6.18.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. This is Marsha for Radio I, and today I
will be reading National Geographic Magazine dated May twenty twenty five,
which is donated by the publisher. As a reminder. RADIOI
is a reading service intended for people who are blind
or have other disabilities that make it difficult to read
printed material. Please join me now for the continuation of

(00:23):
the article I began last time, entitled Paddling America's Grandest
Water Trail by Freddie Wilkinson. As the river wound through
farm country and the smell of manure filled the air,
the effects of the summer's drought became obvious. Water levels plunged,
and river bottom rocks covered in slippery algai were exposed

(00:48):
to foot and canoe alike. Just before the border with Canada,
I said farewell to Francis and then quit the river myself.
After several weeks at home, I thought I would return
to the NFCA refreshed, ready to take on the last
three hundred some miles that awaited me in Maine. But
the trail's final miles hold hurdles that have been doubled

(01:09):
paddlers for centuries. One morning in the summer of eighteen
fifty seven, Joe Polis set out across the Mud Pond Carrie,
a nearly two mile stretch of land connecting mainz Umbazukous
Lake to Mud Pond. A guide from the Panabscat nation,
Polis was leading the row and his friend ed Hor

(01:32):
As immortalized in the main woods. At some point, Polis,
hauling the group's canoe, hustled ahead while the pair of
Americans dawdled through the forest guideless. The Roe and hor
missed a turn and soon found themselves wandering a maze
of overgrown logging roads. After reaching Mud Pond, Polis, guessing
at what must have happened, doubled back and saved the

(01:54):
men from an uncomfortable night lost in the woods. The
Mud Pond Carrie is no less humbling today. It's far
too narrow for portage wheels, so I had to relay
my equipment in two loads, turning almost two miles in
two more than five. It was a theme of the
main stretch of the NFCT, which took me two trips

(02:15):
to complete. On my second, frustrated and a little desperate,
I enlisted the company of someone with as intimate a
knowledge of these waters as there is. Jason Pardia is
a river guide and elected Panobscot Council member. He is
also Polus's great grandnephew. As I set out on the

(02:36):
a Lagosh River with Pardia, I found he would rather
talk about currents than his ancestors. I'm related to a
bunch of cool Panobscots, but I always feel weird telling
their stories, he said. I don't mind being recognized for
my skills, but I don't want to be out there
being that guy. Yet, for Pardia, reading rivers has always

(02:56):
been second nature. I didn't realize how much I knew
til I started guiding, and other people just didn't see
the things that I saw. Mardia and I were joined
by James Eric Francis Senior, the Panobscot historian, and river
guides Jennifer Neptune and Ryan Ranco Kelly, also members of
the Panobscot nation. Where many times faced removal and disconnection

(03:20):
from their lands and waters, the Panobscot have held on
to their place along their namesake river and continued their
legacy of canoe guiding. Water is freedom. Neptune said, we
weren't removed, we were just pushed onto the islands. In
our river as our territory shrunk down. But in a
way it was perfect because it allowed us that freedom

(03:41):
to still have our culture, to get in a canoe
and take off. That's what our people did. We just
took off that summer. The Alagasha's water table had been
reduced to a trickle by the month's long drought, and
in shallow water a paddle loses its efficiency. To compensate,
the river people of the Northeast use long spruce poles

(04:02):
to guide themselves through skinny water. Poling makes upstream travel
vastly more efficient, a necessary scale for a community that
had to think in terms of round trip canoe journeys,
not simply downstream travel. Soon after we started down the river,
Pardia stowed his paddle, picked up a fourteen foot spruce pole,

(04:23):
skinned free of bark and fitted with a copper end cap,
stood up and began easing his canoe around rocks and strainers,
downed trees that can be assert us to boaters. It's
the original stand up paddle board, he said, with a chuckle.
We later portage around Olagash Falls and the landscape started
to change once again. The frisky brook trout disappeared, the

(04:45):
spruce thinned, and then quite suddenly there was a paved
road running alongside the river, the first we had seen
in one hundred miles. As we pushed on, the Allagash
unceremoniously emptied us into the Saint John River that night.
Finally it rained the next morning, with Pardia Francis Signior
and Neptune bowing out due to the weather. Rank O'Kelly

(05:08):
and I put down an extra cup of coffee before
departing for my final day on the water. The end
of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail can feel strangely abrupt,
for all the effort one puts in to get there.
We glided down riffles of swift water, the current rushing
us against great gravel bars. Then we round, did a

