Feather Huntin': The Great Trans-Saharan Ostrich Heist

Elizabeth, what's your third-favorite bird? On the heels of that question follows one of the strangest tales we've told. It's a globe-trotting, desert-crossing, ostrich-wrangling, feather-lusting, pith-helmeted, African cowboy adventure... with crime! Just how far will a bunch of profit-minded South Africans go to steal a flock of coveted French colonial ostriches?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hey it's Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Hey, it's Elizabeth Dutton. What's up, Burnette?

Speaker 4 (00:08):
I got a question for you. And you're a cool
felliny t shirt. Do you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
I do know it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
What shack shack diesel shack jackfu.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yeah, Eel O'Neill. He's one of those celebrities.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
Shoe well, yeah, that's what my friend's dad always says
us every year.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Sequel. He's like a good Irish name. He's Irish. Yikes.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
He he's one of those celebrities that's just like everywhere.
We'll do an ad for anything. Oh yeah, yeah, you know,
there's a handful of them.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
If you can write the check to him and he
can see that it clears. Huh.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
So we got word that there was this thing called
a shack pack shack pack, which then when I googled it,
that was originally something that was called that was like
a burger king deal.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
That's what I thought, Yeah, in the early aughts.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's like a sour dough burger. Shaquille O'Neill apparently endorsed,
was particularly fond of so anyway, But now there's this
new shack pack and it is a mash up, well
but not.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Really was like a cryptocurrency, that's how bad it is.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
No, it's it's a product. It's Icy Hot. You know
he does.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Icy I mean, this.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Isn't that surprising. It's not truly a mash up. It's
just a celebrity endorsement, okay, until until they go too far.
So there's like a limited edition roll on Icy Hot
for when you're curtain and a yeah, and then this

(01:44):
is what the packaging looks like. So it kind of
looks like a PEZ dispenservice that but the head is
Shaquille O'Neill's giant.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Head that like removed from their body PEZ and.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
It's totally going to go up someone's tutor holding it
larger than I thought it would be. But so yeah, anyway,
it's just kind of hideous and take.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
That related is perfectly good. No, not really, I'm not saying, yes,
you know.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
He does what is it? The general all sorts of
other ads and is long and so anyway, yeah, we
got that from a few people on Instagram, thank you,
and I think one of them, let me see, one
was where's the email? That I got Scott Nelson. Scott

(02:45):
his profile picture is some really cute dogs. So Scott,
that's why we're going to pick you as the refer
on this one.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Look you Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
He also sent us a great picture that the interns
forwarded me of Shilah boof doing gang science. So yeah,
you know all around. Yeah, shock pack. I'm going to
get one. It's limited edition. I didn't really look into
how one would go about securing such a thing.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
You should, I don't like, should get a pair of
those shorts that have hot pocket pockets. Eric Buckolts sent
me a thing on Blue Sky about that we talk
about the hot pocket pockets.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
I feel like we might have talked.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I'm trying to use this as a shield a defense.
I'm holding this up here.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Trying to block my mash this like.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
A magic cards like I don't know I'm gonna play.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
It's not a real mashup though. It's just like a weak,
weird promotional thing.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah you know, I want saw Shaquille O'Neil outside of
a restaurant in Beverly Hills the night before the season
started at two am. It gets out of his like beautiful,
like uh Bentley or no, yeah, Bentley. And he gets
out and and I'm like, I'm walking out with this
guy with a good friend of mine. Uh, and we
both look up as this man unfolds from this car

(04:02):
right in front of us. I mean like we're walking
out round the sidewalk and he's parked right there, getting
out of the valet, and he just goes stretches, and
I don't even know what to say. I just look
at him and my head's going up, like I'm watching
like Jack and the bean sprout stretch. And he gets
up and he's just a full height. He's like seven
three or whatever, maybe seventy five.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Of shoes on.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
And he says like I'm like, he's like hey, I'm like, hey, shack.
He's like, yo, push past me. I think he might
have been self medicated.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
So you know, it's like, how like, don't Lales have
like the slowest heart? That's how he that.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
It was really impressive, and.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
You went on to write about him and for mel magazine.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Right wrote in the Size of the Little Shack.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Yeah, it's one of my red stories of all time.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
I still get emails about it. Anyway, enough about already.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Too many ridiculous things abound.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Elizabeth, I got a story for you today. Okay, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
My research into wigjackers, Yeah, led me down a different
rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
What I'd like to tell you about today.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
Yes, specifically, yes, the story of the great trans Saharan
Ostrich heist.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
Oh yeah, this is ridiculous crime.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
My podcast about absurd and rageous capers, heists and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent motor free, that's right, and
one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
You know that, that's right, Elizabeth Sarren. If I asked you,
what would you say is your favorite bird?

Speaker 3 (05:50):
My favorite bird, I would have to say I like
redtail hawks.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Good answer.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
In my backyard every afternoon there's a fight between crows
and a red tail.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
That's dope.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Good entertainment too.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
You just go out there and they do it.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
They do, they signal you do, they let you know
it's on or you have to go out at a certain time.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, one of the mocking birds comes and taps on
the windows.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Like Lizbeth, it's happening.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
You better get out here.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I'm okay, good defeat this lapping.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
It's happening. Well, I got a second question. Yes, what's
your third favorite bird?

Speaker 3 (06:24):
My third favorite bird? Oh? I got a great barn
owl out in the tree outside my place too, so
I can hear them on some night.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
There's a lot of birds in your life.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
I really. Do you have that Merlin app on your phone? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (06:36):
You told me about them.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Sometimes I'm out there and I.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Just bird identify somehow.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
Dude, I just go out there and I hit record, yeah,
and just watch it. Rack them up, rack them all
these lists of birds, bush tits, baller bush tits.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
There is that recent the do fine?

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, it's a recent one. But you know something, I
don't know nothing about birds.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Okay, good news for you.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
What's your favorite bird?

Speaker 2 (06:57):
I'm not answering that question, a cop. What would you
say is the weirdest bird?

Speaker 3 (07:03):
What is even happening right now? The weirdest bird? What
is that one with that giant bill that looks all crazy? Oh?

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah, like the stork thing. Yeah, but it's like huge
and it has a clacking bill. It looks like a
dinosaur illustration. Yeah, I don't know what that bird is.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Called the weird looking big bill bird.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, that answer is incorrect.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
The correct answer that we were looking for is ostriche.
The answer was ostrich. Elizabeth, what do you know about ostriches?

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Long leg They stick their head in the ground.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
That's true, they do. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (07:40):
Now, if like me, you thought ostriches come from Australia,
you would be wrong. They are not from down Under.
I totally thought they're from down Under. Oh yes, a
lot of those birds. Yeah, we'll get into that in
a second. Turns out they're transplants. They're the common ostrich
was brought to Australia, so you'll see a lot of
them there and being bad asses, they caped captivity, they

(08:01):
got free, got busy and created an enormous feral colonizers.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
They're not native, sure, they were brought there, you know.

