0:00

Hey, everybody, you've gotta say hey real fast before Dina

0:02

starts giggling again, not

0:05

able to get started every

0:07

time I am hello, hilarious

0:10

and then also you are hilarious. I'm

0:14

over here laughing real giggle

0:16

fest, which is good because it's

0:18

a it's a fun giggly story. Today

0:20

it's true and it's a nice,

0:22

beautiful day. You just took a nice

0:24

walk. Yeah,

0:28

gotta love it. Crunching leaves under

0:30

feet, definitely, Crunching leaves

0:32

under hobbs, Peeing into leaf

0:34

piles on the side of the road instead of the grass

0:36

where you should be, or in the middle of the road, or

0:38

just like literally in the middle of the road, and

0:40

you're like, I guess you need to learn about

0:43

cars. Look, he's an old dog. He doesn't

0:45

care about these social stigmas anymore.

0:47

He's like, I don't want to pee wherever I feel like pan. You

0:50

know, he's leaving secret messages for other dogs,

0:53

right, That's all I can imagine is that,

0:56

Yeah, they're just have a whole gossip network

0:58

going on through their pee and

1:00

he just stops. And sometimes I'll just

1:02

be on a one spot for a really long

1:04

time and just like sit there

1:06

trying to figure out what the message.

1:09

Oh, my god, Frank's back in town. My god,

1:12

he hasn't been here in ages. I can't

1:14

believe he dared to show his face after

1:17

the incident, Lilian

1:19

is pissed. Oh

1:24

well, I'm so glad to have you for another

1:26

episode. Thanksgiving

1:29

doth approach traditional

1:32

way of saying it, I think. But

1:35

today we have a really fun

1:37

story that you may have heard pieces

1:39

of. It's a bit of a viral story, um,

1:42

and we are really excited to be able to do it

1:44

on our show. It's just a few

1:47

years ago in northern Virginia, a

1:49

love story hatched in the Washington

1:52

Post about a man who ended

1:54

up being the unlikely life partner of

1:56

a very difficult female named

1:59

Walnut. She is a white naped

2:01

crane from China. And

2:03

most of the story comes from this Washington Post

2:05

article by Sadie Dingfelder. And

2:08

then there's a few conservation resources we tapped

2:10

into as well to kind of fill in the holes.

2:13

And this story goes trending. Every once in a

2:15

while, you'll see it floating around social media.

2:17

There's memes people share have you

2:19

heard this story? It was? It's

2:21

from the early two thousands, and then the Washington

2:24

Post article was in and

2:26

last time we saw it going around, of

2:28

course we thought, well, we have to do this story.

2:31

I was like upset. I was immediately obsessed

2:33

with this story. Have

2:35

you heard about this crane? And I was like, yeah, I know

2:37

exactly what we're talking about. But

2:40

within days of us seeing it, we started getting

2:42

the suggestions were all inden from some of you. Um,

2:45

I feel like three or four people reached

2:47

out. It seems like it's definitely

2:50

come to this story. I though. The first one we got

2:52

was from Mr Godzilla on Twitter

2:55

e J, who hosts the Alcohol

2:58

podcast with his wife where

3:00

they drink and solve mysteries. That

3:02

sounds fine, Yeah, it's it's really

3:04

fun, and they sent

3:07

us this story. We're really excited

3:09

to tell it to you. And honestly, there's really

3:11

just no way to describe the story of Chris

3:13

and Walnut without just telling the whole

3:15

thing. So I say we flap our wings

3:17

and get right into it. Let's

3:19

go Walnuts. Hey,

3:22

their friends come listen. Well,

3:24

Elien and Diana got some stories to tell.

3:27

There's no matchmaking, a romantic tips,

3:29

it's just about ridiculous relationships,

3:32

a lover. It might be any type of person at

3:34

all, and abstract concept a concrete

3:37

wall. But if there's a story where the

3:39

second clans ridiculous

3:42

roles a production of I Heart Radio,

3:45

so our hero in this story Chris Crow.

3:48

This man was born in nineteen seventy six in

3:50

the suburbs of Rockville, Maryland.

3:52

This is a human man. Let's

3:55

make this one thing clear. This is a guy.

3:58

Um you know, Rockville, Maryor and not

4:00

exactly surrounded by the bounties

4:02

of nature, right, and this is a suburban

4:05

area. But even amidst all the wide roads

4:07

and shopping centers, he found

4:09

this fascination in local wildlife,

4:11

you know, just squirrels running across

4:13

power line, jumping from rooftop to treetop.

4:17

He'd catch glimpses of rodents and deer

4:19

sometimes and wonder, you know, what do they

4:21

get up to when they're not in our backyards?

4:24

Which I totally feel. I've always

4:26

loved suburban animals. I

4:29

like squirrels entertain me endlessly.

4:32

I love squirrels. They're hilarious. I will

4:34

just watch squirrels all day. I'm like an old

4:36

man. I'll just go to the park with a bag of peanuts

4:39

and just be happy for hours. I

4:41

know one day we're going to build those little picnic table

4:43

squirrel feeders or whatever. All

4:46

those obstacle courses of striking

4:49

animals into doing cute things. They don't know they're

4:51

doing those little squirrel feeder heads

4:53

where they poke their heads up and it's like amazing.

4:57

Also, deer are pretty cool because you can to

5:00

see them sort of coming out,

5:02

you know, it's like a highway or something. You can kind of see

5:04

them go, like, what the fuck is I

5:07

swear there was a forest here a minute ago? Oh man.

5:10

So sometimes Chris would rescue hatchling

5:13

birds that he would find, you know about

5:15

on the ground outside a tree or something, and

5:18

he would bring them home to feed them and care

5:20

for them. Now note

5:22

ps that this is not something you should do,

5:24

and Chris says the same, like, I shouldn't have done

5:26

that as a kid. I looked it up,

5:29

and you can go to the US Fish and Wildlife website.

5:31

They've got great info on what to do if you

5:33

find a baby bird. But when Chris was

5:35

seven, his parents took him to

5:37

Yellowstone National Park, where

5:39

his dad picked him up and carried

5:41

him right up close to a bison, which

5:44

also do not do. Chris

5:47

says in the interview, like, by the way, don't

5:49

do that. It's not cool. Chris is like describing

5:51

his wonderful childhood around all these animals, and

5:54

he's like, but don't do any of the things that I did. This

5:56

is a bad idea. But

5:58

that experience really kind of changed him

6:00

because he was he said he was terrified at first. He just

6:02

started crying because it's huge animals in front

6:05

of him. But when he looked

6:07

at it and he saw these big

6:09

glassy eyes, and he watched its ears

6:12

flicking and chasing away bugs, and

6:14

he heard it breathe through this big, giant

6:16

nose, he says, in that moment

6:19

quote, I realized there's

6:21

a real being in there, a real creature,

6:24

a thinking, feeling animal. That's

6:26

powerful. Kid. Yeah, big

6:28

animals, you probably just see a monster or something

6:31

like just wants out to get you or

6:33

something like that. And then yeah, you would

6:35

have this interesting like paradigm shift or like,

6:37

actually this thing is like got its own thing

6:40

going on. It doesn't really care about me. When

6:42

I love that moment with an animal where you just

6:44

like you catch it in its

6:46

eyes, you just think for a second, You're like this,

6:49

that thing has its own thoughts,

6:51

Like this is a whole being that

6:53

exists when I'm not looking at it. You

6:56

know that that goes on about its day and has

6:58

its own wants and needs and fears.

7:00

And I think that's really powerful.

7:02

And I think, honestly, some people don't have that connection.

7:05

I don't know if they're enabled, incapable

7:07

of doing so, or if

7:09

it just never hits some Some people

7:11

just think of animals differently. Some

7:13

people have to. I know, I've heard farmers like,

7:15

you know, you can't you cannot

7:18

make an attachment, or you won't survive because

7:20

you have to understand. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense,

7:24

but it is hard because pigs are some cure. Um.

7:29

So Chris learned on the same trip

7:31

that he met this bison had this

7:33

moment um. He learned on the same

7:35

trip about the brash, arrogant push

7:38

of American settlers west into the

7:40

wild plains and how

7:42

that nearly drove all bison to extinction.

7:45

Um. So you know, he finally is like,

7:47

oh, thinking, feeling, and that we

7:50

killed a whole bunch of So that was probably

7:52

a difficult trip. Uh.

7:54

And this was something we knew like a little bit about,

7:56

but we went on a tangent looking into

7:58

it. You know, how are wondering I can

8:01

be sometimes, So let's

8:03

have a quick fling with history.

