Latest / Smithsonian Magazine / 10.22.26

Transcript

10.22.26 · Smithsonian Magazine

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  Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
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  Speaker 1: I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine, dated September-October 2026.
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  Speaker 1: As a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading service intended
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  Speaker 1: for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
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  Speaker 1: make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
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  Speaker 1: now for the first article titled, Africa's Wild Dogs Are
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  Speaker 1: the Most Hated Carnivores on the Continent. Here's Why Some
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  Speaker 1: Conservationists Are Saving Them Anyway. Meet the team that closely
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  Speaker 1: monitors the playful canines, which need help to form diverse
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  Speaker 1: packs and stop their numbers from dwindling. By Helen Sullivan
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  Speaker 1: Two white pickup trucks are parked beside a highway that
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  Speaker 1: cuts through Waterburg, a South African municipality, three hours from Johannesburg.
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  Speaker 1: Passing the trucks on foot, you might hear something that
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  Speaker 1: makes you stop. Their cargo is panting. just visible through
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  Speaker 1: the holes at the top of three green wooden crates
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  Speaker 1: as fur over rib cages, mottled black, white, and gold,
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  Speaker 1: rising and falling. The three sleeping female African wild dogs, sisters,
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  Speaker 1: have traveled a long way in the past few weeks,
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  Speaker 1: even by the standards of their species, which can cover
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  Speaker 1: 30 miles a day and occupy ranges of 1,000 miles.
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  Speaker 1: They arrived by plane from Karangani Game Reserve in Mozambique,
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  Speaker 1: courtesy of the Endangered Wildlife Trust's African Wild Dog Range
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  Speaker 1: Expansion Program. The project, which started in 1997, has increased
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  Speaker 1: the world's wild dog population by more than 344 in
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  Speaker 1: 29 years. It introduces dogs to wildlife reserves in countries
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  Speaker 1: where they haven't been seen in decades. For instance, Mozambique,
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  Speaker 1: where the species disappeared during a civil war that lasted
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  Speaker 1: from 1977 to 1992. The Mozambican packs have bred so
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  Speaker 1: successfully that the Endangered Wildlife Trust, EWT, is now bringing
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  Speaker 1: young dogs to South Africa to form new, genetically diverse
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  Speaker 1: packs here. The three sisters have been darted with sedatives,
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  Speaker 1: a risky but necessary step in moving them to their
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  Speaker 1: new home for the next few weeks, a state-of-the-art enclosure,
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  Speaker 1: or BOMA, the first designed specifically to hold their species
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  Speaker 1: before they're released with tracking collars into the wild. The
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  Speaker 1: sisters represent a not insignificant portion of 6,600 African wild
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  Speaker 1: dogs left in the world. According to the World Wildlife Fund,
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  Speaker 1: the animals are among the world's most endangered. Also known
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  Speaker 1: as cape-hunting or painted dogs, they resemble large gangly mongrels
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  Speaker 1: with extremities picked from a safari odds-and-ends bin big disc-shaped
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  Speaker 1: black ears, large paws on skinny legs, and fluffy white tails.
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  Speaker 1: Each dog's fur has a clearly unique pattern of black, gold,
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  Speaker 1: and white splotches, more abstract impressionist than the designs that
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  Speaker 1: cover snakes, zebras, or leopards. Wild dogs are the most
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  Speaker 1: successful hunters in Africa, with a kill rate of 80%. Lions,
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  Speaker 1: by comparison, kill just 30% of what they hunt. The
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  Speaker 1: dog's superpower is also part of the reason they are
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  Speaker 1: so threatened. Owners of many private game reserves would rather
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  Speaker 1: kill them than lose expensive game. Subsistence farmers feel the
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  Speaker 1: same way about their livestock. A 2021 study published in
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  Speaker 1: Ecology and Evolution showed that human causes, including direct killing
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  Speaker 1: and diseases from domestic dogs, accounted for 44% of all
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  Speaker 1: wild dog deaths at study sites in Kenya and Botswana,
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  Speaker 1: and Zimbabwe over a 15-year period. A lack of continuity
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  Speaker 1: between areas where the dogs are welcome means that, without intervention,
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  Speaker 1: they struggle to find mates. But there is much to
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  Speaker 1: love about the most hated carnivore in Africa. Ask a
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  Speaker 1: wild dog enthusiast what they enjoy the most, and they
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  Speaker 1: will likely say it is the dog's playfulness. Brianna Abrams,
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  Speaker 1: who researches wild dogs in Botswana, has seen that pups
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  Speaker 1: are Bat around balls of elephant dung like a football,
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  Speaker 1: she said. Neil Jordan, a biologist at the University of
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  Speaker 1: New South Wales in Australia, discovered that wild dogs are
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  Speaker 1: one of the few species on earth that appear to vote.
