Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always for
Speaker 1: tuning in. You could be anywhere in the world you'd
Speaker 1: like to be, but today you are here with us.
Speaker 1: I'm Ben, call me Ishnel. Alright. You see what I'm
Speaker 1: doing there, white whale, white rhino. Huh. Just know it's
Speaker 1: making a connection there, doing my best. Um, how are
Speaker 1: you doing, Ben, I'm doing pretty well. I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: I am excited for today's episode. No, speaking of rare animals,
Speaker 1: we are joined as always with a very rare and
Speaker 1: brilliant creature. Indeed, our superproducer, Casey Pegram He's like a
Speaker 1: gilded bird that you know you just want to see
Speaker 1: fly away, and he actually is going to fly in
Speaker 1: a good way, spread his wings and he's going to
Speaker 1: do that. About halfway through this session. He told us
Speaker 1: not to be concerned when he gets up and has
Speaker 1: to scoot out to another engagement. He's very considerate of
Speaker 1: any possible abandonment issues, you know. But no, you and
Speaker 1: I have a special guest today. We're not alone in
Speaker 1: this endeavor, or at least we won't be when Casey
Speaker 1: abandons us. So we are joined with a very special guest,
Speaker 1: a friend of ours, a friend of the show, and
Speaker 1: hosts of our own travel podcast, Everywhere Ridiculous Historians. Please
Speaker 1: welcome Daniel Scheffler. Hello. Well, let me just tell you
Speaker 1: when Casey leaves, I am happy to tell you where
Speaker 1: he's going. I'm not going to tell you now. I
Speaker 1: will tell you when he leaves because I know exactly
Speaker 1: where going and we maybe even don't, so this will
Speaker 1: be a surprise for us all. I look forward to it. Daniel,
Speaker 1: thank you for so much for joining us on the show.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about Everywhere. Well, first I
Speaker 1: have to tell you that you did tell your lovely
Speaker 1: listeners that they could be anywhere, but really they should
Speaker 1: be everywhere. Ha ha. Let see what I did there? Yes, hell,
Speaker 1: absolutely right. So the show came from this place where
Speaker 1: I was really frustrated with travel as an industry, promoting
Speaker 1: it in ways of just being either luxurious or backpacking,
Speaker 1: and I felt that there was no in between. I
Speaker 1: also felt that they were just all these endless lists
Speaker 1: of places to go eat here, five best bars in Barcelona,
Speaker 1: ten best coffee shops in Melbourne, Like who cares? Google
Speaker 1: can tell you that, like, you don't need a season Travelers,
Speaker 1: someone who's dedicated their life to travel to give you that.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to create a show that was about
Speaker 1: inspiring people, not what to do, where to go, but
Speaker 1: really how to be. So Channon and I my producer,
Speaker 1: have gone on this incredible journey of finding destinations that
Speaker 1: I have memories of incredible trips I've been on and
Speaker 1: turning it into this kind of narrative story, followed with
Speaker 1: interviews with people doing incredible things high and low. So
Speaker 1: there's you know, famous people, but there's also the baggage
Speaker 1: hand left from LaGuardia Airport on my show. So it's
Speaker 1: come from that place of like travels for everybody. Whether
Speaker 1: you're going to Disney Springs, Dishney Springs or whether you're
Speaker 1: going to Denmark, it doesn't matter. What matters is how
Speaker 1: you are when you're doing this. So that's really the
Speaker 1: kind of essence of the show. And it's been like
Speaker 1: the greatest story of my life creating this. And another
Speaker 1: thing that you mentioned it being sort of about how
Speaker 1: to be and you have a set set of commandments
Speaker 1: that you sort of espouse as sort of like the
Speaker 1: I guess the mission statement of the show. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about those Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I felt that God apparently needed ten and I just
Speaker 1: didn't think that ten would be enough for me. So
Speaker 1: I rallied up a bunch more. And the commandments are
Speaker 1: a sort of way of holding the episode in a
Speaker 1: kind of wink way. Absolutely, people think that a commandment
Speaker 1: is necessarily religious, but in this context theyren't. It's tied
Speaker 1: to like a little bit of ethics and a little
Speaker 1: bit of moral imperentive. And I want people to take
Speaker 1: it with a pinch of salt, of course, and you
Speaker 1: throw it out with your luggage. And I use it
Speaker 1: as a guideline because it helped enrich my travel life.
Speaker 1: But they're not in the negative. All my commandments. On
Speaker 1: the positive, thou shalt like, thou shalt shut the cup
Speaker 1: and learn something, or thou shalt be generous, And that's
Speaker 1: been so incredibly beautiful on all my journeys. When I
Speaker 1: think about these things, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they hot wrenching,
Speaker 1: but it's the way of traveling that opens your mind.
