlands! Wetlands!

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast, Guaranteed Human. On eBay, every find has a story. Like if you're looking for a vintage band tea, not just AT, the band tea. You wore it everywhere until your ex-boyfriend stole it. Now you're on eBay and there it is, same tea from the same tour. The things you love have a way of finding their way back to you, especially on eBay. Where else can you find that mint trading card you search for everywhere that's out of print? Or your first car, the one you wish you'd never sold. It has to be eBay. Shop eBay for millions of finds, each with a story. eBay. Things. People. Love. This message is sponsored by Regeneron and Sonofi. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant do not have direct experience with the product advertised or the disease. You know that feeling when you get an itch that you just can't ignore? When you scratch and it comes back and scratch again, still there. If you have Exima, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Exima is more than just dry skin. It's relentless itching. It's uncomfortable. If you feel like your moderate to severe Exima isn't under control with topical prescription therapies,

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2:06and these socks are perfect for it. They're cushioned where I need it most, sweat wicking and loaded with other tech features to keep me comfy and locked in. So head on over to Bombas.com and use code SYSK for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com code S-YSK at checkout. Hi, everybody. Chuck back again with another edition of Believe Number Eight. And our think, Spring and Playlist. And today, you're going to be learning all about wetlands. Because the name of the episode is wetlands, exclamation point, wetlands, exclamation point, wetlands, exclamation point. Can you tell we love wetlands? I think you will, too. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Charles and Jerry's over there.

3:09And this is Stuff You Should Know, the Dripping Wet Edition, and these wetlands. What? I knew that you would not get that. Is that a seagull reference? Oh gosh. Why do you have to say seagull when you always mean springsteen? Was that springsteen? Yeah, it's badlands. OK. Baby, these wetlands are born to run? Sure. Run water. I don't like myself anymore. Run water, that was a great save, Chuck. Thanks. So we're talking wetlands. I have to say we have to give a shout out to Tom Peterman, the foulmouth wetland biologist who keeps asking us to do this episode. Oh, is that where this came from? It was Tom Peterman's suggestion, although I'd already wanted to do it anyway, so. Yeah, I mean, we love our earth sciences, man. And this one was, I was just smiling from ear to ear reading this. Can you imagine watching a blacksmith forge something in a wetland in a flooded woodland?

4:15No. I just nerve on out right there. It really is. So we're talking wetlands, everybody. And Dave Ruze helped us put this one together, and Dave likes to pop in jokes every once in a while. And he said, he said, what makes a wetland wet water? And then he says, in all seriousness, that's basically it, that the water has to be largely present, at least some parts of the year in the soil in such amounts that you would call something wetland. I mean, think of the name wetland. It's about as earthy a term as science gets. Yeah. And he front loaded this with a few stats, and I won't go through all of them, but I'll go through a few that kind of are instructive as to why I love wetlands so much. Here's one. Although wetlands make up only 5% of the land surface in the United States, they are home to 31% of our plant species. Yeah.

5:15Not bad. One-third of America's threatened or endangered species live only in wetlands. I would propose that this slightly misleading. I think they're endangered because they live in wetlands and wetlands are endangered as we'll see. Hmm. Think about it, Chuck. I don't know. I took it more as like they're all hiding out in the wetlands because it's a terrible place to hide out. No, it's not bad because it's got 31% of the plant species. I mean, it's a pretty rich, biodiverse area to live in if you're an endangered species. For sure. All right. You just think it was a tomato. Well, we'll have to hear from Thomas Peter in the foul mouth wildlife for wetland biologists who can let us know. What does he say? Like, do you often wetlands already? Yes. That kind of thing. Yeah. I like this guy. I think that's an exact quote. Yeah. He's my kind of dude. So another stat that I thought was pretty interesting that we'll just kind of needs to form the basis or the undercurrent of this whole episode is that so we keep talking

6:19about the US. There's wetlands found all over the world of different types and varieties and different climates and different continents, every continent except Antarctica. But in the United States in particular, we have a long history of filling in and draining wetlands for other purposes. So much so that, let's see, I believe, I don't know how much we've lost, but in the 1600s, the lower 48 states were covered with 220 million acres of wetlands, which is 11 percent of the total surface area of the lower 48 states. And I think starting in the 50s, we were doing away with wetlands at a rate of about 60,000 of those acres per year. Yeah. And it's gotten better since then. But yeah, in the boy up until the Clean Water Act, it was just like, hey, you know, it looked great there, a resort with like three golf courses and a bunch of tennis. That's been such a driving force. It's like looking at land or ecosystems being like, are humans making money off of it?