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  Speaker 1: Before departing on a hunt, the animals hold rallies. At dusk,
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  Speaker 1: one or two will stand up after resting in the
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  Speaker 1: heat and pull their ears back, pretending to stalk prey.
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  Speaker 1: They'll make strange, strangled barks and shittering noises. curling their tongues,
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  Speaker 1: playing with one another, and urinating. And then they kind
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  Speaker 1: of snowball socially, so then more get involved and more
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  Speaker 1: get involved. It's like a big merry-go-round, and they're all
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  Speaker 1: running around like crazy, Jordan says. Typically, they'll do this once,
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  Speaker 1: then lie back down, then again, then lie back down.
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  Speaker 1: Only when they emit rapid nasal exhalations or sneezes will
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  Speaker 1: they actually depart. We still don't know for sure whether
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  Speaker 1: the dogs are using that, or it just happens to
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  Speaker 1: be occurring around the same time, as they're signaling their
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  Speaker 1: intention to move in another way, Jordan emphasizes. Wild dogs
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  Speaker 1: also allow their pups to feed first, near unique behavior
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  Speaker 1: among animals, says Jordan. When a member of the pack
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  Speaker 1: is injured or sick or heavily pregnant and can't join
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  Speaker 1: a hunt, another dog will regurgitate food for it. Wild
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  Speaker 1: dogs look out for one another. While the sisters doze
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  Speaker 1: in the trucks, I take a seat in a hut
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  Speaker 1: nearby with Eugene Grayling, one of the EWT field officers
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  Speaker 1: transporting the dogs. We are sitting at the entrance to
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  Speaker 1: the Welgevonden Game Reserve, which houses the enclosure that will
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  Speaker 1: temporarily contain the dogs. South Africa has four main wild
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  Speaker 1: dog populations. The first is in captivity and private zoos.
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  Speaker 1: Then there is the population in Kruger National Park, which
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  Speaker 1: is the only place in the country with enough dogs
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  Speaker 1: to maintain themselves genetically. The third is the free-ranging population,
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  Speaker 1: roaming across a patchwork of private and public lands in
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  Speaker 1: the Waterberg. Finally, there is a metapopulation, whose members are
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  Speaker 1: tracked as they travel through nature reserves such as Welgewanden
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  Speaker 1: or the Tsvali Kalahari Reserve, South Africa's largest privately owned
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  Speaker 1: nature reserve. EWT works with the reserves to create new,
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  Speaker 1: genetically diverse packs and expand their range. Wild dog packs,
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  Speaker 1: which consist of between 5 and 20 individuals, have complicated
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  Speaker 1: social structures, says Grayling. At the top is the alpha female.
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  Speaker 1: She and the alpha male are the only dogs in
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  Speaker 1: the pack who breed. In order for populations to grow,
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  Speaker 1: dogs must form new packs. A group of sisters will
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  Speaker 1: set off in one direction and in search of males
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  Speaker 1: from another pack, while a group of brothers does the
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  Speaker 1: same in a different direction. The EWT carefully monitors dispersal
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  Speaker 1: and the pack's genetics. The lack of continuity between ranges
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  Speaker 1: means the animals are likely to get stuck without a mate.