Speaker 4 (08:10):
Now factually speaking, ostriches are criminals. No, they are not criminals. Well,
they're free living, but they're they're from Africa, then they're
There are two main species, the common ostrich from West
and North Africa, and then there's the Somali ostrich, which
is like from the horn. Now there's the subspecies, the
rednecked ostrich aka the North African ostrich aka the Barbary ostrich.

(08:34):
Now I learned a whole lot about ostriches for this,
so that way I could talk with some like at
least the conviction of an eight year old with a
new obsession.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
So you didn't know this going into it, No, I
didn't know most of this.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Love the research for the show.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
This knowledge with you.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
It's a gift I gave myself.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
Beautiful, you.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Can't you damn right now.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
The Ostrich Elizabeth is considered the largest living retit, and
that is it was a new word for me. That's
a term for the species of tall flightless birds. So
EMUs are a tie It looks like it would be
pronounced retight.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
Yeah, but it's a red tit now.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Yeah, so this includes is his EMUs castawerries the rahah.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
I just shifted way down into power nerd. Now I'm
like trying to figure out like the word origin exactly.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
It was all new to me. I was like, well,
I've never been heard this reference.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
What does it come from?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, ostro whatever, I'll look look up.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, they're the big daddies of the red tit family.
The common ostrich stands nine feet tall. Dang, that weighs
about three hundred and fifty pounds. Did you know that
ostriches can run up to forty three miles an hour.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Wait, they're like shack exactly.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
On two legs, it can run faster than a horse
can on four what, Yeah, like a lot faster, like
thoroughbreds running like thirty one miles an hour, So thirty two,
you know, like they're running forty three.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
I imagine it's pretty funny looking too.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh totally. And what ostrich run?

Speaker 4 (10:00):
One single stride can be about six feet wide and
from point to point.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Wow, exactly.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Ostriches are the largest heaviest bird on the planet, so
heavy that they cannot fly.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
They're like chickens.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
They can kind of sort of hub or fly for
a second, but instead ostriches run and like I said,
faster than a horse, Elizabeth, they can also kick ass.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
I'm going to I'm going to take one into the
Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Right on the back of an ostrich. That would be dope.

Speaker 4 (10:28):
The ostriches have these crazy strong legs and at the
end of the of these clawed feet, which is two
intense claws that can disembottle a full grown man.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
This is perfect for the derby, right.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Exactly have you ever seen an ostrich like up close,
like at a petting zoo or I.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Feel like I may have seen one at a zoo,
but I'm kicking myself for not paying closer attention.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
We saw one. We crossed country that time.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
We stopped at the farm and like Arizona, and they
had remember the eyelashes, how crazy long eyelashes were, huge
eyes the memories.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Yeah, I know, I forgot.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Their eyes are two inches across. They have the biggest
eyes of any land animals.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
And honey, they pop, they do.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Mean, they're just stunning. Now.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Also their eyes are decorated, as they said, with these
super long eye lashes. That's like reduce glare. But also
because they're running at the speed of like an old
Honda Civic, right, so they need to be able to
see everything. Now, do you know about their eggs?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
They're big, big ones, big ones, so they have these Okay,
also let me I'll reverse it.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
I'll tell you this. The adult male ostriches, they're covered
in black feathers. That's who usually mean to see a drawing,
it looks like that. Now for an accent, they have
those little white wings a little tough to white legs.
And then for they have the white tail fleather plumage,
and then their legs are kind of pinkish.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
You notice.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Okay, so the adult female ostriches they're not so striking.
They have gray brown feathers instead of black covering them.
There's a reason for this, these two feather colors. This
isn't about mating selection. It isn't like, oh, the female
ostriches prefer this. No, they've worked this out as an
evolutionary advantage. It helps with egg protection. Ostriche daddies are

(12:01):
super involved because they sit over the guard of the
nest during the night, so they're black. The females sit
guard over the nest during the day, so they're brown
like the savannah. So the black feathers disappear against the
night sky. Brown feathers dis against, disappear against totally. And uh,
you know, have you ever seen an ostrich egg up close?
They're absolute units?

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Are they the ones that the eggs that if you like,
hard boil it.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
It's clear I do not know. It sounds right, I
did not, bigg I wish I knew the answer to that.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
No. Yeah, there's one of them where if you had
to hard boil it comes to crack it open. The
egg white is actually clear.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
That's cool, so the albumin doesn't turn like that.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Just imagine eating that is a double egg.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
Well they came in China, would they age them and
then the paper wrap almost clear?

Speaker 3 (12:49):
But the would be like if someone's messing with you
with like a jello. Yeah, ostrich could you imagine eating
and ostriche deviled egg?

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Yes, six inches long, five inches across. Hell, yeah, that's
a meal for days. They weigh on average three.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Pounds three pounds.

Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, it's by far the largest egg of any bird
or reptile on the planet. Not only did they lay
the largest eggs, right, but these are the largest eggs
since the days of the dinosaur, from the days of
your Yeah, and they overlap with the days of dinosaur,
but we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, they
lay like seven to ten eggs at a time. Ten
of those bad boys come out of your.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Twenty one pounds eggs exactly.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
And each one of those eggs, if you were to
eat them, like if they did, do your thing like
boots cook them up, that's the equivalent protein to twenty
four chicken eggs.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Each one is twenty one each egg twenty four chicken.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Eggsli, you have to very cool hand looke.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
Does the price of eggs have you down? Have you
considered ostrich? I also learned ostriches are, in your word, quirky.
I mean they're poly like as they're into polygamy. They
have unicorns and group dates. No, I'm kidding, they don't,
but they are polygamous. Like the male will keep a
bruta hens and then they'll like so then because of
the egg laying issue, they pile all their eggs into

(14:11):
one communal nest of all of his females, which is
like the dominant female makes a nest and then the
I guess subdominant females. They put their eggs in her
nest and then he sits on them. They got like
a whole arrangement.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
They're interesting exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
They're like, we're vegan.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Have you read Stacey, she's new to our ostrich.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
They're annoying me. Now back out of this, put it
into reverse.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
I remember how he said the closest living relative to
ostriches or the cassawaies and the Rayas and the EMUs,
but they're all from Australia. I remember I said the
red Hits. That's the name of the family. That's the
name for that whole species group. But Australia and Africa
are far apart. So how did like ostriches get there?

Speaker 3 (14:55):
And there's a little thing called Pangaea.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Good quote, it's actually Gondwana. I didn't know about this,
the super continent of Gondwana. Are you familiar with the
super continent? I mean, I have to met. It's been
a while since.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
I've been reading up on super continents.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
I'd forgotten more than I remembered about old deer Gondwana.
The super continent of Gondwana was composed of four of
the present continents, one the mostly submerged continent, and two
subcontinents all together. So the four continents were Africa, Australia,
South America and Antarctica. They were all pressed together. Now,
the once submerged continent was Zeelandia New Zealand, and then

(15:35):
the two sub continents were India and Arabia the peninsula.
So they all get pushed up and but Australia and
Zeland stay down and then South America on it just
jets over to the side. Now, as you might expect,
this various geographical regions which are now separated by oceans
still share to this day many of the same flora
and fauna aka same plant and man animal life. Sure
back to ostriches, their ancestors diverged evolutionary back in this

(15:59):
period of Gondwana land. So when they separated, this was
like in the Cretaceous period days of the dinosaur.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, like t rex in the days of yours exactly. Now.

