Speaker 1: Hello and Happy Saturday. This week's episode on Marjorie Courtney
Speaker 1: Latimer and the selacanth kept making me think about one
Speaker 1: of our previous episodes, and that was the one on
Speaker 1: the extinction of the Stephens Island wren. These are really
Speaker 1: very different stories, but they both have islands and extinct
Speaker 1: animal species and specimen collection and the impact of outdoor
Speaker 1: cats on an ecosystem. So it is today's Saturday classic.
Speaker 1: This episode originally came out on June fourteenth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. Hello and Welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Hey, Tracy, have
Speaker 1: you ever heard of a cat named Tibbles who was
Speaker 1: single handedly responsible? Powedly? You'll sometimes see it written out
Speaker 1: for wiping out an entire species of bird yep, because
Speaker 1: of a lighthouse keeper. Yeah. It shows up on various
Speaker 1: listicles from time to time along the lines You'll see
Speaker 1: like ex animals who changed History. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most famous extinction stories, and because it has this quaint,
Speaker 1: though sad aspect to it, it has really taken on
Speaker 1: a life of its own, and it's one that gets
Speaker 1: repeated a lot, but the real story is actually a
Speaker 1: lot more complex than simply saying one cat killed all
Speaker 1: the birds. So today we're going to take a look
Speaker 1: at the original tale as it's usually told, and then
Speaker 1: we'll delve into the reality of the demise of the
Speaker 1: bird species involved. Because the bird did legitimately go extinct,
Speaker 1: that part is true, and it also becomes an interesting
Speaker 1: story of conservation and the importance of protecting both flora
Speaker 1: and fauna unique to specific and isolated locations. And there's
Speaker 1: even a little bit of scientific community intrigue and offense
Speaker 1: in the mix. So it's got everything for a good story. Also,
Speaker 1: because this does involve extinction and then lay ways to
Speaker 1: try to combat similar problems, there's that's pretty much a
Speaker 1: whole episode where we talk about animals being killed. So
Speaker 1: if that is something particularly sensitive to you, this might
Speaker 1: not be your episode. I will say this, I am
Speaker 1: usually particularly sensitive to it. It does not bother me
Speaker 1: in this context, So I don't know if that's your
Speaker 1: guidepost or not, but there you go. Well, and having
Speaker 1: had an outdoor cat from like nineteen eighty until approximately
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six a long time. But anyway, I grew
Speaker 1: up with an outdoor cat because we lived out in
Speaker 1: the country and that was what you did. Yeah, you've
Speaker 1: become accustomed to cats bringing you thing. Yeah, cats bringing
Speaker 1: us small animals was something that happened all time. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had that growing up, and it is one of
Speaker 1: the reasons my small herd never goes outside. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my cats. Once I was an adult and caring for
Speaker 1: my own cats were strictly indoor, although a couple of
Speaker 1: them did escape on at least one occasion. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But today we're going to talk about the Stephen's Island
Speaker 1: wren and this cat and what did and did not happen.
Speaker 1: The particular wren in this story was a tiny bird.
Speaker 1: It could fit in the palm of a human hand,
Speaker 1: and it was found on Stephen's Island, which is a
Speaker 1: New Zealand. It's likely that these wrens, known as Zencus
Speaker 1: traversia leali in Latin and sometimes called lyle wrens, were
Speaker 1: possibly part of the fauna of ancient Gondwana land. They
Speaker 1: were related to the Kiwi. Fossil evidence suggests that these
Speaker 1: tiny birds are ones that are incredibly closely related to them,
Speaker 1: once lived throughout New Zealand, and it's believed that the
Speaker 1: introduction of predatory species such as rats eliminated them from
Speaker 1: all the other areas of the country but Stephen's Island,
Speaker 1: which was isolated by the eighteen nineties. The birds were
Speaker 1: dark olive brown in color, with yellowish coloring at the
Speaker 1: throat and the breast. Skeletal evidence, as well as witness accounts,
Speaker 1: indicate that the wren was flightless. It spent its time
Speaker 1: on the ground hunting for insects to eat, and that
Speaker 1: makes it one of only three known flightless songbirds in
Speaker 1: the world. The wrens nested in small, out of the
Speaker 1: way spots, such as holes and recesses under rocks, and
Speaker 1: it was also believed to have been nocturnal. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: read one account that said that it weighed about the
Speaker 1: same as a quarter, but I didn't find anything that
Speaker 1: backed that up. But even so, it's a very tiny,
Speaker 1: light little thing, and sometimes you'll see it. When people
Speaker 1: described it, they talked about it being almost more like
Speaker 1: a mouse than a bird in some ways, probably because
Speaker 1: it scurried along the ground. The island itself is also
Speaker 1: known by its Maori name take pourdois and it is
Speaker 1: a small place. It is less than a square mile.