(05:28):
corner and spy the Friendship Bridge between Maine and Quebec,
and just beyond at the boat ramp at Fort Kent,
the eastern terminus of the trail. I might have missed
the cobblestone landing altogether if not for our friends standing
in the rain waiting for us to complete our journey.
The cumulative fatigue from days spent canoeing against gravity and

(05:49):
hauling my boat and gear sometimes for miles, had taken
its toll most evenings. I fell asleep shortly after nightfall,
and I'd come to savor peanut butter by the spoonful
direct from the jar. At some point during my many
trips that summer, I had begun to think of the
trail not as a series of twists and turns one
might expect from a river, but a series of steps,

(06:12):
some long and smooth, some short and steep, but always
either rising or falling, fighting the current upstream or flowing
down hill. Our path on the NFC Tee followed the water,
and the water flowed according to the shape of the land.
As the row wrote in the main Woods, wherever there
is a channel for water, there is a road for

(06:32):
the canoe. On the beach, Rank O'Kelly and I paused
for a couple of quick photos, then pulled our canoe
ashore and drained the rain water from its belly. We
slashed up the muddy track past the old Fort Kent
blockhouse to the parking lot beyond, carrying our canoe together.
Paddling the Northern Forest. Two plus decades ago, a group

(06:54):
of paddlers and hikers hatched a bold plan to create
the Appalachian Trail of canoeing. Backed by federal grants, they
mapped the seven hundred forty mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail,
which runs from New York to Maine. Inspired by waterways
long used by indigenous communities for trade, the route flows
through small towns and rugged back country. Next unbeatable beetles,

(07:19):
These resilient, soil dwelling flesh eaters might have a few
things to teach humans. The American bur burying beetle is
much like an underground undertaker, typically feasting on small rodents
and birds. North America's largest carrion eating beetles usually work
in pairs to sniff out a carcass, remove its fur

(07:41):
or feathers, tunnel under it to draw it into the dirt,
and coat it in oral and anal secretions, preserving the
meal for later. In January, scientists reported something else surprising
about the nocturnal insects, which have received protections under the
Endangered Species Act since nineteen eighty nine. They're strangely resilient

(08:02):
to insecticides called neo nononicotinoids. Despite appearing near death after exposure,
many bounced back within twenty four hours, suggesting a remarkable
ability to detox. The team of researchers suspects that exposure
to bacteria and fungi of decaying animals keeps the beetles hearty.

(08:24):
They're now studying the beetles and their secretions for potential
human benefits, ranging from new antibiotics to food preservatives. This
article by Kelsey Noahkowski. Next holp Penguins push the limits
of their capabilities by Renee eversol Oh my god, this

(08:47):
thing's going to die. That was the thought running through
the mind of wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory when he saw
the first juvenile Emperor penguin jump off a fifty foot cliff.
The bird plummeted downwards, split into the frigid Southern Ocean.
After a few suspendful seconds, it bobbed to the surface
and then swam off toward the horizon. The National Geographic

(09:09):
Explorer couldn't believe it. What came next was even more shocking.
More penguins from the crowd of several hundred huddled at
the edge of the towering ice shelf, plunged one by
one into the sea. There was a moment when it
was just raining penguins off this cliff, says Gregory, who
captured rare footage of the event with a drone camera

(09:30):
in Antarctica's at Kabay last year while filming Secrets of
the Penguins, a new national geographic documentary series. It was
one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. Some
did graceful swan dives, others slipped and tumbled headlong into
the waves. Miraculously, nearly all survived the leap. Normally, young

(09:50):
penguins jump only a couple of feet from floating sea
ice into the water when they fledge, says Michel LaRue,
a conservation biologist at the University of cantab in Christchurch,
New Zealand. The cliff diving chicks that Gregory observed may
have been raised on the permanent ice shelf and likely
took a wrong turn finding themselves in a tricky location

(10:12):
for a water entry, while simultaneously motivated by hunger and
an ocean brimming with fish beckoning below. The scene was
the true demonstration of the penguin's fortitude. These fascinating birds
have evolved over millions of years to survive on the coldest, windiest,
driest continent on Earth. Across these pages, their exceptional adaptations

(10:34):
and specialized behaviors that make them uniquely equipped for this
desolate environment are on full display. Many of their most
incredible traits can be seen during nesting season, which runs
through the most challenging time of year. Female emperor penguins
lay a single pear shaped egg early in the Antarctic winter,
when temperatures can dip to minus fifty fifty degrees fahrenheit

