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Speaker 1: Mygggg. Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. You know, Joe and my household.

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Speaker 1: We're slap dab in the middle of Harry Potter Maniah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you've been telling me all about it, dude. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We're reading our seven year old the books, we're making

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Speaker 1: our way through the movies, and my son applies just

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Speaker 1: an amazing level of focus and determination to all these

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter Lego kits. Oh, now, you gotta tell me

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Speaker 1: about those, because I love Legos and I am hoping

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Speaker 1: someday in my life to be able to play with

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Speaker 1: legos again. Oh well, yeah, though the Lego kits are

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Speaker 1: pretty great, They're not a sponsor, but I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: there there are a lot of fun The Hogwarts especially

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Speaker 1: is quite quite a kit. Uh. But you know, he

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Speaker 1: also has a stuffed owl, which he has of course

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Speaker 1: named Hedwig after Harry Potters. And at the same time

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Speaker 1: when he goes to bed, My wife and I are

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Speaker 1: currently enjoying the final season of Game of Thrones as

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Speaker 1: am I and my wife. Yeah, I was so your current.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we're cooked. Yeah, there won't be any spoilers

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Speaker 1: in this episode, but but I'm glad that we're on

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Speaker 1: the same wavelength. And uh, you know, and one day

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Speaker 1: I think I'm I'm looking forward to actually finishing reading

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Speaker 1: the books as well, once they are all written. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: so are you actually caught up to where the books

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Speaker 1: are in the Song of Ice and Fire series? Am?

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Speaker 1: I'm caught up and eagerly awaiting the subsequent volume. Me too,

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Speaker 1: I've read them all and now it's been so long

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go back and read them again

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Speaker 1: before the next one. Kind of I'm gonna have to

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Speaker 1: hit the Wikipedia entries. So in the Wizarding World of

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Speaker 1: the J. K. Rowland created the Magical Community, they use

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Speaker 1: owls to send messages back and forth, and it's sides

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Speaker 1: beautiful and it's a subtly magical part of the book, right,

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Speaker 1: playing on their traditional ideas of witches and wizards having familiars,

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Speaker 1: as well as the very properties of owls that make

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Speaker 1: them seem mystical right, their silence, they're nocturnal habits, their

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Speaker 1: wise appearance. Uh, but in reality, as we'll discuss No

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Speaker 1: one actually uses an owl to send messages in the

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Speaker 1: real world, but the more general idea of using birds

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Speaker 1: to send messages is not so magical and not so

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Speaker 1: far fetched. I guess that's what we're gonna be talking

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Speaker 1: about today. Yeah, and likewise George R. Martin's Song of

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Speaker 1: Ice and Fire books, uh, and the HBO of tdv

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Speaker 1: TV adaptation Game of Thrones. Now, folks, if we call

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Speaker 1: the books Game of Thrones today, don't get on our case. Right,

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Speaker 1: It's just it's the same thing. It's just what we've

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Speaker 1: been programmed to do at this point. But in both properties,

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Speaker 1: ravens are the bird of choice for members of the

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Speaker 1: Citadel to relay messages to and from various castles, cities,

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Speaker 1: and important locations. Yeah, they're the email of wester Ros. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know it's it's described in the books

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Speaker 1: that these clever messengers usually only function like real world

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Speaker 1: messenger pigeons. Right. They that that the summer smart and

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Speaker 1: capable of traveling to multiple locations, but for the most part,

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Speaker 1: you're sending a message from one place to another, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Actually to without any spoilers to extremely comic effects,

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Speaker 1: sometimes in the TV show, especially where like it seems

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Speaker 1: like somebody will write a message, put it on a raven,

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Speaker 1: send it off and they get results within like a

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Speaker 1: day when it was supposed to travel a thousand miles.

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Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure exactly how that happens. Yeah, things

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Speaker 1: have to move a lot a lot faster in the

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Speaker 1: TV series, right. I think this has led to a

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Speaker 1: lot of memes where like ravens have jet packs on

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Speaker 1: this well, and then they also have I believe there's

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Speaker 1: an additional separate species, a white raven, that that used

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Speaker 1: by the Citadel for particularly important messages. I don't recall that,

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Speaker 1: but there's a lot of detail in the books that

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Speaker 1: didn't even stick. I think I've had a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of time with Game of Thrones to to

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Speaker 1: forget many different details myself. But you know, I think

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Speaker 1: all this works nicely in the books in the TV

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Speaker 1: series because it puts an alternative of universe kind of

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Speaker 1: spin on everything, right, Like in your world it's a agent,

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Speaker 1: but in in uh, in wester Roast it is it

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Speaker 1: is a raven. And then uh, you know, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like some of the other spins that they do,

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Speaker 1: like like having this predominantly polytheistic version of medieval Western culture.

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Speaker 1: Uh so this alternate of you know, vision of how

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Speaker 1: bloodlines and genetics work. Though I do think they're interesting,

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Speaker 1: not to turn this into it just a Game of

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Speaker 1: Thrones episode. There's some interesting parallels between the religions in

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Speaker 1: the Game of Thrones world and uh and the religions

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Speaker 1: of Western Europe, Like so you originally have these pagan,

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Speaker 1: polytheistic religions. But I know George R. Martin has commented

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Speaker 1: that the Faith of the Seven in the books and

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Speaker 1: the TV show is really an analogy for the Catholic Church,

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Speaker 1: even because it has you know, even it is considers

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Speaker 1: itself a monotheistic religion. It has a trinity, it has

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Speaker 1: many saints and other figures, and and he just said, well,

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Speaker 1: I just went ahead and made them all gods. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he he had. He did a great job of taking

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Speaker 1: things that were familiar, tweaking them just a little bit

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Speaker 1: to where they still felt familiar. Like you didn't have to,

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Speaker 1: you know, take a running start at understanding the religious

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Speaker 1: world of Game of Thrones, but it was a little

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Speaker 1: bit different, just just just a little bit skewed in

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Speaker 1: a way that made it to uh, you know, resonate

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Speaker 1: a little more. Yeah and uh. And likewise, the ravens

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Speaker 1: fit perfectly in this you know, this grim dark setting

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Speaker 1: because the raven, of course, is a bird that's associated

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Speaker 1: with with darkness and carnage, and so it makes sense

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Speaker 1: that the characters would be using this bird to send

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Speaker 1: their messages, as opposed to the peaceful dove or pigeons

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Speaker 1: pecking bits of flesh from dead bodies on the battlefield.

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Speaker 1: That's how the raven is often imagined. But the way

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Speaker 1: the ravens are used in the book, as we've already

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Speaker 1: alluded to, is actually very analogous to real life uses

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Speaker 1: of messenger pigeons. That's right, messenger pigeons, carrier pigeons. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is an actual method that that we use and

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Speaker 1: have used for thousands of years to deliver messages as

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Speaker 1: us long distances. Um. And and it's it's not it's

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Speaker 1: not really, It's not like a magically trained pet. It's

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Speaker 1: more of an animal that will dependently, dependently return home

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Speaker 1: after you transport it somewhere else and then let it free,

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Speaker 1: which is a much less impressive trick, though still impressive. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I mean it would be pretty amazing if you could

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Speaker 1: just like send one to another city on command and

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Speaker 1: then it would come back. Right, It's like imagine doing

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Speaker 1: it with say a guerrilla from the local Zooh. You're like,

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Speaker 1: I want to send a message to the zoo where

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Speaker 1: this guerrilla lives. Okay, well I'm gonna take one of

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Speaker 1: its guerrillas with me when I visit another city. You know,

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Speaker 1: that will give the guerrilla the message, Let the guerrilla loose,

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Speaker 1: and the guerrilla will of course return home, thus delivering

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Speaker 1: the message. So I guess that's where you get the idea.

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Speaker 1: You may have heard the phrase a homing pigeon. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is returning home. So here we are. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about pigeons, we're talking about owls, and we're talking about ravens.

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Speaker 1: We figured, we we know that homing pigeons. This has

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Speaker 1: been a subject that that numerous podcast have covered. I

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Speaker 1: know Josh and Chuck covered homing pigeons a while back

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Speaker 1: on their show. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, and uh,

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Speaker 1: and so we we wanted to to to discuss them,

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Speaker 1: but we figured this might spice it up a bit

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Speaker 1: to also discuss them in relation to the owls and

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Speaker 1: the ravens. Of the world of Harry Potter and the

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Speaker 1: world of wester Ros. And in doing so, we'll be

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Speaker 1: able to highlight why the pigeon has worked so well

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Speaker 1: for these purposes, and why we use the pigeon, and likewise,

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Speaker 1: why we don't actually use ravens and owls. What is

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Speaker 1: it about ravens and owls that that would make them

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Speaker 1: ideal for this sort of work? And then also what

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Speaker 1: you know prevents us from using them for this sort

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Speaker 1: of work to begin with? Well, I say, let's go

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Speaker 1: pigeon first. Yeah, let's go. It's so, let's hit reality

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Speaker 1: and then we'll dip our toes into the fantasy a bit.

