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12.11.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and today
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I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated December twenty
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twenty five. As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading service
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intended for people who are blind or have other disabilities
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that make it difficult to read printed material. Please join
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me now for the first article, which is Part two
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of the nation's biggest animal sanctuary operates under a mantra
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to save them all? How could that be controversial? By
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Douglas Starr. In Part one, we learned about Best Friends
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Animal Society. Founded in the early nineteen eighties by a
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diverse group of individuals in Utah, the society has grown
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from humble beginnings into the largest sanctuary for neglected and
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abused pets in the United States. Originally rooted in a
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spiritual community, the organization shifted its focus entirely to animal welfare,
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acquiring a vast property that now houses thousands of animals
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across specialized neighborhoods like Dogtown, Catworld, and Horse Haven. The
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sanctuary's philosophy is to rehabilitate every animal possible, opposing the
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widespread practice of euthanizing shelter animals due to overcrowding. This approach,
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combined with national outreach, training programs, and partnerships, has made
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Best Friends a major force in animal welfare, though its
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uncompromising stance has sparked debate within the industry. Here now
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is Part two. In two thousand seven, Best Friends began
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building a national network of like minded shelters whose staff
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members help one another. They relieve overcrowding by transporting animals
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to less crowded shelters and providing equipment and technical support.
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In the twenty tens and twenty twenties, they created a
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network of centres and programs in Atlanta, Bentonville, Arkansas, Houston,
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Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, and New York City. They
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hired hundreds of new employees to support regional help centers
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offering veterinary care and management expertise. In twenty sixteen, we
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drew a line in the sand and said we're going
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to take this country to no kill by twenty twenty five.
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Julie Castle, the society's CEO, told me we were very
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interested in pushing the limits of what's considered saveable. As
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Best Friends saw it, no more than ten percent of
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the animals at any given shelter should be beyond saving.
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Its definition of no kill meant keeping at least ninety
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percent of animals alive, a goal it pursued with an
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evangelical zeal Castle hired a tech team to gather data
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on the nation's public and private animal shelters nearly four
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thousand by their estimates, created a digital dashboard that shows
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monthly performance data at the state, county, and individual shelter levels.
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The map is online as well as on the wall
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at the welcome center. In twenty twenty four, the society
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developed an algorithm that uses artificial intelligence to predict rising
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euthanasia rates before they occur, using an area's demographic, economic,
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and social data. This all serves to identify shelters performing
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below par in order to pair them with successful shelters
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or send out a team from Best Friends to help.
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In twenty eighteen, for example, Best Friends sent a team
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to embed at a shelter in southern Texas. The Palm
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Valley Animal Society was taking in nearly forty thousand animals
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per year, but only around twenty five percent made it
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out alive. Best Friends took over the shelter's management, helping
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it boost adoptions through bat better marketing and special programs,
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returning war loss pets to their original owners, and taking
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other measures to reduce the kill rate. Within eighteen months,
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we went from euthanizing over one hundred animals per day
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to saving over ninety percent of them, said Luis Cantania,
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who worked at Palm Valley at the time. He was
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so impressed that he moved to Utah and became Best
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Friend's Senior director of Sanctuary Animal Care. Kentinia's colleagues pointed
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me to several other shelters with similar happy outcomes, but
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some encounters went less smoothly. In order to earn best
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Friends No Kill designation, a shelter must have a ninety
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percent save rate, and when a place falls short, it
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can be labeled pro kill by implication, Donors turn away,
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staff members face stigma, and managers are harassed. There are
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good leaders, veterans, caterinarians, and staff leaving animal welfare entirely
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due to conflicts related to the arbitrary ninety percent metric,
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said Julie Levy, an expert in shelter medicine education at
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the University of Florida. When Paul ett dean executive director
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of an animal shelter in Danville, Virginia, declined best Friend's
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offer to step in. The society organized a local pressure
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campaign with TV commercials, of Facebook page, door to door canvassing,
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and testimony at city council meetings. As best Friends accused
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her shelter of poor performance, Dean found herself living in
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a social media hell of abuse and threats. Katie Fine,
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a Best Friend's representative, said the society never meant for
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such abuse to take place. The activism did eventually help
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push the city to give the shelter support to make improvements,
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but Ken Larking, the city manager, says it happened in
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a way that caused unnecessary conflict and aggravation. Other communities
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have reported similar experiences. Critics say this doctrinaire approach can
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harm animals as well. Shelter managers who live in fear
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of being branded pro kill often keep far more animals
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than their capacity allows, to the point of stacking cages
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in their hallways. The animals become stir crazy, which makes
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them miserable as well as less attractive for adoption. Sometimes,
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shelters that don't want to be targeted turn away animals
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they would otherwise accept leaving them to be abandoned, neglected,
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or dumped somewhere else. Dafna Nochminovitch, senior vice president of
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Cruelty Investigations at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals PETA,
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is a harsh critic of best friends. Maybe they reduce euthanasia,
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but they don't reach suffering, she said. Few people in
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the animal shelter world deny that the no kill message
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was valuable decades ago, back when euthanizing animals was the norm.
