January 11, 2022 • 50 mins
Most people haven't met an ostrich in person, but everyone knows what they are: the large, flightless birds have been around since before the rise of humanity, and throughout history people have admired their long, luxurious feathers. Back in the day, any self-respecting socialite absolutely had to have ostrich feathers festooning their hats, creating an international trade market that led a small army of South Africans to launch a harrowing, dangerous heist to steal the legendary Barbary ostrich. Tune in to learn more about one of the strangest heists in history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. That's the one and only
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Give it up for My
name is Ben uh No. I want to thank you
in advance for uh for tuning this episode because uh, birds,
well not only birds been the most terrifying of of
(00:50):
all of God's hideously deformed winged creatures. The one what
walks on the land and comes at you with its
long snake like angly neck and beady little eyes. You know,
it's got the strength to like smash a car window
with its face. I mean, whether these are the most
terrifying creatures on Earth? These and the emuseum, but yeah,
(01:13):
well that's fair. There's also that one what is the castuary.
It's basically like the velociraptor of the bird family. They can, like,
what is it like, disembowel a man with its one
razor sharp claw. Yeah, I I would. I actually have
a soft spot for ostriches and EMUs as well, but
(01:33):
shoe bills, casswary. Uh, those things freak me out. I'm
glad that as a lover of all animals. I don't
I don't mess with them. Just shoe bills always look
like they're up to something. Shoot a shoe bill. Is
that's one with the really big, flat, freaky beak, right? Yeah? Yeah,
they always they always look like they're going, oh God,
(01:54):
you're ben At the moment he said that, I googled
the picture, and the very first image it looks like
he's going, I this shoe bear come to wreck your day.
It's like they're always saying, are you sure about that?
He looks like he'd be friends with the crynch. Dude,
there's what I'm looking at right now. He looks downright
(02:16):
sinister like he is. You know, he's got those kind
of Ninja turtle creases between his eyes, you know, like
the with like the the kind of like the you know,
the furrowed brow. And I'm not talking about the you know,
Saturday Morning cartoon ninja turtles. I'm talking about like the darker, creepier,
early comic version. Um. And it's just a staring daggers
right into my soul. Uh So, okay, I think I'm
(02:37):
I fear the shoebill stork more so than the ostrich
but the ostrich is damned terrifying, but also turns out
it produces some pretty fluffy, delightful and dare I say
precious to uh certain types plumes. That's right. Uh. Today's
episode is about one of the largest and most profit
(03:00):
noble industries in the world in the twentie century, around
the turn of the twentieth century. Really it was something
called millinery, uh, the art specifically of decorating women's hats
with bird feathers. And you're talking about like all the
high rollers in Europe, in the US and everywhere in between.
(03:21):
If you were a fashionable lady, you had to have
not one, but ideally a collection of hats that were
just a wash festooned with bird plumage, sometimes with like
whole stuffed birds, right like literally wearing like a tiny
taxidermy chickadee on your head to let people know that
(03:43):
you had it made. Ah, you say lavic. I think
the word I would choose to use would be garish,
but whatever, at different times, different strokes and all that,
It's true. I mean, we we we think of the
cliche ladies hats, you know, of bygone eras, and we
do think very ostentatious, very large and in charge and
covered in these kind of plumes, very very ordinate. We
(04:06):
also know, of course, the era of the hat pin
and the ladies that armed themselves with these very long,
scary hatpins to fend off the notorious masher. I believe
that was around what the nineteen twenties, yeah, early nineteen hundreds,
which is interesting because this would have been happening around
the same time. So do check out our hatpins story
(04:30):
if you if you haven't heard that episode before. Big question,
Just like people are concerned with supply chains nowadays, the
big question was this, where do we get these fancy feathers.
Some of the most popular ones came from Heron's and
egrets that live in the southeastern United States. But these
(04:52):
had limited availability. You couldn't get them year round, uh.
You could only get them during the breeding season and
for the rest of the year. When you couldn't get
your hair and feathers, you had another option, the ostrich.
But eventually it became more than an option. It became
literally the most sought after of all the bird plumes
(05:14):
uh in question here. By around nineteen ten, the ostrich
trade was the most lucrative industry um in the country
of South Africa where they were farm raising these birds
specifically for their their feathers, and obviously we know that
they would also be surely used for their meat. I mean,
(05:34):
Ostrich jerky is a thing. I think there are some
restaurants where you can get like ostrich steak. It's apparently
a little bit like a dark meat that almost like
sort of splits the difference between like a steak vibe
and like, you know, dark meat chicken vibe. Yeah, yeah,
I've actually I've had ostrich meat before jerky, as you mentioned.
And then I want to say, there was a place
(05:54):
I went to you called Fossil Farms. They sell Ostrich steaks.
Now be warned there a little bit pricey. We're talking
about sixteen dollars or so for an eight ounce steak,
but I don't regret it. I don't know if it
would be an everyday thing for me though. You know,
it's kind of like kangaroo I guess. But aside from
(06:14):
our carnivorous tendencies, maybe we should learn a little bit
more about the ostrich because I'll be honest, I was
watching a lot of videos before I even knew we
were going to do this episode. I was watching a
lot of videos of this lady who like rescues ostriches,
and she has this farm with these different ostriches, and
(06:37):
there temperamental creatures. Yeah, yeah, you could. You could. You
can also sub end the word terrifying creatures. But let's
let's dive in ever so slightly, if we must do
the history of ostriches and the role that they ultimately
came to play in the fashion industry. Atlas Obscura, as always,
(07:00):
has a fantastic article on today's topic, the Strange Tale
of the Great nineteen eleven trans Saharent ostrich Heists. Is
that the name of a prog rock band, you might ask, No,
it's not. It's the topic of today's episode, But we're
getting there. Uh. And this one is by Vincent Gabrielle,
And in this article Vincent goes through some of the
history that we're about to talk about. Arnie Moore's who
(07:21):
is a professor of biodiversity at Simon Fraser University, who
was quoted in this piece, has this to say, Uh,
the ostrich maybe the most evolutionarily isolated species in the world.
What do we mean by that? Ben evolutionarily isolated. They've
got some things that one would think would cause them
to not thrive, but yet here they are. Yeah, yeah,
(07:43):
it's it's. The ostrich is one of those animals that
when you see it for the first time, especially in
real life, your first thought is really really though, like
how how and why? God why. The spooky thing about these, uh,
these farm videos is that when the ostriches are in
a good mood and they're affectionate with their trainer and
(08:05):
their handler or whatever, they kind of like loop their
neck around your shoulder, or they like they put their
head and their neck into the collar of your shirt
kind of snuggle up. I know, I'm getting a comfortable
t stay away, but they're so You're right they are.
(08:28):
When we say evolutionarily isolated, what we mean is that
ostriches and their closest relatives cassawaries, kiwi's imus stuff like that,
they actually diverged when dino stores were still walking the earth.
And according to Moors, they're different because they have a
long evolutionary branch with a flowering at the very end,
(08:53):
just two species a couple of subspecies Central and Southern Africa,
and since they were around when humans got on the scene.
Human beings have had a lot of time with these massive,
weird looking but beautiful birds and it. They've been traditionally
hunted for meat. You can make leather with their skin. Uh.
(09:15):
They even feature in like Egyptian iconography, not to mention
that they sport. Maybe that's not quite the best choice
of words, but I'll go with it. They sport the
largest eggs of any living um member of the Avian
family um, which is kind of interesting. And so therefore
they are also hunted for their eggs because uh yeah,
(09:37):
you know, like one ostrojagg is like the equivalent of
like a dozen chicken eggs, you know, in terms of
the amount of juice that it produces. I think one
ostrijag alone has like two thousand calories. So it's a
it's a family meal, I think. But if you have
eaten an ostrojag by yourself, I don't want to hear
the story. Well, your picture goes on the wall, my friend,
(09:58):
you get a T shirt, you get a hat with
plumes on it. Uh, there we go, So we know
these eggs. I'm glad you brought this up because these
eggs have been used for many purposes, many flexes throughout
various civilizations. They were given, they were carved up and
like given as offerings in ancient Grecian times, and I
(10:21):
believe later they were used to decorate minarets, as is
mentioned in that Atlas Obscura article. So how did we
get from there? Two this hat craze, Like we said,
there was sort of an arms race for elaborate hats
in the world of fashion and like the late nineteen
(10:41):
in nearly twentieth century or so, and these hats got
bigger and bigger and bigger, and ostrich feathers became a
natural fit because ostrich feathers are also really big, right,
So you don't want to have a ginormous hat and
then have some dinky like little sparrow feather corsage on
(11:03):
their People are going to tell you that you have
a plain hat, which is a big insult. Back then, God,
plain hat. You are not a member of this country club,
my friend, absolutely not. So here's another thing evolutionarily that
is very interesting because these massive birds, you know, take
(11:24):
up a lot of space on the Earth that would
normally be freed up if they were like you know,
flighted birds. Uh, these feathers that normally are adapted to
um creating. The means for flying now have become more
of a tool for elaborate mating ritual displays, you know,
(11:45):
similar to the peacock. People talk about peacocking around. No
one really says ostriching around, but it's a similar deal.
They display these feathers, you know, and flight flighted birds
do as well, if I'm not mistaken. But this it
becomes much more important, uh, because they're you know, approaching
potential mates and they have to kind of do this
(12:05):
little dance or whatever. So the feathers that would typically
be used for flight are much more tightly constructive. They're
kind of knitted, knitted together in this asymmetrical kind of pattern.
