Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey it's Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Hey, it's Elizabeth Dutton. What's up, Burnette?
Speaker 4: I got a question for you. And you're a cool
Speaker 4: felliny t shirt. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I do know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: What shack shack diesel shack jackfu.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Eel O'Neill. He's one of those celebrities.
Speaker 4: Shoe well, yeah, that's what my friend's dad always says
Speaker 4: us every year.
Speaker 2: Sequel. He's like a good Irish name. He's Irish. Yikes.
Speaker 3: He he's one of those celebrities that's just like everywhere.
Speaker 3: We'll do an ad for anything. Oh yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: there's a handful of them.
Speaker 2: If you can write the check to him and he
Speaker 2: can see that it clears. Huh.
Speaker 3: So we got word that there was this thing called
Speaker 3: a shack pack shack pack, which then when I googled it,
Speaker 3: that was originally something that was called that was like
Speaker 3: a burger king deal.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought, Yeah, in the early aughts.
Speaker 3: It's like a sour dough burger. Shaquille O'Neill apparently endorsed,
Speaker 3: was particularly fond of so anyway, But now there's this
Speaker 3: new shack pack and it is a mash up, well
Speaker 3: but not.
Speaker 2: Really was like a cryptocurrency, that's how bad it is.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's a product. It's Icy Hot. You know
Speaker 3: he does.
Speaker 2: Icy I mean, this.
Speaker 3: Isn't that surprising. It's not truly a mash up. It's
Speaker 3: just a celebrity endorsement, okay, until until they go too far.
Speaker 3: So there's like a limited edition roll on Icy Hot
Speaker 3: for when you're curtain and a yeah, and then this
Speaker 3: is what the packaging looks like. So it kind of
Speaker 3: looks like a PEZ dispenservice that but the head is
Speaker 3: Shaquille O'Neill's giant.
Speaker 4: Head that like removed from their body PEZ and.
Speaker 3: It's totally going to go up someone's tutor holding it
Speaker 3: larger than I thought it would be. But so yeah, anyway,
Speaker 3: it's just kind of hideous and take.
Speaker 2: That related is perfectly good. No, not really, I'm not saying, yes,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: He does what is it? The general all sorts of
Speaker 3: other ads and is long and so anyway, yeah, we
Speaker 3: got that from a few people on Instagram, thank you,
Speaker 3: and I think one of them, let me see, one
Speaker 3: was where's the email? That I got Scott Nelson. Scott
Speaker 3: his profile picture is some really cute dogs. So Scott,
Speaker 3: that's why we're going to pick you as the refer
Speaker 3: on this one.
Speaker 2: Look you Yeah.
Speaker 3: He also sent us a great picture that the interns
Speaker 3: forwarded me of Shilah boof doing gang science. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you know all around. Yeah, shock pack. I'm going to
Speaker 3: get one. It's limited edition. I didn't really look into
Speaker 3: how one would go about securing such a thing.
Speaker 4: You should, I don't like, should get a pair of
Speaker 4: those shorts that have hot pocket pockets. Eric Buckolts sent
Speaker 4: me a thing on Blue Sky about that we talk
Speaker 4: about the hot pocket pockets.
Speaker 3: I feel like we might have talked.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to use this as a shield a defense.
Speaker 2: I'm holding this up here.
Speaker 3: Trying to block my mash this like.
Speaker 2: A magic cards like I don't know I'm gonna play.
Speaker 3: It's not a real mashup though. It's just like a weak,
Speaker 3: weird promotional thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah you know, I want saw Shaquille O'Neil outside of
Speaker 4: a restaurant in Beverly Hills the night before the season
Speaker 4: started at two am. It gets out of his like beautiful,
Speaker 4: like uh Bentley or no, yeah, Bentley. And he gets
Speaker 4: out and and I'm like, I'm walking out with this
Speaker 4: guy with a good friend of mine. Uh, and we
Speaker 4: both look up as this man unfolds from this car
Speaker 4: right in front of us. I mean like we're walking
Speaker 4: out round the sidewalk and he's parked right there, getting
Speaker 4: out of the valet, and he just goes stretches, and
Speaker 4: I don't even know what to say. I just look
Speaker 4: at him and my head's going up, like I'm watching
Speaker 4: like Jack and the bean sprout stretch. And he gets
Speaker 4: up and he's just a full height. He's like seven
Speaker 4: three or whatever, maybe seventy five.
Speaker 2: Of shoes on.
Speaker 4: And he says like I'm like, he's like hey, I'm like, hey, shack.
Speaker 4: He's like, yo, push past me. I think he might
Speaker 4: have been self medicated.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's like, how like, don't Lales have
Speaker 3: like the slowest heart? That's how he that.
Speaker 2: It was really impressive, and.
Speaker 3: You went on to write about him and for mel magazine.
Speaker 2: Right wrote in the Size of the Little Shack.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one of my red stories of all time.
Speaker 2: I still get emails about it. Anyway, enough about already.
Speaker 3: Too many ridiculous things abound.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, I got a story for you today. Okay, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: My research into wigjackers, Yeah, led me down a different
Speaker 4: rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: What I'd like to tell you about today.
Speaker 4: Yes, specifically, yes, the story of the great trans Saharan
Speaker 4: Ostrich heist.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, this is ridiculous crime.
Speaker 4: My podcast about absurd and rageous capers, heists and cons.
Speaker 4: It's always ninety nine percent motor free, that's right, and
Speaker 4: one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You know that, that's right, Elizabeth Sarren. If I asked you,
Speaker 2: what would you say is your favorite bird?
Speaker 3: My favorite bird, I would have to say I like
Speaker 3: redtail hawks.
Speaker 2: Good answer.
Speaker 3: In my backyard every afternoon there's a fight between crows
Speaker 3: and a red tail.
Speaker 2: That's dope.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Good entertainment too.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: You just go out there and they do it.
Speaker 4: They do, they signal you do, they let you know
Speaker 4: it's on or you have to go out at a certain time.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the mocking birds comes and taps on
Speaker 3: the windows.
Speaker 2: Like Lizbeth, it's happening.
Speaker 3: You better get out here.
Speaker 2: I'm okay, good defeat this lapping.
Speaker 4: It's happening. Well, I got a second question. Yes, what's
Speaker 4: your third favorite bird?
Speaker 3: My third favorite bird? Oh? I got a great barn
Speaker 3: owl out in the tree outside my place too, so
Speaker 3: I can hear them on some night.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of birds in your life.
Speaker 3: I really. Do you have that Merlin app on your phone? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You told me about them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm out there and I.
Speaker 2: Just bird identify somehow.
Speaker 3: Dude, I just go out there and I hit record, yeah,
Speaker 3: and just watch it. Rack them up, rack them all
Speaker 3: these lists of birds, bush tits, baller bush tits.
Speaker 2: There is that recent the do fine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a recent one. But you know something, I
Speaker 3: don't know nothing about birds.
Speaker 2: Okay, good news for you.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite bird?
Speaker 2: I'm not answering that question, a cop. What would you
Speaker 2: say is the weirdest bird?
Speaker 3: What is even happening right now? The weirdest bird? What
Speaker 3: is that one with that giant bill that looks all crazy? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, like the stork thing. Yeah, but it's like huge
Speaker 4: and it has a clacking bill. It looks like a
Speaker 4: dinosaur illustration. Yeah, I don't know what that bird is.
Speaker 3: Called the weird looking big bill bird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that answer is incorrect.
Speaker 4: The correct answer that we were looking for is ostriche.
Speaker 4: The answer was ostrich. Elizabeth, what do you know about ostriches?
Speaker 3: Long leg They stick their head in the ground.
Speaker 2: That's true, they do. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, if like me, you thought ostriches come from Australia,
Speaker 4: you would be wrong. They are not from down Under.
Speaker 4: I totally thought they're from down Under. Oh yes, a
Speaker 4: lot of those birds. Yeah, we'll get into that in
Speaker 4: a second. Turns out they're transplants. They're the common ostrich
Speaker 4: was brought to Australia, so you'll see a lot of
Speaker 4: them there and being bad asses, they caped captivity, they
Speaker 4: got free, got busy and created an enormous feral colonizers.
Speaker 2: They're not native, sure, they were brought there, you know.
Speaker 4: Now factually speaking, ostriches are criminals. No, they are not criminals. Well,
Speaker 4: they're free living, but they're they're from Africa, then they're
Speaker 4: There are two main species, the common ostrich from West
Speaker 4: and North Africa, and then there's the Somali ostrich, which
Speaker 4: is like from the horn. Now there's the subspecies, the
Speaker 4: rednecked ostrich aka the North African ostrich aka the Barbary ostrich.
Speaker 4: Now I learned a whole lot about ostriches for this,
Speaker 4: so that way I could talk with some like at
Speaker 4: least the conviction of an eight year old with a
Speaker 4: new obsession.
Speaker 3: So you didn't know this going into it, No, I
Speaker 3: didn't know most of this.
Speaker 2: Love the research for the show.
