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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.

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Speaker 1: That was not Jerry, And this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 1: I love that we have a new trend here of

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Speaker 1: starting our animal centric podcasts with impressions of that animal,

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Speaker 1: because you did your what I thought was a dolphin,

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Speaker 1: but it was a bad and I just did a pigeon,

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Speaker 1: which that was a pretty good pigeon. Well, come on,

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Speaker 1: cool goes again. He just blew me away with your

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Speaker 1: pige in New York pigeon. Cool. I'm cooling here, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm going here. How's it going. I feel ashamed all

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Speaker 1: of the stuff. Uh, we've gotten a lot of requests

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Speaker 1: for um messenger pigeons we have over the years, and

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Speaker 1: you said I'm going to heed the call and put

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Speaker 1: together a nice little conglomerate of articles on it. And

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Speaker 1: I thought it was super interesting and a bit confusing

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Speaker 1: in terminology because as we will soon divulge, and I

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Speaker 1: guess we're about to messenger pigeons homing pigeons. Well no,

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Speaker 1: not really. Oh yeah, the same like a lot of

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Speaker 1: it is just right. I'm sorry for those. Are you

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Speaker 1: chose the two that are the same all the others

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Speaker 1: are different? Yeah, Homing pigeons and passenger peasants pigeons different,

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Speaker 1: different um. Carrier pigeons different than messenger pigeons, which is

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Speaker 1: very confusing. It's all just confusing. Well, it's clear through

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Speaker 1: the crud and the mare and the mock and get

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Speaker 1: to the differences between types of pigeons, because most people do.

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Speaker 1: When you think of a carrier pigeon, chuck, you're probably

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Speaker 1: lumping together a bunch of different pigeons into the same category.

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Speaker 1: And you would be right in a certain way, and

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Speaker 1: that most of the pigeons that we consider carrier pigeons

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Speaker 1: um are descended from rock pigeons. Yeah, we don't want

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Speaker 1: to be pigeon lumpers. No, all pigeons are different and

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Speaker 1: beautiful in their own way, that's right. Rock pigeons originally

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Speaker 1: named so from the rock dove I believe, which they

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Speaker 1: inhabited mountains and sea cliffs, and I think that's why

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Speaker 1: they were called rock sure, or they love poison. That'd

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Speaker 1: be glam rock pigeons hair rock hair. Rock pigeons glam rock. No,

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Speaker 1: not quite as glam rocks rock Glary Gary Glitter, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think a little older like glam rock to

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Speaker 1: me was seventies. Hair rock was the eighties kind of

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Speaker 1: bastardization of glam rock. Not nearly as good as like

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Speaker 1: the New York Dolls. Let's say, sure, right, you know

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Speaker 1: who were way better than Gary Glitter as it turns

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Speaker 1: out in the end, that's right. Oh yeah, she's forgot

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Speaker 1: about that all right. Back to pigeons, we haven't even

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Speaker 1: started yet. They were all descended from rock pigeons, kind

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Speaker 1: of like do you remember a Thoroughbred horse Artum episode?

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Speaker 1: How can I forget? I love that one. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: didn't like it that much because I was it was

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Speaker 1: dense for me. There's a lot of information there. The

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Speaker 1: difference between thoroughbred horses and pigeons is that there's not

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Speaker 1: that much information on pigeon legion lineages, despite the fact

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Speaker 1: that some people show them right. And this is where

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Speaker 1: we finally arrive at carrier pigeons. That's right, they are,

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Speaker 1: as this article points out, fancy pigeons and their bred

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Speaker 1: to to to show their ornamental, very weird ways. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they have what's on their nose. If you look up

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Speaker 1: a true carrier pigeon, you're gonna see a lot of

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Speaker 1: pictures of just homing pigeons. But look until you find

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Speaker 1: one that looks like it has a rotten walnut on

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Speaker 1: its Now it looks like it's pecked into a tara

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Speaker 1: toma and it's come out and just stuck around the

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Speaker 1: bird's beak. Yeah, that's called a wattle, sir, wattle to

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Speaker 1: two words, wattle dash sir, c E r E and um.

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Speaker 1: It is a fleshy thing on the bill, and they

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Speaker 1: do say it resembles the texture of a walnut, and

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Speaker 1: that's what it starts out as they get big and

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Speaker 1: even more gross looking. Yeah, and it's at the top

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Speaker 1: of the bill, which is when you see one, uh

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Speaker 1: carrier pigeon with just one of these wattles on top

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Speaker 1: of its beak, You're like, that's a little weird looking.

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Speaker 1: But I've seen birds with that little growth right there before.

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Speaker 1: As they mature, these wattles start popping up all around

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Speaker 1: their beak and it's it's just growny, like they have

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Speaker 1: them beneath around the sides. It's gross. It's like a

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Speaker 1: bird only a passenger passenger lover, Fancier would love like

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Speaker 1: they love these things. But most people when they seem like,

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Speaker 1: oh man, look at that right. Yeah, And if you're

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Speaker 1: showing carrier pigeons like the pigeons like great, amazing waddle,

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Speaker 1: is is something to be shown off and displayed. It's

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Speaker 1: like a point of pride among the show where or

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Speaker 1: not me, Bud Fancier, I say, cover that thing up. People,

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Speaker 1: by the way, who like just kidding, who like pigeons

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Speaker 1: and are into showing and raising and using pigeons for

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Speaker 1: fun um are called pigeon fanciers. By the way, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I just said that, Oh you did. Yeah, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't explain it. I just slipped it in. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: wanting to explain it. Yeah, people are probably like, why

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Speaker 1: did Chuck just say Fancier? Who does he think he is?

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Speaker 1: What does he think he's the king in England? No,

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Speaker 1: but the carrier pigeon is the king of pigeons. According

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Speaker 1: to fanciers, that was not bad. Uh. Pigeons were imported

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Speaker 1: to the US from Europe in eighteen sixty, and by

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two the first racing clubs were formed. Apparently

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia has or probably still do or had the largest

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Speaker 1: concentration of fanciers in the late eighteen hundreds, and um,

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Speaker 1: racing pigeons is a really big deal. Still yeah. The

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Speaker 1: reason you can race pigeons is that rock pigeon descendants,

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Speaker 1: whether they be carrier although I don't think I think

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Speaker 1: carrier is the least strong of all of them, but

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Speaker 1: especially homing and messenger pigeons, they're really fast and they

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Speaker 1: are capable of flying their way their way over very

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Speaker 1: long distances, that's right, And they find their way home

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Speaker 1: because they return in general to their nest to mate.

