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Pigeons: Homing, Passenger, Carrier and Otherwise · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
0:19
Speaker 1: That was not Jerry, And this is stuff you should know.
0:25
Speaker 1: I love that we have a new trend here of
0:28
Speaker 1: starting our animal centric podcasts with impressions of that animal,
0:32
Speaker 1: because you did your what I thought was a dolphin,
0:35
Speaker 1: but it was a bad and I just did a pigeon,
0:38
Speaker 1: which that was a pretty good pigeon. Well, come on,
0:41
Speaker 1: cool goes again. He just blew me away with your
0:44
Speaker 1: pige in New York pigeon. Cool. I'm cooling here, Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: I'm going here. How's it going. I feel ashamed all
0:53
Speaker 1: of the stuff. Uh, we've gotten a lot of requests
0:56
Speaker 1: for um messenger pigeons we have over the years, and
1:01
Speaker 1: you said I'm going to heed the call and put
1:04
Speaker 1: together a nice little conglomerate of articles on it. And
1:09
Speaker 1: I thought it was super interesting and a bit confusing
1:12
Speaker 1: in terminology because as we will soon divulge, and I
1:16
Speaker 1: guess we're about to messenger pigeons homing pigeons. Well no,
1:22
Speaker 1: not really. Oh yeah, the same like a lot of
1:26
Speaker 1: it is just right. I'm sorry for those. Are you
1:29
Speaker 1: chose the two that are the same all the others
1:32
Speaker 1: are different? Yeah, Homing pigeons and passenger peasants pigeons different,
1:37
Speaker 1: different um. Carrier pigeons different than messenger pigeons, which is
1:44
Speaker 1: very confusing. It's all just confusing. Well, it's clear through
1:50
Speaker 1: the crud and the mare and the mock and get
1:53
Speaker 1: to the differences between types of pigeons, because most people do.
1:57
Speaker 1: When you think of a carrier pigeon, chuck, you're probably
2:01
Speaker 1: lumping together a bunch of different pigeons into the same category.
2:04
Speaker 1: And you would be right in a certain way, and
2:06
Speaker 1: that most of the pigeons that we consider carrier pigeons
2:10
Speaker 1: um are descended from rock pigeons. Yeah, we don't want
2:14
Speaker 1: to be pigeon lumpers. No, all pigeons are different and
2:17
Speaker 1: beautiful in their own way, that's right. Rock pigeons originally
2:21
Speaker 1: named so from the rock dove I believe, which they
2:24
Speaker 1: inhabited mountains and sea cliffs, and I think that's why
2:27
Speaker 1: they were called rock sure, or they love poison. That'd
2:36
Speaker 1: be glam rock pigeons hair rock hair. Rock pigeons glam rock. No,
2:40
Speaker 1: not quite as glam rocks rock Glary Gary Glitter, Yeah,
2:44
Speaker 1: and I think a little older like glam rock to
2:46
Speaker 1: me was seventies. Hair rock was the eighties kind of
2:49
Speaker 1: bastardization of glam rock. Not nearly as good as like
2:53
Speaker 1: the New York Dolls. Let's say, sure, right, you know
2:56
Speaker 1: who were way better than Gary Glitter as it turns
2:59
Speaker 1: out in the end, that's right. Oh yeah, she's forgot
3:02
Speaker 1: about that all right. Back to pigeons, we haven't even
3:07
Speaker 1: started yet. They were all descended from rock pigeons, kind
3:10
Speaker 1: of like do you remember a Thoroughbred horse Artum episode?
3:14
Speaker 1: How can I forget? I love that one. Yeah, I
3:17
Speaker 1: didn't like it that much because I was it was
3:20
Speaker 1: dense for me. There's a lot of information there. The
3:24
Speaker 1: difference between thoroughbred horses and pigeons is that there's not
3:28
Speaker 1: that much information on pigeon legion lineages, despite the fact
3:32
Speaker 1: that some people show them right. And this is where
3:33
Speaker 1: we finally arrive at carrier pigeons. That's right, they are,
3:38
Speaker 1: as this article points out, fancy pigeons and their bred
3:43
Speaker 1: to to to show their ornamental, very weird ways. Yeah,
3:47
Speaker 1: they have what's on their nose. If you look up
3:49
Speaker 1: a true carrier pigeon, you're gonna see a lot of
3:52
Speaker 1: pictures of just homing pigeons. But look until you find
3:56
Speaker 1: one that looks like it has a rotten walnut on
3:59
Speaker 1: its Now it looks like it's pecked into a tara
4:03
Speaker 1: toma and it's come out and just stuck around the
4:06
Speaker 1: bird's beak. Yeah, that's called a wattle, sir, wattle to
4:12
Speaker 1: two words, wattle dash sir, c E r E and um.
4:16
Speaker 1: It is a fleshy thing on the bill, and they
4:20
Speaker 1: do say it resembles the texture of a walnut, and
4:23
Speaker 1: that's what it starts out as they get big and
4:26
Speaker 1: even more gross looking. Yeah, and it's at the top
4:28
Speaker 1: of the bill, which is when you see one, uh
4:31
Speaker 1: carrier pigeon with just one of these wattles on top
4:34
Speaker 1: of its beak, You're like, that's a little weird looking.
4:37
Speaker 1: But I've seen birds with that little growth right there before.
4:40
Speaker 1: As they mature, these wattles start popping up all around
4:43
Speaker 1: their beak and it's it's just growny, like they have
4:48
Speaker 1: them beneath around the sides. It's gross. It's like a
4:50
Speaker 1: bird only a passenger passenger lover, Fancier would love like
4:56
Speaker 1: they love these things. But most people when they seem like,
4:59
Speaker 1: oh man, look at that right. Yeah, And if you're
5:01
Speaker 1: showing carrier pigeons like the pigeons like great, amazing waddle,
5:06
Speaker 1: is is something to be shown off and displayed. It's
5:09
Speaker 1: like a point of pride among the show where or
5:12
Speaker 1: not me, Bud Fancier, I say, cover that thing up. People,
5:15
Speaker 1: by the way, who like just kidding, who like pigeons
5:19
Speaker 1: and are into showing and raising and using pigeons for
5:22
Speaker 1: fun um are called pigeon fanciers. By the way, Yeah,
5:26
Speaker 1: I just said that, Oh you did. Yeah, but I
5:28
Speaker 1: didn't explain it. I just slipped it in. Okay, well,
5:30
Speaker 1: wanting to explain it. Yeah, people are probably like, why
5:32
Speaker 1: did Chuck just say Fancier? Who does he think he is?
5:36
Speaker 1: What does he think he's the king in England? No,
5:39
Speaker 1: but the carrier pigeon is the king of pigeons. According
5:42
Speaker 1: to fanciers, that was not bad. Uh. Pigeons were imported
5:47
Speaker 1: to the US from Europe in eighteen sixty, and by
5:49
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two the first racing clubs were formed. Apparently
5:54
Speaker 1: Philadelphia has or probably still do or had the largest
5:58
Speaker 1: concentration of fanciers in the late eighteen hundreds, and um,
6:02
Speaker 1: racing pigeons is a really big deal. Still yeah. The
6:07
Speaker 1: reason you can race pigeons is that rock pigeon descendants,
6:11
Speaker 1: whether they be carrier although I don't think I think
6:13
Speaker 1: carrier is the least strong of all of them, but
6:16
Speaker 1: especially homing and messenger pigeons, they're really fast and they
6:20
Speaker 1: are capable of flying their way their way over very
6:24
Speaker 1: long distances, that's right, And they find their way home
6:28
Speaker 1: because they return in general to their nest to mate.
