0:00

This week on Search Engine, a mystery

0:02

that has haunted us for years. Why

0:05

are there so many chicken bones on the streets? Let's

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0:33

Sup all my people out in Podland.

0:35

This is your boy, Chris Chapman. And I

0:37

have a new podcast for y'all, the Chris

0:39

Chapman do-over. And guess

0:41

what's up? I have a

0:43

new lady co-host on the pod. Introducing Frankie.

0:46

Name sounds like a man, but she looks like

0:48

a woman. My mic is on! And

0:51

with me, as always, my sidekick, my

0:53

main man, the human googler, the Professor!

0:56

Greetings, my humans. And all of us

0:58

are going to give our hot takes

1:00

on today's issues, like pickleball. I

1:02

think it's a made-up sport for grandmas and grandpas.

1:06

Social media. Like, don't you feel like

1:08

that's what the internet is a lot of times,

1:10

just a bunch of little piglets? Therapy. I sometimes

1:13

think that therapy

1:15

is for losers.

1:18

So join us on the Chris Chapman do-over as

1:20

we break it down. Have some fun and get

1:22

into it. The improvised Chris Chapman

1:24

do-over is an Odyssey and Paper Guy production

1:26

and stars Ike Barrenholtz as Chris Chapman and

1:28

features weekly guests such as Fred Armisen, Busy

1:30

Phillips and Amy Poehler. Listen on

1:32

the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome

2:00

to Search Engine. I'm PJ Vogt. A

2:03

few months ago, I got an unusual message from some

2:05

unusual people. Why don't we start? Do you

2:07

guys just want to introduce yourselves? Sure. My

2:09

name is Manny. I'm Noah. I'm

2:12

Devin. Manny,

2:14

Noah, and Devin. They're all journalists.

2:17

Noah works at a newspaper. Manny and

2:20

Devin work for a national broadcasting company

2:22

called NBC. The

2:24

three of them met early in their careers. And

2:27

what is your relationship to each other? We

2:31

used to sit next to each other at

2:33

Business Insider a long time ago and argue

2:36

every day. And what would you argue about?

2:39

We would argue about things like whether

2:42

water is wet. Not

2:44

classic. What else? Whether

2:47

CNN puts an orange filter

2:49

on Trump. You know, things like that. But

2:52

just on Donald Trump. Yeah, so they press

2:54

the Trump button when he's on. It's not

2:56

a button. It's, you know, we know how

2:59

to do this. It's not like magic. But

3:01

it's really the kind of conversations people have when

3:03

they're locked in a room for a really long

3:05

time. Whether that's like confined or

3:07

like purgatory or like a job that's like

3:10

not as engaging or whatever. It's just like

3:12

we're in this room all day every day

3:14

and this is what eventually happens. Yeah, I'll

3:16

put it this way. The work we were

3:18

doing back then was not very taxing creatively.

3:21

And so I think we found ways to

3:23

entertain ourselves. Okay, so

3:26

normally the way the show works is like either

3:28

we have questions ourselves that we try to answer

3:30

or people send in questions and then

3:32

we try to answer them. You

3:35

guys send an unusual email and that you're like, we've

3:37

got a bunch of questions. They're really good questions. They

3:39

were really good questions. And you're like, and we want

3:41

to answer them. And I was like, that

3:43

seems cool. Also normally just to talk about what else is

3:46

coming. When you put it that way, it sounds bad. No,

3:48

no, no, it's good. It's good. We're

3:50

the experts on all these. We can handle this one. And

3:54

it was funny because typically like when podcasts

3:56

have like a freelance reporter, it's like A

3:59

freelance reporter. There's really no were

4:01

three people in of are sincere and

4:03

we want to much respect as cassettes

4:05

as as as as as as yeah

4:08

just saw hand us the mike essentially

4:10

over asking three makes yeah I know

4:12

what class degree of progressive for his

4:14

assistant ssssss Our question is why are

4:17

there so many sick and bones on

4:19

the street and who is the culprit

4:21

as pretty simple question but we dug

4:23

into it a little bit and it

4:25

turns out that there's a ton of

4:28

layers to this question at the. Inception

4:30

of the Question actually started

4:33

with Devin. Yeah. So me,

4:35

similar to a lot of people during

4:37

a pandemic. not really bored. yeah, ah,

4:39

salt fostering dogs. And in I quickly

4:41

started to notice how much stress there

4:44

is. Yeah on the streets. You never

4:46

know how discussing the streets are until

4:48

you have a diet. Try to eat

4:50

everything. To Scout Leader Yasser, it's Ah,

4:52

and the second dog I had would

4:54

buy to try to eat literally everything.

4:57

I want financing to to make the a a rat.

4:59

Like. In entire as I don't know how

5:02

much at a rat but it was

5:04

just details digging out of his mouth.

