Ep. 760: Teddy Roosevelt's Kids and Their Insane Quest To Kill a Giant Panda

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with author Nathalia Holt https://www.nathaliaholt.com, Randall Williams https://www.instagram.com/randall__williams/, Phil Taylor https://www.instagram.com/philtaylor25/?hl=en, and Corinne Schneider https://www.instagram.com/corinnesschneider/?hl=en. Topics discussed: Nathalia's new book, "The Beast In The Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda" https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Beast-in-the-Clouds/Nathalia-Holt/9781668027745 is out!; get presale tickets for MeatEater's Christmas Tour 2025 https://www.themeateater.com starting 9/22; the epitome of the bear to find; Roosevelt as a good dad; an expedition to China by foot in an area of no roads; museums and zoos; finding prints in the snow; simultaneous shooting; the gentle giant; collection is paramount; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 1:29Steven Rinella?

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• 2:13Steven Rinella?

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• 2:52Speaker 02

  This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case underwearless.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  We're on the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything.

• 3:03Steven Rinella?

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• 3:26Steven Rinella?

  Hot damn, we're joined today by big time writer, Nathalia Holt, one of the most credentialed writers we've had on. No, that's not true. Among the most, I mean, like, like, like a writer writer.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  I think David Grand is going to have some words about that. I'm not sure that's true, but I'm really excited to be here.

• 3:44Steven Rinella?

  Among the big time, the big, like writer writers.

• 3:49Speaker 04

  Oh, that's very.

• 3:49Steven Rinella?

  Among the big time writer, you know what I mean? You know, here's what I'm trying to say.

• 3:54Steven Rinella?

  We've had, now that I think about it, we've had a number of esteemed generalists, but you're a generalist, uh, nonfiction writer.

• 4:02Speaker 04

  Well, I've got the PhD, so I think that gives me a little credibility in there. But yeah, you've had some big writers on this show and I'm pretty excited to be part of it.

• 4:11Steven Rinella?

  On the lower rung of the top, no, I'm joking.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's me. Bottom shelf.

• 4:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Among our prestigious, uh, writers that we've had on the show, our generalist, nonfiction writers that we've had on the show. Nathalia Holt is here and her new book is The Beast in the Clouds. And get this, this is what we're going to talk about today. It's kind of, I, I had no idea. Up until the 1930s, this is the story we're going to tell. Up until the 1930s, it was debated.

• 4:38Steven Rinella?

  Whether there was actually, like in the Western world,

• 4:43Steven Rinella?

  there was an active debate, is there such a thing as a panda bear?

• 4:47Speaker 04

  That's right. This is the last

• 4:49Steven Rinella?

  1930s.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  unknown to science. Up until the 1930s, up until the Roosevelts did this expedition, there was serious debate in the scientific community about whether pandas were real.

• 4:59Steven Rinella?

  People would say like, hey, there's this big white and black bear up in the mountains. And people would be like, bullshit. Right?

• 5:07Speaker 04

  Well, at that point, you have all of the bears that are known to science. And they have been known for a long time. So polar bears had been known for thousands of years. They had been kept in early zoos. Black bears, grizzly bears were all known. Pandas were not. And it started in 1869 with a French missionary who was in China. And he asked the hunters there to just go find him interesting animals. And they brought him. And bring me one. Yeah. Bring me all the interesting animals you can find. I want to see them.

• 5:37Steven Rinella?

  That is not a bad game.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  It's not bad.

• 5:39Steven Rinella?

  Every time the hunter sees an animal, he's gotta be like, but is it interesting?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  He got a lot of interesting animals through this. Yeah, it worked. And one of them was a small black and white cub. And so he is wondering what this could be. There's no animal quite like it. He sends the skin of it to scientists in Paris. And the hide is missing, part of the head. It's, it's not a very good specimen. And of course, he has not seen the animal himself alive. He's only ever seen this dead skin. So it's, it's very hard for him to describe it. And so he is describing to the scientists what a panda looks like just from the descriptions that he's heard. You can imagine what a scientist might think. It's, it's almost as if I'm describing to you a unicorn.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  What does a unicorn look like? And then you're trying to make a picture. And you could probably make a pretty good picture, but it doesn't mean that it's a real animal. And so from that point, scientists were very interested to find out if this was real, if there was actually a black and white bear in China. And so fast forward to 1916, and you have a group of German hunters who then came into China. Also began looking for interesting animals, found local hunters and asked them, go find us a panda. We're looking for a black and white bear. And they bring back pandas. They bring back a live cub as well as skins of several pandas.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  But they're unable to keep the cub alive. However, they are the first Westerners to have finally seen a live panda. But they don't bring back any of this evidence to the West. And so scientists in the West are still, maybe this is true, maybe this isn't. It's a lot of hearsay at this point.

• 7:26Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  Then in 1919, an American missionary named Joseph Milner sends a specimen that he found in a marketplace in China to the American Museum of Natural History. And it's finally we have the skin of a panda. And so the Museum of Natural History announces it. They're very excited. They call it a rare beast from eastern Tibet. And they say, we don't really know much about this animal. We don't know where it lives. We don't know where it eats, what it eats. Because Joseph Milner had never seen the animal. He knew very little about it. But we really think this is real now. There are pandas out there. And so you can imagine immediately, all of these expeditions form. This is prime time for expeditions, right? This is the time explorers are going out in the world. They're looking for interesting things.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  And so you have all these expeditions that go out to China desperate to find the panda. And they all return empty handed.

• 8:17Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  Ten years pass. And at this point, scientists are really in conflict. Because it seems as if, yes, this panda is real. But at this point, why haven't they found it yet? Why hasn't there been a specimen brought to the museum? That can actually be studied scientifically, that can be compared to other animals. And so when the Roosevelts leave for their expedition in 1928, the panda is considered the most challenging trophy animal in the world. It is really considered the epitome of a bear to find. And it's also thought to be a dangerous animal. So little was known about the panda that they expected it to be this cross between polar bears and black bears.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  They thought they were going to find one of the most aggressive predators on earth as they search out.

• 9:06Steven Rinella?