7:20No. Well, then drain it and repurpose it, set it on fire and repurpose it, stop it from burning and repurpose it. If we can't make money off of it, it can't possibly be useful. And luckily, since the environmental movement really started in the 70s, we've realized that that's not necessarily true, that even if you are just a heartless dummy, there's still a lot of benefits that humanity's given from things like wetlands that seem problematic or non-productive, you know? Yeah. That was one of Dangerfield's big lines in Caddy Shack, as I'll serve it, was golf courses and cemeteries, too big as waste of prime real estate. That's a good one. So let's talk about wetlands. You said that they are only, some of them are only wet for short periods, sometimes when they're snowmelt or just rain. Yeah, those are called ephemeral wetlands, which is a cool term. It's a great term. Some are wet all the time. And the key parts of being a wetland or the key characteristic is that it's either permanently

8:22or periodically flooded or wet, and that the soil is, it's called hydric soil and is dominated by anaerobic processes, meaning it loves water and the plants there love water. Yeah, but it's weird because you used another word that shouldn't really jive with plants and that's called anaerobic, which means there's very little to no oxygen present, and we'll explain why later, but the fact that there are plants means that those plants have adapted to the wetlands. Yes, and it makes an anaerobic condition. Hydrophytic, and we'll talk about those plants later. It's another thing I love about wetlands is just that it really underscores the remarkable evolution that something will go through to survive. Very cool stuff. Very awesome. Yep, so there's also, so you hit upon something like they're not necessarily wet year round. Right? There's a whole bunch of different types of wetlands or wetland environments that fill those, that check those boxes.

9:24One of the ones that most people think of when they think of wetlands or coastal wetlands, like marshes, and a marsh is basically like this area between inland and the ocean. It's like a transition zone, a buffer zone, and because it's proximity to the ocean, it's usually salty or at least brackish, which is a mixture of saltwater and freshwater. And one of the ones that really come to mind, if you're thinking coastal wetlands, you're thinking marshlands, and you're thinking tidal marshlands probably, especially if you're a Pat Conroy fan. What was the name of her character that he repeats over and over in a whisper? I think I remember Chuck, it was Bobby Jim. Bobby Jim. This is one of those, scream at the pod player moments. Was it in the Prince of Tides? Yeah. Loanstein. Was that it? Loanstein. You're sure it wasn't Bobby Jim? I think it was Loanstein. Was it his, oh, his shrinks, his shrink girlfriend's name?

10:26Yeah, Babs. Okay. Yeah, I don't remember. I think it was Loanstein. Okay. All right. So anyway, tidal marshes, yes, Prince of Tides, they obviously, it's because they're tidal. They're going to come in and out with the high and low tide. And like you said, they're generally saltwater. And the salt marshes are very nutrient rich, and they do have a lot of diversity. But obviously, only the kind of things that can tolerate the salt as far as plants and animals go. Which is a pretty short list, really, because salt is not conducive to life. Instead, there are some plants that have figured out how to deal with salt. And most of the time when you're looking at salt marshes, you're looking, the plant life is basically grasses of some sort. Right. There's also freshwater tidal marshes, which they are either connected to the saltwater marsh, but they're far enough inland that the saltwater doesn't make its way in there. So it's a freshwater marsh, but it's still affected by the tides.

11:28And then I had no idea about this. And I used to vacation on Lake Erie, but apparently the Great Lakes are so big that they have tides themselves. You didn't know that? I had no idea. I even knew that. I'm a dumb dumb when it comes to the Great Lakes. Well, Chuck, I think you got me beat big time. Well, in this case. Because I could know a million other things about the Great Lakes. And if you knew that one thing and I didn't, you had me beat. Yeah. I knew that. And so that means that they do have those tidal marshes. The Florida Everglades are another good example. And boy, Florida just, there's a lot of different types of wetlands in Florida. Well, there's a lot of coastline. Yeah, a lot of coastline and a lot of interior wetness. Yeah, we have a lot of wetlands around our place in Florida for sure. And there's mangroves and all sorts of stuff that we'll talk about. Well, we're at mangroves. I love those things. So mangroves, I think they at least deserve a short stuff because they're one of the most amazing plants of all time.

