Redwood Trees with Griff Griffith

Griff Griffith  0:00  
I've never met anybody who's come to the redwoods and been like, I don't like this place. People come here and they go, Oh my gosh. I mean, atheist people have spiritual experiences out here. I mean, this place is amazing.

Michelle Fullner  0:13  
Hello and welcome to Golden State naturalist, a podcast for anyone who's ever felt an inexplicable kinship with the forest. I'm Michelle Fullner. And today we're talking with Griff Griffith, whose voice you just heard about the tallest and some would argue most majestic trees in the world coast redwoods. In this episode we discuss hot pink flying squirrels, old growth forests, oh gee, Grandma conservationists, marbled murrelets, the overstory and the understory dinosaurs in the Redwoods stumps sprouting why most people who love the redwoods should plant an oak tree and what we can do to talk about the natural world in a way that invites more people to fall in love with and take care of the wonders all around us. And speaking of the wonders all around us, the next episode is going to be on the nature you can find right outside your door with the wonderful author and artist Marni filling, so make sure you're following the show wherever you listen, so you don't miss that or any of the other upcoming gems like seaweed and native bees later in the season. I also want to say thank you to everyone supporting Golden State naturalist on Patreon for as little as $4 a month you make this show possible and have allowed me to quit my job and instead spend my time following biologists around in the forest with a microphone so I can learn about this incredibly special state and then bring that learning to you in these episodes. If you want to be part of the wonderful community that's on Patreon or join our patrons only book club, you can find me at www.patreon.com/michelle Fullner. That's Michelle with two L's and Fullner is fu l l n er if you want different ways to support the show, I got those for you do you can rate or review on Apple podcasts or possibly the best thing you can do is share your favorite episode with a friend. Maybe it's a nature curious friend. Or maybe it's someone who's just trying to get away from quite as much screen time or someone who needs something to listen to while they take their dog for a walk. Growing the show means that more people are getting connected with the natural world all around them. And it just means so much to me when you tell your friends about it. So thank you if you're already doing that, you can find me at Golden State naturalist on both Instagram and Tiktok I've had a few videos get some traction on Instagram lately, which is really exciting. So it's a great time to go and join the party over there. And I tried to make videos that complement or expand on ideas covered in the podcast. So I think you'll really like those if you're enjoying the podcast. My website is Golden State naturalist.com which is also where you can find podcast merch if you want a mug or a sweatshirt or T shirt or tote with the beautiful bear and poppies art by danza Davis. But now let's get to the episode. Griff Griffith has extensive experience in almost every imaginable aspect of conservation from restoring coastal dunes, meadows and salmon habitat to creating bio blitzes and training the next generation of land stewards in the California Conservation Corps he hosted the Animal Planet show wild jobs in 2018. And more recently has been interviewed on live TV by Kelly Clarkson and had his work featured on Good Morning America, the Today Show and so many more. Griff is an advocate for an inclusive outdoors host of the brand new jumpstart nature podcast and spokesperson for redwoods rising a partnership among the state and national parks Save the Redwoods League and the Yurok tribe all working to restore previously logged forests in the Redwoods State and National Parks Griff is a fantastic dancer, captivating storyteller, viral video wizard and one of the warmest human beings you could ever hope to me. So without further ado, let's hear from Griff Griffith on Golden State naturalist.

When I was up in Humboldt County this spring, Griff was in the middle of moving and I knew we weren't going to be able to hike around a redwood forest together, but I still wanted to take you outside with me to give you a sense of being there in the forest. So I grabbed my boots and handheld recorder hopped in the car, and drove just a short distance amidst the asphalt brake lights and the smell of exhaust I'm so used to experiencing in my daily life on the way to a stand of old second growth forest. Just five minutes away from my Airbnb in Arcata. I was in a rush that morning stressed because I had a full day planned and I knew I had to move quickly to make it to everything. But then I got out of the car and I was greeted by ferns, Redwood sorrel, and the warm tone of redwood bark that I can never quite capture with a camera. And it was like someone had loosened a pressure valve right in my prefrontal cortex. All of the tension I didn't realize I'd been holding in my shoulders and my jaw diffused off of me like a vapor and faded away into the cool moist air. I walked the wide, gently sloping trail for a while stopping here there to record birdsong or Verbling water. I found banana slugs, salamanders, and red flowering currents. Pacific Trillium, with its three strikingly white petals bloomed everywhere I looked. I got lost for a while and then annoyed an older gentleman by asking for directions without knowing the name of the road where I'd parked my car, but I wandered back the right way eventually, admiring nurse logs overgrown with moss and huckleberries. Along the way, there was so much to take in there in the forest, but I knew I was only seeing a fraction of what Griff would notice. So I hopped back in the car and navigated well off the beaten path, past herds of Roosevelt, elk, and miles of redwood forest to the coordinates he'd sent me and eventually landed at his front door. We made it to your plate grift took a break from opening moving boxes set up so unpacking to make each of us a cup of tea. And we got settled on the couch to talk about magical toads, surprising historical champions of the redwoods, the wood Wide Web, Hyperion, and so much more, all of that after a quick break.

And now on to the full interview. Well, would you mind introducing yourself?

Griff Griffith  7:03  
I'm Griff Griffith. I'm a lifelong conservationist, which is why I'm on this podcast. And I have been in love with nature and restoring it, conserving it ever since I was three years old. And my grandmother introduced me to a toad, who lived underneath of a broken pot that she had in her backyard in a mobile home park in this urban mobile home park that was covered in pavement. And when I was three or four years old, when the earliest memories, like you know, I'm still in the big head stage. So I'm still wobbling down the steps holding her you know, from the mobile home holding her hand. And she's like, I can call toads. And I was Wow, put it magical power grandma has. And she'd made this weird sound. She's like, go look into the pot. And I went in there was a toad. And I have been magic. I have been in love. My grandma was also a major gardener. She had the only plot of like life in this mobile home park. So growing up, I noticed when I went to her house, she had to cross all this pavement when I got to her house was butterflies and bees and birds, but not after I left there. And so I made that correlation really quick that grandma had magical powers. And then later on, as I grew up, I realized that grandma just had native plants, flowers, water features, habitat, piles of wood, and she just knew and she was like the first environmentalist I've ever met, even though she never called herself environmentalist because she grew up homeless during the Depression. And she was like this Irish, you know, her parents were Irish immigrants or her grandparents gives me and so she recycled, fixed everything. She saved every bread bag, and every bed twisty. There was drawers full of rubber bands, there was boxes for those bread twisties. And so she was doing that. But she was also composting everything. She had a worm garden and she grew almost all their own food, and she would send me and her would go continue with the toads thing. We would go to creeks and I'd catch toads and salamanders and snakes and bring them back and release them in our garden because she wanted them to eat the bugs and the snails. So I learned conservation from her and my mother, her daughter, who was very similar.

Michelle Fullner  9:08  
Wow, so you're doing this like amazing. Ecosystem creation

Griff Griffith  9:14  
is really young. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I could tell a million stories about me my grandma. Yeah, it's

Michelle Fullner  9:18  
amazing. Oh my god. I love her. That's so OG. So how did you go from the kid with the toad to ending up working here with redwood trees.

Griff Griffith  9:27  
So skipping forward 40 some years. Small skip here. So I am an acting position right now for being the communications. I don't even think there's a title for it yet. Like but basically the communicator main communicator I call myself a storyteller of redwoods rising. When

Michelle Fullner  9:45  
we recorded this interview, Griff was the acting spokesperson for redwoods rising but now he officially has the role since

Griff Griffith  9:52  
one of the biggest restoration projects ever, ever. Okay, and it's the biggest Redwood restoration project by Far ever, ever. And inside of that are a bunch of other little restoration projects, salmon, habitat restoration, road removals, and all kinds of stuff in marble Merillat. And all this interesting stuff. Basically, it's a project it's covering, there's 120,000 acres of Redwood National and State Parks. Okay, so up here in Del Norte and part of Northern Humboldt County, and almost 80,000 acres of that is actually second growth and third growth.

