How Human Trafficking Works

Despite worldwide prohibitions, slavery still exists. Slaves are forced or coerced into prostitution or made to work in deplorable factory conditions. Yet there's still debate over how widespread the problem is. Learn about modern slavery in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know
from housetop Works dot Com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. The cross from me is always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this stuff you

(00:23):
should know, not bush league. No, we've been doing this
way too long. Not bush league. We're pioneers, man, are
we Probably we're like riding the coat tails of Adam Curry.
That's right, Yeah, long supple doublety coat tails of Adam Curry.
I'm happy to be on them. Sure, he's great, man,

(00:44):
I'm not making fun of him at all. Well, don't
make it sound like I am. You're not one of
those guys who just says something like uncool to be
ironic and have it be cool. No, And I'm glad
you brought that up because I posted a Kenny g
song on our Facebook page and I wasn't trying to
be ironic. I wasn't trying to be cool. It's a
good song. Yeah, it's as simple as that. Like when

(01:05):
you go see Dolly Parton, It's not to be ironic.
It's because you like Dolly Parton exactly. All right, thank you,
I just want to clear that up. The same goes
for Ronnie Millsap by the way, he's class act um
one of mine and Nami's friends. Adam was like, who's
that cat that you listen to? He was always wearing

(01:25):
the sunglasses his country, and Umi was like, Ronnie Millsap.
He's like, yeah, I was like, he's blind man, that's
why he's always wearing the sunglasses. Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, Yeah,
who was engaged. Congratulations Yes, congratulations to Adam and Serena.
So human trafficking work. Yeah, we might as well have

(01:47):
gotten the light stuff out of the way because this
will be another joke free podcast. This is a I
don't know about joke free. We don't pull off joke
free very well, but we um, this is heavy. It's
one of our heavier ones. Is up there with like homelessness,
uh and um and off requested. Yeah, this one's been
asked for a lot. We're finally doing it. Um. And

(02:08):
Human trafficking is not to be confused with the movie
about raves from the nineties called Human Traffic has absolutely
nothing to do with one another. Human trafficking is basically
another term for modern slavery. Uh. And apparently I want
to bust out a an unquantified stat that's my forte Yes,

(02:31):
they're supposedly more slaves in the world right now than
there ever have been. That is true. I looked that
up just to be sure, and I did not get
a number, but they said there are more. Well, I
think they said more than twelve million, is what the
u N says. The State Department said, uh in two
thousand and ten and their reported human trafficking they cited

(02:51):
something like seventeen twelve point three towel point three. So
the the U S and the u N and I
guess are using the same number. Looks like it. Um,
that's a lot of slaves and sad very sad um.
So let's okay. We I think everybody has a pretty
good understanding of how um West Africa became the slave
capital of the world and from about what the sixteenth

(03:16):
to the nineteenth century, I think into the twentieth century.
They commonly cite it because I think some of Southern
Europe was still using slaves after the US issue the
Emancipation Proclamation. And but you know here in the U
s it's like, oh, well that must have ended slavery
everywhere because it was issued by the US. UM. Not so.

(03:37):
But we understand West African slavery. You know, it's been studied,
we we've we've discussed it before. UM. Modern slavery takes
a it's just as insidious, but it takes different kinds
of forms. Right, It's not just you know, being captured
and then transported to work on a farm or a plantation,

(03:59):
although that it still happens, right, And it doesn't necessarily
mean even being transported across any sort of a border. Uh.
A lot of US human slaves or human trafficked people's
are Americans? Do you want to paint a story? A story?
And the intro I thought this was pretty good illustration. Yeah,

(04:20):
this was written by Molly, our old friend from Sminty
who was gone on to uh, I hope greener pastors.
So Molly wrote this and it's a good one, and
she just she gives a little story here at the
beginning on how this might work. Eastern European country, a
woman might see a billboard that says, ay, come to Paris,
to New York City to work as a waitress. She