Speaker 1: And this this is fascinating to me. I I personally
Speaker 1: enjoy the commandment idea and I love that you hit
Speaker 1: on the fact that they are all positive. They're all
Speaker 1: positively framed. There, thou shalts and I think people see
Speaker 1: travel as aspirational at times, but if we're being honest,
Speaker 1: good travel is inspirational right right. And in your career
Speaker 1: as a travel writer, you've been to over a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty countries. Is that correct? That is correct. I
Speaker 1: have been doing this for a little while. I started
Speaker 1: off um as a little boy. My parents are big travelers,
Speaker 1: and I started as a little boy. My first trip
Speaker 1: that I have a memory of, a clear memory of,
Speaker 1: was to Mauritius and I went to an aquarium and
Speaker 1: lost my favorite teddy ban. And the story in my
Speaker 1: family and the kind of joke that started from that
Speaker 1: was I have been searching for that Teddy bat ever since,
Speaker 1: and a hundred and twenty seven countries later, I'm yet
Speaker 1: to find it. But I have found everything else, including myself.
Speaker 1: So that's what travel has done for me. I lost something,
Speaker 1: and I lost I guess a part of myself and
Speaker 1: in order to find myself poetic. This leads into something
Speaker 1: that we wanted to speak with you about now. For
Speaker 1: any listeners who are for some reason not yet aware
Speaker 1: of everywhere. Uh. We we want to give people a
Speaker 1: little bit of background. Daniel, you are you are from
Speaker 1: South Africa? Is that correct? Well, I like to say
Speaker 1: that I was born in Africa, bread in Europe and
Speaker 1: now choose to live in America. So I was I
Speaker 1: was born in South Africa. What's amazing about the name
Speaker 1: South Africa is that some people don't know where that is. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of obvious, but I love to
Speaker 1: point it out. So South Africa. Um, it's in the
Speaker 1: southern part of Africa. Continent Africa. Um, the southern part
Speaker 1: of this continent Africa. And um yeah, I was born
Speaker 1: in in the capital, and I grew up um sort
Speaker 1: of more in Europe and also South Africa, and I
Speaker 1: now I now live in America. But I have a
Speaker 1: tenderness for South Africa, as so many people who go.
Speaker 1: It gets under your skin, whether you're killing animals like
Speaker 1: Teddy Rosenfeld, or whether you're colonizing, or whether you're kind
Speaker 1: of pondering about your your place there. It is a
Speaker 1: very special, special place because it's the beginning of humanity.
Speaker 1: It started there, whether it's Mrs Pless or the whatever
Speaker 1: latest foot footsteps or bones they found. It all started there,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's undeniable when you arrive there
Speaker 1: and some people behave in this fascinating way, and I
Speaker 1: guess this is where you find that history so in ridiculous,
Speaker 1: is that some people arrive in Africa and all they
Speaker 1: want to do is protected and build conservation around it
Speaker 1: and hold it dear, because that's how they understand the
Speaker 1: beginning of our life, a beginning of humanity. And then
Speaker 1: there's the other side of people who go and all
Speaker 1: they want to do is take it and own it
Speaker 1: and control it. And it's fascinating. It's interesting because we're
Speaker 1: talking about today is sort of somewhere a combination of
Speaker 1: the two. Right, So, Teddy Roosevelt and it has made
Speaker 1: claim to famous far as we're concerned as a country.
Speaker 1: Largely is that he was the twenty six president of
Speaker 1: the United States. But he was also a well known
Speaker 1: outdoorsman um and considered himself one of the great conservationists.
Speaker 1: But the way he chose to exercise this conservation um
Speaker 1: was a little interesting, and we're gonna get into that.
Speaker 1: But he is also what the Teddy bear to to
Speaker 1: go full soccer circle here, was named after right, That's
Speaker 1: that's correct, Noel. Yes. Uh. Teddy Roosevelt has a complicated
Speaker 1: relationship with animals. He's a fan of the safari. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of our listeners may not know that the Teddy
Speaker 1: bear that you search for that set you off on
Speaker 1: your journey, Daniel was likely invented in honor of President
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt. Back in nineteen o two, Theodore Roosevelt is
Speaker 1: on a bear hunting trip, going back to what we said,
Speaker 1: hunted animals in a place called Onward, Mississippi. And everybody
Speaker 1: else in his group had success finding and hunting bears
Speaker 1: except for our boy, Theo Roosevelt. So his assistance corner
Speaker 1: a bear, a real bear, black bear, and they tie
Speaker 1: it to a tree. And then they summoned Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: to the tree where the bears tied up, and they say, okay,
Speaker 1: here you go, we found you a bear. Go ahead
Speaker 1: and shoot it. And Roosevelt says, no way, that's unsporting,
Speaker 1: that's not fair, that's not how nature is supposed to work.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to shoot this bear. First of all,
Speaker 1: assistance tied bear to tree. That is a buried the
Speaker 1: lead there, My friend, these were some early assistance, and
Speaker 1: a black bear, not a grizzly. Okay, so it was
Speaker 1: a little baby bear, which is even less sporting, right,
Speaker 1: come on, So Teddy was having none of it. So
Speaker 1: here's what happens next. So the media of the day, uh,
Speaker 1: loves this story. It spreads like wildfire throughout newspapers of notes.
