Book 18, Question 145
Why Must Visitors Wash Their Boots Before Entering Polar Places?
Visitors wash their boots to keep tiny hitchhikers out of polar places! Seeds, spores, and germs can ride along on boots and clothes. Polar nature is special, and it needs our protection.
More fun facts
- Scientists checked the clothes, boots, walking poles, backpacks and camera bags of visitors to Antarctica during the 2007 to 2008 summer season.
- They used vacuum cleaners to suck up any seeds hiding on the visitors' gear.
- In total they collected 2,686 seeds from the people they sampled.
- Visitors who carried seeds had 9.5 seeds each, on average.
- Scientists and their support staff carried more seeds per person than tourists did.
- More than half of the visitors had traveled to other cold places, like mountains or polar regions, in the year before their trip.
- An invasive grass called Poa annua is already spreading on King George Island, away from a research station.
- Studies like this help decide where checks for hitchhiking seeds matter most.
Sources: National Institutes of Health
Questions kids ask
Where in Antarctica is the risk of new plants greatest?
The study found the highest risk along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.