Speaker 4 (16:09):
Then when Gwendana broke up, ostridges they become this evolutionary
cul de sac in Africa and Arabia. But they split
into a few subspecies. But they're more like an evolutionary
planned community, right with one way in, one way out.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
So one in Florida, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Exactly, the glade, you know, the what is it called
the something, the something something.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
They always have golf golf parts they drive around. Yeah,
I do not know.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
I should point out that the ostriches have been around
for roughly, if I put it, numbers sixty six million years.

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Sixty six That's.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Why there's so wild looking. They are old.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
It also means they're evolutionarily a super success. They're like sharks,
like we got this down, don't mess with us. Sharks
have survived the ecological collapse that took out the dinosaurs,
so did ostriches.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah, and then came humans.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
While the other predators of the African savannah may like
to snack on an ostrich when they can catch them,
humans are their real primary predator, so we have been
since we emerged on the savannah, so for the last
like two hundred thousand years or so.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, like, look at them.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
They're tall. They can't fly and escape us. They can
run like hell.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Right, I can shredge it with them totally.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
With the two towls, but with some planning, most of
that can be overcome. And plus, their eggs are equivalent
to two dozen chicken eggs, and they lay intended a
time in a nest.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
Oh man, that's eat for days for.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
The trus Now, if you can catch a full grown adult,
that's food for weeks.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
So this is how we began.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
To ordering wings at a restaurant.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I want the leg, give.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
You the leg at like a medieval time totally held
up ostrich drumstick.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Just work on that. You got a turkey leg.

Speaker 4 (17:56):
I needed the I need a whole table for my
ostrich leg. So one point we found their skin made
good leather, like then the Egyptians they.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
Figured that out. Yeah, They're like, oh, this is dope.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
And then we began to associate ostriches and specifically ostrich
feathers with the god Matt. That's the Egyptians. Yeah, and accordingly,
so this becomes like divine justice. It also becomes symbolized
with ostrich feathers, so now they're associated with the divinity.
And then the pharaoh war II ostrich feathers in their crown,
so it's divine god given authority over men and women.

(18:26):
Ostriches start to really have a come up, right this
time keeping it Mediterranean over in ancient Greece, they're freaks
for the ostrich egg, right, they start offering them up
to gods as.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
A worthy form of devotion, like here, please have an egg.
This will feed your family for day.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (18:41):
The Turks of the Ottoman Empire also keeping it Mediterranean,
my dudes, right, They would hunt ostriches. It was considered
great sport to them because think about it, you got
a nine foot tall flightless bird that can run faster
than a horse.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, that's good sports, that is, I guess right.

Speaker 6 (18:56):
Well.

Speaker 4 (18:56):
After anyway, after a successful hunt, the ostrich feathers and
the plumage with sometimes be worn as a prize of
the hunt. So once again it's now designer bravery and accomplishment.
And so this is about the time Ostrich feathers become
a fashion statement, not from the Ottoman Turks. But once
again it comes down to one person, one specific woman.
You want to guess who Elizabeth. No, if you said

(19:17):
Marie Antoinette, you were correct. Ostrich feathers are basically associated
with royalty, dating back as I said to the pharaohs
of Egypt, and this tradition continues through the Renaissance, when
kings of queen and Europe they opted to use ostrich
feathers to show their.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Associations with the previous divinity. They're like, oh, we're like
the fare just like that old stuff.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
Oh yeah, give me some Ostrich feathers, you know. At
the same time, ostrich feathers also become mundane. They become
the simple tool to express oneself. Ostrich feathers they become
quills to write on parchment paper. So now the durability
of Ostrich feathers also means that quills last longer, so
people start writing longer letters, longer court documents. This commoner's
technology lends itself to the creation of literature of the era.

(20:01):
So the Renaissance is this is a huge part because
of Ostrich. Right, anyway, let's take a little break. Can
I get back. We're gonna get back to my girlme
Marie Antoinette, and connect this to the big wigs I
told you about earlier, Yes, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
Arin, but no, before you begin, Yes, I did a
little bit of work during the ads.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
That's what you were doing.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
You went to sleep. I did the responsible thing and
I went to work. And number one, the place in
Florida is called the Villages.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh right, like a horror film, Yes, very much so.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
And then the clear Egg that's the penguin.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh, double down. That's why I was like, can't fly?

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, okay, you can't fly, Clear Egg, never lose. Go ahead.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Well I returned into uh and I say this loosely
my girl Marina's one night she was looking to find
some new visual shock to signify her elevated status, and
so she grabbed this brilliant, curling Ostrich feather. She shoved
it into her big ass wig and she pairs it
with his peacock feather. The look becomes instantly iconic. And

(21:32):
this is in the air still when everybody's doing the
big wig. So, as we covered before, so went Paris,
so went the world's fashion. So this look, for whatever reason,
I guess they just did like a lithograph of it.
I don't know how it passed around and everyone's like, oh,
you got to soon enough. Ostrich feathers. They're the look
of the day. And that day lasted and lasted and
lasted into the nineteenth century, into the twentieth century. Ostrich

(21:53):
feathers remained of the rage in women's fashions on both
sides of the Atlantic. It was crazy that meant the
price paid for these fine, eye arresting architectural ostage feathers.
Skyrocket's Elizabeth. Yeah, And by the end of the eighteen hundreds,
from hats to funerals, Ostrich feathers are the thing. Okay,
and as we've covered, this coincided, but they fall and

(22:15):
the wigs is a mainstay and look for the rich
of the you know, rich and decade and they're like, oh, no,
I'm not doing wigs anymore. I'm all into big stupid hats.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Oh and those are those are very popular for big
stupid hats.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Exactly as you know.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
So now we get the elaborate hats of the days
they're like, yeah, you should put some striking plumage in
this fanciful exactly. So by beginning of the twentieth century
you get these hats.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
Oh, it's crazy decade in that's lovely.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, I thought you'd like that.

Speaker 4 (22:42):
The one of the women there that I'm showing you
on the right is Lillian Russell, the American actress.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
Yeah, I'm not sure if you recognize that name.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
Yeah, but anyway, as his cultural craze goes and the
wealthy folks are exorbitant prices to outdo their peers, we
both know what that means, don't we.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
Crime?