Speaker 3: This knowledge with you.
Speaker 2: It's a gift I gave myself.
Speaker 3: Beautiful, you.
Speaker 2: Can't you damn right now.
Speaker 4: The Ostrich Elizabeth is considered the largest living retit, and
Speaker 4: that is it was a new word for me. That's
Speaker 4: a term for the species of tall flightless birds. So
Speaker 4: EMUs are a tie It looks like it would be
Speaker 4: pronounced retight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's a red tit now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this includes is his EMUs castawerries the rahah.
Speaker 3: I just shifted way down into power nerd. Now I'm
Speaker 3: like trying to figure out like the word origin exactly.
Speaker 2: It was all new to me. I was like, well,
Speaker 2: I've never been heard this reference.
Speaker 3: What does it come from?
Speaker 2: Well, ostro whatever, I'll look look up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're the big daddies of the red tit family.
Speaker 4: The common ostrich stands nine feet tall. Dang, that weighs
Speaker 4: about three hundred and fifty pounds. Did you know that
Speaker 4: ostriches can run up to forty three miles an hour.
Speaker 3: Wait, they're like shack exactly.
Speaker 4: On two legs, it can run faster than a horse
Speaker 4: can on four what, Yeah, like a lot faster, like
Speaker 4: thoroughbreds running like thirty one miles an hour, So thirty two,
Speaker 4: you know, like they're running forty three.
Speaker 3: I imagine it's pretty funny looking too.
Speaker 2: Oh totally. And what ostrich run?
Speaker 4: One single stride can be about six feet wide and
Speaker 4: from point to point.
Speaker 2: Wow, exactly.
Speaker 4: Ostriches are the largest heaviest bird on the planet, so
Speaker 4: heavy that they cannot fly.
Speaker 2: They're like chickens.
Speaker 4: They can kind of sort of hub or fly for
Speaker 4: a second, but instead ostriches run and like I said,
Speaker 4: faster than a horse, Elizabeth, they can also kick ass.
Speaker 3: I'm going to I'm going to take one into the
Speaker 3: Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 2: Right on the back of an ostrich. That would be dope.
Speaker 4: The ostriches have these crazy strong legs and at the
Speaker 4: end of the of these clawed feet, which is two
Speaker 4: intense claws that can disembottle a full grown man.
Speaker 3: This is perfect for the derby, right.
Speaker 4: Exactly have you ever seen an ostrich like up close,
Speaker 4: like at a petting zoo or I.
Speaker 3: Feel like I may have seen one at a zoo,
Speaker 3: but I'm kicking myself for not paying closer attention.
Speaker 2: We saw one. We crossed country that time.
Speaker 4: We stopped at the farm and like Arizona, and they
Speaker 4: had remember the eyelashes, how crazy long eyelashes were, huge
Speaker 4: eyes the memories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I forgot.
Speaker 4: Their eyes are two inches across. They have the biggest
Speaker 4: eyes of any land animals.
Speaker 3: And honey, they pop, they do.
Speaker 2: Mean, they're just stunning. Now.
Speaker 4: Also their eyes are decorated, as they said, with these
Speaker 4: super long eye lashes. That's like reduce glare. But also
Speaker 4: because they're running at the speed of like an old
Speaker 4: Honda Civic, right, so they need to be able to
Speaker 4: see everything. Now, do you know about their eggs?
Speaker 2: They're big, big ones, big ones, so they have these Okay,
Speaker 2: also let me I'll reverse it.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you this. The adult male ostriches, they're covered
Speaker 4: in black feathers. That's who usually mean to see a drawing,
Speaker 4: it looks like that. Now for an accent, they have
Speaker 4: those little white wings a little tough to white legs.
Speaker 4: And then for they have the white tail fleather plumage,
Speaker 4: and then their legs are kind of pinkish.
Speaker 2: You notice.
Speaker 4: Okay, so the adult female ostriches they're not so striking.
Speaker 4: They have gray brown feathers instead of black covering them.
Speaker 4: There's a reason for this, these two feather colors. This
Speaker 4: isn't about mating selection. It isn't like, oh, the female
Speaker 4: ostriches prefer this. No, they've worked this out as an
Speaker 4: evolutionary advantage. It helps with egg protection. Ostriche daddies are
Speaker 4: super involved because they sit over the guard of the
Speaker 4: nest during the night, so they're black. The females sit
Speaker 4: guard over the nest during the day, so they're brown
Speaker 4: like the savannah. So the black feathers disappear against the
Speaker 4: night sky. Brown feathers dis against, disappear against totally. And uh,
Speaker 4: you know, have you ever seen an ostrich egg up close?
Speaker 4: They're absolute units?
Speaker 3: Are they the ones that the eggs that if you like,
Speaker 3: hard boil it.
Speaker 2: It's clear I do not know. It sounds right, I
Speaker 2: did not, bigg I wish I knew the answer to that.
Speaker 3: No. Yeah, there's one of them where if you had
Speaker 3: to hard boil it comes to crack it open. The
Speaker 3: egg white is actually clear.
Speaker 4: That's cool, so the albumin doesn't turn like that.
Speaker 3: Just imagine eating that is a double egg.
Speaker 4: Well they came in China, would they age them and
Speaker 4: then the paper wrap almost clear?
Speaker 3: But the would be like if someone's messing with you
Speaker 3: with like a jello. Yeah, ostrich could you imagine eating
Speaker 3: and ostriche deviled egg?
Speaker 4: Yes, six inches long, five inches across. Hell, yeah, that's
Speaker 4: a meal for days. They weigh on average three.
Speaker 2: Pounds three pounds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's by far the largest egg of any bird
Speaker 4: or reptile on the planet. Not only did they lay
Speaker 4: the largest eggs, right, but these are the largest eggs
Speaker 4: since the days of the dinosaur, from the days of
Speaker 4: your Yeah, and they overlap with the days of dinosaur,
Speaker 4: but we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, they
Speaker 4: lay like seven to ten eggs at a time. Ten
Speaker 4: of those bad boys come out of your.
Speaker 3: Twenty one pounds eggs exactly.
Speaker 4: And each one of those eggs, if you were to
Speaker 4: eat them, like if they did, do your thing like
Speaker 4: boots cook them up, that's the equivalent protein to twenty
Speaker 4: four chicken eggs.
Speaker 2: Each one is twenty one each egg twenty four chicken.
Speaker 3: Eggsli, you have to very cool hand looke.
Speaker 4: Does the price of eggs have you down? Have you
Speaker 4: considered ostrich? I also learned ostriches are, in your word, quirky.
Speaker 4: I mean they're poly like as they're into polygamy. They
Speaker 4: have unicorns and group dates. No, I'm kidding, they don't,
Speaker 4: but they are polygamous. Like the male will keep a
Speaker 4: bruta hens and then they'll like so then because of
Speaker 4: the egg laying issue, they pile all their eggs into
Speaker 4: one communal nest of all of his females, which is
Speaker 4: like the dominant female makes a nest and then the
Speaker 4: I guess subdominant females. They put their eggs in her
Speaker 4: nest and then he sits on them. They got like
Speaker 4: a whole arrangement.
Speaker 2: They're interesting exactly.
Speaker 3: They're like, we're vegan.
Speaker 2: Have you read Stacey, she's new to our ostrich.
Speaker 3: They're annoying me. Now back out of this, put it
Speaker 3: into reverse.
Speaker 4: I remember how he said the closest living relative to
Speaker 4: ostriches or the cassawaies and the Rayas and the EMUs,
Speaker 4: but they're all from Australia. I remember I said the
Speaker 4: red Hits. That's the name of the family. That's the
Speaker 4: name for that whole species group. But Australia and Africa
Speaker 4: are far apart. So how did like ostriches get there?
Speaker 3: And there's a little thing called Pangaea.
Speaker 4: Good quote, it's actually Gondwana. I didn't know about this,
Speaker 4: the super continent of Gondwana. Are you familiar with the
Speaker 4: super continent? I mean, I have to met. It's been
Speaker 4: a while since.
Speaker 2: I've been reading up on super continents.
Speaker 4: I'd forgotten more than I remembered about old deer Gondwana.
Speaker 4: The super continent of Gondwana was composed of four of
Speaker 4: the present continents, one the mostly submerged continent, and two
Speaker 4: subcontinents all together. So the four continents were Africa, Australia,
Speaker 4: South America and Antarctica. They were all pressed together. Now,
Speaker 4: the once submerged continent was Zeelandia New Zealand, and then
Speaker 4: the two sub continents were India and Arabia the peninsula.
Speaker 4: So they all get pushed up and but Australia and
Speaker 4: Zeland stay down and then South America on it just
Speaker 4: jets over to the side. Now, as you might expect,
Speaker 4: this various geographical regions which are now separated by oceans
Speaker 4: still share to this day many of the same flora
Speaker 4: and fauna aka same plant and man animal life. Sure
Speaker 4: back to ostriches, their ancestors diverged evolutionary back in this
Speaker 4: period of Gondwana land. So when they separated, this was
Speaker 4: like in the Cretaceous period days of the dinosaur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like t rex in the days of yours exactly. Now.