5:06

Ah, try to pull it out. Had

5:08

to show com a lot of hours like you're

5:10

not really my dog and fostering used I was

5:12

putting my hand man is so disgusting of as

5:15

a like like like the end of a piece

5:17

of forget He does like our way ahead of

5:19

us on like the not. Dogs. Eat

5:21

a lotta stuff on the streets. but

5:24

the thing that I kept coming across

5:26

relate chicken moans yes and was like

5:28

why are there's just so many chicken

5:30

bones you know, marching in moans than

5:33

dead rats ah I'm and then and

5:35

we talked about it and like oh

5:37

yep I can all of our neighborhoods.

5:40

Are noticing like to see? A

5:42

sit on it signals and around. We

5:51

noticed that this was an issue

5:53

in our neighborhoods in Brooklyn but

5:55

we have journalism background so we

5:57

wanted to make sure that this

5:59

happening to. It will also happening on

6:01

a larger scale. In

6:04

order to confirm this we started texting

6:06

a bunch of our friends to send

6:09

photos to us whenever they encountered tic

6:11

amounts just to make sure that this

6:13

is happening on abroad sterile and I

6:15

wanted saved as the sample as fast.

6:18

Well that's about as big as as

6:20

as say about evidence that the what

6:22

happened was I think we accidentally traded

6:25

kind of a surveillance state of the

6:27

football across Brooklyn who are sending in

6:29

the sodas of chicken bones and encountering

6:32

people who are. Saw

6:34

him on the grounds and when they

6:36

send us these photos they are also

6:38

sending you know where they are when

6:40

they said the photos. Either that or

6:42

depending on your I phone settings I

6:44

can flick into the picture and see

6:47

the meditate and see where that photos

6:49

being taken to. Most of these photos

6:51

are just like it's a it's a

6:53

meeting and picture of their sneakers on

6:55

a concrete and like this. like gross

6:57

The Lakers guard was down dugout us

6:59

bag and then chicken bone. There's like

7:01

two chicken bones and I think yeah.

7:03

Getting closer one of these photos as

7:06

maybe six seen bones. Yeah, I'm over

7:08

here when with a lot a lot

7:10

of bones. So because he's have met

7:12

a data is that you're also getting

7:15

because it's not like chicken bones are

7:17

evenly distributed throughout New York City. You're

7:19

getting a map of what are the

7:21

hotspot neighborhoods for chicken bones among the

7:24

friends you serve at. Yeah, and it's

7:26

you know, admittedly not as side dance

7:28

example: a big enough sample to do

7:30

an official sorry, but I found that

7:33

like. Generally. Bad

7:35

sign Crown Heights have a more

7:37

concentrated ah details proliferation of chicken

7:40

bones on the street. He will

7:42

also say so we want to

7:44

expand it to see like is

7:47

just a New York thing. Am.

7:49

So he did certain might. If

7:51

he said stuff like chicken bones on

7:53

street you'll find like every major cities

7:56

reddit. Has. At least a few

7:58

threads. On. this is So

8:00

they have this everywhere. Yeah, everywhere people

8:02

gathered cities. Yeah There's any dense area

8:04

is gonna have someone complaining about chicken

8:06

bones on the street. And is it

8:08

usually dog owners? Yeah,

8:10

typically it's people complaining because their dogs are eating

8:12

them. There were some tiktoks we found

8:14

too. Yeah They're about issue. Yeah, we can play

8:24

This person Frying their tiny

8:26

pomeranian's mouth. I've been trying to get chicken

8:28

bones out of it and then has 75,000 favorites So

8:32

this is a thing that people are feeling.

8:34

Yeah, this is real Okay,

8:39

so coming up after a short break

8:41

this real thing this plague of chicken

8:44

bones in American cities Who's

8:46

behind it? You

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safety details So

9:42

once we confirm that this chicken bones

9:45

thing was a real problem and has

9:47

been for years in Multiple

9:49

American cities the

9:51

three of us began our investigation

9:53

into this question Why are there

9:55

so many chicken bones on the

9:57

street? And we divvied

9:59

up the word into three prongs. And who

10:01

took what prong and what are the prongs?

10:03

Each one of us has like a thing

10:05

we're kind of good with if you will.

10:07

We're gonna start with Noah. He's like a

10:10

nerd. He's really dug into the

10:12

history of chicken consumption in general.