8:06

Don't tell our main subjects right now, right,

8:09

Sorry, we're stepping out. So

8:12

in the seventeen hundreds, they were between

8:14

twenty five and thirty million

8:17

bison or buffalo in

8:19

North America. By

8:21

the late eighteen eighties there were

8:23

fewer than one hundred left

8:26

in the wild, I mean millions

8:29

of bisons. And in

8:32

eighteen eighty nine J. M. Baltimore

8:34

wrote in an essay titled In the Prime

8:36

of the Buffalo that quote, many

8:39

thousands have been ruthlessly and shamefully

8:42

slain every season for the last twenty

8:44

years or more by white hunters

8:46

and tourists, merely for their robes,

8:49

and in sheer wanton sport. And

8:51

they're huge carcasses left to fester

8:53

and rot, and their bleached skeletons

8:55

just strew the deserts and lonely plains.

8:58

And there are a lot of combined, interwoven

9:01

reasons for the mass buffalo slaughter. For

9:04

one, buffalo leather was highly profitable.

9:07

It was used in everything from machinery

9:09

belts to Army boots. So there was this huge

9:11

commercial push to hunt buffalo,

9:13

get that those skins right, and

9:16

there was also, if you can believe

9:18

it, a big colonizing

9:21

aspect to it as well. Yes, I

9:23

know. The late eighteen hundreds,

9:25

US settlers were moving west, and

9:28

they had a problem because there was already

9:30

people living there. We

9:33

discovered the yea and bison

9:35

was one of the main food sources for

9:37

the Native people who lived in the western plains,

9:40

and the US Army sanctioned

9:42

and actively endorsed mass

9:45

slaughter of bison herds. This

9:48

pressured Native people to leave

9:50

their lands or face starvation. It

9:52

also forced their dependency

9:55

on US commerce. General

9:57

Winfield Scott Hancock told se

10:00

Verroal Arapaho chiefs in eighteen sixty

10:02

seven, quote, you know well

10:04

that the game is getting very scarce, and

10:06

that you must soon have some other means

10:08

of living. You should therefore cultivate

10:11

the friendship of the white man, so that

10:13

when all the game has gone, they may take

10:15

care of you if necessary.

10:17

That's outrageous. I mean to literally

10:19

go in and be like, well, I personally

10:22

destroyed all of your food so that now

10:24

you better be friends with me, so that I can give

10:26

you food if you need it. Even worse, he's like,

10:28

you better try to be friends with me. They

10:32

need and now you better kiss my asp.

10:35

Yeah, unbelievable. In

10:38

eighteen sixty nine, The Army Navy Journal

10:40

reported that General Sherman,

10:43

Yes, the famed General Sherman

10:45

who mark burned

10:48

Town Atlanta, um

10:50

said that sending regiments of soldiers

10:53

to shoot buffalo until they became

10:55

too scarce to support natives was quote

10:58

the quickest way to compel that in the ins

11:00

to settle down to civilized life, settlement

11:04

and civil and settle you down to civilize,

11:07

General Sherman, the civilized

11:09

life of wiping out as many

11:11

buffalo as possible so that you can subjugate

11:13

and entire people, you know, the civilized,

11:16

civilized. Professor David

11:18

Smits suggests that frustrated U.

11:20

S. Army soldiers took their aggression

11:22

out on bison on their own accord, because

11:25

in their minds, the planes, Indians

11:27

and the buffalo were intrinsically linked, so

11:29

they were piste that they couldn't gain any

11:32

ground or you know whatever there if they had a

11:34

bad day fighting or something, or

11:36

they were just racist and they just didn't like them, they

11:38

were like, well, I'll just go shoot the buffalo. That's

11:40

basically the same as shooting

11:43

indigenous people, uh and

11:46

whatever it was. All these reasons combined

11:48

were just horrible aspects

11:51

of that same kind of aggressive

11:54

colonization that UH or

11:56

the U. S. Settlers were moving west and just

11:59

just violently reshaping

12:01

the world to be what they wanted it to be. And

12:06

all that combined with a long and

12:08

intense drought from eighteen forty

12:10

five until eighteen sixty, the

12:12

buffalo we're nearing extinction, so

12:15

I mean again, there's only a hundred of them left

12:18

in the wild. So fortunately conservationists

12:21

got to work before it was too late. In nineteen

12:23

o five, William Temple Hornaday

12:25

founded the American Bison Society

12:27

with support from President Teddy Roosevelt,

12:30

and Native American groups have been essential

12:32

to this effort as well, including

12:34

the inter Tribal Bison Council formed

12:36

in nineteen ninety and the Buffalo Field Campaign

12:39

in So all in

12:41

all, the bison number around three fifty

12:43

thousand now in the US, and

12:45

they've been growing rapidly thanks to efforts

12:47

from groups like these. So that's nice

12:50

here, even though, of course, you know the

12:53

damage to the native population was done,

12:55

but at least still bison alive,

12:57

and now Ted's Montana grill has a mask.

13:01

Well, I think it's also you know, that's one of the reasons

13:03

it's important to include

13:05

that it's not just you know, American

13:09

US conservation groups, but but indigenous

13:11

tribes are working hard to repopulate

13:14

the bison as well. Um. Not

13:16

just for ecological reasons,

13:18

which are massive. I mean, these are part of

13:20

an existing ecosystem that's really important,

13:23

um, but also uh, you know, they're important

13:25

for spirituality and culture.

13:28

I mean, especially if so much of your roots,

13:31

you know, your connection to your roots has been

13:34

systematically destroyed. Its

13:36

just any anything that would connect you to how

13:39

your ancestors lived would probably feel like a very

13:41

strong thread. Absolutely, absolutely.

13:45

So Okay, that was a fun little fling. Um.

13:48

You know, it's nice to go and kind of try

13:50

something new with the bison. For a minute. We

13:52

should be hanging out with the birds, um.

13:55

But the conference is over. It's time to go

13:57

home to our main subject conference,

14:01

Chris Crow and Walnuts. So we're back to the birds.

14:04

So Chris learned about this bison

14:06

problem and he saw that the human

14:08

efforts are what brought them back from extinction.

14:11

So he realized something important. If

14:13

we're the cause of extinction and endangerment,

14:16

then we have to be the solution. He

14:19

graduated from Virginia Tech, and

14:21

he took on internships documenting birds

14:24

for wildlife refuges and eventually

14:26

got a job with this amazing California

14:29

condor reintroduction program where

14:32

he spent a year in the desert around the

14:34

Grand Canyon monitoring condors

14:36

that had been reintroduced into the wild. Now

14:38

you don't just let him loose and say good luck.

14:41

You want to keep an eye on these are birds that had never been out

14:43

in the wild before. He would

14:45

carry meat around and make sure they were getting

14:47

food, and you know, if they couldn't find it,

14:50

um just to make sure they didn't starve to death. He wanted

14:52

him to be self, I'm not depending and

14:55

feeding you, but I'll leave it somewhere from find

14:57

and then you'll figure it out exactly. And

15:00

also making sure that they weren't nesting

15:02

somewhere dangerous where maybe there's a lot of tourist

15:04

activity or something like that. So

15:06

that was a super cool job where you just got to kind of wander

15:08

around the desert for a year, you know, monitoring

15:11

these condors. That's pretty awesome.

15:14

And yeah, and he worked briefly in a wolf reintroduction

15:17

program in North Carolina, and

15:19

eventually in two thousand three, he landed

15:21

a job raising whooping cranes.

15:24

Now, raising cranes is for the birds.

15:29

Literally, it is for the birds because

15:31

it's meant to be. It is meant to be for

15:34

birds to do. Because some

15:36

birds have a tendency to imprint

15:38

on humans. Um The Wildlife

15:40

Center of Virginia says, quote imprinting

15:43

is a form of learning in which an animal

15:45

gains its sense of species identification.

15:48

So like in Jurassic Park when he's like, I want to make

15:50

sure I'm there when they're born so they'll see my face

15:53

and be like, oh, don't eat that guy. You

15:55

know, that's imprinting

15:57

the dinosaur um.

16:00

And birds don't bust out of their eggs

16:02

thinking I'm a bird. You know,

16:05

they don't. They don't know shit about anything, and

16:07

they kind of visually learn what they are

16:10

by looking at the others around

16:12

them during a critical and brief

16:15

period of their development. So that monkey,

16:17

see monkey, do you know? It's same thing for birds.

16:19

They need to see what they're

16:21

supposed to be, and they learned

16:23

behaviors, they learn vocalizations.