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Speaker 1: So first of all, let's let's consider some of the

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Speaker 1: you know, the the epic facts UH from the history

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Speaker 1: of homing pigeons that I think UH should ground their

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Speaker 1: use in a real world that feels as epic as

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Speaker 1: anything from West Roash. So, so, first of all, it

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Speaker 1: seems that pigeons were originally domesticated for food UH in

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Speaker 1: the Middle East and in Europe, much in the same

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Speaker 1: way that the jungle foul that we now call it

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Speaker 1: chicken was originally domesticated in India and East Asia. So

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Speaker 1: they were domesticated for their meat, for their eggs, which

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Speaker 1: a pigeon has tiny eggs, but you can't eat them.

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Speaker 1: The pigeon, uh is maybe not as robust as a

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Speaker 1: modern uh, you know, hormonally enhanced chicken, but it's still

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Speaker 1: is edible. I mean again, if you've read the Song

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Speaker 1: of Ice and firebooks, one of the common menu items

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Speaker 1: at feasts and stuff is roast squab or stuffed squab.

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Speaker 1: Of course squab would be like a young pigeon. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you can still find squab on on menus in

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Speaker 1: various places. Now, when we're talking about homing pigeons, the

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Speaker 1: homing pigeon is technically Columba Olivia domestica. That's the domestic

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Speaker 1: version of the rock pigeon, which is just Columbo Olivia. Now,

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Speaker 1: one interesting fact about the common pigeon, the rock pigeon,

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Speaker 1: also known as the rock dove. In their natural habitats

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Speaker 1: their cliff dwellers, they tend to live and nest on

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Speaker 1: cliff faces and rock ledges, which probably at least partially

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Speaker 1: explains why they thrive so well in modern urban landscapes

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Speaker 1: full of buildings that function as artificial cliff faces. And

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Speaker 1: I think we talked about this some with with our

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Speaker 1: guest Jason Mooard, who came on the show. Wants to

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Speaker 1: talk about urban evolution, especially of birds. Absolutely a highly

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Speaker 1: successful species, but back before their success was so guaranteed. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were this this wonderful edible bird that you good

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Speaker 1: stuff in cages pretty easily. And as you might imagine,

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Speaker 1: people were you know, kept their birds, and they doing

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Speaker 1: so prohibited from flying away. And as they traveled around

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Speaker 1: with these birds, and then I'm assuming they probably discovered

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Speaker 1: the curious, independable way that these birds could then return

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Speaker 1: to their home nest across increasingly long distances. And as such,

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Speaker 1: we have been using bird, these pigeons for thousands of

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Speaker 1: years to deliver messages. Uh, it is you know, it

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Speaker 1: is a is a pretty ancient practice, but it appears

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Speaker 1: to emerge out of this original domestication for food. First

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Speaker 1: to eat them and then you put them to work, right,

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Speaker 1: which which you know it sounds rather this is Ultimately

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Speaker 1: we're talking about very mundane use of the bird. Right,

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Speaker 1: we're going to ease it for eating and we're gonna

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Speaker 1: use it for delivering messages. But it's also worth noting

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Speaker 1: that pigeons have sacred significance in many cultures, though we

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Speaker 1: often refer to them in doves in that in these instances,

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Speaker 1: at least in the English language, right, the pigeon and dove,

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Speaker 1: this is the same thing. Yeah, I mean, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about about birds from the family Columbidae, which is doves

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Speaker 1: and pigeons. Um. But you know, we can think to

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Speaker 1: the roles of say, doves and Christian symbolism. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: even as it's kind of a secular symbol of peace, right,

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Speaker 1: releasing doves um. Uh, you know too, is you know,

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Speaker 1: a symbolic act. Right. Likewise, we can go all the

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Speaker 1: way back to ancient Sumerian Mesopotamia where we see the

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Speaker 1: use of the dove as an associated animal of the

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Speaker 1: goddess in Anna. Ah, we love Ananna on this show.

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Speaker 1: But that's interesting because Anana has multiple valences. Anana can be,

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Speaker 1: of course, like a fierce goddess of war who screams

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Speaker 1: death through the rebel lands. Or she can be, you know,

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Speaker 1: like a peaceful goddess of fertility. She has kind of

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Speaker 1: both meanings in different contexts. And I wonder which which

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Speaker 1: way the dove comes in there? Is it like the

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Speaker 1: way we associate doves with peace or is it the

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Speaker 1: way that doves can be used to send messages and

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Speaker 1: gather intelligence during war? Yeah, I mean as just as

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Speaker 1: a means of conveying information. It can serve both ends, right,

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't really seem like this. You know, this

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Speaker 1: prior relationship of domestication with the pigeon is ultimately what

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Speaker 1: sets it up for use. Is the carrier bird um

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Speaker 1: or earlier people domesticated them, live with them and picked

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Speaker 1: up on their abilities, and really the only other bird

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Speaker 1: they think. Think to the other words that have a

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Speaker 1: legacy of domestication, and uh and and in each one

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Speaker 1: we can try to imagine to what extent they could

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Speaker 1: have actually been used to carry messages. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: have the chicken. It's not gonna work. The duck, the

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Speaker 1: goose though, that's the Yeah, the messenger chicken. That would

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Speaker 1: be like a good cartoon. Well, okay, so the chickens

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Speaker 1: out the duck and the goose. I couldn't find any

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Speaker 1: real discussions of this, but I mean, they are migratory birds,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's it sounds possible. But are they are

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Speaker 1: they ever domesticated? I don't know. I guess they are

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Speaker 1: sometimes well, yeah, I've seen them, you know, listed as

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Speaker 1: as birds that we have domesticated in some cases likewise

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Speaker 1: the goose, the guinea fowl, the turkey, canaries and finches.

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Speaker 1: But but of these, the domestication of the chicken, the duck,

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Speaker 1: the goose, and the turkey those go back thousands of years,

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Speaker 1: but canaries only go back to the fifteenth century, and

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Speaker 1: the finch to the eighteenth century. But you know, to

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Speaker 1: put ourselves back in in ancient shoes on this right

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Speaker 1: as as one presumably you know, picks up on the

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Speaker 1: ability of the of the pigeon to carry messages. Just

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Speaker 1: think of the advantage, uh, in a world where message

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Speaker 1: delivery is only as fast as a human or a

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Speaker 1: horse and rider can can travel across either open terrain

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Speaker 1: or more likely a series of winding paths or roads. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we take for granted now that we have

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Speaker 1: wired or wireless communication that can send information electronically or whatever.

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Speaker 1: I mean. Back then, of message had to be physically

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Speaker 1: taken one way or another. Either you tell it to

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Speaker 1: a person and they go deliver it in person, or

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Speaker 1: it had to be carried by hand. Yeah, you had

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Speaker 1: to have a runner carrying it or carrying it to

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Speaker 1: the next runner. Um. Oh and then yeah, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you're going from point A to point B, you're probably

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Speaker 1: not able to go in a straight line. But the

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Speaker 1: bird can. The bird can fly, you know, literally as

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Speaker 1: the as the crow flies. Yeah. The bird also has

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Speaker 1: the advantage that This is seen sometimes in the Song

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Speaker 1: Advice and Fire series, where say, if your castle is

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Speaker 1: under siege and no person, no human messenger would likely

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Speaker 1: get by without being captured, a bird probably could get by. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The bird can leave a besieged city and go relay

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Speaker 1: a message. Um, you know, they might try and and

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Speaker 1: shoot it out of the sky with a with an arrow,

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Speaker 1: But that's why you have multiple pigeons, I imagine, or

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Speaker 1: multiple owls or ravens in your fantasy set of treatments.

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Speaker 1: Birds can also carry messages quickly over water, that's right.

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Speaker 1: Humans can't or I guess maybe could by boat. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's easy to just to sort of focus on

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Speaker 1: the sort of the primitive nature of tying a message

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Speaker 1: to an animal with and and and just forget the

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Speaker 1: tremendous freedom of movement that a bird like a pigeon has, uh.

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Speaker 1: And then in terms of speed with a pigeon. We're

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Speaker 1: talking speeds of of like fifty to sixty miles per

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Speaker 1: hour and up to record speeds. And I think this

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Speaker 1: is you know, when you're really pushing, when you're racing them,

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Speaker 1: you can get into the low nineties. Horses on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, Uh, you're only going to reach the mid fifties.

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Speaker 1: And that's going at full gallup. And that's like a

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Speaker 1: world record for horse. Yeah, that's like a common that's

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Speaker 1: like really going and uh and again, the chances of

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Speaker 1: you being able to send a message by horse at

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Speaker 1: top speed, at record speed in a straight line, like

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Speaker 1: on this magical highway that you've built between Fortress A

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Speaker 1: and Fortress B, it's just not It doesn't stack up

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Speaker 1: against the power, the the the message delivering power of

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Speaker 1: the pigeon. So to give everybody, you know, some more

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Speaker 1: ideas about just the history the legacy of of carrier

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Speaker 1: pigeon use I was looking at the Hallowed History of

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Speaker 1: the Carrier Pigeon by Mary Bloom from the New York

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Speaker 1: Times two thousand four, and so some of the high

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Speaker 1: points of the author mentioned here, and I believe this

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Speaker 1: is uncovering a museum exhibit about the carrier pigeon. But

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Speaker 1: we have, like an addition to mythical uh stories of

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Speaker 1: in Anna in her association with the with the pigeon

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Speaker 1: or dove, you also have biblical accounts such as uh

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Speaker 1: Noah releasing doves or pigeons. Yeah, it was to test

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Speaker 1: whether the floodwaters of the Great Flood had abated. I

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Speaker 1: think it's in Genesis chapter eight where uh Noah releases

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Speaker 1: multiple doves or either the same dub multiple times or

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Speaker 1: multiple doves to go out and see if it can

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Speaker 1: land somewhere. At first, it goes out and it can't

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Speaker 1: find anywhere to land, and it comes back to him.

