Transcript

5.1.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for RADIOI, and today I
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would be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated April May 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 This intrepid team of bee lovers are Doing Everything
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they can to Save rare native species from Extinction by
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Susan Frenkel. In the first part of our story, we
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learned about the efforts of a passionate group of b
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enthusiasts dedicated to protecting rare native b species from extinction.
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These individuals employ a variety of strategies to ensure the
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survival of these important pollinators, including habitat restoration, public education,
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and scientific research. Their work underscores the critical role bees
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play in ecosystems and the urgent need for conservation efforts
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to prevent the loss of biodiversity. The team focuses on
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restoring habitats that are essential for the survival of native
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bee species. They work to create environments where bees can thrive,
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which involves planting native flowers and plants that provide food
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and shelter for the bees. Additionally, they engage in public
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education campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of bees
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and the threats they face. By educating the public, they
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hope to inspire more people to take action to protect
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these vital pollinators. Scientific research is another key component of
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their efforts. The team conducts studies to better understand the behavior, health,
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and needs of native bee species. This research helps inform
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their conservation strategies and ensures that their actions are effective
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in preserving bee populations. Here now is part two. Tracy Zerillo,
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an entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, Connecticut,
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offered to show me some rusty, patched bumble bees held
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in the Agricultural Experiment Station's archive. The archivists brought out
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a box containing twenty three some pinned to old labels,
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filled out in fountain pen. Looking at each fuzzy body
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curled like a comma in its cardboard sarcophagus felt like
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being at the graveside of a stranger. I should have known.
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Not all native bees are as easy to keep track
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of as big, noisy bumble bees. An estimated thirty percent
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are picky foragers that use pollen from only one plant
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species or plant family. Others are finicky nesters that only
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settle down in sand. For example, those Goldilock's conditions exist
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in such a limited number of places that the bees
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have only been collected a handful of times. Indeed, about
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one thousand of our native bee species are known by
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fewer than twenty cataloged specimens. The more specialized the bee,
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the more precarious its existence, and the more likely it
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is to need conservation. Finding these uncommon bees takes a
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certain kind of obsessive collector, a type Sand Droghie calls
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a bee head. Droghi, who heads the United States Geological
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Survey Bee Lab in Beltsville, Maryland, considers himself one. Bee heads,
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he says, are driven by a fanatical curiosity. They are
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the ones out hunting every day to see what they
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might find, or pulling over by the roadside to investigate
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what's buzzing around an interesting patch of wheeds. They'll crouch
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by a plant or nest just to see who visits.
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Bee Heads live for the thrill of discovery. When Drogi
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announced the find of the rare Andrina Rennie, he knew that,
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of course Michael would go looking for it, he said.
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Michael Veit is a retired high school biology teacher who
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lives in rural Pepperell, Massachusetts, and calls himself be Dude
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in his email address. He's long loved insects. They're just
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this really cool little package of life, he explained. He
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was focused on damsel flies and dragonflies until about two
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thousand four, when he realized there were more than twice
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as many bees in Massachusetts and they weren't nearly as
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well studied. Vike collected the second specimen of a cuckoo
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bee called Nomada rodeki ever found in America. He also
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found the Nomada rodeki with two different species of melita
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bee M. Americana, which is a cranberry flower specialist, and M.
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Melod titus, which is a mailberry flower specialist. His sightings
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helped establish that these were hosts of the cuckoo bee.
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Discoveries like that really get you pumped up to go
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out and look harder, he said. Such be Hetteri has
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made him one of massachusetts leading bee authorities, a co
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author of a twenty twenty one checklist of the state's
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three hundred ninety native bees. His tireless scouting of the
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state and talent for identification helped establish that five of
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the state's bees are imperiled, and he got them added
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to the states list of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concerned Species.
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I joined Vite last May to hunt bees in some
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of his favorite places. One was a shaded trail along
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a glittering trout stream and a nature reserve near his home.
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One of the reasons I'm so drawn to bee hunting
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is I get to visit beautiful places like this, Vite said.
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He's a trim, soft spoken and eager imparter of information.