Ostrich feathers, on the other hand, are very long, and
they're loose and light, and they have these fluffy little plumes.
(12:25):
You know. When you think of the word plume, I
think a lot of us think of like a writing quill,
you know, or like one of those cute pens that
like teenage girls like with the fuzzy ends on them
or whatever. You know, two very different sides of writing
tools from history, but both equally plumy. Also, the word
plume refers to like a puff of smoke, something very
(12:47):
wispy and like you know, stretched out that kind of
has this sort of like ethereal quality to it, right, Yeah, yeah,
well that's a great description. Also, these feathers don't have
the tiny hooked barbs that are on other other feathers
from other animals. So it's the perfect fit for decorating
(13:08):
the hats of these wealthy members of society. And these
hats were a huge, huge deal from like the eighteen
hundreds all the way to the advent of World War one,
or should I should say the outbreak of World War
one and nineteen fourteen uh one. One person is quoted
in a Great Daily Cost article by Lenny Flank just
(13:31):
says the following. It says, a well dressed woman nowadays
is as fluffy as a downy bird fish from the nest.
If you would be fashionable, you would be beplumed. Now
I want to say be plumed more often, beplumed. I
like that man that suits you. Try that one on,
see how I see how it goes. So this was
(13:52):
the height of fashion, and the beauty of it was,
you know how like most fashioned trends or cyclical or
season all the very least, right, Not so with the
Ostrich feathers, or they were absolutely at the height of
popularity and fashion all year round. Yeah, exactly, And just
as fashion also kind of trickles down over time and
(14:16):
becomes less exclusive, the same thing happened with ostrich feathers.
Eventually there were at least fourteen different varieties numerous kind
of grades of feather, which meant that you didn't have
to be a one per center to get these, and
the transatlantic ostrich feather according to c J news dot Com,
(14:40):
was mainly in the hands of a lot of Yiddish
speaking immigrants from the Russian Empire. This was an international thing.
This was an international trade. People were working in South Africa,
in the Middle East, Europe, the United States. But as
we already said, the heart of the ostrich trade was
there in South Africa, and that's where the feather trade originated.
(15:04):
And generally the hunters that people who actually got these
ostriches were indigenous inhabitants or folks who had settled there
from Europe. Even if you really like ostriches, you've got
to be careful with them. They do have a heck
of a kick. They can injure you, they can kill you.
There is one thing I wanted to ask you guys
(15:24):
about because in the research we found some claims that
ostriches have been domesticated. But I don't I don't know
if I if I quite agree with that, because they
seem like they could be tamed, but they still seem
very much like wild animals, right, I don't know, man,
I'd show me a tame ostrich as not going to
(15:45):
have it in them. You know that they're they're like dinosaurs.
I mean, I think it's the challenge. I mean, should
we try to domesticate an ostrich? The Finnick Fox experiment
would argue that it's possible when you can have that one. Uh. Ably,
the third party observer from AFAR you can send me
like just YouTube updates or whatever, and I'll like give
(16:06):
you my two cents since I am the height of
skeptical about this. But go with God, gentlemen, go with
They're they're only partially domesticated apparently. Uh And according to
thought code dot com, they're only domesticated for a short
period of their lives. So maybe we can be the
ones to change that. But to get a better picture
(16:33):
of this, let's just say there was so much money
involved that people were willing to risk injury or possibly
death because the trade was so popular that feather handlers
could maybe plucking ostrich and adult ostrich every eight months
or so, and they will also grow alfalpha as like
the livestock feed. And if a farmer did this alfalfa
(16:57):
and ostrogen ostrichen, I like it they did this, they
would get they would are like five to six times
more in a year than they would have if they
were just regular farmers. M yeah, I mean I think
it's worth the premium for dealing with devil's bawn year
(17:17):
round like that. I wish them the best, but you know, okay, listen,
I kid obviously not a fan of these creatures, but
these were not particularly pleasant circumstances for these ostriches, were
they were they like plucking them? And then is that
is that a one time thing? You pluck them? And
the no, it's not right you pluck them you were
(17:39):
to say yearly or how often every eight months? Every
eight months so close to a year, And is that
I can't imagine that's a pleasant experience for the bird.
It's not like getting shaved if you're a sheep. I
mean they're like ripping these out to keep them intact, right, Yeah,
it's uh, clearly they're plucking them based on their The
farmers or handlers are prioritizing the highest quality feathers, right
(18:04):
ideally because that's gonna have the biggest profit margin. But
I don't think it is particularly pleasant for the birds,
especially if you just do a quick Internet searching your
browser choice for plucked ostrich. Uh, it doesn't look like
they had a good time becoming that way. You can
see the little bristles and spines the skin, which trigger
(18:26):
warning might set some people off. Oh god, I wish
I had waited for that trigger warning next time. Terrified. Yeah,
they look like plucked chickens literally, and then mainly yeah,
this is not okay. Why did I look that up
after you looked up nol And they look even more
(18:46):
like dinosaurs now, don't they? Yeah? Yeah, And something about
the color of the skin and the texture just really
it's very unsettling, very unsettling. Yeah, we we all probably
had turkey for for Thanksgiving dinners, so maybe we should
rethink our own values here. But um so, as we said,
(19:07):
I mean, this is a big business for South Africa
at the time, they provided around eighty five percent of
the entire planets ostrich feathers. The rest came from, as
you mentioned earlier, been from North Africa. Uh And there
were these established trans Saharan trade routes um that were
typically navigated on the backs of camels um. So this
(19:34):
was just fine for South Africa. Ostrich feathers were it's
third most profitable export. And the government had already taken
over land from some of the indigenous people from the
surrounding areas, not to mention Dutch Boer settlers, and ousted
them from their land, and they used that land to
(19:54):
create these massive ostrich farms that were overseen by the government. Yeah. Yeah,
this gives rise to things like olds Chardon, which is
a feather town. So feather towns were a thing. But
there was one big problem, and not everybody outside of
South Africa was aware of this or not everybody outside
(20:16):
the African continent. South Africa was selling feathers like gangbusters,
but they didn't actually have the best feathers. Everybody in
South African in the trade knew there was something else.
There was a better kind of ostrich. The Barbary ostrich. See.
And that's the thing, man, I mean, if you don't
know what you're missing, I'm sure these South African feathers
(20:39):
were great, you know, and then they were, you know,
plenty fluffy, and the the inherent nature of the ostrich
feather in and of itself is gonna feel really great
if you get one. But when you compare it to
the extra uh snuggly, extra plumy barbary Ostrich feather, uh,
these South African ostrich feathers looked like trash in comparison.
(21:01):
And we were starting to see shipments of these feathers
passing through. So people were starting to get hip to
the fact that they were missing something, that there were
better feathers out there, Yes, better feathers. Indeed, that's because
the barbary Ostrich is the largest of all the subspecies,
making it the largest living bird, meaning that those feathers
(21:26):
are going to be larger as well. And they were
also they also had this quality called being double flost.
They had a kind of filmy down if you didn't
picture it, that was much more dense in comparison to
regular old South African ostrich feathers. And so this made
a tremendous and luxurious or garish display that people were
(21:50):
super into by eight eighty two. By the way, a
single pound of Ostrich feathers, just the regular ones, we're
going for about four hundred dollars, which is a little
more than ten thou dollars today or so jeez, Louise
uh And just for a reference today, you can get
to Ostrich filets for from wild fork dot com. You
(22:13):
go wild Fork, I go to fossil farbs. We gotta
we gonna switch. Let's try about I think we should.
I think we should ben And it's crazy when you
look at these Ostrich filets, they really do look straight
up like steak. And I think that largely has to
do with the fact that there's such active and lean birds,
you know, so it's it really does like have the
appearance of a steak. So the South Africans looked at
(22:33):
this as an opportunity. They were not daunted. I mean,
they already owned you know, eight of the global ostrich
trade ostrich feather trade, so they're like, well, why not
just let's diversify. Let's figure out where these massive, you know,
high quality feather yielding beasts come from and get our
hands on a breeding pair of them. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(22:57):
a brilliant plan. Right, we will get top notch quality
feathers and then we won't have to worry about this
American competition out there in Arizona. One problem though not
I really knew where the barbary ostrich came from, and
so they saw an opportunity, an ostrich tunity, if you will,
(23:19):
I make no apologies backs. Uh. The thing is, by
the time they got all these acts, the like the
top notch feathers, they have been passed through so many
middlemen that nobody, nobody knew the origin point. The best
guests the experts could make in South Africa was that
these birds must be located somewhere in the lower edge
(23:41):
of the Great Saharan Desert with within a place called
the Sahel region. Uh. And that's within caravan range, like
you said, old by camel back. Uh, it's caravan range
of the trading center at Tripoli. And so nineteen eleven,
the South African gun from officially organizes a trans Saharan
(24:03):
ostrich expedition. The entire reason this thing is around is
to figure is to hunt down barbary ostriches and bring
back as many pause as possible alive to South Africa.
And let's just be clear here, a k a steal them.
Oh yeah, it's a heist. Yeah yeah, it's absolutely eyes.
(24:23):
A government sanctioned Ostrich heist. That's what we're dealing with.