12:30But they're a type of coastal wetland themselves, a mangrove forest. Or if you've never seen a mangrove forest, they're these kind of, they have a growth habit for the shrubbery on top of like the hair that Oompa Loompa has in the original, the original Willy Wonka, the good one. And the trunks split out into these cool like long roots and legs that stick up out of the water. And they form this huge tangle, this riot of like shrub, woody shrub, and they do all sorts of amazing things to help the aquatic life and us humans as well up on land just by being present. Yeah, they're really cool looking. And this is another good one, sort of like the origami that if you're able and you're sitting still to look up a lot of these things as you go, because these mangrove forests, it looks like, it looks like a shrub that's like I really want to be a shrub, but I don't

13:32want to get wet. So I'm just going to dip my legs in a little bit. Yeah, that's really great. It's just very cool looking and again, just the adaptability that these mangroves really want to live where they live, even though it's not very suited for them and they become suited for it. Right. If you've been sleeping on mangroves, welcome to reality. Well, that's a teacher, if I ever heard one. Yeah. That's a little, could use a little work, but there's, there's the beginnings of one in there. You also got your inland wetlands. These are not coastal. In this case, we're talking about swamps and marshes and bogs and fens, f-e-n, and marshes. A lot of these, you'll find near rivers, near streams, lowland depressions, and they might periodically fill up depending on rain, what's going on, or different types of flooding that might happen, and they can be a few inches deep, they can be several feet deep. Yeah. Most of the non-title inland marshes are ephemeral wetlands.

14:34Yeah. So they're dry a lot of the year. They might fill up seasonally. They might fill up with the rains. They might fill up with the nearby river flooding. It's like my backyard. And they, oh, really? Is that right? Yeah. It doesn't drain well. I've got to drain this problem. Okay. To you, it's a problem. To nature, it's wonderful. Because we like things that drain really quickly and dry, and then we can walk on them and then grass is fine. But there's a lot of like benefits to things that take their time. Like there's something called a vernal pool, which is a kind of non-title marsh, an ephemeral wetland. That's basically just like, say, a stretch of woods that's a little bit depressed there so that when it rains or a river floods, it fills with water. And because the underlying bedrock or clay is not very porous, it takes a while for that water to go through. But that water's also not going further downstream, so it prevents flooding from being as bad as it could, because a lot of the water collects and stays there. And it also slowly recharges the groundwater.

15:36And because it does get dry, it can't sustain fish, which makes it a really great nursery for things like noots and salamanders and frogs. Things that fish eat their eggs, but since there's no fish, this is like a really great place for them to get a good foothold and a brand new life. You've also got your prairie potholes. This is when you should definitely look up. These are usually in the upper Midwest of the United States. The Dakotas, Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin. And these are where ancient glaciers left these big depressions in the landscape. And they fill up sometimes during rain, during the spring, during snow melt. And they're not small, like a prairie pothole and I got a vision in my head. But if you look it up online, they're beautiful and just, they're very large, though, and they're kind of interconnected. Just these big round holes scattered through like a big open area full of water. And these are great for migrating birds, because that could be a stopover that they might

16:40not have had at those potholes not been there. And when they're flying over the Dakotas, they say, look, I see Van Nostraens house. Or buddy, Van Nostraens. And then there's also, we said that wetlands occur in all different kinds of climates. They also occur in the desert. There's something called plyalakes, which are these depressions that apparently no one has any idea exactly how they formed. It could have been from erosion. It could have been from an ancient sinkhole. But there are depressions that are deep enough that when the seasonal rains come, the water is held in there. And just like the prairie potholes, it's very useful for migratory birds to stop over at. It can really place a huge role in this ecosystem where there's almost no water. And now all of a sudden, there's water. And it's in this nice little lake, so let's all go gather there and have a social hour. But responsibly, six feet apart. That's right. OK. I think we should take a break. And we will talk a little bit about inland swamps right after this.

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21:07about it at some point, but I took a very special fun trip many, many years ago to the Okipa and Okiswamp and did one of those canoe trips where you have to rent, you know, there's no place to stop in the Okipa and Okiswamp. If you're like, I think I'll camp here, it's like in the water. All right. So they had these camping pads built up, they essentially just decks that are like six feet above the water. And you have to reserve those that are not just wide open for anyone because there's nothing else out there. You have to reserve them for specific nights on these specific pathways or, you know, paddleways. And me and a couple of buddies did it one year and we can do it from deck to deck. And it was amazing, like one of the coolest trips I've ever taken. That is very cool. Was Ned Betty with you? No, but you do wake up surrounded by alligators, it's a little creepy. Yes, alligators are very creepy. You wake up on that pad and pee off the dock and they're growling at you.