Michelle Fullner  10:22  
Okay, hold on what are second and third growth. So second growth is what grows back after an old growth forest has been logged. And third growth is what comes back after a forest has been logged twice. So it's the third growth of that forest. But then what is old growth? This one's a little more complicated. I looked it up and the sempervirens fund which fun fact is the oldest Land Trust in California and has a long history of protecting Redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains has an interesting segment about this. On their website, they point out that there are actually several different ways of defining old growth they say a lumber company may define old growth by grain or board feet, others by age in some by diameter, okay, but another way of looking at it is to look at old growth characteristics, the qualities or attributes that are found in old growth forests. So here's the more nuanced way sempervirens looks at old growth, and I think this whole thing is valuable, so I'm going to read it to you from their website. The term old growth generally describes larger trees usually at least 3.3 feet in diameter and over 200 feet tall with certain features that only develop in older trees such as plate like bark, larger branches, broken tops, platforms, dead tops, Basil hollows, carved out by fire, and reiterated crowns meaning trunks off of trunks features like these that typically take a COAs Redwood 200 years or more to develop, support many species and contribute to the trees resilience to fire, drought and climate change. They go on to say that conversely, from a conservation standpoint, age alone is not always the best indicator of old growth status. Although Redwood can live to be 2000 years old, some may say 200 years old qualifies as old growth status. However, it's possible for a redwood to live 200 years without developing old growth characteristics if it doesn't have optimal conditions to reach its full potential. For example, a redwood tree in a city park may live to be 200 years old, without developing old growth characteristics like size because it doesn't have the space to spread its roots 100 feet from its base, or it lacks neighboring redwoods roots to provide anchoring and nutrients or fog is absent and water cannot meet a redwoods highest reaches. So old growth isn't just about the age or size of the trees. It's this whole collection of features that only develop under the right circumstances. And after enough time, so old growth redwood forests are extremely special and rare, partly because they only grow along the central to north coast of California and nowhere else in the world except a tiny toe into Oregon. And also because the vast majority of old growth redwood has already been logged. Griff gives his definition of old growth later in the episode. And it overlaps a lot with this definition. But the way he puts it is great and a really helpful way of thinking about it. So listen out for that. Okay, so go talk about redwood forest at a cocktail party and sound really smart doing it back to what redwoods rising is doing with the 80,000 acres of second and third growth forests in Humboldt and Del Norte counties. So

Griff Griffith  13:35  
we own that property. We mean all of you who are listening in you and me, we own this property. And so what the managers are trying to do, say the red league red National Park state parks and the Yurok tribe are trying to speed up the successional process so that we get old growth characteristics sooner because there's only 4.4% 4.6% but only 4.4% of like contiguous like islands of old growth redwood forest left, and their species specialized species depend on that 4%. But 4% is not enough because he's a little islands. And so there's roads crossing through them introducing predators and invasive species, including diseases like Sudden oak death, all these other kinds of things. And so it's this fragmented habitat is crumbling. And so if we don't connect it and help it out, we're gonna lose a lot of species, and we're gonna lose these wonderful, ancient, unparalleled, I'm comparable for us. There's nothing like the redwood forests anywhere else in the planet, not even close. And I mean, just the biomass alone. It's got the highest biomass anywhere else in the world, and people like more than Amazon, yes, more than Amazon. And its quest there's more carbon than anywhere else, more than the Giants. Quezon Sears Yes, more than the giant sequoia isn't zeros. It is the carbon sequestration and biomass champions not to mention tallest trees and all the other groovy things that you could hear about going on any kind of basic tour, but there's so much more to old growth redwood forest. And we just now are, I mean, we're still discovering things about it. We don't even know like people think and assume that we know everything about the redwood forest. We just discovered a species of flying squirrel five years ago that yes, the Humboldt flying squirrel. I mean, and that's and that's a squirrel. And so like, we don't know everything about the redwoods yet, I mean, there's so much there's so much more to learn. And we got ourselves in this horrible predicament by waiting until we had 4% left. You know my hero, Laura man, she lived in the late 1800s died in the 20s. She's my hero. She saved one out of four old growth redwood trees, and she did most of her work before women had the right vote. She was amazing Lauren man in

Michelle Fullner  15:51  
the 1910s. The decade before women could vote in the United States, Laura Mae hen was organizing mainly through the women's clubs. She was a part of to get the city of Eureka to designate Redwood groves as city parks. And according to the National Park Service, Mae hands most famous act on behalf of the Redwoods occurred in 1924. On November 10, lagers from the Pacific Lumber Company began working in a redwood Grove that the court had protected from logging for the rest of the year. When man heard about this, she rallied fellow female environmentalists rushed to the grove and along with the other women put herself between the machinery and the trees. Because of the women's high profile in the community. The loggers were forced to stop, well, May and husband gathered the local media and filed an injunction against the company, the local community rallied around this cause and the grove was preserved. And May his descendants are still fundraising for the protection of redwoods to this day, which is a super cool legacy.

Griff Griffith  16:48  
She was one of the original people to speak out against the log into the redwood forests. And there was 80% of the old growth forests when she started sounding the alarm 80%. And sometimes I think what if Laura man wouldn't have existed, we wouldn't have any Redwood if it wasn't for Save the rabid League, like Laura Mae hand and say, the rabid League, we wouldn't have any left. I am so sure about that. Because I remember during bretton woods somewhere in the 1990s, when we were protesting log into the redwood forest, I remember the corporate head talking heads being like you guys need to compromise 4% That's not a compromise. That's refugees. You know, these red, these, these redwoods here are refugees like this, there's no compromise. So luckily, President Carter expanded Redwood National Park. And luckily save the road League was able to bring a bunch of matching funds. And we've bought a lot of this log Overland. And the lumber companies knew that this was happening. And so there was a law that was passed in their favor that said, if the tree is in the ground, you can log it. But after after like three months from now, or a year from now or whatever, you can't do that. So you already know how right at this day, cut down every tree and just left it on the grounds, they could go back and log them. And so they ended up and up clear cutting a lot of the land that we were trying to buy. And so by the time we bought that land, there's like 9000 acres of old growth forests left and several 1000 acres had been lost. So and creeks destroyed and sand and fisheries destroyed and all this stuff destroyed. And so we're trying to fix that. And we're trying to fix that in this very remote location. That's kind of out of the view. Most people Yeah, so we have to make people care. So thank you very much for interviewing me, because this is helping me get the word out this because sometimes I say we're out here, no wish somebody woods, you know, we're out here in the cuts. And so it's hard to get this message across. And people. I've never met anybody who's come to the redwoods and been like, I don't like this place. People come here and they go, Oh my gosh. I mean, people have spiritual atheists people have spiritual experiences out here. I mean, this place is amazing.

Michelle Fullner  18:57  
Actually, literally, that's one of my questions for you. Because it is such a spiritual experience. I just went for a hike because I knew we weren't gonna be able to meet up in the in the forest. I went for a hike this morning and just like recorded some sounds like it's it's you know, second growth or maybe third. I'm not sure Arcata community for old second

Griff Griffith  19:15  
growth. So our community for us is old second growth. And that's actually more rare than old growth. Really? Yeah. Because they've logged most of the old second growth again. Yeah. Oh, wow. So old second, growth is even more rare. And so that's almost old growth there. It was beautiful. Yeah. And

Michelle Fullner  19:32  
there's some really big trees. I can see where there were even bigger ones at stumps so I could see some of the remnants out there. But yeah, it just wasn't recorded like some bird sounds. And you know, every time I've gone to the redwoods, it's it is it's like a super moving experience. Right. And I wonder if that is still true for you having lived out here and worked out here for so long, like, is it still that moving for you?