  Like a polar bear that can climb trees.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I mean, really, when the Roosevelts go out, you can imagine, these are the two eldest sons of President Roosevelt and Of course, the challenge of getting the most prized trophy animal in the world, that is something that is going to speak to them. But really, very little is expected from their expedition because they are a small group, much smaller than the expeditions that had traveled previously. And it's not a group that is particularly impressive. You've got the two eldest Roosevelts. These are not accomplished scientists, although they obviously have a lot of experience as hunters. And they're going with a ragtag group. So as they're leaving, as they're going on this expedition,

• 9:50Speaker 04

  few think that they are the ones that are going to be able to discover the panda.

• 9:55Steven Rinella?

  So you mentioned having a PhD. What did you study?

• 9:59Speaker 04

  I have a PhD in molecular biology. And I've done fieldwork in a lot of really interesting places, in Alaska, in redwood trees, in South Africa. So I'm able to bring some of that experience of doing science in the field to this book. And it does help. It helps kind of give me some of that background.

• 10:18Steven Rinella?

  And you are Nathalia Holt, PhD. You're a New York Times bestselling author. So Beasts in the Clouds, what you're here to talk about today. Past books, Wise Gals, Rise of the Rocket Girls, The Queens of Animation, and the book Keared. You've written for New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Slate, Popular Science, PBS, and Time. And a former fellow at the Reagan? What is that?

• 10:50Speaker 04

  It's the Reagan Institute. So it's this, it's a science group that's a part of Harvard, MDH, and MIT in Boston.

• 10:57Steven Rinella?

  Okay, she is a former fellow at the, I would read that Reagan, because we know how Reagan's spelled.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  I know. I understand. It's someone's name.

• 11:07Steven Rinella?

  It's one of the things we learned from Reagan, how to spell Reagan. The Reagan Institute of MGH, which is?

• 11:15Speaker 04

  Massachusetts General Hospital.

• 11:16Steven Rinella?

  Oh, okay. MIT, the alma mater of Ted Kaczynski.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 11:22Steven Rinella?

  No, he was a teacher there.

• 11:25Steven Rinella?

  And Harvard University. And you live in Pacific Grove, California.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  I do, yeah.

• 11:31Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so we're gonna pick up this story and I got my, my first question coming out of this when we picked the story back up is, um, we gotta go back up because I need to know what like, what kind of a dad was Roosevelt? So let's stew on that a minute.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's an important question.

• 11:45Steven Rinella?

  Before we embark them on this journey of trying to shoot him or collect the panda bear against all odds, I need to know, was Roosevelt like an absentee father?

• 11:59Steven Rinella?

  That, that stew on that a minute.

• 12:00Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 12:01Steven Rinella?

  But, but first,

• 12:04Steven Rinella?

  we have our Christmas tour coming up, the 2020, the 2025 live tour, we're calling it the Christmas tour. We were, it's all in the South.

• 12:16Steven Rinella?

  It's all in the South and it's the Christmas tour. So my first idea is that we would make a poster

• 12:23Steven Rinella?

  where it's like the old spaghetti Western posters, like good, the bad and the ugly. But it'd be Santa Claus's and elves with bandoliers and pistols, like the, like the spaghetti Westerns. That was my first vision. Then Randall and I got sidetracked talking about an idea where we were dressed as Yankee soldiers and it was the North's coming again.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:52Steven Rinella?

  Randall wanted to do the tour. He wanted to do the tour of the South along the path of Sherman's March.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  I said that to you in confidence.

• 13:06Steven Rinella?

  And it's like, it's gonna be the tour posters, it's gonna be the Yankees. The tour posters gonna be the Yankees are coming again. But we checked with a couple Southerners.

• 13:18Speaker 04

  I felt a way.

• 13:18Steven Rinella?

  Well, Hunter Spencer, we called Hunter Spencer, first call I made. I was like, Hunter, if we brand this as like, the Yankees are coming again. He thought it's a little too soon.

• 13:33Steven Rinella?

  He thinks it's a little too soon.

• 13:35Speaker 05

  Oh my gosh.

• 13:36Steven Rinella?

  So maybe in a hundred years. Yeah, what were they, what's in a hundred years? The twenty. The two, one, two, five, if this is the twenty.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:46Steven Rinella?

  Twenty five tour, the twenty one, twenty five.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Doing holograms of us.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  Right.

• 13:50Steven Rinella?

  Tour.

• 13:51Speaker 05

  No, we'll just need to bring Steve back like the dire wolves.

• 13:53Steven Rinella?

  In the twenty, in a century, maybe we'll do the. The Yankees are coming. But instead, we're just branding it more as something that everyone can get on board with. Well, well, that, that most people can get on board with, which is the Christmas tour. But I do want you to know, you know, um, I, I don't want any people, you know, I don't want to discourage people of other faiths, but we're calling it the Christmas tour.

• 14:17Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 14:19Steven Rinella?

  The Christmas tour. Um, it's coming, not the Yankees, it's in the south. It's in the south, but it's not like. A bunch of Yankees from up north, though, you know.

• 14:31Steven Rinella?

  We're bringing Clay.

• 14:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, Clay will be there.

• 14:34Steven Rinella?

  He's from Arkansas.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Uh huh. It'll be a little twang on the stage.

• 14:37Steven Rinella?

  Ish.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:39Steven Rinella?

  Southish. He's coming. We could have done it like the, um. Since Clay's from the south and, and, uh.

• 14:50Steven Rinella?

  Um. Brent's from the south.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 14:54Steven Rinella?

  We could have had it be like the reconciliation tour. And the poster would be. Yankees and.

• 15:01Speaker 03

  It would look like the paintings of Affomatics.

• 15:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Yankees and Confederates with our arms around each other and we call it the reconciliation tour. And it'd be that Yankees and, and, and Arkansas people are coming to your town.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  But are you gonna wear the hats is my question.

• 15:20Steven Rinella?

  No, see, we're not. We're going all Santa Claus.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:23Steven Rinella?

  It's just like, we're putting the, you know.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  When I heard about this, my first thought was, last year, I had to make do with a. Pretty, uh, not movie quality Santa Claus costume for all of the office hijinks. And so I thought if. If we're doing a live Christmas tour, maybe it's time that we invested, cause I. Believe me, I.

• 15:43Steven Rinella?

  Serious tailor.

• 15:44Speaker 03

  I went to the sites and I saw the, I went to all the websites of real high quality Santa gear. Just cause it seems like something that. You know, you buy once and and you're good for 15 years.

• 15:57Steven Rinella?