Speaker 4: Then when Gwendana broke up, ostridges they become this evolutionary
Speaker 4: cul de sac in Africa and Arabia. But they split
Speaker 4: into a few subspecies. But they're more like an evolutionary
Speaker 4: planned community, right with one way in, one way out.
Speaker 2: So one in Florida, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly, the glade, you know, the what is it called
Speaker 4: the something, the something something.
Speaker 2: They always have golf golf parts they drive around. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do not know.
Speaker 4: I should point out that the ostriches have been around
Speaker 4: for roughly, if I put it, numbers sixty six million years.
Speaker 3: Sixty six That's.
Speaker 2: Why there's so wild looking. They are old.
Speaker 4: It also means they're evolutionarily a super success. They're like sharks,
Speaker 4: like we got this down, don't mess with us. Sharks
Speaker 4: have survived the ecological collapse that took out the dinosaurs,
Speaker 4: so did ostriches.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then came humans.
Speaker 4: While the other predators of the African savannah may like
Speaker 4: to snack on an ostrich when they can catch them,
Speaker 4: humans are their real primary predator, so we have been
Speaker 4: since we emerged on the savannah, so for the last
Speaker 4: like two hundred thousand years or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, like, look at them.
Speaker 4: They're tall. They can't fly and escape us. They can
Speaker 4: run like hell.
Speaker 3: Right, I can shredge it with them totally.
Speaker 4: With the two towls, but with some planning, most of
Speaker 4: that can be overcome. And plus, their eggs are equivalent
Speaker 4: to two dozen chicken eggs, and they lay intended a
Speaker 4: time in a nest.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that's eat for days for.
Speaker 4: The trus Now, if you can catch a full grown adult,
Speaker 4: that's food for weeks.
Speaker 2: So this is how we began.
Speaker 3: To ordering wings at a restaurant.
Speaker 2: I want the leg, give.
Speaker 4: You the leg at like a medieval time totally held
Speaker 4: up ostrich drumstick.
Speaker 2: Just work on that. You got a turkey leg.
Speaker 4: I needed the I need a whole table for my
Speaker 4: ostrich leg. So one point we found their skin made
Speaker 4: good leather, like then the Egyptians they.
Speaker 2: Figured that out. Yeah, They're like, oh, this is dope.
Speaker 4: And then we began to associate ostriches and specifically ostrich
Speaker 4: feathers with the god Matt. That's the Egyptians. Yeah, and accordingly,
Speaker 4: so this becomes like divine justice. It also becomes symbolized
Speaker 4: with ostrich feathers, so now they're associated with the divinity.
Speaker 4: And then the pharaoh war II ostrich feathers in their crown,
Speaker 4: so it's divine god given authority over men and women.
Speaker 4: Ostriches start to really have a come up, right this
Speaker 4: time keeping it Mediterranean over in ancient Greece, they're freaks
Speaker 4: for the ostrich egg, right, they start offering them up
Speaker 4: to gods as.
Speaker 2: A worthy form of devotion, like here, please have an egg.
Speaker 2: This will feed your family for day.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Turks of the Ottoman Empire also keeping it Mediterranean,
Speaker 4: my dudes, right, They would hunt ostriches. It was considered
Speaker 4: great sport to them because think about it, you got
Speaker 4: a nine foot tall flightless bird that can run faster
Speaker 4: than a horse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good sports, that is, I guess right.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 4: After anyway, after a successful hunt, the ostrich feathers and
Speaker 4: the plumage with sometimes be worn as a prize of
Speaker 4: the hunt. So once again it's now designer bravery and accomplishment.
Speaker 4: And so this is about the time Ostrich feathers become
Speaker 4: a fashion statement, not from the Ottoman Turks. But once
Speaker 4: again it comes down to one person, one specific woman.
Speaker 4: You want to guess who Elizabeth. No, if you said
Speaker 4: Marie Antoinette, you were correct. Ostrich feathers are basically associated
Speaker 4: with royalty, dating back as I said to the pharaohs
Speaker 4: of Egypt, and this tradition continues through the Renaissance, when
Speaker 4: kings of queen and Europe they opted to use ostrich
Speaker 4: feathers to show their.
Speaker 2: Associations with the previous divinity. They're like, oh, we're like
Speaker 2: the fare just like that old stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, give me some Ostrich feathers, you know. At
Speaker 4: the same time, ostrich feathers also become mundane. They become
Speaker 4: the simple tool to express oneself. Ostrich feathers they become
Speaker 4: quills to write on parchment paper. So now the durability
Speaker 4: of Ostrich feathers also means that quills last longer, so
Speaker 4: people start writing longer letters, longer court documents. This commoner's
Speaker 4: technology lends itself to the creation of literature of the era.
Speaker 4: So the Renaissance is this is a huge part because
Speaker 4: of Ostrich. Right, anyway, let's take a little break. Can
Speaker 4: I get back. We're gonna get back to my girlme
Speaker 4: Marie Antoinette, and connect this to the big wigs I
Speaker 4: told you about earlier, Yes, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Arin, but no, before you begin, Yes, I did a
Speaker 3: little bit of work during the ads.
Speaker 2: That's what you were doing.
Speaker 3: You went to sleep. I did the responsible thing and
Speaker 3: I went to work. And number one, the place in
Speaker 3: Florida is called the Villages.
Speaker 2: Oh right, like a horror film, Yes, very much so.
Speaker 3: And then the clear Egg that's the penguin.
Speaker 2: Oh, double down. That's why I was like, can't fly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you can't fly, Clear Egg, never lose. Go ahead.
Speaker 4: Well I returned into uh and I say this loosely
Speaker 4: my girl Marina's one night she was looking to find
Speaker 4: some new visual shock to signify her elevated status, and
Speaker 4: so she grabbed this brilliant, curling Ostrich feather. She shoved
Speaker 4: it into her big ass wig and she pairs it
Speaker 4: with his peacock feather. The look becomes instantly iconic. And
Speaker 4: this is in the air still when everybody's doing the
Speaker 4: big wig. So, as we covered before, so went Paris,
Speaker 4: so went the world's fashion. So this look, for whatever reason,
Speaker 4: I guess they just did like a lithograph of it.
Speaker 4: I don't know how it passed around and everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you got to soon enough. Ostrich feathers. They're the look
Speaker 4: of the day. And that day lasted and lasted and
Speaker 4: lasted into the nineteenth century, into the twentieth century. Ostrich
Speaker 4: feathers remained of the rage in women's fashions on both
Speaker 4: sides of the Atlantic. It was crazy that meant the
Speaker 4: price paid for these fine, eye arresting architectural ostage feathers.
Speaker 4: Skyrocket's Elizabeth. Yeah, And by the end of the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 4: from hats to funerals, Ostrich feathers are the thing. Okay,
Speaker 4: and as we've covered, this coincided, but they fall and
Speaker 4: the wigs is a mainstay and look for the rich
Speaker 4: of the you know, rich and decade and they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 4: I'm not doing wigs anymore. I'm all into big stupid hats.
Speaker 3: Oh and those are those are very popular for big
Speaker 3: stupid hats.
Speaker 2: Exactly as you know.
Speaker 4: So now we get the elaborate hats of the days
Speaker 4: they're like, yeah, you should put some striking plumage in
Speaker 4: this fanciful exactly. So by beginning of the twentieth century
Speaker 4: you get these hats.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's crazy decade in that's lovely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought you'd like that.
Speaker 4: The one of the women there that I'm showing you
Speaker 4: on the right is Lillian Russell, the American actress.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure if you recognize that name.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but anyway, as his cultural craze goes and the
Speaker 4: wealthy folks are exorbitant prices to outdo their peers, we
Speaker 4: both know what that means, don't we.
Speaker 5: Crime?
Speaker 2: Crime.
Speaker 4: So that starts off the Great ostrich Heist of nineteen eleven,
Speaker 4: the Ostrich Yes, great Trans Saharian Ostrichized of nineteen eleven.
Speaker 3: As opposed to the Great Northern.
Speaker 2: The Trans Siberian, or the Transvall.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of transd be very specific about when
Speaker 4: you're talking about your Ostrichized steamroller.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't just cross anything. This is Transaharan.
Speaker 4: So I got a question for you, if you had
Speaker 4: to guess when Ostrich feathers were at the peak premium price. Okay,
Speaker 4: how much do you think they were worth? You want
Speaker 4: to take a guess a pop, Yeah, I'll give you price.
Speaker 4: This is eighteen eighty two the feather trade.
Speaker 3: It is eighteen eighty two dollars.
Speaker 4: As an all feathers sold, including ostrich feathers in eighteen
Speaker 4: eighty two. I'm not going to ask you to do this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to put some frame on this for you.