Speaker 1: They love the fact that he was he turned it down,
Speaker 1: turned down the opportunity, right, it was seen as a
Speaker 1: noble thing to do. And when people started circulating the story,
Speaker 1: the President of the United States refuses to shoot this bear,
Speaker 1: this is great pr right. There's a political cartoonist who
Speaker 1: comes into play, a guy named Clifford Berryman. Clifford Berryman
Speaker 1: reads an article in the paper about Teddy Roosevelt being
Speaker 1: a class act, or at least not shooting cornered and
Speaker 1: tied animals, and he makes a cartoon satirizing the President
Speaker 1: refusing to shoot a bear. It's right, this is an
Speaker 1: audio podcast, so you'll have to trust us. You'll have
Speaker 1: to look it up, uh, And it's it's Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 1: in his out in the field hunting gear. And when
Speaker 1: this cartoon publishes in the Washington Post on November sixteenth
Speaker 1: of the same year, nineteen o two. It inspires a
Speaker 1: guy named Morris mitched them two make a little bit
Speaker 1: of coin off this. You see, Morris's wife, Rose made
Speaker 1: off to animals. He owned a candy shop. She made
Speaker 1: stuffed animals. Good combo, good, great combo, you know, piece
Speaker 1: and carrots right there. And Morris says, you know what, Rose,
Speaker 1: why don't you make a stuff bear, a toy bear,
Speaker 1: and we'll dedicate it to Teddy Roosevelt and we'll call
Speaker 1: it wait for it, can you guess? Yeah? I can,
Speaker 1: but I want a Teddy Bear. So this piece of history.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is this one little story ends up becoming this,
Speaker 1: this fundamental piece of your origin story, Daniel. And it
Speaker 1: also leads us to look more closely at Teddy Roosevelt himself, who,
Speaker 1: as we said it was a complicated figure. You and
Speaker 1: Nolan I were talking off air about this fascinating story
Speaker 1: from the Smithsonian that you would sent us, You would
Speaker 1: hip us to this called Teddy Roosevelt's epic hunt for
Speaker 1: a white rhino. Isn't that insane? This man who's so
Speaker 1: known for what he's done for conservation is also in
Speaker 1: Africa hunting. I guess at the time those animals were
Speaker 1: not as extinct or kind of needed to be protected
Speaker 1: as much as they are now. But he he wrote
Speaker 1: executive orders that he got into trouble for to protect
Speaker 1: forests and wildlife across America. In fact, some of his
Speaker 1: executive orders established a hundred and fifty million acres of
Speaker 1: reserved forestry. He's a legend. I mean, I have been
Speaker 1: more interested in Roosevelt than before because I heard Elizabeth Warren,
Speaker 1: my candidate, talk about how she loves him, that is
Speaker 1: her favorite president. So I've been reading about him and
Speaker 1: kind of getting into his thoughts about almost all things.
Speaker 1: But what I do find fascinating about that piece about
Speaker 1: the white rhino is he meant well, he didn't know
Speaker 1: well in some weird way, And that really is the
Speaker 1: African story. You know, China is is kind of moved
Speaker 1: into into Africa and taking land and developing land, and
Speaker 1: it's amazing what's happening. They're giving people opportunity, but at
Speaker 1: the same time they they leave and they take all
Speaker 1: this incredible um natural resources with them. So there's a
Speaker 1: shield and a sould story. That's always been the African story.
Speaker 1: And Teddy Roosevelt represents so much of that. Even today.
Speaker 1: You know, when people complaining about hunting, um, there is
Speaker 1: a certain amount of hunting that actually funds uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the purchase of hunting licenses, That money actually goes into
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation. So it's a very interesting dichotomy. And that's
Speaker 1: very much the same with Africa even today. A lot
Speaker 1: of the big game hunts go into providing, you know,
Speaker 1: resources for some of these under served community. So it's
Speaker 1: a little bit interesting to kind of have to reconcile
Speaker 1: killing a noble creature with potentially saving them or their
Speaker 1: habitat and on. UH. In Roosevelt's safari, the one involving
Speaker 1: the white rhino, UH, they also were aiming for what
Speaker 1: they saw as the greater good, right, the bigger picture.