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Crime.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
So that starts off the Great ostrich Heist of nineteen eleven,
the Ostrich Yes, great Trans Saharian Ostrichized of nineteen eleven.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
As opposed to the Great Northern.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
The Trans Siberian, or the Transvall.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
There's a lot of transd be very specific about when
you're talking about your Ostrichized steamroller.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, you can't just cross anything. This is Transaharan.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
So I got a question for you, if you had
to guess when Ostrich feathers were at the peak premium price. Okay,
how much do you think they were worth? You want
to take a guess a pop, Yeah, I'll give you price.
This is eighteen eighty two the feather trade.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
It is eighteen eighty two dollars.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
As an all feathers sold, including ostrich feathers in eighteen
eighty two. I'm not going to ask you to do this.
I'm going to put some frame on this for you.
The whole feather trade was bringing in five million dollars
a year. That would be roughly worth fifteen point seven
billion dollars a year today with it being just for
the global feather trade. The feather industry at the time

(23:57):
was more lucrative than oil and gold. Wow, the second
only to the Kimberly diamond mine.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
So by nineteen thirteen, which is like, you know, right
around the point that this story takes place, at the
height of their value, ostrich feathers were worth how much
per pound do you think per pound?

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Per pound?

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh, gosh, there's a lot in the pound.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yes, it's a lot.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (24:20):
One thousand dollars, good, guess, five hundred dollars okay, which
if you convert. That would be sixteen thousand, two hundred
and thirty five dollars for a pound of feathers.

Speaker 3 (24:28):
Father, isn't that like this is not too far away
from the time. Remember that guy that you talked.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
About wrist, Yes, a feather thief.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Feather thief that was all autubond.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yes, exactly the same feathers, overlapping feather.

Speaker 3 (24:43):
So like everyone was all about the feathers.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
They loved the feathers and they were so worthwhile and
people they also liked it because they could go tramping
off into exotic places. Yeah, exploit them, take the feathers
and go back to where they're very valuable, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Just as a quick aside, my nephew when he was
maybe two, Sure he see feathers that have these pillows
on my sofa that are down filled. And if a
little feather came out of it and he noticed it,
he'd pick it up and say, oh, my hair, and
then tuck it back into his hair. He thought he's

(25:15):
a smart kid.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Now totally get this. He is a smart kid, but
he thought that that's my hair. I don't know what
I'm doing my hair like this.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
Let me put it back here.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Sorry, for the mess.

Speaker 3 (25:23):
Yeah, so I always think about that with people tucking
feathers in their hair.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
My hair, my hair, Oh, my hair.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
So you can imagine if these are so valuable that speculators,
investors as well as smugglers and thieves would get into
the ostrich feather industry. Right now, the most valuable ostrich
feathers were from the Barbary ostriches. Those are the North
African subspecies. They were known to have the thickest, most luxurious,
resplendent plumage Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Yeah, it just curling, yes, really good body.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Now, far more valuable than the ostrich feathers that were
collected from the South African ostrich which.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Were more numerous numbers. So there were more of those
ostriches in South.

Speaker 4 (26:02):
Africa, yes, right, So the South Africa is responsible for
eighty five percent of the ostrich feather market.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Eighty five percent.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
Now, if you wanted to get the more lucrative ostrich
feathers from the Barbary region of North Africa, you had
to rely on camel trained caravans that were bringing the
feathers through the Sahara crossing. This vast trans Sahari trade ride.
It totally dating back to antiquity. So you got proven
nons and you got history. Now, due to this camelbacked

(26:31):
nature of the Barbary ostridge feather distribution networks, Elizabeth, they
were far more rare in the market and their quality
obviously was still more coveted. So you have these two
factors that are causing the price to be valuable. But
in South Africa, the British overlords down there, who just
supplanted recently the Dutch Borer ethnic group as the main
exploiters in the country, they were cuckoo for the ostrich

(26:52):
feather industry.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
They're like this guy like.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Basically, imagine one British fellaw said to another British fellow
if these ostriches are so valuable, why don't we follow them?

Speaker 2 (27:00):
And the other fellaws like rdio what they're.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Like, No, but people want scrubbed table, they don't want
factory farms ostriche.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Dude, have you ever had ostrich meat?

Speaker 4 (27:10):
No, I mean all the weird meats, like if you
can make a burger out of it, I've probably probably
probably tried it.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Really, Oh yeah, well I don't.

Speaker 4 (27:18):
I don't think it's it's like turkey, It's very similar.
You know, kind of a dry like gray meat, you know,
like a cross between like a red and a white meat.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's like a gray meat.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
So at this point, ostrich ranches become a big deal
in South Africa, right, So South African ostrich farms start
to dominate the global market, and that's how they corner
the supply maximizer profits with subpar ostridge feathers. Yeah, of course,
so this bothers the ostrich farmers, so their feathers are
considered subpar.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
They're like, what's what's wrong with the arms.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
We dominate the market, so they start to covet these
barbary ostriches. They're like, we only get our hands with
those North African birds. However, the South African ostrich farmers,
they you know, basically resent the fact that also there's
this slippery truth to the ostrich feather market, which is
the feathers passed through so many hands in middlemen and
going across the desert, it's really hard to know on

(28:10):
their way either to the European or the American markets,
what is the real provenats are the exactly, So oftentimes
people didn't know where the feathers were. They only cared
about the quality which means if they could get their
hands on some of these North African birds, bring them
down to South Africa, put them on their farms. Yeah, done, deal.
It's not about where they're from. This is not like

(28:30):
tear war for like, you know, we need to have
them standing on the right soil.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Or maybe maybe.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
So they say to themselves, what if we set up
a couple of blokes up north, have them grab some
barbary ostriches, We bring them back down to South Africa,
set up a couple of breeding pairs, breed our own
luxury line of ostrich feathers. It yeah, something Victoria.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
These are wild ostriches they're going to catch.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah. So in nineteen ten, South Africans they hear word
from the Brits, who they've just are. They're getting spun
off right, They're like, oh, you're on your own now, Union.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
Of South Africa. Good luck.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
But so there's all these Brits are every where, and
so the Brits are telling them like, oh, we heard
in the council office in Tripoli that we heard a
location of where you can find the barbary ostrich is located.
Because they don't have like they're not really flying it.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
It's nineteen ten.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
There's no way to see the desert unless you go
marching out there. So they get there's like word that
there is we know where a flock of a big
flock of these birds are eaten away from the world
in an oasis near the sands of the Sahara. So
specifically these it was the high value ostriches. So everyone's like, oh,
where they're like, oh, and in Southern Sudan, which is
interestingly not the Sudan we would think of because okay,

(29:42):
by this way, so you think of South Sudan, that's
like below Egypt, right, yeah, okay, below Sudan, that's not this.
Southern Sudan was the name for the French colonial holdings
of West Africa, okay, and so the nations of Mali, Niger,
that's what we're talking about, Okay.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Chad, that area. So this is yeah.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
Anyway, So the Brits in the Triple Embassy, they say,
basically directly south of us, on the other side of
the Sahara is where there's all these birds, and so
they'd go only tell their confederates in South Africa. The
South African ostrich industry started small, but it quickly grew
under a juggernaut. Right, so, but it basically it takes
them about ten years from eighteen sixty five, the industry
starts with like eighty ostriches. A decade later they've got

(30:21):
thirty two thousand. Oh they're kicking right so again still
subpar varieties. They're like, okay, once we get our hands
on this, we can take our skills. We now know
how to farm them. They're not dying off like at
the beginning. So they're like, okay, problem was there was
a whole law about you cannot go, if you're British
into French territory and just go grabbing our birds. It

(30:42):
would be a crime. It would be like a real
treaty violation. It could lead to a war just to
get these ostriches. Because right now the Brits, in the French,
in the Germans, they're all fighting over Africa. They're very
quickly descending and throughout the end of the nineteenth century
carving it up.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Oh yeah, so deciding guess what all of you don't
know each other. You're a nation.