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Speaker 1: So this is why they return home. And we'll get

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Speaker 1: to how in a bit uh later, but like how

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Speaker 1: to train them to do that? Well, how to train

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Speaker 1: them in just how you know, science has figured out

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Speaker 1: that they do this, because it's pretty remarkable. Um. So

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Speaker 1: they fly around forty miles per hour on average, but

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Speaker 1: can reach his high sixty and apparently a hundred to

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Speaker 1: three hundred miles is just a walk in the park

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Speaker 1: for these guys and gals. Um, they have a record.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a documented record, but they've

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Speaker 1: verified that a homing pigeon named Charlie flew and fifty

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Speaker 1: miles from the UK to Brazil and he wasn't even

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Speaker 1: supposed to isn't that crazy? Yeah, apparently he was in

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Speaker 1: a race and um, I guess his nest was in

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Speaker 1: Brazil originally, and he figured it out and made his

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Speaker 1: way there to Brazil even though he was in a

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Speaker 1: local race at the time in England. And the nuts.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty nuts. So apparently the racing pigeons and we

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Speaker 1: could do I mean, there's so much on racing pigeons

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Speaker 1: that we're not even gonna get to acide for mentioning it.

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Speaker 1: But the racing homer is the specific type of pigeon

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Speaker 1: that is bred to race because the homer is the fastest,

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Speaker 1: which is ironic if you're a Simpsons fan. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: because Homer is not a fast guy. Yeah, you know, no,

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Speaker 1: he's really not. So. Homing pigeons are are bread specifically

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Speaker 1: to find their way home. I mean, they're good at

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Speaker 1: it anyway, like you said, but they select of we

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Speaker 1: breathe these things if you're going to be a fancier

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Speaker 1: to do so. And when you're when you're raising a

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Speaker 1: homing pigeon or something like that, basically what you're doing

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Speaker 1: is you're taking it to a place away from its home. Yeh,

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Speaker 1: smack it on the head right with a little tiny

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Speaker 1: hammer so they wake up. Yeah, and uh no, don't

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Speaker 1: do that, no pigeon, if you're ever just kidding, don't

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Speaker 1: do that. Uh. And then you release it and it

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Speaker 1: will find its way back home, and you release it

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Speaker 1: at the same time as some other ones, and whicheveryone

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Speaker 1: finds its way home first is the winner. That's racing pigeons.

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Speaker 1: But as you said, homing pigeons are really good at

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Speaker 1: finding their way home naturally, but over time they've been

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Speaker 1: selectively bread by humans to be the best of the

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Speaker 1: best at this, Like compared to their wild ancestors, they

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Speaker 1: make them look like utter poop. Yeah, just like your

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Speaker 1: basic rock pigeon. Yeah. Uh So let's talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the different theories on how they find their

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Speaker 1: way home. Um, there's some new findings and what they

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Speaker 1: generally think now is it could be a combination of

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Speaker 1: these things or like it seems like an everybody wins hypothesis. Yeah, basically, so, Um,

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Speaker 1: the sun could be one way that they find their

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Speaker 1: direction and just a general north south east west sort

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Speaker 1: of way when it's cloudy the Earth's magnetic field. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's basically two different things going at work here. There's

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Speaker 1: a compass and then there's the map. And the compass

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Speaker 1: is just your sort of like just us. It's a

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Speaker 1: general header and the map is actually like where am

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Speaker 1: I now and where do I need to be? Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm back in New York. I'm one street and I

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Speaker 1: need to get down to the lower east side. But

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Speaker 1: the compass part is like, so that I'm right now

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Speaker 1: facing north, which means I need to turn around a

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Speaker 1: little bit and go until I'm facing east. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and using my map, I've figured this out. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: one study I didn't follow up on it, the one

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Speaker 1: from Oxford that said they actually follow established roads at

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Speaker 1: some point. Do you know, did you look into that anymore? No,

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Speaker 1: I didn't see that. I wonder if that was just

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Speaker 1: like a speculation and that's been overturned, or if they

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Speaker 1: really do follow. So the fact that that we didn't

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Speaker 1: run into that anywhere else makes me think like it's

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Speaker 1: probably been abandoned. It seemed from what I can understand

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Speaker 1: that the two main competing, long standing, competing explanations, where

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Speaker 1: like you said, they're following magnetic lines um in the

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Speaker 1: Earth's magnetosphere, or they're following smells, tiny odor molecules that

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Speaker 1: they used to basically as a trail of brig crumbs

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Speaker 1: to lead them back towards their roost, their nest um.

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Speaker 1: And for a long time this was it was debated

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Speaker 1: whether this was the case or not. Um the fact

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Speaker 1: that they have such good compasses really lends a lot

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Speaker 1: of credibility to the idea that they can follow magnetic

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Speaker 1: lines and use those too to um orient themselves. And

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Speaker 1: there's actually this anecdote from the early eighties that really

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Speaker 1: lends a lot of support to the magnetic um theory,

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Speaker 1: and that is there was this one pigeon that was

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Speaker 1: caught around a lake in Yellowstone. And by caught, I

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Speaker 1: mean like it was seen for I think a few weeks,

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Speaker 1: like just flying in circles around this lake, which is

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Speaker 1: not what a home and pigeon is supposed to do. No,

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Speaker 1: they fly straight and purposeful toward home sure wherever they are. UM.

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Speaker 1: So this this naturalist apparently where'd you find this article?

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one this was in? Uh, Audubon

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Speaker 1: Society was one, and uh, well, well, I mean we've

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Speaker 1: got them all posted on our website. Right, Okay, So, um,

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Speaker 1: this naturalist who wrote this article that we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: UM got ahold of this pigeon and he took it

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Speaker 1: and cared for it and took it away from the

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Speaker 1: lake and released it. And the thing flew due east

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Speaker 1: and it was a North Carolina pigeon and it was

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Speaker 1: out in Yellowstone. So he said, you know what, this

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Speaker 1: lake area has a really weird magnetic magnetic field. It's

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Speaker 1: known for making compasses go hey wire. So this lends

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Speaker 1: a any decent amount of support to the magnetic line theory. Yeah, agreed,

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Speaker 1: but it's been overturned recently or at least diminished as

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Speaker 1: far as um the smell theory, right, Well, I don't

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Speaker 1: know about overturned. I think again it's like everyone wins.