Speaker 4: The whole feather trade was bringing in five million dollars
Speaker 4: a year. That would be roughly worth fifteen point seven
Speaker 4: billion dollars a year today with it being just for
Speaker 4: the global feather trade. The feather industry at the time
Speaker 4: was more lucrative than oil and gold. Wow, the second
Speaker 4: only to the Kimberly diamond mine.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: So by nineteen thirteen, which is like, you know, right
Speaker 4: around the point that this story takes place, at the
Speaker 4: height of their value, ostrich feathers were worth how much
Speaker 4: per pound do you think per pound?
Speaker 2: Per pound?
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, there's a lot in the pound.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's a lot.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: One thousand dollars, good, guess, five hundred dollars okay, which
Speaker 4: if you convert. That would be sixteen thousand, two hundred
Speaker 4: and thirty five dollars for a pound of feathers.
Speaker 3: Father, isn't that like this is not too far away
Speaker 3: from the time. Remember that guy that you talked.
Speaker 2: About wrist, Yes, a feather thief.
Speaker 3: Feather thief that was all autubond.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly the same feathers, overlapping feather.
Speaker 3: So like everyone was all about the feathers.
Speaker 4: They loved the feathers and they were so worthwhile and
Speaker 4: people they also liked it because they could go tramping
Speaker 4: off into exotic places. Yeah, exploit them, take the feathers
Speaker 4: and go back to where they're very valuable, you know.
Speaker 3: Just as a quick aside, my nephew when he was
Speaker 3: maybe two, Sure he see feathers that have these pillows
Speaker 3: on my sofa that are down filled. And if a
Speaker 3: little feather came out of it and he noticed it,
Speaker 3: he'd pick it up and say, oh, my hair, and
Speaker 3: then tuck it back into his hair. He thought he's
Speaker 3: a smart kid.
Speaker 2: Now totally get this. He is a smart kid, but
Speaker 2: he thought that that's my hair. I don't know what
Speaker 2: I'm doing my hair like this.
Speaker 3: Let me put it back here.
Speaker 2: Sorry, for the mess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I always think about that with people tucking
Speaker 3: feathers in their hair.
Speaker 2: My hair, my hair, Oh, my hair.
Speaker 4: So you can imagine if these are so valuable that speculators,
Speaker 4: investors as well as smugglers and thieves would get into
Speaker 4: the ostrich feather industry. Right now, the most valuable ostrich
Speaker 4: feathers were from the Barbary ostriches. Those are the North
Speaker 4: African subspecies. They were known to have the thickest, most luxurious,
Speaker 4: resplendent plumage Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just curling, yes, really good body.
Speaker 4: Now, far more valuable than the ostrich feathers that were
Speaker 4: collected from the South African ostrich which.
Speaker 2: Were more numerous numbers. So there were more of those
Speaker 2: ostriches in South.
Speaker 4: Africa, yes, right, So the South Africa is responsible for
Speaker 4: eighty five percent of the ostrich feather market.
Speaker 2: Eighty five percent.
Speaker 4: Now, if you wanted to get the more lucrative ostrich
Speaker 4: feathers from the Barbary region of North Africa, you had
Speaker 4: to rely on camel trained caravans that were bringing the
Speaker 4: feathers through the Sahara crossing. This vast trans Sahari trade ride.
Speaker 4: It totally dating back to antiquity. So you got proven
Speaker 4: nons and you got history. Now, due to this camelbacked
Speaker 4: nature of the Barbary ostridge feather distribution networks, Elizabeth, they
Speaker 4: were far more rare in the market and their quality
Speaker 4: obviously was still more coveted. So you have these two
Speaker 4: factors that are causing the price to be valuable. But
Speaker 4: in South Africa, the British overlords down there, who just
Speaker 4: supplanted recently the Dutch Borer ethnic group as the main
Speaker 4: exploiters in the country, they were cuckoo for the ostrich
Speaker 4: feather industry.
Speaker 2: They're like this guy like.
Speaker 4: Basically, imagine one British fellaw said to another British fellow
Speaker 4: if these ostriches are so valuable, why don't we follow them?
Speaker 2: And the other fellaws like rdio what they're.
Speaker 3: Like, No, but people want scrubbed table, they don't want
Speaker 3: factory farms ostriche.
Speaker 2: Dude, have you ever had ostrich meat?
Speaker 4: No, I mean all the weird meats, like if you
Speaker 4: can make a burger out of it, I've probably probably
Speaker 4: probably tried it.
Speaker 3: Really, Oh yeah, well I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's it's like turkey, It's very similar.
Speaker 4: You know, kind of a dry like gray meat, you know,
Speaker 4: like a cross between like a red and a white meat.
Speaker 2: It's like a gray meat.
Speaker 4: So at this point, ostrich ranches become a big deal
Speaker 4: in South Africa, right, So South African ostrich farms start
Speaker 4: to dominate the global market, and that's how they corner
Speaker 4: the supply maximizer profits with subpar ostridge feathers. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 4: so this bothers the ostrich farmers, so their feathers are
Speaker 4: considered subpar.
Speaker 2: They're like, what's what's wrong with the arms.
Speaker 4: We dominate the market, so they start to covet these
Speaker 4: barbary ostriches. They're like, we only get our hands with
Speaker 4: those North African birds. However, the South African ostrich farmers,
Speaker 4: they you know, basically resent the fact that also there's
Speaker 4: this slippery truth to the ostrich feather market, which is
Speaker 4: the feathers passed through so many hands in middlemen and
Speaker 4: going across the desert, it's really hard to know on
Speaker 4: their way either to the European or the American markets,
Speaker 4: what is the real provenats are the exactly, So oftentimes
Speaker 4: people didn't know where the feathers were. They only cared
Speaker 4: about the quality which means if they could get their
Speaker 4: hands on some of these North African birds, bring them
Speaker 4: down to South Africa, put them on their farms. Yeah, done, deal.
Speaker 4: It's not about where they're from. This is not like
Speaker 4: tear war for like, you know, we need to have
Speaker 4: them standing on the right soil.
Speaker 2: Or maybe maybe.
Speaker 4: So they say to themselves, what if we set up
Speaker 4: a couple of blokes up north, have them grab some
Speaker 4: barbary ostriches, We bring them back down to South Africa,
Speaker 4: set up a couple of breeding pairs, breed our own
Speaker 4: luxury line of ostrich feathers. It yeah, something Victoria.
Speaker 3: These are wild ostriches they're going to catch.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So in nineteen ten, South Africans they hear word
Speaker 4: from the Brits, who they've just are. They're getting spun
Speaker 4: off right, They're like, oh, you're on your own now, Union.
Speaker 2: Of South Africa. Good luck.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: But so there's all these Brits are every where, and
Speaker 4: so the Brits are telling them like, oh, we heard
Speaker 4: in the council office in Tripoli that we heard a
Speaker 4: location of where you can find the barbary ostrich is located.
Speaker 4: Because they don't have like they're not really flying it.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen ten.
Speaker 4: There's no way to see the desert unless you go
Speaker 4: marching out there. So they get there's like word that
Speaker 4: there is we know where a flock of a big
Speaker 4: flock of these birds are eaten away from the world
Speaker 4: in an oasis near the sands of the Sahara. So
Speaker 4: specifically these it was the high value ostriches. So everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 4: where they're like, oh, and in Southern Sudan, which is
Speaker 4: interestingly not the Sudan we would think of because okay,
Speaker 4: by this way, so you think of South Sudan, that's
Speaker 4: like below Egypt, right, yeah, okay, below Sudan, that's not this.
Speaker 4: Southern Sudan was the name for the French colonial holdings
Speaker 4: of West Africa, okay, and so the nations of Mali, Niger,
Speaker 4: that's what we're talking about, Okay.
Speaker 2: Chad, that area. So this is yeah.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So the Brits in the Triple Embassy, they say,
Speaker 4: basically directly south of us, on the other side of
Speaker 4: the Sahara is where there's all these birds, and so
Speaker 4: they'd go only tell their confederates in South Africa. The
Speaker 4: South African ostrich industry started small, but it quickly grew
Speaker 4: under a juggernaut. Right, so, but it basically it takes
Speaker 4: them about ten years from eighteen sixty five, the industry
Speaker 4: starts with like eighty ostriches. A decade later they've got
Speaker 4: thirty two thousand. Oh they're kicking right so again still
Speaker 4: subpar varieties. They're like, okay, once we get our hands
Speaker 4: on this, we can take our skills. We now know
Speaker 4: how to farm them. They're not dying off like at
Speaker 4: the beginning. So they're like, okay, problem was there was
Speaker 4: a whole law about you cannot go, if you're British
Speaker 4: into French territory and just go grabbing our birds. It
Speaker 4: would be a crime. It would be like a real
Speaker 4: treaty violation. It could lead to a war just to
Speaker 4: get these ostriches. Because right now the Brits, in the French,
Speaker 4: in the Germans, they're all fighting over Africa. They're very
Speaker 4: quickly descending and throughout the end of the nineteenth century
Speaker 4: carving it up.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so deciding guess what all of you don't
Speaker 3: know each other. You're a nation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we drew a map here it is you guys
Speaker 4: are now Togoland. So quick plug, there's this great coverage
Speaker 4: of this story from Atlas Obscura. I recommend the story
Speaker 4: and were largely that website. Great website, fantastic. So the
Speaker 4: man who gets selected to lead this daring trans Saharan
Speaker 4: Ostridge heist that they have planned and they're discussing down
Speaker 4: in South Africa is this guy Russell Thornton. He's like
Speaker 4: a British adventurer type. He knows the area since he
Speaker 4: was a veteran of the Boer War and he had
Speaker 4: won the region for the Brits. Is South Africa I'm
Speaker 4: talking about. So he selects for his team two other
Speaker 4: experts a fourth man who he trusted with his life,
Speaker 4: and he goes, this is my heist team. We're gonna
Speaker 4: go up there and get them birds. The two experts
Speaker 4: that he pick were a pair of Ostrich ranchers. He's like,
Speaker 4: they know birds, they'll be able to tell me. Grab
Speaker 4: that one. He looks like a goer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys names are Frank Smith and J. M. P. Bauker.