Speaker 4 (31:01):
Yeah, we drew a map here it is you guys
are now Togoland. So quick plug, there's this great coverage
of this story from Atlas Obscura. I recommend the story
and were largely that website. Great website, fantastic. So the
man who gets selected to lead this daring trans Saharan
Ostridge heist that they have planned and they're discussing down
in South Africa is this guy Russell Thornton. He's like
a British adventurer type. He knows the area since he

(31:23):
was a veteran of the Boer War and he had
won the region for the Brits. Is South Africa I'm
talking about. So he selects for his team two other
experts a fourth man who he trusted with his life,
and he goes, this is my heist team. We're gonna
go up there and get them birds. The two experts
that he pick were a pair of Ostrich ranchers. He's like,
they know birds, they'll be able to tell me. Grab
that one. He looks like a goer.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Yeah, guys names are Frank Smith and J. M. P. Bauker.
Fourth man, the one he trusts with his life is
his brother Ernest.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
Okay, that makes sense right now.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
So the two experts they travel up from South Africa
to meet him in London to plan their adventure with
the team leader Russell Thornton. They outfit themselves with all
the various gear they'll need for their African adventures.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yes, very Royal Society helmets.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
Yes exactly. They're going around shopping for this. Imagine that, right,
going around London, and they decide they need outfits for
cold weather, warm weather. They need gear for the desert
in the savannah. Right, so the ostriches that they're gonna
be going after, they're located in a semi arid region,
but they're gonna have to start like in Nigeria and
go north. So they're like, it'll be hot and then

(32:29):
it'll be cold and be aired. So we need clothing
for everything. We're gonna needed trunks of clothing.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
And in their minds they have the montage of the travel.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yes exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
You know you have to have like a nice dress
shirt totally.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
If they need to get invited to dinner, yeah, I go,
doctor Livingston, I presume would you like drinks? So the
two experts they travel to London, they planned their adventure
and uh, at this point, the year is nineteen eleven, right,
so this same year, there's a rumor that blows across
the Atlantic and worries these folks. They in both South
African contingent and in great The rumor is that there

(33:01):
is this trader who's been spotted in America. Talk is
he's working with the Americans. And to assume this traders
telling the Americans about the location of the Barbary ostriches.
They do that the American gets their hand on it.
Done deal, They'll just put them in Texas, in Arizona
and California.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
And be creating these beautiful things. Yeah, handover fist.

Speaker 4 (33:21):
Also, the American market is the biggest market for ostrich plumage.
This is where they're selling the stuff to the hats
in New York. The ladies in Washington, d C. Philadelphia, Baltimore,
you name it. They want these things. Even the River
City Elizabeth They the Victorian ladies they want the plumage.
Is how they tell people I'm rich and I'm important.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
I just feel like Europe would have a much like
deeper bench in mark. Oh do they do.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
But the Americas is just so many of them. And
they're also the nouvau riche, so they're they're willing to
signal and to buy and also the prices because they.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Oh, we had to bring this over and then they
just tell them about their berber to trade did they
have to deal with They're like, oh, here's more money,
So they're they're not smart buyers anyway. So all this
means is big bucks if if the Americans get their
hands on it, or big bucks that they'll be losing
out if the Americans get their hands on it.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:08):
The trader who's talking with the Americans is allegedly a
man from the South African Ministry of Agriculture. So he's
in the no yeah, motivated by an abundance of fear
and concern that they're about to be beat out on
all these huge profits by the Americans. The South African
Parliament holds a vote and they authorize the secret mission
of Thornton and his team.

Speaker 3 (34:28):
Secret.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
Yeah, they're supposed to head to the saw hell and
come back with the ostriches. It wasn't just business now,
it's war.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
So the trouble was that the alleged trader was Russell
Thornton's own brother, Ernest, the man he trusted with his life. Yes,
he'd been invited along h ostrate adventure.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
I wonder waiting for him to.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Get to London. He's over there in New York going
by the way, I got the maps. You want to
point me outs? So they he Then he turns around
he set sale, you know, from America back to London.
Now South Africans are so worried, and their confederate British
allies are so worried.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
They also have to hope.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
That none of this gets back to the nosy French
that they're planning on sneaking into their.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Colonies and stealing their births, and can the Americans keep
a secret? You know?

Speaker 3 (35:13):
And they're like, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
So the team leader's brother, right, it's over there in America.
They're worried about that.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
It looks like their secret plans are ruined before they
even get started. But at this point, the Californians and
the Arizonans are the ones they hear about rumors of
talk of some ostrich thing. They send people to New
York to hear about this. It's getting crazy, right. Their fears, though,
aren't well founded, because it turns out Ernest baby brother
of team leader, travels back to England and he goes
a subterfuge worked perfectly he'd gone to America as a

(35:42):
double agent to find out what the Americans knew. He
told them nothing of the Barbary Ostriches. He's purely on
affect funding mission, very British. And then also it's to
scare the South Africans into approving their adventure, so they
get want brilliant right. So the problem though is that
the French territory does begin to hear whispers, and so
there is that one problem. But now at this point

(36:04):
they are told, you know, with their official orders to
sneak into French territory and.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Go do crimes.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Right, and they're basically like privateiers on the Spanish main right,
but they're ostriche thieves traveling the seas of sand of
the Sahara. Now, before they head off to the Sahel
for their Ostridge heights, the team travels to Paris. This
would be a key stop on their track.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
Well that's just thumbing their nose at the French.

Speaker 4 (36:26):
Well they needed because the French are like big because
I remember they have a lot of the North African colonies,
so they're big in the to this trade and a
lot of the stuff comes through Tripoli. So the team
travels to Paris to talk to people who are in
the know, and then they need to win over the
trust of one man in particular. They travel from London
to Paris to attend a top secret meeting with this
mysterious feather merchant named Hassan. The meeting, of course, was

(36:48):
about their planned ostrich adventure in Africa. But rather than
tell you about Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your
eyes and I'd like you to picture it.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Paris, France, nineteen eleven.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
Elizabeth, at the moment, you are working in the home
of Isaac Hassan, from the Hassan family of international feather merchants.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
A deal went bad.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
You wound up owing the family a rather sizable amount
of money. The resolution of this debt requires that you
now work for the Hassan family as their personal assistant.
The French say valet. The britsay valette. I say, we
call the whole thing off anyway. You're a valet working
in an impressive, established Parisian manner. At the moment, you're
carrying a silver tray with a jostling tea service setup

(37:35):
balanced atop the tray. You make your way into the
grand seating room and set down the tea service tray.
Seated like an emperor on his decorative couch, is the host,
Isaac Hassan. He's busy discussing business with his guests, a
pair of brothers named Thornton, Russell, and Ernest, and a
pair of rough around the edges South African ostrich farmers

(37:56):
named Smith and Baker. You didn't catch their first names.
You know how mister Hassan likes his tea, so you
prepare his tea cup first. For pouring the hot contents
into the delicate bone china teacup, You add a splash
of milk a touch of honey. You add a teaspoon
to the saucer and hand the tea to mister Hassan
in mid speech. He accepts the tea with barely a glance,

(38:16):
old habit as he addresses his guest. You ask Russell
Thornton if he'd like tea. He nods in the affirmative.
You pour his and you ask if he'd care for
milk or honey.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
He says both. As you add the splash of.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Milk and a teaspoonful of honey, you overhear the most salient.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Points from their conversation.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
You don't know it, but these men have come to
have a top secret meeting with your boss, prominent feather
trader Isaac Hassan. Obviously, being in the feather business yourself,
you do know that Hassan is a notable Parisian feather
merchant who hails from a distinguished family of feather merchants
dating back for at least a century, generations of Hassans
have traded feathers in the markets and stalls of Paris.