Speaker 1: That's another one of those things that gets reported very differently.
Speaker 1: Some we'll say it's only half a square mile, some
Speaker 1: even less than that. But we know that it's less
Speaker 1: than a square mile about one point five square kilometers estimate.
Speaker 1: And it sits about two miles off of New Zealand's
Speaker 1: South Island's northern shore, at the northern edge of the
Speaker 1: Marlborough Sounds. And the weather on the island is mild
Speaker 1: in temperatures, but there is frequent rain and often high winds.
Speaker 1: It was renamed Stephens Island after Philip Stephens, the late
Speaker 1: eighteenth century first Secretary to the Admiralty of the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Prior to the eighteen seventies, it hadn't been explored by
Speaker 1: any Anglo parties. It's unknown if any Maori people's visited
Speaker 1: it prior to that, but it was a pristine place
Speaker 1: in terms of its ecological condition when maritime officials from
Speaker 1: New Zealand first visited it, and because the island sits
Speaker 1: on a shipping route and there had been several shipwrecks
Speaker 1: nearby in the middle of the century, it was outfitted
Speaker 1: with an oiled powered lighthouse in eighteen ninety four. That
Speaker 1: lighthouse stood at the highest elevation point above sea level
Speaker 1: of any lighthouse in New Zealand at the time. It
Speaker 1: was also more power full than any others in New
Speaker 1: Zealand at that time, and it cost more than nine
Speaker 1: thousand pounds to build. Before the lighthouse was installed to
Speaker 1: illuminate the Cooks Strait's western approaches, Stephens Island was almost
Speaker 1: entirely untouched. There were no non native species that had
Speaker 1: been introduced. The flora was just a natural and unchecked
Speaker 1: and undeveloped. Well into the eighteen hundreds, the tiny island
Speaker 1: was pretty densely forested. When workers first arrived in eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety two to start construction on the lighthouse, birds were abundant.
Speaker 1: The journals of one of the men, Fw Ingram, are
Speaker 1: quoted in a two thousand and four paper about the
Speaker 1: extinction of the wren. That paper was written by Ross
Speaker 1: Galbreeze and Derek Brown, and according to Ingram's account, there
Speaker 1: were two kinds of wren saddlebacks, native thrush and native
Speaker 1: crows on the island when the work began. There After,
Speaker 1: the lighthouse and a small farm were established. An estimated
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the island's native forest was to destroyed
Speaker 1: due to grazing and fire. A patchy low forest eventually
Speaker 1: established and remains in the place of the thick forest
Speaker 1: that had been destroyed, and shrubs, grasses, and vine lens
Speaker 1: persisted also. So with this new fancy lighthouse, the island
Speaker 1: needed a lighthouse keeper. So we are getting now into
Speaker 1: the story as it's usually told. So in eighteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: David Lyle moved to Stephen's Island to fill that position,
Speaker 1: and the island was not easy to get to. Travelers
Speaker 1: had to cross Cook straight by boat and then board
Speaker 1: a basket that was attached to the station's crane, and
Speaker 1: after that there was an uphill walk of about one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty meters or one hundred and ninety six
Speaker 1: yards to the lighthouse itself. This was a pretty extreme
Speaker 1: solitary type position that you would accept. Lyle, his wife
Speaker 1: and a son also brought along a cat named Tibbles
Speaker 1: when they moved to Stephen's Island. The idea was that
Speaker 1: Tibbles would keep the mice at bay and also be
Speaker 1: a companion for this lonely outpost. They were not the
Speaker 1: island's only residents actually, but we'll come back to that.