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The movement forced the industry to think creatively about sterilizing pets,
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supporting pet owners, and boosting adoptions. But now that national
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survival rates are around eighty nine percent, many see the
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label as simplistic and divisive. It doesn't distinguish between private
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shelters that can regulate their intake and public shelters that
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often can't, between rich and poor areas, or urban and rural,
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between shelters that have staff shortages and those that don't.
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Climate can also play a role, as warm weather enables
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strays to survive and multiply. For example, one animal shelter
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in Houston, where an estimated one million dogs and cats
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run loose in the streets takes in or around twenty
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thousand per year. What can they do with all these animals,
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asked Mike Kuylee, vice president of the Animal Protection Division
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for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
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Animal's Angel Animal Medical Center. Unfortunately, he says, some of
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the response has to involve euthanasia. Kylie's own shelters have
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a laudable ninety four percent placement rate. Still, he refuses
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to accept the no Killed designation, which he says creates
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more fights than solutions, and he argues with best Friends
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leaders about their philosophy, But he takes part in their
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shelter collaborative program, accepting grants to partner with needy shelters
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in South Carolina. We share a common goal, he explained.
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Best Friends would seem to share another goal with many
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of its critics and ambition to turn shelters into something
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more akin to community resource centers, for instance, rather than
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take in all commers. Some shelter managers are beginning to
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ask pet owners why they need to surrender their pets
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and offer to help them find ways to keep them.
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Many shelters give out grants to pet owners for routine
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procedures such as spaying, neutering, and vaccines, or even provide
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those services for free if the problem is a pet's
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behavioral issue. Some shelters provide access to animal training. If
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a landlord doesn't allow pets, a shelter or animal welfare
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organization sometimes helps negotiate a compromise, and most shelters now
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offer foster programs, in which people can take an animal
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temporarily to relieve overcrowding, much as foster parents might take
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in a child. Castle, who began working at Best Friends
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twenty seven years ago as a low paid do it
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all employee, says she's encouraged by the country's progress. The
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group didn't reach its goal of having every US shelter
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meet its no kill standards by twenty twenty five, but
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it estimates that about two thirds have and hundreds more
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are close. Castle is confident it will get there, whether
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or not its methods seem heavy handed. Shelters have such
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a bad reputation, Castle said, we are going to rebrand
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them as life saving centers with positive outcomes. There are
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going to be places where you walk in and smile.