6:33
Speaker 1: So this is why they return home. And we'll get
6:35
Speaker 1: to how in a bit uh later, but like how
6:39
Speaker 1: to train them to do that? Well, how to train
6:41
Speaker 1: them in just how you know, science has figured out
6:43
Speaker 1: that they do this, because it's pretty remarkable. Um. So
6:47
Speaker 1: they fly around forty miles per hour on average, but
6:50
Speaker 1: can reach his high sixty and apparently a hundred to
6:53
Speaker 1: three hundred miles is just a walk in the park
6:56
Speaker 1: for these guys and gals. Um, they have a record.
7:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a documented record, but they've
7:05
Speaker 1: verified that a homing pigeon named Charlie flew and fifty
7:09
Speaker 1: miles from the UK to Brazil and he wasn't even
7:12
Speaker 1: supposed to isn't that crazy? Yeah, apparently he was in
7:15
Speaker 1: a race and um, I guess his nest was in
7:19
Speaker 1: Brazil originally, and he figured it out and made his
7:23
Speaker 1: way there to Brazil even though he was in a
7:25
Speaker 1: local race at the time in England. And the nuts.
7:27
Speaker 1: It's pretty nuts. So apparently the racing pigeons and we
7:30
Speaker 1: could do I mean, there's so much on racing pigeons
7:33
Speaker 1: that we're not even gonna get to acide for mentioning it.
7:35
Speaker 1: But the racing homer is the specific type of pigeon
7:39
Speaker 1: that is bred to race because the homer is the fastest,
7:43
Speaker 1: which is ironic if you're a Simpsons fan. Oh yeah,
7:47
Speaker 1: because Homer is not a fast guy. Yeah, you know, no,
7:50
Speaker 1: he's really not. So. Homing pigeons are are bread specifically
7:55
Speaker 1: to find their way home. I mean, they're good at
7:57
Speaker 1: it anyway, like you said, but they select of we
8:00
Speaker 1: breathe these things if you're going to be a fancier
8:03
Speaker 1: to do so. And when you're when you're raising a
8:05
Speaker 1: homing pigeon or something like that, basically what you're doing
8:08
Speaker 1: is you're taking it to a place away from its home. Yeh,
8:11
Speaker 1: smack it on the head right with a little tiny
8:14
Speaker 1: hammer so they wake up. Yeah, and uh no, don't
8:18
Speaker 1: do that, no pigeon, if you're ever just kidding, don't
8:20
Speaker 1: do that. Uh. And then you release it and it
8:23
Speaker 1: will find its way back home, and you release it
8:26
Speaker 1: at the same time as some other ones, and whicheveryone
8:28
Speaker 1: finds its way home first is the winner. That's racing pigeons.
8:31
Speaker 1: But as you said, homing pigeons are really good at
8:34
Speaker 1: finding their way home naturally, but over time they've been
8:37
Speaker 1: selectively bread by humans to be the best of the
8:40
Speaker 1: best at this, Like compared to their wild ancestors, they
8:43
Speaker 1: make them look like utter poop. Yeah, just like your
8:46
Speaker 1: basic rock pigeon. Yeah. Uh So let's talk a little
8:50
Speaker 1: bit about the different theories on how they find their
8:53
Speaker 1: way home. Um, there's some new findings and what they
8:59
Speaker 1: generally think now is it could be a combination of
9:02
Speaker 1: these things or like it seems like an everybody wins hypothesis. Yeah, basically, so, Um,
9:07
Speaker 1: the sun could be one way that they find their
9:10
Speaker 1: direction and just a general north south east west sort
9:13
Speaker 1: of way when it's cloudy the Earth's magnetic field. Uh,
9:18
Speaker 1: there's basically two different things going at work here. There's
9:21
Speaker 1: a compass and then there's the map. And the compass
9:23
Speaker 1: is just your sort of like just us. It's a
9:26
Speaker 1: general header and the map is actually like where am
9:28
Speaker 1: I now and where do I need to be? Yeah, well,
9:31
Speaker 1: I'm back in New York. I'm one street and I
9:35
Speaker 1: need to get down to the lower east side. But
9:37
Speaker 1: the compass part is like, so that I'm right now
9:40
Speaker 1: facing north, which means I need to turn around a
9:43
Speaker 1: little bit and go until I'm facing east. That's right,
9:46
Speaker 1: and using my map, I've figured this out. Yeah, this
9:49
Speaker 1: one study I didn't follow up on it, the one
9:51
Speaker 1: from Oxford that said they actually follow established roads at
9:54
Speaker 1: some point. Do you know, did you look into that anymore? No,
9:57
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. I wonder if that was just
9:59
Speaker 1: like a speculation and that's been overturned, or if they
10:02
Speaker 1: really do follow. So the fact that that we didn't
10:07
Speaker 1: run into that anywhere else makes me think like it's
10:09
Speaker 1: probably been abandoned. It seemed from what I can understand
10:14
Speaker 1: that the two main competing, long standing, competing explanations, where
10:18
Speaker 1: like you said, they're following magnetic lines um in the
10:22
Speaker 1: Earth's magnetosphere, or they're following smells, tiny odor molecules that
10:28
Speaker 1: they used to basically as a trail of brig crumbs
10:31
Speaker 1: to lead them back towards their roost, their nest um.
10:36
Speaker 1: And for a long time this was it was debated
10:39
Speaker 1: whether this was the case or not. Um the fact
10:41
Speaker 1: that they have such good compasses really lends a lot
10:44
Speaker 1: of credibility to the idea that they can follow magnetic
10:48
Speaker 1: lines and use those too to um orient themselves. And
10:52
Speaker 1: there's actually this anecdote from the early eighties that really
10:57
Speaker 1: lends a lot of support to the magnetic um theory,
11:02
Speaker 1: and that is there was this one pigeon that was
11:04
Speaker 1: caught around a lake in Yellowstone. And by caught, I
11:09
Speaker 1: mean like it was seen for I think a few weeks,
11:11
Speaker 1: like just flying in circles around this lake, which is
11:14
Speaker 1: not what a home and pigeon is supposed to do. No,
11:16
Speaker 1: they fly straight and purposeful toward home sure wherever they are. UM.
11:21
Speaker 1: So this this naturalist apparently where'd you find this article?
11:26
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one this was in? Uh, Audubon
11:29
Speaker 1: Society was one, and uh, well, well, I mean we've
11:32
Speaker 1: got them all posted on our website. Right, Okay, So, um,
11:35
Speaker 1: this naturalist who wrote this article that we're talking about,
11:38
Speaker 1: UM got ahold of this pigeon and he took it
11:41
Speaker 1: and cared for it and took it away from the
11:43
Speaker 1: lake and released it. And the thing flew due east
11:48
Speaker 1: and it was a North Carolina pigeon and it was
11:50
Speaker 1: out in Yellowstone. So he said, you know what, this
11:53
Speaker 1: lake area has a really weird magnetic magnetic field. It's
11:56
Speaker 1: known for making compasses go hey wire. So this lends
11:59
Speaker 1: a any decent amount of support to the magnetic line theory. Yeah, agreed,
12:05
Speaker 1: but it's been overturned recently or at least diminished as
12:09
Speaker 1: far as um the smell theory, right, Well, I don't
12:11
Speaker 1: know about overturned. I think again it's like everyone wins.