Griff Griffith  19:54  
You know, I have lived in the old growth redwood forest at several different points in my life. And the answer is yes. And here's why. It's because it's like, what's a good analogy? It's like, the more you get to know someone that you really really love, the more you appreciate them on some new levels. And that's kind of what it is with the redwoods. Like, I'm, you know, in reading a lot of research that's coming out because it's amazing researchers out there, you know, and Steve slet, being one of them, who's been featured in the book, the wild trees and stuff. And there's many, many others, but I just finished that book. So you first came, but he discovered like a whole nother ecosystem of the canopy canopy stuff. And so when I learned about that all sudden, my neck hurts because I'm looking up so much. I'm like, maybe I'll see something cool. But I won't be. I won't be climbing those streets now. No, not your thing. No, no, I could barely get up on a ladder. step ladder. I am not going. Yeah, but you can look at the you can download the redwood Coast canopy app. Oh, so you can see Steve slipped up in there looking at the many things up there. Because the magical thing about redwoods, and makes them different from other trees is that they don't get smaller and smaller branch as you get higher. Actually, the higher you get the bigger a lot of the branches. And they and they become very thick redwoods have billions of leaves. Okay, so up there with all those big branches, those leaves fall off. And they get caught in the crosshairs of these branches. And over time they become soil. Plus, as a lot of things break them down, it's very wet. So they become soil really fast. And then a bird flies up there. And it's singing this beautiful song. And then when it gets done, it goes poops out a seed. And so from the berries, that's the whole purpose of berries is to you know, get the plants trying to get its babies away from it, so it doesn't have to compete with them for food, water and sunlight. So the bird poops up there. And then you can have like a salmon berry or a Blackberry or a Huckleberry growing or Selecao. And then you have these wandering salamanders that climb up the bark. And they can live several generations up at the top of these trees amongst the slough amongst this garden that's 300 feet up in the sky. And then we just discovered that there's a humble flying squirrel up there. And we knew there was northern flying squirrels but humble flying squirrel out there that glows pink and UV light. So if I was to climb to the top of a rabbit tree and see this garden 300 feet now I'm taking a blacklight with me, because I want to see the pink flying squirrel. I don't know why you should have that. I want to know how they found out that they were like Oh, new flying squirrel Quick, get the UV light. Let's see if it's paid. You know. But these these squirrels live up there and this canopy and there's all these other interesting things live up in the canopy. There's copepods, which are like a little tiny strip. It's like the most prevalent life form in the ocean that wells the stuff because there's pools of water is there. I haven't read anything that convinces me how they got up there. How so if anybody else knows, please put it in the comments or something. I'm going to keep researching and I'm meeting with scientists this week. And I'm going to be like have a couple of pods get up there. Like did on marbled murrelet poop them out because you know, the problem really has eaten the ocean. So it's a great I have anything that involves poop is totally entertaining to me. So I hope that's the reason yeah, not anything. Let me take that back. But like the seed dispersal mechanism, so if there was a shrimp dispersal mechanism, because we know ducks can poop out, ducks can poop out fish eggs and the fish will hatch. That's wild. So maybe a couple of times some of these

Michelle Fullner  23:22  
some of these little invertebrates have teeny tiny little eggs too. So it's kind of like seeds getting stuck tougher. Yeah. Get stuck to a bird's leg. Yeah. Yeah. See,

Griff Griffith  23:30  
like a dispersal egg dispersal mechanism? Exactly. Maybe. And then they go hatch somewhere else. Yeah. Including 300 feet up in a redwood tree. Yeah,

Michelle Fullner  23:38  
why not? See, it's got a good view. It's gonna be great.

Griff Griffith  23:41  
And it's probably way less predators that Well, I don't know. That's true. But oh, yeah, the canopy has got its own thing going on. But that's the kind of things that keep me reinspired in the redwoods. And also, sometimes I'll just have a great imagination. And so sometimes I'll be like, this tree is 2000 years old. I wonder what I've seen. And so I think about, like, depending on where I'm at, like, so here, it would be like, there would probably be like a taller white girl who lives 700 years ago, sing songs, you know, around it, or maybe some little taller white kid made friends with this particular tree 1000 years ago, you know, so it's like, what has it seen? You know, sometimes I'll tell I have a lot of Christian friends and family. And sometimes like, I see them missing out on the sacredness of the redwoods. Like, they're into it, but they're not realizing they're not. It's not sacred enough. In my opinion, you guys need to appreciate this a little bit more. So I'll say, this tree may have been a seedling that Jesus was on the planet. And then they go, oh, and I'm like, doesn't that make it sacred? And they're like, yes, it does. So there's like you can if you use your imagination and think about these trees in these forests, you can make it relate to almost anybody's experience because it's one of the oldest biggest things that's ever been on the planet. It's mind boggling in a million different ways.

Michelle Fullner  24:55  
And it relates it has a relationship with so many Different organisms. Yes, yes. And and so I'm curious about that you go into, you go to see the Giant Sequoias and you're in a mixed conifer forest. But you go to a redwood forest. And it is mostly redwoods. Yeah. Right. And then, but then there's all these other organisms. Yeah. So just because it's mostly redwoods doesn't mean it's not biodiversity. Yeah. So can you talk about a little bit of the biodiversity and redwood for its

Griff Griffith  25:23  
biodiversity in a different way. And we didn't understand biodiversity in Redwood coastal forest until a lot of the, like the last 20 years of researchers started really doing their thing, most of them funded by say the redwood League. So when you go into old growth redwood forest, it's really quiet. There's not a lot of birdsong. It's like very thrash and hermit thrush and a couple others, but it's there's not a lot of insects. Because redwoods don't host a lot of insects. Okay, it's not like oak trees. Oak trees are like bird feeders. redwoods aren't rabbits. We host I think there's one insect that lays its eggs on redwoods. Yeah, it's like, it's really, it's minimal. So there aren't a lot of birds there. There's not a lot of the macro diversity. And there's only berries for parts of the year. And so the birds will pass through eat those and the bears and pasture and eat those, but it's not super diverse. And the streams around here aren't very diverse. It's not like the East Coast streams. These are much, much younger streams. And most of the things that live here, most efficient live here are naturalness or like we're in the ocean not too long ago in geologic time. So it's not super diverse streams either. So like the macro diversity, I guess you'd call it is not super impressive. But you start to mount lichens and mosses and mites and millipedes and arthropods and things like that it gets it gets a lot more diverse. What you have more in an old growth forest is specialized species. And you have you have species that don't exist anywhere else or don't exist in high numbers anywhere else. So that's what the old growth redwoods have going on for them.

Michelle Fullner  26:53  
Can you talk about one or two of the specialists? Yes.

Griff Griffith  26:57  
So one of them would be marbled murrelets. And they don't necessarily just just specialize in redwood forests. They specialize in tall tree forest like old growth forest. And there are a seabird that we didn't know where they nest it until recently, like a couple of decades ago or a decade ago or something we didn't know where Marbella let's nested. And they are an amazing species that feeds the ocean all day comes into the redwoods and lays an egg on a on a really high branch, just one and they they fly so fast. That's how I recognize them. People are like, how do you spot the marble mirror let's so quickly and I'm like because they're fast. They're like a potato with wings that are zooming through the sky. It's birds playing notes. And one of the cool thing I've never seen this happen, I would love to see this happen, but they can't like slow down their flight and then land in the tree like normal birds. So they have to go towards the bottom and then go the base of arbitrary and then head up it to have gravity slow them down. So they can land on the branch with their babies that and then regurgitate the fish or whatever. But that baby bird is sitting there all day by itself. So it's a really interesting bird with crazy lifeways. And one of my favorite stories about about mural that's up here was that there was a campfire program something that the Rangers do, and they one of them was talking about, you know, to families. And so they was talking to family about marbled murrelets and showed a picture and there was a little girl there who the next day came up and she had a box and she's like, I found a marble Merlot. And so the Rangers were like, Oh, the port j and this box, you know, this little girl did not find a marble and they open the box. And it was a marbled murrelet baby that fell out of its nest. And so they're able to climb back up the nest and put it back. I think I was just blown away that this little girl was like I found a marble the day after she had the day after she had become for a program of education or education. So these birds depended on old growth forests. And so they're not doing well in California. They're they're listed as an endangered species. And so that's one of the specialists.