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Accompanying this article, did you know what is the oldest
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animal shelter in the United States. Animal pounds in the
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United States date back to the Massachusetts settlements of the
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sixteen hundreds. The country's oldest true animal shelter, the Women's
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Animal Center, in Philadelphia, was established in eighteen sixty nine. Next,
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the history of America flows through the Hudson River, and
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the country's aquatic super Highway is on the rebound. The
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Bucolic River is famous for reversing its current a few
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times each day. Now, an ongoing clean up effort is
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reversing decades of industrial contamination by Rebecca Taylor. For millennia,
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before steamships busied the river's waters, Native Americans roved it
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in dugout canoes, spearing sturgeons, known to fly into the
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air like birds. The Hudson River's restless ribbon cuts a
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three hundred and fifteen mile course down New York State
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high tailing it across the backbone of the Appalachian Mountains,
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hurtling past the highlands where George Washington held back the British,
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before emptying into the harbor where Lady Liberty stands with
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lifted lamp on a pedestal of limestone mined from the
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river's Valley. Franklin D. Roosevelt fished in it, Naturalist John
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Burroughs road on it, Winslow Homer painted it, and Washington
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Irving thanked God he was born on the banks of
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the Hudson. There's no American history without the story of
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the Hudson, says historian Douglas Brinkley. The Hudson's journey begins
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about two million years ago, when the Larnide ice sheet,
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towering up to two miles high, blanketed much of North America.
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Around twenty six thousand years ago, melting glaciers advancing and
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retreating during the Last Ice Age sculpted the scenic River Valley,
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carving hills and mountains. Its headwaters spring from the crystal
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clear Lake Tier of the Clouds, high up the side
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of a slope in the Adirondack Mountains, pouring white water
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down a plum stretch of wilderness. The water then rushes
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past a revolutionary battlefield in Saratoga and later zips along
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the steep cliffs of the Palisades, the rocky bluffs that
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shadow the Western Bank from New York into New Jersey.
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English explorer Henry Hudson glided into the shad filled waters
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in September sixteen o nine. Native Americans have long called
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the river Mahican Tuck, a Mohican and Lennape word meaning
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river that is never still or river that flows two ways.
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For around six thousand years, fresh water pouring from the
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mountains has kissed sea water flowing from the Atlantic roughly
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midway along its route near modern day Troy, New York,
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and the river becomes a tidal estuary, its current responding
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to the changing tides. Geologists also call this phenomenon a
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drowned river. Ocean tides flow inland upwards of one hundred
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fifty miles, causing river water rolling out to sea to
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reverse direction, so that the Hudson retreats up river with
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the rising tide and back tracks out with the falling one.
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The river's current changes about every six hours back and forth,
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like a pendulum, keeping time clocking its up and down
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course through history. During the American Revolution, Washington oversaw Continental
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troops at Newburgh on the western shore, and John Adams
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called the river and its region a kind of key
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to the whole continent during that war because of its
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importance in connecting the northern and southern colonies, as well
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as Canada and Native American territories. So Journer Truth hoed
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corn along the Western Bank. A dying Ulysses s. Grant
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composed his memoirs at a cottage overlooking the Hudson Valley,
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and his tomb in New York City towers over the river.
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Herman Melville may have been inspired by stories of great
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white whales, rumored to make occasional visits near his boyhood
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home in Albany. A muse for artists, the River Valley's
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sublime beauty lured Thomas Cole, an English born artist who
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first came up river with his sketch pad in eighteen
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twenty five, establishing himself as the pioneer in the lush
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oil painted landscapes that became the hall mark of the
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Hudson River School. The resulting panoramic canvasses drew crowds clasping
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opera glasses to gape at his work up close. Centuries hence,
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an unnamed observer prophecied in the Art Journal in eighteen
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seventy five. The River would be known for its associations
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of genius and patriotism. Irving was the first American right
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to popularize the river valley in story with his legend
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of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, who dreamed for
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decades at the foot of the Catskills near the lordly Hudson.