That's what we're dealing with. Yeah, exactly, after all these years,
after all those oceans love in movies. But the heist
is on. A guy named Russell William Thornton, who was
a hero from a conflict called the Beauair War, was
assigned to lead the expedition. And this guy already had
(24:45):
experience in the Ostrich farming industry. So Russell Thornton's goal,
um his charge that was bestowed upon him by the government,
was to make his way into French Sudan, find the Ostriches,
and get a lock back to South Africa, should he
choose to accept it, which which he definitely did choose
(25:05):
to accept it. This would have been before at the
time as the Americans or French officials got wise to
their movements. Yeah exactly, they made some pretty like hurried
preparations and Thornton said, all right, I'm gonna round up
a couple of my boys who are Ostrich experts. And
then he brought what to me sounds like a small
(25:27):
army around a hundred porters, trappers, cooks, translators. They get together,
they get on a boat. They sail from Cape Town
in August of nineteen eleven. And the reason they were
so rushed was because they were worried that somebody else
might beat them in the heist. Thornton's own brother, Earnest,
(25:52):
this guy had been an expert Ostrich rancher that he
went to the dark side. He quit his job with
the government and left for the Unite States, and then
people were worried he had become a term coat and
sold his like become a consultant to help guide some
Americans into the African continent and find the barbary ostriches. First,
(26:14):
why is this not a film? I feel like I
say that once a month. But this is great. So
our guy, here are our fearless leader, Russell William Thornton.
Before going back to South Africa, um he on the
side explained to his brother who was along with him
that he was actually a double agent. Dump dumb. I mean, seriously,
(26:36):
this keeps getting weirder. He was a double agent and
he was working as a as an independent contractor spying
on the American Ostrich industry. Later, he sort of walked
this back a little bit and claimed that his whole
intentions were to force the South African government to um
(26:56):
act on the information, the intel they got as to
the whereabouts of the Barbary Ostrich. Uh. South African officials
were not happy, understandably with the way he behaved, you know,
when he was supposed to be their guy on the ground,
you know, in the in the trenches. In this is
where we learned the phrase Ostrich espionage or Ostrich bionage. Ostrich. Yeah,
(27:26):
I'll take it, I'll take it all, give it to me.
So we we learned this phrase thanks to the work
of a biologist with a cool name, Thor Hansen. Thor
Hansen wrote a book called Feathers, The Evolution of a
Natural Miracle, which talks through this story, and thor says,
even now in the modern day, it's still unclear who
(27:48):
was spied on whom and how true or untrue Ernest
Thornton's story about being a double agent was. But still
Russell only found out about this double agent thing after
they were already on the boat. So they were already
on the way, uh, and I think it took him
several months, right, Eventually they got to British Nigeria. So
(28:08):
at this point, Thornton's crew, which uh you know would
hopefully have contained at least one bag man um, were
camped near a town called Kano. Like the character and
Mortal Kombat with the laser eye rips your heart out,
holds it up and it's still beating, because that's totally
how hearts were. Uh. And this is in British Nigeria.
(28:29):
Where was Kano meant to be from? He was South African,
I believe you know. That's a good question. Let's see
Kano Mortal Kombat nationality. We're just gonna do this live, folks,
because I'm not sure. Uh. He is an all Australian. Uh.
He is from the Earth realm, Earth Realm Australian, got it.
And for some reason I thought he was in the movie.
(28:50):
They made him South African. Uh for some reason. But
you know, those those don't don't tell, don't say this
to an Australian or a South African. But those accents
due to to uh get muddled up for me. Sometimes
shots fired. Nope, Nope, shots attracted, stracted, no shots intended.
But yeah, so they're so they're so they're camped out, right, Yeah,
(29:13):
and they they know that this trading center Kano, like
you point out, Uh, this trading center sells a bunch
of stuff. One of the things it sells barbary ostrich feathers.
So they know they're they're they're like trying to trace
back the trade, right, uh, and reverse engineer the process
until they can find the actual birds. So Russell sends
(29:36):
out scouting parties every possible direction you can imagine. And
also he starts tell him what you think about this.
It sounds like he was roughing up these desert caravans,
like he was quote unquote inspecting the cargo. It feels
a lot like pretending your customs or something. Well, it's
sort of a form of extortion or you know, kind
(29:58):
of strong strong Marie. Right. But in doing this he
got some very valuable intelligence. He learned that they were
getting these plumes from an area around a place called Zinder,
which was by all accounts that he had access to
the only place on Earth where wild barbary ostriches could
be found. Yeah, and that's a problem that's another plot twist,
(30:21):
because this is this would be a great film. Zinder
is not just a week's worth to travel away. It's
also inside of French colony Soudan, which is now part
of Niger. Uh. South Africa was considered self governing, but
it was technically part of the British Empire, and the
(30:42):
French and the British Empires didn't really get along, so
Thornton felt like he had to ask his bosses for
the green light. He wires, sends a wire to South
Africa and says, hey, good news, bad news, good news,
pretty sure, I think I think we found where the
ostriches are. Ad news. It's deep in French territory. So
(31:03):
he is waiting to hear back from his bosses and
from the government to get the okay to cross in there,
you know, knowing that it could be an international incident.
So in the meantime, while he was waiting for a
response from his government, he spent time buying up as
many ostriches and um these barbary fancy plumes that he
(31:24):
could uh. In six weeks he got the thumbs up
from the South African government to go ahead with the plan.
They said that he was authorized to spend seven thousand
pounds sterling for one and fifty ostriches. But it was
almost like a black Ops mission, right because they basically said,
you know, should you be captured, we will disavow any
(31:47):
knowledge of this mission or association with you. How crazy
is it that that that is absolutely true, serious business man.
And so with this uddenly black ops mission on his mind,
Russell takes his gang hundred and fifty miles north through
the desert to a place called Fort Zinder, and he
(32:11):
first tries diplomacy for six weeks, he's trying to get
the French colonial authorities to let him have some ostriches.
And this is like Dr Susian level ridiculous. Here. The
French officials didn't have a clue as to why the
South Africans would want these ostriches in particular, but they said,
(32:33):
you know what, you're technically part of the English Empire
and if you want them, but we're not doing it
because if you want them now now we want to
keep them. And so they said, okay, listen here, Russell Thornton.
You can't hunt these, you can't capture him, and nobody
sell them any ostriches and They're like, well, why Boston.
(32:53):
He's like, because they're basically British to us. Oh man,
poor guy. So he kind of went back. That's the
British Nigeria, plumeless, hat in hand and with no creepy
gangly neck birds and his plane hatted the tragedy. That's
(33:13):
the worst way to be Yeah, But Thornton was a
man of great resolve and he knew that he had
what it took to get this done and he was
not going to be bested by a bunch of Frenchies. Yeah.
He went to his network, the local desert leaders, and
he turned to them for help. This is where the
(33:36):
story gets a little muddy, right. I don't know how
we want to film this when we finally start our
film studio, but we do know Thornton somehow eventually does
return to South Africa. He has a flock of ostriches.
But there's like missing film from the narrative here because
(33:57):
right now people don't know how he got these ostriches.
What gives Well, we have some private letters that Thornton
sent back and forth between himself and a confidante by
(34:17):
the name of Mr Smith, and there are hints at
possible extracurricular smuggling expeditions into French territory. And these were
not all entirely without incidents. There were even some conflicts
with some nomadic tribes folk and some French soldiers reported
in these exchanges. Yeah, at least that's what that's what
(34:41):
people are finding from this, as you said, these private letters.
But our buddy Thor notes that the Russell's descendants deny
anything like this happened. So right now, officially we can't
say it's confirmed that he that he rolled in and
turned his heist mission into like this action packed montage
(35:06):
of violence, although that's just to be fair what I'm picturing.
But either way, he does get a flock of ostriches hostritches.
You could say he took them hostage and marches them
from northern Nigeria to a train to take them to Lagos.
(35:27):
Right oh, when he gets malaria not fun. You're seeing
dig a little tonic water. I'm not going right out.
So the ostriches are loaded to these specially modified kind
of cattle cars, you know, train cars. Uh, and then
they were transferred to a freighter heading to Cape Town,
South Africa. One hundred and forty of the total number
(35:49):
survived the voyage, which is not It's not awful, right,
it's not not terribly bad survival rate for such a
you know what, would be a pretty strenuous voyage. Thornton's
team when they got back, they were treated like kings.
They were given a ticker tape parade or whatever. The
South African equivalent of the day was. Thornton's brother. On
the other hand, after being you know, outed as a
(36:11):
double agents um, decided to just he threw in his
his plane at his plane. Had I feel like we've
invented a new thing calling people playing at it, which
is a shame because you guys know, my lucky hat
is very plain and for some reason the idea of
having feathers on that bad boy just put him put
(36:32):
a single match stick in it, or maybe a playing
card minimalism. Thanks man, that's a great idea. Actually I
might do that. Uh so, my terrible awkwardness and haberdashery aside.
Absolutely right. Russell Thornton's gamble is paid off. He has
saved the future of South Africa's ostrich monopoly for about
(36:56):
two years. Because then the final plots was occurred, the
feather market crashed it plummeted. Ostrich feathers were no longer
compared to diamonds. People had once upon a time said
that a good Ostrich feather was an investment for life,
kind of like the way people talk about really fancy watches.
(37:19):
But if you look around nowadays, right, Ostrich feathers are
much less of a big deal. Right? Or do do
we just not hang out and fancy enough circles? But
I'm not sure, man, I know, you know, it's funny.
I was actually googling Ostrich steak to see, like what
types of restaurants sell Ostrich steak, and it is upscale,
like it's definitely considered like a delicacy still, like you
(37:42):
can find it at some fancy steakhouses here around town,
like Wrath Buns, for example. But when I googled that,
I also noticed that the key word came up for
decor as well in some fancy restaurants. So something has
like is adorned with like Ostrich feathers or you know,
used in some way to like, you know, kind of
add a little pizzaz to certain interior decorating that would
(38:03):
also be considered very very fancy. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah,
And despite the fact that they're still very fancy today.
