Transcript

3.26.26 · 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 March twenty
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twenty six. 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 the second
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part of When Coyotes Threatened livestock on Central Texas Ranches.
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The solution was to unlock an ancient ability in dogs.
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Killing the predators is not nearly as effective as the
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intimidating presence of well trained guardians, a role some breeds
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have played for five thousand years. By Chris Pomorski. In
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the first part, we learned how rising coyote predation has
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threatened sheep and goat ranching on Texas's Edwards Plateau, and
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how traditional predator killing methods ultimately proved insufficient through the
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story of multi generational rancher Robin Giles and later his
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son Grant. Part one showed how decades of trapping, poisoning,
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and fencing failed to keep pace with expanding predator populations
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as ranching communities fragmented and land use changed. By the
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early twenty first century, coyotes and other predators were causing
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catastrophic livestock losses, pushing many ranchers to the brink of
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financial collapse and endangering a way of life deeply tied
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to Texas history and identity. In response, we traced the
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rediscovery and refinement of livestock guardian dogs, an ancient solution
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largely neglected in the United States. Rancher Bob Buckholtz emerged
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as a central figure who revived and perfected breeding and
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training methods that emphasize early bonding between dogs and livestock,
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careful management, and selective culling. Drawing on traditions thousands of
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years old, Buckholts and others demonstrated that guardian dogs deter
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predators primarily through presents, scent marking, and barking, rather than violence.
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Their success has reshaped modern ranching practices, inspired academic research
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and extension programs such as those at Texas A and M,
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and helped restore guardian dog's reputation as one of the
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most effective sustainable tools for protecting livestock and predator rich landscapes.
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Here now is part two. The next morning, we drove
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to another least property outside El Dorado. We got out
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of the truck beside a trough where a flock of
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views had gathered with their lambs, attended by several dogs.
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I shivered in the wind, and Buckholtz fingered my fleece.
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A skeptical merchant appraising an inferior product. You're wearing polyester,
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he said, it's a lot cheaper to the American public.
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His son, he noted, approvingly, war wool. That's pretty unusual.
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Most your age where polyester. At the same time there
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saying the environments being ruined by all these microfibers, Well,
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welcome to reality, Bubba. The Buckholtzes left the wool and
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mohair business years ago, despairing of vanishing profits and labor.
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An operation of their size might once have employed twenty
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five people. Like the other ranchers I spoke to, they
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now rely almost entirely on family. Instead, their live stock
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are raised for meat, though more than seventy percent of
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the lamb consumed in the US is now imported. Think
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of the high end cuts whose origins in Australia and
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New Zealand are advertised on menus and in whole foods
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display cases. Texas lamb and mutton often end up on
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the coasts, where they are sold in markets that cater
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to emigrants. That demand has kept the Buckholtzes in business.
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We're trying to learn more about our consumer how to
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make a better product for them. Robert said. He worries that,
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like the descendants of Texas ranchers, second and third generation
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immigrants will abandon tradition, that they too will order grub
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hub rather than a whole goat from the halal butcher.
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When Grant and Misty Guiles of Hillingdon Ranch reached Buckholtz
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in twenty seventeen, he had a year's long wait list
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for puppies. Grant couldn't afford the delay and bought a
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number of guardian dogs from breeders and other ranchers. The
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results were not what he had hoped for. Feral and
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distrustful of people, the Gileses first dogs refused to accept
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food from them. The dogs also frequently went a wall.
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Grant and Misty found themselves spending a lot of time
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replacing the batteries for their collar GPS trackers. One day,
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their four dogs crossed onto an adjacent property and attacked
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the owner's chickens. The neighbors shot two of them. The
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Gileses finally got their first Buckholts dogs in twenty twenty fe.
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Today they have fourteen plus one dog they adopted from
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a rancher who was going out of business. They all
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have the behaviors were looking for. Robin Giles, now eighty three,
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said on a recent morning their live stock had adjusted
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to the dog's presence and having drastically reduced predation. Giles said,
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we are in charge of our own destiny. Later, Grant, Misty,
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and I toured the property on a rugged four wheeler. Grant,
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in forest Camo, pushed the vehicle full throttle, up and
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down steep grades over saplings and dense brush. Stones and
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dust flew in through a hole in the floor. Grant
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described passing scenery with encyclopedic intimacy, a hidden spring, variations
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in soil, a catalog of plants in their uses post oak, blackjack, escarpment, sherry,
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he said, indicating ash, juniper, live oak, texas, per simmon,
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king ranch, blues, little blue stem yellow, Indian grass, eastern
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gamma grass, Spanish oak, wild grape. He explained, if you
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don't know what's supporting your livestock, how the land responds
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to grazing pressure you're behind. I'm never bored driving through
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a pasture. Every plant is telling you a story. We
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stopped at dog feeding stations where Misty checked the attached
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cameras and replenished feed. The Galleses go through one hundred
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and fifty pounds of dog food a week, a major expense.