Michelle Fullner  28:48  
I have actually I'm going to stop here because I have a listener question about marbled murrelets. So Melissa is wondering about them and climate change. Do you can you talk about that at all? Like is there something going on with climate change with marble Maryland's?

Griff Griffith  29:01  
Well, you know, I am not for certain about that. I know that climate change right now. Looks like it's making trees taller. Well, redwoods like carbon, they sequester it better than anybody else. And so they've been their growth rates have increased a lot in the last 1520 years it's another it's more evidence for carbon being in the atmosphere you know more I was so tired of people saying that red was even growing faster Come on, give us a break here like what else do we have to prove? But so I think that tall trees redwood trees growing faster will benefit the marble near let's okay, as long as the summer fog patterns don't change, right? Because that would spell doom for

Michelle Fullner  29:43  
and how do they get water to the top of that is that is don't they take in water through their leaves,

Griff Griffith  29:48  
they can take water through the leaves and just recently, some researchers found out that that's with the help of fungi that's on the leafs to help them get the water into the stomata, the holes, the leafs. So They get about 25% of their like this was generalization but like 25%, depending on where you're at get change of their water from fog. And they in scientists can tell that by the by the isotopes, I can tell what it's coming from fog, what it's coming from rain. And so 25% is hugely significant. And this is a Mediterranean region. So without that summer fog, it'd be hot and dry. And redwoods and hot, dry summers don't get this height, which means they wouldn't be any good for marble mural. That's right.

Michelle Fullner  30:24  
The Redwoods in Sacramento are not looking great. Oh, no,

Griff Griffith  30:27  
let me just tell you, No, and people stopped plenty one redwood, like I can't stand at all these visitors centers up here sell redwoods just want to tell them to stop. Because when people go back to suburbia, and plant the one redwood, very shallow roots, people, don't plant them near your house, plant them your neighbor's house, because they're gonna blow down in the Redwoods with lots of water and lots of sun grow very, very fast. And we're the fastest growing trees. So like, people don't realize that because they think oh, it took them 2000 years to get this big, no shade of the weather in the shade of sheets, they grow much, much lower. But like if they have if they they get TOF first. So in 150 200 years, they could be 300 feet tall. And then they get fat. It's kind of like me having to mean I got tall first. Same thing with redwoods, you know, so they get bigger and wider. The older they get. But you're right. They're grown in shade. You can have an ancient tree that's not very big. It's been in tons of shade.

Michelle Fullner  31:18  
And then if you have multiple of them, their roots interlock. And yes, I'm falling. Yeah,

Griff Griffith  31:23  
I was easily. Yeah, I think about that. You probably are too young. No, but in the 80s, Michael Jackson got a bunch of famous people together and they sing, we are the world we are the children and they hold hands. And I always think about that when I think about Redwood roots, because they're all like holding on to each other underneath the ground. So that's how they stay up. Otherwise, we would blow them down. So when you plant just one, it has full sun and you're watering it, it can get 50 feet tall and 25 years easily. And then so you're like, well, I won't be around in 25 years, someone's gonna have to pay for that redwood tree to be removed, or it's gonna fall in their house. And that happens more often than people know. They say, Don't

Michelle Fullner  32:00  
do that. So I'm curious about where these trees grow. Because it's a narrow little part of the planet. Yeah, coast redwood trees grow on naturally now. Now. Okay, let's talk about that. They

Griff Griffith  32:12  
used to be in Greenland. They used to be in Europe. They used to be in Ireland, but my people are from, they used to be all over the northern hemisphere. How long ago? We're talking a million years ago. Yeah. And some places less. So like climate change. Climate is always changing. So that's why like could call our recent climate change. I like to call it climate disruption. I heard someone else say that I was like, That's great. Yeah, cuz it's anthropogenically disrupted, right. So there was like 12 species of redwoods. And then there was two. And there was two because we thought the third one went extinct. And then we found it again in like the 40s or 50s. So that's a meta Sequoia, that's the dawn Redwood in China. And so we found that so we have three and the meta Sequoia was all over the place, too. And so they all just shrank into these like little islands of where they've been able to hold out. And so you know, waiting for the climate to get back to this wet, warm type of climate. They enjoy them, they can spread out again, that's how things work. You know, they expand and contract they don't go extinct. So the I like think the redwoods are waiting. They're waiting for a better climate. But they used to be everywhere. Now. They're just a law in California. And it's like not even very long. Like what is it like 70 miles or something? No, it's more than that. 370 miles, something like that. I

Michelle Fullner  33:25  
looked it up and a Save the Redwoods League page titled coast redwood facts says it's just a very narrow, 450 mile stretch of land. I'll link that page in the show notes because it's full of great information about coast redwood trees, including things like the tannins in their bark and their fire adaptations, a lot of which will be familiar to you if you listen to the giant sequoia episode of this podcast. Because of course sequoias are closely related to coast redwoods like Griff just mentioned. So if you get done with this episode, and you need more Redwood content, dig into the archives and check out the giant sequoia episode next.

Griff Griffith  34:03  
It's just a strip of California. It's basically

Michelle Fullner  34:05  
in Oregon. Barely. Yeah,

Griff Griffith  34:08  
I'm a seventh generation Californian sometimes I think we should just go and take over that part of so we're gonna have all the redwoods. In Northern, they're barely in Oregon. Like it's barely there. Yeah.

Michelle Fullner  34:21  
So anyways, and then all the Giant Sequoias are California, California. That's wild. Yeah, I've got the end of Bristlecone pines. And

Griff Griffith  34:27  
I know, California is the est state, largest, biggest, oldest, coolest, most diverse, just rehab it were the coolest place. This is a place to be naturalist.

Michelle Fullner  34:40  
Okay, how tall is the tallest coast redwood and what's a more average height for a tall, mature tree?

Griff Griffith  34:46  
Let me confess that when people ask me that when I'm in the park, and people ask me that question, I usually point to the nearest big red bud and go What a coincidence here it is right here because I have learned to resent that question. I have Yeah. because it's like it's not cool until you find the tallest one. Can

Michelle Fullner  35:02  
you break? Yeah, it's

Griff Griffith  35:04  
not the truth. Let me display schools, the relationships that make this place cool. I mean, the trees are cool. The relationships built on these trees are what makes the forest really cool. The tallest tree is probably Hyperion still, which is like, what? 382 feet tall. Yeah, it's

Michelle Fullner  35:18  
like almost 400. But it's like

Griff Griffith  35:19  
you and just so you know, redwoods will never get taller than 400 feet because gravity pulls water down. So like, yeah, so if we're waiting for the waves, anybody goes I saw a tree that was for her and sending five foot tall be like in your dreams you didn't, because they don't get that tall unless the gravity changes. But Hi parents plans house but you know, it can change the minute it's wind whipping up there. A lot of times when there's during drought years, they'll cut off the top, they'll be like, sorry, top, we're not taking water up there anymore. And then there'll be a spike top and that will crack off and then they'll re sprout out of the sides. Because redwoods are amazing responders and so they can they can chunk sprouts, dumped sprout root sprout, then someone can set up a new leader and it can become the tallest tree. So I think I think the tallest tree probably changes dynamic, every fight Yeah, super dynamic.