Speaker 2: Fourth man, the one he trusts with his life is
Speaker 2: his brother Ernest.
Speaker 3: Okay, that makes sense right now.
Speaker 4: So the two experts they travel up from South Africa
Speaker 4: to meet him in London to plan their adventure with
Speaker 4: the team leader Russell Thornton. They outfit themselves with all
Speaker 4: the various gear they'll need for their African adventures.
Speaker 2: Yes, very Royal Society helmets.
Speaker 4: Yes exactly. They're going around shopping for this. Imagine that, right,
Speaker 4: going around London, and they decide they need outfits for
Speaker 4: cold weather, warm weather. They need gear for the desert
Speaker 4: in the savannah. Right, so the ostriches that they're gonna
Speaker 4: be going after, they're located in a semi arid region,
Speaker 4: but they're gonna have to start like in Nigeria and
Speaker 4: go north. So they're like, it'll be hot and then
Speaker 4: it'll be cold and be aired. So we need clothing
Speaker 4: for everything. We're gonna needed trunks of clothing.
Speaker 3: And in their minds they have the montage of the travel.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly.
Speaker 3: You know you have to have like a nice dress
Speaker 3: shirt totally.
Speaker 4: If they need to get invited to dinner, yeah, I go,
Speaker 4: doctor Livingston, I presume would you like drinks? So the
Speaker 4: two experts they travel to London, they planned their adventure
Speaker 4: and uh, at this point, the year is nineteen eleven, right,
Speaker 4: so this same year, there's a rumor that blows across
Speaker 4: the Atlantic and worries these folks. They in both South
Speaker 4: African contingent and in great The rumor is that there
Speaker 4: is this trader who's been spotted in America. Talk is
Speaker 4: he's working with the Americans. And to assume this traders
Speaker 4: telling the Americans about the location of the Barbary ostriches.
Speaker 4: They do that the American gets their hand on it.
Speaker 4: Done deal, They'll just put them in Texas, in Arizona
Speaker 4: and California.
Speaker 2: And be creating these beautiful things. Yeah, handover fist.
Speaker 4: Also, the American market is the biggest market for ostrich plumage.
Speaker 4: This is where they're selling the stuff to the hats
Speaker 4: in New York. The ladies in Washington, d C. Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Speaker 4: you name it. They want these things. Even the River
Speaker 4: City Elizabeth They the Victorian ladies they want the plumage.
Speaker 4: Is how they tell people I'm rich and I'm important.
Speaker 3: I just feel like Europe would have a much like
Speaker 3: deeper bench in mark. Oh do they do.
Speaker 4: But the Americas is just so many of them. And
Speaker 4: they're also the nouvau riche, so they're they're willing to
Speaker 4: signal and to buy and also the prices because they.
Speaker 2: Oh, we had to bring this over and then they
Speaker 2: just tell them about their berber to trade did they
Speaker 2: have to deal with They're like, oh, here's more money,
Speaker 2: So they're they're not smart buyers anyway. So all this
Speaker 2: means is big bucks if if the Americans get their
Speaker 2: hands on it, or big bucks that they'll be losing
Speaker 2: out if the Americans get their hands on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The trader who's talking with the Americans is allegedly a
Speaker 4: man from the South African Ministry of Agriculture. So he's
Speaker 4: in the no yeah, motivated by an abundance of fear
Speaker 4: and concern that they're about to be beat out on
Speaker 4: all these huge profits by the Americans. The South African
Speaker 4: Parliament holds a vote and they authorize the secret mission
Speaker 4: of Thornton and his team.
Speaker 3: Secret.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're supposed to head to the saw hell and
Speaker 4: come back with the ostriches. It wasn't just business now,
Speaker 4: it's war.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the trouble was that the alleged trader was Russell
Speaker 4: Thornton's own brother, Ernest, the man he trusted with his life. Yes,
Speaker 4: he'd been invited along h ostrate adventure.
Speaker 3: I wonder waiting for him to.
Speaker 4: Get to London. He's over there in New York going
Speaker 4: by the way, I got the maps. You want to
Speaker 4: point me outs? So they he Then he turns around
Speaker 4: he set sale, you know, from America back to London.
Speaker 4: Now South Africans are so worried, and their confederate British
Speaker 4: allies are so worried.
Speaker 2: They also have to hope.
Speaker 4: That none of this gets back to the nosy French
Speaker 4: that they're planning on sneaking into their.
Speaker 2: Colonies and stealing their births, and can the Americans keep
Speaker 2: a secret? You know?
Speaker 3: And they're like, I don't think so.
Speaker 2: So the team leader's brother, right, it's over there in America.
Speaker 2: They're worried about that.
Speaker 4: It looks like their secret plans are ruined before they
Speaker 4: even get started. But at this point, the Californians and
Speaker 4: the Arizonans are the ones they hear about rumors of
Speaker 4: talk of some ostrich thing. They send people to New
Speaker 4: York to hear about this. It's getting crazy, right. Their fears, though,
Speaker 4: aren't well founded, because it turns out Ernest baby brother
Speaker 4: of team leader, travels back to England and he goes
Speaker 4: a subterfuge worked perfectly he'd gone to America as a
Speaker 4: double agent to find out what the Americans knew. He
Speaker 4: told them nothing of the Barbary Ostriches. He's purely on
Speaker 4: affect funding mission, very British. And then also it's to
Speaker 4: scare the South Africans into approving their adventure, so they
Speaker 4: get want brilliant right. So the problem though is that
Speaker 4: the French territory does begin to hear whispers, and so
Speaker 4: there is that one problem. But now at this point
Speaker 4: they are told, you know, with their official orders to
Speaker 4: sneak into French territory and.
Speaker 2: Go do crimes.
Speaker 4: Right, and they're basically like privateiers on the Spanish main right,
Speaker 4: but they're ostriche thieves traveling the seas of sand of
Speaker 4: the Sahara. Now, before they head off to the Sahel
Speaker 4: for their Ostridge heights, the team travels to Paris. This
Speaker 4: would be a key stop on their track.
Speaker 3: Well that's just thumbing their nose at the French.
Speaker 4: Well they needed because the French are like big because
Speaker 4: I remember they have a lot of the North African colonies,
Speaker 4: so they're big in the to this trade and a
Speaker 4: lot of the stuff comes through Tripoli. So the team
Speaker 4: travels to Paris to talk to people who are in
Speaker 4: the know, and then they need to win over the
Speaker 4: trust of one man in particular. They travel from London
Speaker 4: to Paris to attend a top secret meeting with this
Speaker 4: mysterious feather merchant named Hassan. The meeting, of course, was
Speaker 4: about their planned ostrich adventure in Africa. But rather than
Speaker 4: tell you about Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your
Speaker 4: eyes and I'd like you to picture it.
Speaker 2: Paris, France, nineteen eleven.
Speaker 4: Elizabeth, at the moment, you are working in the home
Speaker 4: of Isaac Hassan, from the Hassan family of international feather merchants.
Speaker 2: A deal went bad.
Speaker 4: You wound up owing the family a rather sizable amount
Speaker 4: of money. The resolution of this debt requires that you
Speaker 4: now work for the Hassan family as their personal assistant.
Speaker 4: The French say valet. The britsay valette. I say, we
Speaker 4: call the whole thing off anyway. You're a valet working
Speaker 4: in an impressive, established Parisian manner. At the moment, you're
Speaker 4: carrying a silver tray with a jostling tea service setup
Speaker 4: balanced atop the tray. You make your way into the
Speaker 4: grand seating room and set down the tea service tray.
Speaker 4: Seated like an emperor on his decorative couch, is the host,
Speaker 4: Isaac Hassan. He's busy discussing business with his guests, a
Speaker 4: pair of brothers named Thornton, Russell, and Ernest, and a
Speaker 4: pair of rough around the edges South African ostrich farmers
Speaker 4: named Smith and Baker. You didn't catch their first names.