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As he walked swiftly down the trail, scanning for bees
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and lifting his binoculars every so often to get a
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better look, he kept up a running commentary on the
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plants at our feet. This is a really nasty invasive
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plant called garlic mustard. It's a pretty good bee plant.
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And this, he said, pointing to a dainty purple flower,
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is an introduced species speed Well in the genus Veronica.
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It'll attract bees. And this is a native geranium, and
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it has a specialist bee that collects its pollen. Bee
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hunting is often as much about plants as about bees,
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and Vite had picked this spot for a particular plant
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he'd found there, Golden Alexander, which has umbrella like clusters
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of tiny yellow flowers. The flower is a host for
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a specialist bee called Andrina zizei. The first patch we
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reached was still in the shade, so there there weren't
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any bees. Most bees prefer, or even need the warmth
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of sunlight to be active. MIGHT began adjusting my expectations.
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When you find a specialist bee plant like golden Alexander,
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there's no guarantee you're going to find a bee. But
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he'd barely completed the sentence when he spotted one, a
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tiny female dusted in pollen. Farther on, he pointed out
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several males, recognizable by the yellow on their face. Ah,
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here's another female. She's cute. I could scarcely see the bees,
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much less the details he was clocking, but I was
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prepared to take his word on her cuteness. So I'm
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going to collect a few of these, he said, and
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swung his net with a graceful downward and upward swoop,
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then pinching it closed to hold the captives. He moved
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on to nets and more. Vite keeps most of the
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bees he captures, unless they're boringly commonplace, like the fuzzy
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fat Bombus impatience he'd released from his net earlier that day.
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The bee, easily found all over the East Coast, is
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one of the few bumble bee species that seems to
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be increasing its range and number. He transferred the bees
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into a glass vial with the chemical at the bottom
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that would kill them quickly. Back at the car, he
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put each bee in a film canister marked with a number.
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He then logged the number and the date, time, and
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plant on which the bees were found in a green
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field note book. He has a stack of these note
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books in his office. He would use this data on
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the labels for specimens added to his collection. Some critics
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have objected to collecting bees that may be imperiled fight
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and others swat away that objection. There is no evidence
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that collecting any insect has an effect on the bug's population,
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they say, As one entomologist wrote, while it is extremely
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difficult to make a dent in most insect populations with
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the net, the bulldozer, the cow, and the plow eradicate
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whole butterfly colonies in no time. When Vit read Drogi's
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message about Andrina Rennie, he contacted the American Chestnut Foundation
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for advice on a ware to find chestnut trees. The
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group directed him to a number of sites, including Mount
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Ella in Massachusetts, where the forest canopy had been cleared
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by a freak tornado in twenty eleven, opening up space
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for remnant chestnuts there to bloom. East Coast forests are
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still full of chestnut sprouts, just waiting for a break
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in the over story, the tallest trees forming the top
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canopy that will allow them to drink up sun and
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grow alas at some point the blight inevitably reasserts itself
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and kills the stem again. Vite surveyed the chestnut groves
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in the summer of twenty twenty and found three female
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Andrina Rennie. That got me pretty excited, he recalled. Over
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the next three years, he and other bee heads returned
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to the site, as well as other places where there
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were chestnuts, hybrids or chinkapins, finding more of the bees.
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Since Andrina Rennie's rediscovery, it has been collected in at
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least five more states. The bee is clearly still around,
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but in low enough numbers that the Connecticut Inventory lists
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it as a species of special conservation concern. The finds
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helped confirm Droghi's initial hunch that Andrina Rennie is a
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specialist reliant on chestnuts and their relatives. But if that's true,
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then what sustained this chestnut bee when the chestnuts disappeared?
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Was it other members of the chestnut family or hybrids
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bred to help save chestnut trees from oblivion? And how
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did these tiny insects, which can't travel that far find
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their way to places like Mount Ella just in time
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to catch the trees in bloom? Add these to the
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Big Book of b mysteries. Saf Killingsworth, a conservation biologist
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at the Xerxes Society for Invertebrate Conservation, told me, in
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the work that I do, there's always about five questions
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for every answer that I have. Droghi's B lab has
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long been based in the Pituxant Research Refuge, a site
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created in nineteen thirty six to support federal wildlife research.
