Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogebam here. If you've been out on a hiking trail lately, you've probably noticed them suddenly popping up everywhere, small intentionally stacked piles of rocks called cairns, and environmentalists worldwide are increasingly alarmed because moving rocks can have numerous unintended consequences for insects, animals, and even the land itself. People have been stacking rocks since the dawn of time,
typically for directional or burial purposes. Such structures have been found in Greenland, Northern Canada, and Alaska, and we're built by Native people's for specific purposes like navigation, to indicate a food source, or to warn of danger. More recently, park officials began creating them on hiking trails, especially potentially confusing paths, to help ensure that hikers don't get lost. In a man named Waldron Bates created a specific style
of hiking cairn in a Kadia National Park. The Bates cairns, as they became known, consisted of a rectangular stone balanced atop two legs and then topped with one stone pointing to the trail. These cairns were replaced by standard ones in the nineteen fifties and sixties, but the park began rebuilding the historic Baits cairns in the nineteen nineties. Akatia now contains a mixture of both. What's concerning scientists today is the new practice of creating rock piles as an
art form or for alluring social media posts. Because stacking rocks is not an innocuous practice, Many insects and mammals head under rocks to live, reproduce, or just escape their predators. So move a rock and you might destroy a home. Stack a few, and you may have just exposed the
hunted to their hunters. And while that may sound melodramatic, whether you're stacking rocks in the woods, on the beach, or in the desert, your actions could inadvertently knock out an entire colony, or, in the worst case scenario, threaten an endangered species. Some rock stacking fans note that they're being responsible by returning their rocks to the spots where they found them after creating and then disassembling their artwork. However, the second that you move rocks, you may compromise a
species habitat in an unrecoverable manner. In addition, moving rocks in any fashion contributes to soil erosion, as the dirt, once protectively packed under them, is now loosened and more prone to washing or blowing away. Should you come upon stacked rocks, especially in national parks, leave them alone, and if you're hiking, don't automatically follow where they seem to point. The National Park Service recommends checking with park officials before
setting out on a hike. As every park has different rules about carns, you wouldn't want to remove those intentionally set as navigational aids, nor would you want to follow those that may have been randomly, if artistically assembled by visitors. In the end, let your actions be guided by the important principle leave no trace. Today's episode was written by Melanie red Zekie McManus and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
For more in this and lots of other stacked topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com, and for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.