Speaker 4: You know how mister Hassan likes his tea, so you
Speaker 4: prepare his tea cup first. For pouring the hot contents
Speaker 4: into the delicate bone china teacup, You add a splash
Speaker 4: of milk a touch of honey. You add a teaspoon
Speaker 4: to the saucer and hand the tea to mister Hassan
Speaker 4: in mid speech. He accepts the tea with barely a glance,
Speaker 4: old habit as he addresses his guest. You ask Russell
Speaker 4: Thornton if he'd like tea. He nods in the affirmative.
Speaker 4: You pour his and you ask if he'd care for
Speaker 4: milk or honey.
Speaker 2: He says both. As you add the splash of.
Speaker 4: Milk and a teaspoonful of honey, you overhear the most salient.
Speaker 2: Points from their conversation.
Speaker 4: You don't know it, but these men have come to
Speaker 4: have a top secret meeting with your boss, prominent feather
Speaker 4: trader Isaac Hassan. Obviously, being in the feather business yourself,
Speaker 4: you do know that Hassan is a notable Parisian feather
Speaker 4: merchant who hails from a distinguished family of feather merchants
Speaker 4: dating back for at least a century, generations of Hassans
Speaker 4: have traded feathers in the markets and stalls of Paris.
Speaker 4: Over that time, the family has developed personal connections to
Speaker 4: trade networks that extend from North Africa across the Sahara
Speaker 4: Deep into the French territories of Sub Saharan West Africa.
Speaker 4: After you hand Russell Thornton his tea, you hear mister
Speaker 4: Hassan boast for his guests that over the century of
Speaker 4: his family's involvement in their lucrative international feather trade, the
Speaker 4: Hassans have watched as the trade that once passed through
Speaker 4: countries and territories controlled by the Ottoman Empire have witnessed
Speaker 4: this once vast empire crumble into independent satellite nations, now
Speaker 4: ripe for the European powers to pick over all. Very
Speaker 4: sad you ask, Ernest.
Speaker 2: Thornton if he'd care for tea? He shakes his head.
Speaker 4: You step to the veteran South African ostrich farmers who
Speaker 4: wear their dirty leather boots in the sitting room. You
Speaker 4: know you're going to be cleaning up dried mud clumps
Speaker 4: from god knows where later today. You politely smile and
Speaker 4: ask if the ostrich farmers would care for tea. They
Speaker 4: both nod in the affirmative. As you pour the tea,
Speaker 4: You listen to mister Hassan continue his boasts as he
Speaker 4: just describes how the Hassan family of feather merchants still
Speaker 4: operate their trade network with the help of North African officials,
Speaker 4: but the trade through Tripoli has fallen off, and now
Speaker 4: they must deal with the layer of French bureaucracy and
Speaker 4: a layer of bribes for those same bureaucrats. This is
Speaker 4: all eating into the family's once great profits and they
Speaker 4: would like to move on from the international feather trade.
Speaker 4: Times have changed. You ask mister Smith, the ostrich farmer
Speaker 4: milk honey. He nods violently, Your boss. Mister Hassan continues
Speaker 4: to sing the praises of his family. They're savvy, as
Speaker 4: it explains that the Hassan family plans not only to
Speaker 4: get out of the feather trade, but to sell out
Speaker 4: to get out while the getting is good. Do you
Speaker 4: think that should have been my choice? You concentrate on
Speaker 4: handing the tea to mister Smith. Next you begin to
Speaker 4: approach mister Boucher with tea as Isaac Hassan tells this
Speaker 4: gathered heist team that he is fully prepared to help
Speaker 4: the South Africans with their African ostriche adventure.
Speaker 2: For a price. He tells him he is prepared to
Speaker 2: sell what he knows he will arrange safe.
Speaker 4: Passage thanks to the family's network of contacts across North
Speaker 4: and West Africa, but again for a price. Then he
Speaker 4: dangles the best he has to offer. He promises to
Speaker 4: connect these adventures with the Emir in the land, a
Speaker 4: powerful man who will provide them protection, and promises that
Speaker 4: if he can find and buy ostriches, they can safely
Speaker 4: get them out of the country. Because finding and buying
Speaker 4: them is only half the challenge. The harder part will
Speaker 4: be the ostriche drive from North central Africa south to
Speaker 4: the rail lines and onto the coast, he says the bandits,
Speaker 4: he tells them, the raiders African highwaymen, nomads. They will
Speaker 4: all pose challenges. The protection of the Emir will be
Speaker 4: most necessary. And again for a price. You hand mister
Speaker 4: Baker his tea, but he's not looking in your direction. Instead,
Speaker 4: he's focused on Isaac is Shan and his cheshire cat Grin.
Speaker 4: The irritated South African ostrich farmer is short tempered, apparently
Speaker 4: also kind of cheap.
Speaker 2: He asks how much is all this going to cost?
Speaker 4: And he gesticulates wildly, hitting the tea cup you're offering.
Speaker 4: The teacup goes flying. The hot, milky sweet contents hit
Speaker 4: you right in the moomoo.
Speaker 2: Because you're wearing a very tasteful silk and mumoo.
Speaker 4: Now there's a hot stain blooming right in the center
Speaker 4: of your chest, and the ostrich farmer sees this. He
Speaker 4: doesn't even apologize. Instead, he starts to laugh. That makes
Speaker 4: the other ostrich farmer start to laugh, which makes the
Speaker 4: other two from the heightst team also burst into up
Speaker 4: Rorya's laughter.
Speaker 2: You stand there wondering what have you done to deserve
Speaker 2: your fate?
Speaker 4: You try to make a little money in the international
Speaker 4: feather market, and now look at you. So there you
Speaker 4: go Elizabeth, the taste dore we have in store for us.
Speaker 4: Take a little break and after this we will get
Speaker 4: to Africa.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: After tessful meeting with the mysterious feather merchant, your former boss,
Speaker 4: Isaac Cassan, and after they meet his price, the great
Speaker 4: Ostridge heightst team is now ready for their raid. The
Speaker 4: team set sail for the coast of West Africa. They
Speaker 4: arrive in the British colony of Nigeria. From there, they
Speaker 4: travel north on a riverboat, Very Colonel Kirks, It's a
Speaker 4: five hundred mile trek up the Niger River. After that
Speaker 4: arduous leg of their adventure, they step off in this
Speaker 4: little town of Borrow at the river's edge. From there
Speaker 4: they board a train and they travel to a city
Speaker 4: called Kano. It's a major trading point for the mini
Speaker 4: trans Saharan camel caravans that are crossing.
Speaker 3: So do you think they just have like trunks and
Speaker 3: trunks of stuff.
Speaker 4: I think they do, so picture that just like a
Speaker 4: camel caravan behind them. So when they arrive, Russell Thornton
Speaker 4: starts inspecting the local ostridge feathers on offer to see
Speaker 4: if any of them are close to the quality he's
Speaker 4: looking for, and he recorded in his journal those from
Speaker 4: Zinder are the right type. According to all evidence, the
Speaker 4: right type of feathers are from the French territory. So
Speaker 4: he finds out that the ones being traded and filtering
Speaker 4: into this area from further north over the line in
Speaker 4: French territory are perfect. They have confirmation, right, Yeah, they
Speaker 4: got that good good. So, emboldened by this, he sends
Speaker 4: word back to his bosses in South Africa. He reports
Speaker 4: that their trek has found success. They ask for official
Speaker 4: permission to sneak over the border into the French territory
Speaker 4: and steal these prize barbary ostriches, and then they wait
Speaker 4: for word from the folks back home in South Africa.
Speaker 4: Now at this point, they're languishing right on the edge
Speaker 4: of the French colonial border, hoping nobody hears about them,
Speaker 4: and they're killing time in the top of Nigeria and
Speaker 4: British territory, yeah right, and buying up ostrich feathers, trying
Speaker 4: to lay low and not let anyone find out about.
Speaker 3: Their true Everybody knows they're there, like the word has
Speaker 3: to have spread.
Speaker 2: Oh totally. I mean, they stick out like the preferbial
Speaker 2: sword thumb Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And their pith helmets walking around going anybody have any
Speaker 4: ostrich feathers now. Thornton and his team, as I said,
Speaker 4: they're chilling, trying to keep busy, and they're buying up everything,
Speaker 4: so they're kind of marks. But after six weeks of this,
Speaker 4: their impromptu shopping spree INDs because they get word from
Speaker 4: the South African officials they are approved for.
Speaker 2: A clandestine operation into French territory. They're told that they're
Speaker 2: operating budget is seven thousand pounds sterling. That's estimated to
Speaker 2: be enough to buy a flock of one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty high quality barbary ostriches if need be, otherwise grabbed them.
Speaker 3: Yeah right.
Speaker 4: The South African authorities also informed Thornton that if he
Speaker 4: or any of US heist team are caught in French territory,
Speaker 4: the mission will be disavowed and the government will disavow.