10:15

So we'll start with him. Yeah

10:20

so my job was to look into why there are

10:23

so many chickens that then turn into bones. Yeah yeah

10:25

okay so why are there so many chickens? So I

10:28

went way back and pretty deep on this to

10:31

like the first domesticated chickens which would be

10:33

in modern-day will now be like... I

10:36

really appreciate the depth of research on this. Yeah

10:38

a lot of reading this weekend. Okay

10:41

so the first domesticated chickens are when and

10:43

where? So the

10:45

first unambiguous domestic chicken bones that's kind of the

10:48

term they use in this recent research I've been

10:50

looking at they're dated to around 1650

10:52

to 1250 BC in

10:54

central Thailand. There's some debate

10:56

about other regions but the theory is basically wild

10:59

jungle salve were drawn there by rice agriculture. I

11:01

never would have pictured that there was a wild

11:03

version of a chicken but of course there was a

11:06

wild version. Yeah if you look them up they're actually

11:08

pretty beautiful little creatures they're like

11:10

there's red ones, gray ones, different

11:12

colors and... It's like

11:15

Pokemon. Yeah yeah. It

11:18

seems like they were attracted to the rice because

11:20

it's like easier to just live off grains other people

11:22

are growing and you can stay in one area and

11:24

that sort of thing. So they wander in and

11:26

get domesticated. Exactly so then people would take them in

11:29

or whatever and those are the

11:31

first kind of domesticated chickens is the theory.

11:34

Then it's like they spread from there

11:36

across South Asia, Mesopotamia, Europe and Africa.

11:39

They're not really primarily raised for their meat

11:41

it's it's really much more they're

11:43

kind of novelties they're sent along trade routes as

11:45

like gifts for royalty. In this

11:48

time they kind of develop different sorts of

11:50

associations so like in Japan

11:52

and China they're associated with Sun gods which

11:54

makes sense because they'll crow in the morning.

11:57

Right. So they'll start the day. in

12:00

Greece they were associated with lots of medical uses so

12:02

like the chicken would be taken apart in all different

12:04

parts of obese and different medicines and

12:06

you can see stuff like that today and

12:09

like chicken soup that we have kind of

12:11

a cure all that idea traces back to

12:13

the idea that chicken is like a medical

12:15

cure. Yeah, exactly. And then today and like

12:17

vaccines they use egg protein. So like certain

12:19

people can't have flu vaccines because of eggs

12:21

in them. So chickens are

12:23

kind of associated with medicine and

12:25

so people can't have them because

12:28

of the 5G chip. Yeah, that's

12:30

correct. And fact check. But

12:33

it's like if today's the thing about the chicken

12:35

is as ubiquitous in the moment that you're describing

12:37

it they're not ubiquitous and so it's like they're

12:39

serving a lot of different functions but one of

12:41

the things that they have in common is that

12:43

chickens are rare and so a chicken is traveling

12:46

on this trade route because it's a gift from

12:48

somewhere else that means something different

12:50

depending on who's receiving it. Yeah, exactly.

12:53

And now we're going to fast forward a few

12:55

thousand years to America. Sure. There's some debate. The

12:57

main theory is that Christopher Columbus brought them in

12:59

1493. There's also a theory that Polynesians

13:01

brought them and that would have been about a

13:03

hundred years earlier. But at this point are they

13:05

they're coming because they're a source of food not

13:07

because they're an exotic gift. Yeah, that's more just

13:10

like okay these are good animals we could eat.

13:12

Yes. And they made it over because they're hard

13:14

eat animals so they could survive a passage like

13:16

that so they were good as an option

13:19

for food. And then getting forward to

13:21

like the 20th century, pedigree

13:23

chicken breeding begins and this

13:25

is kind of when the commercial broiler chicken comes

13:27

around in 1923 and that's a broiler chicken is

13:30

a chicken raised for meat and not for eggs

13:32

or other things. So this is

13:34

really those like when you picture a chicken

13:36

dinner that's the broiler chicken. So it's like

13:38

we're turning chickens from something

13:40

wild to something domesticated to something that is

13:43

almost an industrial product and as that happens

13:45

they become more popular in America. Yeah, exactly.

13:47

And then that's in the 20s and then

13:49

it kind of develops

13:52

pretty quickly from there. The main touch point is

13:54

World War II there's rations on beef pork and

13:56

lamb. So the Government

13:59

then encourages. More tickets be raised

14:01

me and to kind of make up

14:03

for that. so by the end of

14:05

the war is three times more chicken

14:07

being he and then there was before

14:09

which are pretty pretty huge. Kind of

14:11

immediate jumped into the years. But.

14:13

Then the war's over so everyone can have their

14:15

beef and pork back. and then people aren't really

14:17

that into chicken salad sites. Yeah, we had that

14:20

during the war because we had to, but. Weekend.

14:23

Gotta go back to the good food now. Yes

14:25

so the government's like okay we i will be

14:27

sick into no one wants to eat them are

14:30

like we know he can make all the seconds

14:32

in the really cheap to make because of all

14:34

these other things that are how you make people

14:36

eat. That's exactly so. there is actually a contest

14:38

called the Sit In of Tomorrow Contests which is

14:40

sponsored by the Us Da and the empty grocery

14:42

store chain in Nineteen Forty Eight and. The

14:45

whole contest was set up to

14:47

encourage farmers to develop. Bigger.