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  Speaker 1: Conservationists can't afford to let sleeping dogs lie. The three
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  Speaker 1: sisters in the truck, for example, had found mates back
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  Speaker 1: in Mozambique who were too closely related. We had to
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  Speaker 1: think hard about how to manage that because technically the
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  Speaker 1: dogs had done everything right, says Cole Duplessis, who coordinates
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  Speaker 1: the range expansion project. If you told people 20 years
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  Speaker 1: ago that we were going to be flying wild dogs
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  Speaker 1: under sedation to other countries, it's just quite crazy. At
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  Speaker 1: Welga Vanden, Grayling and I are joined in the hut
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  Speaker 1: by Riley Mooney, a biologist and and the director of
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  Speaker 1: the Waterberg Wild Dog Initiative. Mooney has traveled farther than
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  Speaker 1: the dogs. She came from Wisconsin to South Africa originally
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  Speaker 1: to study primates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, her regular research
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  Speaker 1: shut down, and she attended a community meeting about free-roaming
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  Speaker 1: dogs that had been mostly left to their own devices.
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  Speaker 1: It was a very volatile situation, Mooney says. Locals were
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  Speaker 1: calling for someone to bridge the gap between communities and conservationists,
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  Speaker 1: and Mooney was the right person for the job. The
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  Speaker 1: first thing on her to-do list was to find out
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  Speaker 1: how many dogs there were. Their coats made them relatively
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  Speaker 1: easy to identify and keep track of. We can say
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  Speaker 1: with pretty good confidence that in this entire Waterbrook area,
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  Speaker 1: there are only 27 wild dogs, she says. In the hut,
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  Speaker 1: Grayling gets a call from Joseph Hilako, his colleague at
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  Speaker 1: the EWT who has been keeping an eye on the
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  Speaker 1: sleeping dogs. Halako, the EWT's conflict mitigation officer, grew up
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  Speaker 1: in the area and has family who farm. He speaks
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  Speaker 1: Northern Sutu, among other South African languages, and has an
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  Speaker 1: insider's knowledge about what will and won't work when it
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  Speaker 1: comes to dogs and people. Building trust and maintaining relationships
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  Speaker 1: make the biggest factor, he says. And, you know, a
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  Speaker 1: familiar face works better than any face, he says. After
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  Speaker 1: Grayling leaves the hut, he drives back past us. One
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  Speaker 1: of the dogs seems to be overheating, he says. He
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  Speaker 1: wants to get her to the enclosure right away and
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  Speaker 1: cool her down. Moony and I jump into her car
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  Speaker 1: and follow Grayling. We cross the highway, passing cattle and
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  Speaker 1: thick bushland, until we come to the boma. A couple
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  Speaker 1: of shipping containers and a fence. It doesn't seem like much,
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  Speaker 1: but Duplessis designed everything in the boma specifically and simply
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  Speaker 1: for wild dogs. At the base of the fences is
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  Speaker 1: a concrete wall that extends four feet into the ground.
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  Speaker 1: Wild dogs are determined diggers. The enclosure is split so
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  Speaker 1: that males and females can be kept apart, bonding over
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  Speaker 1: time through the fence. And in each section is a
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  Speaker 1: feeding post. The dogs tend to eat facing you, Mooney explains,
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  Speaker 1: which makes it hard to dart them for transportation. But
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  Speaker 1: if their food is tied to a post, and behind
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  Speaker 1: the post is a small wooden wall, the dogs are
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  Speaker 1: forced to eat with their behinds toward you. Conveniently, they
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  Speaker 1: raise their hind quarters in the air while eating, which
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  Speaker 1: makes for a safer and easier shot. As we help
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  Speaker 1: Grayling and Halako lift a crate off the pickup, a
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  Speaker 1: dusty paw flops out of one corner, and I think
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  Speaker 1: of something my uncle says. You can smell the world
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  Speaker 1: in a dog's paw. Mooney and I back away, watching
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  Speaker 1: from inside a container, as Halako moves the car so
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  Speaker 1: that the overheating dog is in the shade. Though it
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  Speaker 1: is late afternoon, the temperature is still around ninety degrees.