Speaker 1: They believe that they weren't out there just for fun,
Speaker 1: just for giggles. They thought they were conducting a safari
Speaker 1: for the purpose of science, which in many ways they
Speaker 1: weirdly were. So Roosevelt actually, um, it was the last
Speaker 1: year of his presidency. He was a lame duck president
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, and he was really hot to
Speaker 1: get out to Africa and do a safari. So he
Speaker 1: floated this idea to a guy named Charles Doolittle Wolcott
Speaker 1: love the name. It's a great, great name, who was
Speaker 1: in charge of UM, the Smithsonian's Natural History museum. And
Speaker 1: they didn't at the time have a particularly robust collection
Speaker 1: of like taxidermied wildlife, which is very much a thing,
Speaker 1: and it remains very much a thing today at you know,
Speaker 1: the Field Museum in Chicago, for example. At the time
Speaker 1: nine they were regularly sending out expeditions to these parts
Speaker 1: of the world to kill and stuff these creatures and
Speaker 1: and put them up in display. There's even um, I
Speaker 1: I can't remember where I saw, but there is. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are certain natural history museums that have like these
Speaker 1: libraries almost that are catalogued carcasses of different birds that
Speaker 1: are taxes, deermy and stuff. They're not put on display,
Speaker 1: but you can open up a drawer and then there's
Speaker 1: like this bird carcass in there, and their cattle catalog
Speaker 1: like library books. It's very strange, but this is absolutely
Speaker 1: a thing. And Teddy Roosevelt says, all right, Walcott, Um,
Speaker 1: you guys are kind of like, you know, asleep at
Speaker 1: the wheel here when it comes to getting an awesome
Speaker 1: collection of these creatures that I personally believe are going
Speaker 1: to be gone soon, which is like another weird dichotomist thing,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into. He knew that they were gonna
Speaker 1: be gone, yet he was still totally okay with contributing
Speaker 1: to that by killing hundreds of them. Yeah, and Walcott says, cool,
Speaker 1: because not only is this an amazing opportunity for him
Speaker 1: to get some specimens, what a pr coup, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is like literally the most famous type of person
Speaker 1: that could provide these specimens to him, So they'll have
Speaker 1: like an extra added value, right then? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so Theodore Roosevelt, we have some of the correspondents
Speaker 1: that he wrote to Charles Doolittle Walcott, and just a
Speaker 1: quick excerpt here, I think gives us the lay of
Speaker 1: the land. Roosevelt says, as you know, I am not
Speaker 1: in the least a game butcher. I do like a
Speaker 1: certain amount of hunting, but my real and main interest
Speaker 1: is the interest of a faunal naturalist, faunal f a
Speaker 1: U in a l flora fauna. And then he says,
Speaker 1: now it seems to me that this opens up the
Speaker 1: best chance for the National museum to get a fine
Speaker 1: collection not only of the big game beast, but of
Speaker 1: the smaller animals and birds of Africa. And looking at
Speaker 1: it dispassionately, it seems to me that the chance ought
Speaker 1: not to be neglected. And then he goes on UH
Speaker 1: and explains that he plans to publish a book and
Speaker 1: then he will use the proceeds from the book to
Speaker 1: pay for a safari that he and his son, Kermit Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: This episode is full of amazing names that that he
Speaker 1: and his son will take. They're going to take this
Speaker 1: safari to Africa, to the African continent, and they are
Speaker 1: going to attempt to capture as much big game again ostensibly,
Speaker 1: the way he's phrasing it is not for some thrill
Speaker 1: of a hunt, but is for the It's for the
Speaker 1: education of the masses, right, the greater good. And this
Speaker 1: this Daniel, I would I would defer to you. You
Speaker 1: know here here in the States, when kids grow up, UH,
Speaker 1: in the US, you only hear about hunting in terms
Speaker 1: of like hunting deer or something. Right, you don't really
Speaker 1: in this country here about UH Safari's are these big
Speaker 1: game expeditions. And I'm just curious when people who have
Speaker 1: never been on a safari or even been to the
Speaker 1: continent of Africa. When we see depictions of big game
Speaker 1: hunts in fiction or safar as you know, in films
Speaker 1: and stuff, is that in any way accurate? Is this
Speaker 1: the thing that still happens? Was it something that just
Speaker 1: happened you know? Uh in days of your no um?