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Speaker 1: I think from what I ended up with was that

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Speaker 1: they use all of these things when it's most beneficial,

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Speaker 1: like they'll use one. If it's like if the magnetic

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Speaker 1: field is not as strong, then they'll go to one

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Speaker 1: of the other tried and true methods like smell. Yes,

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Speaker 1: smell was another one, and then recently UM sound, specifically infrasound,

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Speaker 1: which are sound waves super low frequency that we can't

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Speaker 1: hear them. There's a geophysicist named John Hagstrom that cooked

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Speaker 1: up this idea, uh and published it in the Journal

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Speaker 1: of Experimental Biology, and he said, basically, he thinks that

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Speaker 1: they hear their way home, which you know, makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense. Yeah, And apparently this um that pigeon

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Speaker 1: back in the early piece that was around yellow Stone,

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Speaker 1: that lake and Yellowstone that was having a hard time. Um.

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Speaker 1: That phenomenon is called a release site bias. In some

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Speaker 1: places in the world, if you release a homing pigeon,

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Speaker 1: they're gonna have a hard time finding their way home

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Speaker 1: or else they're gonna end up getting stuck flying around

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Speaker 1: in circles. And it's generally unexplained. So it's led to

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Speaker 1: this whole sub field of study of homing pigeon maps

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Speaker 1: and how they do this stuff. And um, this subsonic

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Speaker 1: sound theory basically says that they follow basically sound maps. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: sort of like echo location is what it sounded like

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Speaker 1: to me with bats. Yeah, but they're just hearing. They're

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Speaker 1: not like creating a sound and listening for the echo.

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Speaker 1: They're just listening out for the sound. But they're almost

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Speaker 1: listening out for sound in much the same way that

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Speaker 1: they would follow, say, odorant molecules like a trail of

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Speaker 1: brick crumbs. They're listening for familiar subsonic sounds as low

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Speaker 1: as point zero five hurts. Uh, And like you said,

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Speaker 1: we create a sound map and um. He basically compared

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Speaker 1: it to the same thing that we see when we

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Speaker 1: look out with our eyeballs at something. Yeah, but they

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Speaker 1: can hear it, right, So they would like see their

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Speaker 1: home the way we see our home when we're driving

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Speaker 1: like up to it. Yeah, they hear their home and

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Speaker 1: they know which way to go toward it. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you could see what I hear? Have you ever

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Speaker 1: seen that movie? No? Is that a lifetime movie? It

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Speaker 1: could have been if there was Lifetime back then, but

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Speaker 1: it was the eighties movie. Was the guy that played

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Speaker 1: the beast Master. He played a very famous blind man

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Speaker 1: who was a piano player, and it was called If

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Speaker 1: You Could See What I Hear? So I think blind

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Speaker 1: people use sound in similar ways. Was it blind Tom

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Speaker 1: the uh, the Savant? I can't remember. He's sort of

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Speaker 1: like a piano player, playboy type. I just remember seeing

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Speaker 1: on cable when I was a kid, and I think

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Speaker 1: Mark singer was the guy. Yeah, but I can't remember

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Speaker 1: the real guy, but he was a real die. Did

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Speaker 1: you see or hear about the Lifetime movie that um

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Speaker 1: Kristen Wig and Will Ferrell made And no one can

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Speaker 1: figure out if it was like a piece of comedy

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Speaker 1: genius or else if they were like serious or what. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: they figured it out. I mean they basically went to

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Speaker 1: make the movie and just said, let's just do this

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Speaker 1: as straight up as we can. But because it's us,

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Speaker 1: that'll just have that edge that you know, like Will

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Speaker 1: Ferrell being serious is one of the funniest things in

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Speaker 1: the world. So it was comedic genius. Well yeah, because

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Speaker 1: it's them. But they weren't like, let's try and make

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Speaker 1: this funny. They just said, let's do this as straight

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Speaker 1: as possible. I didn't know if like both of them

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Speaker 1: happened to have like a family member who needed surgery

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Speaker 1: at the same time, so they like signed on to

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Speaker 1: this project. It's pretty weird. Have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I saw it, and it's it is tough because they

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Speaker 1: are hysterical but it's so straight. It's like, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how to register this. This is like like the

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Speaker 1: Room or something like that Wow. Wow, that was just

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Speaker 1: a bad movie that ended up being hysterical. But this

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Speaker 1: isn't much the same. I gotta see this what the

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Speaker 1: room or no, the other one? You gotta see him

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Speaker 1: both what I've seen the room? Okay, what's the what's

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Speaker 1: the lifetime movie one called? I can't remember. I guess

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Speaker 1: if you just search Will Ferrell lifetime movie, it'll come up.

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Speaker 1: But there's a lot of weird things. He did that

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Speaker 1: Spanish language movie, and he did that the mini series. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he takes chances. Good for him, he's in a position

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Speaker 1: to do so. H So I feel like this is

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Speaker 1: a pretty good time to take a break, don't you. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and re gather ourselves. Yes, let's do that starting now,

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Speaker 1: all right. So we everard basically how they find their

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Speaker 1: way home and the competing theories, and I think they

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Speaker 1: all just lived together in one big, happy family because

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Speaker 1: they haven't disproved the theories. The pigeons, Yeah, the pigeons

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Speaker 1: do too. They like each other, but I don't. I

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Speaker 1: don't think anyone has disproven anything. So at this point,

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Speaker 1: I think they're taking all comers as far as those

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Speaker 1: theories go. Yeah. So, and this is um not specific too.

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Speaker 1: Is it specific to homing pigeons, although it would include

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Speaker 1: messenger pigeons, wouldn't it because and carrier pigeons does it,

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Speaker 1: but not passenger pigeons. Okay, so they're all dead. The

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Speaker 1: only difference between a messenger pigeon and a homing pigeon

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Speaker 1: is that, Um, a messenger pigeon has something either a

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Speaker 1: two bonnuts leg or a little backpack that contains a message.

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Speaker 1: I think the backpack is the new method, and they

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Speaker 1: used to do the tube on the leg. I think

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Speaker 1: the backpack is way cuter. Yeah, it's adorable. Backpack, you can.

