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