14:49

Better chickens and I'm. Days

14:51

ago a very good my government made

14:53

and Texaco sponsored documentary which I can

14:55

say some puts us okay. Besides

14:58

being a good admire the chicken of tomorrow

15:00

will be an improved Me producer as his

15:02

executive today next to the second of denial

15:04

and that he lives as much as I

15:07

mean as a cargo space much skinnier. Notice

15:09

how reading as increase the amount of me

15:11

on the breath. Look

15:15

at that drumstick. oh man. sitting on the

15:17

right looks like the chickens are used to

15:19

and on a lattice. I get second this

15:21

never lifted weights make your own guess is

15:23

that what did the more profitable to raise?

15:25

Had to say it's kind of working on

15:27

me out messiah. Or i have

15:29

thing is my air and when the chicken

15:31

up tomorrow gets to that men are table

15:34

it's advantages are still more about. This.

15:38

Video From the perspective of Tegan This is

15:40

really dark. Yeah, the overall quality of life

15:42

definitely seems to go down there like that.

15:44

Days of being kind of gods of the

15:46

center. Of

15:49

a as a step at

15:51

a or there's more than

15:53

entered into their affair like

15:55

Jack now since development number

15:57

of a. sudden

16:00

Okay, so what happens now? So chickens

16:03

are much bigger now, and then this is when

16:05

big name brands emerge, so Tyson, Purdue, etc. And

16:08

there's kind of a real commercial chicken industry. And

16:11

then fast food comes along, so KFC and later

16:13

McDonald's. So by the time we're in the late

16:15

70s, 80s, we're at the point where chickens

16:17

are starting to catch up with other meats. Okay,

16:19

so 80s is when it starts to become

16:22

like fast food fried chicken,

16:24

which I'm assuming is where like, it really

16:26

takes off. Yeah, yeah. So

16:28

like today worldwide, there's 74 billion

16:31

chickens a year raised in slaughtered.

16:36

And like that's even risen so much in 2000. That

16:38

was 40 billion that number. So

16:40

I mean, it went from 40 billion in 2000 to 74

16:42

billion. Yeah,

16:44

today. Mm hmm. When you

16:47

describe it like that, it's almost surprising that like

16:49

every street isn't just fully like knee high and

16:51

like a macabre red carpet

16:53

of chicken bones. I did a

16:55

quick number crunch, and there's about 120 bones

16:58

in the chicken. So

17:01

if you do 120 times 74 billion, I believe this would be 8.88 trillion bones per

17:03

year. Per

17:09

year. Yeah, available to be on the ground. Available,

17:11

yeah. So honestly, the real question is

17:13

why are there not more chicken bones? Yeah, we

17:16

should be drowning over them. Yeah, drowning. Yeah.

17:19

Okay, so we have like a history

17:21

of the chickens popularity to humankind from

17:23

1600 BC to today. Mm

17:25

hmm. Which is like the

17:28

prerequisite for how you get streets filled with chicken

17:30

bones. What is the next prong here? So the

17:32

next prong here is we come

17:34

back to the question. And now

17:36

we begin to look at the suspects.

17:39

Who is throwing these bones on the street?

17:43

Our first and leading suspect

17:45

is human beings. Right. Lots

17:48

of accusations online with people saying

17:50

this. People are

17:53

eating their chicken wings, legs, size, whatever.

17:55

All of the chickens. And then just

17:57

carting the bones on The ground when they're

17:59

done with them. That's what the

18:01

allegation is. That is the my

18:03

assumption. yeah and I many was

18:05

responsible for this part of a

18:08

mess against them because I think

18:10

I'm kind of skilled at a

18:12

surveillance and Max and Irma's a.

18:21

So in order to kind of confirm whether

18:23

or not this was happening I as a

18:25

bunch of friends of mine to send me

18:27

photos of when people are doing that in

18:30

real time eating chicken bones yes your friends

18:32

the like chicken steak out second stakeout or

18:34

exactly and how does the trick and stay

18:37

our do sit outside of in second place

18:39

You said that it had i don't like

18:41

a cruiser like what he did. So I

18:43

personally sat outside of a couple of certain

18:46

places on Fulton Street. couldn't find anyone unfortunately.

18:48

but I did get a text message from.

18:50

My friend re who saw a

18:52

woman eating chicken wings in her

18:55

privacy of her car and man

18:57

throwing the bones out onto the

18:59

streets and also you that text

19:01

message right there at the top

19:03

and less or cases as exhibit

19:06

I thought about it assesses as

19:08

photo are you actually see as

19:10

a parked car but take the

19:12

taxes he says she's part even

19:14

chicken wings as you say and

19:16

throwing them out and he video

19:19

of possible some leading question. Sedentary

19:21

says by pick scared or and

19:23

she last yeah and I wanna

19:25

say the photo that's just above

19:27

that that didn't fit into that

19:29

out and will.okay so there's this

19:31

for any look almost like cell

19:33

disease. Other crises are this board

19:35

chicken bones on the streets selling

19:37

them below the the photo of

19:40

the car. And.