(10:58):
and winds can reach a hurricane. Needing to replenish their
energy reserves, they quickly shuffle the eggs to their mates
to assume caretaking while they trek out to the ocean
to feed. Male emperor penguins spend the next two months
incubating the eggs, balanced atop their webbed feet and shielded
from the cold by a flap of the penguins abdominal

(11:19):
skin that forms a pocket or rude pouch. The soon
to be fathers will go nearly four months without food,
losing roughly half their weight. During breeding season, eggs typically
hatch by August, just as the females are returning to
provide their young with a first meal. Then the chicks
will be fed and warmed by their parents over the
next five months. By mid December, as the Antarctic summer approaches,

(11:43):
the chicks have started to shed their fluffy down for
waterproof plumage. Soon they leave their colony and find food
on their own. Juveniles like those Gregory film take a
literal leap of faith into the sea. It is a
pivotal moment when they begin their life in the ocean,
where they'll spend an average of five years before returning
to breed. Scientists do not think the cliff jumping incident

(12:06):
was directly related to climate change, but at least one
expert speculates that warming temperatures may force more emperors to
breed on permanent ice shelves instead of sea ice, increasing
the chances of juvenile's fledging from tall heights. This incident
underscores a stark reality under some climate scenarios. Scientists predict

(12:27):
eighty percent of Antarctica's emperor penguin colonies will disappear by
the turn of the century. But LaRue remains hopeful about
the emperor's ability to adapt, and she considers the recent
high dive a testament to the penguin's hardiness. They're incredibly resilient.
She says. They have been around for millions of years.

(12:48):
They've seen lots of different changes in their environment. It's
a question of how rapidly they're able to deal with
the changes that are happening and how far they can
be pushed, call her id. Emperor penguins can distinguished by
their vocalizations. Each bird has a unique call that allows
mates and chicks to recognize one another amid the noise

(13:09):
of a bustling colony. Identifying their chicks whistles parents trumpet
back until they find one another. Tuxedo torpedoes in the ocean,
Emperor penguins can dive deeper than any other species, reaching
depths of more than sixteen hundred feet. They also can
remain submerged for over twenty minutes hard landing. When it's

(13:33):
time for the penguins to return to the sea ice,
they release air bubbles from their feathers. This reduces drag
and allows them to accelerate out of the water. The
icy impact can knock the wind out of them, sometimes
producing a squeak. Cold brood, dense overlapping feathers, and a
thick layer of insulating body fat shield. Emperor penguins from

(13:55):
the biting and arctic cold. To defend against the extreme
conditions while incubating eggs, hundreds of males huddle tightly together,
slip and slide on land where their wabbling slows them
down and for penguins often resort to tobogganing, sliding on
their bellies while pushing with their flippers and feet. This

(14:17):
efficient mode of transport allows them to cover vast distances
across the icy expanse as they travel to and from
the sea. How penguins superpowers really work specialized wings. Unlike
flying birds, penguins create a strong thrust on both upstroke
and downstroke. The chest muscle lifting the wing is more

(14:39):
developed hips for swimming, penguins hip bones are elongated compared
with flying birds. The sleek shape allows their muscles to
pull back their feet like rudders from sky to sea.
Around sixty million years ago, prehistoric flying birds evolved into
today's remarkable penguins. The seabird's anatomy adapted to support an

(15:00):
amazing dexterity for swimming so they could flourish in the ocean.
Rigid flippers. Penguin's inflexible joints are optimized for the force
of swimming. In contrast, flying birds wings bend at the
elbow and wrist for agile flying compact bones. When penguins
traded flying for swimming, their bones evolved from hollow to

(15:23):
very dense, helping withstand the stress of moving through water.
Underwater vision. Compared with humans, penguins have flatter corneas and
rounded lenses, which assist their ability to see above and
below water. Salt filters, law large glands above their eyes
help excrete excess salt from prey through their nostrils. S

(15:46):
shaped neck. The neck retracts during diving, keeping the birds
shape streamlined anti frostbite veins. Blood vessels in penguin's wings,
especially close to their shoulders, exchange heat between the arteries
and veins. Constricted blood vessels lower feathers to the body
and insulate ice proof feathers. Penguins feathers have barbs and

(16:10):
tiny hooks that break up accumulating ice. These features also
allow penguins to easily shed water by keeping it in
droplet form. Water result water repellant feathers. Penguins have a
eurobigial gland that continuously secretes oil. The birds spread it
to waterproof their feathers so they stay warm thermal grit.