(38:56):
Over that time, the family has developed personal connections to
trade networks that extend from North Africa across the Sahara
Deep into the French territories of Sub Saharan West Africa.
After you hand Russell Thornton his tea, you hear mister
Hassan boast for his guests that over the century of
his family's involvement in their lucrative international feather trade, the

(39:17):
Hassans have watched as the trade that once passed through
countries and territories controlled by the Ottoman Empire have witnessed
this once vast empire crumble into independent satellite nations, now
ripe for the European powers to pick over all. Very
sad you ask, Ernest.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
Thornton if he'd care for tea? He shakes his head.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
You step to the veteran South African ostrich farmers who
wear their dirty leather boots in the sitting room. You
know you're going to be cleaning up dried mud clumps
from god knows where later today. You politely smile and
ask if the ostrich farmers would care for tea. They
both nod in the affirmative. As you pour the tea,
You listen to mister Hassan continue his boasts as he

(39:59):
just describes how the Hassan family of feather merchants still
operate their trade network with the help of North African officials,
but the trade through Tripoli has fallen off, and now
they must deal with the layer of French bureaucracy and
a layer of bribes for those same bureaucrats. This is
all eating into the family's once great profits and they
would like to move on from the international feather trade.

(40:21):
Times have changed. You ask mister Smith, the ostrich farmer
milk honey. He nods violently, Your boss. Mister Hassan continues
to sing the praises of his family. They're savvy, as
it explains that the Hassan family plans not only to
get out of the feather trade, but to sell out
to get out while the getting is good. Do you
think that should have been my choice? You concentrate on

(40:42):
handing the tea to mister Smith. Next you begin to
approach mister Boucher with tea as Isaac Hassan tells this
gathered heist team that he is fully prepared to help
the South Africans with their African ostriche adventure.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
For a price. He tells him he is prepared to
sell what he knows he will arrange safe.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Passage thanks to the family's network of contacts across North
and West Africa, but again for a price. Then he
dangles the best he has to offer. He promises to
connect these adventures with the Emir in the land, a
powerful man who will provide them protection, and promises that
if he can find and buy ostriches, they can safely

(41:20):
get them out of the country. Because finding and buying
them is only half the challenge. The harder part will
be the ostriche drive from North central Africa south to
the rail lines and onto the coast, he says the bandits,
he tells them, the raiders African highwaymen, nomads. They will
all pose challenges. The protection of the Emir will be
most necessary. And again for a price. You hand mister

(41:43):
Baker his tea, but he's not looking in your direction. Instead,
he's focused on Isaac is Shan and his cheshire cat Grin.
The irritated South African ostrich farmer is short tempered, apparently
also kind of cheap.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
He asks how much is all this going to cost?

Speaker 4 (41:56):
And he gesticulates wildly, hitting the tea cup you're offering.
The teacup goes flying. The hot, milky sweet contents hit
you right in the moomoo.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Because you're wearing a very tasteful silk and mumoo.

Speaker 4 (42:08):
Now there's a hot stain blooming right in the center
of your chest, and the ostrich farmer sees this. He
doesn't even apologize. Instead, he starts to laugh. That makes
the other ostrich farmer start to laugh, which makes the
other two from the heightst team also burst into up
Rorya's laughter.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
You stand there wondering what have you done to deserve
your fate?

Speaker 4 (42:26):
You try to make a little money in the international
feather market, and now look at you. So there you
go Elizabeth, the taste dore we have in store for us.
Take a little break and after this we will get
to Africa.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Elizabeth.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
After tessful meeting with the mysterious feather merchant, your former boss,
Isaac Cassan, and after they meet his price, the great
Ostridge heightst team is now ready for their raid. The
team set sail for the coast of West Africa. They
arrive in the British colony of Nigeria. From there, they
travel north on a riverboat, Very Colonel Kirks, It's a

(43:20):
five hundred mile trek up the Niger River. After that
arduous leg of their adventure, they step off in this
little town of Borrow at the river's edge. From there
they board a train and they travel to a city
called Kano. It's a major trading point for the mini
trans Saharan camel caravans that are crossing.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
So do you think they just have like trunks and
trunks of stuff.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
I think they do, so picture that just like a
camel caravan behind them. So when they arrive, Russell Thornton
starts inspecting the local ostridge feathers on offer to see
if any of them are close to the quality he's
looking for, and he recorded in his journal those from
Zinder are the right type. According to all evidence, the
right type of feathers are from the French territory. So

(44:01):
he finds out that the ones being traded and filtering
into this area from further north over the line in
French territory are perfect. They have confirmation, right, Yeah, they
got that good good. So, emboldened by this, he sends
word back to his bosses in South Africa. He reports
that their trek has found success. They ask for official
permission to sneak over the border into the French territory

(44:21):
and steal these prize barbary ostriches, and then they wait
for word from the folks back home in South Africa.
Now at this point, they're languishing right on the edge
of the French colonial border, hoping nobody hears about them,
and they're killing time in the top of Nigeria and
British territory, yeah right, and buying up ostrich feathers, trying
to lay low and not let anyone find out about.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
Their true Everybody knows they're there, like the word has
to have spread.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Oh totally. I mean, they stick out like the preferbial
sword thumb Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
And their pith helmets walking around going anybody have any
ostrich feathers now. Thornton and his team, as I said,
they're chilling, trying to keep busy, and they're buying up everything,
so they're kind of marks. But after six weeks of this,
their impromptu shopping spree INDs because they get word from
the South African officials they are approved for.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
A clandestine operation into French territory. They're told that they're
operating budget is seven thousand pounds sterling. That's estimated to
be enough to buy a flock of one hundred and
fifty high quality barbary ostriches if need be, otherwise grabbed them.