Speaker 2: Them as well. Oh wow, it's very ostriche based mission. Impossible, Yeah,
Speaker 2: real to.
Speaker 3: Something like It's really something like that, the impossible mission family.
Speaker 4: Now it's co time, Elizabeth. So the expedition, they sneak
Speaker 4: over the French colonial border. They travel one hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty miles more north into the semi arid landscape right
Speaker 4: below the Sahara Desert. They arrive at a place called
Speaker 4: Fort Zender. This is now basically in Niger, what we
Speaker 4: would think of his niche. They pretend to be ranchers
Speaker 4: who've heard about ostriches and just innotantly looking to buy
Speaker 4: a few for their place back home. And yes we
Speaker 4: are English. The French authorities hear about these strangers looking
Speaker 4: by ostriches.
Speaker 2: They zoom over.
Speaker 4: Now, this could be big trouble for them, obviously, because
Speaker 4: they're gonna be disavowed. The Ostrich heist team gets lucky
Speaker 4: the French authorities. They don't arrest them, which they could
Speaker 4: have done. Instead, they just tell the prospective Ostrich farmers,
Speaker 4: no get going. So the French is already they're rightly suspicious, right,
Speaker 4: They just tell these like Ostrich appreciators beat it now.
Speaker 4: The Ostrich high team they get turned away without their
Speaker 4: coveted flock of one hundred and fifty ostriches. They're forced
Speaker 4: to leave French territory. They literally like take them back.
Speaker 4: They're like get out, yeah, and they're turned back. They
Speaker 4: have to march south to British territory with French spies
Speaker 4: following them whole time. They may and possibly there's rumors
Speaker 4: that American spies are also following them, trying because they've
Speaker 4: been kidding, they're piggybacking the operation, trying.
Speaker 2: To find them ahead of them.
Speaker 4: So there's also American spies that are shadowing them the
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 3: If they're not traveling incognitio.
Speaker 4: There's like groups of white men following each up to
Speaker 4: the ground. Central Africa. Yeah, in the arid areas where
Speaker 4: there's nothing on the horizon until you just see like
Speaker 4: just out of the heat that's dissipating. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: people on.
Speaker 3: The show up with this caravan of all their stuff.
Speaker 2: Exactly a train of stuff.
Speaker 3: Buying up Ostrich feathers.
Speaker 2: If they're lucky that bandits just don't rob them every day.
Speaker 3: Talk an Ostrich everywhere exact rather than being like I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: what is that. No, I'm not familiar with that. I
Speaker 3: don't know her, and then you just go about your
Speaker 3: business and then zoink he grab some.
Speaker 4: Frenchworn legion runs them out of the country. So somewhere
Speaker 4: along the way, the Ostrich ized team they do manage
Speaker 4: to score some ostriches, not the flock they wanted, but
Speaker 4: at least they don't come away empty handed as far
Speaker 4: as what they get. The flock they came away with.
Speaker 4: Many suspect that their business partner Hassan coordinated with contacts
Speaker 4: with the local emir. Yeah, to sneak around and get
Speaker 4: some barbary ones. And it's like, don't worry you guys
Speaker 4: messed up, I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the idea, right, so.
Speaker 3: And then they would owe him big yeah.
Speaker 4: But apparently it was sketch getting back, because there are
Speaker 4: reports in letters home from like one of the expert
Speaker 4: ostrich farmers, they one named Smith Totally. He rides back
Speaker 4: to his family like, dearest Emily, I survived the raids
Speaker 4: into French territory and then racing back to British territory
Speaker 4: with our legal ostriches. We were set upon by no
Speaker 4: mad tribes, possibly the Berbers, I'm not quite sure. And
Speaker 4: then he also mentions conflicts with the French army. They
Speaker 4: were shooting at them. Apparently whatever did happen as they
Speaker 4: made their raids and snuck back and forth across the border,
Speaker 4: because apparently that's what they had to do.
Speaker 2: The Ostrich team eventually procures.
Speaker 4: All the ostriches thereafter, and once they have their birds,
Speaker 4: they take this ostridge drive and trek hundreds of miles
Speaker 4: south back to Nigeria. So imagine a cattle drive, but
Speaker 4: it's all ostriches.
Speaker 3: Oh god, right.
Speaker 4: Now I have to remind you ostriches can run faster
Speaker 4: than horses. Yeah, so you have to imagine that was a.
Speaker 2: Crazy ostriche drive to back to Nigeria.
Speaker 3: Who's like, did they pick up a local?
Speaker 2: They definitely had some.
Speaker 4: Look the long sticks beating the earth and going not
Speaker 4: that way, not that way.
Speaker 3: Imagine pick up you know, some sheep dogs.
Speaker 2: You definitely need some better.
Speaker 4: You can't just rely on two South African Ostrich farmers.
Speaker 4: So so we do know it was this whole thing's
Speaker 4: fraught with challenges, right because also heist team leader Forton,
Speaker 4: he gets cut down by malaria.
Speaker 2: So now he can't walk, he can't ride a horse,
Speaker 2: he can't do it.
Speaker 3: Hes to be carried.
Speaker 2: So now they got to get more people.
Speaker 4: They PLoP them into a hammock and have to heft
Speaker 4: him hundreds of miles back to friendly British territory.
Speaker 3: Crazy everyone that's malaria. But like really, he's just tired
Speaker 3: of walking.
Speaker 2: I think I've turned my ankle. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: have a lie down.
Speaker 4: So the Ostrich's ized team they make it back over
Speaker 4: the border with their crazy Ostrich cattle drive and uh,
Speaker 4: we make it back into what's now Nigeria. They load
Speaker 4: up a flock of their contraband ostriches. They border train
Speaker 4: to Lagos. That's what the big port is. So the
Speaker 4: train cars are modified to carry these ostriches. I like
Speaker 4: to imagine it like a circus train where the ostriches
Speaker 4: are poking their heads out of the top right, just
Speaker 4: like a blossom of ostrich heads. So up the one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty ostriches they set out with one hundred
Speaker 4: and forty survived the Ostriche cattle drive, the train ride
Speaker 4: to the coast, and then the ship voyage down to
Speaker 4: Cape Town.
Speaker 2: Not bad.
Speaker 4: One hundred and forty eight hundred put if you can
Speaker 4: believe it. When they arrive in South Africa, the ship
Speaker 4: is met and feted like the arrival of conquering heroes.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they had done it. They'd trekked off into
Speaker 4: unknown thens and come back with a flock of coveted ostriches.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows this marks the birth of a new wave
Speaker 4: of generational wealth for the South African ostrich industry. Except Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: life is funny, fun Just when you think you have
Speaker 4: it all figured out. You've done the hard thing, the
Speaker 4: illegal thing, the impossible task, you survive the trek, You've
Speaker 4: come home, the conquering hero, and then just two years later,
Speaker 4: the bottom drops out of the ostrich feather market and
Speaker 4: you'll lose everything. It's like a modern Creek myth, like
Speaker 4: a Paul Thomas Anderson Marietta. The twist of fate was
Speaker 4: there to be seen for those with the right eyes
Speaker 4: to see it, like Hassan getting out of the industry,
Speaker 4: or ears to hear it, you see, Elizabeth. At the time,
Speaker 4: there was a little something called the birth of the
Speaker 4: animal rights movement. Energy for the movement was the wholesale
Speaker 4: slaughter of birds around the world to power the wig
Speaker 4: and later hat industries with their brilliant and exact feathers.
Speaker 4: So whole bird populations were being extincted in pursuit of
Speaker 4: their fine feathers. So as a result, when photographic evidence
Speaker 4: to go gets published of this industrial scale bird slaughter
Speaker 4: that's happened now where people can't see it. The response
Speaker 4: from animal lovers and decent people is tremendous and it
Speaker 4: all comes down to this Australian ornithologist named Arthur Mattingly.
Speaker 2: He no relations to don He tramped into the wild.
Speaker 4: He photographs this widespread devastation that's occurring in the natural environment.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: I've been talking like these feather hunters are just wrecking shop.
Speaker 4: And he photographs the slaughter of adult egrets and herons
Speaker 4: them in Australia.
Speaker 3: Like killing them and then pulling the feathers.
Speaker 4: The chicks don't have good feathers, so they leave all
Speaker 4: these chicks to die. So he has all these empty
Speaker 4: nests with the adults have been taken and it's just starving.
Speaker 4: Photos get published an article called Plundered for their Plumes.
Speaker 4: It's syndicated published around the world. Huge uproar in Europe,
Speaker 4: mainly in the UK, USA, France, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark responsor.
Speaker 4: The article it galvanizes a movement. It changes the opinion
Speaker 4: of these delicate beauty of the feathers. Yeah, they become
Speaker 4: like blood diamonds, is blood feathers.
Speaker 2: Or like a fur code totally exactly.