16:26

It helps them identify with other members

16:28

of their species so they can choose a good mate

16:30

later in life. And some

16:32

species are more susceptible to imprinting

16:35

than others. The timing

16:37

of the imprinting stage varies among

16:39

birds species, so some it's like right out

16:41

the eggs. Sometimes it's a little older, like I

16:43

don't necessarily know, And reversing

16:46

the imprinting process is impossible

16:49

because I mean, like imagine somebody walking up to you one day

16:51

and being like, hey, I know you think that you're a human, but

16:53

um, actually you're a duck. You'd

16:58

be like, what

17:02

what I'm gonna duck? That's quack,

17:07

Yeah, quack in mine, that's ducking crazy ducking

17:10

auto correct. So

17:12

when Chris Crowe was working with these cranes, he

17:15

had to wear a special costume,

17:17

like a bird costume with feathers on it.

17:20

You know, it must be so ridiculous,

17:22

but you know it's important. Like it looks goofy

17:24

to you, but these birds need it. And

17:27

he was only allowed to make bird like noises

17:29

when dealing with the chicks. You can walk up to

17:31

him like, hey, guys, how are you doing today? Like he

17:33

had just straight up like exactly

17:38

speaking to the chicks was forbidden. Yeah, he

17:40

says he had to, you know, if they were he says,

17:42

they were like kids, if they were rough housing

17:45

or weren't paying attention when he's trying

17:47

to feed him or something, he'd like have to make little

17:49

clicking noises like and

17:52

uh, you know, he's like, and then they would stop what they're doing

17:54

and look at the noise and and

17:56

get him to do what they need to do. There's a lot like kids,

17:59

but he couldn't English to them.

18:02

So he worked this job for a while, but it

18:04

was seasonal, so he was still looking for something more

18:06

permanent, and then one day he saw an opening

18:08

for a crane keeper position at

18:10

the Smithsonian Conservation Biology

18:13

Institute in front Royal, Virginia.

18:16

The s cb I is an extension of the

18:18

National Zoo in Washington, d C. Just

18:20

obviously part of the Smithsonian group

18:23

of museums, and they play a

18:25

leading role in veterinary medicine

18:27

and reproductive physiology, conservation

18:30

biology, all this in all these US

18:33

zoological efforts, And so

18:35

it was here that he first locked eyes

18:37

with his partner to be. She was

18:40

a slender, beautiful lady

18:42

with a long, gorgeous neck and legs.

18:44

For days, she sang off

18:46

key like a muted trumpet, and her favorite

18:49

food was dead mice. Yes,

18:52

this is walnut the white

18:54

naped crane. White

18:57

naped cranes are about four ft tall

19:00

a weigh about twelve pounds,

19:02

and they have long legs with a gray

19:04

body and a gray and white striped neck.

19:07

And they have long pointed beaks and a

19:09

red patch on their faces. And they're

19:11

considered to be a threatened species

19:13

with about five thousand animals in the

19:15

wild. Of course, the

19:17

biggest threat to their dwindling population

19:20

comes from habitat destruction, no surprise

19:22

there um. It can take acres

19:24

and acres of wetlands for these birds

19:26

to thrive and breed, and in their home

19:28

countries in East Asia they're losing

19:30

ground. There are areas where

19:32

groups in Russia, Mongolia and China

19:35

are trying to reintroduce larger populations

19:37

and they partner with US US and conservation

19:39

groups for eggs and hatchlings. It's like a

19:41

big global partnership try

19:43

to like save this species from

19:46

becoming extinct. And it's

19:48

hugely important to keep a diverse

19:50

population of cranes growing here at

19:52

places like scb I so

19:54

they can introduce potential breeding

19:56

birds into the wild. Now,

19:59

well, Nut matched on July two,

20:01

night one. She's older

20:03

than us um finally,

20:06

and she was born in a barn in Wisconsin.

20:09

It's like a Nativity story, right. Her

20:13

parents, Mercury and Amazon were

20:15

captured illegally in China, and then

20:17

they were intercepted by local authorities

20:19

while they were being smuggled over to Hong Kong,

20:22

and eventually they found their way into the

20:24

hands of the International Crane Foundation.

20:27

Now they would have ideally just reintroduced

20:29

these birds into the wild, but they didn't

20:31

know where they'd been, you know, so if

20:34

you can't track them, you don't know what maybe

20:36

diseases they picked up. And if you reintroduced

20:38

birds like that into the wild, they might

20:40

bring a foreign disease into

20:43

a wild flock of birds and kill a whole bunch of them.

20:46

It's like a crane pandemic right right

20:48

next thing you know, you get none of them. Yeah, the next

20:50

thing you know, we're all locking down fighting

20:52

a bat masks. Yeah, somebody eat

20:54

the crane. Now we all have a pan. So

20:58

the best move for them to do with these two rains

21:00

was to add them to their repopulation

21:02

efforts, which was a base in Wisconsin,

21:05

which was, you know, a close enough habitat

21:08

for them to survive in. Being

21:10

wild caught birds made them incredibly

21:13

valuable because most of the birds that they had

21:15

in captivity were related,

21:17

so in breeding was a problem. If

21:19

they were trying to create more eggs. It was

21:21

really hard for them to find genetically diverse

21:24

birds to start with. So

21:26

fortunately Mercury and Amazon showed

21:29

up and they just start cranking out eggs.

21:31

They loved it. They're they really thrived in Wisconsin,

21:34

which it's not

21:36

not a common phrase. Some people's pride in Wisconsin.

21:39

It's a beautiful country. Yeah, yeah, Wisconsin

21:42

is a state. No, No, I just mean the

21:44

countryside beautiful. You know. He used

21:46

to be like Montana, it's beautiful country, like a

21:50

beautiful country.

21:52

I was like, well, a

21:55

beautiful part of the country. Um,

21:58

you know, I might. I don't know if I would. I've there, I

22:01

would do well for probably six months

22:03

out of the year, which is to be fairy. It's not unlike

22:05

Atlanta, No, right, I think I would

22:07

really enjoy going. It's one of those places you,

22:09

you know, don't necessarily think

22:11

of when you're trying to think of like a vacation destination.

22:14

But there's definitely some states like that that i'd

22:16

like, you know what, I would totally spent a week there and just

22:19

like enjoy the as you say, a beautiful

22:21

country, the big you know whatever,

22:23

wildlife and stuff. Because we do live in the middle

22:25

of a city. It's a green city, but it's like, come

22:28

on. So they were there

22:30

there, they loving it, and in the first

22:32

year alone, they produced nine chicks,

22:35

including Walnut. You

22:38

think Amazon was tired now

22:41

Walnut hatching was kind of unceremonious.

22:44

You know, she's the seventh chick to arrive that summer.

22:46

They're like, we're done with birthday parties, you know, Victory

22:51

and Amazon slow it down a little, you know,

22:54

maybe we should separate them.

22:56

And you know that they threw a baby shower every

22:58

single time, you know, the

23:01

gender reveal parties all over And

23:04

though they understood how imprinting worked

23:06

in the early eighties, like for example, they would

23:08

group chicks together, they would keep

23:10

mirrors in their habitats that they

23:12

would look and see themselves. You know and be like, oh another

23:15

bird. Birds love mirrors, right, I

23:17

mean humans love mirrors.

23:18

Let everybody loves a mirror.

23:21

Humans are almost dumber with mirrors than birds

23:23

are. We're just like birds.

23:25

Like it's just like cocking your head from side

23:27

to side. What is that? I remember like

23:30

going to school at Georgia State University,

23:32

which is in downtown Atlanta, and so you pass a lot

23:35

of businesses with giant windows.

23:38

You liked, you'd always love your side.

23:40

I everybody has their heads.

23:44

I mean it's kind of cool. How often you get to see yourself

23:46

walk in profile? I mean, you know that's true.

23:49

You kind of look over I look pretty good today.

23:51

Oh god, I can't believe I'm out

23:53

of the house right now. Are

23:56

you see those windows? And you're like, oh my god, I'm a duck?

23:59

What? So? Yeah, So they,

24:01

you know, they had some tricks to prevent imprinting

24:04

from happening in in this time period,

24:06

but some birds were still really big

24:09

troublemakers and might even

24:11

peck their siblings to death. So

24:13

if they you know, if you had a troublemaker bird, you

24:15

had to kind of figure something else out, and

24:18

they would have to separate them from

24:20

the other birds, and

24:23

this is probably what happened with Walnut.