(04:40):
doesn't make much money, she doesn't have a lot going on. Yeah, exactly,
let me go promises of something richer in another land.
So she calls this number. She's told hey for just
like three grand, which we may even front you. You
can pay it back when you get here. We'll bring
you over and you can get this great job and
and started a new fantastic life. Once she gets here, however, Uh,

(05:05):
she's not taken to a restaurant, but she may be
taken to like a brothel. Let's say, a lot of
times women and young girls are it's sex trafficking as
opposed to labor trafficking. Yes, we should point out. Actually,
the FBI says, I think the majority of girls and
women are from Central America and Asia, and most boys

(05:26):
and men are forcing to labor, but an increasing number
of boys and men are working in the commercial sex industry.
Oh yeah, Molly kind of made it sound like I
think she used the pronouns she almost exclusively when she
talked about sex trafficking. But there are plenty of men
and boys in that too. So anyway she comes over,
she's forced to work in a brothel as a prostitute

(05:48):
or in the in porn or some other kind of
sex industry, and basically is either blackmailed or coerced or
beaten or drugged or all of the above, never is
paid back or I'm sorry, she's never she's never working
off the money, right, Basically, she's just there forever. And
also even if she is working off the money, she

(06:10):
may also be charged room and board in the brothel,
which is probably about the biggest insult you could ever
lay on somebody. Hey, we kidnapped you unfortune to prostitution,
and we're charging you for this room that we're making
you perform sex taxing, and the prices just go up
and up on the room and board, so you're really
not paying down your your loan right to get over here,

(06:31):
and we have your passport, so good luck getting back anywhere, right. Um.
She may also be funneled, I guess into um labor trafficking.
There's two kinds of of human trafficking. There's sex trafficking
and labor trafficking. And obviously, sex trafficking gets the most
headlines because you know, the idea of sex slaves is

(06:52):
just mind boggling. Labor trafficking is far more prevalent though, Um,
it's somebody who you know entered the same situation may
end up in a restaurant in Parison, New York, but
as like a lion cook who's not really getting paid.
Apparently the restaurant industry is rife with human trafficking as well.
Atlanta is Did you know that? No, I didn't. Atlanta

(07:14):
is one of the most major hubs in the United
States were human trafficking. Did you get an idea of why? Uh?
I don't know why, but I know that Grady Hospital
here in town has UH recently stepped up efforts to
recognize UH victims when they come in as patients, because
one of the biggest issues, Molly points out, is is

(07:36):
recognizing them even though they're in plain view. Like, we
have probably come into contact with somebody at some point
in Atlanta, whether it was you know, the bus boy
or the you know, the quote unquote migrant worker you
see working on a farm. Are you trying to tell
me that you're being trafficked right now? Blink once if

(07:56):
Jerry has a gun to my head, right and we'll
get into the problems of why this isn't just an
obvious problem. Um, but let's talk a little more about
the two different types of trafficking. You talked about sex trafficking,
which can be very lucrative. Um for the trafficker. The
traffic key where the trafficked is not making any money whatsoever,

(08:18):
is being fed whatever. Is a slave the trafficker. Uh.
Molly used the UM use Bulgaria as an example. In Bulgaria,
the average annual salaries about twenty dollars us UM in
a year. That same year, Uh, a sex slave can

(08:38):
make about three thousand, five hundred for a trafficker. Yeah. Um. Also,
if you're diverted over to labor trafficking, you may end up,
like we said, in a restaurant a mine. Agriculture is
a big one matter of fact. Um, there's this group
called sweat Free dot org, and a lot of the

(09:00):
like anti sweat shop groups, pro union groups, and UM
anti human trafficking groups all kind of form this ven
diagram in the middle that has to do with sweat labor,
forced labor and UM there's this group called sweat Free
dot org. And if you ever want to shop with
somebody that you a company that you know doesn't use

(09:22):
sweat labor, so you can't possibly be using by buying
a product that is made up with forced labor. You
can um look up their shopping guide. But they also
released a hall of Shame every year, and their two
thou ten hall of Shame shamed um ll Bean, Jim
Boree and Haynes for using use back cotton and uh

