WEBVTT - Send an Owl/Raven/Pigeon! 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.840 Mygggg. Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:13.640 I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.720 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.599 and I'm Joe McCormick. You know, Joe and my household. 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.639 We're slap dab in the middle of Harry Potter Maniah. Yeah, 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:24.880 you've been telling me all about it, dude. Yeah. Yeah. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.440 We're reading our seven year old the books, we're making 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.920 our way through the movies, and my son applies just 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:32.760 an amazing level of focus and determination to all these 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.120 Harry Potter Lego kits. Oh, now, you gotta tell me 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.120 about those, because I love Legos and I am hoping 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.400 someday in my life to be able to play with 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.600 legos again. Oh well, yeah, though the Lego kits are 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.360 pretty great, They're not a sponsor, but I'm just saying 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:52.040 there there are a lot of fun The Hogwarts especially 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.280 is quite quite a kit. Uh. But you know, he 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.040 also has a stuffed owl, which he has of course 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:02.160 named Hedwig after Harry Potters. And at the same time 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:04.880 when he goes to bed, My wife and I are 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.880 currently enjoying the final season of Game of Thrones as 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.200 am I and my wife. Yeah, I was so your current. 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.400 Oh yeah, we're cooked. Yeah, there won't be any spoilers 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.240 in this episode, but but I'm glad that we're on 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.160 the same wavelength. And uh, you know, and one day 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.560 I think I'm I'm looking forward to actually finishing reading 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.080 the books as well, once they are all written. Oh yeah, 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.039 so are you actually caught up to where the books 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:27.880 are in the Song of Ice and Fire series? Am? 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.360 I'm caught up and eagerly awaiting the subsequent volume. Me too, 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.280 I've read them all and now it's been so long 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:35.920 I'm gonna have to go back and read them again 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:37.560 before the next one. Kind of I'm gonna have to 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:42.959 hit the Wikipedia entries. So in the Wizarding World of 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.680 the J. K. Rowland created the Magical Community, they use 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.040 owls to send messages back and forth, and it's sides 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.120 beautiful and it's a subtly magical part of the book, right, 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.120 playing on their traditional ideas of witches and wizards having familiars, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:01:59.720 as well as the very properties of owls that make 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:04.080 them seem mystical right, their silence, they're nocturnal habits, their 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:09.560 wise appearance. Uh, but in reality, as we'll discuss No 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.880 one actually uses an owl to send messages in the 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.720 real world, but the more general idea of using birds 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.320 to send messages is not so magical and not so 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.440 far fetched. I guess that's what we're gonna be talking 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.960 about today. Yeah, and likewise George R. Martin's Song of 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.400 Ice and Fire books, uh, and the HBO of tdv 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:30.639 TV adaptation Game of Thrones. Now, folks, if we call 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.040 the books Game of Thrones today, don't get on our case. Right, 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:35.880 It's just it's the same thing. It's just what we've 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.760 been programmed to do at this point. But in both properties, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.120 ravens are the bird of choice for members of the 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:46.440 Citadel to relay messages to and from various castles, cities, 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.480 and important locations. Yeah, they're the email of wester Ros. Yeah, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.720 and uh, you know it's it's described in the books 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:57.120 that these clever messengers usually only function like real world 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.280 messenger pigeons. Right. They that that the summer smart and 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.800 capable of traveling to multiple locations, but for the most part, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:05.320 you're sending a message from one place to another, right, Yeah, 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.639 that's right. Actually to without any spoilers to extremely comic effects, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.720 sometimes in the TV show, especially where like it seems 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.160 like somebody will write a message, put it on a raven, 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:17.800 send it off and they get results within like a 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.200 day when it was supposed to travel a thousand miles. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.880 I'm not quite sure exactly how that happens. Yeah, things 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:24.600 have to move a lot a lot faster in the 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:26.600 TV series, right. I think this has led to a 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:29.520 lot of memes where like ravens have jet packs on 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.639 this well, and then they also have I believe there's 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.680 an additional separate species, a white raven, that that used 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.920 by the Citadel for particularly important messages. I don't recall that, 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:42.520 but there's a lot of detail in the books that 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.280 didn't even stick. I think I've had a lot of 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.400 a lot of time with Game of Thrones to to 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:51.000 forget many different details myself. But you know, I think 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:52.840 all this works nicely in the books in the TV 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.960 series because it puts an alternative of universe kind of 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.240 spin on everything, right, Like in your world it's a agent, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.280 but in in uh, in wester Roast it is it 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.480 is a raven. And then uh, you know, it's kind 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.400 of like some of the other spins that they do, 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:14.680 like like having this predominantly polytheistic version of medieval Western culture. 