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Speaker 1: The second time it goes out and it brings back

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Speaker 1: a branch, and that means the waters must have receded

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Speaker 1: from somewhere. In the third time it goes out, it

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Speaker 1: just stays gone and never returns. So if you love

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Speaker 1: a dove, set it free. So the ancient Romans used

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Speaker 1: pigeons for chariot races to tell owners how their entries

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Speaker 1: had placed. Genghas Khan established pigeon relay points across Asia

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Speaker 1: and much of eastern Europe. Charlemagne made pigeon raising the

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Speaker 1: exclusive privilege of nobility Pigeons were used for mill terry

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Speaker 1: communication well into World War One, when the Germans rolled

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Speaker 1: out carrier carrier pigeons with cameras that were soon replaced

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Speaker 1: by reconnaissance planes. By the end of the Under the war,

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Speaker 1: France had mobilized thirty thousand pigeons and they they had

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Speaker 1: declared that anyone impeding their flight could be sentenced to death.

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Speaker 1: There's actually a famous story from World War One, I believe,

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Speaker 1: about a group of Allied soldiers who had come under

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Speaker 1: friendly fire from artillery and only managed to communicate to

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Speaker 1: their allies that you know, like stopped shelling us by

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Speaker 1: accident by the use of a carrier pigeons that saved

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Speaker 1: many lives. Pigeons have been used to transport blood samples

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Speaker 1: from remote regions regions of Britain and France. In eastern India,

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Speaker 1: they were used for communication between remote police out outposts,

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Speaker 1: and as of at least last year, at least one

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Speaker 1: of these uh lines was still in use. The US

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Speaker 1: has used pigeons to spot shipwrecks. Drug drug traffickers have

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Speaker 1: used pigeons seemingly around the world. I was looking various

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Speaker 1: stories about this, and you know, I was finding hits

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Speaker 1: from North, South, and Central America as well as in

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Speaker 1: the Middle East. You know, obviously you're not going to

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Speaker 1: send like an entire brick of hashish up into the

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Speaker 1: at a pigeon, But if you want to send a

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Speaker 1: small amount of something like across the border or police area, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think you take a pigeon from its home, attached

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Speaker 1: the drugs to it, and then let it fly home. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's exactly what some people have done. Uh. This

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Speaker 1: is a fun account that my wife shared with me.

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Speaker 1: She was remembering a West Virginia whitewater rafting place from

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Speaker 1: sort of like the predigital photo age, and they used pigeons.

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Speaker 1: So what they did is, um, you know, you're going

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Speaker 1: on this whitewater rafting ride, right, and uh uh, nowadays

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Speaker 1: we just take this for granted, right. You ride some

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Speaker 1: sort of a ride like a roller coaster, and at

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Speaker 1: the end they sell you a picture of yourself enjoying

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Speaker 1: the ride, and of course now we do. It was

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Speaker 1: just digital photography, but this particular white Water rapid place,

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Speaker 1: the way they did it is they had a photographer

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Speaker 1: with a long lens up on a hillside where they

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Speaker 1: could get a good shot of the river. Uh, they

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Speaker 1: would snap your picture as you were going down the river,

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Speaker 1: and then they would take the film. They would attach

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Speaker 1: you to the homing pigeon, send the pigeon like to

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Speaker 1: the end of the river where the pickup is. They

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Speaker 1: would develop the film, and then they would sell you

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Speaker 1: the picture. Because you know this is a course of

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Speaker 1: that's when you want to sell the picture. Right, you're

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Speaker 1: just getting off the rafting rides. You're excited like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that was awesome, I didn't die, it was great, and

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Speaker 1: then there's the picture ready to go like magic, and

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Speaker 1: you pay for it. Now, that probably wasn't even possible

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Speaker 1: until like SELLULARI to acetate film. Right, try to attach

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Speaker 1: it to Garat type plate to your pigeons. Work to

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Speaker 1: understand that joke. Make sure you listen to our series

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Speaker 1: of episodes on our other podcast, Invention, about the invention

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Speaker 1: of photography. Those have been a lot of fun. If

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Speaker 1: you're not listening to Invention yet, what are you doing?

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Speaker 1: Go listen? Yeah, and you can check out the website

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Speaker 1: at Invention pod dot com. Okay, I got one for you.

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Speaker 1: You ever wonder about the origin of the term pigeonhole? Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'd never thought about it. But now I am, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pigeonhole as a verb, right, Like, I don't want to

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Speaker 1: be pigeonholed as just another whatever. I don't know exactly

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Speaker 1: how I guess it means, like, Uh, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: like the the idea of being type cast, right, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to be pinned down in this kind of

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Speaker 1: narrowly defined space. Well, apparently this expression has a very

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Speaker 1: literal origin in the domestic pigeon raising trade. It comes

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Speaker 1: from when pigeons used to be given like individual holes

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Speaker 1: or recesses to nest in. And then after that it

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Speaker 1: later came to have another definition of quote one of

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Speaker 1: a series of small open compartments, as in a desk,

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Speaker 1: cabinet or the like, used for filing or sorting papers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so that's like a standard definition which I think

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Speaker 1: morphed further into the more abstract metaphor of having your

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Speaker 1: person pigeonholed into a narrow slot. Interesting. Yeah, I'd I'd

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Speaker 1: never thought about it before, but that makes perfect sense.

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Speaker 1: And that metaphorical definition came about, I think in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixties and the mid late nineteenth century. All right,

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Speaker 1: so why and how do pigeons carry out these impressive

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Speaker 1: feats of speedy delivery. Yeah, why them? Why not some

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Speaker 1: other bird? Why not ol? Why not owls? Why not ravens?

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Speaker 1: Why not rats? Why not the you know, than the

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Speaker 1: neighborhood house cat? And I think you might be able

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Speaker 1: to answer this question two different ways that we could

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Speaker 1: that we can get into more as the episode goes on.

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Speaker 1: But one explanation might be rooted in the sort of

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Speaker 1: innate tendencies or abilities of each of these animals, and

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Speaker 1: another answer might be more rooted in just accidents of history. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think so. Like we already touched on the fact

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Speaker 1: that the pigeon was domesticated, uh seemingly originally for food,

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Speaker 1: and so that kind of like provided the groundwork for

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Speaker 1: further domestic uses of the animal. Yes, but it is

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Speaker 1: certainly true that pigeons have some very impressive qualities when

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Speaker 1: it comes to navigation and long distance travel. Right, their

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Speaker 1: navigational abilities are essentially twofold. So first of all, they

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Speaker 1: have a company system and this tells them which direction

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Speaker 1: they're headed in and the sun, the position of the

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Speaker 1: Sun and the Earth's magnetic field make this possible. But

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Speaker 1: then they also have a map system, which tells them

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Speaker 1: where they are in relation to where they want to

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Speaker 1: go now. And it's this ability that is a lot

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Speaker 1: more controversial that we have sort of competing hypotheses uh,

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Speaker 1: competing theories about how they're actually working. So it's not

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Speaker 1: totally settled exactly all of the methods that pigeons have

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Speaker 1: to navigate the way they do and find their way

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Speaker 1: back home, right, there's still there's still research ongoing and

424
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: as to what's going on and and complicating all of

425
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: this is the release site bias. This is when birds

426
00:22:41,080 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 1: go off in the wrong direction at release, leading investigators

427
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: to ask, well, what's happening in these cases to disrupt

428
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 1: their return? What can we learn about the functionality by

429
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: looking at the disruption events? And so the basic theories

430
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: for how the mapping system works are as follows. First,

431
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: there's the smell theory. So odors carried on the wind

432
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 1: allow the pigeons to map their way home, and studies

433
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: have shown that the atmosphere does contain the necessary olfactory

434
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 1: information UH, and pigeons have been observed to get disoriented

435
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:16,239
Speaker 1: when their sense of smell is impaired or when they

436
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: don't have access to natural winds at their home nest.

437
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:23,639
Speaker 1: And then there's the Earth's magnetic field lines, So like

438
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 1: there is a theory that there's some kind of inherent

439
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: magneto reception in the birds right, as a Cordula VI

440
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: Mora and Michael M. Walker pointed out in a two

441
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:35,840
Speaker 1: thousand nine studying the proceedings of the Royal Society b

442
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: Biological Sciences, quote, pigeons may derive spatial information from the

443
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,440
Speaker 1: magnetic field at the release site that could be used

444
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: to estimate their current position relative to their loft. Okay,

445
00:23:47,600 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: so this sounds like it might especially help with like

446
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:54,880
Speaker 1: initial orientation towards their target destination. Absolutely and again working

447
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: with that compass system. So these two things working together. Now,

448
00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: there is also a third um theory that I ran across,

449
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: and this one's not as big as the other two,

450
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 1: but to just get every everyone you know, an idea

451
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:09,280
Speaker 1: of some of the alternative ideas that are being explored here.