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  Speaker 1: Halako and Grayling release the dogs one at a time,
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  Speaker 1: opening the crate and waiting until a dog walks, then
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  Speaker 1: trots out. The first is less sure on her feet,
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  Speaker 1: the second seems almost normal, until Moony points out that
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  Speaker 1: she would have run much faster from the crate and
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  Speaker 1: people had she not been a bit dozy. The sisters
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  Speaker 1: stand together in a grassy area, point their noses in
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  Speaker 1: the air, move their satellite dish ears, and lie down
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  Speaker 1: under a thorn tree. It has been a long day.
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  Speaker 1: The sun is about to set, and I need to
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  Speaker 1: leave before the park gates close. I prepare to say
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  Speaker 1: goodbye and walk over to the overheating dog, who is
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  Speaker 1: lying next to the water. She hasn't stood up. She
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  Speaker 1: is breathing, her mouth is open, and Grayling tries to
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  Speaker 1: reassure everyone that she'll be all right, but he doesn't
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  Speaker 1: sound too sure. Later, he gives me news that the
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  Speaker 1: dog died. It is the first time this has happened
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  Speaker 1: on his watch, and it comes as a shock. The
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  Speaker 1: cause of death is determined to be capture myopathy or
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  Speaker 1: broken heart syndrome, says Duplessis. It is caused by heightened stress.
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  Speaker 1: In this case, the known factors were the stress of
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  Speaker 1: being captured, which involved hours of people trying to dart her,
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  Speaker 1: and the high temperature that day. There may have been
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  Speaker 1: been underlying physical factors or there may have been predators
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  Speaker 1: like hyenas nearby in the nights before the move but
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  Speaker 1: duplessis is focused on what the ewt could control i
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  Speaker 1: would never accept the loss of a dog as fine
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  Speaker 1: he says but if one of the surviving sisters goes
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  Speaker 1: on to have puppies and the population grows by 20
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  Speaker 1: to 30 dogs in her lifetime then it makes it
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  Speaker 1: seem a little better he says A year later, Duplessis
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  Speaker 1: updates me on the two surviving sisters. After keeping them
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  Speaker 1: for two months at the Boma, near Welga Vanden, Duplessis
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  Speaker 1: sent them to a small private game reserve called Reetspruit,
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  Speaker 1: which is connected to Kruger National Park. He knew of
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  Speaker 1: an eligible bachelor living just nine hours away in KwaZulu-Natal province.
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  Speaker 1: Duplessis darted the mail and drove him to Reetspruit. The
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  Speaker 1: bonding between those dogs went extremely well, and we had
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  Speaker 1: this new pack of three, he says. They were hunting successfully.
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  Speaker 1: Everything was really good. And then, in October last year,
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  Speaker 1: that male was killed by a lion on the reserve.
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  Speaker 1: A couple more months passed, and Duplessis heard of two
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  Speaker 1: other males who had dispersed from a pack looking for mates.
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  Speaker 1: He darted them, put them in the boma, and waited
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  Speaker 1: for the sisters to show up. A few days later,
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  Speaker 1: the females, now roaming free and wearing collars, showed up
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  Speaker 1: near one of the reserve's lodges. Duplessis drove to where
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  Speaker 1: they were and attached two balls of hay from the
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  Speaker 1: boma saturated with the male's scent to the back of
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  Speaker 1: his car. He performed who-calls, mimicking sounds the dogs make
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  Speaker 1: to find each other. The females emerged. Then he started
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  Speaker 1: to drive. We were at one point going sixty kilometers
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  Speaker 1: an hour, about thirty-seven miles per hour, While these females
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  Speaker 1: were keeping up trying to get to this ball of grass,
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  Speaker 1: he says, it was one of the coolest things I've
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  Speaker 1: done in my wild dog career. Relocations don't work if
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  Speaker 1: the dog's range doesn't keep expanding and community education efforts
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  Speaker 1: don't continue. But over the past three decades, the amount
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  Speaker 1: of land set aside for the dogs has grown by 1.5
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  Speaker 1: million hectares, and there are 30 more packs than before.