22:07Yeah. And you do not want to get too close because they can move faster than you think. Yeah, they can. It was a lot of fun though. But not for the faint of heart because, you know, you don't realize until you get out there, A, how bad the sun is going to beat you up because there's no shade. And B, how tough it is to paddle all day long without like, you know, let me get out and stretch my legs. Right. I mean, there is no getting out. You just, you just go and go and go. And by the time you finally reach that janky deck, it is like, might as well be the plaza hotel, you know? Oh, nice. But what I'm talking about in the case of the Okifinoki, I thought it was a forested or a bottom bottom land hardwood swamp. You'd think from reading this, but apparently it's called a non riverine swamp forest. Right. And that is a forested swamp that fills up from non river sources, basically rain or groundwater. Right. Right. So that what would make a forested swamp like a bottom land hardwood swamp is a proximity

23:08to a river that floods its banks or that is just so so big it kind of spills over into some of the surrounding land that surrounding land is swamp. I want to look that up though. I'm not quite sure. Dave's right. Oh, well, it's a. Okay. So it's either river fed or groundwater fed or precipitation's fed. And if you're talking bottom land hardwood swamps or a river fed swamp, there's usually also a shrub swamp, which is a transition or buffer zone between the forested swamp and, you know, somebody's backyard, which is, it's just dominated by shrubs, but it's all the same thing. It's all freshwater swamp. Yeah. I think I bet you anything that Okifinoki has several different types of these. It would be my guess because they were full on lakes that we paddled through. Yeah. So that would be my guess. And also think if I had a country band, we would be the bottom land hardwood swamp rats. Oh, that's a good one. Not bad. That sounds like an all-star band, you know? Oh, sure. Yeah. So another kind of wetland that you're going to find all over the place, especially in

24:11Europe, which when I think of bogs and fens, I think of Europe, but apparently there's plenty of them in the United States too. But bogs and fens are kind of their own thing. These in particular, very unique as far as wetlands go, because not only are they anaerobic, which by definition, wetland is anaerobic soil. They're like very little nutrient and very high acidity. I've heard like the kind of acid that is put out by the peat that's created in the bog has the same acidity roughly of vinegar. Oh, wow. So it's like, yeah, it's really, really acidic stuff. And yet some plants prefer it. Like you can grow cranberries and blueberries in a bog. Sure. You can preserve a body from the iron age forward in a bog. Yeah. Do we ever cover that? The bog bodies? I feel like we did. Maybe it might have been one of our video things on YouTube. Maybe mummies, because I think if I remember correctly, our mummy episode covered more than

25:13just Egyptian mummies. Yeah. If you covered like Inka mummies and the bog people. I'm sure we did. We saw some. Then when we went to our UK trip, we got to visit some of those cats, like first hand, like right there in that glass, right, like, you know, all you have to do is smash it with a hammer and it's yours. You got a bog person. Yeah. Release whatever you can grab, like a bog ear. Right. It just crumbles in your hand. But I was looking. I was like, okay, why are the bog so great for preservation? Part of it from what I understand is that acidity that the bodies are actually pickled. But another part is the aerobic life is so devoid there. There's just anaerobic bacteria and they don't decompose nearly as well as aerobic bacteria. So the decomposition doesn't sit in and the remains are pickled. So like you can preserve a body in a really great state for a very, like, tallened band.

26:13His whiskers are still intact on his face. Yeah. Like, that was the level of preservation and he was sacrificed into a bog, which is a very specific kind of wetland. Yeah. And a fan, like I said, it's FeN. It's sort of like a bog in that it is a peaty wetland. But they're a little bit different than bogs. The water supply doesn't come primarily from rain and it comes from the ground. So it's not, it's going to be less acidic because I don't think we mentioned it. You know, it's partially because of the peat, but the acidity also comes from the fact that there's acid and rain that gets filling up, that fills up these bogs. Right. Right. Not the case in a fan. No. No, because that groundwater is able to kind of dilute it a little bit. So they're much more nutrient rich than a bog is. So they're going to have much, a much wider, diverse range of plants in animal life. Yeah. I love that this next section from day was called other fun types of wetlands. Yeah. Mud flats.

27:14Yeah, you get your mud flat. It's another good country ban. My favorite are seaps. These are just gorgeous little pieces of nature if you ask me. If you have a spring that comes up out of the ground, it spills over into the ground. So the surrounding ground is wetland and it's called a seap. That's right. It's where gnomes go in shower. Yeah. And it's not, like you said, it's a spring. So it's not like a creek. No. It's actually coming up from the ground. You ever drink from a natural spring? I did when I was a kid and my mom fired the babysitter that took us to drink from the spring. Yeah. She was like, what are you doing? It was either spring or like a river in Ohio and not either way. No. Two very different things. It seems like a kayaker river than you're in bad shape. It was on fire while we were drinking it. But I mean, we have creeks. You're listening. You've never been to Atlanta. Atlanta has creeks all over the place, like all of the Intel neighborhoods just are riddled with creeks. They're just sort of out of view.