Michelle Fullner  36:03  
So it's just for our own sense of satisfaction and being able to come along with our measuring tapes and feel good. But

Griff Griffith  36:08  
for those who are listening who are like, I'm a tall tree seeker, and that's the only reason why we support save the red League. Okay, okay. Okay, don't let me turn you off. Go to the Titan growth. And we just built a new trail there that our trail crew do we have awesome trail crew, a lot of a lot of this trail crew members and reason why they're so awesome is because I trained a lot of them. Yeah, the California. But they're awesome before that. But anyways, they built this incredible trail that's elevated, so that you don't crush the roots crush the roots of the plant. Amazing. Yeah. And you can see through it. So it's like off the ground. Yes, the light goes through. And it is amazing. So if you want to see the tallest trees in the world go there, or Rockefeller forest, and Humboldt Redwood State Park has like most I don't know what it is now. But the last publication I read, there's like 70 of the world's 100 tallest trees are in Rockefeller forest or something like that. It's pretty crazy. Like that is crazy. Yeah. But Titan Grove has a lot in a short distance short

Michelle Fullner  37:01  
area, and you're short on time, maybe and you're in the area,

Griff Griffith  37:03  
and you're in the area of Titan Grove. And also the tops are more complex. So a lot of Humboldt Redwoods State Park is more protected from winds and stuff like that. So they don't have the complex canopies that the northern forests to coastal forests do. So Titan has just like amazing tops, trees with character super character like ants. Oh, gods like the inside Gods there in the Titan grove.

Michelle Fullner  37:26  
Griff hit his prime demo with this comment because I have literally been listening to one of the Lord of the Rings, audiobooks on my way up to Humboldt County. Also, I'm still really sad about the ENT wives speaking of the way that they re sprout when the tops come off, they also do that at the base. So is that like, what's their strategy? What's going on? Is that like one way that they reproduce? Or what's going that's

Griff Griffith  37:48  
the main way they reproduce after logging? Yeah, after logging, a lot of times, it's just stump sprout. So when you go back and log the second time, but here's the thing that blows my mind. See, like you and I went out right now. And we took a giant chainsaws, and we cut down a 2000 year old tree, because that's who we were. And we counted the rings. And we went, Wow, this tree was 2000 years old, cool, high five, and we left and then that stump may stump sprout. Usually when they're really old. They don't sprout as much, but just say this one did. And so it stumps Brown and say so 2000 years later, your cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket, cricket granddaughter comes out with her chainsaw. And she sees this tree. And she's like, this was when my cricket, cricket, cricket grandma cut down. And so she cuts down and she counts the rings. And it's 2000 years old, but it's the same tree. It's the same organism. So it's not 2000 years old. It's 4000 years old. Yeah. And then 2000 years later, someone else can come down there and cut this sprout and they could be like, Oh, it's 2000 year old but it's not. It's 6000 years old. So how old do the coast redwoods get? We don't know. We don't know how old they get. So you know, people say Bristlecone pines are the oldest trees. I'm like, are they?

Michelle Fullner  38:56  
They're the oldest that you can core. Yeah, I can measure.

Griff Griffith  38:59  
Yeah, the oldest stock. Yeah, it's a stock. So like, the redwoods are, you got to think of redwoods is like an organism. And then they can root sprout. So you could get four or five trees that are all the same person. So it's like, so imagine that, like, if, if I got into terrible accident and half of me got cut off and I could sprout new grips out of my butt. And now there's like, you know, and now there's like the seven headed grip or those could break off and get the ground and now there's five independent Grifs you know, is different

Michelle Fullner  39:32  
from the grip that you put to the seed.

Griff Griffith  39:38  
So like, redwoods can do these magical, magical things. And they're super old as a species. They're really really old. I was here when they film Jurassic Park, part two. Oh, and I worked for state parks then two as a seasonal trail crew restorationist I was 2627 I was all buff back then has some hair. everything was cool. And I asked one of the 12 assistant directors, how come you guys chose to film dress part part two in the redwoods. They said because dinosaurs lived in the redwoods. And there's some disagreement about that. It's like right on the line. Yeah. But of course, redwoods but coast redwoods ancestors definitely had dinosaurs inside of them. It's one of the oldest, it's one of the oldest lines. And there,

Michelle Fullner  40:24  
they were so widespread that it could have been anywhere on Oh, yeah. All kinds

Griff Griffith  40:27  
of dinosaurs, you know, like all kinds of different kinds of answers. So redwoods as a species have been here for millions of years. And now we have to make sure that they're here for millions more. And that's kind of what I want people to understand is we are humans are part of nature. We're a force of nature. And we can be a terrible tsunami that gets on CNN, or we can be something really, really awesome that gets on every channel because we rock so hard. And the way we do that as we manage for perpetual forests. Okay, we can still log them, we just don't clear cut them and then spray them and make them into monocultures. Like we did here. We we sprayed and then we sprayed 240 The broadleaf killer. So just it became a lot of these redwood forests became plantations, or they didn't appreciate redwoods at the time so they helicopter seated Doug firs and that's what we're finding in the park. Is that a lot of the lumber companies helicopter seeded Doug firs and so you have Doug firs growing so close together. And that's the reason why Bigfoot we never see him anymore because he can't squeeze through that forest. No, that's what I tell people

Michelle Fullner  41:32  
think find Bigfoot. I think in there somewhere.

Griff Griffith  41:35  
He's he left. He's like, this forest sucks. I'm going to start talking to people about because there's people who really believe in Bigfoot if you believe in Bigfoot, no offense, but I've just been. I've worked with to me wildlife biologist and been a biologist myself. Like we would have found Bigfoot. Yeah, sorry. Like, I mean, the squirrel five years ago. Yeah, it's tiny. It's nocturnal. It's like three looks like another square. It looks just like the squirrel. I mean, you know, so I mean, not just but very close. From 300 feet, you gotta get a UV light. Pink, you know what I'm saying? But I don't maybe northern planet squirrels go pink too. But anyways, what I like to tell people is like Bigfoot went live here. Because the trees are too close together, they shaded the ground out. There's no berries grown on the ground anymore. Okay. And if this catches on fire, it's gonna burn all the way down. Okay, so we've totally messed up the fire regime. And you know, it has everything to do with colonization. It really does. Just

Michelle Fullner  42:24  
a heads up real quick. The next two minutes gets into some of the history of what colonizers did to indigenous people in California, one specific event is mentioned. But it's not described in graphic detail. This information is super important and relevant to every conversation about how we relate to this place. But I wanted to let you know that it was coming so you can choose how to handle it. We get into a solutions oriented conversation about how to proceed from this current moment in two minutes if that's where you need to go like my

Griff Griffith  42:54  
people. And I'm, I'm direct descendant from old school colonizers to North America, and more recently, Irish immigrants, which were also colonized people. But it's really weird to happen out here, manifest destiny. And everything that happened to Native Americans everywhere else was just practice for their horrific illness unfathomable, unacceptable horrific pneus that the unfolded here. It is so bad that people don't even want to hear it. You know, it's so bad people don't even want to hear it. And it wasn't just done to the people. It was done to the place. And the way that the people here thought about redwoods. And the ecosystem for 1000s of years was in a way that my Western mind just can't even really, I can't understand it. Like I've had native people explain it to me so many times, but it's just like, I'm so westernized. But they saw everything that was very horizontal. It wasn't a hierarchy, like, like European culture, like my culture was, is more of a horizontal thing. So like up the Yurok word for Sam, and that was like their brother, you know, that was not something they just hunted and killed. They had a whole relationship ceremony like like rituals, very artistic rituals, ceremony societies that had relationships that the colonizers could not possibly have fathom, because I can't fathom it now. And you can tell by what they did, they they killed those people. They killed them, like there's tribes in Northern California that are extinct. And right here about a mile from where we're sitting two miles from the city. And it's like the second biggest massacre in the United States, the taller white people and the taller white people had a relationship all the native Californians had relationships with their regions that were so complex that PhDs are just now unfolding, what the traditional ecological managers knew. And like, I often talk to my Yurok friends about their land management and like we didn't have wind management, we had land relationships. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm listening, or this is how I understand it. But we need to have relationships. And so what I think is important for the restoration of the forest is not just putting in salmon habitat structures. It's not just removing roads. It's not just planting Trees not just thinning out forest, it's giving the ceremonial sights back to the indigenous people. It's it's giving that land back. So they can go have these rituals and the ceremonies because they were integral to the ecology of this place, their spirituality and the ecology, we're so joined in a way that I can't fully fathom, but I can fathom it enough to know that we need to give them their ceremonial places back the spiritual places where they did the ceremonies, we need to give all those places back.