We're pretty sure we know what happened that spelled the
end of the global ostrich trade. One of the big
factors was the Audubon Society and then something called the
(38:24):
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They were against
the mass killing of birds for hat purposes, and they
have been against this for years and years and years.
And because of the efforts of the Audubon Society in
particular in the US, Uncle Sam eventually passed something called
(38:44):
the Lacy Act, which was going to prevent the interstate
trade in wild birds. Ostriches and domestic birds were technically
excluded from the legislation at this point, but the writing
was on the wall, The feathers were on the bird.
This fashion trend was on its way out right. I mean,
(39:05):
you know even nowadays, like with artists and makers and
stuff like that that that you know, create beautiful pieces
of whether clothing or home decor or whatever, it's not
particularly popular to use real bird feathers unless they are
humanely sourced. Um a good friend of mine, Um who
(39:26):
lives in Australia. Um makes jewelry and she uses humanely
sourced feathers, meaning she finds them, she doesn't pluck them.
These creatures are not raised to, you know, like pluck
them of their feathers. She literally trapes us through the
forest with like a little head lamp on and looks
(39:46):
for just you know, looks for shed bird feathers, and
then you can use those um Otherwise it's just kind
of a bad look these days, you know. And there's
there's another thing that happens here. The automobile came onto play, right,
the automobile has hit the stage, and what does that mean?
That means big fancy hats that were perfectly fine when
(40:09):
you're walking around are no longer as practical, Like how
do you if you're in an open carriage car, how
do you keep that thing on your head? And then
also when World War One comes around, people are a
little more hesitant to appear very showy or very well
off because everybody is basically having a terrible time, right,
(40:29):
and then women are going into the workforce as soldiers
are sent away to foreign theaters of war. Apparently, according
to that Great Atlas Obscure article null you referenced early
in the show, apparently the final final thing the Ostrich
feather that broke the camel's back was the emergence of
(40:52):
the bob cut. A bob cut, I think most people
know it's just a really really short hairstyle. And the
theory is that this hairstyle was just not capable of
supporting really cartoonishly big gass hats. Yeah, yeah, it's true.
It's true. Um And as we know, aside from like
(41:13):
little Ladies on Sunday, big hats are not so much
a thing anymore. Well, remember that big hat that Farrell
wore for a while, kind of like the Arby's hat.
I don't understand that one, man. I like, I've thought
about that in the years since. What what's going on?
I mean, where what makes you happy? First, he was
trying something out. He was trying to, you know, make
(41:35):
a change in the zeit guy single handedly, which if
anyone can do it as him, I don't know that
it took off, but you do occasionally see big weird hats.
Um as it comps though it is so just like
like is it a park Ranger hat? It's not quite.
It's like a child's drawing of a park Ranger hat.
High question is if you push down the top, does
it go down? Or is there something in there? Is
(41:57):
there like a support system built in there? Yea or
or or a rabbit perhaps, or some sort of small
hairless cat, a small ostrich or a smaller hat like uh,
that's the Russian stacking dollars. Yeah, yeah, there we go. Okay,
well we've solved it because I like all of those answers.
(42:19):
Of course, this is not all whimsy. This was a
huge trade. So thousands of people did lose their job
when this industry collapse, and that kind of spelled the
end of it. But we do we do have an epilog, Nolan.
I think this has probably been in your mind as well.
One of my big questions, Max is probably a big
(42:40):
question too. No, what about the ostriches. These ostriches that
guy kidnapped, almost a hundred of fifty of them got
locked up in South Africa. Are they out of jobs
too or what? Well, we don't really know exactly what
happened to them. What we do know is that they
were never bred into South Africa's you know stock of ostriches.
(43:05):
That just didn't happen. The last bird from that flock
was a male and was killed in a lightning strike.
So all of this ocean's eleven ostrich addition, heisty business
was absolute waste of time and energy for all concerned.
It's a shame, you know. And the ostriches, the barbary
(43:26):
ostriches from that area in zinder and Cano on the
Niger and Nigerian border. Unfortunately, also we're not long for
the world because these French colonial administrators were they weren't
going to permit official exports, but it appears they didn't
(43:48):
pay enough attention to the unofficial stuff, the smuggling, the
over hunting, the encroachment of humans into the natural habitat,
as our pal Thor Hansen says, and I love this,
he says. They they didn't send the brightest bulbs. No,
they did not. And one of the sad things about
(44:10):
all this is that I had sort of speculated early
on that they would have you know, used every part
of the ostrich or when they were you know, retired
from being plucked, they would have used their meat. But
I guess you want the meat of young ostris. I'm
not quite sure. But the point is, uh, there was
this huge uptick in the you know, um use of
feathers as like a trading commodity. Um, But that did
(44:33):
not mean that people were eating more ostrich Instead, you
had a lot of these animals that were being found
in the wild, killed, plucked, and then just left to
rot or be eaten by scavengers. Not yeah exactly. I
mean we were supposed to use every part of the buffalo.
(44:53):
You're supposed to use every part of the ostris, but
no pretty shortsighted um in these in these situations. Yeah,
and so this is well, this leads us also to
a harsh ecological lesson. Today, the barbary ostrich Is has
(45:13):
been eliminated from most of the southern Sahara Desert. It's
critically endangered. It exists in some parts of Chad, Cameroon,
and Senegal. But there's a big question. Are these the
same ostriches as the ones Thornton was rounding up or
were they something else that is now extinct? And it's
(45:36):
a it's it's a tough question to ask, but it's
also I think an appropriate sort of epilogue to the
great trans Saharan ostrich heist. Yeah, and um, we can
end this one with a little bit of ostris trivia.
I think everyone's probably aware of the almost cartoony cliche
(45:58):
notion that ostriches tick their head in the sand when
they're scared. It's sort of I don't know. I think
it was always used to imply that ostris were either
stupid or um cowards in some way. We know they're
definitely not cowards. They will come at you and snake
at you with that weird tiny head and gangly neck.
But it turns out this is all just a matter
of the way an ostrich looks and the proportion of
(46:22):
its head to its body. If you're looking at an
ostras from a distance and they're like nibbling in a
little bit of food on the ground, uh, it could
in fact look like they're tiny little heads have disappeared
into the sand. I see. And yeah, and their heads
are really really small. Uh. We we also have some
(46:43):
more ostrich trivia. They're the fastest two legged species on Earth.
Their top speed is forty three miles an hour, and
they can run thirty miles an hour for ten miles
at a time, making them also one of the best
long distance runners in the animal kingdom. Uh. You can
still in some touristy spots you can ride ostriches. I
(47:06):
don't think people should. But I'll admit as a kid,
it was one of my first questions, right, did you
didn't you think that was a kid? Uh? That's a
big note from me, my friend. Um, but you you
you have that Uh it is neat that because we
talked about how you know, their wings were sort of useless,
I guess, or or at least that would be the
perception I think, But that's not in fact the case.
(47:28):
They don't fly in the air, were they sure? You
fly on the land? Like you said, they're the fastest
long distance runners in the animal kingdom, and they actually
use their wings. It's kind of like rudders, like a
boat would use rudders, or like a plane would use
like you know, those flaps, um, And it allows them
to maneuver their bodies and kind of cut the air
like in Mario Kart when you like draft behind somebody
(47:50):
or when you do like a like a drift. You know. Um,
they're able to make these like very fast breaks and
zigzagging patterns while they run, largely because they're using those
wings to day balanced and in control of their bodies,
which leads us all to say you shouldn't try to
fight an ostrich and you definitely shouldn't try to outrun them.
(48:11):
They will they will wax you. I do want to
shout out, you know how Wicky How has all these
weird articles. I found a Wicky How article called three
ways to survive an ostrich encounter or attack and uh,
just the just the images are hilarious. What do you
call a group of ostriches? Heard? Um, yeah, I guess
(48:31):
I heard. Let me see, maybe maybe flock like geese? Okay,
uh huh exactly. Well, what my question for you as
if you ever see, if you ever came upon a
flock of ostriches and all of them turn those weird
little heads to you at the same time, you will know, truly,
my friends, the feeling of abject horror almost the baddest
(48:53):
thing an ostrich mate. Oh boy. Yeah, I don't know
if we're going to sleep tonight, guys, but ridiculous historians.
We hope you enjoyed this episode. You know, we all
love a good heist story and we're so glad you
tuned in with us today. Thanks as always to our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Casey Pegram, thanks
(49:14):
to Gabe Luisier, Thanks to Ale explains you composed our theme. Uh,
Eve's Jeff Codes, Christo Frasciode is always here in spirit.
Jonathan Strickland, the quister um. You know, he would have
maybe pointed out if we were if you were here
right now, because he likes to point out pedantic little
trivia facts. Did you know that a group of zebras
is referred to collectively as a dazzle and that is
(49:37):
where the name for that weird type of military paint
job that we're at one point done on naval ships
were referred to as dazzle camouflage because in a big group,
the zebra stripes can actually create an optical illusion where
it almost they appear to to kind of vanish. Nice more,
you know, well, thank you, thanks to that man, and
(49:57):
and thanks of course. Well I feel like I need
to send you a nice card or something, because I
didn't realize initially how how bird centric this episode would be,
but hopefully the heist made up for it. Oh yeah,
it was, It was fine, It was fine. Uh, those
OSTs just got what was coming to him. I'm kidding.