(16:34):
Some penguin species prosper in cold climates, while others do
well in warmer environments. It all comes down to specially
adaptations by habitat that help penguins maintain their optimal internal
body temperature two sets of feathers. Once a year, most
penguins lose and replace all their feathers in a process

(16:54):
called molting, but Galopagus penguins can molt twice a year posture.
Galopicus penguins are the only species to live on the equator.
To combat the heat, they spread their wings and hunch over,
shading their feet and other exposed skin. Molting phase. When
holding onto new and old feathers, penguins can't hunt, so

(17:17):
they lose almost half their body weight. Pre molt phase.
This is a time of weight gain. Some species add
a third to their body mass. They also grow new
feathers heat release spots. Living in warmer climates, Humboldt and
Galopicus penguins adapted to have bare patches on their faces
to help regulate their temperature. Remarkable voice calls thanks to

(17:42):
separated sets of vocal tissues in the shrings. King penguins
create a noise on two frequency bands, which is crucial
for helping them identify each other in loud colonies. One
of a kind coloring ten species, including those in the
crested group, have a yellow pigment that is produced by
an internal chemical process and signals good health, helping them

(18:06):
attract mates. Breeding mastery. When it's time to settle down,
these birds have interesting ways to signal their interest in
courtship and whence they nest and raise young, They have
useful trades to care for them. All these features help
secure a future for the species. Four second naps. Chin

(18:27):
straps take thousands of power naps a day to avoid
egg predation and protect themselves against aggression from peers. They
still get a total of eleven hours of sleep. Unique
belly designs. African penguins rely on distinctive dot patterns on
their bellies to recognize lifelong partners and colony members. Chin

(18:48):
straps use rock piles to protect their eggs and chicks
against getting wet from melting snow. Sensitive beaks, a newly
discovered bill tip organ found in some penguin species, is
made up of pits filled with touch sensitive receptors and
likely helps with foraging and courtship. Next Secrets of the penguins,

(19:14):
there are evolutionary marbles that survive some of the most
inhospitable conditions on our planet. Now researchers are discovering new
explanations for why, and finding that the incredible penguin has
allowed to teach us about resilience in an ever changing world.
Paw Penguins embrace their urge to explore by Hannah Nordhaus.

(19:37):
When Pablo Poppy Borboro Glue first visited a remote stretch
of shoreline along the eastern coast of Patagonia in two
thousand and eight, the National Geographic Explorer was surprised to
find penguins making a home there. The Argentine biologist was
responding to a call from a nearby rancher who had
seen several of the flightless birds in his proper. When

(20:00):
he arrived, Booglue found trash, broken glass, abandoned cars, and
burned out camphires on the ground. The place was a disaster,
he recalls. It was full of garbage amid the squalor. However,
under bushes and in small cave like burrows, he discovered
something astonishing twelve Magellanic penguins living among the debris. Each

(20:23):
sea bird was about one and a half feet tall,
with a distinctive white band encircling its eyes and neck.
While Magellanic penguins are known to breed in and around
South America on rocky sandy beaches before migrating each winter
to the open oceans as far north as Brazil and Peru,
the nearest established colony was located more than eighty miles south.

(20:45):
Yet these intrepid travelers had arrived and coupled up, a
sign that they were breeding on a beach teeming with hazards.
Borbooglue worked quickly assessing the condition of the colony and
freeing one bird that was entangled in plastic, and began
the law longer process of painstakingly cleaning and securing the area.
The emerging colony not only survived, but raised chicks returning

(21:07):
the next spring. Scientists have various theories as to why
a so called founder group like this ventures beyond familiar
nesting grounds. But for borbo Glue, who went on to
create the Global Penguin Society, an international conservation group, the
new colony exemplifies the adaptability and resilience of all eighteen

(21:28):
penguin species, which inhabit some of nature's harshest environments, even
as they continue to face new challenges in our changing world.
They are so brave and determined, he says of penguins
as a whole, They're amazing. Penguins are indeed amazing creatures.
They're comical, waddle, tuxedo like appearance and endearing parental instincts

(21:50):
make them quintessential conservation icons. But these same characteristics also
point to some of the ways they've evolved to confront
extreme conditions with remarkable adaptability and grit. The first penguins
appeared roughly sixty million years ago on what is now
New Zealand. Some scientists believe the absence of natural predators

(22:11):
allowed the birds to evolve away from flight and toward
more agility in the ocean. Over time, they developed ample
sources of fat and a dense, impermeable layer of feathers
to withstrand the cold, stunted wings serving as flippers to
propel them under water with stunning speed and efficiency, and
distinctive black and white feather patterns to confuse predators. Early

(22:34):
penguins rode the currents across oceans, adapting to the new
places where they landed. Emperor and a daily penguins, for instance,
settled in the unforgiving climate of Antarctica, and they have
a thicker layer of body fat, scale like feathers, and
claw like feet, especially suited to gain traction on the ice.