Speaker 3 (45:20):
Yeah right.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
The South African authorities also informed Thornton that if he
or any of US heist team are caught in French territory,
the mission will be disavowed and the government will disavow.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
Them as well. Oh wow, it's very ostriche based mission. Impossible, Yeah,
real to.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Something like It's really something like that, the impossible mission family.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
Now it's co time, Elizabeth. So the expedition, they sneak
over the French colonial border. They travel one hundred and
fifty miles more north into the semi arid landscape right
below the Sahara Desert. They arrive at a place called
Fort Zender. This is now basically in Niger, what we
would think of his niche. They pretend to be ranchers
who've heard about ostriches and just innotantly looking to buy

(46:01):
a few for their place back home. And yes we
are English. The French authorities hear about these strangers looking
by ostriches.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
They zoom over.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
Now, this could be big trouble for them, obviously, because
they're gonna be disavowed. The Ostrich heist team gets lucky
the French authorities. They don't arrest them, which they could
have done. Instead, they just tell the prospective Ostrich farmers,
no get going. So the French is already they're rightly suspicious, right,
They just tell these like Ostrich appreciators beat it now.
The Ostrich high team they get turned away without their

(46:30):
coveted flock of one hundred and fifty ostriches. They're forced
to leave French territory. They literally like take them back.
They're like get out, yeah, and they're turned back. They
have to march south to British territory with French spies
following them whole time. They may and possibly there's rumors
that American spies are also following them, trying because they've
been kidding, they're piggybacking the operation, trying.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
To find them ahead of them.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
So there's also American spies that are shadowing them the
whole time.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
If they're not traveling incognitio.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
There's like groups of white men following each up to
the ground. Central Africa. Yeah, in the arid areas where
there's nothing on the horizon until you just see like
just out of the heat that's dissipating. All of a sudden,
people on.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
The show up with this caravan of all their stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Exactly a train of stuff.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Buying up Ostrich feathers.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
If they're lucky that bandits just don't rob them every day.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
Talk an Ostrich everywhere exact rather than being like I'm sorry,
what is that. No, I'm not familiar with that. I
don't know her, and then you just go about your
business and then zoink he grab some.

Speaker 4 (47:28):
Frenchworn legion runs them out of the country. So somewhere
along the way, the Ostrich ized team they do manage
to score some ostriches, not the flock they wanted, but
at least they don't come away empty handed as far
as what they get. The flock they came away with.
Many suspect that their business partner Hassan coordinated with contacts
with the local emir. Yeah, to sneak around and get
some barbary ones. And it's like, don't worry you guys

(47:49):
messed up, I'll take care of it.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's the idea, right, so.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
And then they would owe him big yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:54):
But apparently it was sketch getting back, because there are
reports in letters home from like one of the expert
ostrich farmers, they one named Smith Totally. He rides back
to his family like, dearest Emily, I survived the raids
into French territory and then racing back to British territory
with our legal ostriches. We were set upon by no
mad tribes, possibly the Berbers, I'm not quite sure. And

(48:15):
then he also mentions conflicts with the French army. They
were shooting at them. Apparently whatever did happen as they
made their raids and snuck back and forth across the border,
because apparently that's what they had to do.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
The Ostrich team eventually procures.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
All the ostriches thereafter, and once they have their birds,
they take this ostridge drive and trek hundreds of miles
south back to Nigeria. So imagine a cattle drive, but
it's all ostriches.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Oh god, right.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Now I have to remind you ostriches can run faster
than horses. Yeah, so you have to imagine that was a.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Crazy ostriche drive to back to Nigeria.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
Who's like, did they pick up a local?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
They definitely had some.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
Look the long sticks beating the earth and going not
that way, not that way.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Imagine pick up you know, some sheep dogs.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
You definitely need some better.

Speaker 4 (49:02):
You can't just rely on two South African Ostrich farmers.
So so we do know it was this whole thing's
fraught with challenges, right because also heist team leader Forton,
he gets cut down by malaria.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
So now he can't walk, he can't ride a horse,
he can't do it.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Hes to be carried.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
So now they got to get more people.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
They PLoP them into a hammock and have to heft
him hundreds of miles back to friendly British territory.

Speaker 3 (49:27):
Crazy everyone that's malaria. But like really, he's just tired
of walking.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
I think I've turned my ankle. I'm gonna have to
have a lie down.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
So the Ostrich's ized team they make it back over
the border with their crazy Ostrich cattle drive and uh,
we make it back into what's now Nigeria. They load
up a flock of their contraband ostriches. They border train
to Lagos. That's what the big port is. So the
train cars are modified to carry these ostriches. I like
to imagine it like a circus train where the ostriches
are poking their heads out of the top right, just

(49:58):
like a blossom of ostrich heads. So up the one
hundred and fifty ostriches they set out with one hundred
and forty survived the Ostriche cattle drive, the train ride
to the coast, and then the ship voyage down to
Cape Town.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Not bad.

Speaker 4 (50:11):
One hundred and forty eight hundred put if you can
believe it. When they arrive in South Africa, the ship
is met and feted like the arrival of conquering heroes.
Oh yeah, they had done it. They'd trekked off into
unknown thens and come back with a flock of coveted ostriches.
Everyone knows this marks the birth of a new wave
of generational wealth for the South African ostrich industry. Except Elizabeth,

(50:33):
life is funny, fun Just when you think you have
it all figured out. You've done the hard thing, the
illegal thing, the impossible task, you survive the trek, You've
come home, the conquering hero, and then just two years later,
the bottom drops out of the ostrich feather market and
you'll lose everything. It's like a modern Creek myth, like
a Paul Thomas Anderson Marietta. The twist of fate was

(50:56):
there to be seen for those with the right eyes
to see it, like Hassan getting out of the industry,
or ears to hear it, you see, Elizabeth. At the time,
there was a little something called the birth of the
animal rights movement. Energy for the movement was the wholesale
slaughter of birds around the world to power the wig
and later hat industries with their brilliant and exact feathers.
So whole bird populations were being extincted in pursuit of

(51:19):
their fine feathers. So as a result, when photographic evidence
to go gets published of this industrial scale bird slaughter
that's happened now where people can't see it. The response
from animal lovers and decent people is tremendous and it
all comes down to this Australian ornithologist named Arthur Mattingly.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He no relations to don He tramped into the wild.

Speaker 4 (51:40):
He photographs this widespread devastation that's occurring in the natural environment.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Right.

Speaker 4 (51:44):
I've been talking like these feather hunters are just wrecking shop.
And he photographs the slaughter of adult egrets and herons
them in Australia.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Like killing them and then pulling the feathers.

Speaker 4 (51:55):
The chicks don't have good feathers, so they leave all
these chicks to die. So he has all these empty
nests with the adults have been taken and it's just starving.
Photos get published an article called Plundered for their Plumes.
It's syndicated published around the world. Huge uproar in Europe,
mainly in the UK, USA, France, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark responsor.
The article it galvanizes a movement. It changes the opinion

(52:18):
of these delicate beauty of the feathers. Yeah, they become
like blood diamonds, is blood feathers.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Or like a fur code totally exactly.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
It's very og furs murder. Yeah, right, So soon organizations
are formed to protect birds. In particular, these two American women,
Mental Hall and Harriet Hemanway, who founded the what Audubon
Society you called it now, they led popular boycotts of
feathers and the hats that people wear them. And they
also had no imitation feathers, the whole thing. We're against

(52:46):
it right right over in the UK they have the
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They're together, working
with both sides of the Atlantic. They lobby against this
wholesale slaughter. The millinery industry and the wigmakers take it
on the chinch.