Speaker 1: Of course, a good mouser such as Tibbles would also
Speaker 1: probably be interested in going after small nocturnal birds as well,
Speaker 1: especially since, as Holly said earlier, they've been described as
Speaker 1: mouse like. But that was never the intention. They did
Speaker 1: not on purpose bring a cat to kill birds. No,
Speaker 1: and usually when you hear this story told, they really
Speaker 1: only talk about David Lyle and Tibbles, and any family
Speaker 1: is kind of left out. But so not long after
Speaker 1: David and Tibbles and his family arrived on the island,
Speaker 1: the cat started bringing fresh kills to her human Lyle
Speaker 1: was interested in nature, and he was an amateur ornithologist,
Speaker 1: and he had never seen a bird quite like the
Speaker 1: ones that Tibbles was killing. So he examined them and
Speaker 1: he skinned them as he did to you know, more
Speaker 1: fully take account of what their body was like and
Speaker 1: what these birds were. When a shit brought supplies to
Speaker 1: the island on its regular bimonthly schedule, Lyle sent one
Speaker 1: of his rin skins back on it, intending for it
Speaker 1: to reach a well known ornithologist, Sir Walter Buller, it's
Speaker 1: believed that he did receive this skin sometime in July
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four. Later on, Beller would write quote, there
Speaker 1: is probably nothing so refreshing to the soul of a
Speaker 1: naturalist as the discovery of a new species. You will
Speaker 1: readily understand. Therefore, how pleased I was at receiving the
Speaker 1: skin of a bird from stephen Island, which was entirely
Speaker 1: distinct from anything hitherto known. Eventually, Lyle collected ten samples.
Speaker 1: That number is going to shift around when we get
Speaker 1: to the reality, but for the purposes of this story,
Speaker 1: ten samples from Tibble's offering, and they were in good
Speaker 1: condition because the cat seemed to be more interested in
Speaker 1: killing the birds than she wasn't eating them. Feline behaviorists
Speaker 1: might also suggest that she was bringing them to Lyle
Speaker 1: as a means of offering him provisions showing she could
Speaker 1: take care of him as well as herself. There are
Speaker 1: also theories that cats do that to try to teach
Speaker 1: us stupid humans how to find our own food. But
Speaker 1: in any case, she was not eating them, so they
Speaker 1: were in quite good condition. After he had been examining
Speaker 1: these various specimens, Buller realized that the birds Lyle had
Speaker 1: been collecting from Tibbles were a previously unidentified species of wren,
Speaker 1: so one of these Buller sent to London to the
Speaker 1: British Ornithologists Union so it could be illustrated, and he
Speaker 1: also was preparing his research and findings so that he
Speaker 1: could publish his discovery of the Stephens Island wren in
Speaker 1: the journal Ibis. It was believed that there had likely
Speaker 1: been ten mating pairs of the wren on Stephen's Island
Speaker 1: before Tibbles the cat got there. This is not a
Speaker 1: large number of birds, to be sure, so it would
Speaker 1: not really take very long for an enterprising cat with
Speaker 1: decent hunting skills to severely damage those numbers. In eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, just a year after Lyle and his cat
Speaker 1: had arrived on the island, the christ Church Press commented
Speaker 1: on Tibbles's work, quote, there is very good reason to
Speaker 1: believe that the bird is no longer to be found
Speaker 1: on this island, as it is not known to exist
Speaker 1: anywhere else. It has apparently become quite extinct. This is
Speaker 1: probably a record performance in the way of extermination, and
Speaker 1: according to legend, Tibbles wiped out the Stephens Island wren
Speaker 1: almost as soon as it was recognized as a newly
Speaker 1: discovered species. So that's the story that you usually get
Speaker 1: told in a quickie articles yep, or in like a
Speaker 1: one sentence throwaway line in the context of something completely different.