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  Speaker 1: This genetic diversity within those packs is very good, Duplessis says.
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  Speaker 1: If we can keep this strong and working, and other
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  Speaker 1: organizations are doing their restoration efforts and community conservation efforts,
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  Speaker 1: it's creating the space where we're ready to jump when
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  Speaker 1: the time is right. A short way from the enclosure,
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  Speaker 1: Duplessis dropped the hay and sped off, trusting that the
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  Speaker 1: females would find their way to the males. And they did.
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  Speaker 1: They wasted no time flirting through the fence as wild
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  Speaker 1: dogs do, ducking under each other, dipping their heads. Duplessis
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  Speaker 1: decided to release the males from the boma. But instead
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  Speaker 1: of the males coming out, the females ran in and
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  Speaker 1: all four refused to emerge. So he left them to
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  Speaker 1: get to know one another in the enclosure for three weeks.
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  Speaker 1: The week Duplessis and I spoke, the females had started
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  Speaker 1: estrus and the males were showing mate-guarding behavior. in a
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  Speaker 1: few months, with any luck, puppies. When we speak a
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  Speaker 1: few months later, Duplessis tells me one of the sisters
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  Speaker 1: did get pregnant. The pack of four made a den,
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  Speaker 1: something that happens only a day or so before a
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  Speaker 1: female gives birth, but in the next few weeks a
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  Speaker 1: leopard attacked and killed the female. The puppies were too
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  Speaker 1: young to survive without her milk and died too, and
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  Speaker 1: the remaining three went on the run again all the
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  Speaker 1: way out of the park. The brothers were caught in
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  Speaker 1: a snare line and died, and the last surviving sister
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  Speaker 1: eventually joined another pack. I ask Duplessis how he manages
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  Speaker 1: to not get too discouraged. To me, it's about population trend,
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  Speaker 1: he says. Even if half of them make it, the
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  Speaker 1: point is the trend is growing. In 2025, the dogs
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  Speaker 1: the project looks after in South Africa, Mozambique, and Malawi
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  Speaker 1: had 150 puppies altogether. With only 700 breeding pairs and 6,600
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  Speaker 1: wild dogs left, 150 is quite substantial, Duplessis says. You
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  Speaker 1: have ebbs and flows, but at the end of each year,
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  Speaker 1: if you're either stable or increasing, for an endangered species,
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  Speaker 1: you're doing pretty well. And accompanying this article, did you know,
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  Speaker 1: where do wild dogs fall in their family tree? DNA
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  Speaker 1: evidence suggests that African wild dogs split off from wolves, jackals,
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  Speaker 1: and coyotes around 1.7 million years ago, making this species
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  Speaker 1: one of the older branches of the dog family tree.
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  Speaker 1: A pack of African wild dogs can bring down prey
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  Speaker 1: up to 10 times its own body weight. Next, Spain's
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  Speaker 1: white-headed ducks have a signature color right in the name,
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  Speaker 1: and that isn't even their most remarkable hue. The first
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  Speaker 1: thing you're likely to notice is the blue bill, but
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  Speaker 1: beyond appearances, the duck has an exciting story to tell
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  Speaker 1: about conservation and recovery. By Cheryl Katz From their whisk-broom
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  Speaker 1: tails to males' bright sky-blue bills, white-headed ducks are among
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  Speaker 1: the oddest in the world. Mild-mannered outside of breeding season,
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  Speaker 1: they star in a spectacular springtime courtship display, in the
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  Speaker 1: wetlands of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
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  Speaker 1: Come spring, males perform a series of intricate dances that
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  Speaker 1: include sideways swimming, exuberant splashing, and beating their puffed up
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  Speaker 1: neck feathers with their bills to produce bubble trails. Their
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  Speaker 1: exceptionally long and stiff tail feathers are part of the show,
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  Speaker 1: waving like flags, spreading like fans, and slapping the water
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  Speaker 1: like paddles. To witness white-headed ducks in courtship is to
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  Speaker 1: watch one of the avian world's most extraordinary performances, says
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  Speaker 1: Niki Petkov, a waterfowl expert with both the Bulgarian Society
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  Speaker 1: for the Protection of Birds and BirdLife International, an arm
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  Speaker 1: of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN. In Spain,
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  Speaker 1: white-headed ducks also star in a spectacular conservation success story.