28:14But we have a creek, you know, 120 feet from our house. Sure. Which might have something to do with our drainage, who knows? And it's spring fed? No. It's just, you know, just a part of the Atlanta probably all comes from the Chattahoochi at some point. Sure. So Chuck, if that creek behind your house sort of meandering in a different direction, and left a body of water where it originally flowed, it would be an oxbow lake. But if you were in Australia and you were calling it as proper aboriginal name, you'd call it a billabong. A billabong. Which I had no idea. What does that have to do with surfing? Oh, I think they just probably co-opted the name and it became more associated with surf and surf gear than it's true meaning. That doesn't seem right. No. Let's take it back. I put an oxbow lake as an Australia among the aborigines. It is a billabong, which is great. A billabong. That was some, like, along with OP was one of the prime t-shirts to have when you were a

29:17kid in the 80s. Oh, yeah. If you were cool. I had this amazing OP long sleeve blue shirt that I wore with my parachute pants. Yes. Those were the best. My British Knights. I remember those long sleeve OP shirts. Yep. They were good. Gorgeous. One of the things we've been talking about is the kind of the characteristics that make a wetland, a wetland. It's not just the fact that the soil table or the ground is either flooded or almost completely flooded up to the surface level with water. That's not the entirety of it. Like, different wetlands are characterized by how that water gets to it. Like we said, you know, some kinds of swamps are fed by ground water. There's a fed by precipitation, some are tidal. So there's a whole group of scientists out there that are called wetland hydrologists. And what they study is how that water gets into a wetland, to create a wetland. What happens to it while it's there, and then where it goes, and how all these things

30:20kind of interact to form this very unique ecosystem? Yeah. And we talked early on about the kind of soil, hydric soil, is saturated with water. And so if it's saturated with water, it's not going to have nearly as much oxygen. And usually oxygen and soil are in these little tiny air pockets. Remember when we talked about that in our soil episode? Yeah. Exactly. And in the case of a wetland, then those air pockets are going to be filled with water or just collapsed all together. And then you've got your anaerobic condition. But if you're plant, you need CO2 and oxygen. And you'll get a little bit of that from photosynthesis in the leaves, but the roots are like, what about me down here? I need oxygen too. And if it was an aerobic soil, like we talked about in the soil podcast, the roots can get it from those air pockets. But in wetlands, they have to really, really adapt to become hydrophytic or water-loving plants in some pretty amazing ways. So I just have to say that this is like a lifelong mystery solved and solved in the simplest

31:24way possible. Like, it's anaerobic because there's water there instead of air. Water can't be in there because of the waters there, Ipsofacto, anaerobic. I just think that's brilliantly simple. Yeah. Did you get that intuitively? Because I never did. I always thought it was something mysterious. Like, we're talking about a whole different type of soil or something else. Hmm. No, I think I got it. Okay. Well, I've been around for 44 years and wondered it until just now. Well, I'm 49, so I might have worn that in the last five years. So the plants that we're talking about, like you said, the roots still need oxygen. So they've said, okay, well, I really like it here. I like this wetland area. This is a pretty amazing place to live. I'm going to change so that I can stay here. And some of the ways that plants have adapted, well, one good example is a cat tail, right? Cat tails are pretty much synonymous with marshlands. Yeah, they're beautiful. That long thin stem with a big fat thing on top, like a hot dog that's ready to be roasted

32:27on the fire. Yeah. I grew up with those. I don't know if it was a southern thing, but there could be decorative items in the home. And I grew up, I feel like, with a lot of cat tails and vases and stuff. Okay. So that in wasps nests? Yeah. Ornids nests, yeah. So cat tails have this thing called aeronicium. No, I've got aeronicima, aeronicima, aeronicima. I think I got it. Anyway, they're like these channels that basically direct air from the leaves and the stem and every other part of the cat tail down to the roots. It says, here you go, roots, here's some oxygen fresh from the leaf. Yeah. So that cat tail can have as much roots as it wants down in the St. aerobic soil. It doesn't matter because it's getting, it's oxygen from the air through the leaves. Yeah. One of my favorites is the speckled alder. You just look up a picture of that and they have these enlarged pores called lenticells.