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Speaker 1: What I can't figure out is a difference between a

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Speaker 1: messenger pigeon and a carrier pigeon. Okay, so here's a

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Speaker 1: carrier pigeon is not bread for flying, it's not bread

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Speaker 1: for its homing abilities. It's not bred to race, it's

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Speaker 1: not bread to send. It's basically, um, the Pekinese of pigeons. Okay, No,

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Speaker 1: I got I got it. I'm just picturing them in

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Speaker 1: my head, got you. So carrier is confusing me because

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Speaker 1: they're not They're not actually carrying anything. No, that is

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Speaker 1: why it's so confusing. Of all of them, they should

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Speaker 1: not have the word carrier attached. It should be like

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Speaker 1: virtually useless pigeon with the horrible wattle on its beach.

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Speaker 1: That's the new car pigeon. Hammer to talk them on

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Speaker 1: the head. Now, that's homing pigeons. So carrier pigeons are

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Speaker 1: are for show. Got you. They're the best and show

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Speaker 1: of pigeons. So the homing pigeon is the one who

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Speaker 1: carries a message. Generally it's written on little tiny pieces

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Speaker 1: of thin. That's the messenger pigeon, which is a homing

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Speaker 1: pigeon that is carrying a message exactly. Yeah, that's where

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Speaker 1: we are, okay, but I mean it can get confusing.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to act to you know what I mean

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Speaker 1: to be. No, I think I just said a messenger pigeon,

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Speaker 1: didn't I I don't remember. Okay, let's through wine and listen.

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Speaker 1: At any rate, the messenger pigeon is a homing pigeon

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Speaker 1: that carries a message, and they have been around for

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Speaker 1: a long time. Egypt, the Phoenicians romans. Uh Noah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Noah in the in the Bible. He was the first dude.

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Speaker 1: I thought those were doves. But apparently I ran across

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Speaker 1: a comment on it that dove and pigeon were interchangeable

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Speaker 1: back then, back in old timey aramaic days. All right,

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Speaker 1: well that makes sense. Apparently in ancient Rome when they

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Speaker 1: had chariot races that not just like a chariot race

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Speaker 1: in a stadium, but like a long chariot race over distance,

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Speaker 1: they would send um the passenger. I'm sorry, man, here

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Speaker 1: we go the messenger pigeons back with the news of

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Speaker 1: who won. He right, so that I attached, you know,

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Speaker 1: brutus one, this one, go tell them everybody, and I

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Speaker 1: guess an hour later they would get there and everyone

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Speaker 1: would be too drunk to realize that they cared at

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Speaker 1: that point. Genghis Khan used them. He had like a

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Speaker 1: whole system set up. Oh yeah, we've never really talked

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Speaker 1: about him, have we? Yeah? We have. Did we do

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Speaker 1: an episode on that? Yeah? We did, Yeah, about whether

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Speaker 1: or they killed like a million people or something. And

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Speaker 1: I can't find that episode anywhere. I'm pretty sure recovered it.

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Speaker 1: I felt like we did too. Jerry's nodding us or

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Speaker 1: either she's falling asleep in the way over and over again.

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Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, Genghis Khan had a whole system across

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Speaker 1: Asia and Europe like a relay system. Pretty impressive. Germans

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Speaker 1: used them actually attached little cameras through their bellies. That

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Speaker 1: was World War One. Yeah. So the modern use of

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Speaker 1: messenger pigeons uh in warfare was actually it seems to

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Speaker 1: be started by the French and went all the way

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Speaker 1: up through the Vietnam War. Yeah. So there's a like

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Speaker 1: the French love using messenger pigeons in a war like setting, right, um.

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Speaker 1: And there was the Siege of Paris. The Prussians were

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Speaker 1: attacking Paris, and Paris was finally saved. There reinforcements thanks

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Speaker 1: to a group of carrier pigeons or messenger pigeons um

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Speaker 1: who got word that Paris was being was under siege

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Speaker 1: and uh they needed help, and help arrived and Paris

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Speaker 1: was saved. As I said, a few times Prussians were defeated,

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Speaker 1: and the pigeon was so beloved as a result that

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Speaker 1: the same guy who um created the Statue of Liberty

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Speaker 1: also created a tribute to pigeons that was that stood

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Speaker 1: in Paris up until warld boar World War two, when

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Speaker 1: they melted it down because they needed the medal. I

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Speaker 1: think so. So by the time World War one rolled around,

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Speaker 1: pigeons were very much established as a very useful means

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Speaker 1: of communication when all else failed. Um in war. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: apparently they're so fast that they're hard to shoot down. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and they get where they want to go. In the

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Speaker 1: case in France and uh, how do you pronounce it?

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Speaker 1: M A R and the Battle of the Marne, there

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Speaker 1: were seventy two pigeon lofts and as they advanced forward,

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Speaker 1: they took the loss with them. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: pigeons that were out carrying messages, Uh, we're out when

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Speaker 1: they moved the loft were out when they moved the loss.

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Speaker 1: And we're still able to find their lofts blind, not

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Speaker 1: knowing where these lofts ended up. Amazing, go pigeons. Uh,

387
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Speaker 1: there was there were laws passed during wartime. This one

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Speaker 1: Regulation twenty one A shooting homing pigeons, Killing, wounding or

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Speaker 1: molesting gross homing pigeons is punishable on the defense of

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Speaker 1: the realm regulations by six months imprisonment or one pounds fine.

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Speaker 1: That's that's just a fine. In France, you could be

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Speaker 1: executed for impeding, uh messenger pigeons a wartime pigeon, and

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Speaker 1: there were also rewards offered five pound rewards, Uh for

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Speaker 1: any You know, if you turn in your your friend

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Speaker 1: for shooting a homing pigeon, get five pounds five pounds exactly. Yeah,

396
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Speaker 1: so it's a big, big deal. They were dogs, apparently

397
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Speaker 1: two and pigeons were used heavily in wartime to carry

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Speaker 1: messages like very reliably. Um, should we tell the story

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Speaker 1: of Sheremi? How can we not? I don't see how

400
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Speaker 1: we could. In World War One, you mentioned that the

401
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: Germans were using um, uh, passenger or messenger pigeons with

402
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Speaker 1: camera strap to their belly for aerial reconnaissance. Right, it's

403
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:49,520
Speaker 1: like the bats with the bombs kind of, but this

404
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 1: is more photography rather than incendiary destruction. Um. But the

405
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Speaker 1: French we're using this for um messages, for getting them

406
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Speaker 1: from the front, you know, to behind the lines HQ.