19:42

I will say like idea like as like.

19:45

To know what we are but like.

19:48

as like a bias have been like progressive

19:50

journalists is like when there's a problem you're

19:52

kind of like was up keyboards like structures

19:54

and systems as if you're discussing seventy or

19:56

say as an evil litter i've stepped in

19:58

human feces on the Like if

20:01

the answer that you have found in your reporting

20:03

is there's actually enough people who just genuinely don't

20:06

give a shit and those people have Need a

20:08

lot of chicken and like

20:10

it's like a small amount of people are causing this entire

20:12

problem I'm open to

20:14

believe that yeah. Well, that's where I started

20:16

that's that was my question I'm like you

20:18

just said I consider myself the average Lefty

20:21

liberal who cares about the environment and so when

20:23

my friend Ray sent me this photo I was

20:26

like why the hell would someone eat it in

20:28

their car and then throw it right there onto

20:30

the ground Wait, I was to say

20:32

another thing first of just to because I don't want to make it

20:34

so I'm just about you guys Do you guys litter? No,

20:37

no, no and when you

20:39

say you don't litter would you throw an apple

20:42

core on the ground? No I don't

20:44

really eat apples so I can't I can't I could

20:46

see I mean I don't drive if I was driving

20:48

on the highway and then there's

20:50

a lot of apple on that I'm driving in there's

20:54

Listen and there's woods to my right

20:56

say I'm driving Somewhere

20:58

long drive long haul drive. I would throw that

21:00

out because you're crazy Yeah, and it's not that's

21:02

not people aren't walking around there I guess there's

21:04

an argument to be made that if like the

21:07

thing you're discarding is by the guy who are

21:09

you really harming? I think we have argument like

21:11

when you say is by a degree of like

21:13

I definitely have a memory I'm not gonna say

21:16

who else is in the memory I remember being

21:18

young getting like the no littering rule

21:20

drilled into my head Yeah, and then being around

21:22

an adult and watching them litter be like

21:24

what and they're like, it's biodegradable Yeah,

21:29

exactly and I will say if I

21:31

was driving down a highway and There

21:33

was a cop's Driving

21:36

all day eating apples And

21:42

the only restaurants are Apple restaurants I

21:44

can imagine world where you're like, okay

21:47

There will be an apple tree next time I drive by

21:49

here for the other I get a sticky apple corn And

21:52

you're next to you and it's brown and you still have

21:54

hours to go Yeah,

22:00

you're in big trouble if I'm in

22:02

the bus in the movie speed in

22:04

the yes, I'll throw it out Yeah,

22:07

I could imagine a world where like

22:09

the it's biodegradable idea Travels up the

22:11

food chain a little bit and there's

22:14

somebody or somebody's and lots of people

22:17

Throwing chicken bones on the ground be like they're

22:19

biodegradable. I don't think they I looked into that

22:21

a little bit to see like how long it

22:23

would take for it to By

22:25

every grade. Yeah, and how long is it a longer

22:28

than even like composting? It takes a little bit

22:31

a couple weeks that's within like the

22:33

soil and like it's set up to

22:35

do that Yeah, you're just throwing it on the street. It's I

22:38

think it would take I don't know I don't have a

22:40

number for you, but longer than an apple core. Yeah So

22:47

I'm gonna bring us back to my surveillance

22:50

I got these photos of this woman throwing

22:52

chicken bones onto the street and

22:54

I was honestly kind of supervised And

22:57

so I went on to Google and

22:59

I tried to find studies as to

23:01

why people would do this Yeah, the

23:03

leading kind of theory is that people

23:05

throw things on the ground people litter

23:07

because there aren't enough trash cans around

23:10

And actually like they they put it in a specific

23:12

way Which was that the strongest

23:15

indicator that someone will litter is their

23:17

distance to a trash can So

23:20

I decided to walk around my neighborhood

23:22

and count the trash can There

23:25

are I might have missed a couple there are at

23:28

least 20 trash cans I Was

23:32

surprised when I read the study I was like, all right There's

23:34

gonna be like six trash cans out here at that's why everyone's

23:37

throwing their wings on the ground I walked

23:39

by maybe this is not up

23:41

to snuff. Maybe there should be more trash cans But

23:43

in my opinion 20 is Enough

23:47

for you not to throw your garbage

23:50

on the ground and in many cases a

23:53

lot of these chicken bones are Next

23:56

to trash cans. Oh, so

23:58

people are just making a choice here If it

24:00

were human beings doing

24:02

this, if they were the most likely culprit,

24:05

this person would be walking up to a trash can

24:07

and then throwing the wings on the ground next to

24:09

the trash can. Okay,

24:15

wait, so just to follow, because one way you could

24:17

take this is if the academic research

24:19

is saying people are less likely to litter when

24:21

a lot of trash cans are around and you're

24:23

seeing tons of trash cans and tons of chicken

24:26

bones, it's like either you have to

24:28

decide that the academic littering research is wrong

24:31

or you're deciding something additional or something else is

24:33

going on here and where you're going is something

24:35

else is going on here. Yeah,

24:37

either people who live in Brooklyn are worse human

24:40

beings than everyone else in the United States. Which

24:42

there's tons of evidence for. There's

24:44

a lot of evidence of that to be fair.