  Like a dude that has a job at a mall.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:00Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, he's wearing a legit.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Like, I looked into the different styles of belts, you know, a lot of them are actually overalls underneath the jacket. Um, the different trim styles, uh, and then you to say nothing of the wigs and beards.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  I did a lot of research, so I'm when we have our budgeting meeting for the tour, I'm gonna, I have a presentation.

• 16:19Steven Rinella?

  Like a tailored suit.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, like a real, a real Santa suit. And then are you actually doing full on boots or are you doing boot covers? Cause most of the cheap ones have boot covers, so you assume that a real Santa would have the actual boots, but in fact, quite a few of the real high end Santa costumes, they're still using boot covers.

• 16:39Steven Rinella?

  I don't like that one bit.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we can talk about it.

• 16:43Steven Rinella?

  Um, you're gonna bring the suit?

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Well, that's, yeah.

• 16:46Steven Rinella?

  So here's the deal for people, for southerners out there, you know who you are. If, uh, for Christmas, right?

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 16:56Steven Rinella?

  You'd be like, hey, what I want is tickets to the Christmas tour.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, Uncle Eddie will be in town, you know?

• 17:03Steven Rinella?

  You know, so that's what you should, so if you're listening, tell your spouse, your boyfriend or your girlfriend, that what you want is tickets to the Christmas tour. And Randall's gonna be there in a suit.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  There'll be carols.

• 17:18Steven Rinella?

  And like, listen, don't be afraid to bring your grandpa, cause we're not gonna bring up the war between the states. Like, I don't want you to go.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  We're not gonna bring that up again.

• 17:27Steven Rinella?

  I don't want you to think you were gonna enter into a big controversy. It's just pure Christmas tour.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:33Steven Rinella?

  We're gonna sing carols, we're gonna do like a normal Meat Eater live show, there'll be contests and whatnot, and people be winning all kinds of stuff. But it'll have a Christmas overlay to it, nothing to do with the, nothing to do with the.

• 17:47Steven Rinella?

  You know, I'm not even gonna say it anymore.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:50Steven Rinella?

  Here's where we're going.

• 17:53Steven Rinella?

  Six stops. Birmingham, Alabama. Oh, I got a great Birmingham story I'm gonna tell on that. I one time drove, I took a Greyhound across the country.

• 18:02Speaker 03

  You want to save it for the tour?

• 18:03Steven Rinella?

  Well, that'd be a good idea.

• 18:06Steven Rinella?

  I was just told it.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Good gracious.

• 18:09Steven Rinella?

  Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Fayetteville.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Fayetteville.

• 18:17Steven Rinella?

  I was just joking. Fayetteville, Arkansas.

• 18:21Steven Rinella?

  Uh, I just talked to Evan Felker. He's gonna come to the, from Turnpike Troubadours. He's gonna come to the show and him and Clay are gonna do, uh, The Bird Hunters live at the start of the show.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 18:32Steven Rinella?

  Isn't that cool?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  Maybe he could carol for us a bit, too.

• 18:36Steven Rinella?

  Dallas, Texas, where we've been before, and Austin, Texas, where I don't think we've done a show.

• 18:43Steven Rinella?

  If you want to go to the meat eater dot com, you can sign up for a thing we got for a pre-sale.

• 18:50Steven Rinella?

  Ho, ho, ho.

• 18:53Steven Rinella?

  In a rebel yell.

• 18:57Steven Rinella?

  Ho, ho, ho, in a rebel yell. Coming to the south. Good gracious. I was gonna tell a big story about having a hard hat because Randall's like, I'm not gonna tell that. Probably get it back into pan of bears, but.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:10Steven Rinella?

  Randall's under pressure to get all your things from growing up out of your ma's house. And she wondered if you still wanted your hard hat.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, that and a crossbow.

• 19:19Steven Rinella?

  And a cave or a knife.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:21Steven Rinella?

  But never mind that. What kind of dad was Roosevelt? Was he mean? Like, he couldn't have been around much.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  You're, you're wrong about that, actually.

• 19:29Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 19:30Speaker 04

  He was an incredibly caring, affectionate father. He was the kind of dad who got down on the floor, played with his kids. He, even when he was gone, and he was gone for long stretches of time, he would write his kids these long letters. He would tell them how much he loved them. He would draw little pictures for them in his letters. And he loved to play just crazy rowdy games with his kids when he was home. They would chase around the house. I, I talk in the book about a game they played called Bear Hunt. Where they would chase after their dad, looking for him all around the house. And when they found him, it was all tickles and giggles and kisses and all that kind of stuff.

• 20:12Speaker 04

  Um, but the other side of that is that he did put a lot of pressure on his kids. And you can imagine that for the sons of any famous man, this is a lot, right? There are advantages, but there are also disadvantages.

• 20:24Steven Rinella?

  That's what I'd be curious about is, is when I, when I was reading, I, I didn't know that they did crazy expeditions like their old man did. So I was picturing two s- driving, like I was picturing two scenarios. Scenario one, they have a great relationship with their dad. The stuff he does is cool. He introduced them to doing cool stuff and they just want to continue along because they admire that lifestyle. Or scenario two is they never got his love. And the one way that they could try to like get his attention is to mirror his, his adventurous activities and go have a big discovery and finally get dad to be like, hey, good job, Kermit.

• 21:08Speaker 04

  It's, you know, it's a little bit of both because obviously he loved his kids

• 21:12Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  very passionately. He was very affectionate with them, but he put a lot of pressure on them. Um, so Ted, the eldest son, had a nervous breakdown when he was 10 years old. And the doctor told Teddy Roosevelt, this is because of the pressure you're putting on him. It's too much.

• 21:27Steven Rinella?

  At what age?

• 21:28Speaker 04

  10. He has.

• 21:30Steven Rinella?

  I don't know what that looks like, a ten year old nervous breakdown.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  I mean, you can imagine that it's not easy to be the son of Teddy Roosevelt. This is a larger than life figure. And he is very concerned about his sons being strong. He says repeatedly in letters that he's worried that Kermit is going to be a weakling.

• 21:49Steven Rinella?

  Says that to who? His buddies?

• 21:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, he says it to family members and to friends. And he talks about this with Kermit as well. And he and Kermit obviously have a close relationship. They go on several expeditions together. So they go in nineteen oh nine. They go to Africa where Kermit is able to hunt an elephant. He's able to get a calf that's right now in the American Museum of Natural History.