Speaker 1: It will be like and there was even an entire
Speaker 1: species of bird killed by the light keeper's cat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there is a lot more to this story. And
Speaker 1: before we dive into that bigger, more detailed version of
Speaker 1: what happened to the Stephens Island wren, we're gonna pause
Speaker 1: and have a word from one of our sponsors. While
Speaker 1: the story of Tibble's and the Stephens Island wren is
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale about the day of invasive species, and
Speaker 1: that is a very legitimate concern, the very simplified version
Speaker 1: that is normally shared leaves out some more complex and
Speaker 1: nuanced elements to the decline of one species due to
Speaker 1: the import of another, as well as the involvement of
Speaker 1: many more players in the narrative, as we are definitely
Speaker 1: not now playing the threat of invasive species, but that
Speaker 1: there's a bigger story going on here. During the construction
Speaker 1: period for the lighthouse, an anonymous collector had visited the
Speaker 1: island to gather specimens. Gal Breath and Brown put forth
Speaker 1: the theory in their paper that the collector, which was
Speaker 1: a pseudonym used by that person in question when publishing
Speaker 1: in the Wellington Evening Post, was in fact none other
Speaker 1: than the local natural history dealer, which was a man
Speaker 1: named Henry H. Travers, and before Lyle and Tibble's even
Speaker 1: set foot on the island, Sir Walter Buller was aware
Speaker 1: of a number of birds to be found there, most
Speaker 1: likely due to the accounts that the collector had published
Speaker 1: in the paper or through contact with Travers himself. Of note, however,
Speaker 1: no wren was actually mentioned in the writings of the collector.
Speaker 1: I also just love that he wrote as the collector,
Speaker 1: because of course there's the whole Guardians of the Galaxy
Speaker 1: comedy tian that we could do. But he had not
Speaker 1: mentioned the ren at all in any of these writings,
Speaker 1: and there were no mentions of a wren in the
Speaker 1: comments of Buller at a January eighteen ninety three meeting
Speaker 1: of the Wellington Philosophical Society, where he discussed some of
Speaker 1: the unique birds that could be found on Stephen's Island.
Speaker 1: Buller also suggested at that meeting that two other New
Speaker 1: Zealand islands, Resolution Island and Little Barrier Island, could be
Speaker 1: used as preservation grounds for some of the bird species
Speaker 1: that were experiencing population decline on the mainland, but it
Speaker 1: appears that no similar consideration was given to Stephens Island.
Speaker 1: Regarding David Lyle and Tibbles, we mentioned a few moments
Speaker 1: ago so that they were not the only ones who
Speaker 1: had moved onto the island. In fact, there were three
Speaker 1: lighthouse keepers in their families, as well as a teacher
Speaker 1: to see to the children's education seventeen people in all
Speaker 1: at the start of eighteen ninety four, when the lighthouse
Speaker 1: became operational. While Lyle was sending his samples to Buller,
Speaker 1: at some point Henry Travers also became aware of the
Speaker 1: unique items being relayed by Lyle through an intermediary aboard
Speaker 1: the supply ship. Travers and Buller were not unknown to
Speaker 1: each other. As a dealer in natural items. Travers had
Speaker 1: none business with Buller on a number of occasions, and
Speaker 1: Travers s felt as though such rare and unique specimens
Speaker 1: could be sold for more than Buller was able to pay.