24:25

It's likely a volunteer just kind

24:27

of paid too much attention to her. Maybe

24:30

even they hand raised her or carried

24:32

her around like a baby. They're not

24:34

really sure, but they're like it was something

24:36

along those lines. Because George

24:38

Archibald, who's the founder of i CF,

24:41

said of Walnut quote, I've just

24:43

never seen a bird that strongly

24:46

imprinted, because she was

24:48

like obsessed with humans and

24:50

she had no time for cranes at all, Like she

24:52

was like a crane. She

24:56

was like, I'm gonna move to New York City

24:58

with eight dollars in my pocket and become famous,

25:01

just like Madonna. It's like I

25:03

got dreams, dreams, these

25:06

legs, yes,

25:09

going places. But this level

25:12

of attention is really bad for

25:14

walnuts because cranes

25:16

mate for life, and they are not solitary

25:19

animals. They thrive in pairs. So if

25:21

you imprint one too hard and

25:23

they really don't see themselves as a crane, they're

25:25

going to be lonely. You're dooming them to a lonely

25:28

life. And Walnut ended

25:30

up being transferred from Zooda Zoo

25:32

on this nationwide hunt for love everybody

25:35

was trying to pair Walnut up with someone,

25:37

but no matter how hard she looked, she

25:39

just could not find a mate. In fact,

25:42

somewhere along the line, it was rumored

25:44

that Walnut had even murdered

25:48

other male cranes. Two

25:50

of them. They said she sliced

25:52

their bellies open after they made advances

25:55

on her day. Yeah,

25:57

this girl is not crane

25:59

called me. It's like,

26:01

I don't got time for you.

26:04

How did you just bob your head at me? I don't

26:06

think so, slash slash.

26:10

So no zoo has ever actually admitted

26:12

to that happening. But I mean, these are very

26:14

rare birds and it would be pretty

26:16

embarrassing if one of them died on their watches,

26:18

so they probably wouldn't admit it.

26:21

But like, somehow this bird's stomach

26:24

got sliced open. Who who knows how that

26:26

happened. Keepers of

26:28

Walnut later on said, yeah,

26:31

it probably happened. Probably yeah,

26:34

But in either case, Walnut just

26:37

was not finding love tonight

26:40

on the hatch Laurette, finding a

26:42

mate hasn't been easy, but Walnut isn't ready

26:45

to fly away just yet. Bobo

26:47

is a handsome crane who made a fortune

26:49

in the stork market, but his resurface

26:52

tweets make him a hawkward choice.

26:55

Last night, Walnut and Lucky shared a special

26:57

moment all the cocktails until he

27:00

stuck his beak where it didn't belong, but he

27:02

says he has no regrets. Well,

27:05

that's it's time for you to choose

27:08

who will go home and who will

27:11

get the gift of a dead mouse carcass.

27:16

Oh and it looks like Walnut has eaten

27:18

the mouse herself and she's

27:21

oh god, oh god, she's decapitated

27:23

both of her suitors. Well, this,

27:26

this is flocking unprecedented. But

27:28

we promised you Walnut is going to

27:30

find what But these birds don't

27:32

work for peanuts. So we're going to go to a commercial

27:35

break and be right back. All

27:42

right, and we're back. I'm ready to watch

27:44

that. Yes,

27:46

I would totally want somebody

27:49

called the guys who put on the puppy bowl. Whoever puts

27:51

on the poppy bowl, they need to also have the hatchlor.

27:56

Okay, So Walnut is having a tough

27:58

time finding love. None of the

28:00

zoos were able to find her a mate, and she wasn't

28:03

fulfilling her birdly duties in terms

28:05

of helping repopulate her species. I got

28:07

some birdly duties on the car the other day.

28:13

Some birds are more dedicated to their duty than others.

28:15

Yes. So

28:18

ultimately she was sent off to the Smithsonian

28:21

Conservation Biology Institute

28:23

with the hopes that she could pair with another

28:25

bird there, or at the very least,

28:28

she would live out her life in a protected space

28:30

that could provide for her. So sort of like,

28:32

we hope, because she's so genetically

28:34

useful, I hope you can made her. But

28:36

at least she'll be somewhere safe. It's

28:39

very similar to what your parents said when

28:42

you met me. They pulled me aside and they were

28:44

like, we're hoping this works out, but at the very least,

28:46

you know she'll she won't go hungry.

28:49

It's true. It's trying to think it worked

28:52

out. I would eat nothing but butter

28:54

noodles. So

28:57

she arrived in two thousand and four, and

28:59

as the off spring of two wild caught birds,

29:01

Walnut was considered the most genetically

29:04

valuable white naped crane in captivity.

29:07

And that kind of genetic diversity doesn't

29:09

just fall into your lap. So they knew they needed

29:11

to get some babies out of this bird, right, They were like,

29:13

what have we got to do. So this murder

29:15

bird shows up and the people at SCB I need

29:17

to assign her a keeper. So

29:19

they're all having a meeting about it. They're hanging out in

29:22

this room, and they all slowly turned their

29:24

heads to the back of the room and stared at

29:26

the new guy, Chris Crow, like

29:28

last one and first one out all right. In

29:32

his first week, Chris was charged with caring for

29:34

seventeen cranes and thirty six

29:36

ducks. I'm assuming that's a

29:38

normal number to start with. A lot sounds

29:40

like a lot to me. Birds

29:43

on his plate like one one.

29:45

Robin would be like, that's okay, give

29:48

me a couple of weeks with this bird. But

29:51

Walnuts stood out amongst

29:54

all these other birds. When Chris approached

29:56

the chain link fence where the birds were kept, most

29:58

of them scurried away, but Walnuts she

30:00

strutted right up. She ruffled her

30:03

feathers, and she started growling. He

30:05

said quote I didn't quite understand

30:07

at this point, but these were territorial displays,

30:10

like this bird was not afraid to draw a line and

30:13

set boundaries right. And

30:15

cranes they don't mess around. They have razor

30:18

sharp claws, and they

30:20

can tear through skin and

30:22

clothes like with precisions.

30:25

I mean literally that Jurassic Park scene

30:27

about the velociraptors right slash

30:31

slash, and

30:33

then you look down and you see your guts spilling

30:35

out, and you're like, what happened? Like

30:38

why am I a duck? Why

30:41

did I folk with this creed? I

30:44

know, but I mean maybe not the razor sharp

30:46

claws part, but boundaries. We

30:48

should all have some white naped crane energy

30:51

about our boundaries. And

30:53

if you need the razor sharp claws, you know you need

30:55

the razor. But

30:58

when spring came around, they

31:00

were very excited because they finally found

31:02

a good genetic match for walnuts. Now

31:06

here's something I bet you didn't know existed, the

31:08

Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

31:11

White naped Crane stud book, stud

31:15

Books book. I wonder if I'm in any

31:17

stud books out there, they're

31:19

like, well, nut, why don't you flip through these pages and

31:22

pick your favorite, just like, well, this guy's a Harvard

31:24

grub, that's pretty hot. This guy

31:26

can plute the piano. This guy's a duck.

31:28

Does he know? I don't

31:30

think this is my species? And

31:33

the az a says, quote, the purpose

31:36

of a stud book compiled and maintained

31:38

by an as a regional stud book

31:40

keeper. What a job is

31:44

to document the pedigree and entire

31:46

demographic history of each animal

31:48

within a managed population. Okay,

31:50

yeah, I feel like I feel like I've heard

31:52

of these for like horses actually like breaders,

31:55

you know they track the lineage there.

31:57

Yeah, yeah, because I mean that

32:00

it's a huge business too if you if you have a

32:02

good breeding horse man, make

32:04

a lot of money off of that. My entire understanding

32:07

of breeding racing horses comes

32:09

from the movie Headalgo with Vigo

32:12

Mortenson. What a great movie. That's a

32:14

great fun adventure movie. And

32:16

I think it revolves around somebody having

32:18

a secret stud book, you know, about

32:20

the perfect, these perfect Arabian horses

32:23

that the prince was breeding. I just

32:25

think about Ozark when they found

32:28

that really expensive race horse that they were trying

32:30

to breathe that operation.