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.600 Uh so this alternate of you know, vision of how 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.799 bloodlines and genetics work. Though I do think they're interesting, 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:23.560 not to turn this into it just a Game of 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.720 Thrones episode. There's some interesting parallels between the religions in 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.000 the Game of Thrones world and uh and the religions 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.080 of Western Europe, Like so you originally have these pagan, 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:36.920 polytheistic religions. But I know George R. Martin has commented 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:38.919 that the Faith of the Seven in the books and 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.920 the TV show is really an analogy for the Catholic Church, 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.720 even because it has you know, even it is considers 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.880 itself a monotheistic religion. It has a trinity, it has 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.120 many saints and other figures, and and he just said, well, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:54.640 I just went ahead and made them all gods. Yeah, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.000 he he had. He did a great job of taking 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.240 things that were familiar, tweaking them just a little bit 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:03.479 to where they still felt familiar. Like you didn't have to, 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.880 you know, take a running start at understanding the religious 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:09.440 world of Game of Thrones, but it was a little 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.320 bit different, just just just a little bit skewed in 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.120 a way that made it to uh, you know, resonate 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.240 a little more. Yeah and uh. And likewise, the ravens 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:21.239 fit perfectly in this you know, this grim dark setting 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:24.240 because the raven, of course, is a bird that's associated 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.159 with with darkness and carnage, and so it makes sense 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.000 that the characters would be using this bird to send 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.880 their messages, as opposed to the peaceful dove or pigeons 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.400 pecking bits of flesh from dead bodies on the battlefield. 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.760 That's how the raven is often imagined. But the way 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.760 the ravens are used in the book, as we've already 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.200 alluded to, is actually very analogous to real life uses 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:53.479 of messenger pigeons. That's right, messenger pigeons, carrier pigeons. Uh. 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.440 This is an actual method that that we use and 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.960 have used for thousands of years to deliver messages as 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.640 us long distances. Um. And and it's it's not it's 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.200 not really, It's not like a magically trained pet. It's 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.599 more of an animal that will dependently, dependently return home 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.360 after you transport it somewhere else and then let it free, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.520 which is a much less impressive trick, though still impressive. Yes, 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:19.160 I mean it would be pretty amazing if you could 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.640 just like send one to another city on command and 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.040 then it would come back. Right, It's like imagine doing 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.719 it with say a guerrilla from the local Zooh. You're like, 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.120 I want to send a message to the zoo where 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.680 this guerrilla lives. Okay, well I'm gonna take one of 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.400 its guerrillas with me when I visit another city. You know, 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.239 that will give the guerrilla the message, Let the guerrilla loose, 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.280 and the guerrilla will of course return home, thus delivering 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.440 the message. So I guess that's where you get the idea. 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.479 You may have heard the phrase a homing pigeon. Yes, 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:50.080 it is returning home. So here we are. We're talking 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:53.320 about pigeons, we're talking about owls, and we're talking about ravens. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.280 We figured, we we know that homing pigeons. This has 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.520 been a subject that that numerous podcast have covered. I 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.719 know Josh and Chuck covered homing pigeons a while back 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.240 on their show. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, and uh, 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.000 and so we we wanted to to to discuss them, 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:10.800 but we figured this might spice it up a bit 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.480 to also discuss them in relation to the owls and 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.400 the ravens. Of the world of Harry Potter and the 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:20.520 world of wester Ros. And in doing so, we'll be 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:24.600 able to highlight why the pigeon has worked so well 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.680 for these purposes, and why we use the pigeon, and likewise, 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.200 why we don't actually use ravens and owls. What is 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.160 it about ravens and owls that that would make them 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.680 ideal for this sort of work? And then also what 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.480 you know prevents us from using them for this sort 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.920 of work to begin with? Well, I say, let's go 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.600 pigeon first. Yeah, let's go. It's so, let's hit reality 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.200 and then we'll dip our toes into the fantasy a bit. 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.720 So first of all, let's let's consider some of the 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.640 you know, the the epic facts UH from the history 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:56.520 of homing pigeons that I think UH should ground their 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.200 use in a real world that feels as epic as 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.440 anything from West Roash. So, so, first of all, it 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:06.920 seems that pigeons were originally domesticated for food UH in 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:08.800 the Middle East and in Europe, much in the same 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.480 way that the jungle foul that we now call it 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.880 chicken was originally domesticated in India and East Asia. So 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.360 they were domesticated for their meat, for their eggs, which 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:22.720 a pigeon has tiny eggs, but you can't eat them. 