Speaker 1: He convinced Lyle to sell him some of the wren's skins. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: in addition to whatever activities are happening, we are now
Speaker 1: seeing an uptick in human interest in these birds. And
Speaker 1: this is where yet another man enters the picture, the
Speaker 1: honorable Walter Rothschild, who had dealt with both Travers and
Speaker 1: Buller as specimen dealers prior to this new discovery of
Speaker 1: the Stevens Island wren, and as a wealthy Englishman, Rothschild
Speaker 1: had both the means to pay handsomely for rare specimens
Speaker 1: and the connections to publish information about them before Buller could.
Speaker 1: There actually was some realization among the British Ornithologists involved
Speaker 1: in publishing the IBIS and the British Ornithologists Club Proceedings
Speaker 1: periodical to which Rothschild to which Rothschild's research had been presented,
Speaker 1: that there were two men describing the same find but
Speaker 1: both went to press yes. So for clarity, at this point,
Speaker 1: Travers has started selling to a very rich person in London, Rothschild.
Speaker 1: At the same time Buller is also purchasing these samples
Speaker 1: and they are writing up about this newly discovered species,
Speaker 1: and they both presented to both the IBIS and the
Speaker 1: British Ornithologists Club's proceedings, just their little period their notes
Speaker 1: on their meetings, and that's a small enough group that
Speaker 1: there were a lot of crossover people going, hey, we
Speaker 1: don't we have a thing from that guy Buller about this?
Speaker 1: Didn't that ring ye before? Yeah, but we're going forward
Speaker 1: with this too. So they both published, and it was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a gentleman's drama. So Roth's child
Speaker 1: named the wrend Traversia leali in the proceedings that was
Speaker 1: published in December of eighteen ninety four. When Buller's paper
Speaker 1: came out in April of eighteen ninety five, the bird
Speaker 1: was called Xenicus in Solaris. And this entire chain of
Speaker 1: events caused massive friction between the two men, each declaring
Speaker 1: that the other had not been a gentleman. You may
Speaker 1: recall from the beginning when we talked about the bird
Speaker 1: that it is called Xenicus and then sometimes traversia in
Speaker 1: parentheses leali. So in the end there was sort of
Speaker 1: a a combining of the two in the scientific community.
Speaker 1: This is like a much smaller in every sense of
Speaker 1: the word, version of the bone Wars. Yes, But even
Speaker 1: before four Buller's paper, which was printed by ibis that
Speaker 1: editorial from the christ Church Press we mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: declared the wren likely extinct had already come out. So
Speaker 1: there was already an article saying the bird was probably
Speaker 1: extinct before the scientific paper on it. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: was the first printed stuff in December. In March that
Speaker 1: article came out in the christ Church Paper saying there
Speaker 1: are no more of these birds. And then in April
Speaker 1: Buller's paper was published saying I have discovered a new
Speaker 1: kind of bird. It's a very complex and tightly packed
Speaker 1: timeline in terms of like discovery and when this bird
Speaker 1: was thought to have ended. So in March of eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, Traverse wrote to Rothschild a letter that suggested
Speaker 1: that he was hunting wren's himself to send to London. Quote.
Speaker 1: I have recently returned from a special trip to Stephen's Island,
Speaker 1: where I went to have a good hunt for more
Speaker 1: specimens of Traversia Lealey, but unfortunately without success. I hunted
Speaker 1: the island over and round, and as I had three
Speaker 1: men with me who formed my boat crew and some
Speaker 1: of the residents of the island, you can imagine we
Speaker 1: made a thorough search. I did not get any specimens
Speaker 1: of the bird. I went specifically four, although mister Lyle's
Speaker 1: boy gave me a specimen that had been found just
Speaker 1: alive by the owner of the cat that had caught
Speaker 1: the others, and this his father had put into spirit.
Speaker 1: So at that point cumans are also hunting the bird.
Speaker 1: That claim of extinction in early eighteen ninety five may
Speaker 1: have been premature. For one. Travers seems to have used
Speaker 1: the news of the extinction to charge higher prices for
Speaker 1: the preserved bird specimens that he offered to collectors after that,
Speaker 1: so he might have been perpetuating this claim of extinction
Speaker 1: for his own financial gain. Yeah, if you look at
Speaker 1: how his prices rated. That first one that he sent
Speaker 1: to Rothschild, I think he charged five pounds for and
Speaker 1: then he tried to charge thirty five pounds four and
Speaker 1: was eventually talked down to twelve if I'm remembering correctly.