(09:42):
apparently the Usbeki is stand government mandates that children as
young as seven have to be forced to harvest the
cotton in the fall rather than go to school. And
a lot of these kids are like shuffled off to
remote areas away from their homes. That's human trafficking, that's
govern mandated. You know what really shocked me is that

(10:03):
sometimes these people are sold two wealthy individuals. Yeah this
one was awful who actually just used them as as
house housemaids and housekeepers and cooks. I was just quote
unquote respectable people. That's probably where sex trafficking and labor
trafficking like collide. You know, yeah, I'm sure depending on

(10:25):
the house you end up in, but yes, I'm sure
did you see taking the lead obviously and that I'm
sure that happens. But in that movie, it was very
high end uh operation going on. It was but where
the girl ended up was like a mind camp or
something like that. Remember like the place like there was
just ropes with like sheets hanging over that made this

(10:46):
one room into smaller rooms or whatever. But Liam Neeson
had a very particular set of skills. Luckily he's able
to rescue his daughter. When did he become an action hero? UHW?
What was the first one? Was it the Clone War one? Um?
But I agree like all the suddenly a Neeson well

(11:07):
dark man. Many years ago he was a but that
that didn't like launch him into action movie guy. But
now yeah he's a he's an a one butt kicker
at this point. Good for him. Yeah, I like that
movie actually taken. Yeah it was. This was good, pretty enjoyable.
It was just I couldn't get past the fact that
we were watching Liam Needson do this stuff. Give me,

(11:28):
Daniel Craig, I can I can believe him? All right,
let's get back to it, shall we? Uh we'd we'd.
And obviously, if you're a sex slave, aside from just
the trauma of being forced to perform sex acts like
a dozen times a day on strangers, uh, they're obviously
at risk for STDs violence from their johns or pimps. Uh, pregnancy,

(11:51):
forced abortions, sterilization, for sterilization, all like a host of
awful things which all add up to immense emotional trauma.
And if you are in a labor slave, you are
basically facing probably the worst um labor conditions that the
person can come up with. Your they're not protected at

(12:13):
all because you're not going to stand up and say anything.
And why, Chuck, why would somebody endure this kind of
life quietly? Because that's a big there's a big discussion
about how many slaves, how many traffic people there are
in the world, Um, because we really don't know, and
a lot of people think that they're hiding in plain sight.

(12:34):
Why well, because they could be drugged Like a lot
of times in the in the sex industry, I read
cases in like Oregon, in Seattle where they were they
would get them addicted to crack cocaine. Remember in the
Homelessness podcast we talked about that Florida labor camp that
had a little company store that crack and like these

(12:55):
these homeless people were in living lives of basically a
ventured servitude. Right. Uh, blackmail might be another one, like hey,
look we've got these pictures of you. Now we're gonna
send them to your family, and that particularly insidious forcing
of a woman into prostitution, taking pictures and then using
those pictures to blackmailer. Yeah, and Molly points out a
lot of times they may be from a country where

(13:17):
I mean, it's never like that's a great thing for
your family, But they may be from a country where it's,
you know, all of a sudden, the family is you know,
outcasts from their village and like great shame is brought
upon their family name and they don't want that. Or
like we said, they may not have if they had
travel documents to begin with, they snatch those. They may
not speak the language, so what are you gonna do?

(13:38):
Plus also you've got the threat of violence almost always
um or actual violence. Uh so, Yeah, there's three three
terms that basically um legal definitions almost always used to
describe human trafficking and how it's carried out. It's forced
fraud and coercion and forces the like you said, ugs,

(14:00):
the use of drugs. Well maybe they're kidnapped out right, right,
sleep deprivation, food deprivation, physical abuse, rape, um and then
even having guards guard you. Um, I guess that that intimidates,
but it also implies the threat of violence as well,

(14:21):
So let's force. There's um coercion. Yeah, we kind of
already covered fraud, which was getting someone here under false pretense, right,
but I think probably a lot um one of the
ways you talked about the billboard, right, and the girl
calls herself. There's also a lot of human traffickers that
will go to poor families and be like, hey, you
love your kid, right, we can get your kid over