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In twenty nineteen, he moved to a more remote and
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roomier part of the refuge, where endangered whooping cranes were
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once bred and raised. It held a ramshackle building and
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thirty acres of land. The main building is filled with
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b related art and quirky artifacts. An old library card
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catalog holds office supplies. A lane from an old bowling
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alley serves as a long central table. Old books with
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marbled pages hold up shelves. Floor is orange with yellow
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paint slashes, the ceiling sky blue, and the walls hand
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plastered with ochre clay. The bathroom is covered in mosaics,
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some made by his partner, who's an artist. Everything here
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is scavenged, Droghi says, with pride. Aside from his salary
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and more recently, the salary of a lab manager. The
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lab runs on a shoe string budget of just twelve
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thousand dollars, recently slashed from twenty thousand. The lab's most
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expensive piece of equipment is the camradge Roghi uses to
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photograph bees. He uses a method of producing stunningly detailed
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portraits that reveal the beauty that otherwise can only be
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seen through a microscope. Droghie posts the pictures online to
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aid people trying to identify species. With more than sixty
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six million views, it's clear his sight as drawing those
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beyond the close world of Beeple. One set of images
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captured more than two hundred fifty thousand views after it
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was shared to a Reddit community called Woe Dude. Drogi
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is one of fewer than a dozen people in the
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country with taxonomic chops to identify bees accurately. So many
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people want to tap that ability that he has amassed
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a collection of two hundred thousand specimens, awaiting identification stacks
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and stacks of white pizza boxes. Mondays are sacred bee days,
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where he works at home just identifying, and every Wednesday
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he and a colleague from the lab hold a zoom
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class teaching other people how to do it. At the
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same time, Drogi is modeling what ordinary people can do
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to help bees thrive. He has filled the land around
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the lab with unruly plots of plants. He walks through,
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stooping every so often to pull weeds. We need to
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grow a lot of plants of many different kinds, all
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kinds of obscure ones. He says, it's just so hard
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to catch, identify, process and due surveys of bees. Really,
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it's better to concentrate on what plants the bees are using.
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Take the fsilis or a ground cherry growing by the
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lab's front door. There are four bee species that gather
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the plant's pollen, and at least one parasitic bee that
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preys on the nest of one of those specialists. So
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when it's in bloom, it's just a circus, but it's
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not on any one's list of pollinator plants. That same
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logic drives a citizen science project Droghi helped create in
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twenty twenty one, Ask a Bumblebee. Jennen l if Nawi,
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a University of Maryland graduate student whom Droghi chose to
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run the project, told me, we're trying to ask the
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bumble bees what flowers are their favorites. Although there's ample
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research showing which flowers bumblebees visit, there's almost nothing indicating
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which ones they like best. To find out, they're having
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volunteer walk around for thirty minutes, recording every type of
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flower they see and tallying the bees they are see
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visiting those plants. If the bees have fifty plants to
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choose from and they're only on five, that tells us
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a lot. Alhfnawi said some answers have been surprising. For instance,
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it appears bumblebees don't much care for some of the
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flowers contained in popular seed mixes, such as black eyed Susans.
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The goal is to give people putting in plants anywhere
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from public parks to highway medians to their own backyards
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a list of the plants that will draw bumblebees. That's
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the simplest part of the bee's story. Maintaining diverse and
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pesticide free habitats will go a long way toward protecting
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native species. After all, these creatures are at home here.
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If enough people fill their own yards with the plants
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they want and need, the bees will show up, keeping
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our world in bloom for a long time to come. Next,
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through good teams and bad Wrigley Field remains the coziest
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park in baseball. The Chicago landmark represents the purest form
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of the American pastime by John Lingoln The first Chicago
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Cubs game on the city's North side was held on
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April twentieth, nineteen sixteen, and new fans flooded the neighborhood.