Michelle Fullner  45:27  
Well, we don't have to understand everything about it to know that it was working. Yes. Right. Like this was working. Yes. Maybe it can work again. Yeah, let's try it. Yeah,

Griff Griffith  45:36  
there was shamans who would go, I think the correct tribe, I think I heard this from a correct tribal member, that the shamans would go up to this mountain, and they would set this log on fire and roll it down hill as part of the ceremony. And it would burn all the way back up. And that would maintain this beautiful oak, Woodland oak Savanna that provides tons of food because acorns were the rice, you know, they were the wheat of this area. And so and they drink so much less water than the coniferous forests have done for forests that have invaded and taken over since. And so there was a lot more water in the stream. So there's a lot more salmon, like the relationships they had with the land, they were 1000s and 1000s of years old. So they had it worked out, you know, the longer you get into relationship with your loving partner, the better you can work things out. That's what they had going on here. And when white people came, Americans came Western minded people came, they didn't recognize any of those relationships. They saw this place as eating that brown people were squatting on this park like environment that the Native Americans aren't using. Like they're not using it anyways. So let's just take let's just take it, because they couldn't even recognize that this whole entire place was a garden, there was no wilderness in California, there was no wilderness in California.

Michelle Fullner  46:50  
If you want to know more about these complex and incredible relationships between California indigenous people and the land, check out MCAT Anderson's book tending the wild, I frequently use it as a reference book, because it's packed with information on indigenous land management, and lots of specific examples of the ways different species were used pre contact, and how people ensured that those species would remain plentiful for future use. Again, that book is tending the wild by MCAT Anderson in case you want to check it out, every square

Griff Griffith  47:22  
inch of this land had a relationship with people. And it needs to have that again, but with healthy people. And so I think that giving the land back as a step, so they can have the rituals and ceremonies so we can start listening to them about traditional ecological knowledge, incorporating more of that to our management style. And when we do that, we'll have perpetual forests so we can continue logging forever, we'll have perpetual salmon that we can continue fishing forever, while perpetual acorns that we can eat in case of an apocalypse. Because, you know, like a lot of people don't like to take this to the very corner mill, we get to season it, because we're spoiled, modern people are spoiled. I get some Cylon throw some flowers around that acorn. You know, I think cilantro makes everything taste better. I agree. So I think that if, if for no other reason, if you don't care about it, like restoring indigenous people to their, you know, their ceremony place if you don't care about like, restoring the forest or anything like at least care about the apocalypse that might be coming. And we need to have some fish ie we needed to have some acorns eat we had a diverse medicinal cabinet in our force floors, and that we're not going to have that medicinal cabinet growing on our forest floors. The trees are so close together, they shade everything else, we need to go through and thin out those forest, those colonial forests, we did send them out.

Michelle Fullner  48:35  
I had a question about that about second growth row redwood, actually and how that should be managed. Because those trees can grow really close together, too. So when you say the same thing about second growth redwood, yes,

Griff Griffith  48:47  
you can't walk away. Like we can't, you can't walk away and be like nature will heal. It'll change into something else. And maybe in 10,000 years, it'll be biodiversity again, but we've caused climate disruption, and we've got 4% of these places left, like we have to connect them, we have to keep them healthy, we have to help them heal faster. Okay, we got to wrap some Vaseline on that and put a bandaid on it. We don't need to just be like bounce back. Don't pick a scab, you know, we need to we need to be there with it and having a relationship with it. So yeah, we need to thin we need to send out the redwoods when they come back too thick. We need to stop aerial seeding, we need to be much more strategic about it. And not just because of wildfires. And that's a lot of times what gets people's attention. Now you can just skip all the ecological stuff and be like this is gonna burn hot and get to your house. And people are like, Oh, fill it out, fill it out. But there's a million reasons to thin it out because the biodiversity helping it get old growth characteristics faster because people think there's a lot of definitions for old growth. The definition I use is that it has characteristics that support its original set of partners, you know, the same like and the same it ecosystem based it Yeah, okay, so like, it could be 300 years old as long as it's performing the functions that it did that a hell The uncut forest is that it's old growth at that point. So if as dead wood on the ground has standing dead trees, it's got live trees, multiple ages, it's old growth forest. And it's old, you know, at least a couple 100 years old. And those are playing, those are functioning ecosystems that help us that we get our environmental ecosystem services. I don't know how I feel about ecosystems. I haven't mixed feelings to Yeah, but you know, if it works for you listeners, then stick with it. You know, like whatever works,

Michelle Fullner  50:28  
honestly, whatever helps you kind of the trees.

Griff Griffith  50:33  
They're sequestering carbon or whatever reason you need. And some people don't need any reasons. Like it's funny, because some people they got just, I don't know, they have a different soul or something, and they just walk out. And I don't have to tell them anything. They just go out there and they go, oh, have this look. And I'm like, do you just want to go for a walk by yourself? And they're like nodding. And I'm like, I bet you you're gonna be a speaker for the redwoods for the rest of your life. And they're like, yes. And away they go. And there's there are those people, God bless them. And there's others that need the environmental services. And I could list them out for them anytime they want. Yeah. Because there's,

Michelle Fullner  51:07  
there's so many. Yeah, they're all there. Oh, I had an interesting question, because we talked a little bit about the overstory that somebody was asking. Twyla was wondering about the understory. So the question is, can you tell us about the relationship between Redwood soil and redwood trees and or anything about the understory, the overstory gets a lot of play. But I'm endlessly fascinated by the understory long, quiet symbiotic relationships with the earth and air and light and water.

Griff Griffith  51:33  
Twila extra points for redwoods Serral mentioned because like soil surreal, I say it both ways. oxalis, Oregon, there's a lot of UC solaces. There's actually an invasive one in California has yellow flowers, I eat that it tastes good. And you can eat the redwood sorrel to Redwood soil is a photo synthesizing champion. It only needs like that much light, that much light to photosynthesize, because it's living underneath darkest trees, you know, with billions of leaves per stalk, you know. And so when they get too much light, they actually fold down really, because they don't want too much light. And if it gets way too much light, they'll die. So these these guys are a lot of the plants in redwood forests can also drink through the leaves. And they can also photosynthesize with very little light. And when I tell people because I talked to people, you know, I was an interpreter for the last few years. And so people will come to the park and I take them for walks. And I did programs and stuff like that. And sometimes I'd say if anybody's looking for a new god, I have one for you. It's photosynthesis, because it's magical. Like I don't you don't even need Safar channel, you know, because you don't even need to make up some crazy stuff. You don't even need to make up. If you want to new god here it is photosynthesis. Because it takes air. It's a leaf takes Aaron sunlight and turns it into sugar. Yeah. Which is the reason why life exists on the planet. And I

Michelle Fullner  52:59  
can eat it and it gives me energy. Yeah. And you're just carrying around. It's just sunlight. It's just