24:47

Or it's

24:50

not humans. Something else is causing all of

24:53

these phones to be all over the ground.

25:28

We've now arrived at the next

25:30

prong of this investigation. This whole

25:33

question came from Devin

25:35

being a dog owner and

25:37

encountering chicken bones everywhere. And

25:40

so Devin's specialty, so to

25:42

speak here, is animals.

25:45

We're calling him the Wrangler. So

25:50

yeah, you know, like our idea now is that

25:54

it's now humans. So there

25:56

must be something going into the trash and

25:58

taking out the bones. So like

26:00

who's doing that? Mm-hmm. Okay.

26:03

Some type of animal. Yes. Alright. And in fact, one

26:05

of these photos, I'll point you to the photo here

26:08

in the middle. You will see a trash bag. Oh,

26:11

it's a trash bag with an opening. A little hole

26:13

when it's been shoot open. And there's

26:15

trash coming out of it. I see where you guys are

26:17

going with this, but proceed. So, a

26:19

lot of theories, you know, we kind of comb

26:21

through to red at the red and kind of went one

26:24

by one with all the different animals. So

26:26

we'll start with squirrels. Okay. Now where I

26:28

was thinking. You know, we'll get there. We'll get

26:30

there. We'll start with squirrels though. So

26:33

there are some first-hand accounts of

26:35

people saying, Hey, I was

26:37

blaming people. I was walking my dog

26:39

and I looked up. I actually saw a squirrel drop

26:43

a bone. Let

26:48

me pull up this quote because it was pretty funny. Nelson,

26:53

who owns a yellow Labrador, admits that

26:55

she had for some time also pointed

26:57

fingers at her neighbors for their serious

27:00

threat to her pooch. It

27:02

was like, oh my God, who's throwing their chicken

27:04

bones on the ground? She says, not until just

27:06

a bone literally fell out of a tree, right

27:08

in front of her, did it occur to her

27:10

that squirrels might often be to blame. That's so

27:12

funny. It's

27:16

funny because it's like we live in a way

27:18

where we think so little about nature that the

27:20

idea that nature could be causing these problems is

27:22

not even like on the menu of ideas. Like

27:24

you're like, obviously people are screwing me up. It's

27:26

like, no, the squirrels might be doing something. And

27:28

maybe the squirrels. There's

27:34

some good video online of

27:37

squirrels like gnawing on chicken bones.

27:39

It seems like, you know, it's

27:41

a thing. So then we were like, all

27:43

right, but like we don't see that many squirrels now

27:45

in New York now. Right. So

27:47

there's actually these people who do

27:50

like a squirrel census. There's

27:52

a squirrel census. How do

27:54

you how do you get them to enter the surveys? Don't

27:57

get them to answer the surveys. So

28:00

the last time they did it, you know, it's a few

28:02

years old now, but it was in 2020, March

28:05

of 2020. Wow, they didn't even think about that. They

28:07

were like, the world is shutting down.

28:09

Only essential workers and the squirrel census

28:11

people are allowed out of that. All

28:13

the squirrels left New York. Yeah, they're

28:16

like, I'm going upstate, more

28:18

space. There were 72

28:20

volunteers. They went to 24 parks

28:23

in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Do you want

28:25

to guess how many squirrels they counted? Because I thought it was

28:27

kind of like insane. I think I want

28:29

you to get the number. How many squirrels do you think

28:31

they counted? Okay, wait, wait. How many parks and 24 parks

28:34

and over how many days? No, just

28:36

just one day. One day, 24 parks, couple

28:38

hours. How many volunteers? 72. I'm

28:40

so bad at math. I can't even count jelly. A

28:45

thousand squirrels? 433. That was really

28:47

not a lot of squirrels. Yeah. That

28:50

seemed really low. It

28:52

does except for that, like in New York City, I'm

28:54

like, there's no living nature whatsoever. But it does seem

28:56

very low. Yeah, there's not enough

28:59

squirrels. If people are actively going to parks

29:01

and looking for hours and they only counted

29:03

433, it's not enough to be causing the

29:05

amount of bones. All

29:07

the parks are their domain more

29:09

so than Franklin Avenue. You're

29:11

not seeing them just on the street. My

29:14

dog doesn't love, well, he loves squirrels, so I

29:16

notice when they're around. And it's not that often.

29:20

Which brings us to suspect number two. Raccoons.