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The Chicago Tribune reported that twenty thousand people attended the game,
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some of them spilling onto the field such that an
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outfielder collided with the small Boy. In the seventh inning,
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a hit into this crowd was good for two bases,
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the reporter noted. Before the game even started, a circus
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mood prevailed. Cincinnati Red's player manager Buck Herzog, was presented
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with a bunch of roses, a walking stick, and an
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umbrella in a ceremony that also included fireworks, a half
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dozen marching bands, a live donkey brought in by local Democrats,
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and an actual black bear cub who did tricks on
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home plate for a movie camera. A mile long parade
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through the city carried box seat guests along the field
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to their seats. The Cubbies won seven to six and
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eleven innings. The stadium on that day didn't yet have
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its famous ivy brick walls or scoreboard. It wasn't even
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called Wriggly Field, but fan's excitement for this spot on
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the corner of Clark and Addison Streets has scarcely waned
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in the past one hundred and nine years. Wrigleyville, as
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the whole neighborhood is now known, is the closest thing
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in the United States to a baseball amusement park, and
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among m l B stadiums, only Boston's Fenway Park, opened
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in nineteen twelve, is older. It's also the only major
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league stadium designated as a National Historic Landmark. Wriggly is
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where Babe Ruth famously called his shot in nineteen thirty two,
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pointing to the outfield before hitting a home run, and
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where Carrie Wood through twenty strikeouts in one nineteen ninety
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eight game. The story of this living monument begins with
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Charles Weigman, a classic Chicago striver who could have stepped
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out of the pages of Saul Bellow or James T. Farrell.
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He is a man who has made himself, The Sporting
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News wrote of Wigman in nineteen fifteen, having started as
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a waiter in a restaurant and now he owns a
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dozen or so of his own. Weigman made a foray
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into professional sports in nineteen fourteen as owner of the
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Chicago Federals, the city's entrants in the new Federal League,
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an upstart challenger to the American and National leagues. The
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team originally played on the DePaul University field, but Wigman
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wanted to set his team apart from the city's South
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side teams and an open lot at Clark and Addison's
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streets had the added benefit of proximity to the street
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car and elevated lines. Wigman was a crowd pleaser by nature.
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He let fans keep balls hit into the crowd and
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kept the Bear Cub outside the stadium for the entirety
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of nineteen sixteen, greeting fans from a cage. He was
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also a promoter of women's attendance at games, becoming the
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first stadium owner to demand that the stands be hosed
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down between contests to keep refuse under control. The Federal
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League folded after the nineteen fifteen season, and the National
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League's Chicago Cubs, owned by Wigman, moved from their home
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on the West Side into Wigman Park the following year.
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Chewing gum magnate William Rickley Junior brought the franchise in
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nineteen twenty one, when the stadium was known as Cubs Park.
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He took advantage of an obvious advertising opportunity in nineteen
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twenty six renaming it for his family, and thereafter his
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son p. K. Wriggly took an active interest. Wriggly Field
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underwent its most transformative change in nineteen thirty seven under
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p K's management, when a renovation brought the famous ivy
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and the brick wall, the hand operated scoreboard that remains
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in use even today, plus upgraded bleachers that still stand
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and which more than doubled the stadium's original capacity. From
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eighteen thousand to thirty eight thousand, the stadium has grown
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to accommodate forty one thousand fans, but thanks to its
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limited acreage, it still qualifies for its long standing nickname.
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The Friendly Confines. Having reached a sort of perfection, Wriggly
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for years remained deliberately unchanged. Cubbs ownership finally installed permanent
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lights for night games in August nineteen eighty eight, a
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decision likely made in order to secure the All Star Game,
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which wrigglely hosted in nineteen ninety. The lights illuminated many
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legendary Wriggly moments, including Game six of the twenty sixteen
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National League Championship Series the Cubs won, securing the team's
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first World Series appearance in seventy one years. The Cubs
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would go on to win that series, ending a one
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hundred eight year championship drought, the longest in all US sports. Yet,
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the stadium has also made history in other sports. In
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nineteen thirty three, Wrigley hosted a softball tourney described in
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the Chicago American as the largest and most comprehensive tournament
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ever held in the sport, which has swept the country
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like wildfire, and it led to the creation of formal
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rules and governance for softball. During World War II, P K.
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Wriggley opened the stadium to the All American Girls Softball
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League so that fans could scratch their diamond sports itch
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while baseball player players fought overseas. In football, the Bears
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played at Wrigley for fifty years before moving to Soldier Field,
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and in the nineteen forties and fifties, Wriggly hosted bustling
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rodeos with hundreds of participants. Still, Wriggly is foremost of
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baseball shrine for many fans, and not only of the Cubs.