452
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: Geophysicist John Hagstrom has this theory that they follow ultra

453
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 1: low frequency sounds back towards their lofts and that that

454
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 1: this is why certain areas can confuse them and throw

455
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: them off. He argues that topographic disruptions and ultrasound account

456
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,720
Speaker 1: for why some pigeons are thrown off track in known

457
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,880
Speaker 1: disruption disruption zones such as in parts of upstate New York.

458
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,399
Speaker 1: That was the region that the UH that Hagstrom was

459
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 1: actually looking at and conducting. You know, some experiments in

460
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 1: UH and homing pigeons, they can hear sounds as low

461
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: as point zero five hurts, So so they do have

462
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: you know, they do have impressive hearing that that space. Yeah, However,

463
00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:53,119
Speaker 1: it's also been pointed out particularly I was looking at

464
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: a National Geographic article New Theory on how homing pigeons

465
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,840
Speaker 1: find home by Jane J. Lee UH pointed out the

466
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: given pigeon might use UH, you know, either the smell

467
00:25:06,359 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: or the magnetic field UH mapping system. It might just

468
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: depend on where their rays uh, you know, leaning on

469
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: magnetic fields in some cases, smell on the others other areas,

470
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:19,119
Speaker 1: or perhaps leaning on ultrasound if that is in fact

471
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: one of the methods at their disposal. Well, and that

472
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: would sort of make sense given what we know about

473
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: our senses that we use for navigation. I mean, it

474
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,440
Speaker 1: would depend on where you were that you were trying

475
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 1: to find your way to right Like some places it

476
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: might be good to listen for traffic or something if

477
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,640
Speaker 1: you don't know if you're like trying to get back

478
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 1: to a trafficked area and an otherwise wilderness like area,

479
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:42,959
Speaker 1: or it might make more sense to just look with

480
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: your eyes and see what kind of place you're going to. Yeah,

481
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: I mean, in all of these cases, I keep trying

482
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: to put myself in the shoes of the pigeon and

483
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: imagine somebody like sticking me in a cage, transporting me, say, um,

484
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: you know two counties over releasing me in the while

485
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 1: and giving me a message to return to my house

486
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: with to my house. Uh, And I would probably just

487
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 1: die in the woods in those cases. So it's uh,

488
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: you know, it's we look at something like the pigeon,

489
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: an animal that is not um held in high esteem

490
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: by most people. You know. We we think of pigeons,

491
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: we think of essentially winged rats in the city, and

492
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,399
Speaker 1: we we we may not stop to realize, you know,

493
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: what kind of amazing navigational abilities they have, but they do. Uh.

494
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: They pigeons can do can do these feats that that

495
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: humans would be completely lost to try and replicate. Do

496
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: you think the pigeons internal uh, navigational computer is as

497
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: annoying as the navigation app on most phones are, like

498
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 1: you know, uh GPS devices, Um, I would think not

499
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: because it's a part of them, right, I mean that

500
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: the annoying thing about GPS technology is that it is

501
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: external and uh, it's it's something we have to divert

502
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 1: attention to or and or you know, we we drop

503
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: our phone out of that little cradle or horsing around

504
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: with it while going down the interstate. I don't know

505
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: what brand it was, but there was one I used

506
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 1: to interact with fairly. It wasn't mine, it was somebody else's,

507
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: but uh, but it was incredibly passive aggressive, so like

508
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: anytime you missed a turn, you would almost hear it,

509
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: like get kind of huffy. It would go recalculating. Yeah, yeah,

510
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 1: they're all sorts of weird quirks like that. They've gotten

511
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 1: a lot better, but yeah, it's still they don't Still

512
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,479
Speaker 1: they still don't feel like a natural instinct by any stretch. Now,

513
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: obviously we could spend more time here talking about the

514
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: navigational abilities of pigeons and and certainly the way that

515
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: pigeons and other animals, uh, you know, seemingly interact with

516
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 1: the magnetic field. Uh, but we want to take a

517
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: quick break here. When we come back, we're gonna move

518
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,080
Speaker 1: on to the next animal. In this episode, we're going

519
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: to discuss uh, the owls of Harry Potter, but more

520
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,639
Speaker 1: specifically the owls of the real world. Thank thank thank you.

521
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: All Right, we're back, all right, Robert, give it to

522
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: me straight. What are the what are the chances the

523
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,879
Speaker 1: fighting chances of a military force that wants to deliver

524
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: messages between its ranks by the use of war owls. Well,

525
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,080
Speaker 1: it depends if we're talking about muggles or we're talking

526
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,320
Speaker 1: about members of the wizard in Community. I'm talking about

527
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: real real world here. Well, just to take the pigeons

528
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 1: of World War One replace them with owls. What happens, Um, Well,

529
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: then the messages don't get delivered for starters, because I

530
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 1: think ultimately an important part of this is the of course,

531
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: the legacy of using the pigeons. But the question, the

532
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: bigger question is what what if there had been no pigeons?

533
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: What if for some reason early on people had gone

534
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: the direction of the wizard In community in the Harry

535
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 1: Potter novels and had said, let's use owls. Let's let's

536
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: not focus on any other animals. Let's focus on this

537
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,479
Speaker 1: species or this species of owl. Can we use this

538
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: animal to deliver our message just right? Whether rain or

539
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,600
Speaker 1: snow or dead of night? Will this owl deliver your

540
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:06,760
Speaker 1: message right? And I have to say, when we we

541
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: set out to do this episode, my initial suspected answer

542
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: was going to be no, they can't. And I suspected

543
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: that the reason was going to be that owls are dumb,

544
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: that owls are like really dumb because and this is

545
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: this is like, this is pre research, but I've found

546
00:29:23,280 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 1: that multiple bird shows that I go to, you know,

547
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: bird shows or like wildlife rescue places, places where they have,

548
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: say an owl that can't be rereleased into the wild

549
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: because it has a damaged wing, and so it's used

550
00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: for educational purposes multiple times. Uh, the you know, the

551
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 1: individual caring for the creatures has pointed out that, well,

552
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: this owl is really dumb. It's just not a smart creature. Um,

553
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 1: And so you know, we have their their limits on

554
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 1: what we can expect from from it. That's strange. I

555
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 1: tend to find that people who work directly with animals

556
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: are tend to they tend to air on the side

557
00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: of overstating the animals intelligence. Well, and I don't mean

558
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: to speak for every like wildlife rescue individual out there

559
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: or bird show worker, etcetera. But you know, it stood

560
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: out to me, and it probably stood out to me

561
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 1: because there is this idea of the wise owl, you know, um,

562
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's firmly established not only in pop culture,

563
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: but in our mythic traditions. The owl was the bird

564
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. They were thought

565
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: to see the future, and of course they're nocturnal nature

566
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 1: and their silent flight made them creatures of occult fascination.

567
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: The Romans saw them as portents of doom. Uh. They

568
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: fulfill a number of roles among the native peoples of

569
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: North and South America, ranging from dire omens to uh,

570
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,120
Speaker 1: you know, actual spirits of the dead. And in some

571
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: some traditions the owl is an evil creature uh. And

572
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:50,560
Speaker 1: in other times that you know, it's associated with the goddess,

573
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 1: as in Athena's case, or in Welsh mythology, the goddess

574
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: blowta Wed is associated with the owl. It is not

575
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: hard at all to imagine how owls could come to

576
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: occupy a place of like terrifying spiritual power. Because have

577
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: you ever been out in the woods at night and

578
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: heard an owl? It's I mean, it's a cliche now

579
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: because it's in the movies and all that, but in

580
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,239
Speaker 1: person it is freaky. Yes, yeah. And then they have

581
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: enormous eyes which you can't help but lock eyes with

582
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: the owl, and it's it's intimidating to to look at them.

583
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: They're just in there, just fascinating, impressive specimens. Um. And

584
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 1: in terms of pop culture, who can forget the great

585
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 1: owl from the Secretive Nim It's so good, but kind

586
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,959
Speaker 1: of Wilford Brimley faced owl. It had some heavy brows

587
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: and mustache from what I recall, but it also glowing eyes. Um.

588
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 1: And you know, there are a lot of different types

589
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: of owls. There's something like two hundred species roughly. They're

590
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:50,840
Speaker 1: amazing creatures. And there's somewhere in the neighborhood of two

591
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 1: hundred different species of owl. Um. By the way, possibly

592
00:31:55,400 --> 00:31:58,479
Speaker 1: the largest owl ever to walk the earth the Cuban

593
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,200
Speaker 1: giant owl, which stood about three ft seven or one

594
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: point one meters tall, and was either flightless or nearly flightless.

595
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: A giant flightless owl. So what was it like a

596
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: like a raptor that like run around along the ground

597
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: and snatch up its prey. I believe so, yeah, and

598
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: you know, or could possibly have achieved, you know, very

599
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: limited flight, much in the same way a chicken may fly.