33:31And they allow for the passage of oxygen directly into that wood. And if you look up a picture and you see those, you go, oh, that's what those are. That's what those are for. They look like someone took a knife and they're just tiny little horizontal slits all up and down the alder. I guess. They're breathing basically. Yeah. That's creepy as heck, but it's like really neat, little mouths, little slitty mouths. So the grasses that we talked about growing in salt marshes, just like an iguana sneezes out, excess salts as part of digestion, things like cordgrass that grow in these salt marshes, they actually excrete salts through their leaves so they can sit there and intake all the nutrients they need from this selenic environment and still not get overloaded with salt. It's just pretty amazing that they can do that. Yeah. And then to me, maybe the most amazing, and this is where the mangroves kind of come back in, although the mangroves apparently utilize all these to stick around.

34:32But the bald cypress, they grow in those forested swamps where there's always water and they are deciduous conifers and they grow this root structure that they call a knee. It's a new metaphor, but like a knee on your leg is how it's spelled. And they just sit above the waterline and take in oxygen. And that's what those, I guess, mangroves, mangroves, there's a salt-drained joke in there somewhere. Yeah, it struck me as like a terrible jam band name. The mangroves. Yeah. God, you're right. Yeah. That plays somewhere in Florida, probably. Probably. But the mangrove uses, like I said, a lot of these tricks. And I think certainly when you see those roots, they're using those knees. Yeah. Which is basically, it's a way to get oxygen from the surrounding air down to the roots. The mangroves do it, the bald cypresses do it. Mangroves have all those adaptations, different species, they can do things like excrete salt,

35:32they can draw oxygen in from the environment. They have channels where they can pump oxygen from one part of the plant to the other. The one that gets me though, I'm just fascinated by bugs. So we said that there, it's an acidic anaerobic nutrient depleted environment. And yet there's still plants that live there. And one of those plants, one kind of plant is carnivorous plants. They get their nutrients not from the soil, but from eating bugs. Yeah, those are cool. So they can just live there, like a pitcher plant or a phoenix fly trap or something like that. Yeah, those are nature. It wasn't phoenix fly trap, one of the DJs on WKRP. That's a great DJ name. Yeah. He was a great DJ. All right, so let's take our final break and we'll talk about why wetlands are important and what you can do to help them do their thing, right after this. Hey, everybody, get this.

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38:38time. Well, that's why there's take 5 oil change. It doesn't just save time, it gives you control of your day back. You pull in, stay in your car, check something off your to-do list, no waiting room, no pressure, you're in and you're out in about 10 minutes. Oil changes include tire pressure checks and fluid top-offs, and the friendly staff explain everything and welcome you with a free water. Take 5 fitting into your busy schedule is something you should know. Find your near shop at take5.com Okay, Chuck, so just the fact that wetlands are as amazing as they are means that they should be saved. But there's also a lot of benefits that we figured out. Like you said, the 50s to the 70s were a really rough time for wetlands in the United States because we were filling them in for crop land, for real estate. And even previous to that, we filled in a lot of marshland in the U.S. and built cities

39:40over them. Like DC was built largely on marshland. The fact that mosquitoes tend to live in wetland areas kind of justified filling in a lot of the wetlands because we were dealing with malaria at the time. So it made a lot of sense. Get rid of the mosquitoes habitat, you get rid of the mosquitoes. And it worked. But we've paid a heavy price for it because over time we've realized these wetlands provide some really important benefits to the local ecosystems and in turn humans who live around them. I mean, helping flood conditions is a big one. They are big, big natural sponges when it comes down to it and flooding would be way, way worse. And we still have floods obviously. But it'd be way worse if we didn't have wetlands. They'd be far more destructive if they weren't around to soak in that excess water and then kind of slowly trickle it to the water table below. And the same was obviously true of hurricanes and big storm surges. The wetlands basically operate as big storage tanks for water.

40:41Yeah, I saw somewhere, I can't find it now, but like it, oh, there it is, an acre of wetlands can hold up to about a million and a half gallons of water, just one acre. So you got to think like that water is staying put there and it's not flooding some human habitation instead, which is a good reason to keep wetlands around just for that buffer area or to slow down the surge like you were saying. I also saw that we found out the same thing goes for beaver dams that they build. They're like a temporary artificial wetland and they provide a lot of the same functions that natural, or other, I guess naturally occurring or growing wetlands provide too. And I think we should do a whole episode on beavers, okay? Oh, totally. I'm way into beavers. So water filtration is another, is it, water, I'm getting you back for the ore gum I think. So water filtration is another big service that wetlands provide.