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The stations were made from metal cages that once housed
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oil industry fuel bladders. Effective at repelling deer and hogs,
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they're accessible to smaller critters. Traps were set beside them.
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One contained a mournful raccoon. In addition to dog food,
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Grant said, raccoons will eat the lips and noses off
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live baby goats. He withdrew a pistol, inserted its muzzle
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into the trap, and fired Texas stockmen often openly hostile
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toward animal rightists sometimes make unlikely and persuasive Advocates for
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non lethal predator control. Guardian dogs is the first line
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of defense, rather than poison traps and helicopter hunts, But
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like most of the ranchers I talk to, Grant emphasize
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that even with guardian dogs, lethal methods are sometimes necessary.
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Certain especially shrewd coyotes can circumvent even seasoned livestock. Guardians
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and large boar hogs often aren't intimidated by the dogs,
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which will fight to the death defending their flocks. Such
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situations argue for mounting up heavily armed or temporarily paddocking
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the herds and setting traps at the same time. Once
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guardian dogs establish an equilibrium, ranchers are well advised not
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to upset it. Killing a coyote that's not preying on
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livestock will create a vacuum which might be filled by
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one that's unfamiliar with the local order and thus inclined
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to look on livestock as food. Adapting to this reality
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can be challenging. Ten or fifteen years ago, when Bob
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Buckholtz would say something like that if you have a coyote,
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don't kill it. That sounded like crazy talk, Grant said,
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it doesn't really sink in when you haven't got guard
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dogs on your place. Hillingdon Ranch today has about thirty owners,
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all of them related to its founders. Homesteads, including the
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one where Grant and Misty live with their two young sons,
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are scattered across the property, but many of Hillingdon's more
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than three hundred potential heirs live in other states, and
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the Guleses are the only professional ranchers in the group,
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managing most of the original thirteen thousand acres through a
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combination of partnerships, leases, and diplomacy within the family. Selling
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out is severely frowned upon. Once that happens, it's never
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going to be converted back into rangeland Grant said, want
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to give ourselves the best chance of survival. Robin Giles's house,
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which belonged to his father Palmer before him, serves as
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a headquarters and a gathering place for events, holidays, baptisms, weddings, funerals.
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Several members of the extended family have asked to be
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buried on the ranch. Others already are at a cliff
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side lookout. We watched golden eagles crews below us over
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a deep rocky canyon where ram lambs were pastured among
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lounging cattle. It was a high, flat, beautiful place. Palmer
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had asked to be interred there, but the ground proved
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too hard and the family went to plan b careful
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to follow Palmer's instructions that his grave be unfenced, so
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that livestock could always tread over it. On the way
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back to headquarters, two guardian dogs, George and Reba, bounded
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onto our path. Both were tall and slim, cream colored
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with slightly matted fur and large dark eyes. Their sheep
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were nearby, audible but out of sight. The dogs were benign,
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but aloof Once they were satisfied we weren't a threat,
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their interests clearly lay elsewhere. It's an oddity of livestock
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guardian dogs that their owners almost never observed them interact
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with the predator. Their art is practiced mostly unseen in
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the low light of dusk and dawn, when their enemies
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are most active. The proof of their value is the
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simple absence of death. Misty, whom all the dogs like best,
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disembarked and poured some kibble. After a few cautious bites,
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George fled, running across the trail and into the trees
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his sheep. Misty said, We're getting too far away for
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his liking. Reba lingered a little longer over her food,
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then she too was gone. Fun fact, dogs have long
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guarded livestock and people. Our canine friends have protected livestock
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from predators for at least five thousand years, but they
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have possessed symbolic powers too. Clay figurines of large guard dogs,
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possibly Assyrian mastiffs, from around six fifty BCE, were unearthed
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from a place in Neneveh in modern day Iraq, believed
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to be placed there to ward off evil. Each dog's
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name was carved in cuneiform into its side, loud as