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Wriggley's close quarters, neighborhood location, and ivy ivy and brick
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motif represent the embodiment of baseball's purest form, of the
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beautiful eccentricities and old school charm that can't be found
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in any other sport. It may not be exactly what
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your great grandparents saw one hundred and ten years ago,
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but it's likely closer than any other stadium can offer.
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And accompanying that article, the Salty, Sweet and Irresistible History
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of Baseball's most famous snack. Candy coated popcorn, peanuts and
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a prize that and so much more is what You
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Get with a Crackerjack by Teddy Brokaw. The question of
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Crackerjack's origin is a sticky one. Some attribute its invention
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to Frederick Rukheim, others to Charles Gunter, both German immigrants
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who migrated to the Midwest and built candy empires from
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the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire. Whoever first hawked
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the product on the streets of the Windy city. Only
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Ruckheim was able to turn it into an American institution.
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He began selling molasses coated popcorn and peanuts to members
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of the fire relief effort in the early eighteen seventies.
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Over the next few decades, he capitalized on several innovations
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to set the treat apart, innovating a unique means of
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rotating the barrels in which the snack was made to
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keep it from clumping together, and using wax sealed packaging
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to keep the product fresh. The purchasing public gave their
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enthusiastic endorsement. One oft repeated story claims the name originated
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when an enthusiastic buyer exclaimed, using period slang for something great,
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that's a cracker Jack. By the early twentieth century, demand
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was so high that the company reportedly required a quarter
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of the world's total popcorn supply in order to keep up.
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Having gotten the snack down to a science, Rockheim turned
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his attention to marketing. He trademarked the slogan the more
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you eat, the more you Want, and introduced mascot's sailor
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Jack and his dog Bingo. But nothing compared to the
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windfall of free publicity provided by the nineteen o eight
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smash hit Take Me Out to the Ball Game. The
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song forged a permanent connection between Crackerjack and baseball, and
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when prizes began to appear in every box a few
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years later, they sent Crackerjack's popularity into the stratosphere. The
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prizes tell the story of the American century. Nineteen forties,
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prizes were made of paper to conserve metal for the
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war effort. Post war prizes looked to the skies and
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the future, with jet age and space race themes and
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prizes from the nineteen sixties and seventies and embraced the counterculture
25:38
offering flower power pins. But as the century round down,
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Crackerjack's relevance waned and the company began to phase out
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physical prizes. By the time it eliminated them altogether in
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twenty sixteen, Crackerjack had delivered more than twenty three billion
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trinkets around the world. Of course, horse Crackerjack remains a
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ballpark staple, and in a way, prizes have returned to
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their roots. While physical goodies are gone, each box still
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offers a treat in the form of a QR code,
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one of which whisks users away to a virtual ball
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field for an arcade style home run game. The tech
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may have changed, but a century later, Crackerjack is still
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putting baseball excitement into the hands of young fans. And finally,
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ask Smithsonian, you've got questions, We've got experts. From Patricia
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a Ryan, Londonderry, New Hampshire. Is it possible to know
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if woolly mammoths had some of the same social carrying
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personality characteristics as today's elephants. The answer is from Michael Campana,
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computational genomics scientist National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute nths
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probably exhibited a lot of similar behaviors to elephants in
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terms of herd structures. Their diets are reasonably well known
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due to the findings in the digestive tracts of mammoth mummies.
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There is evidence that baby mammoths, like modern elephants, consumed
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the feces of adults to develop the microbiomes they needed
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for digestion. There is some debated evidence of limited mammoth
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hunting by groups of humans. Like modern elephants, mammoths were
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probably dangerous enough to hurt an individual hunter. Genetics revealed
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that before mammoths became extinct, they grew isolated, most notably
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on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. This led to inbreeding.
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Yet genetics offer very little direct information about mammoth behavior.
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We still don't know enough about the expression of various
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genes in the elephant family to be able to infer
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how those genes shaped the behavior of earlier animals. This
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concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader
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has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have
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a great day.