29:25

You know, they have little hands. So

29:28

maybe they're a little better at getting bones out of

29:30

the trash. There is this random

29:33

article from New York Times in

29:35

1975 that they were talking about

29:38

how raccoons actually really

29:40

enjoy chicken bones. Yeah,

29:43

according to this article, like if you

29:45

give raccoons scraps of food, the first

29:47

thing they go after is like chicken

29:49

and that's including the book. Raccoons have

29:51

a preference for chicken bones. That's

29:53

such a weird thing to know now. Was

29:57

this article from 1975? The article was

29:59

from 1975. And it was just like raccoon.

30:01

Right, what was the news value in being like, what

30:03

do raccoons like to eat more than the other things

30:05

they like to eat? Like, why were they trying to

30:08

figure this out? They were like, Vietnam War is happening.

30:12

The moon landing was relatively recent. What do we really

30:14

have to get to the bottom of this? What do

30:16

raccoons like to eat the bottom of this? But

30:20

I've literally never seen a raccoon

30:22

in New York City. So it

30:25

couldn't possibly be a raccoon. So

30:27

that brings us to suspect number three. Which

30:29

is birds. I

30:33

feel like

30:36

there's an animal there. There's maybe one that's a little bit more obvious.

30:42

But okay, birds. Let's go through birds. Yeah,

30:45

you know, I have personally seen a

30:47

pigeon pick at chickens. I have to.

30:49

Oh, birds will eat birds. Yeah. Yes.

30:53

That's disgusting. Pigeons will, and you know, the,

30:55

pros and ravens would see more likely because,

30:57

you know, they eat meat. I mean, the

31:00

problem a little bit with the bird on

31:02

bird theory is that the bones

31:04

are being found. It sounds like near the

31:06

restaurants. And my assumption, maybe I'm wrong, but like

31:08

my assumption is like the crow

31:10

would grab the thing and like fly away. Yes.

31:14

That's when we were looking into a lot of

31:16

people were saying, you know, there's some people feed

31:18

crows and like crows come to their windows. Yeah.

31:21

This is big on TikTok. And people

31:23

were saying like, Oh, my crows sometimes

31:25

bring me bones as like gifts. Oh,

31:27

my God. But to

31:29

your point, right, it's like where we're seeing most

31:31

of this stuff is like on sidewalks, usually

31:34

where trash is. So like, yeah, if a crow

31:36

was picking up something from there, wouldn't just drop

31:38

it. And the crow does like take out.

31:40

Yeah. You want someone who's eating it? Yes.

31:43

Yeah, exactly. Which leads us to lions.

31:49

I feel like there's like just people

31:51

who've been like screaming rat. We could

31:53

do more on pigeon. Hold

31:58

on. Hold on. Yeah,

32:01

rats, rats, right? Like some rats are...

32:03

Yeah, yeah. So that's our leading

32:06

theory is that it's rats.

32:08

Yeah. And they're basically

32:10

just digging in because part of the problem in

32:13

New York City is we don't have alleys until

32:15

all trash goes out onto the street. Which would

32:17

also explain why, because like people are eating chicken

32:19

in the suburbs, but the suburban streets are not

32:22

filled with chicken bones as far as I know.

32:24

That is what is different about here besides density

32:26

is... How we throw out our

32:28

trash. So people eat

32:31

chicken, many of them are not

32:33

littering. They throw it in the trash. There's a little

32:35

bit of meat on it. The rats go into the

32:37

bag. The rats pull the bones out. They pick it

32:39

clean. They leave it on the street. Is that the...

32:41

That is the theory. Interesting. Okay, but

32:45

here's a question to that theory. Why then

32:47

are chicken bones unevenly distributed?

32:49

Because rats in New York City neighborhoods

32:51

I think are kind of evenly distributed,

32:53

right? Yes and

32:56

no, right? So I would

32:58

say to Manny's point earlier, some neighborhoods

33:00

are better about taking care of their

33:02

garbage than others, right? And

33:04

the way that some neighborhoods even get

33:07

rid of their garbage is not the same as others. So I

33:09

think the big problem with the

33:11

neighborhoods that have more chicken bones is

33:13

that mostly they're throwing out their trash

33:15

by just putting plastic bags on

33:18

the street versus like

33:20

a container that's being picked

33:22

up. So there's a little bit of a

33:24

backstory here with plastic trash

33:27

bags in New York City. Okay. So

33:29

a lot of the big apartment buildings,

33:31

for years, they would just burn their

33:33

trash. But then

33:36

there was the Clean Air Act in

33:38

1970 and they're like, yeah, you can't

33:40

burn trash anymore. And

33:42

then around the same time, plastic bags were

33:44

becoming a thing. What was it before plastic

33:46

bags? So they, you know, like the Oscar,

33:48

the Grouch, sort of like trash cans. Oh, and

33:50

the trash would just go directly into the Oscar trash cans?