Speaker 1: In fact, the Trump children often go to Africa to
Speaker 1: hunt um animals, so it is still happening. In fact,
Speaker 1: recently a lion trophy was approved for import into the US,
Speaker 1: and these things are still happening because tourists operators somehow
Speaker 1: managed to get around the rules. Um. They are of
Speaker 1: course incredible countries like Botswana where it's outlawed and not allowed,
Speaker 1: But it is happening. People like to kill. It's part
Speaker 1: of our very humanity, is it not. We um We
Speaker 1: establish ourselves on on this planet in a way that
Speaker 1: we have to kill to survive, So why would we
Speaker 1: be changing? You know, we evolve, but perhaps we don't
Speaker 1: fully evolve past these things. So I think there is
Speaker 1: still a fun factor for some people, but it is
Speaker 1: a real problem. I think that Africa hasn't dealt with
Speaker 1: this particularly well because where there's money. Anything can be bought,
Speaker 1: and even nature. And I recently interviewed the CEO of
Speaker 1: Conservation International and their quest is to look at conservation
Speaker 1: in new ways and to open up conversations. And next
Speaker 1: week is Climate Week in New York. And I think
Speaker 1: it's important that we do look at what's the real
Speaker 1: important issue for all of us. So the question really
Speaker 1: is is nature important to like? Is it truly important
Speaker 1: to you? And I don't think we have a unanimous
Speaker 1: thought process on that because to some people they're ready
Speaker 1: to go to live on mars elon Musk is fixing
Speaker 1: that for us? And for other people this is the
Speaker 1: one life I get. I could live it up. Who cares?
Speaker 1: So I wonder if nature is truly important to you?
Speaker 1: And as someone who's from Africa, I grew up looking
Speaker 1: at this stuff more critically because I was aware of
Speaker 1: it because my parents are big safari goes. As if
Speaker 1: my husband would tell you that they on safari all
Speaker 1: the time. If you need to speak to Daniel's parents,
Speaker 1: they'll be on safari. Um and part of that is
Speaker 1: is conservation awareness. My parents really take that very seriously
Speaker 1: and so do I and UM. I think places like
Speaker 1: sing Geta in Tanzania, and in Zimbabwe and South Africa
Speaker 1: and now in Rwanda are really really taking the safari
Speaker 1: experience to the next level. So not only is it
Speaker 1: not the proverbial out of Africa Meryl Streep experience, it
Speaker 1: is also one where by going you are contributing to
Speaker 1: having nine hundred full time anti poaches on the reserve. Um.
Speaker 1: If you buy a villa in at sin Guita in Tanzania,
Speaker 1: you are obligated to pay a monthly or yearly fee
Speaker 1: in order to contribute to anti poaching. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's spectacular and more places should be doing this.
Speaker 1: I've also been on safari in India and it's a
Speaker 1: very different thing. They have much more respect for the animals. Um.
Speaker 1: I went to parts of Rajasthan where the leopard live
Speaker 1: open and free next to villagers and they've never had
Speaker 1: any issues. The leopard just walks right up to and
Speaker 1: would never do anything because people would never kill them
Speaker 1: and they would never kill people. And that's very different.
Speaker 1: In Africa. There's a relationship. Has It's gone back so
Speaker 1: much to hunter gatherer and then to Teddy Rosenfelt days
Speaker 1: and now too the Trump Junior days of hunting. M hmm.
Speaker 1: And when when we go back and look at Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's hunting in Africa, Roosevelt and Kermit, I'm just looking
Speaker 1: for excuses to say Kermit, when thank you? When uh,
Speaker 1: when we look at this, we see that, regardless of
Speaker 1: his stated aims, Roosevelt did kill a lot of animals. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean it goes back to um we talked about
Speaker 1: with Jack and Miles from The Daily Zeitgeist on an
Speaker 1: episode we did about weird flexes, weird historical flexes, the
Speaker 1: fact that Charles Darwin again known in history, thought of
Speaker 1: as one of the great naturalists, not really so much conservations,
Speaker 1: but even I find those terms interchangeable, at least in
Speaker 1: my mind that whether that may or may not be
Speaker 1: the case. Charles Darwin would like eat every animal that
Speaker 1: he catalogs, every but he ate a lot of like
Speaker 1: endangered like turtles and stuff like. He definitely probably single
Speaker 1: handedly contributed to some of the species that he was
Speaker 1: studying becoming endangered, sure, because he ate so many of them.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing here with Teddy right he um
Speaker 1: you know has a ball on the safari Um. He
Speaker 1: again like he's so preoccupied with this at the end
Speaker 1: of his presidency that he admittedly can't focus on anything
Speaker 1: other than this. He's you know, gathering weapons and ammunition
Speaker 1: and having maps charted and all this and all he
Speaker 1: needs from Walcott. The big ask that he's he's he's
Speaker 1: expecting from Walcott is to supply uh, some personnel who
Speaker 1: can actually stuff these creatures on demand in the field
Speaker 1: in the field field taxidermist and naturalists who because he
Speaker 1: his job isn't catalog I mean maybe catalogs to the
Speaker 1: species that he kills for his personal little journal entry
Speaker 1: which will read you in a little bit. It's it's fascinating,
Speaker 1: but he has to have professionals from the from the
Speaker 1: museum to actually do the real scientific work. And he
Speaker 1: agrees because Walcott knows this is a deal and a
Speaker 1: half and it's not really costing him much because I
Speaker 1: believe Teddy Roosevelt financed his own trip with his own money.