• 22:13Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  And then after Teddy Roosevelt loses the election in nineteen twelve, they go on a River of Doubt expedition. And of course, that one is told so beautifully in Candace Millard's book, River of Doubt, where it is a perilous expedition. It's one that Teddy Roosevelt almost dies in. And so you see how close their relationship was and how important it was to the two eldest sons to really carry on in their father's footsteps. And it wasn't easy for them to do that in other aspects of their life. So Ted, for example, wanted to be a politician like his father. That was his goal. That was his dream. And before this expedition happens where they go for the panda, those dreams are completely scattered.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  There's no way he's going to be able to do that.

• 23:02Steven Rinella?

  Because of his own limitations or because of his popularity?

• 23:05Speaker 04

  So because he was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. So he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which is a position that his father had held as well before becoming president. And during that time, it was found out that the government was giving oil leases preferentially by taking bribes.

• 23:26Steven Rinella?

  I've heard of this, but I have no idea what it is.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:28Steven Rinella?

  The Teapot Dome scandal, sort of like in the way back of my head. There's like a, I feel like you've heard of that.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  This is a few years ago, so you know, it's been a while.

• 23:37Steven Rinella?

  The Teapot Dome scandal.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  Yes. And so after that, even though Ted was not convicted of any crime, he was implicated in this.

• 23:46Steven Rinella?

  He got canceled.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  And yeah, he got canceled. In fact, you even have Eleanor Roosevelt campaigning against him in a giant teapot costume.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  It's brutal. I mean,

• 24:00Steven Rinella?

  So the family got to fight.

• 24:02Speaker 04

  Family, yeah. So that's, you know, FDR and Eleanor were, there was a feud between them. So they're distant cousins and

• 24:09Steven Rinella?

  Is it true that the one side, is it true that the one side was that Theodore's clan was Roosevelt? And that the Franklin clan was Roosevelt? Have you ever heard this before?

• 24:24Speaker 04

  I have.

• 24:25Steven Rinella?

  Is that not true?

• 24:26Speaker 04

  I don't think so. I think it's just the way that people from different areas pronounce the name.

• 24:31Steven Rinella?

  So it was like Roosevelt across the board?

• 24:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:33Steven Rinella?

  Okay, got it.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so

• 24:35Steven Rinella?

  And then which, in this story you're telling, which one, just so people are kind of aware, this is like foreshadowing. Which of his two boys ends up killing himself?

• 24:45Speaker 04

  That's Kermit.

• 24:46Steven Rinella?

  Okay, he ends up killing himself. And he's the one rolled up in Teapot Dome?

• 24:50Speaker 04

  No, that's actually the eldest brother.

• 24:52Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  That is rolled up in that. And it's, it's interesting to me because what we see is that Teddy Roosevelt often went on expeditions during difficult points in his life. So when he lost the election and he went to the River of Doubt. When he lost his mother and his wife, he went to the Dakotas. And you really see his sons following in that, in those footsteps. Deciding to go on this expedition during a difficult time for them. So Ted had just was politically obliterated is the way his wife put it. And Kermit was having many issues. He was just not a successful businessman. He was having a lot of difficulties. He was having problems with his family too. So both of them were at a point in their lives where they were ready to escape.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  They're ready to go do something different. And going into the woods, going on hunting expeditions was always a big part of their lives.

• 25:44Steven Rinella?

  So how, like, how did they get?

• 25:49Steven Rinella?

  They got their finger on the pulse of the world, I guess, when it comes to exploration and wildlife discoveries. But how does, how does the panda mystery, or the panda controversy, like, how does it land in their lap? Like, how do they become the recipients of this and be like, hey, we'll be the ones that go find it, you know?

• 26:10Speaker 04

  It's luck, honestly, because at that point, you have 10 years of expeditions that have gone out and have not been able to find the panda. The Roosevelts are able to get funding from the Field Museum. And because of that, they're able to go do this expedition. And honestly, the museum is not expecting them to come back with the panda. But they're thinking, they'll find other animals. And they do. They find many other animals besides the panda on this expedition.

• 26:36Steven Rinella?

  And at this point in time, how many pandas are alive?

• 26:39Speaker 04

  It's hard to say. So the best estimate we have is somewhere in the 2,000 range. There's not a lot of pandas.

• 26:46Steven Rinella?

  At that point, there's only 2,000 pandas?

• 26:49Speaker 04

  Yes. Pandas have always been fairly rare. And it's, they're only found in a few very small parts of China. So even in China, the panda was not well known. And it makes sense when you think about how divided China was at that point, too, because this is a country that is, is very territorial. So you have many different cultures, many independent kingdoms. And in the places where the panda lived, it's remote mountains. And people there did not have a lot of roads and did not have a lot of contact with the Chinese. And they themselves did not consider themselves Chinese.

• 27:29Steven Rinella?

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• 28:12Steven Rinella?

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• 28:53Steven Rinella?

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• 29:35Steven Rinella?

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• 30:03Steven Rinella?

  I won't judge if you don't know the answer to this.

• 30:07Steven Rinella?

  Let's say you go back, let's say we went back 10,000 years or whatever to hell. Um. Was it like, was it at a time, was there a million pandas? Do you know what I mean? Let's say you went back to whatever marker. Does it, does it seem like they were being forced into some kind of bottleneck at this point? Or was it just that somehow they managed to exist as an always very limited animal?

• 30:31Speaker 04

  So the panda went through some big evolutionary changes. And so at one point, we think the panda was found in other continents, even in Europe. There's evidence of early pandas, but they look so different than we think of them today. And then the panda changed, it adapted to its environment. They are one of only a few species in carnivora that are herbivores. And so they developed a unique thumb that's perfect for grasping bamboo. Their teeth changed, so they went to this herbivore diet. Um, and all of those changes led them to being very linked to these mountainous bamboo forests that are only found in certain parts of the world.

• 31:16Steven Rinella?

  So if you, if you laid out a hunk of, uh, I don't know, man, like you lay out like a hunk of meat hanging there. Is he gonna, oh, I'll eat that. Or is he just gonna not eat it?

• 31:29Speaker 04

  Panda's not gonna eat a hunk of meat.

• 31:31Steven Rinella?

  He's not gonna eat it.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  No. Yeah, it's not gonna work. But if you looked at earlier ancestors to the panda, you have omnivores that were eating meat at that time. But that's, that's way back.

• 31:42Steven Rinella?

  So even if they can get it, that, my question was more like, like, is it just that they're, that they were confined to a certain area? And so in that area, what they had to eat that was bamboo? Or was it that they were, that was what they, they were specialists? Like, that's what they consumed?