41:42I don't remember where we talked about this, but we talked about it recently where the water, oh, I think it was water treatment plants. The water is brought in and it's got all the sediment and gunk and muck and it's cloudy and turbid and then it slows down, they slow it down like running it through some grates or whatever. And as it slows down, the sediment that is making the water turbid and polluted and everything has a chance to settle the bottom. Well, wetlands provide that same function naturally. So when you have a bunch of like polluted water basically come through there, that it slows down when it hits all those mangrove roots or tree trunks or whatever it is. And it gives it a chance for that sediment to fall to the bottom. It gets sucked up by the tree roots and stored in the trees. Or the microbial life can break a lot of that stuff down too. And there's definitely a limit to where you can very easily overload the wetlands ability to filter the water.

42:42But if you gave it like a manageable supply, that is a major service that it does is it cleans our water. They call wetlands the kidneys of the earth. Yeah. And they've even done studies where they tried to, I guess, sort of monetize what an area of wetland might do if it were a treatment plant. And there's one in South Carolina called the Kangaroo bottomland hardwood swamp. These are just all country bands. For sure. Is they said that that is basically equivalent to about a $5 million water treatment plant just sitting there being a wetland doing its thing. Thank you, nature. Pretty amazing. I saw that beavers provide the dams that they build that end up being temporary wetlands. Somebody estimated it's worth about a hundred grand if a human tried to build an artificial one, which we do. If you just let beavers do their thing, they will do the same thing for free. That's right. You don't have to pay them a hundred grand.

43:44Nope. There's also because there's so much going on in a wetland, there's so much life. They kind of form like these metropolis is for all sorts of different types of animals on all the way up the food chain, including plants, animals, microbial life, worms, fish, larger predators like dolphins and alligators. And all of them are sitting there providing food for us if you like gator tale. But do you better preserve those wetlands? Yeah. They point out here that the commercial fishing industry in the US, 75% of the fish in shellfish harvested here had fish that at least had a temporary home in the wetlands. And that recreationally, if you're a recreational fish person, fisher person, then 90% of the US fish catch is at least the breeding ground lies in the wetlands for those fish.

44:46And the same thing goes for birds, too. They're enormously important habitats for birds, some permanent, but also migratory, too, because if you're flying along and you're a bird and you are a water bird, you need to place the land. Not only are you looking for water, but you might really enjoy a swamp because it offers protection from predators, it offers a port in the storm, it's just an all-around valuable thing for birds, too. Yeah, I mean, imagine flying from Canada to Texas and you're going over Oklahoma and you're a little tired. You look down and you see one of those, which ones were those, the Prairie Plyas? No, the Prairie Potholes. Prairie Potholes? Yeah. Oh, man. What a sight. Aren't you describing a scene in Jonathan Livingston Seagull? Probably so. So the point is, we need to take care of our wetlands because they are a threatened, diverse,

45:46very useful place all over the world, especially here in the United States. And if they are threatened and if things happen, there are going to be all kinds of bad things, you know, vegetative damage. The plant life just being maybe wiped out, wiped out altogether. Storm surges being way worse, flooding being way worse, especially helps to see the value in them. If you consider them a buffer zone between us and the hardest ravages of nature. Yeah. And like you mentioned pollution, there is a limit, but they do absorb and mitigate levels of water pollution and they just can't take too much of us, you know? Right. Exactly. Which, man, if there's anything that characterizes humans in the 20th and 21st centuries, it's too much of us. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, since donating to wetland projects, we can definitely do that. You can definitely do that. There's some good ones out there.

46:47I believe ducks unlimited is one of them. The wetlands initiative, natural resources defense council, wetlands international. But apparently in the United States, something like 75% of wetlands are on privately-owned property. And in the United States, we have, I mean, private properties, one of like the fundamental tenants of American society. So if you say, I want to fill in this wetland and kill off these beavers, you're allowed to do that. Whether that's a good idea and whether that's going to affect other people, that's a different story. So if you own private property with a wetland on it and you're doing just fine with that wetland, leave the wetland alone. It's very important. Yeah. I guess this is where it gets a little tricky in definitions because in plenty of places there are restrictions on building near water like this. Sure. I guess I just don't know like you can't build in a flood zone.