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his bark, biter of his foe, don't think bite, catcher
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of the enemy, expeller of evil. Next, get your red
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hot History lesson how the hot dog rose from Coney
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Island carts to platters at presidential picnics. A simple sausage
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from Germany overtook ballparks and back yards to become the
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quintessential handheld meal that is decidedly all American. By Rebecca Toy,
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It was hardly a typical state dinner. On June eleventh night,
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eighteen thirty nine, George the sixth of England attended a
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picnic retreat at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's residence in Hyde Park,
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New York, where the king, for the first time in
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his life, tasted a hot dog. The treats arrived on
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silver platters after polishing off his first dog, the king
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went back for a second, and Washington, d Cy's Times
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Herald celebrated this expression of Anglo American solidarity. To day,
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we can bellow down the Coney Island Boardwalk, our voices
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uplifted in pride that the hot dog truly makes the
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whole world kin. The hot dog's great success has always
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transcended class, wrapping the modern history of the United States
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into a portable bun. It all began with the five
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million Jewish immigrants who arrived in two large waves from
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eighteen thirty to eighteen ninety during one of the Industrial
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Revolutions periods of rapid urbanization. The first hot dogs, then
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called Frankfurters or wis Wursts, likely emerged in the mid
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nineteenth century, when German immigrants started selling bun wrapped sausages
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from push carts with coal fed fire boxes in New
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York's Bowery. These summered or steamed sausages had that special
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old world snap, finely ground pork or beef stuffed into
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natural casing that popped with the first bite, a sensation
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that hot dog purists still seek. Portable and tantalizingly inexpensive,
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these street eats were designed for teeming city scapes. By
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the eighteen seventies, more than twenty five thousand week end
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visitors flocked to sunny beaches, hand carved carousels and vaudeville
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performers on Coney Islands, sandy paths, and later board walks.
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In the next decade, as factories and mills joined banks
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and department stores in offering workers a half holiday on Saturdays,
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more and more folks came to enjoy the sea side
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on weekends, and they required cheap eats. It was on
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the board walk that the hot dog began to secure
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its spot on the American menu. Charles Feltman, a baker
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and street cart vendor, is widely credited with popularizing the
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sausage in a bun formula. The eighteen ninety three World's
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Columbian Exposition in Chicago, better known as the World's Fair,
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introduced millions to this handy treat, and by the end
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of the century, hot dog vendors were bustling about racing
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tracks and America's beloved baseball fields. While there's heated debate
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over the origins of the name, and though doxins are
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often invoked, historian Bruce Craig argues persuasively that it's actually
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a result of the sausage's popularity among the youth. Hot
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dog was already slang for a swaggering young man who
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loitered with other flashy dandies around public amusements and gobbled
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up sausages from vendors. The slang spread, and by the
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time Nathan Handwerker Feltman's Coney Island Protegee started Nathan's famous
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in nineteen sixteen, hot dog was ubiquitous by the turmoil
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of the nineteen thirties. The hot dog conjured the sense
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of a simple but satisfying life that might lie within reach,
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even amid the Great Depression. On February tenth, nineteen thirty one,
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National Papers printed Walt Mason's Owed to the Lowly Life,
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in which the columnist declared, in verse, I find life
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far more delicious in my humble hot dog stand for
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the men in lofty places stir resentment. Everywhere. Someone longs
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to punch their faces, someone yearns to pull their hair.
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The hot dog also nourished American ideals amid the patriotic
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fervor of World War II. In November nineteen forty one,
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a reporter for the Detroit Free Press marveled at the
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Wiener's journey. The hot dog may have a long Teutonic ancestor,
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but from white house to hovel, he's a thoroughly naturalized American,
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now without a single Nazi sympathy. Post war prosperity meant
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carnivorous Americans could and did turn to other meats, and
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the Hamburger muscled in as the new diner darling. Yet
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hot dogs remained at the center of American open air rituals,
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from new suburban backyard barbecues to nights at the drive in.