600
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: But but owls are are specialized killers. They're they're mostly

601
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: solitary creatures. There's not a lot of social complexity to

602
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: their brainload. Um, you know, it's it's it's more about

603
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: the spotting uh and and perceiving prey and then stealthily

604
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: swooping down on them and uh and uh and snatching

605
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: them up. But h but I was, I was looking

606
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: into this more and I found a book, uh titled

607
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: The Science of Harry Potter from two thousand two by

608
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: Roger high Field. And uh, it's it's a pretty cool

609
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: book obviously, Um, you know it's it's been out for

610
00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: a few years. But um, so this would have only

611
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: been like the earliest Terry Potter books, right, Not that

612
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: the use of owls really, you know, change as much

613
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: in the series. It's pretty stationary. Owls are just how

614
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: you send messages. But the major reason he says that

615
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 1: owls wouldn't be ideal for this sort of work is

616
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: that most of them are rather set and terry, so

617
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: they don't migrate, uh, and migrate Harry skills, you know,

618
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: would be ideal for the sort of messaging work. Um.

619
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:26,640
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like if you've heard I know

620
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: you and I have heard this uh presented and kind

621
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: of like a self defense uh scenario by saying that

622
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: if if someone is looking to say, rob you on

623
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: the street, Uh, they have a Remember the term used

624
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: was they have a small office, they have a small

625
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: work area, and you want to get out of that

626
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: work area because there's like just a you know, it's

627
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: like a pickpocket or robber is working like within like

628
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: one street worth of area. And that's the similar case

629
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: with a lot of predatory organisms. Uh. They ultimately have

630
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: a small zone in which they operate. They operate very

631
00:34:00,000 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 1: well in that zone, but you get out of that

632
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 1: zone and you might be in the clear. Now, that

633
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: might be a good point about the owls not being

634
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:10,760
Speaker 1: migratory and being fairly sedentary, But then again, I believe

635
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:13,399
Speaker 1: pigeons are non migratory or at least most in most

636
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:16,400
Speaker 1: cases non migratory, and yet they have this powerful homing

637
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: and messaging ability. And then also in high Field does

638
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: acknowledge that, well, you do have some owls that are migratory,

639
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: so you have I think two out of the five

640
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: native UK owl species are migratory and nature and in

641
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: theory could handle the ranges involved in most Potter World letters. Um.

642
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 1: And they have great eyesight which would be useful as well.

643
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: So we think of like the ways that these uh

644
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,280
Speaker 1: you know that that that have given messenger species would

645
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 1: find the places that needs to go. Well, the owl

646
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:50,360
Speaker 1: has excellent eyesight, could be it would be very useful.

647
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: Now as for their brain power, um, he's he pointed

648
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: out that there had not been a lot of systematic

649
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,759
Speaker 1: study of owl brain power, but this would have been

650
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: too thus in two right, but he said, but he

651
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,160
Speaker 1: also acknowledged that, you know, there have been some some

652
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: work in you know, looking at the memory of barn owls,

653
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 1: specifically by Eric Knudsen at Stanford University, and that research

654
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: seemed to show that they did have solid working memories. Um.

655
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: While on the other hand, some owl species were considered

656
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: to be quote rather dim due to their at the

657
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 1: predatory niche that they depended on. Now, but of course

658
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:28,279
Speaker 1: in all of this anytime we're talking about animal intelligence,

659
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: where it's always a bit unfair, right because ultimately a

660
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 1: given species is as intelligent as it needs to be

661
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 1: for what it does. And I mean, even given that caveat,

662
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: I think we have learned a lot more about bird

663
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: intelligence just in the past couple of decades than we

664
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: knew before. Like, uh, it is becoming increasingly clear how

665
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: smart corvids are, and we'll talk about that when we

666
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: get to ravens in the next section. But we didn't

667
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: always know everything we know now about bird intelligence. I

668
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: think the picture is becoming clearer that the birds are

669
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: much smarter than we have long thought, though not every

670
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 1: bird is equally more intelligent than we have long thought, right,

671
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it ultimately is a lot is going to

672
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 1: depend on what that that particular bird, or in this case,

673
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 1: what that owl does. UM. For instance, I was looking

674
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: around at some UM some some other some actual studies

675
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: on this UM two thousand thirteen study from the International

676
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: Journal of Comparative Psychology found that the great gray owl

677
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: or Stricts nebulosa, which that's one of my favorites. There.

678
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: That's that's I mean, that's that sounds like a spell

679
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: from Harry Potter. Um, these particular owls didn't do so

680
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: hot in cognitive ability tests, they said to quote, our

681
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: results suggest that the owl's failed to comprehend the physics

682
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 1: underlying the object relationships involved in the task presented. But

683
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,759
Speaker 1: then again has pointed out in a two thousand four

684
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: study published in Nature from Levy, Duncan and Levin's burrowing

685
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: owls or Atheny cunicularia, which is another nice one. Uh,

686
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: they used dung as a tool, or at least they

687
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: use dung as bait to attract dung beetles, which are

688
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 1: a favorite prey. But you could would that be a

689
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: like novel or cognitively discovered behavior or is that more

690
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,319
Speaker 1: probably like an instinct? I don't know, but they they

691
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: they were framing it in terms of, you know, this

692
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: is a you know, potential tool use that is, you know,

693
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: and granted any time your tool is dung used as bait,

694
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's not quite the same as using a uh,

695
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: you know, a crafted twig uh to to pull grubs

696
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,320
Speaker 1: out of a out of a log or something. Just

697
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: because it's dune doesn't mean it's not a tool, right Yeah,

698
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:38,279
Speaker 1: But I mean it still works for him. So I mean,

699
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,320
Speaker 1: ultimately high Field had argued that, well, maybe maybe the

700
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: NOWL could be used for for such purposes, and I think, uh,

701
00:37:46,360 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: you know, based on some of the other research we're

702
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 1: looking at, it does seem like the NOWL could pull

703
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,279
Speaker 1: off some of the feats involved. Well. I think one

704
00:37:54,320 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: of the big questions that you would need to ask

705
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 1: about whether a bird could be trained as some kind

706
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:02,279
Speaker 1: of singer would be how well do they respond to

707
00:38:02,440 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: training right and to domestic domestication. I mean, sadly, the

708
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: popularity of the Harry Potter books and movies reportedly caused

709
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: an increase in the trafficking of pet owls, which J. K.

710
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: Rowling has is vocally condemned. By the way, do not

711
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 1: go out and try and buy a pet owl just

712
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: because you're like Harry Potter. Um. But one of the

713
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: important cases here is that that outside of the magical

714
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,760
Speaker 1: world or the realm of professional wildlife rescue efforts, owls

715
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: should not be kept in cages and they're you know,

716
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 1: they're not going to deliver your mail for you. But

717
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: but more to the point that, you know, handling pigeons

718
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: is one thing. Stuffing them in and out of cages

719
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 1: by hand is one thing, but an owl has some

720
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,440
Speaker 1: pretty vicious talents that can certainly send you to the hospital.

721
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: So owls are just generally not good candidates for domestication

722
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 1: right outside of a magical, um, you know, fantasy series. Uh,

723
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: it doesn't say like the talents alone would give me pause. Um,

724
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: if you you know, look up if you're if you're

725
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: curious about this, do a Google image search on like

726
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: owl related injuries. You'll find some nice wipes and slices

727
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: here and there, and it'll be enough to make you think, well, yeah,

728
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: maybe we should leave the owls alone as much as possible.

729
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:20,919
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break. When we come back,

730
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:27,240
Speaker 1: we will talk about ravens as messengers. Thank thank Alright,

731
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 1: we're back. We've talked about real world homing pigeons. We've

732
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: talked about the owls of Harry Potter, and to what

733
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: extent the owls of the real world could or could

734
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:41,760
Speaker 1: not match up to their to the sort of message

735
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: delivering service that we see in the Harry Potter novels.

736
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: They don't seem like great candidates and think, yeah, it

737
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 1: seems like you're better sticking off, sticking with the pigeon

738
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,879
Speaker 1: unless you have the magic to make it possible. Uh.

739
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:54,879
Speaker 1: So let's turn now to Game of Thrones, to wester

740
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: Roast and the use of ravens. Why are we not

741
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: using ravens? And if we really wanted to, could we

742
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: use ravens to deliver our messages? Uh? This one, I

743
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: think the prospects are different, but maybe a little bit

744
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 1: better than owl. So you mentioned in mythology earlier that,

745
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: uh you talked about the doves of the Noah story

746
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: in the Book of Genesis. You know, Noah releases doves

747
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: and eventually they let him know that all the waters

748
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: are gone from the earth. But don't forget there's another

749
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 1: part of the story. This very strange doesn't necessarily really

750
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: seem to add up to anything, but Noah actually sends

751
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 1: out a raven. First. It's kind of hard to tell

752
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:33,839
Speaker 1: what the raven is supposed to be doing in the

753
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: story when it starts off by saying, then it came

754
00:40:37,120 --> 00:40:38,879
Speaker 1: about at the end of forty days, so it's been

755
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,160
Speaker 1: you know, forty days and forty nights of raining. At

756
00:40:41,200 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: the end of forty days that Noah opened the window

757
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: of the arc which he had made, and he sent

758
00:40:45,200 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: out a raven and it flew here and there until

759
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: the water was dried up from the earth, and then

760
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: after that it just goes straight into the story with

761
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: the doves. Uh So that's confusing. I'm not quite sure

762
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: what's happening there. I do know that there is some

763
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: uh there's some series about the version of the story

764
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: of the Great Flood that we have that say that