Speaker 1: And then because again he knew he was going to
Speaker 1: get paid back when he published this book, which he did. Um.
Speaker 1: So the Safari is a huge success um in that
Speaker 1: he killed somewhere in the neighborhood of let's see five
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve animals between between he and his son.
Speaker 1: And there is actually a fantastic article on vox Um
Speaker 1: that that has a page out of the book that
Speaker 1: he published in nineteen ten, one year later called African
Speaker 1: Game Trails, An account of the African Wonderings of an
Speaker 1: American Hunter Naturalist that he lets. So he coined his
Speaker 1: own like little category. Sure, he's not a hunter gatherer,
Speaker 1: he's a hunter naturalist. Um. And it's as the headline is,
Speaker 1: list of game shot with the rifle during the trip.
Speaker 1: So we've got and it's like this, It literally looks
Speaker 1: like a scorecard and like darts or something. And it's
Speaker 1: divided by him and his son. We've got tr on
Speaker 1: the left and k are our boy Kermy on the right.
Speaker 1: And uh, let's just go through him together for a minute.
Speaker 1: We got lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, elephants, square mouth rhinoceros,
Speaker 1: hook lip rhinoceros. There's the common zebra, the big zebra
Speaker 1: of course, giraffe, the bongo, the bush buck. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: the bongo, yes, the bongo. Uh. Teddy himself didn't shoot any,
Speaker 1: but his son Kermit killed two. He got two of them.
Speaker 1: The giant eland. I don't know a lot of these animals. Then, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got to say, you know, not being a funnel
Speaker 1: naturalist by profession myself, there are a couple of deep
Speaker 1: cuts on here that are new to me. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's so tough to try to ascribe motive or personal
Speaker 1: motivation to historical figures. You know, we we know only
Speaker 1: what was said about them at the time, only what
Speaker 1: research proofs, and only what they wrote write their own records.
Speaker 1: So it's this is just me speaking personally. It's tough
Speaker 1: to your point, Daniel, about the the idea of killing
Speaker 1: for fund that human impulse. It's tough for me to
Speaker 1: figure out how much of his scientific interest was true
Speaker 1: and valid versus how much of it was sort of
Speaker 1: a facade to rationalize this vast amount of death. I mean,
Speaker 1: his rhetoric is pretty um consistent. Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: says here quoted in this mental pliss article um from
Speaker 1: the book. Kermit and I kept about a dozen trophies
Speaker 1: for ourselves. Otherwise we shot nothing that was not used
Speaker 1: either as a museum specimen or for meat. As it's
Speaker 1: an interesting line here. The mere size of the bag
Speaker 1: indicates little as to a man's prowess as a hunter,
Speaker 1: and almost nothing as to the interest or value of
Speaker 1: his achievement. So I mean, he thought pretty highly of
Speaker 1: himself and the uh, you know, the value of this
Speaker 1: achievement and this this, this expedition, you know. And it
Speaker 1: is true that the Smithsonian at the time didn't have
Speaker 1: the most impressive collection of fauna from the African continent.
Speaker 1: I believe they sent someone to explore Kilimanjaro in eight
Speaker 1: and they sent somebody else, uh to the eastern Congo.
Speaker 1: But those expeditions produced relatively few specimens in comparison to
Speaker 1: other museums. At this point, uh, Walcott of course is
Speaker 1: on board. But we have to remember, Um, there's a
Speaker 1: point you raised earlier, Daniel, regarding resource extraction, the idea
Speaker 1: of taking from a place. No one had the conversation
Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian in the halls of the Roosevelt residents.
Speaker 1: No one said, hey, should we be taking these animals? Like,
Speaker 1: should we be taking these animals, stuffing their carcasses and
Speaker 1: transporting them across an ocean? No nobody said, what does
Speaker 1: that mean for the people who live there? You know?