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  Speaker 1: Decades of draining wetlands for agriculture and development in the
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  Speaker 1: past century shrank habitat and tanked numbers across the duck's range.
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  Speaker 1: Hunting took a further toll on the global population, which
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  Speaker 1: had been estimated at some 100,000 in the 1930s. By
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  Speaker 1: the late 1970s, most European populations had gone extinct, and
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  Speaker 1: in Spain, only 22 birds remained at a single location.
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  Speaker 1: That shocking tally launched a national campaign to restore and
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  Speaker 1: protect wetlands, improve water management, and ban hunting. Spain's white-headed
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  Speaker 1: duck population has now rebounded to some 2,500 and expanded
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  Speaker 1: across the country. Elsewhere, however, the story isn't as upbeat. Globally,
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  Speaker 1: the species continues to decline, and is listed as endangered
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  Speaker 1: on the IUCN Red List. Sizable populations in the eastern
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  Speaker 1: part of the duck's range receive little protection. Pollution, water loss,
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  Speaker 1: and other effects of human activities continue to destroy their habitats.
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  Speaker 1: What's more, another threat has emerged, ruddy ducks. Specimens of
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  Speaker 1: this invasive American species escaped from a British wildlife reserve
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  Speaker 1: and spread eastward. Reaching Spain's white-headed duck breeding grounds in
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  Speaker 1: the 1980s, the aggressive foreigners beat out native males for mates.
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  Speaker 1: By the early 1990s, fertile hybrids proved as dominant as
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  Speaker 1: their ruddy duck progenitors, raising fears that interbreeding would drive
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  Speaker 1: white-headed ducks to genetic extinction. In Western Europe, a ruddy
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  Speaker 1: duck cull campaign now has the hybridization threat under control. However,
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  Speaker 1: the risk of recurrence remains. Although white-headed ducks have made
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  Speaker 1: a heartening comeback in the West, their future depends on
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  Speaker 1: preserving wetlands throughout their range. A new multinational initiative began
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  Speaker 1: this fall in southeastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and Central
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  Speaker 1: Asia to expand that effort. Meanwhile, climate change and increasing
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: droughts put wetlands worldwide at risk of drying out. Describing
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the white-headed duck as a conservation success story requires an
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: important caveat, Petkoff cautions. The story is not finished. Fun fact.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: What to know about the white-headed duck. Female white-headed ducks
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: are attracted to males with the brightest blue bills, which
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: are considered a sign of virility. During mating season, hormones
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: alter the microscopic structure of the bill's outer keratin layer,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: giving them a blue appearance. Once mating season ends, The
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: bills returned to a grayish color. Next. We've been strapping
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: cargo to our backs for millions of years, but backpack
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: innovation really took off around the Civil War. Discover the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: origin story for an accessory being comfortably lugged by nearly
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: every hiker and student, with about 450 million sold each year,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: by Katya Singal. Humans have been carting things on our
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: back in wraps of some kind, at least since we
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: began using tools, around two million years ago, and we
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: have always sought ways to make the load more comfortable.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: The oldest known backpack ever discovered, in the Alps on
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the border between Austria and Italy, employed two narrow wooden
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: boards and a hazel rod for a frame. The contraption
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: dates to around 3300 BC and is credited to Ötzi,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the iceman, a glacier mummy unearthed alongside it in 1991.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But what we recognize as a backpack is much newer.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: In 1865, Henry Clay Merriam led a regiment of Black
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Union troops in an attack against Fort Blakely, a Confederate
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: stronghold in Alabama. His deeds in this final battle of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the Civil War earned him a Medal of Honor for
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: conspicuous gallantry. Afterward, the lieutenant colonel had an epiphany. It