32:32

They were like, what the fun I forgot about you Ark,

32:37

our good friend Jason Bateman's show. Yeah

32:40

yeah, you know, we got to support our friends. So

32:44

anyway, the stud bookkeeper consulted

32:48

the ancient text and

32:51

determined that the best mate for Walnut

32:54

is a crane named Ray

32:56

Ray, and that brings us to

32:59

this episode side

33:01

chick. So

33:06

Ray already had a mate named

33:08

Abigail, and Abigails to

33:10

take no ship, bitch, She wasn't about to have some murderous

33:13

crane been bouncing around from zoo to zoo picking

33:15

up who knows what along the way come in and

33:17

take my stead. So

33:20

ultimately Ray was not a good option for Walnut

33:22

after all, and you can be sure

33:25

he's spent all night in the hen and house. After even

33:27

having the audacity to suggest such a

33:29

thing to Abigail, she said,

33:32

you sleep on the couch tonight and think about what you

33:34

did, and then we'll have nine more

33:36

eggs tomorrow. Right, So

33:40

the only option left to breed Walnut

33:43

was artificial insemination, and

33:46

obviously this is not fun for anyone.

33:49

At least two people have to first go get

33:51

bird semen from an unwilling bird,

33:54

which I guess we'll just leave to your imagination.

33:57

Again, a weird job animal conservation.

33:59

You are you just like I grew up as a kid being like

34:01

I'll be a firefighter and then the next thing you

34:03

know, like it turns out of a stud bookkeeper

34:06

for white naped cranes or my job today

34:08

is to jack off an unwilling crane. Like,

34:11

what a weird world. It's

34:14

not it's not glamorous the conservation

34:16

life, but it's it's meaningful. So

34:20

once they get this bird semen, they

34:22

of course then have to go injected into

34:24

a female bird. Now there's a whole

34:26

process here that's been studied and

34:29

modified over the year to be the least stressful

34:31

to birds as possible, because obviously

34:34

these are people who care about wildlife

34:36

and they don't want to put them through trauma. It's

34:38

also can be very dangerous obviously,

34:42

razor sharp claws, boundaries,

34:44

you know. So here's

34:47

how Washington Post describes walnuts

34:49

first encounter with this. Chris

34:51

and another zookeeper grab Walnut

34:54

from underneath her wings, and the

34:56

zookeeper holds her between his legs while

34:58

Chris crouched behind her and quote

35:00

massaged walnuts cloaca

35:03

an all purpose orifice that birds

35:05

use for defecation as well as

35:07

reproduction. They apply

35:09

gentle pressure to her back to mimic the weight

35:12

of a male crane, and Walnut,

35:14

you know, seems to respond to that. She purrs,

35:17

her cloaca opens and

35:19

Chris quickly and chected her with the semen they'd

35:21

collected from Ray. Again, what

35:24

do I do today? Guys? Oh, I'm massaging

35:26

a butthole. Apparently that's my that's

35:28

my job. And

35:31

a few weeks later, Walnut laid

35:34

her first two fertilized eggs,

35:37

but they had to take these away from her and

35:39

secretly slipped them into Ray and Abigail's

35:42

nest because wild cranes take

35:44

turns sitting on their eggs, and it

35:46

would have just been too much for Walnut

35:49

to care for them all by herself because of course she doesn't

35:51

have an actual crane partner. And

35:53

plus they weren't even sure if Walnut,

35:56

you know, saw herself as a bird, so they

35:58

were like, she might not even recognize

36:00

the baby cranes as her own. Once

36:03

they hatched, she could possibly kill.

36:05

Yeah, she thinks she's Madonna, and

36:07

then some birds hatching her hat and nests just gonna be like, yeah, get

36:10

these monsters out of here? Is this? Yeah?

36:13

Can you also? Can you imagine Abigail

36:15

and Ray like, and Abigail's

36:17

like, I don't remember laying these two extra

36:20

eggs. Ray,

36:22

where did these come from? Huh? He's

36:24

like, I really don't know. Some people

36:26

came in and gave me a job and left.

36:30

Next thing I knew, we got two extra babies. I

36:33

swear, baby, I never left the nest. That

36:35

was like three cranes, baby cranes

36:37

in his arms and his wings. He's like,

36:39

I don't know, two more. I don't know

36:41

if we can handle this, honey. It's like,

36:43

Mari, but who's the mothers?

36:45

They're like, who the fuck is the mother? Because

36:47

it's not my wife, Abigail,

36:50

you are not the mother of these birds.

36:53

She gets so ball mad. But

36:57

no, Fortunately Abigail did not dip

37:00

these eggs out of her desk or reject

37:02

them or anything like that. The babies hatched,

37:04

they had two new birds from a completely

37:06

new genetic line. They were finally here to

37:08

diversify the species, so that went well.

37:12

But this was not going to be the only time

37:14

that they did this process, obviously, because

37:17

again, while Nut's still the most valuable crane

37:19

in captivity, and she would need to

37:21

produce chicks every year, and

37:24

this artificial insemination processes

37:26

we've talked about sounds

37:29

and was difficult and dangerous

37:32

and the risk of injury to either the bird or

37:34

the humans doing it was very, very high. The

37:37

stress of the situation could lead to problems

37:39

with fertilization, which makes

37:41

sense to me. I mean, if you're sitting, you're struggling,

37:43

freaking out, who's

37:46

to say your body reacts properly,

37:48

you know. And Chris had really

37:50

grown to care about Walnut. You know, he's there

37:52

to care about the birds, like

37:54

he's completely indifferent or

37:56

whatever, right, and

37:59

he was just kind of like, I wish there was something, there's

38:01

another way. I wish this was a bit easier and not so

38:03

traumatizing for her. So

38:05

later that summer, well, that's behavior

38:08

started to change around Chris. When

38:10

he approached her yard, she started bobbing

38:12

her head and raising her wings

38:14

up and down, which actually are the

38:16

first moves of the white naped cranes

38:18

mating dance. At

38:20

first, Chris thought that she was just excited to see

38:23

him, but then he saw other pairs of

38:25

cranes doing the same dance. So

38:28

he's feeling kind of silly, and he starts looking

38:30

around making sure, you know, nobody else is watching,

38:33

and Chris starts imitating her. He

38:35

bobbed his head when she did. He would

38:37

raise his arms, you know, when she starts

38:39

flapping her wings and move his legs like she

38:42

did. They would circle each other, and

38:44

sometimes Walnut would even tilt her head back

38:46

and make this loud, trumpeting crow. But

38:49

so far this was about all that ever happened, and

38:53

as summer turned to fall, Walnut seemed

38:55

to get less and less interested in dancing with Chris.

38:58

Alright, hot crane, summer was over, cigner,

39:00

cold turkey fall. It's just like

39:02

I'm tucking it in, you

39:07

know, put some weight on, you know, I don't worry about

39:09

it, you know, get under

39:11

a blanket, shutting

39:14

down my tinder profile, my

39:16

tinder bird. What is it? Tint um

39:19

tinder bird is the best time? That's the best?

39:21

Not very good. Later

39:23

in the episode, I'm gonna be like, I got it, You'll

39:27

get there. But then the next spring she

39:29

started up again, and Chris started

39:31

to think, you know, if I can win this bird over,

39:34

maybe the artificial insemination process

39:36

would be easier and safer and maybe

39:39

even consensual. That'd be exciting.

39:42

But cranes are picky mates, So

39:44

how is he going to get under those feathers.

39:47

Well we'll find out right after this

39:49

commercial beak

39:54

and welcome back to the show Bertie's so

39:57

yeah. So Chris Crow is trying to slow

40:00

into walnuts d M. I mean,

40:02

he's really just trying to stop forced breeding

40:04

this bird and make it a little more pleasant

40:06

for everyone. And she's shown

40:09

some interest, so he does what any

40:11

good boyfriend would do. He starts

40:13

paying attention. Chris.

40:16

He's listening, He's learning

40:19

what she likes and what turns her on.

40:22

He's responding to her cues and

40:24

giving her what she needs. I mean, no wonder

40:26

she fell in love. This is like people

40:29

say about Pete Davidson. They're like, how does he keep

40:31

getting these girls? And they're like, well, he's nice. I know,

40:34

well he's actually just nice guy. Or

40:36

Carlo Ponti, Yeah, you

40:38

know, similar things. She's just like he was just

40:40

nice to me, just like Governor or

40:42

Morris, like I would just listen to him. And they're

40:45

like, too much. He's

40:48

setting the bar pretty either. So

40:51

first Chris started to observe

40:53

other cranes in the sanctuary,

40:55

and there was a parent named Brenda and Eddie

40:57

who performed a very similar dance, and

41:00

Brenda seemed to love it when Eddie

41:02

brought her material for her nest. You

41:04

know, ladies love a home good all right. So

41:08

Chris thought maybe gifts were the way

41:10

to Walnut's heart, and he started approaching

41:12

her with sticks and straws, you know,

41:14

given it a whirl. But she was

41:16

very picky. Uh, okay,

41:19

you gotta get it right. Don't just bring a basket,

41:21

bring the right basket. Uh.