407
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Speaker 1: And so were the Americans too. Apparently the French used

408
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Speaker 1: like thirty thousand of them in World War One. Americans

409
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Speaker 1: had something like six hundred. But one really came through

410
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Speaker 1: for New York Company at the Battle of the Argonne

411
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Speaker 1: was October nineteen eighteen, towards the end of the war,

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Speaker 1: and they were trapped by as the Germans. So this

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Speaker 1: this pigeon named Jereh me Uh was released by I

414
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: think it was New York Company, right, which was surrounded

415
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Speaker 1: in a little low lying I don't even think you

416
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Speaker 1: can call it a valley. I think the author of

417
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:38,959
Speaker 1: this New York Times article that we're getting this from

418
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Speaker 1: called it like a depression in the ground. And there's

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Speaker 1: a few hundred men who were there. It started out

420
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: as five hundred UM and they were starting to get

421
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: whittled down because they were surrounded by Germans. Even worse

422
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: than that, the American UM reinforcements had no idea where

423
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: this this New York Company was, and they were they

424
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,199
Speaker 1: were showing them too, because they thought that they were

425
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: showing the German that were surrounding New York Company. They

426
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:03,880
Speaker 1: had no idea they were selling New York Company as well.

427
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,679
Speaker 1: So apparently they released a lot of pigeons, and a

428
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: lot of pigeons got shot, which means that there were

429
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: some German sharp shooters there. They were really good, because

430
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 1: it is tough, like you said, to shoot down a

431
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: homing pigeon because they are fast, or they were just

432
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: shooting a lot of bullets into the air. Yes, you know.

433
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 1: So they released one UM one of their last ones,

434
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: share me and share me. Um flew and flew and

435
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: took off and got hit at least once had a

436
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 1: quarter size hole in his breast, and it shot his

437
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: leg off. Shot the leg that had the tube with

438
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: the message saying where the New York Company was attached

439
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: to that leg it got shot off, but it also

440
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: got lodged into the hole and Sharemy's chest and the

441
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: bird flew back to its roost like that. Ye gave

442
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: the coordinates. Uh. I like to think that he chirped

443
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 1: them out even and said forget the message, but he

444
00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: was saluting I believe in love. Uh. And a hundred

445
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 1: and ninety four men were saved, and Jeremy was awarded

446
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 1: the KOA Digio with palm. Yeah with palm, I don't

447
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: even know. Yeah, you don't want it without palm, No way,

448
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,600
Speaker 1: that's half the award. Uh. Sadly died in nineteen nineteen

449
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: from the wounds. But man, what a great story. Yeah.

450
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,080
Speaker 1: Now he's on display. I'm not sure exactly where, but

451
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: you can find pictures of him, uh, stuffed with just

452
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: one leg and the other leg with the tube still.

453
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: A test has been preserved as well. That's probably at

454
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: the Pigeon Ward Museum, probably in Providence with Rhode Island

455
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: and Chuck. I I have to say, um, I read

456
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: this one article too about it was called hawks and Doves,

457
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 1: and it was about the irony of using rock pigeons,

458
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: which are related to doves in some ways, or used

459
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: to be called doves, as like a wartime symbol. Oh really,

460
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 1: because they're very Peaceful's interesting. It's on her it's on

461
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:07,360
Speaker 1: the page for this episode. Well, I think it's time

462
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: for another little respite, uh, and then we'll come back

463
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: and talk about the very sad story of the passenger pigeon.

464
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:44,200
Speaker 1: Right for this all right, Josh, we've talked about rock pigeons,

465
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: which include homing pigeons, carrier pigeons, messenger pigeons, same thing

466
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: as a homing pigeon. But there's something called a passenger

467
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: pigeon which is not any of those things. And it

468
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: is not a thing anymore. No, it used to be

469
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,600
Speaker 1: at I mean, it's a thing as far as past

470
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: tense goes. Yes, but there used to be a ton

471
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: of them. They're a native North American bird. They're about

472
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: one and a half times the size of a morning dove.

473
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: They looked a lot like them. And uh, like I said,

474
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: they were all over. Some say they made up of

475
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: the North American bird population. Yeah, that's that's a lot,

476
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 1: and they like to hang out together. They have the

477
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: largest documented flock um on record in Wisconsin. In eighteen

478
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: seventy one, they estimated a hundred and thirty six million

479
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,719
Speaker 1: breeding passenger pigeons over eight hundred and fifty square miles

480
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: of forest. Yeah, that was Wisconsin. There's supposedly another flock

481
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty that reached three point seven billion flying

482
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,680
Speaker 1: over Ontario. They supposedly blacked out the sky. Yeah. And

483
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: these are credible witnesses who are writing about these things

484
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: back in the early nineteenth century, like John James Audubon,

485
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: one who number one knew his birds a little bit,

486
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: knew what he was talking about, and it was a

487
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: credible scientist. And he wrote about a ride from I

488
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: think Lexington to um Louisville in Kentucky in eighteen thirteen,

489
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: and he talked about how long the way the sun

490
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: was blotted out and the sky from horizon to horizon

491
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: was filled with um passenger pigeons. It was either that

492
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: of the opium and this this wasn't like a thing

493
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: where it just happened, and you know, they flew overhead

494
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 1: and that was amazing. This went on for the whole

495
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: three day journey from Lexington to Louisville. The whole three days,

496
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: the sun was blotted out by one single flock of

497
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: passenger pigeons flying overhead, the same flock. Amazing, Like, you

498
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: just don't see that these days. Well, no, and you

499
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 1: definitely don't see that these days because, like we said,

500
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 1: they are completely extinct at this point. And you sit

501
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: along a rate article called one years after her death, Martha,

502
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 1: the last passenger pigeon, still resonates. And what happened was

503
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One um, they were hunted relentlessly

504
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: for massive amounts of food. Oh yeah, when those flocks

505
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,479
Speaker 1: can fly overhead, you know, you can just close your

506
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 1: eyes and start shooting up in the air and all

507
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: tons of passenger pigeons are gonna fall around you. Yes,

508
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,000
Speaker 1: Like if you hunt something that big out of existence,

509
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: then you're doing a lot of hunting. So was that

510
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: combined with the deforestation of the East coast? Uh? If

511
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 1: they think both of those things led to the complete extinction. Yeah,

512
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 1: because they fed on mast which is one of my

513
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: favorite words of all time. Mass is like the description

514
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: of like, um, hardwood forest nuts like acorns and chestnuts

515
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 1: and hickory nuts and stuff like that. Combined those things

516
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: are called mass, right, And I think they fed together

517
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: as well, right, Yes, in groups. Right. So if you

518
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: start to bill roads, or you build like the world's

519
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: first subdivision in eighteen fifteen or something like that, and

520
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: you cut down a bunch of this forest, you fracture

521
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: this eight hundred and fifty square mile roost, this nest,

522
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 1: and you have a big problem if you're a passenger pigeons.