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.240 The pigeon, uh is maybe not as robust as a 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:31.080 modern uh, you know, hormonally enhanced chicken, but it's still 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.560 is edible. I mean again, if you've read the Song 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.120 of Ice and firebooks, one of the common menu items 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.280 at feasts and stuff is roast squab or stuffed squab. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.480 Of course squab would be like a young pigeon. Yeah, 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.400 and you can still find squab on on menus in 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.240 various places. Now, when we're talking about homing pigeons, the 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:54.479 homing pigeon is technically Columba Olivia domestica. That's the domestic 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.840 version of the rock pigeon, which is just Columbo Olivia. Now, 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.400 one interesting fact about the common pigeon, the rock pigeon, 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.120 also known as the rock dove. In their natural habitats 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.880 their cliff dwellers, they tend to live and nest on 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.720 cliff faces and rock ledges, which probably at least partially 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.560 explains why they thrive so well in modern urban landscapes 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.080 full of buildings that function as artificial cliff faces. And 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.920 I think we talked about this some with with our 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:25.959 guest Jason Mooard, who came on the show. Wants to 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:29.600 talk about urban evolution, especially of birds. Absolutely a highly 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:34.400 successful species, but back before their success was so guaranteed. Yeah, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.120 they were this this wonderful edible bird that you good 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.360 stuff in cages pretty easily. And as you might imagine, 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.520 people were you know, kept their birds, and they doing 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.760 so prohibited from flying away. And as they traveled around 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.600 with these birds, and then I'm assuming they probably discovered 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.600 the curious, independable way that these birds could then return 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:59.320 to their home nest across increasingly long distances. And as such, 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.280 we have been using bird, these pigeons for thousands of 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:07.600 years to deliver messages. Uh, it is you know, it 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.440 is a is a pretty ancient practice, but it appears 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.320 to emerge out of this original domestication for food. First 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.440 to eat them and then you put them to work, right, 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.120 which which you know it sounds rather this is Ultimately 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.400 we're talking about very mundane use of the bird. Right, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.200 we're going to ease it for eating and we're gonna 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.360 use it for delivering messages. But it's also worth noting 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.640 that pigeons have sacred significance in many cultures, though we 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.840 often refer to them in doves in that in these instances, 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.640 at least in the English language, right, the pigeon and dove, 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:40.320 this is the same thing. Yeah, I mean, we're talking 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.640 about about birds from the family Columbidae, which is doves 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.520 and pigeons. Um. But you know, we can think to 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.880 the roles of say, doves and Christian symbolism. Uh. And 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.600 even as it's kind of a secular symbol of peace, right, 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:57.440 releasing doves um. Uh, you know too, is you know, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.199 a symbolic act. Right. Likewise, we can go all the 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.720 way back to ancient Sumerian Mesopotamia where we see the 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:09.160 use of the dove as an associated animal of the 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.679 goddess in Anna. Ah, we love Ananna on this show. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.760 But that's interesting because Anana has multiple valences. Anana can be, 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.320 of course, like a fierce goddess of war who screams 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:22.480 death through the rebel lands. Or she can be, you know, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.560 like a peaceful goddess of fertility. She has kind of 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.040 both meanings in different contexts. And I wonder which which 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.319 way the dove comes in there? Is it like the 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.520 way we associate doves with peace or is it the 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.240 way that doves can be used to send messages and 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.280 gather intelligence during war? Yeah, I mean as just as 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.319 a means of conveying information. It can serve both ends, right, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:45.920 But it doesn't really seem like this. You know, this 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.080 prior relationship of domestication with the pigeon is ultimately what 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.760 sets it up for use. Is the carrier bird um 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.880 or earlier people domesticated them, live with them and picked 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.679 up on their abilities, and really the only other bird 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.360 they think. Think to the other words that have a 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.760 legacy of domestication, and uh and and in each one 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.280 we can try to imagine to what extent they could 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.400 have actually been used to carry messages. I mean, you 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.959 have the chicken. It's not gonna work. The duck, the 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:20.000 goose though, that's the Yeah, the messenger chicken. That would 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.320 be like a good cartoon. Well, okay, so the chickens 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.280 out the duck and the goose. I couldn't find any 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:31.000 real discussions of this, but I mean, they are migratory birds, 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:35.400 so it's it's it sounds possible. But are they are 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.839 they ever domesticated? I don't know. I guess they are 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.839 sometimes well, yeah, I've seen them, you know, listed as 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:45.400 as birds that we have domesticated in some cases likewise 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.440 the goose, the guinea fowl, the turkey, canaries and finches. 