12:15
Speaker 1: I think from what I ended up with was that
12:17
Speaker 1: they use all of these things when it's most beneficial,
12:22
Speaker 1: like they'll use one. If it's like if the magnetic
12:25
Speaker 1: field is not as strong, then they'll go to one
12:27
Speaker 1: of the other tried and true methods like smell. Yes,
12:30
Speaker 1: smell was another one, and then recently UM sound, specifically infrasound,
12:37
Speaker 1: which are sound waves super low frequency that we can't
12:40
Speaker 1: hear them. There's a geophysicist named John Hagstrom that cooked
12:44
Speaker 1: up this idea, uh and published it in the Journal
12:47
Speaker 1: of Experimental Biology, and he said, basically, he thinks that
12:51
Speaker 1: they hear their way home, which you know, makes a
12:56
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Yeah, And apparently this um that pigeon
12:59
Speaker 1: back in the early piece that was around yellow Stone,
13:02
Speaker 1: that lake and Yellowstone that was having a hard time. Um.
13:05
Speaker 1: That phenomenon is called a release site bias. In some
13:09
Speaker 1: places in the world, if you release a homing pigeon,
13:12
Speaker 1: they're gonna have a hard time finding their way home
13:15
Speaker 1: or else they're gonna end up getting stuck flying around
13:17
Speaker 1: in circles. And it's generally unexplained. So it's led to
13:21
Speaker 1: this whole sub field of study of homing pigeon maps
13:24
Speaker 1: and how they do this stuff. And um, this subsonic
13:28
Speaker 1: sound theory basically says that they follow basically sound maps. Yeah,
13:36
Speaker 1: sort of like echo location is what it sounded like
13:38
Speaker 1: to me with bats. Yeah, but they're just hearing. They're
13:40
Speaker 1: not like creating a sound and listening for the echo.
13:43
Speaker 1: They're just listening out for the sound. But they're almost
13:45
Speaker 1: listening out for sound in much the same way that
13:48
Speaker 1: they would follow, say, odorant molecules like a trail of
13:51
Speaker 1: brick crumbs. They're listening for familiar subsonic sounds as low
13:56
Speaker 1: as point zero five hurts. Uh, And like you said,
14:00
Speaker 1: we create a sound map and um. He basically compared
14:04
Speaker 1: it to the same thing that we see when we
14:07
Speaker 1: look out with our eyeballs at something. Yeah, but they
14:11
Speaker 1: can hear it, right, So they would like see their
14:13
Speaker 1: home the way we see our home when we're driving
14:15
Speaker 1: like up to it. Yeah, they hear their home and
14:19
Speaker 1: they know which way to go toward it. Yeah. Yeah,
14:22
Speaker 1: if you could see what I hear? Have you ever
14:23
Speaker 1: seen that movie? No? Is that a lifetime movie? It
14:27
Speaker 1: could have been if there was Lifetime back then, but
14:29
Speaker 1: it was the eighties movie. Was the guy that played
14:31
Speaker 1: the beast Master. He played a very famous blind man
14:36
Speaker 1: who was a piano player, and it was called If
14:38
Speaker 1: You Could See What I Hear? So I think blind
14:40
Speaker 1: people use sound in similar ways. Was it blind Tom
14:44
Speaker 1: the uh, the Savant? I can't remember. He's sort of
14:50
Speaker 1: like a piano player, playboy type. I just remember seeing
14:54
Speaker 1: on cable when I was a kid, and I think
14:56
Speaker 1: Mark singer was the guy. Yeah, but I can't remember
14:58
Speaker 1: the real guy, but he was a real die. Did
15:00
Speaker 1: you see or hear about the Lifetime movie that um
15:04
Speaker 1: Kristen Wig and Will Ferrell made And no one can
15:07
Speaker 1: figure out if it was like a piece of comedy
15:09
Speaker 1: genius or else if they were like serious or what. Well, no,
15:12
Speaker 1: they figured it out. I mean they basically went to
15:15
Speaker 1: make the movie and just said, let's just do this
15:18
Speaker 1: as straight up as we can. But because it's us,
15:22
Speaker 1: that'll just have that edge that you know, like Will
15:25
Speaker 1: Ferrell being serious is one of the funniest things in
15:27
Speaker 1: the world. So it was comedic genius. Well yeah, because
15:30
Speaker 1: it's them. But they weren't like, let's try and make
15:32
Speaker 1: this funny. They just said, let's do this as straight
15:34
Speaker 1: as possible. I didn't know if like both of them
15:37
Speaker 1: happened to have like a family member who needed surgery
15:40
Speaker 1: at the same time, so they like signed on to
15:42
Speaker 1: this project. It's pretty weird. Have you seen it? Yeah? Yeah,
15:45
Speaker 1: I saw it, and it's it is tough because they
15:48
Speaker 1: are hysterical but it's so straight. It's like, I don't
15:51
Speaker 1: know how to register this. This is like like the
15:53
Speaker 1: Room or something like that Wow. Wow, that was just
15:56
Speaker 1: a bad movie that ended up being hysterical. But this
16:00
Speaker 1: isn't much the same. I gotta see this what the
16:02
Speaker 1: room or no, the other one? You gotta see him
16:04
Speaker 1: both what I've seen the room? Okay, what's the what's
16:07
Speaker 1: the lifetime movie one called? I can't remember. I guess
16:11
Speaker 1: if you just search Will Ferrell lifetime movie, it'll come up.
16:15
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of weird things. He did that
16:16
Speaker 1: Spanish language movie, and he did that the mini series. Uh,
16:22
Speaker 1: he takes chances. Good for him, he's in a position
16:24
Speaker 1: to do so. H So I feel like this is
16:28
Speaker 1: a pretty good time to take a break, don't you. Yes,
16:30
Speaker 1: and re gather ourselves. Yes, let's do that starting now,
16:59
Speaker 1: all right. So we everard basically how they find their
17:01
Speaker 1: way home and the competing theories, and I think they
17:04
Speaker 1: all just lived together in one big, happy family because
17:08
Speaker 1: they haven't disproved the theories. The pigeons, Yeah, the pigeons
17:12
Speaker 1: do too. They like each other, but I don't. I
17:14
Speaker 1: don't think anyone has disproven anything. So at this point,
17:17
Speaker 1: I think they're taking all comers as far as those
17:19
Speaker 1: theories go. Yeah. So, and this is um not specific too.
17:25
Speaker 1: Is it specific to homing pigeons, although it would include
17:28
Speaker 1: messenger pigeons, wouldn't it because and carrier pigeons does it,
17:32
Speaker 1: but not passenger pigeons. Okay, so they're all dead. The
17:36
Speaker 1: only difference between a messenger pigeon and a homing pigeon
17:41
Speaker 1: is that, Um, a messenger pigeon has something either a
17:45
Speaker 1: two bonnuts leg or a little backpack that contains a message.
17:49
Speaker 1: I think the backpack is the new method, and they
17:51
Speaker 1: used to do the tube on the leg. I think
17:53
Speaker 1: the backpack is way cuter. Yeah, it's adorable. Backpack, you can.