Speaker 6 (52:59):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
This leads to a wave of pamphlets, public lectures, magazine articles, books.
The whole tide turns against them. Now remember the Transaharan
Ostrich heist. Yeah, went down in nineteen eleven. Yeah, by
nineteen thirteen, the international feather market is in free fall.
Feather markets, yes, the feather markets are once huge, selling
bird plumage. Right, like flower markets would sell flowers, they

(53:22):
close up shop. You can't even find them happening anymore.
The buyers just aren't there. The popularity is on the wane.
But a couple factors other than the animal rights that
killed it are all they all convene at.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
The right time. Because one year later, in nineteen fourteen
World War One.

Speaker 4 (53:36):
All those big ornate, brightly feathered hats, they look really
at it taste right, The splendor of a feather seemed
at odds with the industrial horrors of trench warfare, mustard
gas attacks.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Right.

Speaker 4 (53:46):
Do you know what also became the big new bird
based energy in the culture bird watching?

Speaker 2 (53:51):
This is when bird watching becomes a thing.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
People decide, rather than wear the beauty of the birds,
why don't we tramp out into the wild, get a
bit of a walk, experience it for ourselves, bring some
binoc there's maybe a camera, record the beauty, share it
with others.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
And so the people who did this becomes a thing.

Speaker 5 (54:06):
Right.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Another cultural trend was all those crazy big Victorian era
hats and the insane plumage. Yeah, well that gets killed
off because of something with five wheels that goes beep beep.
The advent of the automobile kills off Victorian fashions, tons
of them, right, in particular, crazy big ornate hats you
can rock around in your model tea or your open

(54:27):
top Duzenberg with some stupid big hat. Another fashion trend
that also kills off the feather industry, women decided to
chop off their hair. So when the bob haircut becomes
a thing in the nineteen teens, that left no purchase
for those crazy big Victorian hats to sit. So between
the Great War, the event of the car, and women

(54:48):
changing fashions and hair and stupid big hats going out,
and the feather industry just implodes in like two year's time.
And so you know what, who's left holding a very
expensive bag? That's right at the South afric agains who'd
launched their trans Saharan ostroch type to corner the ostrich
feather market. Oopsies and now of the original flock of
contraband smuggled ostriches that some survived in South Africa for

(55:12):
another two and a half decades. The last one, an
old male, died during World War Two. It's reported he
died some time between nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty four,
and it's also reported he was killed by a lightning strike.
I love that they know the cause of death really clearly,
but the time of death five year window park. Yeah,
we're like, hey, look, there was a war on and
we were not doing the best of keeping records on

(55:32):
the deaths of our awn. Yes, yes, I think we
remember that one. So those highly sought after ostriches that
were near Fort Zinder and what's now modern Niger. The
French authorities who never really gave a feather a fig
about them. Apparently they'd blocked the raiders and the speculators,
but they didn't safeguard the ostriches.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
So the flock died off.

Speaker 4 (55:52):
Dude over like habitat loss and over hunting. Thanks to colonialism,
this once prized flock is.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
Now no more. It's extinct. Oops. So this whole story
is very much Have I ever told you about my
time in the dark court of Africa?

Speaker 4 (56:04):
You know it just reads of colonialism, exploitation, international games
being played in far away places. Yes, exactly, and so
ends our story of the great transaharent ostracized.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
What's the ridiculous takeaway, hey, Elizabeth, it's.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
You know, you mentioned blood diamonds, and you think about,
like how you can grind this feather industry to a
halt by showing images of starving chicks, and you can
you know, grind the fur industry to a halt with
the imagery for that, but we really haven't done enough
to grind the diamond industry. And it's like those are

(56:39):
children that they're sending in there, and when you read
like accounts of it and you see photos and you know,
it's so affecting, but it's you know, we're all I'm
guilty of it too. Where I don't like to watch
movies where the dog dies. We're a soft touch with
it when it comes to animals, but the human beings
and kids, you know, people are able to kind of

(57:00):
abstractify things.

Speaker 4 (57:02):
We have all these animal rights activists working looking for
animal animals at this time while children are working in
factories losing their fingers.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Yes, exactly exactly. But you know, we like, we like
kids in theory. I find when it actually comes to
saving a kid, not so much.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Take away, Oh, Elizabeth, I feel so refreshed. Man, I
can't believe me. Ask my ridiculous takeaway is fashion? Man,
it's a killer. Huh, that's good. I just kind of
find it really amazing.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
I was, you know, I went from one rabbit hole
or one you know, wormhole or whatever holes to another
of like fashion crimes, and I think I found a
couple others while I was doing this research. I'm not
going to immediately jump on them, but like it's just amazing,
like once something has value.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
Yeah, so that's why I just don't trust crypto. So
there you go.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Yes with you anyway, it's the feather market right now.
So do you in the mood for a talkback?

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Can you favorites with one? Please?

Speaker 5 (58:05):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (58:06):
God?

Speaker 6 (58:10):
Hell, Hi Elizabeth, Saraen, and Dave. This is your friend
Renee thinking about your episode on Parkour. I've been watching
Vertico today and the first scene teaches us that Jimmy
Stewart is really really bad at Parkour. Hope you guys

(58:32):
are doing good bye bye.

Speaker 3 (58:37):
It is it is. That is the lesson every Windows
cock wanted us to know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, so
as always.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
Yeah, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on
the social media, it's mostly Blue Sky and Instagram.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
I think we also have a Ridiculous Crime pod on YouTube.
Go check that out. They're dope. They're animated. You can
listen and it's fun.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
And we have a website, ridicular Crime dot com, which
just won I believe an award from Willie Nelson for
the best certified pot on offer on the Internet.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
You're kidding, Yeah, we beat Willie's reserve. We beat his
own pot. Yeah. Yeah. We can't sell itator anywhere, but
we just offer it. You come over there, we'll give
you some exactly. So.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
Also, we love your talkbacks emails if you'd like it,
Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and as far as
the talkbacks, go to the iHeart app downloaded. If you
don't know about it, Yeah, you can record a talkback
and maybe hear your voice here. And if you don't
know about gmails, you just go there and you type
in ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and whatever email
app you use and just send us letter.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
But start it out, do you. Producer d thank you
for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton, that's her and Zaron Bennette.

Speaker 4 (59:52):
Let Me, produced and edited by the Trans Siberian Orchestra
Heist team leader Dave Kustin and starring an Alis Rucker
as who did research is by Less of a bird Watcher,
More of a bird Listener Marissa Brown. Our theme song
is by Our House band Feather and the Hunters aka Thomas.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Lee and Travis Dutton.

Speaker 4 (01:00:11):
The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest tarn,
makeup by Spartacle Shot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben.
I used to sell feathers at the seashore until that
Gal Sally with the Seashells muscled me out of the market.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Bowling and no, you know I don't believe you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
Brown, Why say it one more time? We cry?

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.