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And there was always baseball. A proverb coined by one
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of the era's biggest movie stars, Humphrey Bogart, captures an
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American truth. A hot dog at the game beats roast
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beef at the ritz. The hot dog has proved infinitely
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adaptable as baseball traveled south of the border. The classic
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ballpark Dog took a trip to Hermacillo, Mexico in the
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nineteen seventies and returned a decade later as the Snorin Dog,
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now wrapped in bacon and buried under pental beans, onions
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to tomatoes and jalapagos. Even the meat was not sacro sanct,
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with tofu pups and soy boy knot dogs widely hitting
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markets early in the nineteen eighties for the rising health
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conscious movement. In the nineteen nineties, Hollywood's famous Pink's Hot
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Dogs restaurant introduced topping combinations based on celebrities preferences, like
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the Rosy O'Donnell chili mustard, onion and sauerkrat, or the
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Drew Barrymore Jalapeno dog chili mustard, onions, cheddar, and three
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slices of bacon. While modern purists balk at such liberties,
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doubling down on arguments about the acceptability of skinless dogs
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in ketchup, there's always a place for the dirt cheap
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hot dog. Costco built a whole business model around that
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very nostalgia. Its quarter pound all beef hot dog served
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with a large drink, has famously stayed inflation proof at
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a dollar fifty, though it wasn't easy. Twenty eighteen interview,
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then CEO Craig Jellinik recounted a showdown with the company's
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co founder, Jim sinegal. I said, Jim, we can't sell
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this hot dog for about fifty We are losing our
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rear ends. Sinegal purportedly responded that if Jelinek raised the price,
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I will kill you. Figure it out. They switched from
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Hebrew National and started making their own Kirkland signature dogs,
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and the problem was polished off. Accompanying this article What's
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in a hot Dog? How the sausage gets made. Early
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hot dogs were generally made from finely ground pork, sometimes
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mixed with beef, along with simple spices, all encased in
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animal intestines, usually from sheep or hogs. Some vendors were
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suspected of including subpar trimmings and fats. Today, most commercial
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hot dogs are packed with emulsified trimmings of beef, chicken,
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and or pork. The pulverized meat is mixed with preservatives, coloring,
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and spices. Next, this helmet kept an Air Force pilot
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safe as she was soaring through the glass ceiling. When
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a young Nicole Malachowski was dreaming about becoming a fighter pilot,
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she couldn't have imagined. The heights sheet fly as part
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of the Elite Thunderbirds by Elana Cher, from the earliest
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bronze armor to today's lightweight carbon fiber lids. A helmet's
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job has always been simple to protect the head of
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the person wearing it, but it can also tell us
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thrilling stories of technological imagination and sheer human grit. The
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gentechs HGU fifty five slash P is a standard issue
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flight helmet for pilots in the United States Air Force,
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but the one we're talking about here comes from a
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specialized squadron, the elite Precision Flying Aerial Demonstration team known
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as the Thunderbirds, famous for their acrobatic air shows. Membership
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in military demonstration teams is highly competitive, and any one
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who makes the cut is forgive us a rare bird.
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But this helmet belonged to a standout even among those
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top shelf pilots. The first woman to perform with the
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Thunderbirds Colonel Niko Malachowski. In nineteen seventy nine. When Malachowski
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was a five year old in Santa Maria, California, she
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decided she wanted to be a military pilot, but there
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weren't any women in combat positions. In sixth grade, I
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stood up in front of my whole class and I said,
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I'm going to be a fighter pilot. She tells Smithsonian
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and everybody started laughing, and my teacher said, sit down
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and come back next week when you have something more realistic.
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I did not know that it was against the law,
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and it would be against the law until nineteen ninety
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two for women to be fighter pilot. That might have
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been the end of it, but Malachowski wasn't going to
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be kept from the skies. She started flying lessons when
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she was twelve and made her first solo flight at sixteen.
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She might have become a commercial pilot, but for a
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well timed family visit to the Smithsonian during summer vacation. There,
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Malachowski learned about the Women Air Force Service Pilots aka
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the WASPS, the civilian female squad who ferried aircraft, transported cargo,
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and assisted with training and support during World War Two.
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In a dark, dusty corner was a very small picture
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of the Women Air Force Service pilots. I had never
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heard of them. Women were flying military aircraft. They weren't
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flying in combat, but they were training men to go
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to combat, and that reinvigorated my goal. Malachowski's focus paid
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off in nineteen ninety two when she was accepted into
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the Air Force Academy, just in time to see the
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band lit on women flying combat missions. Malachowski flew twenty
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six such missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom before being chosen
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for the Thunderbird's assignment in two thousand and five. Over
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the next two years, she performed at more than one
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hundred and forty events, sometimes maneuvering her playing mere inches
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from her teammates as they soared in tightly coordinated formations
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designed to show off the Air Force's finest pilots and equipment.