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was burdensome to carry both a knapsack, a pack with
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: shoulder straps but no frame for internal support, and a haversack,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a shoulder bag containing his rations. Based on his time
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: carrying gear for the Army, Merriam devised a solution, a
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: boxy canvas pack with room for socks, a quart of water,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: a shaving kit and a deck of cards, plus a
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: compartment for rations and a case at the bottom. Sheet
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: metal braces formed the bag's frame, and could double as
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: tent poles at night. In his 1878 patent, Merriam explained
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that the design helped soldiers by lessening the weight to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: be carried and at the same time disposing it more
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: uniformly and leaving the body of the soldier freer and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: less hampered by straps and other fastenings. The tent poles
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: were especially inventive, but improvements were still to be made.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: In 1882, Camille Poirier's owner of a shoe shop in Duluth, Minnesota,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: used a canvas design with a head strap to carry
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a canoe and pack simultaneously, a priority in the land
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: of 10,000 lakes. He also devised a further strap that
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: held an umbrella to shade hikers. An early advertisement breathlessly
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: urged readers to hit the trail with the sack that
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: has made history in the northern wilds. Marketed to the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: fast-growing number of recreational outdoorsmen, The style proved both popular
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: and enduring. The Poirier or Duluth pack is still produced today.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Further refinements followed. After Norwegian outdoorsman Ole F. Bergen added
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a curved metal frame to a backpack in 1909, his
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: country's armed forces adopted his packs, and the legendary Norwegian
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: explorer and mountaineer Roald Amundsen took one on a South
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Pole expedition. Lloyd F. Nelson drew inspiration from the packs
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: carried by Inuit he encountered while hiking across Alaska to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: stake a land claim. In 1922, he crafted the original
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Trapper Nelson, a canvas bag with a detachable wood frame
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and steel pens. The modern backpack began to take its
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: true shape in the 1930s after Jerry Cunningham, a mountaineer
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: who went on to serve with the 10th Mountain Division,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: added zippered compartments for easy access while rock climbing. Cunningham
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: switched to manufacturing nylon models in 1967. That same year,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Murray McCorry established Jansport with his girlfriend Jan Lewis, offering
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: nylon packs with lightweight aluminum frames. The skiing and mountaineering
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: packs proved popular, with college students looking for a way
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to keep their books dry in rainy Seattle, where Jansport
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: had set up shop. The lighter frames produced by Cunningham
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and by Jansport transformed these packs from a mountaineering accessory
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: to an essential back-to-school item. Styles may change, recycled materials,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: and USB charging ports are trending. Fans of flair can
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: buy models with a sparkle and glitter finish, but the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: backpack remains invaluable to any and all wanderers. Around 450
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: million are sold globally each year. Roughly the total number
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: of iPods sold anywhere, ever, a stunning testament to the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: backpack's ability to adapt. And accompanying this article, Did You Know?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Meet Utsi, the Iceman. Discovered in 1991 and preserved by
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: glacial ice, Utsi is the oldest naturally preserved human mummy
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: ever found in Europe, at roughly 5,300 years old. In
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: his possession, was one of the oldest copper axes ever found,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a 99.7% pure copper blade with a handle made from yew.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Researchers have enumerated 61 tattoos on Ötzi, identified by rubbing
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: charcoal into abrasions in the skin. Just hours before he died,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Ötzi ate an omnivorous feast, comprising meat from an ibex,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: and a red deer, plus single-grain wheat and a quantity
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: of animal fat. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: for listening and have a great day.