41:23

Some of the sticks and twigs and stuff he would

41:25

give her, she would like toss away, like no

41:29

garbage. What did

41:32

you go to the dollar tree? Do you

41:34

name it? Do I have to start doing the shopping to while

41:38

others seemed just right, that's

41:41

that crighton barrels a good ship. And

41:44

he studied the difference and realized that

41:46

she was very particular about the length

41:48

and circumference of individual

41:51

sticks. Ladies

41:54

size matters, And

41:57

later he said, the year to year, those preferences

41:59

changed in so he was probably

42:01

like, I got it down. She likes a six inch

42:04

stick that's about two inches

42:06

in girth, and then like the next year

42:08

she's like four inch six Only

42:11

I really have it just a different pattern in mind.

42:15

Centimeters are in this year. But

42:18

yeah, but when he got it right, she loved

42:20

it. She was always very happy. So he was

42:22

really trying to play to her

42:25

preferences, figure out what she liked, and

42:27

then provide that thing. Yeah,

42:30

yeah, it's a lesson. Pretty

42:32

smart. But despite

42:35

all this, you know, stick giving and nest building

42:37

while it's still had a strict no touching

42:39

rule, and Chris wanted to respect

42:42

that. She said, Chris,

42:45

there's a PG relationship. Okay,

42:47

we can talk, stay up all night on the phone,

42:49

laughing. You can bring me gifts. I could be very delighted

42:52

by you, but you keep those fleshy

42:54

mits to yourself. That's right. This is like a

42:56

first grade boyfriends. Yeah, like, we're not

42:58

doing any of that stuff. Yeah, we gotta some room

43:00

for Jesus when we're dancing, you know.

43:04

And so, like training any intelligent

43:06

animal, Chris starts to use positive

43:08

reinforcement. He would stretch his arm

43:10

out and kind of gently brush her tail feathers,

43:12

and then immediately toss her her favorite treat,

43:15

a dead mouse. And slowly,

43:17

but surely, Chris went from ruffling

43:19

her feathers to push in her buttons, and

43:22

soon Walnut even started purring like

43:24

a cat when he pet her.

43:27

That would be very flattering. Oh yeah, if

43:29

a bird started purring at me, I'd be like God,

43:31

I must be doing something right. And

43:34

then one day the magic

43:36

happened. Chris was

43:38

stroking Walnut's back. She was

43:41

hurring, her eyes were half

43:43

closed. She had a coy little smile

43:45

on her beak. And

43:48

then she decided, Yeah,

43:50

this guy is the one. I

43:53

can give it up to him herself.

43:56

So she turned away from She's it's okay,

43:58

ladies had my standard and

44:00

gentlemen, you know what, don't just

44:02

let the first bird who flutters over fall

44:05

into your nests. Ever, the first guy whose

44:07

massages your back. Yeah, don't you

44:10

wake up for the first guy who structure

44:12

back. But yeah,

44:14

this was working out for her. She turned away

44:16

from him. She extended her wings

44:19

and lifted her tail, and

44:21

the Washington Post articles says she was

44:23

asking Chris to perform something

44:25

called the cloacle kiss.

44:28

Look, I'm not here to yuck anybody's yum

44:31

birds. I don't want to kiss

44:33

any cloacas of any species. So

44:36

for most birds, males and females, they both

44:38

have a cloaca. Mating occurs

44:40

briefly when they kind of bump uglies

44:43

and just like bump them together, and it's

44:45

all good. And

44:47

Chris said, quote, it's what I had been

44:49

working towards and hoping for, but it was

44:51

still surprising when it happened. I

44:53

think so if a bird was like offering

44:56

up her blood to me, I'd be like, oh,

45:00

I'm all right, okay,

45:02

But you know, Chris, he's basically a bird virgin.

45:05

And he wasn't very good at first. You

45:07

know, he wasn't keeping it, wasn't keeping her satisfied.

45:10

He had a hard time figuring out what to do with his hands.

45:13

He said. He would start massaging her back where

45:15

a male crane would be, and she liked that, but

45:17

when he moved his hands to other areas,

45:20

she would get huffy and stop and walk away.

45:24

He said, quote, it took a little time for

45:26

me to figure out how to have one hand on one

45:28

spot and another hand on the other spot.

45:32

Shut you know, we all have to learn that. At

45:36

some point it seems like a basic

45:38

well but eventually move to have your

45:41

two hands in two different places. But you

45:43

know, when you're nervous, you might freeze up and

45:45

be like these go here right, like okay,

45:47

but they can do or or you take

45:49

him away and she's like, no, I was enjoying that. You'd

45:51

really kind of you know, you gotta Consistency

45:53

is important too. Sometimes you really gotta keep

45:56

going with the same motion, keep your

45:58

hands on the stands, you know, and and you

46:00

know you've got two hands. They could be doing

46:02

two different things. I'm just saying. I

46:04

mean, I guess if it's a bird, you

46:06

might be like, well, I know what, I know what human

46:09

women like, but I have no idea how

46:11

different? How different is it?

46:15

So eventually, though, they got

46:17

their routine down, and in March of two thousand

46:19

seven it was time to try. The real

46:22

thing was that this first, this

46:24

first presentation that Walnut made

46:26

was in the winter. But you know, you couldn't fertilize

46:28

the bird then because it'd be too early to lay the eggs.

46:31

So they waited for spring. They

46:33

got their ray semen, and

46:35

Chris and Walnut did their little dance, their little

46:37

ritual, and he was able to inject

46:40

Walnut without any help and

46:43

her willing participation. High

46:45

is the way to go, Chris Crow,

46:50

as of Walnut, and Chris

46:52

produced seven chicks this way,

46:54

all of them raised by other crane couples,

46:57

and at least two of those chicks have gone

46:59

on to pair with other cranes so far. And

47:01

Bread other chicks of their own. So

47:04

in fact, in two thousand and eight, walnuts

47:06

title as most genetically valuable

47:08

crane in captivity was stolen

47:11

by some bird named Amanda

47:14

Well, and I was like, ah, sure, she's

47:17

lame as hale, but

47:20

it was because it was for a great reason, because walnuts

47:22

jeans, you know, we're out there now, they're mixing into

47:25

the population. It was the kind

47:27

of title you want to lose, like, and

47:29

Amanda had very few relatives, so she

47:32

was like a fresh genetic specimen. And

47:35

Amanda became another

47:37

side chick for Chris.

47:39

She was sent to STBI to see

47:41

if Chris could work his mating magic with her

47:43

too. So I guess the word was getting around the conservation

47:46

like this guy is really good with his hands on

47:49

these white naped cranes. And now Chris

47:51

Crow was very experienced. He were no bird

47:54

virgin anymore, so he had no trouble

47:56

wooining coo in this chick. And

47:58

after that they sent him another difficult

48:01

to breed female named Woo Chang, and it was

48:03

the same thing, like she also was

48:05

willing to quote unquote mate

48:07

with Chris, but he says

48:10

that the birds can't see each other with him,

48:12

or they'll get crazy jealous. Okay,

48:15

no polyamory in the white naped

48:17

crane community. He said,

48:19

quote, I have called them by the wrong name

48:21

before, but they don't seem to notice. While

48:24

it's like, who's wood che Like

48:27

she turns her head, Amanda what? And

48:32

Amanda and Woo Chang were both actually able to pair

48:34

off with other male cranes. But

48:37

for Walna and Chris, this is the

48:39

real thing, and they're paired for life.

48:42

The Smithsonian says the oldest known crane

48:44

lived to be forty five years old in captivity,

48:47

and right now Walna is forty one, but

48:49

Washington Post reported that they could live as

48:51

old as sixty, so in theory, Walna

48:54

and Chris could still be together for maybe even another

48:56

two decades. Chris is

48:58

forty five right now, I believe Eve, So you

49:01

know this could be a substantial part

49:03

of his life. Um, I mean, I guess it

49:05

already has in a lot of ways. Chris

49:08

loves birds, but he did say that his dream

49:10

job would be to go back with the wolf free

49:12

introduction programs. That was something

49:14

he really was passionate about. He loves wolves.

49:16

He's like, people shouldn't be so scared

49:18

of wolves because they're really amazing. They're really important

49:21

ecologically. But the article

49:23

does point out that wolf free introduction

49:25

programs are more controversial

49:27

and therefore they're harder to come by,

49:29

but crane programs are an easy

49:32

cell. People love these beautiful birds.