17:56
Speaker 1: What I can't figure out is a difference between a
17:58
Speaker 1: messenger pigeon and a carrier pigeon. Okay, so here's a
18:04
Speaker 1: carrier pigeon is not bread for flying, it's not bread
18:07
Speaker 1: for its homing abilities. It's not bred to race, it's
18:10
Speaker 1: not bread to send. It's basically, um, the Pekinese of pigeons. Okay, No,
18:15
Speaker 1: I got I got it. I'm just picturing them in
18:17
Speaker 1: my head, got you. So carrier is confusing me because
18:20
Speaker 1: they're not They're not actually carrying anything. No, that is
18:24
Speaker 1: why it's so confusing. Of all of them, they should
18:28
Speaker 1: not have the word carrier attached. It should be like
18:31
Speaker 1: virtually useless pigeon with the horrible wattle on its beach.
18:35
Speaker 1: That's the new car pigeon. Hammer to talk them on
18:38
Speaker 1: the head. Now, that's homing pigeons. So carrier pigeons are
18:42
Speaker 1: are for show. Got you. They're the best and show
18:45
Speaker 1: of pigeons. So the homing pigeon is the one who
18:47
Speaker 1: carries a message. Generally it's written on little tiny pieces
18:50
Speaker 1: of thin. That's the messenger pigeon, which is a homing
18:53
Speaker 1: pigeon that is carrying a message exactly. Yeah, that's where
18:57
Speaker 1: we are, okay, but I mean it can get confusing.
18:59
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to act to you know what I mean
19:00
Speaker 1: to be. No, I think I just said a messenger pigeon,
19:03
Speaker 1: didn't I I don't remember. Okay, let's through wine and listen.
19:08
Speaker 1: At any rate, the messenger pigeon is a homing pigeon
19:12
Speaker 1: that carries a message, and they have been around for
19:16
Speaker 1: a long time. Egypt, the Phoenicians romans. Uh Noah, yeah,
19:23
Speaker 1: Noah in the in the Bible. He was the first dude.
19:28
Speaker 1: I thought those were doves. But apparently I ran across
19:32
Speaker 1: a comment on it that dove and pigeon were interchangeable
19:37
Speaker 1: back then, back in old timey aramaic days. All right,
19:41
Speaker 1: well that makes sense. Apparently in ancient Rome when they
19:45
Speaker 1: had chariot races that not just like a chariot race
19:48
Speaker 1: in a stadium, but like a long chariot race over distance,
19:52
Speaker 1: they would send um the passenger. I'm sorry, man, here
19:55
Speaker 1: we go the messenger pigeons back with the news of
19:58
Speaker 1: who won. He right, so that I attached, you know,
20:02
Speaker 1: brutus one, this one, go tell them everybody, and I
20:05
Speaker 1: guess an hour later they would get there and everyone
20:08
Speaker 1: would be too drunk to realize that they cared at
20:11
Speaker 1: that point. Genghis Khan used them. He had like a
20:15
Speaker 1: whole system set up. Oh yeah, we've never really talked
20:18
Speaker 1: about him, have we? Yeah? We have. Did we do
20:20
Speaker 1: an episode on that? Yeah? We did, Yeah, about whether
20:25
Speaker 1: or they killed like a million people or something. And
20:27
Speaker 1: I can't find that episode anywhere. I'm pretty sure recovered it.
20:31
Speaker 1: I felt like we did too. Jerry's nodding us or
20:34
Speaker 1: either she's falling asleep in the way over and over again.
20:38
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, Genghis Khan had a whole system across
20:41
Speaker 1: Asia and Europe like a relay system. Pretty impressive. Germans
20:46
Speaker 1: used them actually attached little cameras through their bellies. That
20:49
Speaker 1: was World War One. Yeah. So the modern use of
20:53
Speaker 1: messenger pigeons uh in warfare was actually it seems to
20:57
Speaker 1: be started by the French and went all the way
21:00
Speaker 1: up through the Vietnam War. Yeah. So there's a like
21:02
Speaker 1: the French love using messenger pigeons in a war like setting, right, um.
21:09
Speaker 1: And there was the Siege of Paris. The Prussians were
21:11
Speaker 1: attacking Paris, and Paris was finally saved. There reinforcements thanks
21:16
Speaker 1: to a group of carrier pigeons or messenger pigeons um
21:20
Speaker 1: who got word that Paris was being was under siege
21:24
Speaker 1: and uh they needed help, and help arrived and Paris
21:28
Speaker 1: was saved. As I said, a few times Prussians were defeated,
21:32
Speaker 1: and the pigeon was so beloved as a result that
21:36
Speaker 1: the same guy who um created the Statue of Liberty
21:40
Speaker 1: also created a tribute to pigeons that was that stood
21:44
Speaker 1: in Paris up until warld boar World War two, when
21:47
Speaker 1: they melted it down because they needed the medal. I
21:50
Speaker 1: think so. So by the time World War one rolled around,
21:54
Speaker 1: pigeons were very much established as a very useful means
21:59
Speaker 1: of communication when all else failed. Um in war. Yeah,
22:03
Speaker 1: apparently they're so fast that they're hard to shoot down. Uh,
22:07
Speaker 1: and they get where they want to go. In the
22:09
Speaker 1: case in France and uh, how do you pronounce it?
22:12
Speaker 1: M A R and the Battle of the Marne, there
22:15
Speaker 1: were seventy two pigeon lofts and as they advanced forward,
22:19
Speaker 1: they took the loss with them. A lot of the
22:21
Speaker 1: pigeons that were out carrying messages, Uh, we're out when
22:26
Speaker 1: they moved the loft were out when they moved the loss.
22:28
Speaker 1: And we're still able to find their lofts blind, not
22:30
Speaker 1: knowing where these lofts ended up. Amazing, go pigeons. Uh,
22:35
Speaker 1: there was there were laws passed during wartime. This one
22:39
Speaker 1: Regulation twenty one A shooting homing pigeons, Killing, wounding or
22:44
Speaker 1: molesting gross homing pigeons is punishable on the defense of
22:49
Speaker 1: the realm regulations by six months imprisonment or one pounds fine.
22:54
Speaker 1: That's that's just a fine. In France, you could be
22:57
Speaker 1: executed for impeding, uh messenger pigeons a wartime pigeon, and
23:02
Speaker 1: there were also rewards offered five pound rewards, Uh for
23:07
Speaker 1: any You know, if you turn in your your friend
23:11
Speaker 1: for shooting a homing pigeon, get five pounds five pounds exactly. Yeah,
23:16
Speaker 1: so it's a big, big deal. They were dogs, apparently
23:19
Speaker 1: two and pigeons were used heavily in wartime to carry
23:23
Speaker 1: messages like very reliably. Um, should we tell the story
23:27
Speaker 1: of Sheremi? How can we not? I don't see how
23:30
Speaker 1: we could. In World War One, you mentioned that the
23:37
Speaker 1: Germans were using um, uh, passenger or messenger pigeons with
23:43
Speaker 1: camera strap to their belly for aerial reconnaissance. Right, it's
23:46
Speaker 1: like the bats with the bombs kind of, but this
23:49
Speaker 1: is more photography rather than incendiary destruction. Um. But the
23:55
Speaker 1: French we're using this for um messages, for getting them
23:58
Speaker 1: from the front, you know, to behind the lines HQ.