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:52.560 But but of these, the domestication of the chicken, the duck, 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.640 the goose, and the turkey those go back thousands of years, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.640 but canaries only go back to the fifteenth century, and 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:01.440 the finch to the eighteenth century. But you know, to 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.240 put ourselves back in in ancient shoes on this right 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.000 as as one presumably you know, picks up on the 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:13.040 ability of the of the pigeon to carry messages. Just 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.400 think of the advantage, uh, in a world where message 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:20.160 delivery is only as fast as a human or a 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:25.200 horse and rider can can travel across either open terrain 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.600 or more likely a series of winding paths or roads. Yeah, 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.600 I mean, we take for granted now that we have 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:35.440 wired or wireless communication that can send information electronically or whatever. 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.760 I mean. Back then, of message had to be physically 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:40.800 taken one way or another. Either you tell it to 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.360 a person and they go deliver it in person, or 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.560 it had to be carried by hand. Yeah, you had 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.560 to have a runner carrying it or carrying it to 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.720 the next runner. Um. Oh and then yeah, yeah, if 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.280 you're going from point A to point B, you're probably 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.800 not able to go in a straight line. But the 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.320 bird can. The bird can fly, you know, literally as 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:00.959 the as the crow flies. Yeah. The bird also has 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.439 the advantage that This is seen sometimes in the Song 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:07.120 Advice and Fire series, where say, if your castle is 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.760 under siege and no person, no human messenger would likely 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.520 get by without being captured, a bird probably could get by. Yeah. 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.240 The bird can leave a besieged city and go relay 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.960 a message. Um, you know, they might try and and 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.280 shoot it out of the sky with a with an arrow, 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.240 But that's why you have multiple pigeons, I imagine, or 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.400 multiple owls or ravens in your fantasy set of treatments. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:34.040 Birds can also carry messages quickly over water, that's right. 0:14:34.160 --> 0:14:37.920 Humans can't or I guess maybe could by boat. But yeah, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:39.960 it's it's easy to just to sort of focus on 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:42.200 the sort of the primitive nature of tying a message 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.520 to an animal with and and and just forget the 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:50.480 tremendous freedom of movement that a bird like a pigeon has, uh. 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.520 And then in terms of speed with a pigeon. We're 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.120 talking speeds of of like fifty to sixty miles per 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.280 hour and up to record speeds. And I think this 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.760 is you know, when you're really pushing, when you're racing them, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.080 you can get into the low nineties. Horses on the 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.160 other hand, Uh, you're only going to reach the mid fifties. 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:11.920 And that's going at full gallup. And that's like a 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.680 world record for horse. Yeah, that's like a common that's 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.960 like really going and uh and again, the chances of 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.560 you being able to send a message by horse at 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.560 top speed, at record speed in a straight line, like 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.200 on this magical highway that you've built between Fortress A 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.080 and Fortress B, it's just not It doesn't stack up 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.320 against the power, the the the message delivering power of 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.400 the pigeon. So to give everybody, you know, some more 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.520 ideas about just the history the legacy of of carrier 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.120 pigeon use I was looking at the Hallowed History of 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.240 the Carrier Pigeon by Mary Bloom from the New York 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:51.160 Times two thousand four, and so some of the high 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.200 points of the author mentioned here, and I believe this 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.800 is uncovering a museum exhibit about the carrier pigeon. But 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.280 we have, like an addition to mythical uh stories of 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.080 in Anna in her association with the with the pigeon 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.200 or dove, you also have biblical accounts such as uh 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.720 Noah releasing doves or pigeons. Yeah, it was to test 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.720 whether the floodwaters of the Great Flood had abated. I 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.400 think it's in Genesis chapter eight where uh Noah releases 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.400 multiple doves or either the same dub multiple times or 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:24.760 multiple doves to go out and see if it can 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.600 land somewhere. At first, it goes out and it can't 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:29.600 find anywhere to land, and it comes back to him. 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:31.320 The second time it goes out and it brings back 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:34.240 a branch, and that means the waters must have receded 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.000 from somewhere. In the third time it goes out, it 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.080 just stays gone and never returns. So if you love 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.640 a dove, set it free. So the ancient Romans used 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.040 pigeons for chariot races to tell owners how their entries 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:52.520 had placed. Genghas Khan established pigeon relay points across Asia 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.320 and much of eastern Europe. Charlemagne made pigeon raising the 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.240 exclusive privilege of nobility Pigeons were used for mill terry 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.840 communication well into World War One, when the Germans rolled 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:07.680 out carrier carrier pigeons with cameras that were soon replaced 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.280 by reconnaissance planes. By the end of the Under the war, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.639 France had mobilized thirty thousand pigeons and they they had 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.639 declared that anyone impeding their flight could be sentenced to death. 