Speaker 1: And that seems like a problem that continues today. I
Speaker 1: think it's a big problem, and I don't really know
Speaker 1: the exact solution. I do feel like there are some
Speaker 1: progressive countries around the world, like Costa Rica that are
Speaker 1: really focused on eco tourism and bringing awareness to this,
Speaker 1: and obviously places like Bhotan, but the small countries, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of this is much easier because
Speaker 1: of the size um. I think these these things are
Speaker 1: more challenging in places like China and Russia and of
Speaker 1: course America, and there's not a lot of value put
Speaker 1: on this in this moment in our current political life
Speaker 1: in the world. Other things are kind of more important.
Speaker 1: So I wondered, like what could be done. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think legislation is important, but I think it's the
Speaker 1: private sector. It's it's big tech that has to solve this.
Speaker 1: And whether it's Elon Musko or his brother, Kimball Musco,
Speaker 1: or perhaps Conservation International, but those are the kind of
Speaker 1: voices that that's really necessary because governments will come and
Speaker 1: change and evolve, and they're so slow moving. But and
Speaker 1: you know, the UN is caught up in a lot
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy. But I think that these big tech companies
Speaker 1: could actually make a difference. So maybe it's a call
Speaker 1: to them to be like, let's start our own tech app.
Speaker 1: Let's call it Teddy Free Free Teddy, and we started
Speaker 1: conservation awareness campaign. What do you think. I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: I'm on board. Yeah, I like the idea of free
Speaker 1: Teddy do we? I guess then do we get to
Speaker 1: count as co founders? We just want to be in
Speaker 1: the pictures? Man, right, I think you are. You just
Speaker 1: co founded it with me. So this is great. There's
Speaker 1: there's one one last thing that we say. No, of course,
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt went on to have many adventures, and somewhere
Speaker 1: in this wide world of ours, Daniel Scheffler's Teddy Bear
Speaker 1: is having adventures all its own, and we hope that
Speaker 1: one day you two will finally be reunited. It makes
Speaker 1: me think of that part in h Amalie where the
Speaker 1: gnome you know, goes everywhere and takes pictures and she
Speaker 1: sends the pictures people. Maybe one day you'll start getting
Speaker 1: anonymous pictures in the mail from your teddy bear having
Speaker 1: adventures that would be creepy and heartwarming at the same time. Somehow, Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that. That's so beautiful. I really hope that
Speaker 1: that Teddy is still living on somewhere beautiful because I
Speaker 1: have I have a very very dear friend, and she
Speaker 1: has a teddy bear called Little, and he travels with
Speaker 1: her everywhere. He's always in her bag. And Little has
Speaker 1: a friend, her wife's teddy bear called Moyenne. In fact,
Speaker 1: at the moment they are fighting. But I always spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time. There's hundreds of photos with me
Speaker 1: and Little and Moyenne all over the world. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm living I'm vicariously living my life with my
Speaker 1: old Teddy through the new Teddy Bears. Because history may
Speaker 1: not repeat, but it certainly rhymes sure does. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: I have been thinking, you know, now I'm on a
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt kick. And this week at the met in
Speaker 1: New York, they commissioned these incredible, incredible statues by a
Speaker 1: Kenyan American artist, UM. And she has done these female
Speaker 1: sculptures and she's put them in the Metropolitan Museum of
Speaker 1: Arts el Codes. They are four of them, and they
Speaker 1: are these sort of powerful woman African queens looking out
Speaker 1: onto the world. They called the New Ones will Free
Speaker 1: Us and um it's part of the METS sort of
Speaker 1: shift in their commissioning and um the natural history museums
Speaker 1: shift in how they re examining statues, in particular the
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt statue, which some people think should be torn
Speaker 1: down because some people have called Roosevelt racist towards African
Speaker 1: Americans and Native Americans. And it's a fascinating thing because
Speaker 1: I think it was a different time, right, Like do
Speaker 1: we think of racism in the same way then as
Speaker 1: we do now? Probably not. And he was He was
Speaker 1: a very complicated figure, of course. You know, one thing
Speaker 1: we learned about history is that people are very rarely
Speaker 1: one heroic or on villainous. Roosevelt himself has some inherent contradictions.
Speaker 1: We know because he wrote these contradictory statements. He said
Speaker 1: the game butchery is as objectionable as any other form
Speaker 1: of wanton, cruelty or barbarity. But then he also later
Speaker 1: wrote that creeping after game made our veins thrill, and
Speaker 1: he praises elephant poachers, saying a few careers are more
Speaker 1: adventurous or more fraught with peril if you are keeping
Speaker 1: score of the animals at home. Roosevelt killed eight elephants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we sort of teased at the top of the
Speaker 1: show the idea of a white whale kind of situation,
Speaker 1: like a moby dick, like he was in the search
Speaker 1: of this creature that he had yet to bag, and
Speaker 1: that was the white rhinoceros, which is a very specific
Speaker 1: species that's much different from the very common black rhino
Speaker 1: that he had been collecting for some time. Um. And
Speaker 1: it's it's not even the color that has to do
Speaker 1: with their difference. They're actually in different generas um. So
Speaker 1: they are very wildly different. The white rhino comes from
Speaker 1: the Afrikaans word wide w y d, which means literally wide,
Speaker 1: So the name white doesn't even refer to it's sort
Speaker 1: of a bastardization English bastardization of that Afrikaans word. And
Speaker 1: he did ultimately get several of these and they are
Speaker 1: currently on display in the Natural History Museum the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: Institute in washing in d C. And they are called
Speaker 1: the Roosevelt Rhinos. Well, do you know how to tell
Speaker 1: the difference between a black rhino and a white rhino? No?