765
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: it's actually at least two different original stories that have

766
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: essentially been edited together in the version that we have

767
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: of the Book of Genesis. So it could this could

768
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,600
Speaker 1: reflect different versions of the same story just sort of

769
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: being stitched together, but I don't know that. So, like

770
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: one of them is the George R. Martin, Yes, exactly,

771
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,240
Speaker 1: and it was never finished, so they had to dislike

772
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: slap it together with this other version of the story. Yeah,

773
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: so some other author is like, I don't like the raven,

774
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,879
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do doves, okay, But they also didn't want

775
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: to throw anything away, so the ravens still there. But yeah, anyway,

776
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 1: that's one of those interesting little textual mysteries. Uh So,

777
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,880
Speaker 1: but yeah, the question would ravens be good messenger birds

778
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,799
Speaker 1: as in Game of Thrones? Now in the world of

779
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: George R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire and the

780
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: TV show Game of Thrones. The people of Westeros, they

781
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: use ravens mainly to send long distance messages. Like we're

782
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:58,920
Speaker 1: talking about much very very comparable to the way people

783
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: have used messenger pitch. There's a scene where Master Ahman,

784
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 1: the master like the sort of uh learned person at

785
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: the up at the wall, tells John Snow quote, doves

786
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:13,919
Speaker 1: and pigeons can also be trained to carry messages, though

787
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: the raven is a stronger, flyer, larger, bolder, far more clever,

788
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,960
Speaker 1: better able to defend itself against hawks. So I think

789
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 1: we should keep that in mind, and we'll come back

790
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: to it later to see whether Master Raymond's mostly or

791
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: not on the money. There. The first thing we should

792
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: look at, of course, is whether in fact ravens are

793
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: far more clever. And I think the answer to this

794
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: is a resounding yes. Yeah. And this was I guess

795
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: before we went into the research. My suspicion was they

796
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: might be too clever like that that and and this

797
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: may be you know, unfounded bias, but it was like,

798
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,560
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the owl is too dumb, maybe the raven

799
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: is too smart. In the pigeon is just this perfect

800
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: u uh, you know, a mix of skill and uh

801
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: in vigational ability. But also it's not gonna, you know,

802
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: get bored and curious on the way. I can totally

803
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: see why you would think that, but I don't think

804
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,400
Speaker 1: that's what I would think after the research for this episode.

805
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,279
Speaker 1: I think that that sort of underestimates owls a bit,

806
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 1: maybe overestimates pigeons and ravens and and the unruling nous

807
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:22,200
Speaker 1: of intelligence, because it is the case that for many

808
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: very intelligent animals it doesn't necessarily manifest as like a

809
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: surliness and rebellious nous. I mean, often very intelligent animals

810
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:34,759
Speaker 1: can respond well to training and conditioning, though often they

811
00:43:34,800 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 1: respond in ways that are unpredictable to you, which is

812
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: that's an interesting thing we'll get to in a minute

813
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 1: about ravens. So ravens are corvids. They're a family of

814
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: birds containing many other kinds such as crows, jays, and magpies.

815
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 1: Both corvids in general and ravens in particular have, especially

816
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:54,560
Speaker 1: in recent years, but for a long time, been known

817
00:43:54,880 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: to be extremely intelligent, and especially in recent years, we've

818
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: gotten these studies that show the startling displays of intelligence

819
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:05,879
Speaker 1: and lab conditions. And there are tons of examples of this.

820
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 1: If you want a whole episode focused on this subject,

821
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 1: go back to the one we did a couple of

822
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: years ago called the Unsettling Depths of Bird Intelligence. Oh yeah,

823
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: that was a good one, and that we also talked

824
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: a little mythology in that one. I remember Hoogan and Moon.

825
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the Norse mythology that represents aspects of what

826
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: Odin's memory, his thoughts and his memory. Uh yeah, And

827
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 1: we also talked about it with Jason Ward when he

828
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:31,719
Speaker 1: came on the show to talk about the birds of

829
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 1: the City. But yeah, they're just so many interesting stories

830
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,359
Speaker 1: about what corvid's and ravens in particular can do. Just

831
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: one recent example I was reading about about the intelligence

832
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: of ravens in particular came from a couple of researchers

833
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:51,440
Speaker 1: at Sweden's Lunda University named Can Kabadii and Matthias os Fath,

834
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: who did a study where they showed really intelligent, interesting forethought,

835
00:44:56,680 --> 00:44:59,320
Speaker 1: or at least what seems like evidence of it in ravens.

836
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,000
Speaker 1: So it's already been demonstrated many times that corvids, like

837
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: crows and Ravens can use tools, and that's one of

838
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of complex intelligence, once thought to belong to

839
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 1: primates alone. You know, if you go back and look

840
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: at old textbooks, it's like only humans and the great

841
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 1: apes can use tools. But nowadays corvids and certain occupy

842
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: take issue with that. Oh yes, certainly. And one of

843
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,840
Speaker 1: the interesting things about this to me is that tool

844
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,760
Speaker 1: using suggests that if you go way back in time,

845
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: rewind the clock and just let evolution run out in

846
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: a different way, if other types of animals with the

847
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 1: seeds of tool using intelligence could have independently developed their

848
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,400
Speaker 1: own technological civilization the way primates like us did. Yeah,

849
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 1: what sort of world would it be if it was

850
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: a world of corvid technology? Raven world? But so, yeah,

851
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: we know now that corvids like ravens use tools. And

852
00:45:55,080 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: this more recent study showed that once ravens had learned

853
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: that they could use a particular tool to open a

854
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 1: box and get a piece of dog kibble, which they

855
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: absolutely love, they would choose if they could to grab

856
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 1: that particular box opening tool and keep it on hand

857
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: when the food box was not even present, so they

858
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: could use it to open the box later whenever it

859
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: was presented to them, maybe you know, minutes or hours later.

860
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: So that's already interesting. Like the bird is is recognizing, Okay,

861
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,319
Speaker 1: I can use this tool to get food. I'm going

862
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: to hang onto the tool even though I can't use

863
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 1: it right now. Yeah, they're thinking ahead. Also, the same

864
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: researchers demonstrated evidence that ravens, on average have a pretty

865
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: strong ability to delay gratification to get better rewards, like

866
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 1: as demonstrated in humans with the marshmallow test. Yeah. Yeah,

867
00:46:48,480 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: so of course the classic marshmallow tests. Why am I

868
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: getting a tickle that that? Somehow people have questioned the

869
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,400
Speaker 1: setting of that test. Now, there's certainly been a legacy

870
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:03,240
Speaker 1: of reproducing the test and altering the Yeah, different different

871
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: versions of the test. Well maybe I don't remember what

872
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 1: that is off the top of my head. Maybe we

873
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: can revisit that in the future. But the basic ideas like,

874
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, if you cannot eat this marshmallow for five minutes,

875
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: you'll get three marshmallows or something. Um And and they

876
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:20,320
Speaker 1: do a version of that kind of thing with different

877
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,239
Speaker 1: animals to test their abilities. By and large, animals are

878
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: terrible at this, just hopeless, you know, they live in

879
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:28,800
Speaker 1: the moment. They have impulses immediately, if a piece of

880
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: food is in front of them, they're gonna eat it.

881
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,720
Speaker 1: But in this UH, this current group, what the study

882
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 1: found is that when you give the ravens a choice

883
00:47:36,120 --> 00:47:39,600
Speaker 1: between okay, you can grab an okay piece of food

884
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: right now, or you can grab a tool or a

885
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: bartering token that the ravens have learned can be used

886
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: to access a better, more delicious piece of food later.

887
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:53,799
Speaker 1: One of these experiments showed that ravens will pick the

888
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: delayed path to better food more than seventy percent of

889
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,319
Speaker 1: the time, to be exactly with seventy three sin of

890
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: the time they'd get the tool or the bartering token

891
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: that they knew would lead to the better delicious piece

892
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: of kibble. And in these experiments, the intelligence of the

893
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: ravens in question was even sometimes an impediment to controlling

894
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 1: the experiment, because, for example, I was reading a Motherboard

895
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 1: article about their research where they talked about how there

896
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: was one raven that started building his own tools to

897
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: defeat the box UH, and so instead of using the

898
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,839
Speaker 1: tool they were supplying to the raven, it was like,

899
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: I, I I can I can get around this, and so

900
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: it was like putting together sticks in an arrangement there

901
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 1: where it could trigger and open the box without the

902
00:48:36,440 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: tool they supplied it. And also that one raven apparently

903
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:43,040
Speaker 1: started trying to teach the other ravens how to exploit

904
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: the box. And neurologically speaking, it's been shown, for example,

905
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: in a paper in P and A. S by Olkawitz

906
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: at All that birds like corvids and some parrots have

907
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:57,440
Speaker 1: an enormous number of neurons packed into the four brain areas,

908
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: uh quote. Large parrots and core it's have the same

909
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: or greater four brain neuron counts as monkeys with much

910
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,400
Speaker 1: larger brains. Avian brains thus have the potential to provide

911
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:14,800
Speaker 1: much higher cognitive power per unit mass than do mammalian brains.