49:35

You know, they're not a threat. People are more than

49:37

willing to support their repopulation efforts,

49:39

So those programs get a lot more funding. They

49:42

can hire more people, there's more of them,

49:45

and their image makes them a

49:47

really good umbrella species, which

49:49

is a single animal that

49:51

draws a lot of attention to conservation

49:53

for an entire ecosystem, like panda's

49:56

yeah, or dolphins exactly.

49:59

Yeah, there's just one. I'm

50:01

just thinking of all the movies as a kid. It

50:03

was like a chimpanzee and a ring attan, you

50:05

know what I mean. It was just the one that made you

50:07

care enough about wildlife that you'd be like, you

50:10

know, I guess also you should save a bug

50:12

and a reptile. Yeah, you might be like, we

50:14

have to save this centipede, and

50:17

everyone's like, I don't care about the squish

50:19

it it's gross, all right, how about

50:22

I have to save this adorable monkey

50:24

and They're like, yes, protect that habitat

50:27

cool. Yeah I will. Yeah.

50:29

But despite Chris's interest in wolves,

50:32

he says he could never leave Walnut.

50:34

He said, quote, if she's still here when

50:36

I'm eligible for retirement, I won't

50:38

be able to leave. I just feel like a jerk. Oh

50:42

that's dedication, because

50:44

yeah, these birds mate for life, and Chris

50:46

had seen firsthand what happens when

50:48

a crane loses their mate. It's

50:50

very traumatic. They may stop eating,

50:53

They sometimes cry loudly for weeks

50:55

at a time. Must be so hard to

50:57

hear that I can't even

50:59

say anything or like my human

51:01

instinct to like go sit with comfort

51:04

an upset animal and stroke them or try to

51:06

make them feel better, Like you can't do that at all. You

51:08

just kind of have to let it be. I must

51:10

be just very difficult. So Chris

51:12

knows that, and you know, he doesn't want to be

51:15

the source of that kind of trauma grief

51:17

for Walnuts. So he's very committed to this partnership.

51:20

He continues to spend every day with her.

51:22

He dances and performs their mating

51:25

ritual when she asks. Although

51:27

it's unlikely that the stead book will call on Walnut

51:29

to actually breed again, so fortunately

51:31

he doesn't have to do so much. Chloek

51:33

is stroking and stuff, and Chris

51:36

says, you know, he's heard every joke a hundred

51:38

thousand times. I mean, I'm sure his

51:41

favorite is what's

51:43

the difference between erotic and kinky?

51:45

I don't know what difference. Erotic

51:48

you use a feather, Kinky

51:50

you use the whole bird. And

51:54

of himself. He said, quote, I'll never find

51:56

a woman that's so happy to see me that she just starts

51:58

dancing. Now, Chris,

52:01

don't sell yourself so short. There

52:03

might be a lady out there's willing to lift her

52:05

wings for you. You know. Now, after

52:07

they go through their little mating ritual, walnut

52:10

may lay unfertilized eggs,

52:12

and Crisp will replace those with fake ones

52:15

because the real ones would just rot and attract pests

52:17

and and crows like real crows,

52:19

not cris crow. Um and

52:22

uh. And that would actually make Walnut lay

52:24

more. That's I guess,

52:26

just an instinct. Better crank out another

52:28

one, I guess. Yeah, if you saw one like oh

52:31

that didn't hatch, there's something wrong with it. I need

52:33

to overproduce. So he

52:35

puts dummy eggs in her nest, which she'll sit

52:37

on for hours. But like we said,

52:40

it's too much work for a single bird to sit

52:42

on her nest all day. So like a good

52:44

partner, Chris will come in and

52:46

he'll he'll stand by the nest. He'll say, all right,

52:48

go take a break, and she'll

52:51

get up and wander off, knowing that he's going to

52:54

keep an eye on these eggs, that they're safe. She'll

52:56

go down to the water, she'll bathe, she'll

52:58

strut around for a while, maybe fifty twenty

53:00

minutes, and then she'll come back to set on the

53:02

nest again. He's

53:04

doing his part to raise

53:06

the children, or

53:09

the fake children. And

53:13

yeah, because you know, because these cranes mate

53:15

for life, they almost never step out of each other's

53:17

sight. But of course Chris can't

53:19

be there twenty four hours a day. He doesn't work weekends,

53:22

so he's not it's not quite the same. But

53:25

she's so excited to see him every morning.

53:27

When he returns, she greets him with

53:29

dances and purring sounds,

53:31

and she does know that whenever he leaves,

53:34

he'll be back. And Chris says,

53:36

her endless love is inspiring. He

53:39

said, quote the ideal partner doesn't

53:41

exist. You have to accept certain things

53:43

that people can't change. I mean, she

53:45

puts up with me even though I can't dance or sing,

53:49

and sure enough, all summer long, five days

53:51

a week, Chris goes through the motions

53:53

with his crane wife. He says,

53:55

it's quote not exactly fun

53:58

for me, but it keeps well nut happy, and

54:01

ultimately, he says, hopefully

54:04

it's just a goofy story that will get people's attention,

54:07

because white naped cranes are continuing

54:09

to decline in the wild, largely because people

54:12

just don't seem to care that much when measured

54:14

up against expansion and profit and

54:16

all of our other human impulses.

54:19

Yeah, I know, right, and

54:21

sometimes we just don't know. Like one

54:23

of the white naped crane's habitats

54:25

in winters that they migrate to is

54:27

actually the demilitarized zone

54:30

between North and South Korea, right,

54:33

Like we all want that conflict to subside,

54:36

but these birds have been settling there for a

54:38

long time. And if and when that

54:41

does happen and they take those walls

54:43

down, there's already developers

54:45

and farmers that have their sites set on that land.

54:48

I read they're even considering building this

54:50

unification city in between

54:52

the two Koreas. So whatever they do,

54:55

that habitat is going to get wiped out. So

54:58

hopefully Chris is right and this goofy

55:01

story will just help people to understand that these

55:03

are living things with thoughts and feelings

55:05

and love and attachment, you

55:07

know, when they're they deserve to be saved.

55:11

Now we'll go ahead and say that you can donate

55:13

to the s cb I through National

55:16

Zoo dot s I, dot e d

55:18

U slash Conservation UM

55:20

or just you know, find a local wildlife

55:22

conservation effort in your area see

55:24

what you can do. Or now

55:27

I'm gonna say something crazy. Right now, we

55:30

could we

55:32

could make some big changes. Look

55:34

at our own consumption

55:36

habits, maybe try to trace

55:38

them back to the damage that they might do, and

55:41

just just see what we can do to minimize

55:44

and reduce and reuse and

55:46

recycling all those good things that

55:49

might help uh, you know, might

55:51

help out Walnut and her friends. Sounds

55:54

hard. Look,

55:59

yes, we can blame the corporations

56:02

for how they're destroying the world, and

56:04

we should, and we should. But

56:06

also, honestly, I think

56:08

corporations are the ones saying that I've heard a

56:10

lot of people saying in the last few years, like, you

56:13

know, the real real people to go after

56:16

are these businesses because they're responsible. And

56:18

I'm like, yes, true, But

56:20

also, don't

56:22

you think the corporations are dropping that

56:25

message because it tells all people

56:28

like, don't change your purchasing habits,

56:31

blame us, you know, don't change

56:33

what you're doing. Yeah, oh we're the bad guys.

56:35

That's fine, just keep buying stuff, you

56:38

know. I'm just saying it's both, Yeah,

56:41

it's us and them. It might

56:43

just be one of those horrible catch twenty

56:46

two because it is like

56:48

an individual going to

56:50

zero waste is simply not going

56:52

to do enough unless companies

56:55

stop packaging everything in plastic. I

56:57

mean especially you know now you're seeing

57:00

in the grocery store a single banana wrapped in plastic

57:02

or fucking orange or something, and you're like, why,

57:05

what is the point of that. I always

57:07

thought it was so weird at Trader Joe's that you can't

57:09

get produce just pick out produced,

57:11

like you have to get three shrink wrapped tomatoes

57:13

together. Um, And yeah, I mean I know,

57:15

you know, you and I were not like great

57:19

at zero waste or anything. But they're definitely trying

57:21

to cut as much plastic Adam lives as

57:23

we can. You know, there's a few changes. I'm

57:25

not going to say that we're super inconveniencing

57:27

ourselves or something, but there's little things you can

57:30

do that you barely even notice. The difference between

57:33

trying and you know

57:35

what the eighties, you know,

57:37

when nobody even fucking tried. Uh,

57:41

you know, it's it's a big difference difference. I

57:43

think it helps. Um, so

57:46

think about Walnut next time. Yeah, I

57:48

love this story. I also

57:50

love his name is Chris crow Like, I don't

57:52

we haven't really gotten into that, and

57:55

he's like, yeah, I've heard it, I know,

57:57

But I just think that's incredible that he's like, I want to

57:59

look like bison or like wolves.