Speaker 1: So he was definitely like, they're no more of this bird.
Speaker 1: It is a lot more expensive now. But both Travers
Speaker 1: and Buller each received additional specimens for several years after
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety five, so even after he denounced personal collecting
Speaker 1: of endangered species specimens, Buller continued to seek out the
Speaker 1: Stevens Island wren for himself, and when I say that,
Speaker 1: I mean in specimen form, not live Steven's Island wrens.
Speaker 1: He also made purchases for his son to have them,
Speaker 1: as well as at least one other ornithologist, and Buller
Speaker 1: for the Record maintained in his notes that all samples
Speaker 1: of the bird had come from David Lyle, and thus
Speaker 1: that would be from his cat. But that gets into
Speaker 1: some weird issues, as there are specimens in museums that
Speaker 1: are labeled as late as eighteen ninety nine, well after
Speaker 1: Lyle had actually moved on from the Stevens Island Lighthouse job. Additionally,
Speaker 1: there are completely mismatched accounts of just how many preserved
Speaker 1: wrens there are floating around. If you compare the records
Speaker 1: and letters of Travers and Buller, things do not match
Speaker 1: up at all. Travers was still selling Steven's Island wrens
Speaker 1: into the early nineteen hundreds, but it's unclear whether those
Speaker 1: were items that he had been hanging on to for
Speaker 1: several years or if they were new acquisitions. Additionally, even
Speaker 1: those records might not truly reflect the lots that Travers
Speaker 1: was selling at the time, so there's no way to
Speaker 1: verify even the existence of Travers stock of the extinct bird,
Speaker 1: let alone its condition relative to its age. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: one story of a museum that discovered that they had
Speaker 1: a lot that someone had purchased from Travers, but it
Speaker 1: was largely destroyed. It had not been properly cared for,
Speaker 1: so they did not account for whether or not there
Speaker 1: was a wren in the mix. There there's a lot
Speaker 1: of not really fantastic record keeping, which leads to a
Speaker 1: lot of the nebulous aspects of this story. So the
Speaker 1: thing is, though, that collecting may have really had a
Speaker 1: significant hand in the ex distinction of the Stevens Island wren,
Speaker 1: But we don't actually know if Traver's ever managed to
Speaker 1: catch any the two times that he claimed he tried,
Speaker 1: the one that we read his writings about earlier, and
Speaker 1: there was one other time. He reported that he failed
Speaker 1: on both of those occasions, And there are additional factors too.
Speaker 1: Remember earlier when we mentioned that there were other people
Speaker 1: who moved to the island in addition to David Lyle
Speaker 1: and Tibbles, Apparently someone else in that group of people
Speaker 1: also brought at least one other cat, or possibly Tibbles
Speaker 1: was pregnant when she arrived, because within a few years
Speaker 1: there was a cat population on Stephen's Island, not just
Speaker 1: one cat. And it's also possible that the name Tibbles
Speaker 1: was just attached to the story later it wasn't even
Speaker 1: Lyle's cat in the first place, but just a cat
Speaker 1: that happened to be around. Yeah, it's like I said,
Speaker 1: it's been simplified in a really fun way to tell,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't necessarily reflect the reality. And we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more about the cats on Stephen's Island and
Speaker 1: what happened to all those bird bodies after we first
Speaker 1: take a little sponsor break. So right before we went
Speaker 1: to break, Tracy was saying that there was a cat
Speaker 1: population at some point on the island, and it's unclear
Speaker 1: when exactly it became more than one cat, or if
Speaker 1: it had always been more than one cat. There are
Speaker 1: mentions of other cats in notes and writings made by
Speaker 1: people about those early days of the Lighthouse community, but
Speaker 1: these are all anecdotal and they were written after the facts,
Speaker 1: so they're not especially reliable. As early as eighteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: though Lyle was writing notes to Buller about the available
Speaker 1: birds on the island, and he specifically references some of
Speaker 1: them being scarce due to cats plural. He also describes
Speaker 1: those cats as having become wild, so there was already
Speaker 1: the beginning of a feral population. Like a year after
Speaker 1: he had arrived ninety seven, the cat population was noted
Speaker 1: by a lighthouse keeper as being a quote large number.