• 31:59Speaker 04

  They are highly adapted to consume bamboo. They're not, you know, they're not scavengers like black bears. They're very different than other members of the bear family. And I think, you know, when you really think about it, it, they are pretty special. They're very rare for being a bear. So perhaps it's, it's not crazy that the Roosevelts were, weren't expecting them to be like that. They really thought they would be predators. And it sort of makes sense when you think about all the other members of the bear family in comparison.

• 32:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Man, that blows my mind, just 2,000 of them.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's it's not many and it's not many today either.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  What I was struck by reading this book is as they're going through, you know, like when you think about outsiders coming into a place in Asia or Africa, looking for something, oftentimes like what they find to be very unique or rare, they get there and the people are like, oh yeah, I know what that is. But they keep going into these villages and it's like, maybe someone has seen one. But there's, there's like not a not, it's not like they arrive on the scene and there's a knowledge of panda bears when they arrive, like it's almost as much a mystery to the people that are sort of helping them as it is to to the Roosevelts.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  That's true. Yeah. So they have this group of guides they're working with who are kind of like the Sherpa people of Nepal. They are the ones who are breaking the trail ahead of them. They're making the campsites, they're helping them communicate. And all of these villages they're going through, nobody knows about the panda and they travel a huge distance. All in all, they travel almost 2,000 miles over the course of six months. This is a long trek. So they are going first through rainforests in Myanmar and then into very high 14,000 peaks in the Himalayas and then down through the Tibetan Plateau. I mean, they cover an incredible range as they're searching for the panda. And they end up having to go to this one part of China that they've been warned not to go to.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  They've been told that the people that live there are savages, that this is not a place that's safe. And they make that choice really out of desperation because at this point, oh, what they went through on the trail, it is just extreme how close they came to dying multiple times.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  From what was almost killing them. Well, first off, like.

• 34:25Steven Rinella?

  Lay out a little bit about how they organized it and sort of what the planned route was and where they where they thought their highest likelihood of finding one would be.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  So they thought their highest likelihood would be to go where Joseph Milner lived, which was in western China. And they believed that because he had been able to buy a skin from a marketplace there, they would be able to, if they hunted in the countryside.

• 34:52Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  Find the panda. And I, you know, I think what's really interesting, and you know, what I just want to go back to for a minute, is that science and hunting is very linked at this point in history. Scientists are hunters. You see that with Darwin. You see that with all the great scientists of the era. They had to be. And so the Roosevelts, although you may not think of them so much as scientists, they they really are bridging that gap. They have that that ability to hunt, but then they also have the ability to to learn about these animals. And so they've spent a lot of time at the Field Museum in Chicago, really learning about how to prepare these specimens and how to describe them in a way that's useful for scientists. And so they're traveling with an interesting group.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  They're traveling with a man named Taijak Young, who is an NYU student. He was born in Hawaii. His parents are from San Francisco and from China, so he grew up in China. And he's hired as a translator for the trip. But he ends up being sent to the Field Museum and gets all of the training there. And I was fortunate. I was able to get his unpublished autobiography, as well as interviews that were done with him in the 1990s. And it's just fascinating to, he became very close friends with the Roosevelts.

• 36:10Steven Rinella?

  He was alive in the 1990s?

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's only 18 at the time of this expedition. And so he was friends with the Roosevelts for years. They were very close friends. And so to be able to get his account was so interesting. And so he's one of the members of this expedition, as well as a man named Sudam Cutting, who's a naturalist from New York, who is not particularly well experienced, but is the kind of man who will just happy to do anything, happy to go out, hunt, whatever you need, he's there. And then they have Herbert Stevens, who is this British naturalist, who is really the real biologist of the group. He has the training and he has had terrible luck. This poor guy, all of these expeditions he's gone on, he's had such a difficult time bringing

• 36:56Speaker 04

  specimens back because he has a boat crash or there's other problems in transportation and he's just not very well respected by the scientific community because of that. And so he's pretty desperate to show that he's real, that he can do this.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  I got the sense in there, like especially with him, that in this era of expeditions, it was like, it was almost like, like we think of athletes today, where it's like you've got a few good years and you end up on the wrong team and like your whole legacy is in question. And so there's some guys that are just desperate to get out there for one last chance at like a big discovery. And it's very, there's almost like a sort of gamesmanship to it. And like, some guys just sort of luck into a good expedition, but other guys are just sort of desperately hanging on, trying to get on an expedition that, that will make their name for them.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  It's so true, because this was really a time in history when you could make your name as an explorer. You could really gain fame from doing so. And Herbert Stevens is not necessarily someone that you would ever think of as being famous. Certainly, most of the explorers that, that did these trips, the animals would not be named after them. But this expedition is special because you have the Roosevelts. And I, yeah, I loved writing about Herbert Stevens, especially because he's, he's kind of funny on the trail. He, he tends to delay the group. The Roosevelts get very annoyed with him. He gets lost the first day on the trail.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  He's the one they leave behind, right?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's too slow.

• 38:33Steven Rinella?

  You know, in terms of hitting the right expedition, just an interesting thing about that is in, in our podcast, The American West, with the historian Dan Flores, he talks about that, you know, like Jefferson launched two expeditions. He had a northern one, the Corps of Discovery, Lewis and Clark Expedition, and he had a southern one. Which gets going and they get intercepted by the Spanish and sent home. So if you're thinking like, who got lucky, who didn't get lucky? No one's even heard of the one in the south.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  So true. Yeah.

• 39:04Steven Rinella?

  It's just like, you could have been like, huh, what's, you know, what one's gonna be a greater chance of boosting my career? And you wind up being like, Lewis and Clark? Or the dude I can't think of, or the dude I can't think of, who was supposed to do the same thing in the south.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  Freeman and Custis.

• 39:19Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:21Steven Rinella?

  Lost to time, dude. Like, no one cares. No one's heard of the guy. You know?

• 39:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, certainly nobody would have put money on the Roosevelts for this expedition. In fact, they didn't even tell their close friends that they were going after the panda.

• 39:34Steven Rinella?

  And how long were they fixing to go for?

• 39:37Speaker 04

  They were planning to go for six months. That was their plan. I mean, they had hoped to do the first leg in six months and then spend another six months going through Vietnam and going through Laos and collecting more species there.