58:01

And they're like, actually, you're

58:03

like J. K. Rowling game where you're sorry,

58:07

you're going to work. You're gonna work

58:09

with animals, Okay, Chris

58:11

Crowe, I'm sorry, you're gonna work with the birds. Okay.

58:15

Oh man? And I really love um

58:18

there's something better sweet about it too, because

58:20

I mean this is a guy who's really put

58:23

his life on hold. Yeah. Um, I

58:25

mean it's it's a real commitment to

58:28

this bird that even though it's just his working

58:30

hours, um, that's

58:33

his Like he said, he couldn't not couldn't

58:35

necessarily retire if he wanted to, because

58:38

he's got this commitment to

58:40

a living thing that depends on him

58:42

emotionally, physically. You

58:45

know, if he went away, it could destroy

58:47

them. And you've got to imagine he has

58:49

those moments where he's

58:51

like picturing his life

58:54

after Walnut and

58:57

how much freedom he might earn

58:59

from that. But then that comes with

59:01

guilt too. Yeah,

59:03

but don't even like if she did passed

59:05

away in a couple of years. You

59:08

know, she was such a big part of his days

59:10

and his life that even if he was kind

59:12

of like one day, it'll be nice to not

59:15

worry about this, Like it would still be a

59:17

giant void, you know. Again, much

59:19

like having to take care of like an older family member

59:22

or an older pet or something where they're just

59:25

becoming more of a full time job

59:27

than you expected. And of course you don't want to like

59:30

dip out and leave him, you know, without

59:33

you defenseless and whatever.

59:35

But you find yourself, as you say, guiltily,

59:38

kind of shamefully thinking about that. How

59:40

nice it would be to not have to worry about that

59:43

and then immediately probably

59:45

or even at the same time feeling incredibly

59:48

sad to think about that presence

59:50

not being in your life anymore. Even if it

59:52

was a lot of work or difficult or whatever,

59:55

it's still someone or something that you love

59:57

very much. And you're like I,

1:00:00

I get frustrated all the time, but

1:00:02

I would rather do this than not have you

1:00:04

at all, you know, and

1:00:07

you just must be very, like you said, a kind

1:00:09

of a tug of war within

1:00:11

your an internal sort of tug of war. And

1:00:14

when you commit to a living thing, a

1:00:16

person, or an animal, um

1:00:20

or a plant, even I suppose to some degree,

1:00:23

like you need to consider

1:00:27

those challenges and you

1:00:29

need to understand that you are committing to

1:00:31

the responsibility of those challenges as well.

1:00:34

And I think this is so such a fascinating

1:00:36

story, how Chris just gets

1:00:39

He didn't grow up thinking I'm gonna

1:00:42

I'm gonna impregnate a single

1:00:44

bird over and over again when I grow up,

1:00:46

but holes all day long. But

1:00:48

that's where he ended up, and he and he loves

1:00:51

and he's committed to it. It's amazing and it's

1:00:53

important work, and clearly he's he's

1:00:55

made a huge difference with this,

1:00:57

this partnership in the population

1:01:00

of the white naped crane. Probably a lot of

1:01:02

other less directly

1:01:04

affecting, but a lot of other conservation

1:01:06

efforts in terms of habitats and so on

1:01:09

that are coming from that work and being able

1:01:11

to say, well, now we got way more cranes

1:01:14

that need somewhere to live, so you know, we gotta

1:01:16

work on that. You know, on and on. It's like ripples

1:01:19

in a pond or whatever. And so it's just really

1:01:21

cool to see somebody dedicate their life

1:01:24

to something so selfless. Man,

1:01:26

it's so weird. Because there's some animal news

1:01:29

lately that I've been very fascinated by, like

1:01:31

evolutionarily, Like they were talking about

1:01:33

how um elephants are now evolving

1:01:36

to have smaller tests or

1:01:38

no tests at all because then they

1:01:40

won't be poached, which is so crazy

1:01:42

to think about your body figuring that out

1:01:45

and genetically modifying itself. Like that's

1:01:48

or I guess it's just because they just don't

1:01:50

have them and then they make that natural selection.

1:01:52

Yeah, with the little tusks live

1:01:55

and the ones with big tusks get murdered.

1:01:57

Murders, they have to, and then they

1:01:59

were talking of that bird that went extinct

1:02:01

and then re evolved itself to

1:02:03

being alive now, and I'm like, well,

1:02:06

that's great new I guess. I

1:02:08

guess it's cool that he managed to figure it

1:02:10

out. But that's so crazy

1:02:13

too to think about. You know. I just

1:02:15

I wonder if one day you woke up and found out the

1:02:17

Dodo's back, or you know that, you know, I've

1:02:19

found of a loss of raptor in the Amazon or

1:02:22

something like what how

1:02:24

I don't know. I just worked out evolutionarily

1:02:27

for it to come back. No, But anyway,

1:02:29

I'm so glad that we got a chance to do this story

1:02:31

because I really I think I squealed

1:02:33

with delight when I came across My time

1:02:35

was definitely and we were like, maybe it's

1:02:37

too weird. I don't know if it's a real romance.

1:02:39

And then y'all were like, do this story. So

1:02:41

I'm very glad that we got a chance to

1:02:44

shoehorn it in. Definitely

1:02:46

shoe billet in. I

1:02:49

was going to come with a bird tend tinder. Oh

1:02:52

yeah, you're working at a bird tender. Well,

1:02:55

fender would be the fish one obviously,

1:02:58

that's easy. You um but

1:03:01

for birds, it's probably like um

1:03:05

should be like called birds of a feather or

1:03:07

like flock together, oh yeah, or

1:03:09

like flocker flocker.

1:03:12

Flocker is good, but

1:03:14

I feel like that's for like bird or

1:03:17

right, that's the tint, the tint. It's like Grinder's

1:03:20

bird grinders flocker, You're

1:03:23

like, you're just there for the grinder and different

1:03:26

well grinders mostly I think for a gay

1:03:29

but same same thing, right. Otherwise,

1:03:31

then Tender came out and it was more of a

1:03:33

hook up app okay for

1:03:35

also straight people. And then

1:03:37

like coffee meats, bagel or match

1:03:41

or Cupid or what. I don't know all the there's

1:03:43

so many hinge is

1:03:46

there something there? Sake meets bagel, well,

1:03:52

whatel squawky meets

1:03:54

bagel, birds love bagels. Who

1:03:56

doesn't love a bagel? I mean, come

1:03:59

on, that's I could use a bagel right now. I

1:04:01

think flockers, I think I think you got

1:04:03

it with flocks krylocker,

1:04:09

no, see no flucker

1:04:11

flucker and their their taglines get

1:04:13

flocked. You're ready to flock? Yeah,

1:04:16

there's hot singles waiting to flock with you, Hot

1:04:19

single birds ready to migrade

1:04:23

to your area. Wow.

1:04:27

Well anyway, we hope that you enjoyed

1:04:29

this story as much as we did. As

1:04:31

always, we love hearing from you. Please

1:04:33

do reach out with your thoughts and feelings and

1:04:36

concerns or questions or whatever. I

1:04:38

don't care. Tell us a story. We're

1:04:40

here. We're here for it. Our email

1:04:42

address is romance that I Hurt Media dot

1:04:45

com, or you can find us on

1:04:47

Twitter and Instagram and flocker.

1:04:49

I'm at Okrade, It's Eli. You better not

1:04:51

be on flocker. I'm at Dianamite

1:04:54

Boom and you can find the show at ridic

1:04:56

Romance or just send us carry your pigeon

1:05:00

here you go. And yeah, don't forget

1:05:02

to rate and review on Apple podcast

1:05:04

wherever. We also

1:05:06

love those. And whenever we get a review,

1:05:08

it's just like a little she

1:05:14

she she always turns around and uh

1:05:16

flutters her feathers. I

1:05:19

per my cloaco open. So

1:05:22

yeah, make my cloako open today with a

1:05:24

great message. And

1:05:28

on that note, we will see you

1:05:30

all next time. You have

1:05:33

a great weekend everyone, So

1:05:35

long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks

1:05:38

so listening to our show, tell

1:05:40

your friends names uncle's in dance

1:05:42

to listen to what show ridiculous? Well,

1:05:44

NaNs