523
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: So that combined with overpredation by humans led to their extinctions.

524
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 1: So think about this, chuck. In the eighteen seventies, there

525
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: were billions of these things bills in nineteen fourteen the

526
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: last one died, So in like thirty forty years they

527
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: went from billions to extinct like that. Yes, And that

528
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: was Martha reference in the article. Um. She was born

529
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,720
Speaker 1: into captivity, they believe at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and then

530
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: donated later to the Cincinnati's Cincinnati Zoo. And um they

531
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: believe in nineteen hundred that there were these three populations

532
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 1: were all that was left. Yeah, the last one ever

533
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: seen in the wild was in eighteen ninety nine. So

534
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: they eventually died down and died down on Martha sadly

535
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: ended up like trembling in a cage because people would

536
00:32:05,080 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: throw sand at her to wake her up and like

537
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: have her move. So they indiventually had to you know,

538
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 1: wall that up, and she pricked her in for her

539
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: own safety. It's so sad. Uh. So they died out

540
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: completely and now she's on display at the Smithsonian until

541
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: October October this year. Uh, which is uh, which is

542
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: a what Chuck Well, a big lesson to mankind on

543
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: what can happen that's right, if you hunt too much

544
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: and if you build too many parking lots. Well, you know,

545
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: there's a there's a big discussion over the passenger pigeon

546
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: and bring it back. One of my personal heroes, Charles Man,

547
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: is caught in the center of this. Yes he is.

548
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: Did not know that, so you know, he wrote one

549
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: of my favorite book and in he talks about um.

550
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: There's there's a school of thought about the passenger pigeon

551
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: that um they were actually they their populations exploded just

552
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: prior to European settlement of North America. But after that

553
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: first Colombian contact, and the idea is that if you

554
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: go and look around a bunch of like Native American sites,

555
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: pre Columbian Native American sites, you don't find that many

556
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon bones. There. Some there, but there's not a lot,

557
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: and there's certainly not enough to suggest that there were

558
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: billions of these things at the time. So this idea

559
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: is that after Colombian contact and disease and violence wiped

560
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: out and spread through North American and wiped out large

561
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: like of the Native Americans living there, the passenger pigeon

562
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:46,719
Speaker 1: was no longer preyed upon by the Native Americans, and

563
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: so their population boomed. So in a way, all these

564
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: white settlers who hunted this thing into extinction are kind

565
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: of off the hook because it was their fault anyway

566
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:01,320
Speaker 1: that led to this boom and population. Well, other scholarships

567
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: says like, no, you're ignoring a bunch of sites. It's

568
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: probably not the case. White European settlers of North America

569
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: probably did destroy to extinction a a perennially large population

570
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: of birds in North America. You know what they call that?

571
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:22,359
Speaker 1: What a cautionary tale? Oh yeah, that sounds familiar. I've

572
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: heard that before. So there are some naturalists and scientists

573
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:28,760
Speaker 1: and biologists now that they think they can bring back

574
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: the passenger pigeon. But should we? But should we? And

575
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of schools of thought. There are some

576
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: conservation let's say, well, if we start bringing back extinct species,

577
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: maybe we won't protect the ones that are near extinction

578
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: because people, you know, as I guess robustly, because people say, well,

579
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,840
Speaker 1: you can bring them back anyway, I don't know about that. Well,

580
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: I mean, what's what's the problem though? If you think

581
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: about it, like, what what does it matter to the

582
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,359
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon? It doesn't know? Right? Well, yeah, I mean

583
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: there are none. Well that's the point. Yeah that a

584
00:35:00,680 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: lot of people say, leave it be. That's one thing.

585
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: But also, if you bring back a passenger pigeon, you

586
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: are bringing back something whose heritage has been interrupted and

587
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 1: therefore all of that that collective memory that's passed down

588
00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 1: from one generation to the next has ended already. Right,

589
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: So who's going to teach that passenger pigeon how to

590
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: be a passenger pigeon? It may not know, It may

591
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: be a monster, a monster, It may kill entire families

592
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: of people. Well, thank god we have all those tiny

593
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: pigeon hammers, you know. Uh so, yeah, there's a lot

594
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: of schools of thought. Bring it back. It wouldn't know

595
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: what to do, or it might just pick up and

596
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 1: be fine. Who knows. All right, so we've talked about

597
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: we've covered passenger pigeons. Now the sad extinction of the

598
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon. All those other pigeons talked about, Cameras on

599
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 1: the bellies, messages on backpacks and feet. Those are homing

600
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: messenger pigeons. I'm covering. I'm going back over everything here

601
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: we've covered. I don't think even think we mentioned drug traffickers.

602
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: Supposedly in Afghanistan and in in Pakistan, um carry ten grams

603
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:10,240
Speaker 1: of heroin each heat and they've been used, so people

604
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 1: have been misusing and using and abusing these birds for millennia. Supposedly,

605
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,880
Speaker 1: the average UM messenger pigeon can carry up to two

606
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: and a half ounces of something if it's balanced correctly

607
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,799
Speaker 1: on its backpack. What two and a half ounces? So

608
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,359
Speaker 1: these these things are being treated like royalty if all

609
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,279
Speaker 1: they have to carry is ten grams of heroine, Yeah,

610
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,760
Speaker 1: that's that's nothing. And when they show up. There's frequently

611
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 1: just nine grams, you know what I mean. So this

612
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: uh city pigeons just your average pigeon that everyone seems

613
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 1: to detest. Not everyone, Some people love these things and

614
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,400
Speaker 1: feed them. Uh in France, in Paris, I believe it's

615
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 1: illegal to feed them, um because you know, you got

616
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: a Trafalgar Square in other places like at and they

617
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:06,279
Speaker 1: can be so vast that you can't even walk. So

618
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: when you feed them, they congregate, and so that's a problem.