912
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:17,800
Speaker 1: So you know, mammals primates like us, we've got bigger

913
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 1: brains than birds do. But it seems like birds are

914
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: really packing in the neuron connections in there to make

915
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: make more with less matter. But they're also really startling

916
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 1: h examples of social intelligence in corvid's like ravens. Like

917
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:36,440
Speaker 1: there's stories about bird trainers who have close relationships with

918
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: pet ravens can train these ravens to follow and fly

919
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,600
Speaker 1: ahead of them. There's even videos watching before we came

920
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: in here of a BBC Earth segment where they had

921
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,720
Speaker 1: a raven trainer who had a relationship, a previous existing

922
00:49:48,760 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: relationship with this raven that he'd trained for a long time,

923
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,200
Speaker 1: and this guy's riding along on the side of a

924
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,320
Speaker 1: fast moving truck with the raven just like flying along,

925
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: chasing after him, trying to land on his arm. So

926
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: I mean that kind of activity, like the raven chasing

927
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: after him makes me think, Okay, I see its potential

928
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 1: possibility for like a delivery system involving ravens doesn't seem

929
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: entirely out of the question. You know, I'm just remembering

930
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: when we did this earlier episode on bird Intelligence. One

931
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,480
Speaker 1: of the things we did was I interviewed one of

932
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 1: the researchers who had worked on a paper that we

933
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:27,080
Speaker 1: talked about in that episode on on bird Intelligence. Uh,

934
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: the researcher owner Gunterqune. And you know, I was asking

935
00:50:31,760 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: him about the differences in cognitive ability between different bird

936
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 1: species and basically the question of like, have we underestimated

937
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: all birds or is it like just basically corvids and

938
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 1: parrots that are smarter than we thought. And he was

939
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 1: pretty generous in his estimate of all birds, though of

940
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 1: course corvids and parrots. He said, you know, essentially there's

941
00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:57,719
Speaker 1: no major cognitive difference between what they can do and

942
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:00,840
Speaker 1: what primates can do. Uh so he's putting them like

943
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: way up there on the cognitive ladder, like that they're

944
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 1: much smarter than we realized for a long time. But

945
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: even birds like pigeons and chickens, he put more on

946
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 1: the level of like mice and rats, which you know,

947
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,000
Speaker 1: I think the average person would probably assume that mice

948
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: are a lot smarter than pigeons, that that's not necessarily true. Yeah,

949
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:19,399
Speaker 1: and then the idea that a chicken is up there

950
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: as well, I mean, checkmate Verner Herzog, Yeah, that's right,

951
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: who I believe what he was. Herzog had said that

952
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:31,200
Speaker 1: it's something about their being just this like the overwhelming

953
00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:36,839
Speaker 1: immensity of stupidity and looking back at you from I

954
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 1: think what he's seeing there is not stupidity. He's seeing

955
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 1: like profound ancient magic. That chicken is a dinosaur. I mean,

956
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: birds are again dinosaurs. They're the avian dinosaurs. They're the

957
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,280
Speaker 1: dinosaurs that are left, and he is seeing a lineage

958
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 1: going back tens of millions of years all the way

959
00:51:53,760 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: to the Sorry, some deep cuts on Herzog interviews is here,

960
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: but can't go too deep. Uh. But anyway, I think

961
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:06,279
Speaker 1: it is fair to say that ravens are much more

962
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 1: strikingly intelligent than pigeons, but also that pigeons are probably

963
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,799
Speaker 1: more intelligent than people usually give them credit for. Um.

964
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 1: One interesting and funny Game of Thrones parallel I came across.

965
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 1: There's a scene in the in the Song of Ice

966
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,720
Speaker 1: and Fire books where you know, the three eyed crow

967
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:24,520
Speaker 1: in the books, he's called the three eyed crow in

968
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: the books and three ad Raven in the show. The

969
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: guy played by Max von Sdo in the books, he

970
00:52:30,080 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 1: you know, he's talking to young brand Stark. Which another

971
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: side note, I just found out the other day that

972
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:42,200
Speaker 1: Brand in Welsh I believe means raven or means but

973
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: he's speaking to the character brand Stark, and he says

974
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:47,239
Speaker 1: it was the singers who taught the first men to

975
00:52:47,280 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: send messages by raven. But in those days the birds

976
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: would speak the words the trees remember, but men forget,

977
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: and so now they write the messages on parchment and

978
00:52:57,640 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: tie them around the feets of the birds who have

979
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 1: never aired their skin. So I think this is different

980
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,600
Speaker 1: because he's talking about warging and magical stuff that's in

981
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: the books, but he's saying it used to be that

982
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: you'd like tell the message to the raven, and the

983
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 1: raven would go carry the message and when it got there,

984
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 1: it didn't let you didn't have to take a tag

985
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 1: of parchment off its leg. It would just tell you

986
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: the message. And this actually does have some basis in reality,

987
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,160
Speaker 1: because ravens, much like parrots, can be trained to mimic

988
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 1: human sounds, like talking even better than parrots in some cases.

989
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: And if you don't believe me, look it up. There

990
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: are videos of this online talking ravens. It's creepy. No,

991
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:39,640
Speaker 1: it's not creepy, it's gorgeous. Yeah, well that that's amazing

992
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: because I would just have assumed assumed that, you know,

993
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:44,919
Speaker 1: this is just a purely magical wrinkle in the world

994
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,880
Speaker 1: building here. But yeah, the idea that you could you

995
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:52,800
Speaker 1: can on some level train a raven to mimic human language,

996
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:55,759
Speaker 1: that's that's incredible, I think, especially if you bred them

997
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,439
Speaker 1: for it, like the best, the best, the ones best

998
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 1: at mimicking human language and talking. You bred them for

999
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: repeating phrases, and you train them individually in their lives.

1000
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's not out of the question,

1001
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: but I don't know of any cases in the real

1002
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:12,560
Speaker 1: world where there have been like breeding programs to try

1003
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 1: to bring out like the best talking ravens or even

1004
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:17,759
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't even know to what extent that's

1005
00:54:17,760 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 1: been done with with parrots. I wonder. Uh. Anyway, a

1006
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: few other things of notes. So I was reading about

1007
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: the University of Vienna biologist Matthias Claudio Loretto speaking to

1008
00:54:33,120 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: the writer Ella Davies for The Guardian in Seeen on

1009
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: the question of ravens as messengers. So they're directly addressing

1010
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:43,799
Speaker 1: this question from the Game of Thrones show. And so

1011
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: Loretto is a researcher who works with ravens, and he

1012
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 1: said the following. So he said, they're good flyers, maybe

1013
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: not well suited to quickly crossing long distances. Uh. Some

1014
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:58,959
Speaker 1: bird species are already biologically adapted to rapid long distance migrations.

1015
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 1: Ravens are not one of them. Basically, everywhere except in

1016
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: the Arctic, ravens are quote non migratory and move rather opportunistically.

1017
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:12,760
Speaker 1: That said, they can sometimes fly across moderately long distances.

1018
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:14,920
Speaker 1: And now I'm trying to think back to my my

1019
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: maps of wester Ros and exactly what sort of distances

1020
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 1: we're talking about between say, the Wall and winter Fell.

1021
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 1: I think it's supposed to be pretty far. I think

1022
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: I remember off the top of my head that wester

1023
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: Ros is supposed to be roughly the size of the

1024
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:35,400
Speaker 1: continent of South America. But to mention specifics about ravens

1025
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:39,240
Speaker 1: traveling abilities, that that that research I just mentioned, Loretto

1026
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:43,360
Speaker 1: and a couple of other researchers published studying Current Zoology

1027
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:47,880
Speaker 1: in sixteen that GPS tagged ravens to track their natural

1028
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: movements out in the wild, and they found a maximum

1029
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,040
Speaker 1: movement range for one day of of about a hundred

1030
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:57,120
Speaker 1: and sixty kilometers. That was the maximum. But this was

1031
00:55:57,200 --> 00:55:59,839
Speaker 1: not common, and it's way less than the daily tra

1032
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: raveling distance of say a car, you know, and a

1033
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: lot of ravens. Mostly what they did, the researchers discovered

1034
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: was they hung around quote anthropogenic food sources. That's not surprising,

1035
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:13,440
Speaker 1: you know, like the bodies of of the dead that

1036
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:17,360
Speaker 1: have been put up on pikes by some victorious army.

1037
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: That absolutely would be an anthropogenic food source. I imagine

1038
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 1: this is more likely kind of a pizza rat scen area. Okay,

1039
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: But in terms of how fast they travel, they could

1040
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: be found traveling at speeds of up to forty per

1041
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: hour about twenty five miles per hour um. So let's

1042
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 1: see how this matches up against the Masta Raymond quote

1043
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: I read earlier about why ravens are better than pigeons

1044
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,840
Speaker 1: at at delivering messages. So compared to the pigeon, Mast

1045
00:56:42,960 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: Raymond says, a raven is a stronger flyer, larger, bolder,

1046
00:56:47,600 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 1: far more clever, and better better able to defend itself

1047
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 1: against hawks. So when he says that a raven is

1048
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 1: a stronger flyer than the pigeon, it's hard to know

1049
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 1: exactly what he means there would I know what stronger means,

1050
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: but in general I don't think that's true. If it

1051
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:06,560
Speaker 1: means faster, that seems to be a no. Because the

1052
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 1: ravens normal top range of traveling speed looks like it's

1053
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:13,240
Speaker 1: about forty kilometers an hour, and as we saw earlier,

1054
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: you mentioned the pigeon flies more than double that speed

1055
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: and generally flies a lot farther. Now, if he means

1056
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 1: by stronger, he means like more acrobatic. That could be true.