24:04
Speaker 1: And so were the Americans too. Apparently the French used
24:06
Speaker 1: like thirty thousand of them in World War One. Americans
24:09
Speaker 1: had something like six hundred. But one really came through
24:14
Speaker 1: for New York Company at the Battle of the Argonne
24:18
Speaker 1: was October nineteen eighteen, towards the end of the war,
24:20
Speaker 1: and they were trapped by as the Germans. So this
24:23
Speaker 1: this pigeon named Jereh me Uh was released by I
24:28
Speaker 1: think it was New York Company, right, which was surrounded
24:31
Speaker 1: in a little low lying I don't even think you
24:34
Speaker 1: can call it a valley. I think the author of
24:36
Speaker 1: this New York Times article that we're getting this from
24:39
Speaker 1: called it like a depression in the ground. And there's
24:42
Speaker 1: a few hundred men who were there. It started out
24:43
Speaker 1: as five hundred UM and they were starting to get
24:46
Speaker 1: whittled down because they were surrounded by Germans. Even worse
24:49
Speaker 1: than that, the American UM reinforcements had no idea where
24:53
Speaker 1: this this New York Company was, and they were they
24:56
Speaker 1: were showing them too, because they thought that they were
24:59
Speaker 1: showing the German that were surrounding New York Company. They
25:01
Speaker 1: had no idea they were selling New York Company as well.
25:04
Speaker 1: So apparently they released a lot of pigeons, and a
25:06
Speaker 1: lot of pigeons got shot, which means that there were
25:09
Speaker 1: some German sharp shooters there. They were really good, because
25:12
Speaker 1: it is tough, like you said, to shoot down a
25:14
Speaker 1: homing pigeon because they are fast, or they were just
25:16
Speaker 1: shooting a lot of bullets into the air. Yes, you know.
25:19
Speaker 1: So they released one UM one of their last ones,
25:22
Speaker 1: share me and share me. Um flew and flew and
25:27
Speaker 1: took off and got hit at least once had a
25:31
Speaker 1: quarter size hole in his breast, and it shot his
25:36
Speaker 1: leg off. Shot the leg that had the tube with
25:38
Speaker 1: the message saying where the New York Company was attached
25:42
Speaker 1: to that leg it got shot off, but it also
25:45
Speaker 1: got lodged into the hole and Sharemy's chest and the
25:49
Speaker 1: bird flew back to its roost like that. Ye gave
25:52
Speaker 1: the coordinates. Uh. I like to think that he chirped
25:56
Speaker 1: them out even and said forget the message, but he
25:59
Speaker 1: was saluting I believe in love. Uh. And a hundred
26:04
Speaker 1: and ninety four men were saved, and Jeremy was awarded
26:08
Speaker 1: the KOA Digio with palm. Yeah with palm, I don't
26:15
Speaker 1: even know. Yeah, you don't want it without palm, No way,
26:18
Speaker 1: that's half the award. Uh. Sadly died in nineteen nineteen
26:22
Speaker 1: from the wounds. But man, what a great story. Yeah.
26:25
Speaker 1: Now he's on display. I'm not sure exactly where, but
26:28
Speaker 1: you can find pictures of him, uh, stuffed with just
26:32
Speaker 1: one leg and the other leg with the tube still.
26:34
Speaker 1: A test has been preserved as well. That's probably at
26:37
Speaker 1: the Pigeon Ward Museum, probably in Providence with Rhode Island
26:41
Speaker 1: and Chuck. I I have to say, um, I read
26:43
Speaker 1: this one article too about it was called hawks and Doves,
26:46
Speaker 1: and it was about the irony of using rock pigeons,
26:49
Speaker 1: which are related to doves in some ways, or used
26:52
Speaker 1: to be called doves, as like a wartime symbol. Oh really,
26:58
Speaker 1: because they're very Peaceful's interesting. It's on her it's on
27:02
Speaker 1: the page for this episode. Well, I think it's time
27:07
Speaker 1: for another little respite, uh, and then we'll come back
27:10
Speaker 1: and talk about the very sad story of the passenger pigeon.
27:14
Speaker 1: Right for this all right, Josh, we've talked about rock pigeons,
27:44
Speaker 1: which include homing pigeons, carrier pigeons, messenger pigeons, same thing
27:49
Speaker 1: as a homing pigeon. But there's something called a passenger
27:52
Speaker 1: pigeon which is not any of those things. And it
27:55
Speaker 1: is not a thing anymore. No, it used to be
28:00
Speaker 1: at I mean, it's a thing as far as past
28:02
Speaker 1: tense goes. Yes, but there used to be a ton
28:06
Speaker 1: of them. They're a native North American bird. They're about
28:09
Speaker 1: one and a half times the size of a morning dove.
28:12
Speaker 1: They looked a lot like them. And uh, like I said,
28:16
Speaker 1: they were all over. Some say they made up of
28:20
Speaker 1: the North American bird population. Yeah, that's that's a lot,
28:25
Speaker 1: and they like to hang out together. They have the
28:28
Speaker 1: largest documented flock um on record in Wisconsin. In eighteen
28:34
Speaker 1: seventy one, they estimated a hundred and thirty six million
28:38
Speaker 1: breeding passenger pigeons over eight hundred and fifty square miles
28:42
Speaker 1: of forest. Yeah, that was Wisconsin. There's supposedly another flock
28:47
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty that reached three point seven billion flying
28:50
Speaker 1: over Ontario. They supposedly blacked out the sky. Yeah. And
28:53
Speaker 1: these are credible witnesses who are writing about these things
28:56
Speaker 1: back in the early nineteenth century, like John James Audubon,
29:00
Speaker 1: one who number one knew his birds a little bit,
29:03
Speaker 1: knew what he was talking about, and it was a
29:06
Speaker 1: credible scientist. And he wrote about a ride from I
29:10
Speaker 1: think Lexington to um Louisville in Kentucky in eighteen thirteen,
29:17
Speaker 1: and he talked about how long the way the sun
29:19
Speaker 1: was blotted out and the sky from horizon to horizon
29:23
Speaker 1: was filled with um passenger pigeons. It was either that
29:28
Speaker 1: of the opium and this this wasn't like a thing
29:32
Speaker 1: where it just happened, and you know, they flew overhead
29:34
Speaker 1: and that was amazing. This went on for the whole
29:37
Speaker 1: three day journey from Lexington to Louisville. The whole three days,
29:43
Speaker 1: the sun was blotted out by one single flock of
29:46
Speaker 1: passenger pigeons flying overhead, the same flock. Amazing, Like, you
29:50
Speaker 1: just don't see that these days. Well, no, and you
29:53
Speaker 1: definitely don't see that these days because, like we said,
29:56
Speaker 1: they are completely extinct at this point. And you sit
29:59
Speaker 1: along a rate article called one years after her death, Martha,
30:04
Speaker 1: the last passenger pigeon, still resonates. And what happened was
30:08
Speaker 1: a couple of things. One um, they were hunted relentlessly
30:16
Speaker 1: for massive amounts of food. Oh yeah, when those flocks
30:19
Speaker 1: can fly overhead, you know, you can just close your
30:21
Speaker 1: eyes and start shooting up in the air and all
30:23
Speaker 1: tons of passenger pigeons are gonna fall around you. Yes,
30:26
Speaker 1: Like if you hunt something that big out of existence,
30:30
Speaker 1: then you're doing a lot of hunting. So was that
30:32
Speaker 1: combined with the deforestation of the East coast? Uh? If
30:37
Speaker 1: they think both of those things led to the complete extinction. Yeah,
30:40
Speaker 1: because they fed on mast which is one of my
30:43
Speaker 1: favorite words of all time. Mass is like the description
30:46
Speaker 1: of like, um, hardwood forest nuts like acorns and chestnuts
30:52
Speaker 1: and hickory nuts and stuff like that. Combined those things
30:54
Speaker 1: are called mass, right, And I think they fed together
30:56
Speaker 1: as well, right, Yes, in groups. Right. So if you
30:59
Speaker 1: start to bill roads, or you build like the world's
31:02
Speaker 1: first subdivision in eighteen fifteen or something like that, and
31:06
Speaker 1: you cut down a bunch of this forest, you fracture
31:09
Speaker 1: this eight hundred and fifty square mile roost, this nest,
31:13
Speaker 1: and you have a big problem if you're a passenger pigeons.