619
00:37:09,239 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 1: So they've outlawed it in a lot of place. Put everywhere,

620
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: they're dirty, they spread disease. It's all very true, yes,

621
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: and there have been some cases of legal cases in

622
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,040
Speaker 1: lawsuits because of pigeons. There was one in France where

623
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 1: there was an American woman there feeding like twenty five

624
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,640
Speaker 1: pounds of feed a day in Paris and it was

625
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: already I think outlawed in Paris. Yeah, she had been

626
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: fine nineteen times and nice, so I guess she like

627
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: was like, I'll go to Paris then so I can

628
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:39,080
Speaker 1: feed the pigeons. She's like the creepy pigeon feeding lady

629
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: from Mary Poppins, remember her, Now feed the birds tup

630
00:37:43,080 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: into bag tupping tupping. Remember that was like five man.

631
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,320
Speaker 1: A lot of that movie was creepy, not as creepy

632
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is like one of

633
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: the most disturbing children's movies. All this. The bad guy

634
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,600
Speaker 1: is one of the skin guys her. Yeah, he was

635
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: pretty scary. Yeah. And by the way, Gon with the

636
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:08,399
Speaker 1: wind was color not colorized. We goofed that one what

637
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 1: was colorized, and that never was color well, tid turn

638
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: her colorized some things, but that wasn't one of them, right,

639
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 1: But what was one of them? I don't know. We

640
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 1: could go back and look. It just looked funny, that's

641
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: all I remember. It's probably Citizen King. We'll hear about

642
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: an email. Huh, Yeah, it wasn't Citizen King. Um. So

643
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: this French I'm sorry, this American woman feeding all these

644
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: French pigeons. This other lady is on a park bench.

645
00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: She's ticked off because there's all these pigeons everywhere. She

646
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: gets up, she tries to kick these things. She tears

647
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: her stockings and scratches her limbs up, her legs up apparently,

648
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: and takes this lady to court and they threw out

649
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: the case or they lost the case because the judge

650
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 1: basically said, you don't know how to kick a pigeon

651
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: without getting hurt. That's your fault, certainly not the American

652
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:01,440
Speaker 1: lady's fault. The other lawsuit, oh, there was again in France.

653
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: The French like to sue people for pigeon related stuff. Um,

654
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: there's a woman who is living in an apartment in

655
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: a building a couple of floors above a store, furniture store,

656
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: and she would feed pigeons. Apparently the pigeon poop was

657
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: so bad that the store owner was saying it was

658
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: driving customers away, like all over the window window, or

659
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,360
Speaker 1: like on the ground and on the door knob or whatever,

660
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: keeping people from coming to his store. So we sued

661
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: the woman, but the woman's lawyer apparently demonstrated that the

662
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: store owner couldn't prove that the mess came from the

663
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: pigeons that this lady was feeding. Could have been any pigeon. Yeah,

664
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:45,359
Speaker 1: that's a dicey one. I guess we could finish here with,

665
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: um a couple of instruction aals what to do if

666
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: you find a homing pigeon. Yeah, I have to say

667
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: my favorite pigeon now is the homing pigeon. Yeah, I

668
00:39:56,040 --> 00:40:00,239
Speaker 1: think they're great. They don't they they They sure carry

669
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: a message if you want, and then I'll be a

670
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: messenger pigeon. But at heart, I'm just a homing pigeon.

671
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: I just want to go home. I want to hang

672
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: out and do my heroine, you know. So. Uh, here's

673
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 1: here's some advice, UM on what to do if you

674
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: find a stranded homing pigeon. UM. Number one, give it water.

675
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: That's the number one thing. Yeah. And don't force feet

676
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 1: at water like I did when I killed that bird. No, no,

677
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:24,640
Speaker 1: because you don't want to drown it. Put it in

678
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: a dish, like a one inch deep dish. Yeah, and

679
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: don't overwater it like your yard. Right, you could just

680
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: bring the pigeon to my yard and let it drink

681
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,759
Speaker 1: from my flooded lawn. So let it drink on its

682
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: own in a one inch deep container. UM, offer it

683
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: some food. Say you're hungry. Yeah, And you might say

684
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 1: I don't have pigeon food. Yes you do if you

685
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 1: have rice, um, pop popcorn? Uh, what else, buck wheat, barley,

686
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:54,439
Speaker 1: canary seed, any of that stuff. Say you're hungry, you're thirsty,

687
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: how you doing? And then again, just put the stuff

688
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: out for the pigeon to enjoy and choose on his

689
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: or her own whether he or she wants to do this.

690
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: Next thing you do is say how's the temperature in

691
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: for you? Are you're feeling good? You want to scar?

692
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's really cold. It's maybe let's warm it

693
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: up a little. It's really warm, let me cool it down. Yeah.

694
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 1: I think they tend to prefer temper slightly yeah, on

695
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,280
Speaker 1: the cooler side of temperate. Um. And then they also

696
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: like to be able to see. But you want to

697
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 1: keep them in a place that's safe away from like

698
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: dogs and cats, but also in in in like a

699
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 1: box or something, So a box of the screen over it,

700
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 1: a dog kennel with the kennel door closed, um, something

701
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,800
Speaker 1: like that, and with maybe some straw, a blanket something

702
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,759
Speaker 1: that it can just hang around in. And again some

703
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: seed and some water and what. You just do this

704
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: for like two days, right, Yeah. After a day or two,

705
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 1: you say how you feeling, Are you rested? Are you comfortable?

706
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: Just getting the food in? Beaby, Um, it's time for

707
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: you to go home. And then you just get your

708
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: timing little hammer out. Don't make me use this, you do.

709
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: You just release the homing pigeon and that little dude

710
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: or lady um should find his or her way home.

711
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: Like you can bet on it and say, hey, thanks

712
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: for the stay. That was great. Well that's what the

713
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: pigeon would say to you. If that pigeon says that

714
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,960
Speaker 1: to you, you go catch it again and make some

715
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: money off of it, because most pigeons can't do that,

716
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: like Michigan j bullfrog. So uh with um again. Homing

717
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: pigeons are my favorite. And if if you find one

718
00:42:28,040 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: and it decides not to leave you, um, you have

719
00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: yourself a homing pigeon as a pet. That's right. You

720
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: can also buy them if you're into homing pigeons and

721
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: raise them yourself. And when you do, you can train

722
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: them to do all sorts of neat stuff, but mostly

723
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: you can train them to race and fly very long distances.