47:48You can't, I mean, it depends on where you are, but in Atlanta, you can't. And then with these all these creeks and streams in Atlanta, they have what's called streambubbers. Sure. 50 foot, 75 foot, 100 foot, and I think 25 is the lowest. And for these, you have to get variances to do anything, which your neighborhood has to approve. And I talked to a guy that apparently anything over anything under 75 feet is pretty tricky to get approved. So I don't know if their wetlands are not, but there are restrictions on stuff like that. Okay. So that brings up the next point of what you and I and everybody else can do, which is vote for people to local elected office who part of their platform is protecting wetlands. Yeah. Like all of those buffer zones, all those variances and all those prohibitions, those came from Atlanta city councils over the years that decided that wetlands needed protecting. You don't find those everywhere. But once they get put in place, they usually don't get repealed very easily. So if you make preserving wetlands part of like what you're voting for, that would have

48:51an impact for sure. Yeah. And whatever you're voting for, just vote, okay? Vote. Especially locally. I know everyone, the presidential elections are always the big sexy votes. But the local politics matters even more, almost sometimes. Yeah. Vote for all of it. Take an interest in your society, okay? Yeah. Well, you got anything else about wetlands? Nope. I don't either. This is a good one. I'm pretty happy with it. And since I said that, everybody, it's time for listen or mail. Yeah. I'm going to call this the first S.Y. 5K. Oh, yeah. Did you see these? Yes, man. Congratulations. Everybody who took part. Yeah. So what happened was some stuff you should know listeners got together and put together a 5K and stuff you should know 5K. And we got periodic updates from Aaron, Huey, Miselle or Miselle, I'll try to pronounce it. I'm going with Miselle.

49:52Miselle. But this is the final email about how it went. Hey guys, want to let you know that the S.Y. 5K is over. It was so nice to look at everyone's pictures and hear what episodes of stuff you should know they listened to. Because that was the idea. Imagine some people might have fudged that and listened to Mark Mariner or whatever. That's not like they're disqualified. I think a lot of us have suffered from a lack of human connection at this time. And the silly little virtual event gave us something to bond over. I don't think I would have tried this with any other group of people. The stuff you should know, Army is wonderful and it speaks volumes in regard to you guys. The tone that you set in your podcast, interesting and funny. So we're into your fan base and it's created a little lovely corner of the internet. I totally agree here and the same can be said of the movie crush page. Very, very good people. Not snipy or rude and going after each other on Facebook, which is kind of what Facebook seems to be all about. Oh yeah, it's like a garden paradise over there on the S.Y.S.K Army page.

50:53That's great. Now I'm not suggesting that you made these people wonderful, but the average stuff you should know, Army Bimmer, is like that. Interesting, funny and willing to participate in a virtual 5K with a complete stranger. And they love strewp waffles. I even bought 13 stuff you should know stickers to send out to some people. The surprise is, it's just a little thing, but everyone that I've been in touch with has been exceedingly kind. This is what we need right now, these small human connections. A podcast still listen to and laugh with a walk, run, bear chase to do virtually with a bunch of near strangers and a stuff you should know sticker to pulling your fridge or on your laptop. If you get a chance, go to the event page and scroll through some of the posts. They're delightful. Like the woman who did our 5K at three months postpartum and crushed it or the dad who pushed his adorable daughter and her stroller on the 5K while listening to his favorite episode, which was spam. We had first-timers. Yeah, it was a good one. We had first-timers, people recovering from injury, runners and walkers, so many smiles and stuff. You should know T-shirts. Sign off for now, but just writing and tell you is it's a success. You might even do it again with love, and that is again from Aaron Huey, Michelle, and

51:58that is great. Aaron, thank you for doing this, and that really does speak to the quality of our listeners in every single way. Indubitably. Yeah, thanks a lot, Aaron. It's good to hear from you. And everybody who participated in the S5 5K, you are the champions, our friends, even if you listen to Mark Marin, but maybe not what Chuck just said. That's it. Okay, well, if you want to get in touch with us like Aaron did and do something interesting, we want to hear about it. You can write to us in an email to stuffpodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

53:00We're always talking about how things work, and one thing that keeps your car running smoothly is regular oil changes, but life's busy, and the oil light always comes on at the worst time. Well, that's why there's take five oil change. It doesn't just save time, it gives you control of your day back. You pull in, stay in your car, check something off your to-do list, no waiting room, no pressure, you're in and you're out in about 10 minutes. Oil changes include tire pressure checks and fluid top-offs, and the friendly staff explain everything and welcome you with a free water. Take five fitting into your busy schedule is something you should know. Find your near shop at take five dot com. The Toyota Tundra and Tacoma are built to keep going, backed by Toyota's reputation for legendary reliability. Step into a Tundra with the available iForce Max Hybrid Engine, delivering impressive torque and serious towing power, or take a look at Tacoma with an available power lift gate, so gear goes in fast and the adventure keeps moving. Toyota trucks are built to last year after year, mile after mile, so drive one home today. Visit Toyota.com to find out more.

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