31:16
Speaker 1: So that combined with overpredation by humans led to their extinctions.
31:20
Speaker 1: So think about this, chuck. In the eighteen seventies, there
31:23
Speaker 1: were billions of these things bills in nineteen fourteen the
31:28
Speaker 1: last one died, So in like thirty forty years they
31:33
Speaker 1: went from billions to extinct like that. Yes, And that
31:38
Speaker 1: was Martha reference in the article. Um. She was born
31:41
Speaker 1: into captivity, they believe at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo and then
31:45
Speaker 1: donated later to the Cincinnati's Cincinnati Zoo. And um they
31:50
Speaker 1: believe in nineteen hundred that there were these three populations
31:53
Speaker 1: were all that was left. Yeah, the last one ever
31:56
Speaker 1: seen in the wild was in eighteen ninety nine. So
31:58
Speaker 1: they eventually died down and died down on Martha sadly
32:01
Speaker 1: ended up like trembling in a cage because people would
32:05
Speaker 1: throw sand at her to wake her up and like
32:07
Speaker 1: have her move. So they indiventually had to you know,
32:10
Speaker 1: wall that up, and she pricked her in for her
32:14
Speaker 1: own safety. It's so sad. Uh. So they died out
32:19
Speaker 1: completely and now she's on display at the Smithsonian until
32:22
Speaker 1: October October this year. Uh, which is uh, which is
32:27
Speaker 1: a what Chuck Well, a big lesson to mankind on
32:31
Speaker 1: what can happen that's right, if you hunt too much
32:34
Speaker 1: and if you build too many parking lots. Well, you know,
32:36
Speaker 1: there's a there's a big discussion over the passenger pigeon
32:41
Speaker 1: and bring it back. One of my personal heroes, Charles Man,
32:45
Speaker 1: is caught in the center of this. Yes he is.
32:48
Speaker 1: Did not know that, so you know, he wrote one
32:50
Speaker 1: of my favorite book and in he talks about um.
32:54
Speaker 1: There's there's a school of thought about the passenger pigeon
32:59
Speaker 1: that um they were actually they their populations exploded just
33:06
Speaker 1: prior to European settlement of North America. But after that
33:12
Speaker 1: first Colombian contact, and the idea is that if you
33:15
Speaker 1: go and look around a bunch of like Native American sites,
33:18
Speaker 1: pre Columbian Native American sites, you don't find that many
33:21
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon bones. There. Some there, but there's not a lot,
33:25
Speaker 1: and there's certainly not enough to suggest that there were
33:27
Speaker 1: billions of these things at the time. So this idea
33:31
Speaker 1: is that after Colombian contact and disease and violence wiped
33:35
Speaker 1: out and spread through North American and wiped out large
33:39
Speaker 1: like of the Native Americans living there, the passenger pigeon
33:43
Speaker 1: was no longer preyed upon by the Native Americans, and
33:46
Speaker 1: so their population boomed. So in a way, all these
33:50
Speaker 1: white settlers who hunted this thing into extinction are kind
33:54
Speaker 1: of off the hook because it was their fault anyway
33:57
Speaker 1: that led to this boom and population. Well, other scholarships
34:01
Speaker 1: says like, no, you're ignoring a bunch of sites. It's
34:03
Speaker 1: probably not the case. White European settlers of North America
34:07
Speaker 1: probably did destroy to extinction a a perennially large population
34:15
Speaker 1: of birds in North America. You know what they call that?
34:18
Speaker 1: What a cautionary tale? Oh yeah, that sounds familiar. I've
34:22
Speaker 1: heard that before. So there are some naturalists and scientists
34:26
Speaker 1: and biologists now that they think they can bring back
34:29
Speaker 1: the passenger pigeon. But should we? But should we? And
34:32
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of schools of thought. There are some
34:35
Speaker 1: conservation let's say, well, if we start bringing back extinct species,
34:38
Speaker 1: maybe we won't protect the ones that are near extinction
34:41
Speaker 1: because people, you know, as I guess robustly, because people say, well,
34:46
Speaker 1: you can bring them back anyway, I don't know about that. Well,
34:49
Speaker 1: I mean, what's what's the problem though? If you think
34:51
Speaker 1: about it, like, what what does it matter to the
34:53
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon? It doesn't know? Right? Well, yeah, I mean
34:57
Speaker 1: there are none. Well that's the point. Yeah that a
35:00
Speaker 1: lot of people say, leave it be. That's one thing.
35:03
Speaker 1: But also, if you bring back a passenger pigeon, you
35:07
Speaker 1: are bringing back something whose heritage has been interrupted and
35:12
Speaker 1: therefore all of that that collective memory that's passed down
35:16
Speaker 1: from one generation to the next has ended already. Right,
35:20
Speaker 1: So who's going to teach that passenger pigeon how to
35:23
Speaker 1: be a passenger pigeon? It may not know, It may
35:25
Speaker 1: be a monster, a monster, It may kill entire families
35:28
Speaker 1: of people. Well, thank god we have all those tiny
35:31
Speaker 1: pigeon hammers, you know. Uh so, yeah, there's a lot
35:34
Speaker 1: of schools of thought. Bring it back. It wouldn't know
35:36
Speaker 1: what to do, or it might just pick up and
35:39
Speaker 1: be fine. Who knows. All right, so we've talked about
35:42
Speaker 1: we've covered passenger pigeons. Now the sad extinction of the
35:46
Speaker 1: passenger pigeon. All those other pigeons talked about, Cameras on
35:49
Speaker 1: the bellies, messages on backpacks and feet. Those are homing
35:53
Speaker 1: messenger pigeons. I'm covering. I'm going back over everything here
35:59
Speaker 1: we've covered. I don't think even think we mentioned drug traffickers.
36:02
Speaker 1: Supposedly in Afghanistan and in in Pakistan, um carry ten grams
36:06
Speaker 1: of heroin each heat and they've been used, so people
36:10
Speaker 1: have been misusing and using and abusing these birds for millennia. Supposedly,
36:16
Speaker 1: the average UM messenger pigeon can carry up to two
36:20
Speaker 1: and a half ounces of something if it's balanced correctly
36:23
Speaker 1: on its backpack. What two and a half ounces? So
36:27
Speaker 1: these these things are being treated like royalty if all
36:30
Speaker 1: they have to carry is ten grams of heroine, Yeah,
36:33
Speaker 1: that's that's nothing. And when they show up. There's frequently
36:36
Speaker 1: just nine grams, you know what I mean. So this
36:44
Speaker 1: uh city pigeons just your average pigeon that everyone seems
36:48
Speaker 1: to detest. Not everyone, Some people love these things and
36:51
Speaker 1: feed them. Uh in France, in Paris, I believe it's
36:54
Speaker 1: illegal to feed them, um because you know, you got
36:58
Speaker 1: a Trafalgar Square in other places like at and they
37:00
Speaker 1: can be so vast that you can't even walk. So
37:06
Speaker 1: when you feed them, they congregate, and so that's a problem.