(14:43):
to America where they're going to get an education. And
there's like this, there's people over there that like sponsored
kids and like, your kid can go live with them
families really nice. Your kid will be educated, come back
and take care of you in your older years. Don't
you want your kids to do that? We'll take them
for free. Right. The family doesn't realize that that once

(15:04):
they find out that this was all fraudulent, they already
agreed to letting their their the person take their kid.
They don't realize that under any law, it's that's invalid
immediately because it was that agreement was reached under fraud
or deception. Well, and they're probably not any where where
they can legitimately get in touch with them anyway. I

(15:24):
doubt if they do that then give them like the
real address while they'd be staying exactly so that basically
the kid is not technically kidnapped, but virtually kidnapped. Yeah, um,
And yeah coercion was also blackmail. Um Yeah, I get
the idea too that a lot of this these threats

(15:45):
are empty threats, but the traffic e doesn't understand that,
Like I doubt a lot of times I doubt if
they would take the time to send their family a
photo and their village back home. It's just an threat
that that you know, they don't know that they're not
gonna follow through on it, right, or they might politro
on it. Um. Because of all of these things though, coercion,

(16:09):
physical abuse, drugs, shame, guilt, like all this stuff comes together,
like you said, to form some like serious emotional and
psychological problems for the person who's been kidnapped enforcing into
this life and is held in this life. They got
like no power, right, and they were probably not very
empowered to begin with, or they wouldn't have been coercion

(16:31):
in that kind of situation. Right. Well, that's that's a
big debate that's going on It's like, how can you
ever eradicate human trafficking if you don't first eradicate poverty.
Poverty that's so, I mean, that's a big question too,
which will probably never happen. But so you have these people,
you have just people who are um not in a

(16:51):
great state, and when we encounter them, normals, people who
are not being enslaved encounter them, we might just look
right past a lot of really obvious signs because number
when they're keeping their mouth shut, which is probably the
biggest problem of all um. But number two, we may
also see them a victim as a criminal because they're

(17:14):
involved in criminal acts. It wouldn't really dawn on us
to think, well, wait a minute, Rember, they're being forced
into these criminal acts. Well, and Molly's examples were great,
Like you see the teenage girl in the street that's obviously,
you know, a prostitute, and you may turn your nose
up and say, I mean, you know, look at that girl,
she's trouble. Or look at that migrant worker in the

(17:35):
field of you know, I bet he's an illegal, shouldn't
even be in this country working. You might be looking
at victims instead of criminals, um, and not just society
at large, but apparently law enforcement is not very well
trained to recognize um, the human traffic. That is true.
I went to the FBI site and they said, that's

(17:55):
one of the biggest things that they're working on is
educating local law enforcement officers, like when they bust a
prostitution ring, don't just throw them all in jail, like,
investigate it on a case by case basis. Right. So
you've got victims who are too scared to talk, you
have um society that as society, and law enforcement that

(18:17):
immediately deems some criminals. So you have this idea that
there's a really big problem out there, but no real
idea of exactly how big it is. Right. So here's
where the numbers kind of come in. Like we said,
the U S and the U N say that there's
about twelve point three million adults and children worldwide, right

(18:39):
and around the world. Yeah, but the problem is is
that in two thousand nine, there were only um like
forty three hundred, forty and sixty six successful trafficking prosecution prosecutions. Yeah.
I went to the FBI site and they have they
started the Human Smuggling Trafficking Center and two thousand four. Yeah,

(19:00):
and they were touting. I'm not saying they're not doing
a good job, but they were touting, get touting. In
two thousand four, they had eighty six investigations going on,
and they doubled that by two thousand nine to a
hundred and sixty seven. That's a hundred and sixty seven investigations.
If you've got what they say about like fifteen thousand
in the U. S. Alone, well, that's another number that's
hotly contested. So apparently Congress heard that there was fifty

(19:25):
thousand slaves that were brought into the US every year
and apparently that came from CIA estimates. Um, that really
kind of got the charge going against human trafficking, Like
that number is just incredible, right, especially just coming into
the U. S. Alone. So that guy at everybody on board,