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.399 There's actually a famous story from World War One, I believe, 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.440 about a group of Allied soldiers who had come under 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:27.280 friendly fire from artillery and only managed to communicate to 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.080 their allies that you know, like stopped shelling us by 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.919 accident by the use of a carrier pigeons that saved 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.280 many lives. Pigeons have been used to transport blood samples 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.880 from remote regions regions of Britain and France. In eastern India, 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.800 they were used for communication between remote police out outposts, 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.720 and as of at least last year, at least one 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.800 of these uh lines was still in use. The US 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:56.240 has used pigeons to spot shipwrecks. Drug drug traffickers have 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:00.560 used pigeons seemingly around the world. I was looking various 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.000 stories about this, and you know, I was finding hits 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.200 from North, South, and Central America as well as in 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.159 the Middle East. You know, obviously you're not going to 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.879 send like an entire brick of hashish up into the 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.000 at a pigeon, But if you want to send a 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.680 small amount of something like across the border or police area, yeah, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.800 I think you take a pigeon from its home, attached 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.160 the drugs to it, and then let it fly home. Yeah, 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.320 and that's exactly what some people have done. Uh. This 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.879 is a fun account that my wife shared with me. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:34.040 She was remembering a West Virginia whitewater rafting place from 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.840 sort of like the predigital photo age, and they used pigeons. 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:41.040 So what they did is, um, you know, you're going 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:45.520 on this whitewater rafting ride, right, and uh uh, nowadays 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.320 we just take this for granted, right. You ride some 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.239 sort of a ride like a roller coaster, and at 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.440 the end they sell you a picture of yourself enjoying 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.199 the ride, and of course now we do. It was 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.640 just digital photography, but this particular white Water rapid place, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.640 the way they did it is they had a photographer 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.639 with a long lens up on a hillside where they 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.159 could get a good shot of the river. Uh, they 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.800 would snap your picture as you were going down the river, 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:09.960 and then they would take the film. They would attach 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.480 you to the homing pigeon, send the pigeon like to 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.159 the end of the river where the pickup is. They 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.159 would develop the film, and then they would sell you 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.280 the picture. Because you know this is a course of 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.680 that's when you want to sell the picture. Right, you're 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.639 just getting off the rafting rides. You're excited like, oh, 0:19:25.680 --> 0:19:28.040 that was awesome, I didn't die, it was great, and 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.280 then there's the picture ready to go like magic, and 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:32.960 you pay for it. Now, that probably wasn't even possible 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:36.240 until like SELLULARI to acetate film. Right, try to attach 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:39.280 it to Garat type plate to your pigeons. Work to 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:42.960 understand that joke. Make sure you listen to our series 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.840 of episodes on our other podcast, Invention, about the invention 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:49.080 of photography. Those have been a lot of fun. If 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:51.399 you're not listening to Invention yet, what are you doing? 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.080 Go listen? Yeah, and you can check out the website 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.360 at Invention pod dot com. Okay, I got one for you. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:02.040 You ever wonder about the origin of the term pigeonhole? Oh, 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:03.960 I'd never thought about it. But now I am, yeah, 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.280 pigeonhole as a verb, right, Like, I don't want to 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.560 be pigeonholed as just another whatever. I don't know exactly 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:12.159 how I guess it means, like, Uh, it's sort of 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.240 like the the idea of being type cast, right, I 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:17.040 don't want to be pinned down in this kind of 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:20.720 narrowly defined space. Well, apparently this expression has a very 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.440 literal origin in the domestic pigeon raising trade. It comes 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.479 from when pigeons used to be given like individual holes 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:32.199 or recesses to nest in. And then after that it 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.840 later came to have another definition of quote one of 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.960 a series of small open compartments, as in a desk, 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:42.000 cabinet or the like, used for filing or sorting papers. Uh. 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:45.120 And so that's like a standard definition which I think 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.240 morphed further into the more abstract metaphor of having your 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.800 person pigeonholed into a narrow slot. Interesting. Yeah, I'd I'd 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.320 never thought about it before, but that makes perfect sense. 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:58.840 And that metaphorical definition came about, I think in the 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.159 eighteen sixties and the mid late nineteenth century. All right, 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:05.240 so why and how do pigeons carry out these impressive 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:07.919 feats of speedy delivery. Yeah, why them? Why not some 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.040 other bird? Why not ol? Why not owls? Why not ravens? 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.040 Why not rats? Why not the you know, than the 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:16.280 neighborhood house cat? And I think you might be able 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.760