37:09
Speaker 1: So they've outlawed it in a lot of place. Put everywhere,
37:11
Speaker 1: they're dirty, they spread disease. It's all very true, yes,
37:14
Speaker 1: and there have been some cases of legal cases in
37:18
Speaker 1: lawsuits because of pigeons. There was one in France where
37:21
Speaker 1: there was an American woman there feeding like twenty five
37:24
Speaker 1: pounds of feed a day in Paris and it was
37:28
Speaker 1: already I think outlawed in Paris. Yeah, she had been
37:30
Speaker 1: fine nineteen times and nice, so I guess she like
37:33
Speaker 1: was like, I'll go to Paris then so I can
37:35
Speaker 1: feed the pigeons. She's like the creepy pigeon feeding lady
37:39
Speaker 1: from Mary Poppins, remember her, Now feed the birds tup
37:43
Speaker 1: into bag tupping tupping. Remember that was like five man.
37:48
Speaker 1: A lot of that movie was creepy, not as creepy
37:51
Speaker 1: as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is like one of
37:54
Speaker 1: the most disturbing children's movies. All this. The bad guy
37:58
Speaker 1: is one of the skin guys her. Yeah, he was
38:00
Speaker 1: pretty scary. Yeah. And by the way, Gon with the
38:04
Speaker 1: wind was color not colorized. We goofed that one what
38:08
Speaker 1: was colorized, and that never was color well, tid turn
38:11
Speaker 1: her colorized some things, but that wasn't one of them, right,
38:14
Speaker 1: But what was one of them? I don't know. We
38:15
Speaker 1: could go back and look. It just looked funny, that's
38:19
Speaker 1: all I remember. It's probably Citizen King. We'll hear about
38:24
Speaker 1: an email. Huh, Yeah, it wasn't Citizen King. Um. So
38:28
Speaker 1: this French I'm sorry, this American woman feeding all these
38:30
Speaker 1: French pigeons. This other lady is on a park bench.
38:34
Speaker 1: She's ticked off because there's all these pigeons everywhere. She
38:38
Speaker 1: gets up, she tries to kick these things. She tears
38:40
Speaker 1: her stockings and scratches her limbs up, her legs up apparently,
38:44
Speaker 1: and takes this lady to court and they threw out
38:47
Speaker 1: the case or they lost the case because the judge
38:50
Speaker 1: basically said, you don't know how to kick a pigeon
38:53
Speaker 1: without getting hurt. That's your fault, certainly not the American
38:56
Speaker 1: lady's fault. The other lawsuit, oh, there was again in France.
39:01
Speaker 1: The French like to sue people for pigeon related stuff. Um,
39:05
Speaker 1: there's a woman who is living in an apartment in
39:08
Speaker 1: a building a couple of floors above a store, furniture store,
39:13
Speaker 1: and she would feed pigeons. Apparently the pigeon poop was
39:16
Speaker 1: so bad that the store owner was saying it was
39:19
Speaker 1: driving customers away, like all over the window window, or
39:22
Speaker 1: like on the ground and on the door knob or whatever,
39:25
Speaker 1: keeping people from coming to his store. So we sued
39:27
Speaker 1: the woman, but the woman's lawyer apparently demonstrated that the
39:32
Speaker 1: store owner couldn't prove that the mess came from the
39:36
Speaker 1: pigeons that this lady was feeding. Could have been any pigeon. Yeah,
39:40
Speaker 1: that's a dicey one. I guess we could finish here with,
39:45
Speaker 1: um a couple of instruction aals what to do if
39:50
Speaker 1: you find a homing pigeon. Yeah, I have to say
39:52
Speaker 1: my favorite pigeon now is the homing pigeon. Yeah, I
39:56
Speaker 1: think they're great. They don't they they They sure carry
40:00
Speaker 1: a message if you want, and then I'll be a
40:01
Speaker 1: messenger pigeon. But at heart, I'm just a homing pigeon.
40:04
Speaker 1: I just want to go home. I want to hang
40:06
Speaker 1: out and do my heroine, you know. So. Uh, here's
40:11
Speaker 1: here's some advice, UM on what to do if you
40:14
Speaker 1: find a stranded homing pigeon. UM. Number one, give it water.
40:18
Speaker 1: That's the number one thing. Yeah. And don't force feet
40:20
Speaker 1: at water like I did when I killed that bird. No, no,
40:22
Speaker 1: because you don't want to drown it. Put it in
40:24
Speaker 1: a dish, like a one inch deep dish. Yeah, and
40:27
Speaker 1: don't overwater it like your yard. Right, you could just
40:30
Speaker 1: bring the pigeon to my yard and let it drink
40:33
Speaker 1: from my flooded lawn. So let it drink on its
40:35
Speaker 1: own in a one inch deep container. UM, offer it
40:39
Speaker 1: some food. Say you're hungry. Yeah, And you might say
40:42
Speaker 1: I don't have pigeon food. Yes you do if you
40:45
Speaker 1: have rice, um, pop popcorn? Uh, what else, buck wheat, barley,
40:49
Speaker 1: canary seed, any of that stuff. Say you're hungry, you're thirsty,
40:54
Speaker 1: how you doing? And then again, just put the stuff
40:56
Speaker 1: out for the pigeon to enjoy and choose on his
41:00
Speaker 1: or her own whether he or she wants to do this.
41:03
Speaker 1: Next thing you do is say how's the temperature in
41:06
Speaker 1: for you? Are you're feeling good? You want to scar?
41:09
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's really cold. It's maybe let's warm it
41:12
Speaker 1: up a little. It's really warm, let me cool it down. Yeah.
41:15
Speaker 1: I think they tend to prefer temper slightly yeah, on
41:17
Speaker 1: the cooler side of temperate. Um. And then they also
41:21
Speaker 1: like to be able to see. But you want to
41:23
Speaker 1: keep them in a place that's safe away from like
41:25
Speaker 1: dogs and cats, but also in in in like a
41:28
Speaker 1: box or something, So a box of the screen over it,
41:31
Speaker 1: a dog kennel with the kennel door closed, um, something
41:34
Speaker 1: like that, and with maybe some straw, a blanket something
41:39
Speaker 1: that it can just hang around in. And again some
41:41
Speaker 1: seed and some water and what. You just do this
41:44
Speaker 1: for like two days, right, Yeah. After a day or two,
41:46
Speaker 1: you say how you feeling, Are you rested? Are you comfortable?
41:49
Speaker 1: Just getting the food in? Beaby, Um, it's time for
41:52
Speaker 1: you to go home. And then you just get your
41:55
Speaker 1: timing little hammer out. Don't make me use this, you do.
41:59
Speaker 1: You just release the homing pigeon and that little dude
42:03
Speaker 1: or lady um should find his or her way home.
42:05
Speaker 1: Like you can bet on it and say, hey, thanks
42:08
Speaker 1: for the stay. That was great. Well that's what the
42:11
Speaker 1: pigeon would say to you. If that pigeon says that
42:14
Speaker 1: to you, you go catch it again and make some
42:17
Speaker 1: money off of it, because most pigeons can't do that,
42:20
Speaker 1: like Michigan j bullfrog. So uh with um again. Homing
42:25
Speaker 1: pigeons are my favorite. And if if you find one
42:28
Speaker 1: and it decides not to leave you, um, you have
42:32
Speaker 1: yourself a homing pigeon as a pet. That's right. You
42:34
Speaker 1: can also buy them if you're into homing pigeons and
42:37
Speaker 1: raise them yourself. And when you do, you can train
42:40
Speaker 1: them to do all sorts of neat stuff, but mostly
42:42
Speaker 1: you can train them to race and fly very long distances.