Speaker 4: It's very og furs murder. Yeah, right, So soon organizations
Speaker 4: are formed to protect birds. In particular, these two American women,
Speaker 4: Mental Hall and Harriet Hemanway, who founded the what Audubon
Speaker 4: Society you called it now, they led popular boycotts of
Speaker 4: feathers and the hats that people wear them. And they
Speaker 4: also had no imitation feathers, the whole thing. We're against
Speaker 4: it right right over in the UK they have the
Speaker 4: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They're together, working
Speaker 4: with both sides of the Atlantic. They lobby against this
Speaker 4: wholesale slaughter. The millinery industry and the wigmakers take it
Speaker 4: on the chinch.
Speaker 6: Sure.
Speaker 4: This leads to a wave of pamphlets, public lectures, magazine articles, books.
Speaker 4: The whole tide turns against them. Now remember the Transaharan
Speaker 4: Ostrich heist. Yeah, went down in nineteen eleven. Yeah, by
Speaker 4: nineteen thirteen, the international feather market is in free fall.
Speaker 4: Feather markets, yes, the feather markets are once huge, selling
Speaker 4: bird plumage. Right, like flower markets would sell flowers, they
Speaker 4: close up shop. You can't even find them happening anymore.
Speaker 4: The buyers just aren't there. The popularity is on the wane.
Speaker 4: But a couple factors other than the animal rights that
Speaker 4: killed it are all they all convene at.
Speaker 2: The right time. Because one year later, in nineteen fourteen
Speaker 2: World War One.
Speaker 4: All those big ornate, brightly feathered hats, they look really
Speaker 4: at it taste right, The splendor of a feather seemed
Speaker 4: at odds with the industrial horrors of trench warfare, mustard
Speaker 4: gas attacks.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Do you know what also became the big new bird
Speaker 4: based energy in the culture bird watching?
Speaker 2: This is when bird watching becomes a thing.
Speaker 4: People decide, rather than wear the beauty of the birds,
Speaker 4: why don't we tramp out into the wild, get a
Speaker 4: bit of a walk, experience it for ourselves, bring some
Speaker 4: binoc there's maybe a camera, record the beauty, share it
Speaker 4: with others.
Speaker 2: And so the people who did this becomes a thing.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Another cultural trend was all those crazy big Victorian era
Speaker 4: hats and the insane plumage. Yeah, well that gets killed
Speaker 4: off because of something with five wheels that goes beep beep.
Speaker 4: The advent of the automobile kills off Victorian fashions, tons
Speaker 4: of them, right, in particular, crazy big ornate hats you
Speaker 4: can rock around in your model tea or your open
Speaker 4: top Duzenberg with some stupid big hat. Another fashion trend
Speaker 4: that also kills off the feather industry, women decided to
Speaker 4: chop off their hair. So when the bob haircut becomes
Speaker 4: a thing in the nineteen teens, that left no purchase
Speaker 4: for those crazy big Victorian hats to sit. So between
Speaker 4: the Great War, the event of the car, and women
Speaker 4: changing fashions and hair and stupid big hats going out,
Speaker 4: and the feather industry just implodes in like two year's time.
Speaker 4: And so you know what, who's left holding a very
Speaker 4: expensive bag? That's right at the South afric agains who'd
Speaker 4: launched their trans Saharan ostroch type to corner the ostrich
Speaker 4: feather market. Oopsies and now of the original flock of
Speaker 4: contraband smuggled ostriches that some survived in South Africa for
Speaker 4: another two and a half decades. The last one, an
Speaker 4: old male, died during World War Two. It's reported he
Speaker 4: died some time between nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty four,
Speaker 4: and it's also reported he was killed by a lightning strike.
Speaker 4: I love that they know the cause of death really clearly,
Speaker 4: but the time of death five year window park. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we're like, hey, look, there was a war on and
Speaker 4: we were not doing the best of keeping records on
Speaker 4: the deaths of our awn. Yes, yes, I think we
Speaker 4: remember that one. So those highly sought after ostriches that
Speaker 4: were near Fort Zinder and what's now modern Niger. The
Speaker 4: French authorities who never really gave a feather a fig
Speaker 4: about them. Apparently they'd blocked the raiders and the speculators,
Speaker 4: but they didn't safeguard the ostriches.
Speaker 2: So the flock died off.
Speaker 4: Dude over like habitat loss and over hunting. Thanks to colonialism,
Speaker 4: this once prized flock is.
Speaker 2: Now no more. It's extinct. Oops. So this whole story
Speaker 2: is very much Have I ever told you about my
Speaker 2: time in the dark court of Africa?
Speaker 4: You know it just reads of colonialism, exploitation, international games
Speaker 4: being played in far away places. Yes, exactly, and so
Speaker 4: ends our story of the great transaharent ostracized.
Speaker 2: What's the ridiculous takeaway, hey, Elizabeth, it's.
Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned blood diamonds, and you think about,
Speaker 3: like how you can grind this feather industry to a
Speaker 3: halt by showing images of starving chicks, and you can
Speaker 3: you know, grind the fur industry to a halt with
Speaker 3: the imagery for that, but we really haven't done enough
Speaker 3: to grind the diamond industry. And it's like those are
Speaker 3: children that they're sending in there, and when you read
Speaker 3: like accounts of it and you see photos and you know,
Speaker 3: it's so affecting, but it's you know, we're all I'm
Speaker 3: guilty of it too. Where I don't like to watch
Speaker 3: movies where the dog dies. We're a soft touch with
Speaker 3: it when it comes to animals, but the human beings
Speaker 3: and kids, you know, people are able to kind of
Speaker 3: abstractify things.
Speaker 4: We have all these animal rights activists working looking for
Speaker 4: animal animals at this time while children are working in
Speaker 4: factories losing their fingers.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly exactly. But you know, we like, we like
Speaker 3: kids in theory. I find when it actually comes to
Speaker 3: saving a kid, not so much.
Speaker 2: Take away, Oh, Elizabeth, I feel so refreshed. Man, I
Speaker 2: can't believe me. Ask my ridiculous takeaway is fashion? Man,
Speaker 2: it's a killer. Huh, that's good. I just kind of
Speaker 2: find it really amazing.
Speaker 4: I was, you know, I went from one rabbit hole
Speaker 4: or one you know, wormhole or whatever holes to another
Speaker 4: of like fashion crimes, and I think I found a
Speaker 4: couple others while I was doing this research. I'm not
Speaker 4: going to immediately jump on them, but like it's just amazing,
Speaker 4: like once something has value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's why I just don't trust crypto. So
Speaker 2: there you go.
Speaker 4: Yes with you anyway, it's the feather market right now.
Speaker 4: So do you in the mood for a talkback?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Can you favorites with one? Please?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: God?
Speaker 6: Hell, Hi Elizabeth, Saraen, and Dave. This is your friend
Speaker 6: Renee thinking about your episode on Parkour. I've been watching
Speaker 6: Vertico today and the first scene teaches us that Jimmy
Speaker 6: Stewart is really really bad at Parkour. Hope you guys
Speaker 6: are doing good bye bye.
Speaker 3: It is it is. That is the lesson every Windows
Speaker 3: cock wanted us to know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, so
Speaker 3: as always.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on
Speaker 4: the social media, it's mostly Blue Sky and Instagram.
Speaker 2: I think we also have a Ridiculous Crime pod on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Go check that out. They're dope. They're animated. You can
Speaker 2: listen and it's fun.
Speaker 4: And we have a website, ridicular Crime dot com, which
Speaker 4: just won I believe an award from Willie Nelson for
Speaker 4: the best certified pot on offer on the Internet.
Speaker 2: You're kidding, Yeah, we beat Willie's reserve. We beat his
Speaker 2: own pot. Yeah. Yeah. We can't sell itator anywhere, but
Speaker 2: we just offer it. You come over there, we'll give
Speaker 2: you some exactly. So.
Speaker 4: Also, we love your talkbacks emails if you'd like it,
Speaker 4: Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and as far as
Speaker 4: the talkbacks, go to the iHeart app downloaded. If you
Speaker 4: don't know about it, Yeah, you can record a talkback
Speaker 4: and maybe hear your voice here. And if you don't
Speaker 4: know about gmails, you just go there and you type
Speaker 4: in ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and whatever email
Speaker 4: app you use and just send us letter.
Speaker 2: But start it out, do you. Producer d thank you
Speaker 2: for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton, that's her and Zaron Bennette.
Speaker 4: Let Me, produced and edited by the Trans Siberian Orchestra
Speaker 4: Heist team leader Dave Kustin and starring an Alis Rucker
Speaker 4: as who did research is by Less of a bird Watcher,
Speaker 4: More of a bird Listener Marissa Brown. Our theme song
Speaker 4: is by Our House band Feather and the Hunters aka Thomas.
Speaker 2: Lee and Travis Dutton.
Speaker 4: The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest tarn,
Speaker 4: makeup by Spartacle Shot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben.
Speaker 4: I used to sell feathers at the seashore until that
Speaker 4: Gal Sally with the Seashells muscled me out of the market.
Speaker 2: Bowling and no, you know I don't believe you.
Speaker 3: Brown, Why say it one more time? We cry?
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
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