I love all of God's creatures. They just creep me out,
but they definitely deserve to live and not be plucked
(50:19):
by you know, weird South African poachers. Crazy idea friend
in the episode uh Mat, can we just for the
audio and just play the sound? And Ostrich makes gross.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(50:46):
My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. That's the one and only
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Give it up for My
name is Ben uh No. I want to thank you
in advance for uh for tuning this episode because uh, birds,
well not only birds been the most terrifying of of
(00:50):
all of God's hideously deformed winged creatures. The one what
walks on the land and comes at you with its
long snake like angly neck and beady little eyes. You know,
it's got the strength to like smash a car window
with its face. I mean, whether these are the most
terrifying creatures on Earth? These and the emuseum, but yeah,
(01:13):
well that's fair. There's also that one what is the castuary.
It's basically like the velociraptor of the bird family. They can, like,
what is it like, disembowel a man with its one
razor sharp claw. Yeah, I I would. I actually have
a soft spot for ostriches and EMUs as well, but
(01:33):
shoe bills, casswary. Uh, those things freak me out. I'm
glad that as a lover of all animals. I don't
I don't mess with them. Just shoe bills always look
like they're up to something. Shoot a shoe bill. Is
that's one with the really big, flat, freaky beak, right? Yeah? Yeah,
they always they always look like they're going, oh God,
(01:54):
you're ben At the moment he said that, I googled
the picture, and the very first image it looks like
he's going, I this shoe bear come to wreck your day.
It's like they're always saying, are you sure about that?
He looks like he'd be friends with the crynch. Dude,
there's what I'm looking at right now. He looks downright
(02:16):
sinister like he is. You know, he's got those kind
of Ninja turtle creases between his eyes, you know, like
the with like the the kind of like the you know,
the furrowed brow. And I'm not talking about the you know,
Saturday Morning cartoon ninja turtles. I'm talking about like the darker, creepier,
early comic version. Um. And it's just a staring daggers
right into my soul. Uh So, okay, I think I'm
(02:37):
I fear the shoebill stork more so than the ostrich
but the ostrich is damned terrifying, but also turns out
it produces some pretty fluffy, delightful and dare I say
precious to uh certain types plumes. That's right. Uh. Today's
episode is about one of the largest and most profit
(03:00):
noble industries in the world in the twentie century, around
the turn of the twentieth century. Really it was something
called millinery, uh, the art specifically of decorating women's hats
with bird feathers. And you're talking about like all the
high rollers in Europe, in the US and everywhere in between.
(03:21):
If you were a fashionable lady, you had to have
not one, but ideally a collection of hats that were
just a wash festooned with bird plumage, sometimes with like
whole stuffed birds, right like literally wearing like a tiny
taxidermy chickadee on your head to let people know that
(03:43):
you had it made. Ah, you say lavic. I think
the word I would choose to use would be garish,
but whatever, at different times, different strokes and all that,
It's true. I mean, we we we think of the
cliche ladies hats, you know, of bygone eras, and we
do think very ostentatious, very large and in charge and
covered in these kind of plumes, very very ordinate. We
(04:06):
also know, of course, the era of the hat pin
and the ladies that armed themselves with these very long,
scary hatpins to fend off the notorious masher. I believe
that was around what the nineteen twenties, yeah, early nineteen hundreds,
which is interesting because this would have been happening around
the same time. So do check out our hatpins story
(04:30):
if you if you haven't heard that episode before. Big question,
Just like people are concerned with supply chains nowadays, the
big question was this, where do we get these fancy feathers.
Some of the most popular ones came from Heron's and
egrets that live in the southeastern United States. But these
(04:52):
had limited availability. You couldn't get them year round, uh.
You could only get them during the breeding season and
for the rest of the year. When you couldn't get
your hair and feathers, you had another option, the ostrich.
But eventually it became more than an option. It became
literally the most sought after of all the bird plumes
(05:14):
uh in question here. By around nineteen ten, the ostrich
trade was the most lucrative industry um in the country
of South Africa where they were farm raising these birds
specifically for their their feathers, and obviously we know that
they would also be surely used for their meat. I mean,
(05:34):
Ostrich jerky is a thing. I think there are some
restaurants where you can get like ostrich steak. It's apparently
a little bit like a dark meat that almost like
sort of splits the difference between like a steak vibe
and like, you know, dark meat chicken vibe. Yeah, yeah,
I've actually I've had ostrich meat before jerky, as you mentioned.
And then I want to say, there was a place
(05:54):
I went to you called Fossil Farms. They sell Ostrich steaks.
Now be warned there a little bit pricey. We're talking
about sixteen dollars or so for an eight ounce steak,
but I don't regret it. I don't know if it
would be an everyday thing for me though. You know,
it's kind of like kangaroo I guess. But aside from
(06:14):
our carnivorous tendencies, maybe we should learn a little bit
more about the ostrich because I'll be honest, I was
watching a lot of videos before I even knew we
were going to do this episode. I was watching a
lot of videos of this lady who like rescues ostriches,
and she has this farm with these different ostriches, and
(06:37):
there temperamental creatures. Yeah, yeah, you could. You could. You
can also sub end the word terrifying creatures. But let's
let's dive in ever so slightly, if we must do
the history of ostriches and the role that they ultimately
came to play in the fashion industry. Atlas Obscura, as always,
(07:00):
has a fantastic article on today's topic, the Strange Tale
of the Great nineteen eleven trans Saharent ostrich Heists. Is
that the name of a prog rock band, you might ask, No,
it's not. It's the topic of today's episode, But we're
getting there. Uh. And this one is by Vincent Gabrielle,
And in this article Vincent goes through some of the
history that we're about to talk about. Arnie Moore's who
(07:21):
is a professor of biodiversity at Simon Fraser University, who
was quoted in this piece, has this to say, Uh,
the ostrich maybe the most evolutionarily isolated species in the world.
What do we mean by that? Ben evolutionarily isolated. They've
got some things that one would think would cause them
to not thrive, but yet here they are. Yeah, yeah,
(07:43):
it's it's. The ostrich is one of those animals that
when you see it for the first time, especially in
real life, your first thought is really really though, like
how how and why? God why. The spooky thing about these, uh,
these farm videos is that when the ostriches are in
a good mood and they're affectionate with their trainer and
(08:05):
their handler or whatever, they kind of like loop their
neck around your shoulder, or they like they put their
head and their neck into the collar of your shirt
kind of snuggle up. I know, I'm getting a comfortable
t stay away, but they're so You're right they are.
(08:28):
When we say evolutionarily isolated, what we mean is that
ostriches and their closest relatives cassawaries, kiwi's imus stuff like that,
they actually diverged when dino stores were still walking the earth.
And according to Moors, they're different because they have a
long evolutionary branch with a flowering at the very end,
(08:53):
just two species a couple of subspecies Central and Southern Africa,
and since they were around when humans got on the scene.
Human beings have had a lot of time with these massive,
weird looking but beautiful birds and it. They've been traditionally
hunted for meat. You can make leather with their skin. Uh.
(09:15):
They even feature in like Egyptian iconography, not to mention
that they sport. Maybe that's not quite the best choice
of words, but I'll go with it. They sport the
largest eggs of any living um member of the Avian
family um, which is kind of interesting. And so therefore
they are also hunted for their eggs because uh yeah,
(09:37):
you know, like one ostrojagg is like the equivalent of
like a dozen chicken eggs, you know, in terms of
the amount of juice that it produces. I think one
ostrijag alone has like two thousand calories. So it's a
it's a family meal, I think. But if you have
eaten an ostrojag by yourself, I don't want to hear
the story. Well, your picture goes on the wall, my friend,
(09:58):
you get a T shirt, you get a hat with
plumes on it. Uh, there we go, So we know
these eggs. I'm glad you brought this up because these
eggs have been used for many purposes, many flexes throughout
various civilizations. They were given, they were carved up and
like given as offerings in ancient Grecian times, and I
(10:21):
believe later they were used to decorate minarets, as is
mentioned in that Atlas Obscura article. So how did we
get from there? Two this hat craze, Like we said,
there was sort of an arms race for elaborate hats
in the world of fashion and like the late nineteen
(10:41):
in nearly twentieth century or so, and these hats got
bigger and bigger and bigger, and ostrich feathers became a
natural fit because ostrich feathers are also really big, right,
So you don't want to have a ginormous hat and
then have some dinky like little sparrow feather corsage on
(11:03):
their People are going to tell you that you have
a plain hat, which is a big insult. Back then, God,
plain hat. You are not a member of this country club,
my friend, absolutely not. So here's another thing evolutionarily that
is very interesting because these massive birds, you know, take
(11:24):
up a lot of space on the Earth that would
normally be freed up if they were like you know,
flighted birds. Uh, these feathers that normally are adapted to
um creating. The means for flying now have become more
of a tool for elaborate mating ritual displays, you know,
(11:45):
similar to the peacock. People talk about peacocking around. No
one really says ostriching around, but it's a similar deal.
They display these feathers, you know, and flight flighted birds
do as well, if I'm not mistaken. But this it
becomes much more important, uh, because they're you know, approaching
potential mates and they have to kind of do this
(12:05):
little dance or whatever. So the feathers that would typically
be used for flight are much more tightly constructive. They're
kind of knitted, knitted together in this asymmetrical kind of pattern.
Ostrich feathers, on the other hand, are very long, and
they're loose and light, and they have these fluffy little plumes.