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The helmet, which now resides at the National Air and
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Space Museums Stephen f Udverhesy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, also
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tells a story of innovation about the forces that each
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generation of jet pilot has faced in the cockpit. You
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can study the transition from the very beginning of aviation
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and see how the stresses and strains on a pilot
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have changed over time, just based on the flight clothing
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that they wear, says Alex Spencer, curator of the Flight
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Materialerial Collection and the British and European Military Aircraft Collection
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at the National Air and Space Museum, which holds three
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hundred and eighty six flight helmets from the first days
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of pilotry to the present. In early planes with open cockpits,
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pilots were mostly concerned about staying warm in the rushing wind.
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They wore snoopy helmets, as Spencer puts it, just a
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little leather cap to keep the wind out of their hair.
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By the time F sixteen supersonic jets entered the picture
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in the late nineteen seventies, pilots had a whole different
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set of physical needs. By the nineties, when Malachowski started
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flying for the Air Force, helmets featured padding, air hoses
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to provide oxygen, radio connections for in flight communication, and
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visors to protect from sun and, if the worst should happen, debris.
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It's also a proud showpiece designed to flaunt prestige and
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attract new recruits to the Thunderbirds. While most standard issue
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Gentech's helmets are interchangeable, the Thunderbird's helmets are each custom
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painted with nicknames and team logos, then polished to a
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mirror shine. When Malachowski received her helmet at the end
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of training, it came with a note from the artist
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who decorated it. As Malachowski recalls, the note said, I've
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been polishing and designing these helmets for many Thunderbird teams.
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My young daughter never expressed any interest, but I told
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her this was for the first woman pilot, and she
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wanted to help me polish it. Malachowski knew what her
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joining the Thunderbirds might mean to future pioneers. It was
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never about me, she says. It's that a woman was
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doing it, and if she can dream big, any one
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can dream big. Why not blaze your own trail? Accompanying
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that article? Did you know what's the trail? A Thunderbird
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jet leaves? The famously dense jets of smoke that trail
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each Thunderbird come when pilots use a switch on the
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throttle to inject paraffin based smoke oil directly into the exhaust.
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When the oil hits the exhaust, it vaporizes and billows
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into the smoke that leaves spectators gaping. Finally, eating challenges
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are all the rage, But when was the last time
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you saw some one eat a mutton shoulder bone? Even
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before the Internet, over indulgence was something of a spectator
25:27
sport for those who reveled in gastronomic glory by Sonya Andersen.
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Humans have long sought to turn gluttony into a virtue,
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leading to some remarkable episodes of competitive eating. Here are
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just a few. A hair raising appetite. In the seventeenth century,
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an English farmer named Nicholas Wood was seen devouring sixty
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eggs and a quarter of a lamb. It was a
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routine meal for Wood, who was known as the great
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eater of Kent. According to the poet John Taylor, Wood
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once consumed seven dozen rabbits in one sitting, a feast
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tailor estimated would have fed one hundred and sixty eight soldiers.
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Whenever Wood ate publicly at fairs and festivals, nobles delighted
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in betting on his stomach. By the end of Wood's life,
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he had just one tooth left. He'd lost most of
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the others while eating an entire mutton, shoulder bones, and
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all dogged efforts. In May nineteen seventy two, Nathan's famous
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Coney Islands renowned hot dog restaurant held its first hot
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dog eating contest. Local competitors stepped up to swallow as
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many wieners in buns as they could in three and
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a half minutes, and a Brooklyn College student named Jason
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Scheckter won by downing fourteen dogs. In the half century since,
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standards have skyrocketed. The current record belongs to Joey Chestnut,
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who took home Nathan's coveted mustard belt in twenty twenty
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one after eating seventy six hot dogs and ten minutes.
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Chestnut's method is to break each dog in half, dunk
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the bun in water, and establish a rhythm meat bun, swallow, breathe.
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Weight of the union. The late nineteenth century began colorful
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associations formed on the basis of poundage, which became known
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as fat men's clubs. These groups disallowed any man under
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two hundred pounds and hosted celebratory weigh ins and socials. Unsurprisingly,
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the organization spent much of the dews they collected on food.
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At one meeting, the New England Fat Men's Club feasted
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on oysters, cream of chicken, soup, boiled snapper, beef with mushrooms,
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roasted chicken, roasted piglet, shrimp, salad, fruit pudding, cheesecake, and
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ice cream. When were the earliest American eating competitions. Some
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of the first took place in the eighteen seventies or
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eight This concludes readings from the Smithsonian magazine For to day,
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nor reader has been Rebecca Shore, Thank you for listening
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and have a great day.