724
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: And there's a really neat um tried and true technique

725
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: for training homing pigeons and it's basically all just food based. Yeah.

726
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: So they have their nests, like training any animal, they

727
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 1: have their home base and this is where they stay,

728
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: they spend most of the time. This is where they eat,

729
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: and you can take them elsewhere. Hundreds of miles away

730
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 1: if you like. But they say you should start off

731
00:43:08,680 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 1: with just like twenty miles time out something like that,

732
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,360
Speaker 1: and create like another roost somewhere at a friend's house

733
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: or um out in a field that you have permission

734
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 1: to use. You know, make sure you have permission to

735
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: use the field, and you create a roost and you

736
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 1: um set up food there too. Let the pigeon hang out,

737
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: spend some time there. If you want the pigeon to

738
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: go back home, probably all you have to do is

739
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: release it from the second roost, and it'll want to

740
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: go back home. But a sure fire way of doing

741
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,760
Speaker 1: that is to remove its food right in that second

742
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 1: second roost sounds mean, and then well it'll be like,

743
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: well I want some food, I'm gonna fly home. And

744
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: it flies home and it gets to eat its food,

745
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: and you um. Any pigeon roosts, any homing pigeon roost

746
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 1: has a trap door that the pigeon can get into,

747
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 1: but it can't get back out unless you let it out.

748
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:57,719
Speaker 1: But they can so they can come home and get

749
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: in whenever they want, so they always have food. But

750
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:01,879
Speaker 1: if you want him to go to the second roost,

751
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: point B, you just take their food away at home,

752
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 1: and they'll say, I know another place to go get food,

753
00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna fly to it now. Once you get

754
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: that down a few times, you can keep moving that

755
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: roost further and further out. They're gonna find it. And

756
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: if you say tell a friend that if they hang

757
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:19,720
Speaker 1: out at the second roots will get a special message.

758
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: You can attach like a little backpack to your home

759
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 1: and pigeons and release it and it'll delight your friend

760
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 1: with whatever message you said. This is something I could

761
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:31,319
Speaker 1: actually see you doing in like retirement. Well, a lot

762
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: of people do. Did you see that list of famous

763
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: people who love pigeons raised pigeons? No, I didn't, but

764
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,520
Speaker 1: I know Mike Tyson is one of them. Apparently he's

765
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: following a big tradition of boxers who raised pigeons. George Foreman, Marvelous,

766
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,919
Speaker 1: Marvin Hagler, boxers who raise pigeons to all these people

767
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 1: on this list, Yeah, Chaccy from Choccy and Charge, he uh,

768
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: he raised pigeons, Charles and Charge, Terry Bradshaw, Elvis Presley,

769
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:01,480
Speaker 1: Who's who's that? I'm just kidding, h Charles Darwin Barney

770
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 1: apparently from from It says here he's the big purple

771
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: dinosaur in Sesame Street. That seems a little confused, But

772
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: I guess Barney raised pigeons, Lee Marvin, you know what

773
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: we should do is pick out the least likely person

774
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: to be a pigeon. I think you just said it.

775
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: Who Lee Marvin? Yeah, you might be right. Actually, you

776
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: know the um the I would like to see The

777
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,400
Speaker 1: Birdman of Alcatraz again. That was a great movie. Jimmy

778
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: smits what he's been doing. But yeah, I guess so

779
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: some of these makes sense, Like Paul Newman and Joined Woodward.

780
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: That seems like a totally thing that they would have

781
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: done together. There was a riveting moment at the end

782
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: of the Pigeons episode where Chuck and Josh just that

783
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:44,920
Speaker 1: they're read quietly on Mike Tony Curtis. I think Lee

784
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,799
Speaker 1: Marvin's least likely. You think, yeah, all right, you got

785
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: anything else? No, I don't think I do. Well, now

786
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,360
Speaker 1: that you can tell the difference between a homing pigeon,

787
00:45:56,440 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: a messenger pigeon, a carrier pigeon, and a passenger pigeon,

788
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,040
Speaker 1: you should up pretty good about yourself. Uh. And if

789
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:04,719
Speaker 1: you need to brush up on this confusing stuff, you

790
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:07,279
Speaker 1: can type the word pigeon into the search bart how

791
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com and it will bring up who

792
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: knows what? That's right? Uh? And since I said who

793
00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 1: knows what, it's time for a listener. Now, all right,

794
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: this is uh, I'm gonna call this Kepler planet follow up. Um.

795
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: Hey guys, in one aspect of Kepler planets, you did

796
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 1: not mention we can only infer other planets if their

797
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: orbital plane is aligned with our view of it. Uh.

798
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: If the stars planet system is off tilt with respect

799
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: to us, we won't be able to infer its existence. Yet.

800
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: Consider the North Star Hilaris. It's kind of perpendicular to

801
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: the it's kind of perpendicular to the Solar System. Well,

802
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: not really, but close enough. If Polaris Polaris had a

803
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: planet with intelligent life with Kepler like technology, they could

804
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: view our Sun, but they wouldn't detect any light variations

805
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: or wobble. Consider how many planets we found, now, consider

806
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,439
Speaker 1: how many we can't possibly find keiving current technology. It's

807
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: because of the tilt. I mean they say that supposedly.

808
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: Remember forty billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way alone.

809
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: That's what we suspect so even more than that, maybe,

810
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: says Jim from the Garden State. I don't know why

811
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: I said it, like Massachusetts, the Garden State. Uh, New Jersey.

812
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: I think that's how they're talking New Jersey. I lived there,

813
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: power so that was your jersey. No, that wasn't my jersey.

814
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Come on, come on, see now I'm

815
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: doing it. Thanks Jim in New Jersey. Uh, if you

816
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 1: want to point out something we should have mentioned but didn't,

817
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: we always love being corrected. It's one of our things. Uh.

818
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: We also love hooking ourselves up to car batteries. You

819
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.

820
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff

821
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to

822
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: stuff Podcast the house, Stuff Works dot com, and there's

823
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff

824
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:10,759
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and

825
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.