• 39:48Steven Rinella?

  Got it. And just to be clear, their intent, they want to observe them, watch them, but then their intent is to shoot some.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And it's, it's very specific how they need to collect the pandas so that it's useful for science.

• 40:02Steven Rinella?

  So they take off from where?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  So they take off from, well, technically, the, the trip starts, of course, in New York. But they, they end up going through Myanmar into the western side of China, into Yunnan. And so they're going through a trail that where-

• 40:20Steven Rinella?

  This is on foot.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  They're, this is on foot. So they have mules that carry a lot of their supplies and there's a lot of problems with mules throughout the book, unfortunately. Um, but yeah, they're going on foot. So these are all places where there are no roads for cars. It's just trails.

• 40:35Steven Rinella?

  Huh. So even like,

• 40:38Steven Rinella?

  I just can't, I wish I understood it better, that, that I would picture at that point in time, I mean, we're into the 20th century. I would picture at that point in time, like you'd get trains and you'd kind of get within striking distance of your objective.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  It's it's just too remote, this area they're going to. They're they're sort of straddling this border between Tibet and China. A lot of times they don't even know which country they're in.

• 41:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  There's also a civil war going on that's kind of a problem for them throughout the book. So in nineteen twenty seven, you have the civil war that started in China between the nationalist government and the Communist Party. And so that's raging around them at the same time, too.

• 41:16Steven Rinella?

  And that probably cuts off certain avenues of approach.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  It does, although the parts they're going to, they're they're simply are not roads. And so it's interesting throughout the book because as they describe the trail, and by the way, it was so much fun just to go through the Roosevelt's field journals and how they describe things. And they they took pictures and videos on the trail as well, which is pretty cool. And some of those pictures are of the other people traveling the trail. And a lot of them are moving these giant, giant packs of tea because there are no roads. There's no other way to bring goods to this part of China except on the backs of people.

• 41:58Steven Rinella?

  Okay, yeah.

• 42:02Steven Rinella?

  I wish I had a I wish I had a map of the planet Earth.

• 42:07Steven Rinella?

  Bill, can you pull up a picture of Myanmar and China?

• 42:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, it'll take a sec.

• 42:12Speaker 04

  In the book, too, if you want to, if that helps, it's kind of right in the front there.

• 42:19Steven Rinella?

  Myanmar, what was Myanmar?

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Burma at the time, yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  So east of, if you're picturing like the Indian Ocean, it's east of India, sort of tucked up there.

• 42:34Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Northwest Southeast Asia.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  Yes. That's a good way to put it, northwest Southeast Asia.

• 42:43Speaker 06

  You need it super detailed or you want it in context with like the surrounding country?

• 42:46Speaker 03

  In context with everything else.

• 42:47Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 42:50Speaker 04

  Like that little square.

• 42:52Steven Rinella?

  Dude, I went to high school with, uh, lives in Myanmar.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting.

• 42:57Steven Rinella?

  Maybe his little spot will show there. Okay. All right, let me just get my, I gotta get my head straight here. So they're crossing Myanmar.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Yes. So they're, they're going from, there's kind of this, it's called the Baomou route through Burma. And then they're going into Yunnan and they call it sort of the back door into China.

• 43:18Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Um, and then from there, they're moving north up through Sichuan and then more into central China. And then they eventually end up coming back around, um, through Vietnam.

• 43:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So people are picturing, there's like a large peninsula that contains Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia. They're kind of crossing the top of that peninsula. To get into the, uh, into the mountains of, of Western China.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 43:49Steven Rinella?

  Man, I would never picture that that's how you would need to do that at that point in time.

• 43:55Speaker 04

  It seems crazy.

• 43:56Steven Rinella?

  I don't know why, I don't know anything about that area.

• 44:00Steven Rinella?

  So what kind, like, what kind of happens to them along that route then?

• 44:04Speaker 04

  So.

• 44:04Steven Rinella?

  I mean, they may got to be having adventures left and right.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  They do. Yes. So they are able to collect an incredible amount of animals on this trip. First of all, they are able to collect 5,000 bird skins, 2,000 small mammals, 40 large mammals. I mean, that's a, that's a damn good hunting trip right there.

• 44:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that's a huge question.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so they are collecting all of these interesting species. They, they find 19 new species on the trail. Um, but they're also interacting with a plethora of cultures. And that was fun part of the book too. So they go into these areas that are autonomous regions that are mostly Tibetans that live there. And they're ruled by Tibetan llamas. And so I talk in the book quite a bit about this, the section of Tibetan Buddhism. And at that time you had all of these lamaseries that were along the route. And there were men and women who were llamas who were brought there when they're children. And then they grow up in the lamaseries.

• 45:04Steven Rinella?

  Just to connect that to people today, like you're, like, you know, just regular old Americans gonna hear of the Dalai Lama. So when you say llamas.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:14Steven Rinella?

  Stems from that same.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  And a lamasery is like a monastery with a llama.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Sounds funny when you put it that way.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 45:24Steven Rinella?

  And that's like the gov- that's the governing system.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  It is. And so you have llama rulers of these regions. And so one of the places they go to is called the Kingdom of Mulai. And at that time, it was kind of this mythologized place that had been in National Geographic. And so people knew somewhat about it. And so the Roosevelts go there and they stay with this man who is kind of the eastern ruler of this region. And they stay in his house. And it's called the House of the Prince because his son is going to be a llama and will one day be the king of Mulai. But because llamas do not marry, they do not have children, it's always passed down through the family.

• 46:08Steven Rinella?

  These guys aren't like warlords either.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Some of them are.

• 46:11Steven Rinella?

  Oh, they are?

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. So there certainly was fighting. Many of these autonomous regions were fighting the Chinese for their independence.

• 46:18Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  And so to bet at that time, the Dalai Lama had proclaimed independence for the country, I believe it's in 1912. And so certainly many of these regions were very fiercely independent and very keen to protect their lands.

• 46:35Steven Rinella?

  Got it. But they're able to like, they're not at risk of, they're not at risk of like having an interaction that goes wrong.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Oh, they absolutely are.

• 46:45Steven Rinella?

  They are.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  Yes. And so they bring with them all of these interesting gifts to kind of introduce themselves. So when they go into the Kingdom of Mulai, they have a turquoise bowler hat. They have knives. They have rifles. They have all kinds of interesting things to present because they're just not sure what people are going to like. They don't know how they're going to present themselves. And so they, they explain to this ruler of Mulai that they are the sons of President Theodore Roosevelt. And he says, who's that?