Speaker 1: The report that description was included in also suggested that
Speaker 1: some means of destroying the cats had to be found.
Speaker 1: A few years later, in nineteen oh one, the native
Speaker 1: reptile population was also in danger and a bounty was
Speaker 1: established on the cats. Yeah, at that point they were
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, the birds are already gone, so
Speaker 1: we'll figure this out. And it got put off within
Speaker 1: and then they were like there was a very glorious
Speaker 1: reptile population on Steven's Island, and they were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can't let this happen again. Now we have to
Speaker 1: kill the cats, which sucks. This is reminding me of
Speaker 1: the webcomic camp We Don't Watch You. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever read that, but it is a camp
Speaker 1: about children who have been sent by their parents to
Speaker 1: this camp because they are not wanted for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: and one of the early strips there is whatever one
Speaker 1: thinks is going to be a food drop, but it
Speaker 1: turns out to be a box full of feral cats.
Speaker 1: And every installment of the strip after that has a
Speaker 1: cat hidden somewhere. So in nineteen oh five, this was
Speaker 1: four years after the cat bounty was established, Sir Walter
Speaker 1: Buehler made a written suggestion that cats should no longer
Speaker 1: ever be allowed on the island or on any other
Speaker 1: isolated islands where native species could fall victim to their
Speaker 1: pre drive, and he also included the suggestion that if
Speaker 1: mice were a concern, for example, if people were going
Speaker 1: to take care of the lighthouse and they were worried
Speaker 1: about mice, that the state should provide, at state expense,
Speaker 1: mouse traps rather than allow feline rodent management in such places.
Speaker 1: Over the course of more than two decades, hundreds of
Speaker 1: cats were shot on Stephen's Island, and in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: five the island was declared to be free of cats. So,
Speaker 1: even though it is not really entirely fair to blame
Speaker 1: Tibble's ending the Stevens Island, Wren the role of cats
Speaker 1: in shifting the balance of wildlife populations is one which
Speaker 1: has been debated for some time, and cats most assuredly
Speaker 1: were responsible for the majority of the deaths of those birds,
Speaker 1: and they were threatening other native wildlife on the island
Speaker 1: after those wrens were gone. According to a study published
Speaker 1: in Nature in twenty thirteen, free ranging domestic cats in
Speaker 1: the United States were estimated to kill one point three
Speaker 1: to four billion birds that's billion with a bee and
Speaker 1: six point three to twenty two point three billion also
Speaker 1: with a b mammals annually. For the purposes of that study,
Speaker 1: domestic cats included both cats that have a home that
Speaker 1: are allowed to roam and strays including ferrells, with homeless
Speaker 1: cats responsible for most of those kills. That same study
Speaker 1: also commented that quote free ranging cats on islands has
Speaker 1: caused or contributed to thirty three or fourteen percent of
Speaker 1: the modern bird, mammal and reptile extinctions recorded by the
Speaker 1: International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Humans are
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out how to manage cab populations
Speaker 1: in ways that are humane in order to curtail the
Speaker 1: unbalanced mortality in other species that can result from even
Speaker 1: well fed but still prey driven animals. While cats, as
Speaker 1: we discussed on an older episode, have become part of
Speaker 1: human culture both for their excellent pest hunting skills as
Speaker 1: well as their companionship, they are also very very good
Speaker 1: at multiplying at a really rapid rate, so efforts to
Speaker 1: find and execute a solution still continue. As an aside,
Speaker 1: it appears to have been Rothschild's account of the entire
Speaker 1: situation that first pinned the loss of the entire species
Speaker 1: on tibbles, and then that was repeated for simplicity for
Speaker 1: more than one hundred years. Yeah, and Rothschild this whole time,
Speaker 1: we should point out, was in London. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: he was on the sea. He wrote this after the
Speaker 1: fact and having never actually been to the place where
Speaker 1: this was taking place. And as for what happened to
Speaker 1: all of those deceased birds that were collected on the
Speaker 1: tiny island, there are fifteen wren specimens accounted for, and
Speaker 1: those have made their way into museum collections around the world.