42:45
Speaker 1: And there's a really neat um tried and true technique
42:49
Speaker 1: for training homing pigeons and it's basically all just food based. Yeah.
42:54
Speaker 1: So they have their nests, like training any animal, they
42:56
Speaker 1: have their home base and this is where they stay,
43:00
Speaker 1: they spend most of the time. This is where they eat,
43:02
Speaker 1: and you can take them elsewhere. Hundreds of miles away
43:05
Speaker 1: if you like. But they say you should start off
43:08
Speaker 1: with just like twenty miles time out something like that,
43:11
Speaker 1: and create like another roost somewhere at a friend's house
43:14
Speaker 1: or um out in a field that you have permission
43:18
Speaker 1: to use. You know, make sure you have permission to
43:21
Speaker 1: use the field, and you create a roost and you
43:23
Speaker 1: um set up food there too. Let the pigeon hang out,
43:26
Speaker 1: spend some time there. If you want the pigeon to
43:28
Speaker 1: go back home, probably all you have to do is
43:31
Speaker 1: release it from the second roost, and it'll want to
43:33
Speaker 1: go back home. But a sure fire way of doing
43:36
Speaker 1: that is to remove its food right in that second
43:39
Speaker 1: second roost sounds mean, and then well it'll be like,
43:42
Speaker 1: well I want some food, I'm gonna fly home. And
43:44
Speaker 1: it flies home and it gets to eat its food,
43:46
Speaker 1: and you um. Any pigeon roosts, any homing pigeon roost
43:50
Speaker 1: has a trap door that the pigeon can get into,
43:53
Speaker 1: but it can't get back out unless you let it out.
43:55
Speaker 1: But they can so they can come home and get
43:57
Speaker 1: in whenever they want, so they always have food. But
44:00
Speaker 1: if you want him to go to the second roost,
44:01
Speaker 1: point B, you just take their food away at home,
44:04
Speaker 1: and they'll say, I know another place to go get food,
44:07
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna fly to it now. Once you get
44:09
Speaker 1: that down a few times, you can keep moving that
44:11
Speaker 1: roost further and further out. They're gonna find it. And
44:14
Speaker 1: if you say tell a friend that if they hang
44:17
Speaker 1: out at the second roots will get a special message.
44:20
Speaker 1: You can attach like a little backpack to your home
44:22
Speaker 1: and pigeons and release it and it'll delight your friend
44:25
Speaker 1: with whatever message you said. This is something I could
44:28
Speaker 1: actually see you doing in like retirement. Well, a lot
44:31
Speaker 1: of people do. Did you see that list of famous
44:33
Speaker 1: people who love pigeons raised pigeons? No, I didn't, but
44:36
Speaker 1: I know Mike Tyson is one of them. Apparently he's
44:38
Speaker 1: following a big tradition of boxers who raised pigeons. George Foreman, Marvelous,
44:43
Speaker 1: Marvin Hagler, boxers who raise pigeons to all these people
44:46
Speaker 1: on this list, Yeah, Chaccy from Choccy and Charge, he uh,
44:52
Speaker 1: he raised pigeons, Charles and Charge, Terry Bradshaw, Elvis Presley,
44:56
Speaker 1: Who's who's that? I'm just kidding, h Charles Darwin Barney
45:01
Speaker 1: apparently from from It says here he's the big purple
45:04
Speaker 1: dinosaur in Sesame Street. That seems a little confused, But
45:07
Speaker 1: I guess Barney raised pigeons, Lee Marvin, you know what
45:10
Speaker 1: we should do is pick out the least likely person
45:13
Speaker 1: to be a pigeon. I think you just said it.
45:16
Speaker 1: Who Lee Marvin? Yeah, you might be right. Actually, you
45:20
Speaker 1: know the um the I would like to see The
45:23
Speaker 1: Birdman of Alcatraz again. That was a great movie. Jimmy
45:27
Speaker 1: smits what he's been doing. But yeah, I guess so
45:30
Speaker 1: some of these makes sense, Like Paul Newman and Joined Woodward.
45:33
Speaker 1: That seems like a totally thing that they would have
45:35
Speaker 1: done together. There was a riveting moment at the end
45:37
Speaker 1: of the Pigeons episode where Chuck and Josh just that
45:40
Speaker 1: they're read quietly on Mike Tony Curtis. I think Lee
45:45
Speaker 1: Marvin's least likely. You think, yeah, all right, you got
45:48
Speaker 1: anything else? No, I don't think I do. Well, now
45:53
Speaker 1: that you can tell the difference between a homing pigeon,
45:56
Speaker 1: a messenger pigeon, a carrier pigeon, and a passenger pigeon,
45:59
Speaker 1: you should up pretty good about yourself. Uh. And if
46:02
Speaker 1: you need to brush up on this confusing stuff, you
46:04
Speaker 1: can type the word pigeon into the search bart how
46:07
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com and it will bring up who
46:09
Speaker 1: knows what? That's right? Uh? And since I said who
46:12
Speaker 1: knows what, it's time for a listener. Now, all right,
46:17
Speaker 1: this is uh, I'm gonna call this Kepler planet follow up. Um.
46:21
Speaker 1: Hey guys, in one aspect of Kepler planets, you did
46:23
Speaker 1: not mention we can only infer other planets if their
46:26
Speaker 1: orbital plane is aligned with our view of it. Uh.
46:29
Speaker 1: If the stars planet system is off tilt with respect
46:32
Speaker 1: to us, we won't be able to infer its existence. Yet.
46:35
Speaker 1: Consider the North Star Hilaris. It's kind of perpendicular to
46:39
Speaker 1: the it's kind of perpendicular to the Solar System. Well,
46:43
Speaker 1: not really, but close enough. If Polaris Polaris had a
46:47
Speaker 1: planet with intelligent life with Kepler like technology, they could
46:50
Speaker 1: view our Sun, but they wouldn't detect any light variations
46:54
Speaker 1: or wobble. Consider how many planets we found, now, consider
46:56
Speaker 1: how many we can't possibly find keiving current technology. It's
47:01
Speaker 1: because of the tilt. I mean they say that supposedly.
47:03
Speaker 1: Remember forty billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way alone.
47:07
Speaker 1: That's what we suspect so even more than that, maybe,
47:11
Speaker 1: says Jim from the Garden State. I don't know why
47:15
Speaker 1: I said it, like Massachusetts, the Garden State. Uh, New Jersey.
47:21
Speaker 1: I think that's how they're talking New Jersey. I lived there,
47:24
Speaker 1: power so that was your jersey. No, that wasn't my jersey.
47:27
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Come on, come on, see now I'm
47:32
Speaker 1: doing it. Thanks Jim in New Jersey. Uh, if you
47:38
Speaker 1: want to point out something we should have mentioned but didn't,
47:42
Speaker 1: we always love being corrected. It's one of our things. Uh.
47:46
Speaker 1: We also love hooking ourselves up to car batteries. You
47:50
Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
47:52
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
47:55
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email to
47:57
Speaker 1: stuff Podcast the house, Stuff Works dot com, and there's
48:00
Speaker 1: always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff
48:03
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com. For more on this and
48:10
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.