(12:25):
You know. When you think of the word plume, I
think a lot of us think of like a writing quill,
you know, or like one of those cute pens that
like teenage girls like with the fuzzy ends on them
or whatever. You know, two very different sides of writing
tools from history, but both equally plumy. Also, the word
plume refers to like a puff of smoke, something very
(12:47):
wispy and like you know, stretched out that kind of
has this sort of like ethereal quality to it, right, Yeah, yeah,
well that's a great description. Also, these feathers don't have
the tiny hooked barbs that are on other other feathers
from other animals. So it's the perfect fit for decorating
(13:08):
the hats of these wealthy members of society. And these
hats were a huge, huge deal from like the eighteen
hundreds all the way to the advent of World War one,
or should I should say the outbreak of World War
one and nineteen fourteen uh one. One person is quoted
in a Great Daily Cost article by Lenny Flank just
(13:31):
says the following. It says, a well dressed woman nowadays
is as fluffy as a downy bird fish from the nest.
If you would be fashionable, you would be beplumed. Now
I want to say be plumed more often, beplumed. I
like that man that suits you. Try that one on,
see how I see how it goes. So this was
(13:52):
the height of fashion, and the beauty of it was,
you know how like most fashioned trends or cyclical or
season all the very least, right, Not so with the
Ostrich feathers, or they were absolutely at the height of
popularity and fashion all year round. Yeah, exactly, And just
as fashion also kind of trickles down over time and
(14:16):
becomes less exclusive, the same thing happened with ostrich feathers.
Eventually there were at least fourteen different varieties numerous kind
of grades of feather, which meant that you didn't have
to be a one per center to get these, and
the transatlantic ostrich feather according to c J news dot Com,
(14:40):
was mainly in the hands of a lot of Yiddish
speaking immigrants from the Russian Empire. This was an international thing.
This was an international trade. People were working in South Africa,
in the Middle East, Europe, the United States. But as
we already said, the heart of the ostrich trade was
there in South Africa, and that's where the feather trade originated.
(15:04):
And generally the hunters that people who actually got these
ostriches were indigenous inhabitants or folks who had settled there
from Europe. Even if you really like ostriches, you've got
to be careful with them. They do have a heck
of a kick. They can injure you, they can kill you.
There is one thing I wanted to ask you guys
(15:24):
about because in the research we found some claims that
ostriches have been domesticated. But I don't I don't know
if I if I quite agree with that, because they
seem like they could be tamed, but they still seem
very much like wild animals, right, I don't know, man,
I'd show me a tame ostrich as not going to
(15:45):
have it in them. You know that they're they're like dinosaurs.
I mean, I think it's the challenge. I mean, should
we try to domesticate an ostrich? The Finnick Fox experiment
would argue that it's possible when you can have that one. Uh. Ably,
the third party observer from AFAR you can send me
like just YouTube updates or whatever, and I'll like give
(16:06):
you my two cents since I am the height of
skeptical about this. But go with God, gentlemen, go with
They're they're only partially domesticated apparently. Uh And according to
thought code dot com, they're only domesticated for a short
period of their lives. So maybe we can be the
ones to change that. But to get a better picture
(16:33):
of this, let's just say there was so much money
involved that people were willing to risk injury or possibly
death because the trade was so popular that feather handlers
could maybe plucking ostrich and adult ostrich every eight months
or so, and they will also grow alfalpha as like
the livestock feed. And if a farmer did this alfalfa
(16:57):
and ostrogen ostrichen, I like it they did this, they
would get they would are like five to six times
more in a year than they would have if they
were just regular farmers. M yeah, I mean I think
it's worth the premium for dealing with devil's bawn year
(17:17):
round like that. I wish them the best, but you know, okay, listen,
I kid obviously not a fan of these creatures, but
these were not particularly pleasant circumstances for these ostriches, were
they were they like plucking them? And then is that
is that a one time thing? You pluck them? And
the no, it's not right you pluck them you were
(17:39):
to say yearly or how often every eight months? Every
eight months so close to a year, And is that
I can't imagine that's a pleasant experience for the bird.
It's not like getting shaved if you're a sheep. I
mean they're like ripping these out to keep them intact, right, Yeah,
it's uh, clearly they're plucking them based on their The
farmers or handlers are prioritizing the highest quality feathers, right
(18:04):
ideally because that's gonna have the biggest profit margin. But
I don't think it is particularly pleasant for the birds,
especially if you just do a quick Internet searching your
browser choice for plucked ostrich. Uh, it doesn't look like
they had a good time becoming that way. You can
see the little bristles and spines the skin, which trigger
(18:26):
warning might set some people off. Oh god, I wish
I had waited for that trigger warning next time. Terrified. Yeah,
they look like plucked chickens literally, and then mainly yeah,
this is not okay. Why did I look that up
after you looked up nol And they look even more
(18:46):
like dinosaurs now, don't they? Yeah? Yeah, And something about
the color of the skin and the texture just really
it's very unsettling, very unsettling. Yeah, we we all probably
had turkey for for Thanksgiving dinners, so maybe we should
rethink our own values here. But um so, as we said,
(19:07):
I mean, this is a big business for South Africa
at the time, they provided around eighty five percent of
the entire planets ostrich feathers. The rest came from, as
you mentioned earlier, been from North Africa. Uh And there
were these established trans Saharan trade routes um that were
typically navigated on the backs of camels um. So this
(19:34):
was just fine for South Africa. Ostrich feathers were it's
third most profitable export. And the government had already taken
over land from some of the indigenous people from the
surrounding areas, not to mention Dutch Boer settlers, and ousted
them from their land, and they used that land to
(19:54):
create these massive ostrich farms that were overseen by the government. Yeah. Yeah,
this gives rise to things like olds Chardon, which is
a feather town. So feather towns were a thing. But
there was one big problem, and not everybody outside of
South Africa was aware of this or not everybody outside
(20:16):
the African continent. South Africa was selling feathers like gangbusters,
but they didn't actually have the best feathers. Everybody in
South African in the trade knew there was something else.
There was a better kind of ostrich. The Barbary ostrich. See.
And that's the thing, man, I mean, if you don't
know what you're missing, I'm sure these South African feathers
(20:39):
were great, you know, and then they were, you know,
plenty fluffy, and the the inherent nature of the ostrich
feather in and of itself is gonna feel really great
if you get one. But when you compare it to
the extra uh snuggly, extra plumy barbary Ostrich feather, uh,
these South African ostrich feathers looked like trash in comparison.
(21:01):
And we were starting to see shipments of these feathers
passing through. So people were starting to get hip to
the fact that they were missing something, that there were
better feathers out there, Yes, better feathers. Indeed, that's because
the barbary Ostrich is the largest of all the subspecies,
making it the largest living bird, meaning that those feathers
(21:26):
are going to be larger as well. And they were
also they also had this quality called being double flost.
They had a kind of filmy down if you didn't
picture it, that was much more dense in comparison to
regular old South African ostrich feathers. And so this made
a tremendous and luxurious or garish display that people were
(21:50):
super into by eight eighty two. By the way, a
single pound of Ostrich feathers, just the regular ones, we're
going for about four hundred dollars, which is a little
more than ten thou dollars today or so jeez, Louise
uh And just for a reference today, you can get
to Ostrich filets for from wild fork dot com. You
(22:13):
go wild Fork, I go to fossil farbs. We gotta
we gonna switch. Let's try about I think we should.
I think we should ben And it's crazy when you
look at these Ostrich filets, they really do look straight
up like steak. And I think that largely has to
do with the fact that there's such active and lean birds,
you know, so it's it really does like have the
appearance of a steak. So the South Africans looked at
(22:33):
this as an opportunity. They were not daunted. I mean,
they already owned you know, eight of the global ostrich
trade ostrich feather trade, so they're like, well, why not
just let's diversify. Let's figure out where these massive, you know,
high quality feather yielding beasts come from and get our
hands on a breeding pair of them. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(22:57):
a brilliant plan. Right, we will get top notch quality
feathers and then we won't have to worry about this
American competition out there in Arizona. One problem though not
I really knew where the barbary ostrich came from, and
so they saw an opportunity, an ostrich tunity, if you will,
(23:19):
I make no apologies backs. Uh. The thing is, by
the time they got all these acts, the like the
top notch feathers, they have been passed through so many
middlemen that nobody, nobody knew the origin point. The best
guests the experts could make in South Africa was that
these birds must be located somewhere in the lower edge
(23:41):
of the Great Saharan Desert with within a place called
the Sahel region. Uh. And that's within caravan range, like
you said, old by camel back. Uh, it's caravan range
of the trading center at Tripoli. And so nineteen eleven,
the South African gun from officially organizes a trans Saharan
(24:03):
ostrich expedition. The entire reason this thing is around is
to figure is to hunt down barbary ostriches and bring
back as many pause as possible alive to South Africa.
And let's just be clear here, a k a steal them.
Oh yeah, it's a heist. Yeah yeah, it's absolutely eyes.
(24:23):
A government sanctioned Ostrich heist. That's what we're dealing with.