(22:55):
Galapagus penguins ended up on a chain of islands off
the coast of Ecuador, becoming the only species found at
the equator. They now have smaller frames and thinner layers
of plumage, which serve them well in the warmer climate. Historically,
Magellanic penguins lived on islands off the coast of South America,
but after sheep ranchers eradicated mainland predators such as pumas

(23:18):
and foxes, the birds established colonies there too. Penguins vote
with their feats, as National Geographic Explorer D. Boorsma, a
renowned penguin expert at the University of Washington, they go
where the food is, but no matter how far they roam,
many of the animals now face the same issues. About
half the world's penguins are threatened with extinction, and last

(23:40):
year the African penguin became the first to be classified
as critically endangered. Today, the threats come from sea and
land alike. In the ocean, penguins must run a gauntlet
of oil spills, algal blooms, fishing nets, and plastic pollution.
While warming waters and overfishing deplete their prey on penguins

(24:01):
mate and raise their chicks, they encounter hazards ranging from
declining Antarctic sea ice to coastal development and introduced or
resurgent predators. Over the past century, as penguin numbers faltered,
the global conservation community and individual nations moved to safeguard
the birds, banning egg harvesting and creating protected areas, allowing

(24:23):
embattled populations a chance at continued survival. In the years since,
conservationists like Borbora, Glue and Bourisma have lobbied to create
more protected areas for nesting and regulate shipping routes to
reduce penguin's potential exposure to oil spills. One startling finding
among scientists is that penguins are no longer evolving as fast,

(24:47):
limiting their ability to keep pace with the world around them.
A recent study showed the penguins now have the slowest
evolutionary rates of all birds. Still, some appear adept at
leveraging their best trade and behaviors to continue pressing into
new territory. Researchers have discovered that Emperor penguin colonies relocate

(25:09):
when sea ice in one area is no longer reliable,
and satellite imagery recently revealed previously unknown colonies in Antarctica. Meanwhile,
king penguins, smaller cousins to the emperors, are in decline
in Antarctica but growing in the sub Antarctic region, rebounding
after decades of being harvested for oil, and gentoos closely

(25:32):
related to a dailies are following available food as the
southern ocean worms and sea ice clears, allowing them to
move more easily and hunt and nest in new areas
of the Antarctic peninsula. We're seeing new colonies established further
and further south, says Gemma Glucos, a researcher with the
Cornell Labor Lab of Ornithology. The handful of magellanic penguins

(25:58):
that once popped up on the trash strewn beach in
Patagonia appear to have inspired others to settle in the
colony as Borborig. Glue worked with landowners and the local
government to create a thirty five thousand acre wildlife refuge.
More and more penguins arrived each year. Over eight thousand
penguins now nest here. Its growth has been remarkable. He says,

(26:20):
it shows that nature can thrive if given a chance.
How penguins spread out from the icy shores of Antarctica
to the warm coasts of Wicklopagus Islands, Penguins have shown
an exceptional ability to breed in surprising places. Their secret
they are superbly a climatate, acclimated to the marine cold,
living feeding and breeding near branching currents that flow out

(26:43):
of the southern Ocean. The eighteen species are uniquely adapted
to their particular habitat Penguins on thin ice. Several penguins
species depend on the annual cycle of freezing and thawing
sea ice to breed successfully. But over the past thirty
years Scienti subtract changes in ice coverage and concentration. The

(27:04):
steepest decline has been along the western coast of the
antark Peninsula, forcing chin strap, gentou and emperor penguins to
work even harder to survive most endangered. For the past
five years, African penguins have been in a steep decline
because of warming waters and competition for prey with commercial fissures.

(27:26):
Penguin Paradise. More than four point five million King Gentou,
macaroni and Southern rock hopper penguins breed here. Emperors can
swim at a sustained seven miles an hour. One traveled
over twenty one hundred miles to the shores of southern
Australia last year. The first penguins originated some sixty million

(27:48):
years ago in what is today New Zealand. For more
than sixty million years, penguins have been driven to reach
beyond their boundaries. Today, they continue to surface in unlikely places.
This concludes National Geographic Magazine for to Day, your reader,
Husband Marshall, thank you for listening, Keep on listening and
have a great day.