• 47:13Speaker 05

  He has no idea.

• 47:15Steven Rinella?

  They're like, how about a bowler hat? How about a gun?

• 47:20Steven Rinella?

  We could pick one or the other, the bowler hat or the rifle.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  But what I learned when I was reading Ted and Kermit's journals was that this was actually a very freeing experience for them. I mean, imagine that. They've found a part of the world where they are not known only by their relation to their father. And they actually become close friends. They enjoy each other's company. They show pictures of their families. They have the, the next king of Mulai, who was at that time, just a toddler running around. Um, and it's, it's, it's really interesting to see how those interactions went along and how they got along with people.

• 47:55Steven Rinella?

  And along the way, like here they are on the right continent, kind of in the right general neck of the woods. But as Randall was saying, like along the way, they're like, hey, y'all seen any pandas? And people are like, a what?

• 48:07Steven Rinella?

  Doug, you know, like, but it's kind of surprising, but you can almost think, you can think of analogs from here. That you, let's say you were different bear. Let's say you're very curious about, uh, you were very curious about grizzly bears. I mean, you could hit St. Louis, right? A place that people's perception would be at that time, the gateway to the West. And you could say, hey, I'm here for the grizzly bears. And you'd find people in St. Louis that are like, a what?

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a great analogy.

• 48:35Steven Rinella?

  It wouldn't be at all shocking. It'd be earlier. It'd be 50 years earlier, but it'd be like, of course, they'd be like, I don't know.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  And then you would describe it. You would try to say, hey, this is what they look like and people.

• 48:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they'd be like, yeah, it kind of rings a bell, but I don't know. You know, whatever. You just, you could picture that. Or, or you make it into interior Alaska.

• 48:55Steven Rinella?

  And you're like, I'm, I'm curious about the polar bears.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:57Steven Rinella?

  And in the interior, they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about. You're close, but you're not.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 49:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a lot like.

• 49:04Steven Rinella?

  And that way it's sort of easy to imagine, but it would also seem like, it's like a big, white and black. Super cuddly.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:14Steven Rinella?

  Bear. It lives around here.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  It is more like describing unicorn than a grizzly bear.

• 49:20Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So where do they get, like, at what point do they start to get some assurance? You know, like some sense that we're on the right track here?

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Oh, it just takes forever.

• 49:31Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  And there are a lot of struggles on that path. So, you know, at some point they get robbed by bandits. At another point, they're in the Himalayas and all of their mules just disappear in the night. That actually happens twice. And so they lose all of their food.

• 49:46Steven Rinella?

  Stolen?

• 49:47Speaker 04

  No, it's just so cold that the mules decide that they have to leave.

• 49:52Steven Rinella?

  They're out.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then another point, they suffer from horrible altitude sickness. They are trying to hike at night and they're caught in this blizzard. And that is the night that they describe as the very worst of their lives, where they came incredibly close to death. It's very lucky that they survived.

• 50:11Steven Rinella?

  Dying from exposure.

• 50:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:12Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  And so it's, it's just one struggle after a next in this book. And so it's really not until very far along on the expedition where they say, okay, we're going to go to this one area that's called the land of the Yi, or other people call it Lolo Land. And everyone has told them that this is where the savages are. This is where they're going to be attacked. They're going to be killed. They should not go to this one part of China, but they decide it's worth the risk. They want to try to find the panda there.

• 50:40Steven Rinella?

  And they don't have any idea, we, I mentioned like Lewis and Clark expedition, right? They have an idea where they're, they're able to defend themselves.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:50Steven Rinella?

  Right? I mean, they're armed.

• 50:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:51Steven Rinella?

  They're military personnel. Like they have an idea that it might come down to a fight and we'll fight. But these guys, that can't be in their back pocket, right? Like the idea, if they get in trouble, they're just in trouble. Like they're not holding out hope that they're gonna like engage militarily.

• 51:07Speaker 04

  No, that is absolutely not their hope. Um, and there's some interesting parts along the trail where where things do get pretty dicey. There's one great moment with Jack where the expedition has to divide for a while. And he sees that there's a group of bandits ahead on the trail. And he ends up just being really casual, walking by, pretending as if nothing is wrong and gets away with it is the crazy part. So there are some really kind of interesting moments like that where they're sort of able to bluff their way through. Um, and other moments where you have a group of guides who are, well, another interesting part of this is that half of the guides on the trip were women. Um, there were a number of women who served in this role.

• 51:49Speaker 04

  It was, it was certainly a one that paid well. It was one um, that gave a lot of independence. And so you can imagine that it was very prized for both men and women. And so there's one point where you have guides um, that are women that are head on the trail that end up scaring away some bandits as well. So they, they certainly were able to have some backup from their guides. But there, but what we see is that even when they're in positions where the Roosevelts are, are really in danger and where they should feel more threatened. They end up always taking the calm route, always trying to give the bowler hats, give the knives, give the gifts and make friends. And I'm sure that those are skills they learned from their dad.

• 52:30Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. So these guys that people tell them that warn them against, what is their

• 52:37Steven Rinella?

  like their, their final act to go to this area? What, how do these people live? Like, like, kind of like sketch out what their sort of lifestyle is?

• 52:45Speaker 04

  So these are the Yi people and they live in these remote villages in the mountainous regions of central China. They have a lot of animosity towards the Chinese.

• 52:55Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  And they pretty much tend to keep to themselves. And so first, when they meet the Roosevelts, they're very suspicious because the Roosevelts have these long beards and they're kind of scraggly looking. They don't really look like important men at all. And they're worried that the Roosevelts are Catholic priests that are come to be missionaries. And so they're very upset.

• 53:16Steven Rinella?

  And they're hostile to that.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  Yes. And so it sort of takes some convincing. No, they're not here to proselytize.

• 53:23Steven Rinella?

  We're here to kill these little birds and take their skins.

• 53:28Steven Rinella?

  It's not what you think.

• 53:30Speaker 04

  But what happens is that the people do not hunt pandas. So they know about the panda. They finally found a group of people that know about the panda, but they do not hunt them. And they tried to explain to the Roosevelts, these are gentle creatures. We don't hunt them.

• 53:45Steven Rinella?

  But they are hunters.

• 53:46Speaker 04

  But they are hunters. Absolutely.

• 53:49Steven Rinella?