That's what we're dealing with. Yeah, exactly, after all these years,
after all those oceans love in movies. But the heist
is on. A guy named Russell William Thornton, who was
a hero from a conflict called the Beauair War, was
assigned to lead the expedition. And this guy already had
(24:45):
experience in the Ostrich farming industry. So Russell Thornton's goal,
um his charge that was bestowed upon him by the government,
was to make his way into French Sudan, find the Ostriches,
and get a lock back to South Africa, should he
choose to accept it, which which he definitely did choose
(25:05):
to accept it. This would have been before at the
time as the Americans or French officials got wise to
their movements. Yeah exactly, they made some pretty like hurried
preparations and Thornton said, all right, I'm gonna round up
a couple of my boys who are Ostrich experts. And
then he brought what to me sounds like a small
(25:27):
army around a hundred porters, trappers, cooks, translators. They get together,
they get on a boat. They sail from Cape Town
in August of nineteen eleven. And the reason they were
so rushed was because they were worried that somebody else
might beat them in the heist. Thornton's own brother, Earnest,
(25:52):
this guy had been an expert Ostrich rancher that he
went to the dark side. He quit his job with
the government and left for the Unite States, and then
people were worried he had become a term coat and
sold his like become a consultant to help guide some
Americans into the African continent and find the barbary ostriches. First,
(26:14):
why is this not a film? I feel like I
say that once a month. But this is great. So
our guy, here are our fearless leader, Russell William Thornton.
Before going back to South Africa, um he on the
side explained to his brother who was along with him
that he was actually a double agent. Dump dumb. I mean, seriously,
(26:36):
this keeps getting weirder. He was a double agent and
he was working as a as an independent contractor spying
on the American Ostrich industry. Later, he sort of walked
this back a little bit and claimed that his whole
intentions were to force the South African government to um
(26:56):
act on the information, the intel they got as to
the whereabouts of the Barbary Ostrich. Uh. South African officials
were not happy, understandably with the way he behaved, you know,
when he was supposed to be their guy on the ground,
you know, in the in the trenches. In this is
where we learned the phrase Ostrich espionage or Ostrich bionage. Ostrich. Yeah,
(27:26):
I'll take it, I'll take it all, give it to me.
So we we learned this phrase thanks to the work
of a biologist with a cool name, Thor Hansen. Thor
Hansen wrote a book called Feathers, The Evolution of a
Natural Miracle, which talks through this story, and thor says,
even now in the modern day, it's still unclear who
(27:48):
was spied on whom and how true or untrue Ernest
Thornton's story about being a double agent was. But still
Russell only found out about this double agent thing after
they were already on the boat. So they were already
on the way, uh, and I think it took him
several months, right, Eventually they got to British Nigeria. So
(28:08):
at this point, Thornton's crew, which uh you know would
hopefully have contained at least one bag man um, were
camped near a town called Kano. Like the character and
Mortal Kombat with the laser eye rips your heart out,
holds it up and it's still beating, because that's totally
how hearts were. Uh. And this is in British Nigeria.
(28:29):
Where was Kano meant to be from? He was South African,
I believe you know. That's a good question. Let's see
Kano Mortal Kombat nationality. We're just gonna do this live, folks,
because I'm not sure. Uh. He is an all Australian. Uh.
He is from the Earth realm, Earth Realm Australian, got it.
And for some reason I thought he was in the movie.
(28:50):
They made him South African. Uh for some reason. But
you know, those those don't don't tell, don't say this
to an Australian or a South African. But those accents
due to to uh get muddled up for me. Sometimes
shots fired. Nope, Nope, shots attracted, stracted, no shots intended.
But yeah, so they're so they're so they're camped out, right, Yeah,
(29:13):
and they they know that this trading center Kano, like
you point out, Uh, this trading center sells a bunch
of stuff. One of the things it sells barbary ostrich feathers.
So they know they're they're they're like trying to trace
back the trade, right, uh, and reverse engineer the process
until they can find the actual birds. So Russell sends
(29:36):
out scouting parties every possible direction you can imagine. And
also he starts tell him what you think about this.
It sounds like he was roughing up these desert caravans,
like he was quote unquote inspecting the cargo. It feels
a lot like pretending your customs or something. Well, it's
sort of a form of extortion or you know, kind
(29:58):
of strong strong Marie. Right. But in doing this he
got some very valuable intelligence. He learned that they were
getting these plumes from an area around a place called Zinder,
which was by all accounts that he had access to
the only place on Earth where wild barbary ostriches could
be found. Yeah, and that's a problem that's another plot twist,
(30:21):
because this is this would be a great film. Zinder
is not just a week's worth to travel away. It's
also inside of French colony Soudan, which is now part
of Niger. Uh. South Africa was considered self governing, but
it was technically part of the British Empire, and the
(30:42):
French and the British Empires didn't really get along, so
Thornton felt like he had to ask his bosses for
the green light. He wires, sends a wire to South
Africa and says, hey, good news, bad news, good news,
pretty sure, I think I think we found where the
ostriches are. Ad news. It's deep in French territory. So
(31:03):
he is waiting to hear back from his bosses and
from the government to get the okay to cross in there,
you know, knowing that it could be an international incident.
So in the meantime, while he was waiting for a
response from his government, he spent time buying up as
many ostriches and um these barbary fancy plumes that he
(31:24):
could uh. In six weeks he got the thumbs up
from the South African government to go ahead with the plan.
They said that he was authorized to spend seven thousand
pounds sterling for one and fifty ostriches. But it was
almost like a black Ops mission, right because they basically said,
you know, should you be captured, we will disavow any
(31:47):
knowledge of this mission or association with you. How crazy
is it that that that is absolutely true, serious business man.
And so with this uddenly black ops mission on his mind,
Russell takes his gang hundred and fifty miles north through
the desert to a place called Fort Zinder, and he
(32:11):
first tries diplomacy for six weeks, he's trying to get
the French colonial authorities to let him have some ostriches.
And this is like Dr Susian level ridiculous. Here. The
French officials didn't have a clue as to why the
South Africans would want these ostriches in particular, but they said,
(32:33):
you know what, you're technically part of the English Empire
and if you want them, but we're not doing it
because if you want them now now we want to
keep them. And so they said, okay, listen here, Russell Thornton.
You can't hunt these, you can't capture him, and nobody
sell them any ostriches and They're like, well, why Boston.
(32:53):
He's like, because they're basically British to us. Oh man,
poor guy. So he kind of went back. That's the
British Nigeria, plumeless, hat in hand and with no creepy
gangly neck birds and his plane hatted the tragedy. That's
(33:13):
the worst way to be Yeah, But Thornton was a
man of great resolve and he knew that he had
what it took to get this done and he was
not going to be bested by a bunch of Frenchies. Yeah.
He went to his network, the local desert leaders, and
he turned to them for help. This is where the
(33:36):
story gets a little muddy, right. I don't know how
we want to film this when we finally start our
film studio, but we do know Thornton somehow eventually does
return to South Africa. He has a flock of ostriches.
But there's like missing film from the narrative here because
(33:57):
right now people don't know how he got these ostriches.
What gives Well, we have some private letters that Thornton
sent back and forth between himself and a confidante by
(34:17):
the name of Mr Smith, and there are hints at
possible extracurricular smuggling expeditions into French territory. And these were
not all entirely without incidents. There were even some conflicts
with some nomadic tribes folk and some French soldiers reported
in these exchanges. Yeah, at least that's what that's what
(34:41):
people are finding from this, as you said, these private letters.
But our buddy Thor notes that the Russell's descendants deny
anything like this happened. So right now, officially we can't
say it's confirmed that he that he rolled in and
turned his heist mission into like this action packed montage
(35:06):
of violence, although that's just to be fair what I'm picturing.
But either way, he does get a flock of ostriches hostritches.
You could say he took them hostage and marches them
from northern Nigeria to a train to take them to Lagos.
(35:27):
Right oh, when he gets malaria not fun. You're seeing
dig a little tonic water. I'm not going right out.
So the ostriches are loaded to these specially modified kind
of cattle cars, you know, train cars. Uh, and then
they were transferred to a freighter heading to Cape Town,
South Africa. One hundred and forty of the total number
(35:49):
survived the voyage, which is not It's not awful, right,
it's not not terribly bad survival rate for such a
you know what, would be a pretty strenuous voyage. Thornton's
team when they got back, they were treated like kings.
They were given a ticker tape parade or whatever. The
South African equivalent of the day was. Thornton's brother. On
the other hand, after being you know, outed as a
(36:11):
double agents um, decided to just he threw in his
his plane at his plane. Had I feel like we've
invented a new thing calling people playing at it, which
is a shame because you guys know, my lucky hat
is very plain and for some reason the idea of
having feathers on that bad boy just put him put
(36:32):
a single match stick in it, or maybe a playing
card minimalism. Thanks man, that's a great idea. Actually I
might do that. Uh so, my terrible awkwardness and haberdashery aside.
Absolutely right. Russell Thornton's gamble is paid off. He has
saved the future of South Africa's ostrich monopoly for about
(36:56):
two years. Because then the final plots was occurred, the
feather market crashed it plummeted. Ostrich feathers were no longer
compared to diamonds. People had once upon a time said
that a good Ostrich feather was an investment for life,
kind of like the way people talk about really fancy watches.
(37:19):
But if you look around nowadays, right, Ostrich feathers are
much less of a big deal. Right? Or do do
we just not hang out and fancy enough circles? But
I'm not sure, man, I know, you know, it's funny.
I was actually googling Ostrich steak to see, like what
types of restaurants sell Ostrich steak, and it is upscale,
like it's definitely considered like a delicacy still, like you
(37:42):
can find it at some fancy steakhouses here around town,
like Wrath Buns, for example. But when I googled that,
I also noticed that the key word came up for
decor as well in some fancy restaurants. So something has
like is adorned with like Ostrich feathers or you know,
used in some way to like, you know, kind of
add a little pizzaz to certain interior decorating that would
(38:03):
also be considered very very fancy. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah,
And despite the fact that they're still very fancy today.