(19:46):
including George W. Bush Um got some some laws enacted.
There's the UM oh which one is it, chuck, The
one we passed in two thousand um the Trafficking Victim
Protection Act. And then that same year the UN past
the Palermo Protocols. So that was like a big moment

(20:06):
for human trafficking, right, um or I should say combating
human trafficking UM. And then the numbers were downgraded in
two thousand four to something like UM fourteen thousand, five
hundred and seven to seventeen thousand, five hundred and then
people think even those numbers are high. Right. Then a

(20:28):
New York Times magazine writer named Peter Landerman Landisman, he
wrote an article called UM, I Think the sex Slaves
next Door for the Girl's next Door. I can't remember
which what it was called, but UM. In his article,
it just created this huge firestorm. It was like one

(20:49):
of those twelve page long articles and like he was
doing a lot of really good investigative journalism. There was
this interview with this one girl who had been sold
for from Mexico at like age four, UM, and I've
been living as a sex slave ever since. And like UM.
People started digging into the article and we're like, wait

(21:11):
a minute, this sounds a lot like you know, urban legend.
Some of like the details about you know, how people
are coming from Mexico into the US or kind of spotty,
like if they're going by boat, there's really no good
place to land in the US. UM. There is a
lot of problems with it. And he even said ten

(21:32):
thousand so he had the lowest number so far, and
even that has been torn apart. And part of the
problem that was raised by Peter Landisman's UM article and
its reception is that if you conflate inflate the numbers
the figures too much and then it's shown that you're

(21:52):
off big time, then it comes across a hysterical and alarmist.
But if the numbers are too low, then you risk
not being able to generate enough interest to really do
something about the people who are in slave right. And
it's hard to pinpoint at period because if they knew,
then they would be doing something about it. Only twenty

(22:12):
seven states and that's the latest number I have. Uh,
it maybe more, but I saw twenty seven states have
anti trafficking legislation. Is that it Yeah, that's crazy. So
I mean the rest it's technically legal or surely there's
laws that you're breaking. Yeah, I don't think it's legal,
but it's not just trafficking specific legislation. Yeah, So we're

(22:34):
kind of it seems like we're at a period where
we realized that there's a real problem, but we don't
know how big it is and we don't know what
to do about it. Yet one guy, Nicholas Kristoff. You
read New York Times, So kristof smart guy. He did
something in two thousand four that was pretty amazing. Yeah,
he decided to purchase the freedom of to Cambodian prostitutes. Yeah,

(22:55):
he went to Cambodian did it, which is very controversial because,
as Molly points out, it still perpetuates the idea that
you can buy and sell a human life, even though
he was doing it for the good, still sort of
playing ball in a way, And a lot of people
say it didn't do a lot of good anyway, because
these people aren't prepared for the quote unquote real world.

(23:15):
So one of them did kind of escape that life,
and the other went right back to it. Yeah. Um,
the one that he paid more for two three dollars. Um,
she went back to it, and she was very reluctant
to come out in the first place. Um, she kind
of dragged her feet. And even her owner, I guess,
the madam that ran them brothel and literally owned this woman, Um,

(23:39):
was like, you should really take this man's offer and
leave right now because this is never gonna happen again.
She went back. Wow, because she was institutionalized as the
way to put it. She didn't know if her village
would accept her. Um, she didn't know if her family
would take her back. She's very shamed, and this is
the life that she was used to. It's like red
in uh yeah, or Brooks. Yeah, Brooks was institutionalized. Yeah,

(24:05):
he's the one who hung himself right, and Red thought
he was until he found all that money. Yeah, and
he's likes had to go buy some milkshakes. So yeah,
he paid two hundred three dollars and a hundred and
fifty dollars for those two women. But yeah, and I
mean it makes sense, like pay money to free somebody,
then yeah, you're putting a value on that, and you're saying, yes,

(24:27):
what you're doing is legitimate to some degree. Well maybe
if nothing else. This move was got a lot of
attention because he did this. But the question is this,
like but that Peter Landisman article was all about how
you know there's there's all these sex slaves in the US,