1057
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:25,640
Speaker 1: Ravens do have some kind of they got some good

1058
00:57:25,680 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 1: moves like and you can if you watch raven flight

1059
00:57:29,360 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: and slow motion, it can be very cool because they'll

1060
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:34,680
Speaker 1: do like flips and twists and flapside down and all

1061
00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 1: kind of strange stuff. Now, in addition to the speed

1062
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: and distance of travel, I haven't seen any indication that

1063
00:57:40,960 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: ravens have the same kind of long range navigational abilities

1064
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 1: that pigeons do. They obviously have some kind of navigational abilities,

1065
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 1: but I've not seen evidence that there's has been shown

1066
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 1: to be of the same power as that of the

1067
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: homing pigeon. So the whole ability to find their way

1068
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: back home from great distance, that that may be more

1069
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 1: uniqu to the pigeon. Now, the part where he says

1070
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: it's more clever, that's absolutely true. Undoubtedly more clever. But

1071
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 1: does that matter much in delivering messages? I don't know

1072
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: how clever does it have to be to just get

1073
00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: something from one place to another, right, I mean, if

1074
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: they're not actively engaging in spycraft, if they're just taking

1075
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: a message and delivering it without getting snatched up by

1076
00:58:22,520 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: a hawk from one fortress to another. Yeah, how what

1077
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:28,040
Speaker 1: do you need? I will come back to something you

1078
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 1: just mentioned there though another thing. The raven is generally larger,

1079
00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 1: that is what what mace to. Raymond says, that is

1080
00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 1: certainly true. But does this matter if it's just delivering

1081
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: a small message written on a piece of paper. I

1082
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 1: mean it might be able to carry a heavier load

1083
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:44,920
Speaker 1: if it needed to deliver something big. I mean, if

1084
00:58:44,920 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: you're smuggling milk of the poppy around, I guess come

1085
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: in handy. But yes, yeah, for just a message, what's

1086
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 1: that can matter? Yeah, he says, it's bolder. I don't

1087
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:56,560
Speaker 1: know exactly what that means, but I think that's probably

1088
00:58:56,600 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: true if it means like more aggressive, more likely to

1089
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 1: approach unfamili your objects, execute its training. You know, ravens

1090
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:06,440
Speaker 1: are I think it fits that they are smart and

1091
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: bold and they'll do what they need to do when

1092
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 1: it comes to being better at defending itself against hawks

1093
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,600
Speaker 1: and other predators. I assume ravens are large. They have

1094
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: very few natural predators, mainly just humans and some of

1095
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 1: the larger predatory birds, sometimes including hawks. Uh. So yeah,

1096
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:25,320
Speaker 1: I think that probably is right. They are better able

1097
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 1: to defend themselves. So I think, based on what I've read,

1098
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:31,640
Speaker 1: I want to say that while pigeons are generally preferred,

1099
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 1: and it seems like they naturally, especially when they've been

1100
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: bred this way, fly farther and faster with a message,

1101
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason why ravens couldn't in principle

1102
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,840
Speaker 1: be trained to become messenger birds, especially if they're bred

1103
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:47,680
Speaker 1: for that purpose over many years, like the pigeons have been.

1104
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: I mean, that's another thing to consider the domestication program here. Yeah,

1105
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 1: again we have to look at the the longstanding traditions

1106
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 1: that have enabled the carrier pigeon UH to to be

1107
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: the this E sees of choice for delivering small slopes

1108
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: of paper. Right. But then again, while it may be

1109
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: the case that pigeons are more suited for long range

1110
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: delivery for multiple reasons, ravens might be more useful on

1111
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: other kinds of long range jobs. I would say, for example,

1112
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 1: if you wanted to train an animal to actively do

1113
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 1: spying or reconnaissance of some kind, like, I could imagine

1114
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 1: that you might be able to train ravens to go

1115
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 1: into an enemy encampment and recover certain kinds of objects

1116
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: and bring them home to you. Uh, probably better than

1117
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:37,480
Speaker 1: you could train a pigeon to do something like that,

1118
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 1: like if you were to train or raven. Like basically,

1119
01:00:41,320 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 1: the raven new that if it found a flash drive, yes,

1120
01:00:45,280 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: it could return that and get a special treat yes,

1121
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: and then you would just you know, receive flash drives

1122
01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:53,240
Speaker 1: and hopefully they would have something of of of interest

1123
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 1: on them. Yeah. And I think there are some reports

1124
01:00:55,600 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: that throughout history ravens have been rumored to have been

1125
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: considered for for like war surveillance and and espionage purposes.

1126
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: I don't know to what extent they've ever been fully used,

1127
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:09,440
Speaker 1: especially not to the extent that pigeons have been. But

1128
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 1: there's your movie set up, Raven, James Bond. You know,

1129
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of examples of other messenger

1130
01:01:17,120 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: animals and fiction, and nothing was really coming to mind

1131
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 1: except for the I did, And I didn't read the

1132
01:01:24,240 --> 01:01:26,760
Speaker 1: book series. My wife had the books, but at least

1133
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:31,280
Speaker 1: the television series The Magicians that Arizon Sci Fi. They

1134
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:34,480
Speaker 1: have these talking rabbits that they'll share, these Messenger rabbits,

1135
01:01:34,800 --> 01:01:37,800
Speaker 1: and they'll just sort of pop into existence on say

1136
01:01:37,880 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 1: your table, and then they'll speak in this um this

1137
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: kind of like weird. Uh uh I almost Gilbert Godfrey

1138
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: ish voice to deliver the message. Wow, yeah, but nobody,

1139
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 1: that's not We're not even gonna consider the possibility of

1140
01:01:54,520 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 1: messenger rabbits here on this podcast. I think we should

1141
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:03,480
Speaker 1: consider messengers to say millions like underground amphibians that burrow

1142
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:05,480
Speaker 1: through the earth until they get to their target and

1143
01:02:05,760 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 1: give you the message. And messengers it's dirty. It's dirty

1144
01:02:09,160 --> 01:02:12,920
Speaker 1: by the time it arrives. There's some significant slime. Yeah. Well,

1145
01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: I wonder if there are any other really fascinating treatments

1146
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 1: out there. I mean, ultimately, the bird, a bird is

1147
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:20,920
Speaker 1: going to give you the best bang for your buck. Right,

1148
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: It's gonna be able to to fly, it's gonna be

1149
01:02:23,840 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 1: able to travel in a straight line. Uh, it's gonna

1150
01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: be able to execute a fair amount of you know,

1151
01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 1: reasonable like stealth and avoidance of threats. And they're smarter

1152
01:02:34,200 --> 01:02:36,920
Speaker 1: than we thought. Yeah, unless I don't know in West

1153
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:39,920
Speaker 1: in water World, did they have like messenger fish that

1154
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: they used, even that wouldn't be as good as a

1155
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:48,280
Speaker 1: messenger bird though, Yeah, messenger rats, I don't know well

1156
01:02:48,360 --> 01:02:50,760
Speaker 1: at any rate, if you're out here out there listening

1157
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:54,320
Speaker 1: to this episode, perhaps you have encountered another messenger animal

1158
01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:57,960
Speaker 1: or another variety of messenger bird uh in fiction, and

1159
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:01,120
Speaker 1: you'd like to share that with us. All. Likewise, a

1160
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: lot of people still raise I have a friend who

1161
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: who just picked up raising carrier pigeons. So perhaps some

1162
01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 1: of you out there have some expertise with pigeons that

1163
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:13,160
Speaker 1: you would like to share. Perhaps you have some expertise

1164
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 1: with with owls or ravens you would like to share

1165
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:19,480
Speaker 1: you have some insight on uh the intellect of of

1166
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:22,760
Speaker 1: the raven or the owl or the pigeon. Obviously we

1167
01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:24,960
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. In the meantime, if

1168
01:03:24,960 --> 01:03:26,440
Speaker 1: you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to

1169
01:03:26,440 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, head on over to stuff to Blow

1170
01:03:27,800 --> 01:03:29,680
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the episodes.

1171
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:32,080
Speaker 1: You'll find links out to social media accounts, you'll find

1172
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 1: a link to our store. That's a cool way to

1173
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 1: support the show. But the best way to support the

1174
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:37,960
Speaker 1: show is to rate and review us wherever you have

1175
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,600
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1176
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:43,440
Speaker 1: and hey, make sure you've subscribed to invention as well.

1177
01:03:43,480 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 1: We already talked about it once in the show, but

1178
01:03:46,200 --> 01:03:48,240
Speaker 1: invention pot dot com that's where you'll find it. But

1179
01:03:48,240 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: you can also find that podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

1180
01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex

1181
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you would like to get

1182
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:00,400
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this, soda or

1183
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 1: any other to suggest topic for the future, just to

1184
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

1185
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:18,040
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

1186
01:04:18,040 --> 01:04:20,280
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1187
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:22,560
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1188
01:04:22,640 --> 01:04:25,240
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1189
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