Speaker 1: Of the samples Rothschild gathered, the Natural History Museum in
Speaker 1: London has three, The Museum of Natural History in New
Speaker 1: York has four. The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia
Speaker 1: has one, and the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: Massachusetts has one. The three that Buller had, one for
Speaker 1: himself and two for his son, are in the Canterbury Museum,
Speaker 1: christ Church, which has two, and the last is in
Speaker 1: the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. There are also Stephens Island
Speaker 1: wren specimens at the Colonial Museum now the Museum of
Speaker 1: New Zealand Tipapa Tongarewa. I am probably mispronouncing that I
Speaker 1: could not find a good pronunciation example which is in
Speaker 1: Wellington and the Otago Museum in Dunedin, and that one
Speaker 1: actually lists two, but only one is clearly accounted for,
Speaker 1: so there's a little bit of fuzzy fuzziness there as well.
Speaker 1: The Stephens Island Lighthouse still exists. It was converted from
Speaker 1: oil to electric in the late nineteen thirties and then
Speaker 1: was automated in the late nineteen eighties. In nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: the last lighthouse keeper left the island. It's not open
Speaker 1: to the public and the Maritime New Zealand's Wellington Office
Speaker 1: conducts operation and monitoring of the lighthouse remotely. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to go to the island, you're probably a
Speaker 1: scientist because there are still multiple rare species on the island,
Speaker 1: particularly what has been described by scientists as a diverse
Speaker 1: reptile community. It is now in nature reserve. For example,
Speaker 1: a reptile called the Tuitata is of particular import on
Speaker 1: Stephen's Island as it is the only surviving species of
Speaker 1: its order. They are also the cutest things, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: if you see pictures of them, they just have very cute,
Speaker 1: little expressive faces. I saw some videos of one. Apparently
Speaker 1: there was a reintroduction effort yeah with them, and as
Speaker 1: I was looking for examples, I was like, I was
Speaker 1: looking for videos of New Zealanders saying all these words,
Speaker 1: and then I got down a rabbit hole of looking
Speaker 1: at lizard videos. They're really cute, and it really has
Speaker 1: become New Zealand is really making a massive effort at conservation,
Speaker 1: and in part of in part, this whole episode is
Speaker 1: the driver of some of those efforts. Like people realized, oh,
Speaker 1: if we are not thoughtful about how we handle particularly
Speaker 1: these small islands that are harboring things that cannot be
Speaker 1: found anywhere else and are small in number, we will
Speaker 1: then make sure those never exist on the earth again.
Speaker 1: And we don't want that. So there is a lot
Speaker 1: of care going into trying to preserve native species. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that is the more complicated than just tibbles. The
Speaker 1: cat eate all the birds of how the Stephens Island
Speaker 1: RN went extinct. Yeah, although cats were responsible for a
Speaker 1: lot of it. I sounded a lot more chipper when
Speaker 1: I said yeah than the story actually warrants. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: only in museums now in their deceased forum unfortunately. Yes,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
Speaker 1: this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
Speaker 1: an email address or a Facebook RL or something similar
Speaker 1: over the course of the show, that could be obsolete now.
Speaker 1: Our current email address is History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us all over social media at missed
Speaker 1: in History, and you can subscribe to our show on
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, and wherever else
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.