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The river became a highway for trade and tourism, as
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nineteenth century steamboats toted passengers to spy firsthand the glittering
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water portrayed so bewitchingly in courrier and ives prints. Trees
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were torn from the river bank to build sloops and
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schooners that loved bricks and bluestone to fashion New York
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City's skyline. Speculators harvested ice from the river and cut
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clay from the banks until the shad and sturgeon populations waned,
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as did those of eagles and great blue heron. The
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river's suffering was only beginning for decades. Starting in nineteen
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forty seven, General Electric Company plants operating at Fort Edward
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and Hudson Falls dumped chemicals into the river, including more
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than a million pounds of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, contaminants found
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to cause adverse health effects in humans and animals. In
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the nineteen sixties, it became a symbol for pollution because
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it was a dying river, Brinkley says, but the Hudson
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is also a comeback story. Citizen groups launched lawsuits and
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pressed for legislation. In nineteen sixty five, activists won a
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landmark lawsuit recognizing the right of everyday citizens to protect
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the environment and hindering a power company from cutting into
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storm King Mountain along the river bank. The Federal Clean
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Water Act of nineteen seventy two made it a crime
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for companies to discharge waste without a permit. From two
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thousand nine to twenty fifteen, conservation crews plucked poisons from
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the river beddging sediment along a two hundred miles swath
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that makes up one of the largest federal clean up
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sites in US history. Challenges remain, says Ned Sullivan, president
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of Sina Hudson. Many species have made dramatic recoveries from
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the brink of extinction, he says, noting a resurgence in
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bald eagles and osprey's, but more work is needed. The
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sturgeons and great blue herons are back in good numbers too,
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and eagles, once all but gone from the valley, have
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taken flight once again. Along the returning majesty of this
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Glorious River. Accompanying this article What's in a Name? Who
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was Henry Hudson Born circa fifteen sixty five. Henry Hudson
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was an English explorer. Between sixteen o seven and sixteen eleven,
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he made four voyages in search of a northern passage
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from euro to Asia through the Arctic. On his third
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voyage in sixteen o nine, he explored the Hudson River.
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On his final voyage, his crew mutinied and left Hudson
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adrift with his son in sixteen eleven in the bay
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that now bears his name. Also accompanying this article of
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humbacks and hog chokers, presenting some of the Hudson River's
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most intriguing residence by Mike Riggs. Number one lined sea horse.
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Everybody knows these tiny tenants of the tideway have an
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unusual reproductive arrangement in which the males carry the eggs
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until they hatch. The sea horse's other fascinating feature is
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the development of a square tail that allows it to
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cling to stationary objects like Hudson River Park's artificial reef system,
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which stretches from pier to TI twenty six to peer
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thirty four. Number two humpback whale. One sign that the
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Hudson's not as dirty as it used to be is
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the occasional appearance of humpback whales, sometimes spotted in the
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river as they hunt Atlantic Manhattan fish. In twenty sixteen,
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a hump back ventured as far as the George Washington Bridge,
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near Manhattan's northern tip. Another was spotted in twenty twenty
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near the Statue of Liberty in Upper New York Bay.
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Number three hog choker a bottom feeder with two eyes
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on the right side of its head. This fish, a
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member of the sole family, dwells in the brackish waters
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near the coast and the fresh water of this estuary
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as far north as Albany. The origin of its name
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is uncertain. One story holds that farmers would feed them
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to their hogs, only to find the fish suctioned to
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the pigs pallets, sometimes causing piggies to gag. Number four
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Atlantic tom cod. The flaky flesh of the tom cod
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is delicious when pan fried in butter. Just don't get
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your fish from the Hudson. Where that local tom cod
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population has developed a genetic resistance to some pollutants found
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in the water. They might look healthy, but they're chalk
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full of PC bees and finally, number five short nose sturgeon.
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Some of the short nose specimens that roam the Hudson
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today can live for as long as sixty years. Now
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bouncing back after two centuries of overfishing, this protected bottom
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feeder is in many ways just another New Yorker. It
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delights in spending most of its time near the city,
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but looks forward to venturing up state by river when
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the weather turns warm. Next. An industry treus rocher in
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the nineteen thirties wanted to make it easier for his
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customers to buy more. They just needed a push. There
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was a time when shoppers could buy only as much
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as they could carry, and as ubiquitous as shopping carts
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are today, it initially took some convincing to use them
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by Heidi Brandis. Sylvan Goldman, a businessman and Oklahoma native,
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was working for a California grocery wholesaler after World War
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One when he became fascinated by the new supermarkets that
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put everything under one roof. Still, he noticed a problem.