We're pretty sure we know what happened that spelled the
end of the global ostrich trade. One of the big
factors was the Audubon Society and then something called the
(38:24):
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They were against
the mass killing of birds for hat purposes, and they
have been against this for years and years and years.
And because of the efforts of the Audubon Society in
particular in the US, Uncle Sam eventually passed something called
(38:44):
the Lacy Act, which was going to prevent the interstate
trade in wild birds. Ostriches and domestic birds were technically
excluded from the legislation at this point, but the writing
was on the wall, The feathers were on the bird.
This fashion trend was on its way out right. I mean,
(39:05):
you know even nowadays, like with artists and makers and
stuff like that that that you know, create beautiful pieces
of whether clothing or home decor or whatever, it's not
particularly popular to use real bird feathers unless they are
humanely sourced. Um a good friend of mine, Um who
(39:26):
lives in Australia. Um makes jewelry and she uses humanely
sourced feathers, meaning she finds them, she doesn't pluck them.
These creatures are not raised to, you know, like pluck
them of their feathers. She literally trapes us through the
forest with like a little head lamp on and looks
(39:46):
for just you know, looks for shed bird feathers, and
then you can use those um Otherwise it's just kind
of a bad look these days, you know. And there's
there's another thing that happens here. The automobile came onto play, right,
the automobile has hit the stage, and what does that mean?
That means big fancy hats that were perfectly fine when
(40:09):
you're walking around are no longer as practical, Like how
do you if you're in an open carriage car, how
do you keep that thing on your head? And then
also when World War One comes around, people are a
little more hesitant to appear very showy or very well
off because everybody is basically having a terrible time, right,
(40:29):
and then women are going into the workforce as soldiers
are sent away to foreign theaters of war. Apparently, according
to that Great Atlas Obscure article null you referenced early
in the show, apparently the final final thing the Ostrich
feather that broke the camel's back was the emergence of
(40:52):
the bob cut. A bob cut, I think most people
know it's just a really really short hairstyle. And the
theory is that this hairstyle was just not capable of
supporting really cartoonishly big gass hats. Yeah, yeah, it's true.
It's true. Um And as we know, aside from like
(41:13):
little Ladies on Sunday, big hats are not so much
a thing anymore. Well, remember that big hat that Farrell
wore for a while, kind of like the Arby's hat.
I don't understand that one, man. I like, I've thought
about that in the years since. What what's going on?
I mean, where what makes you happy? First, he was
trying something out. He was trying to, you know, make
(41:35):
a change in the zeit guy single handedly, which if
anyone can do it as him, I don't know that
it took off, but you do occasionally see big weird hats.
Um as it comps though it is so just like
like is it a park Ranger hat? It's not quite.
It's like a child's drawing of a park Ranger hat.
High question is if you push down the top, does
it go down? Or is there something in there? Is
(41:57):
there like a support system built in there? Yea or
or or a rabbit perhaps, or some sort of small
hairless cat, a small ostrich or a smaller hat like uh,
that's the Russian stacking dollars. Yeah, yeah, there we go. Okay,
well we've solved it because I like all of those answers.
(42:19):
Of course, this is not all whimsy. This was a
huge trade. So thousands of people did lose their job
when this industry collapse, and that kind of spelled the
end of it. But we do we do have an epilog, Nolan.
I think this has probably been in your mind as well.
One of my big questions, Max is probably a big
(42:40):
question too. No, what about the ostriches. These ostriches that
guy kidnapped, almost a hundred of fifty of them got
locked up in South Africa. Are they out of jobs
too or what? Well, we don't really know exactly what
happened to them. What we do know is that they
were never bred into South Africa's you know stock of ostriches.
(43:05):
That just didn't happen. The last bird from that flock
was a male and was killed in a lightning strike.
So all of this ocean's eleven ostrich addition, heisty business
was absolute waste of time and energy for all concerned.
It's a shame, you know. And the ostriches, the barbary
(43:26):
ostriches from that area in zinder and Cano on the
Niger and Nigerian border. Unfortunately, also we're not long for
the world because these French colonial administrators were they weren't
going to permit official exports, but it appears they didn't
(43:48):
pay enough attention to the unofficial stuff, the smuggling, the
over hunting, the encroachment of humans into the natural habitat,
as our pal Thor Hansen says, and I love this,
he says. They they didn't send the brightest bulbs. No,
they did not. And one of the sad things about
(44:10):
all this is that I had sort of speculated early
on that they would have you know, used every part
of the ostrich or when they were you know, retired
from being plucked, they would have used their meat. But
I guess you want the meat of young ostris. I'm
not quite sure. But the point is, uh, there was
this huge uptick in the you know, um use of
feathers as like a trading commodity. Um, But that did
(44:33):
not mean that people were eating more ostrich Instead, you
had a lot of these animals that were being found
in the wild, killed, plucked, and then just left to
rot or be eaten by scavengers. Not yeah exactly. I
mean we were supposed to use every part of the buffalo.
(44:53):
You're supposed to use every part of the ostris, but
no pretty shortsighted um in these in these situations. Yeah,
and so this is well, this leads us also to
a harsh ecological lesson. Today, the barbary ostrich Is has
(45:13):
been eliminated from most of the southern Sahara Desert. It's
critically endangered. It exists in some parts of Chad, Cameroon,
and Senegal. But there's a big question. Are these the
same ostriches as the ones Thornton was rounding up or
were they something else that is now extinct? And it's
(45:36):
a it's it's a tough question to ask, but it's
also I think an appropriate sort of epilogue to the
great trans Saharan ostrich heist. Yeah, and um, we can
end this one with a little bit of ostris trivia.
I think everyone's probably aware of the almost cartoony cliche
(45:58):
notion that ostriches tick their head in the sand when
they're scared. It's sort of I don't know. I think
it was always used to imply that ostris were either
stupid or um cowards in some way. We know they're
definitely not cowards. They will come at you and snake
at you with that weird tiny head and gangly neck.
But it turns out this is all just a matter
of the way an ostrich looks and the proportion of
(46:22):
its head to its body. If you're looking at an
ostras from a distance and they're like nibbling in a
little bit of food on the ground, uh, it could
in fact look like they're tiny little heads have disappeared
into the sand. I see. And yeah, and their heads
are really really small. Uh. We we also have some
(46:43):
more ostrich trivia. They're the fastest two legged species on Earth.
Their top speed is forty three miles an hour, and
they can run thirty miles an hour for ten miles
at a time, making them also one of the best
long distance runners in the animal kingdom. Uh. You can
still in some touristy spots you can ride ostriches. I
(47:06):
don't think people should. But I'll admit as a kid,
it was one of my first questions, right, did you
didn't you think that was a kid? Uh? That's a
big note from me, my friend. Um, but you you
you have that Uh it is neat that because we
talked about how you know, their wings were sort of useless,
I guess, or or at least that would be the
perception I think, But that's not in fact the case.
(47:28):
They don't fly in the air, were they sure? You
fly on the land? Like you said, they're the fastest
long distance runners in the animal kingdom, and they actually
use their wings. It's kind of like rudders, like a
boat would use rudders, or like a plane would use
like you know, those flaps, um, And it allows them
to maneuver their bodies and kind of cut the air
like in Mario Kart when you like draft behind somebody
(47:50):
or when you do like a like a drift. You know. Um,
they're able to make these like very fast breaks and
zigzagging patterns while they run, largely because they're using those
wings to day balanced and in control of their bodies,
which leads us all to say you shouldn't try to
fight an ostrich and you definitely shouldn't try to outrun them.
(48:11):
They will they will wax you. I do want to
shout out, you know how Wicky How has all these
weird articles. I found a Wicky How article called three
ways to survive an ostrich encounter or attack and uh,
just the just the images are hilarious. What do you
call a group of ostriches? Heard? Um, yeah, I guess
(48:31):
I heard. Let me see, maybe maybe flock like geese? Okay,
uh huh exactly. Well, what my question for you as
if you ever see, if you ever came upon a
flock of ostriches and all of them turn those weird
little heads to you at the same time, you will know, truly,
my friends, the feeling of abject horror almost the baddest
(48:53):
thing an ostrich mate. Oh boy. Yeah, I don't know
if we're going to sleep tonight, guys, but ridiculous historians.
We hope you enjoyed this episode. You know, we all
love a good heist story and we're so glad you
tuned in with us today. Thanks as always to our
super producer, Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Casey Pegram, thanks
(49:14):
to Gabe Luisier, Thanks to Ale explains you composed our theme. Uh,
Eve's Jeff Codes, Christo Frasciode is always here in spirit.
Jonathan Strickland, the quister um. You know, he would have
maybe pointed out if we were if you were here
right now, because he likes to point out pedantic little
trivia facts. Did you know that a group of zebras
is referred to collectively as a dazzle and that is
(49:37):
where the name for that weird type of military paint
job that we're at one point done on naval ships
were referred to as dazzle camouflage because in a big group,
the zebra stripes can actually create an optical illusion where
it almost they appear to to kind of vanish. Nice more,
you know, well, thank you, thanks to that man, and
(49:57):
and thanks of course. Well I feel like I need
to send you a nice card or something, because I
didn't realize initially how how bird centric this episode would be,
but hopefully the heist made up for it. Oh yeah,
it was, It was fine, It was fine. Uh, those
OSTs just got what was coming to him. I'm kidding.
I love all of God's creatures. They just creep me out,
but they definitely deserve to live and not be plucked
(50:19):
by you know, weird South African poachers. Crazy idea friend
in the episode uh Mat, can we just for the
audio and just play the sound? And Ostrich makes gross.
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
(50:46):
My heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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