Speaker 1: How So, what's funny is the major difference is the
Speaker 1: shape of their mouths. Black rhinos developed a pointy lip
Speaker 1: which they used to pick up fruit and select leaves
Speaker 1: from twigs, and white rhinos have a flat, wide lip,
Speaker 1: as you said, wide to graze on grass. So that's
Speaker 1: how you tell the difference whilst you're on safari. Then
Speaker 1: you don't kill them, you just look at their lips exactly.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a plan, especially considering now we have
Speaker 1: to wonder what would have happened if Roosevelt had not
Speaker 1: bagged that those Roosevelt rhinos. Today, the northern white rhino
Speaker 1: is extinct in the wild, and I think there are
Speaker 1: only a hand few left alive, with two or three now.
Speaker 1: So we end today's story with a look at Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: That may be surprising to some of our fellow listeners.
Speaker 1: He would call it an adventure. This expedition of his
Speaker 1: is something that many people don't learn about today, and
Speaker 1: that's that's a shame. Daniel. We want to thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today and for anyone who
Speaker 1: yearns to to travel a little bit further from their
Speaker 1: comfort zone geographically speaking, for people who want to join
Speaker 1: you on your adventures as you literally travel everywhere. Where
Speaker 1: can they find the podcast, where can they learn more
Speaker 1: about you? Well, it's definitely on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: but also anyway you get into a podcast, um where
Speaker 1: at Everywhere podcast on Instagram. But I'm not a social
Speaker 1: media guy much so I'm more like, listen to the show.
Speaker 1: Take it. Don't see it as head knowledge, see it
Speaker 1: as hot knowledge, and I'll see you everywhere. Love it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Daniel. If you want to find
Speaker 1: us on the social media's, you can find us at
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History on Instagram. If you want to join our
Speaker 1: community on Facebook, where are the Ridiculous Historians where you
Speaker 1: can connect up with your fellow listeners and exchange memes
Speaker 1: and conversation. And Ben and I even creep in there
Speaker 1: from time to time and get in on the fun.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to follow us individually, I am at
Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown on Instagram. You can see me
Speaker 1: get kicked into and kicked out of various countries, locales
Speaker 1: and locations on Instagram where i am at Ben Bully
Speaker 1: in a burst of creativity. I'm at Ben Bully hsw
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Thanks as always, who are super producer Casey Pegram, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, stayed the whole time made it. I
Speaker 1: don't think that was for us. I think he was
Speaker 1: staying for you. Daniel, he just didn't want you to
Speaker 1: know where he was going because I was going to
Speaker 1: reveal I should still do it, well, you should still
Speaker 1: tell you I feel free. Yeah, I want to hear this.
Speaker 1: He's going to France. He's always going to always popping
Speaker 1: off to France, and and alas he's usually on Mike
Speaker 1: on the show today, but we're having are you on
Speaker 1: Mike on the show today? I'm on I'm on the
Speaker 1: weird Mike, so probably sounds might that might sound funky.
Speaker 1: We'll see. Uh, he may or may actually be on
Speaker 1: the show because we've got some Mike issues in this
Speaker 1: new studio. But La Bush will indeed return huge Thanks
Speaker 1: to Casey Pegram for sticking around big Thanks to you
Speaker 1: Daniel for being on the show with us. Thanks to
Speaker 1: thank you so much, You're so welcome. Thanks to Alex
Speaker 1: Williams who composed our theme. Thanks to research associate Gabe Losier,
Speaker 1: and thanks to research associate Ryan Bearish. Thanks to the
Speaker 1: quiz ster for not dropping in at the end of
Speaker 1: this episode when he doesn't drop and thanks to thanks
Speaker 1: of course to Christopher has Yodas. Thanks you know, thanks
Speaker 1: with some caveats and asterix to Theodore Roosevelt and uh,
Speaker 1: hey you no, thanks to you man. I like your
Speaker 1: shirt today. He appreciate it, but like your shirt too
Speaker 1: and the cut of your jim. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.