(24:47):
but almost all of the action that he describes takes
place in Mexico. Nicholas Kristof to free sex slaves, he
didn't go into New Jersey or Portland's. He went to Cambodia.
So the question is how big is this in the
US and elsewhere? Is it a big problem in the US.
We have no idea, but there's UM we're starting to

(25:11):
kind of shape how to take this on thanks to
two groups like UM Anti Slavery International and Free the
Slaves Right, Yes, and the Polaris Project, who is another
big one. UM. The State Department says they have what's
called a three P approach prevention, prosecution, and protection. Uh.

(25:32):
Prosecution is a big one because until they start really
hanging these dudes up by their toes as an example,
then they're not going to be dissuaded so much from
trying to traffic these girls and boys and men and women.
So you got to prosecute these people, let it be known,
plastered all over the newspapers to kind of dissuade folks. UM.

(25:56):
Protecting the victims is a problem, especially when there you know,
like a cop just looks at them and sees a
hooker rather than you know, a victim. Yeah, exactly. UM. So,
like you said, I guess the FBI is figuring out
how to train local law enforcement to recognize signs UM.
And there are some pretty easy signs if you can,

(26:18):
I guess, gain the trust of of somebody's suspect as
being trafficked. UM. There's just a few questions that you
can ask and if you can get honest answers out
of them and you're like, oh, you are a modern slave.
Well that's the tough part is getting the answers, but
asking them where they work, maybe what they're getting paid,
who they live with, are they free to come and
go as they please? UM? How what did you say?

(26:40):
How much they get paid? Where they sleep? What kind
of sleeping conditions are? What they ate last or the
day before is another good one. There's a great questions.
And then if you come up with some UM suspicions,
there's actually groups that you can call. There's the National
Human Trafficking Resource Center UM that has a hotline that's
open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. UM.

(27:02):
That's one eight A D eight three seven three seven
eight eight eight and UM. They start to get the
ball rolling, and apparently the State Department, especially under Hillary Clinton,
has really taken the ball and run with it. UM
to combat human trafficking and the US issues UM travel
visas T visas to people who are who are found

(27:26):
to be trafficked. So they're saying, hey, we won't even
deport you. Yeah, you're not gonna arrested them. Or if
you are arrested and we find out you you've been
trafficked here like we're gonna you'll be okay after that. Well,
the d o J has a hotline to UM four
to eight s one and Polaris Project dot org is

(27:47):
a great place to visit. And you mentioned them in
the UM how the Underground Railroad worked. Yeah. Remember they're
named after the north Star that that UM the free
escaped slaves used to follow. Benjamin Skinner, an author, wrote
a book called a Crime So Manstras Monstrous in two
thousand eight, and he said educate yourself. So hopefully we're

(28:09):
helping a little bit right there. Secondly, UM, right, your congressman,
your local elected official, be the guy that stands up
at the town hall. Yeah and says, yeah, I get
what you're saying about the electromagnetic pulse, but what do
you want to do about human trafficking right exactly? Or
you know, find out if you're one of the seven
states or one of the what's twenty three states that

(28:35):
does not have legislation on the books and get in
touch with your congressman, who probably won't be in office
by the time the next election rolls around. Yeah, wait
till after November. Get in touch with your new congressman
and say, hey, why don't we have legislation on the books.
This is ridiculous. Uh. And so educating yourself figuring out

(28:57):
what I guess, harassing your local politicians then um supporting
advocacy groups like sweat free dot org, Free the Slaves,
Anti Slavery International, that's right, Yeah, that's what you can do. Yeah,
or just keep your eye out. Don't be so judgmental
when you when you see, uh, that person who you
might think is a nefarious criminal. You never know. Yeah,

(29:18):
And I'm sure there's people out there who are going
to be like, well, I mean, if we make a
big deal of this, then everybody's gonna say I'm I'm
a slave when they're really a criminal. I think that's unlikely.
I think so too. And if you start doing something
about human trafficking or you already are, we want to
know about it. So I'll call out again if you'll