Griff Griffith  53:03  
like captured sunlight. You know? It's like, we're like a battery. And so sometimes I think I get so tripped out about it. Because people are like, Oh, here's one. Yeah, he said he was up there in Humboldt County, we can see what he's doing. No, but what the more I learned about science, the more I learned about redwood trees, the crazier it gets, especially when I live in a redwood forest. And so like, if you're if you're live in Arcata and other towns around here, you're you're eating a lot of local food. And so it's all from photosynthesis, you know, so right here, and then you're watering that Mad River water plus, you're drinking Mad River water. So you're carrying around this, like sunlight inside of you, every human being is carrying around all the sunlight. But if you know which river your water comes from, that's your closest relative by weight, you know, because it's like you're like 80 Some percent water. And so like, I was living in Eel River watershed, so I was like 80 Some percent reverse when I see I know I got my 23andme and found out I was super Irish already knew that. Yeah, but you find out all the other little parts of things you are but the 23andme by weight would say I was ill river 100% You know or close to 100%. So in the redwoods, everything is related to the water. Okay, and then the photosynthesis and then the leaves are falling down and they're breaking down and on the understory on the on the floor. And so you get like feet of this duff and leaves and so the, the plants have to get through that to get to the soil. And that's why a lot of redwoods don't start from seeds because it lands on that duff and it dried the root dries out before it gets the soil. So if it didn't have stumps, Brian and root sprouting and all that kind of stuff, there'd be a whole lot less redwoods probably and so until you get a fire that goes through to burns out that duff and then are flooded deposits, alluvial deposits on there and then you can get the seedlings but in the understory. There is so much happening in that Duff there's so much fungi relationships, and we don't even want to touch on that right now because the studies that are coming out right Now, like, I just can't even believe them. I'm waiting, I need more. I need more consensus. I just I do like, you know the things about like the trees supporting like feeding each other and like having relations with relatives and all this kind of stuff you know that whole like who Suzanne sigma thing and The Secret Life of trees book and all that stuff these those studies worldwideweb know what, yeah, all that stuff is so fascinating to me. And that's what's gonna keep being in the old growth, right. But fascinating for me for the rest of my life is that we're still discovering amazing things like that. I know, I went all over the place because we start talking about photosynthesis, and I blew my own mind. Okay. Every time I think about it, you know, I'm like, Oh, I'm made of stardust water. This existed, like, since the Big Bang, or I need this. It's like bizarre we think about it. Yeah. So and then there's this ancient ancient forest, it's been living on this, you know, living for millions of years. And there's only 4% of it. And I'm out here trying to restore and be a part of it. And it just feels like a blessing. Yeah,

Michelle Fullner  56:00  
well, and another part of what you're doing is advocating, right, and so I know that for you. Not only is the advocacy important, but the way that it's done. Yes. So can you talk a little bit about like, what, what is kind of your idea of how we should be advocating for these forests?

Griff Griffith  56:15  
Well, conservation was a lifestyle of the rich and famous for a very long time, because like, my Irish ancestors didn't have time to contemplate photosynthesis, they were trying not to starve to death, and let alone trying to be conservationists like they had their cultural ways that there was some conservation practice built into it. But they weren't out like protesting whaling or anything, right? You know, because they were trying to feed their kids. So conservation started among the wealthy people had time it was a privilege to be a conservationist. Now, it's essential that we all be conservationist, okay, for a million reasons, I probably don't even need to explain to your audience. So one of the things we have to do is realize the way that conservation has been taught has been taught for the lifestyle rich and famous and not for the it's not relevant to the regular, you know, poor Aboriginal. People who wash their own dishes. So we have to make it relevant. And I think that scaring people doesn't work anymore, because that worked really good in the 80s. Like, the sky is falling, the ozone layer is falling, and blah, blah, blah, you know, and those things, they worked on me. I was like, fight fight, we got to fight against this, you know, we got to save the planet and blah, blah. And that worked. But you know, I'm Generation X, I think about the millennials, they have lived through a lot of apocalypses y2k, the end of the Mayan calendar, and you know, and Gen Z, too. And then we got a president who was like, had a new drama every day. And there's technology now they can see drama from anywhere around the world instantly. 24 hour news, social media, you ain't gonna shock these people and scare these people into nothing. They've seen it all been inundated. Yeah. 18 year olds now have seen more. And they're 18 years without leaving the house, then World War Two veterans probably maybe not as intense, but like they've seen more. And so that the tech, it doesn't work anymore. It's got its moments. But we have to connect people in a way that they feel like they're having a relationship with nature. And they have to be able to do that wherever they're at. They shouldn't have to come to the redwoods. You don't have to come to the redwoods. I'll make videos for you. But there are things that are nesting in the redwoods that fly over your house that migrate from here to South America or from here to the Arctic, that have to fly over our concrete and our pavement. And they might not have a mobile home park with the grandma like mine where they can land and eat some berries. So you are connected to the redwoods. If you're in on the West Coast directly, because the things that contribute nitrogen and seed dispersal all those things to the redwood forest are going to land in your backyard sooner or later. And I hope that you have native plants there for them to eat it because they have a long journey. And there's so few places to land that don't have cats, window strikes, confusing lights, or tons of these decoration plants from other places that don't support any insects or don't bury at the right time or have poisonous berries like Medina, which is an every Taco Bell parking lot in the world. So you can help the redwoods you can help me with the redwood rising just by planting native plants in your yard. Because everything really is connected and some of its connected by beautiful Yellow Birds, small yellow birds with Black Caps Wilson's warblers that nest in the Redwood Forest and fly over your house on their way down to southern Mexico. And if you could provide some oak trees and other things for them to get some insects from I would really appreciate it, get those birds a snack, get those birds snack and a break. Keep your cat indoors, you know, and put some dots on your window. That's a good Yeah, listen to some more of these podcasts, you'll get

Michelle Fullner  59:43  
more ideas. So instead of essentially scaring and shaming people into action, as has been the tactic for a very long time, it's empowering people to take action

Griff Griffith  59:56  
to have a relationship and we don't want to like appropriate anybody's culture but we Definitely want to listen to the elders of the tribes in your area. Because they can tell you stories most of them can tell you stories in don't assume that every indigenous person is going to have all this wise knowledge because it was all stolen from them, and kept from them. They were put in schools and stuff. So a lot of them don't know. And they're just trying to reclaim their own culture right now. So it depends on which tribe you're around. So like, Don't go thinking that the Native Americans are gonna have all the other all the answers, because it really depends on which tribe it is, and, and what kind of, you know, massacres and school shootings and enslavement, they suffered. But in this area, we're very, very fortunate to have a lot of like the Crow tribe, and then the Talwandi Yurok, which have maintained a lot of their cultural practices in spite of the horrible things that were done to them. And so we're able to learn from them. And it's just like an aha moment. And it makes me wonder, like when my ancestors came here, like, how much different California would have been today, if they would have listened to the native people, like, we wouldn't have 4% of the old growth redwood forests left, we wouldn't we wouldn't have endangered salmon, we would have tons of salmon. We'd be eating salmon right now. You know, and they wouldn't be farm raised. They'd be caught in this creek right here. This creek right here, actually, in front of my house has still had in it still. Oh, yeah. So it's pretty cool. But I wish things could have been different.

Michelle Fullner  1:01:13  
I think for me, personally, a lot of these messages have been incredibly healing. Yes. Because I think that being raised through that era of the 80s and 90s, of like, humans are the problem. And it's like this big finger pointing. Yeah,

