Bad Seeds
Bad Seeds
The biggest black market you’ve never heard of is blooming right under your nose. Whether it’s a 4,000-pound cactus shoveled from the Arizona desert or delicate orchids pinched from the tangled jungle of Peru, rare plants are at the center of a rapidly growing and lucrative world of crime. Hosted by plant expert Summer Rayne Oakes, Bad Seeds plunges straight into it, featuring the buyers, the sell…Social links:
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Check out the Growing Joy with Plants Podcast
Hey! This is Summer Rayne Oakes, host of Bad Seeds. Our season is wrapped, but if you want even more plant content, I wanted to recommend another podcast that I love. Growing Joy with Plants explores the plant person connection, and teaches you how to care for plants successfully and cultivate jo…
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Episode 8: The Destroyer of Worlds
In Bad Seeds, we’ve explored the crimes of obsessed hobbyists, of organized criminals, and even corrupt governments. But what about the elephant in the room? What about when the places entrusted to conserve flora are committing the crimes? And what about those risking everything… to protect plant-l…
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Episode 7: The Tree That Bleeds
Zambia is home to a rare and coveted rosewood called mukula, but the country has been losing its treeline for years. The Zambian government put regulations and penalties in place to stop the illegal logging of this vital resource, but still, the deforestation continued. So what was accounting for t…
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Episode 6: The Gray Market
Gibson is a favorite guitar brand for the stars. But in 2009, federal agents stormed one of its warehouses, looking for illegal goods. And what ensued was a years-long debate of government overreach versus environmental exploitation.
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Episode 5: Business Opportunities
On November 25, 2019 in Tortugas Bay, six fishermen prepare their boat and begin motoring out onto the water. Their Destination? Isla de Cedros. What appears to be an innocent fishing trip will result in the deaths of two of these men. In this episode, plant poaching collides with organized crime…
31:06
Episode 4: Charming Personalities
In the Lonely Planet Guide, the editors provide one simple admonishment to travelers considering a journey to Panama’s Darien Gap: “Don’t even think about it!” But that didn’t deter English orchid enthusiast Tom Hart Dyke, who plunged into the forest in 2000 to see orchids – but ended up spending t…
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Episode 3: A Peculiar Hobby
In 2014, five tourists traveled to the United States to marvel at cacti in the national parks. But when it becomes clear they’re doing more than just looking, U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents begin surveilling the suspects. In this episode, we examine how there’s a thin line between passion… and obse…
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Episode 2: Plant Mania
Philodendron Spiritus-Sancti is one of the rarest plants in the world. Many call it the “Holy Grail of Philodendrons.” In May 2020, the San Diego Botanic Garden had one of these plants as their centerpiece. But in the dead of night, it was stolen. In this episode of Bad Seeds, a look inside a boo…
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Episode 1: Unscrupulous Collection
In 2020, police in Italy raided an apartment in a small coastal town in the Adriatic. Inside it were one million euros worth of stolen goods. But Italian police didn’t find firearms, drugs, or other contraband; they found succulents. Specifically, 1,000 specimens of Copiapoa cacti, all stolen from …
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Introducing: Bad Seeds
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