(29:38):
remind me, Chuck, because sometimes I forget, but for for
listener mail call out. How about we say, let us
know what you're doing to fight human trafficking? Okay, yeah,
or if you were one of the people that requested
this over the years, and then you probably had a
good reason to let's hear it, okay, aside from the
fact that it's a good cause. Uh So, if you
want to learn more about human trafficking and read of

(30:00):
very good article by Molly Edmonds, you can type in
human trafficking t R A F F I, C K
I n G in the search bar how stuff works
dot com and that will bring this article up. And
I said how stuff works? No, I said search bar
and that brings up listener. Now, Josh, I'm gonna call this,
uh Josh's choice. You picked this one out because I

(30:24):
didn't have a computer all day. I did my research
on my iPhone. So thank you Apple for allowing me
to do my job. Do you shill? Hey? Did you
see me over there? I had to get at least
like an iPhone cover case or something. I don't need it.
All right. This is about earthworms from Susan in Northern Minnesota.
I just listen to your podcast on earthworms. I must

(30:45):
say I was disappointed that you minimize the damage that
earthworms are doing to our northern forest. We did point
out damage, but I guess she didn't think we did
a good enough job, right, Yeah, I was that's I
actually didn't mean to pick this one out. It was
between this and the dental in fact, but we'll go
with this. I'm volunteering for the University of Minnesota go

(31:06):
Gophers on monitoring the super I'm sorry, Superior National Forests
and have come across large sections of the forests that
are heavily damaged due to the worms. The forest duff
that you mentioned as several other uses other than the
host seedlings, that also acts as mulch, which keeps earth cooler,
holds in moisture, and decomposes and creates soil. Yeah, when

(31:26):
she mentioned that, it reminded me that drying the soil
out is a big problem because of the eating duff.
Eating of the leaf litter, not drinking duff, because that's great. Yeah.
I've seen the roots of the large trees exposed, which
is called girdling. Uh. This stresses the trees and puts
them in jeopardy, but it's also really pretty. A person

(31:48):
can view large sections of the forest that are completely
bare as there is no vegetation at all. The worms
can move about three miles per year, which leaves a
large path of destruction. Today, there's no successful method to
rectify or reclaim those areas of our forests. I am
from northern Minnesota, which is a large tourist area. Three

(32:08):
miles per year is way way longer farther than I've
run across in any other resource. I think about it,
that glacier, that ice sheet that killed all those worms
right and basically drove him south. They've had ten thousand
and twenty thousand years to make their way up. If

(32:28):
they can move three miles a year, they'd be all
over the place that we wouldn't be seeing this invasive
species problem right now. That way they kids, Well, maybe
the Minnesota worms are lightning path. Yea, they have a
little jump in their giddy up. She finalizes this email
Josh by saying the slow destruction of her forest is
putting her whole economy at risk. That is Susan C.

(32:51):
From Minnesota. So sorry if we uh minimized it, we
didn't certainly didn't mean to. I didn't think we did,
but apparently we didn't. Like really really yeah, Like we
didn't dissect a live earthworm during the podcast to show it.
We didn't show its friends what would happen to it? Well,
thank you Susan C for that one, um, And thank

(33:12):
you to the other guy whose email I was going
to choose but printed the wrong one. Yeah. I think
he had a fellow toothless guy. Yeah. These want to
give you props for coming out, coming out and taking
the tooth out of ny. If you don't know what
we're talking about, you have to see this. We have
a video podcast now too, um that you can subscribe

(33:34):
to indeed, UM, and we do like we have one
of the things that we do is a little game
show where we teach one another something in sixty seconds.
And Chuck taught me about dental implants and showed me
his toothless grim showed the world, which is Yeah, it's
pretty awesome. So if you if you want to see that,
you should type in stuff you should know dental implant

(33:56):
uh into your favorite search engine or in the search
bar how stuff works dot com to bring up that video. Um,
And if you want to tweet to us, you can
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on human trafficking. You can send those two stuff podcast

(34:18):
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(34:42):
thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you