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Shoppers were buying only what they could carry in bags
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and baskets. In nineteen twenty, he and his brother Alfred
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brought the supermarket concept back to Oklahoma, where they established
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their own chain of stores. But Goldman still fretted over
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the persistent problem of shoppers being limited by their arms.
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Goldman's first prototype for a shopping cart in nineteen thirty
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six was wonderfully crude. It consisted of two folding chairs
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placed seat to seat, with wheels attached to the bottom
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and a basket on top. He introduced the first official
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shopping cart on June fourth, nineteen thirty seven, at the
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Humpty Dumpty Grocery store in Oklahoma City. Yet Goldman's heart
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sank when he saw that customers wanted nothing to do
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with the new contraptions. Women who had grown weary of
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baby strollers refused to push anything around a store again.
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Men considered the carts emasculating and said trundling them around
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was women's work. According to Alison Atchison, director of Galleries
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and Collections at the Science Museum Oklahoma, the museum now
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houses the first cart Goldman put into public use, which
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spent its earliest days unloved and unused, in front of
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his store. Goldman's solution was elegant and very simple. He
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hired attractive models to shop in the store while confidently
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pushing the carts, showing other shoppers first hand how convenient
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and fashionable they could be. Shoppers saw the appeal and
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began emulating these comely men and women. Other grocers soon
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clamored for the carts, but many had to be patient.
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By nineteen forty, store owners looking to buy new shopping
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carts reportedly faced a seven year wait list. That same year,
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Goldman began producing the more familiar nesting cart, following a
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patent war over the design, which solved the messy problem
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of what to do with all those carts between customers.
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Food producers began offering larger container sizes in stores, knowing
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customers could now transport books the items with ease. Goldman's
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humble invention helped create the foundation for today's retail landscape
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of vast stores filled with oversized products. As Atchison says,
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those wheels changed and innovated shopping forever, and they show
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no signs of slowing their role today. Twenty million to
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twenty five million shopping carts are cruising through America's retail
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stores at any given moment. Roughly one cart for every
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thirteen Americans, and did you know the first company to
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use the term supermarket was Alber's Supermarkets, founded in Ohio
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and nineteen thirty three by William H. Albers, a one
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time president of Croker's. Finally, ask Smithsonian, you've got questions,
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We've got experts. Why is the Midwest covered with prairies
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instead of forests? The answer is from June when chair
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of Botany National Museum of History. The Midwestern prairies used
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to be forests. The shift likely started between twenty million
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and twenty eight million years ago, and it accelerated during
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the last five million years. Possible reasons include a drier
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climate with more natural fires, as well as the appearance
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of larger animals. Herbivores such as elk and bison needed
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a complex digestive system housed in a large body to
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derive nutrition from grasses. These big animals also tended to
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form herds, which made it easier to defend themselves against
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predators while migrating long distances to stay fueled. Their grazing
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played a role in preventing large trees from returning to
26:47
the Midwest. Finally, do humans need to consider the environmental
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impact of building on the Moon. The answer from Martin Elvis,
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Senior Astrophysicist, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and the Smithsonian. In
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nineteen sixty seven, the international community came together to sign
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the Outer Space Treaty, which banned countries from claiming celestial
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territories or placing weapons on them. Nations were allowed to
27:13
claim samples their astronauts brought home, but space itself was
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declared the province of all mankind. The treaty didn't focus
27:21
on environmental impacts, but in nineteen eighty four a group
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at Los Alamos National Laboratory noted that the Moon, unlike
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the Earth, has no atmosphere, which means it has no
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systems like wind, water and erosion to erase scars on
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the land. As scientists prepare to place powerful new telescopes
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on celestial bodies, many are working to prevent the spoiling
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of these sites. The International Astronomical Union, of which I'm
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a member, is considering these issues as part of a
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working group on Astronomy from the Moon. The UN is
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also studying the issues. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian
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Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank
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you for listening and have a great day.