Griff Griffith  1:01:27  
you're like, I'm nine. Yeah, right. Yeah. And he shouldn't be getting into Creek, and you shouldn't. And that's where that's where I'm different than the old. That's what I call my new interpretation. I'm like, no touch that. No, get in that creek, no, have a relationship with this, have a relationship with this, you know, learn how to fight fires and do prescribed burns or cultural burns, you know, whatever's clever, and have a relationship, these things, pull. I remember one time I pulled a leaf off of a tree in the forest, so that everybody could smell it. And I could talk about it. And this lady's like, you just pull the leaf off the tree. And I was like, Yeah, can you imagine had I been a giant ground sloth that used to live here years ago, what I would have done to this tree are a mammoth are these forests, we don't want to clear cut them, but disturbance is what they all evolved with. Okay, and the more you disturb, the more you make a redwood be resilient, the more life it can support, because it branches out. And it's like our human bodies, the more resistance you do with some weights, the more beautiful your body gets, the more healthy you get. It's the same way with a lot of other organisms, too, the more they're challenged and experience life, they the more complex they get, you know, and the more life they can support. So like humans need to get out there. We don't need to like destroy things, we need to be aware of our impact. But we do need to be riding our bikes out there. We do need to be hiking out there. We do need to be walking our dogs out there on the leash please and not in the park and pick up but we do need to be having a relationship with we do need to be swimming we do need to be taking our kids you know out on canoes if we can afford to, you know, we need to be doing these things because people don't care about what they don't understand. And if you have a relationship with the forest, you're going to protect it more. And I have a great example a little story about that Bidwell Park in Chico used to get hammered really, really bad and Sammy would come up at and people would just like poach them or just like throw rocks at them. It's just crazy stuff. And they would drew in the trees and stuff. And so the people there called the stream minders. And they were from a lot of them are from the native people from the for wind school. And they would do Sam in the classroom with kids. And they hired me and so I do, Sam the classrooms kits. And but we'd also go out to these sites, long bit of a creek and we plant plants, sometimes it's, you know, you know, got a bunch of second graders, you might plant three things. But the thing about it is, is those second graders grew up knowing they planted those three things, or those five things, those 10 things, they're invested. But also we took Moombas time to release the salmon into the creek, we took them back to the place where they planted those trees. And when I go to people park today, there is so much less vandalism than there was in the 90s. And I really believe and I wish there was funding to prove this. I really think it's because a whole generation of kids grew up connected to that place because they interacted with it. We want kids to interact with nature. We want them to be part of the healing of nature, like our grandparents, and our parents and us destroyed it. If you're a European anyways, European descent in California and but we can definitely be part of the healing of it. And we can listen to the indigenous people to get confused on how to do that. And we can go out and do it have a relationship that Native American people had relationships with all these things that there wasn't like I said before, there was no wilderness. And I think we need to reestablish that and so that's kind of what I'm proposing for people is like, when they come up here, can I get in the creek you should put on a snorkel and a mask and go look at some stuff get a little neck catch some stuff look at it put it back but you know like go exploring find out what lives there. I did that. You know that's, I think all the great active conservationists I have ever Have heard from or read about or talked to had jars full of temples. I

Michelle Fullner  1:05:04  
had some ill fated temples

Griff Griffith  1:05:07  
faded for sure. I one thing I love to see is I love to see parents with kids in the park love to see that. And people often say like, oh, I can't do what you're doing because I have kids, I'm like, No, you can do way more than I'm doing with kids. Because that's what creates conservationist is, you know, a lot of times it's like families. So I love to see parents with like I was saying, parents when I see them with our kids in the park, thank you so much for bringing your kids because that's how it gets started. And you know, I my parents had enough money to get us out camping and stuff like that, you know, and so I wish that there was all kids have that opportunity. All kids don't. There are gear libraries, we have fam camp in our park house. So like groups can groups can come up together get trained, and they and we give them this trailer. And it's full of tents and stoves, and water filters and everything you need. And so those do exist. But if you can't do that, if you can't afford to listen to this, and you can't afford to take your kids, you know, build a birdhouse, put a little water feature in your yard, throw some tadpoles in there, plant some native plants, record what comes there get i naturalist you know you can nature can be wherever you want it to be. And Nature needs to be in those places, too. So you know, you can still have your nature experiences with your kids. And there's so many resources online now, you could just go on to YouTube and be like, how do I connect with my kids nature in the city and you there'll be a million videos pop up. So like the resources are there?

Michelle Fullner  1:06:27  
Yeah, that's so true. Okay, last question for you. What about redwoods still takes your breath away.

Griff Griffith  1:06:38  
Honestly, the thing that takes my breath away about redwood trees is seen the effect they have on humans. I love to see first time experiences and the regulatory any nature for some experience. And I was a supervisor for the California Conservation Corps for almost 20 years. And so I got to do this all the time. And I love it. If I was addicted to anything, it's watching someone experience you know, something really cool in nature for the first time, like the first time I pick up a toad or a snake or see redwoods. But I love it when I'm you know, interpreting for state parks and I would stand there and steal him. And I'd stand and you know, like just off the parking lot. And I'd see people get other cars and just be like, oh, and just like look around. And I love the art inspired facial expressions. I love those. And I know they're having a dopamine rush. Like, I love seeing people experience that. And redwoods invoke that on a level that few other things do, especially when you're in an old growth redwood forest and there's a bunch of them and you're in amongst them all you really get it makes you be present. You know, and it's so hard for us to be present these days. Like you gotta meditate, go to yoga, bipedalism, listen to the audio books, you got to do something to get present, you know, it's because we're in a rush, rush, rush westernized society, right. And so even people who don't know that they're never present suddenly become less present when they're in the redwoods. And I could see it on them. And I could hear it on them. You know, their voices get deeper we get in the forest, the calmer and quieter and they start to sound like NPR hosts. It's so like mellow and airy. And they're you know, and I love it. I'd love that's probably the thing I like most about redwoods is their magical power they have on people.

Michelle Fullner  1:08:25  
That's beautiful. Well, Greg, thank you so much. Thank you out and taking all the time. Thanks

Griff Griffith  1:08:30  
for driving all the way out here. It's pretty rad. I love it. It was great. Yeah, this is this is heaven. That's That's my address.

Michelle Fullner  1:08:38  
Maybe you've had the chance to visit the Heaven. That is the old growth redwoods. Or maybe you found different versions of heaven where you live. Either way, I find Grifs appreciation for these incredible beings and the ecosystems they're part of to be infectious. If you want to learn more from Grif there are many ways to do that. You can follow him on both Facebook and Tik Tok at Griff wild for his personal accounts and at redwoods rising for his role as spokesperson for redwoods rising and his tiktoks there have millions of views. They're so good. If you prefer something more immersive. And maybe you live in the northwestern part of the state or you're planning a visit to Humboldt County, you can meet Griff and learn from him directly in the Redwood Forest on a guided walk. To do that, go check out redwoods sightseeing tours.com. I can tell you from personal experience that Griff is just as delightful in person as he was on this podcast. And his depth of knowledge is stunning. As far as I know, they won't have these walks over the winter. So whenever you're listening to this, just make sure to check the available dates. And if you're in LA group will also be down there for wildlife to watch and P 22 days so make sure to join in on those events and bring the kids in your life with you because there'll be super fun and I'm guessing here but you might even get to see Miguel orden Jana, the guests In the urban ecology episodes, who first discovered the mountain lion living in LA, and if you're listening to this after all of those events are over, that's okay. Go follow Griff on social media and see what else he's up to, because there's a good chance he'll be doing something great and you can join in on the fun. Speaking of the great things that Chris is doing, he's teaming up with my friend Michael Hawk of nature's archive to start a new podcast called jumpstart nature. The preview episode for that is already out and it sounds incredible. So definitely go give it a follow on Apple podcasts or subscribe on Spotify, because it's going to be so good. And I'll be listening to every episode. One more fun fact before we go. The day this episode is releasing is also the fifth anniversary of redwoods rising, which is amazing. And let's all just agree was not just a coincidence and that I totally have my life together enough to know about and plan for things like this in advance. Anyway, I have so much gratitude for this organization and the absolutely next level scale of restoration work they're doing. If you feel the same way I hope you'll consider making a tax deductible donation to them, you can donate right on their website at redwoods rising.com I just made a little donation and it took 30 seconds. So super easy. I want to thank Griff for making this episode possible. And for giving me the pro tip that Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park is the place to take little kids because it doesn't have poison oak. Look, I love and admire poison oak from a distance. But my kids are still in the touch everything phase so Prairie Creek was perfect for us. And now you also know this tip if you have young ones in your life and want to see the redwoods. If you listen to the very end of the episode, I always tell you something from my week in this week, it's that on Saturday, Stan and I tried to take our kids to not one but two separate playgrounds that both turned out to be fenced and closed for repairs when we arrived the kids were initially sad but managed to make the most of it and find other ways to play but I stayed sad and a little bit grumpy about our day not going the way that I imagined it. Anyway, we went to gutters for ice cream and I felt much better so I'm not saying that we should use treats to solve our problems but I am saying that in this one particular case, a treat solve my problem. Okay, that's all for this episode. I cannot wait to see you on the next episode of Golden State naturalist bye.