33:53

So people would take their trash, put it directly in there.

33:55

If There were bags, there would be like

33:57

paper bags. Yeah. You Know, those break apart.

34:01

So yet people just but. yeah. Raw

34:03

garbage. That. Seen a

34:05

can stay in a switch over to

34:07

plastic because they're like. These. Things

34:09

are allowed. Yeah, it's really gross to have

34:11

to clean out right? if you just playing

34:13

garbage directly into that can and then like

34:15

your to responsible for getting. That. The

34:18

remnants out the ass and it

34:20

was really slow for. Trash.

34:22

People to pick up trash because

34:24

they had to go to everybody

34:26

stands and the it out say

34:28

get bang gets interesting Okay so.

34:32

If you guys are rights rads for the call

34:34

bread and it is kind of like a structural

34:36

problem. It's like how the city said out it's

34:38

have trash for us in the city so how

34:40

do you test this theory. I'm

34:43

glad you asked. A

34:45

question. We actually have experiments that we're

34:47

going to pits. That we think

34:49

might prove. That. Rats on the

34:51

culprit for the amount of Sigma that

34:53

are on the streets. Okay Brooklyn. So

34:55

what are the experiments? Number.

35:00

One is we go around and

35:02

we pick up. Chicken

35:04

bones of the street they're saying. And

35:07

we said I'm off to a lab. Okay,

35:11

To try to see if the lab can

35:13

identify of there's read the a man on

35:15

the chicken bones to they're looking for like

35:17

rats live a particle Yes we can test

35:19

all the other animals as well as. Fast

35:23

as I I didn't. Have

35:26

his of one one Azaleas Laboratories as they would

35:28

search engine noise like yeah, what else is that.

35:32

we also thought about getting a bag of

35:34

chicken wings and just putting them out mom

35:36

my sidewalk and setting up a girl pro

35:38

that was my as hubs and and you

35:41

put like night vision they anyway as if

35:43

you're making of these for ads that's right

35:45

okay i like our i said i would

35:47

say several and of radio complaint we're they'll

35:50

be like by neighbors article my dogs and

35:52

procedures of as i have the one thing

35:54

i am afraid of is this the i'll

35:56

cause an influx of rats in the area

35:59

that might come the next day expecting

36:01

more chicken to be there. I don't know

36:03

how smart they are. Rats don't travel very

36:05

far. About 600 feet. So the rats you

36:08

see every day are the same rat. Those

36:10

are the guys. Yeah. This

36:16

is good pseudoscience. I like all of these. Noah

36:25

the Brain, Manny the Snoop,

36:28

and Devin the Wrangler. You

36:30

can follow their adventures at

36:33

their website, mannynoadevandevan.com. And

36:35

next week, it will be back

36:37

on Search Engine. Our investigators will return.

36:40

We will dip into the perilously

36:42

low Search Engine discretionary budget to rent

36:44

some GoPros from Alex Gibney and bait

36:47

them with premium Brooklyn chicken wings.

36:49

I'm headed downstairs to

36:51

set up this GoPro. Oh,

36:54

oh, that stick is for hitting the

36:57

rats. That's crazy. Okay, I found the

36:59

bag. Oh my god, and

37:01

I found chicken bones. Oh

37:04

my god. All

37:06

this in the service of bringing you an

37:08

answer. A real answer, not some

37:10

mealy-mouthed podcaster crap about the friends we made

37:12

along the way, or how

37:14

the hot sauce in sushi is a

37:16

metaphor for like Occam's razor or something.

37:18

No, we're going to find out

37:21

if the rats did it, and if so, they're

37:23

going to jail. That's next week

37:26

on Search Engine. Armin, play the music. Search

38:02

Engine is a presentation of Odyssey and Jigsaw

38:04

Productions. It was created by me, PJ Vogt,

38:06

and Shruti Pinamaneni, and is produced by Garrett

38:08

Graham and Noah John. Back

38:11

checking by Cinta Taylor. Theme,

38:13

original composition, and mixing by Armin

38:15

Bazarian. Our executive producers

38:17

are Gennaway Furman and Leah Rees-Denna. Thanks

38:20

to the team at Jigsaw, Alex Gibney,

38:22

Rick Corrello, and John Schmidt, and

38:24

to the team at Odyssey, JD

38:26

Crowley, Rob Miranda, Craig Cox, Eric

38:28

Donnelly, Matt Casey, Cave Hutchison, Maura

38:30

Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and

38:32

Illaracey. Our agent

38:34

is Oren Rosenbaum at UTA. Our social media

38:36

is by the team at Public Opinion NYC.

38:40

Follow and listen to Search Engine with PJ

38:42

Vogt now for free on the Odyssey app

38:44

or wherever you get your podcasts. That

38:47

is it for us this week. Thank you for

38:49

listening. We will be back with a finale of

38:51

this story. Thank

39:04

you.