  And they've made like, even though they've come to some kind of cultural

• 53:56Steven Rinella?

  taboo system or whatever, where like, here it is, it would be good to eat. They're available, but we just like, we don't.

• 54:03Speaker 04

  Yes. And the Roosevelts are pretty skeptical because they think, well, why wouldn't you? These skins are so rare. You can find them absolutely nowhere. You would make so much money if you sold them. And so they don't really understand it. And I think it's one of those things where if you know what a panda is like, then it makes a little bit more sense, right? But they, they don't know. It's hard for them to even comprehend the panda as a gentle creature. And so after a lot of convincing, the ye people agree to bring the Roosevelts on a hunt with them. And the reason for this is that they really don't think they're going to find a panda. Because even for them, it's difficult to find one.

• 54:41Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I see.

• 54:42Speaker 04

  It's very rare for them to even encounter them. I mean, they can count on one hand how many times they have seen them. And they, you know, they have hunted them previously, but it's always been when a panda has, you know, been in a village or sort of gone after an aviary or something like that, that where it was, or apiary, sorry, not aviary. Um, where the panda was, you know, at some point threatening them. And that was, has only happened twice before is what they told the Roosevelts. So this is certainly a very rare thing. And so they figure, okay, well, it's about to be rainy season. We're not going to be able to be gone long. We'll take them out. We'll find nothing. We'll get some money for our efforts and then this will be done.

• 55:23Steven Rinella?

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• 56:07Steven Rinella?

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• 56:51Steven Rinella?

  when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com. Can we hit a couple biometrics on pandas? Sure. What are we, what are we talking about? How many pounds is a panda bear?

• 57:22Speaker 04

  Man, I know that and I just, it's lost my brain. I can't remember.

• 57:31Speaker 03

  You say 500 to 800 pounds.

• 57:33Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 57:34Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 57:34Speaker 04

  Um.

• 57:35Steven Rinella?

  I'm going 2 to 3.

• 57:36Speaker 04

  Okay, this is, sorry, I can't remember.

• 57:38Speaker 05

  The National Zoo, weighing up to 250 pounds?

• 57:44Speaker 04

  That sounds about right.

• 57:45Steven Rinella?

  How could you have gotten more rights than me?

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's pretty good.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  They rarely reach 250 pounds.

• 57:50Steven Rinella?

  Without actually saying 250, I said from 2 to 3.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  I think, I guess I'm just thinking of all the hair, you know?

• 57:54Speaker 04

  They're very fluffy.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:56Steven Rinella?

  Okay, and then, um, they don't den, or do they den?

• 58:01Speaker 04

  They don't hibernate, so they, they, it's, you know, even as the results are out there, they are really questioning whether the panda are a bear, because they can tell as they're kind of tracking them through the woods that these are not animals that would hibernate.

• 58:15Steven Rinella?

  Okay, and then what's their sort of, uh, do they spend a lot of time with their cubs like a normal, like other bears species?

• 58:21Speaker 04

  They do. They spend a long time with their cubs, but after that, they're very solitary animals, so they do not spend time with each other. They kind of have their own territories.

• 58:31Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  And they end up communicating with each other through, um, through scratches on the bamboo and then through rubbing their glands on the scratches. And so, a female will learn of a male that she is going to possibly mate with through that smell. It's, it's really a main way that they communicate with each other. And when you think about it, they don't really have a lot of other ways to communicate because they don't have a lot of expression in their faces, like other bears, um, and they are so isolated that really it's only through that, those scratches, through that rubbing, they get to know each other.

• 59:06Steven Rinella?

  Do they have any vocalizations? I'm sorry, Corinne, go ahead.

• 59:08Speaker 05

  Oh, just when you say the scratching, is that a visual thing? Like they, they leave a sign and then?

• 59:14Speaker 04

  Well, it's mostly how they rub their glands on the scratches.

• 59:17Speaker 05

  Oh, I see, got it, got it. So it's more of a scent thing and not a visual sign?

• 59:20Speaker 04

  Yes, it's scent. It's absolutely scent.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  That's amazing if they're like, oh, look, the sign of, you know?

• 59:25Steven Rinella?

  But I wouldn't be surprised by that because bears use scratch trees, you know? Like prominent, like prominent trees or trees like, you know, like whatever, two canyons come together, prominent travel ways, they'll mark. They'll physically mark trees and they rub it too, you know? Huh, and then, any kind of calls they make?

• 59:43Speaker 04

  They don't. They don't make, they're very quiet.

• 59:45Steven Rinella?

  They don't go, "Brrrr."

• 59:48Speaker 04

  Unfortunately, no.

• 59:48Steven Rinella?

  And even like as chill.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  Even if they did vocalize, it probably wouldn't sound, it'd be like meh.

• 59:54Speaker 04

  Something really cute.

• 59:56Steven Rinella?

  Now, as chill as they are, as chill as they are, do the males, will the males throw down like over a female?

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  It has not been observed in the wild whatsoever.

• 1:00:08Steven Rinella?

  Always chill.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  Very chill.

• 1:00:10Steven Rinella?

  Like they're doped up.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  They look like that, yeah.

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, so the Roosevelts end up describing them as a gentleman. That's how they put it. They're gentlemanly.

• 1:00:23Steven Rinella?

  But do they, okay, if you roll up on a pamp, okay, it's isolated, and what elevation are we talking about? Like where are they at in the Himalaya? How high?

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  So they had been at these very high peaks, but now they've come down, they've come down below the Tibetan Plateau. So we're no longer at these snowy high peaks.

• 1:00:42Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so that was, they were up there because of they needed to travel through the area. They weren't, they weren't searching.

• 1:00:49Speaker 04

  I mean, they were still searching because they weren't sure where the panda was.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  I mean, they have like no idea where to look.

• 1:00:54Steven Rinella?

  I see.

• 1:00:54Speaker 03

  That's, that's what I thought was really fascinating about the whole arc of the journey. Is the journey's never really going anywhere. I mean, they're, they're, they're just sort of clueless the whole time.

• 1:01:05Steven Rinella?

  I know guys like that. I know guys that hunt like that.

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  I mean, I've been guilty of it myself, but you never like get the sense like, okay, now we're on the trail. Now we're getting warm. Now we're getting warmer. It's like they just, all of a sudden, these guys take them out and it's like.

• 1:01:18Steven Rinella?

  It's like, oh, here's where they live.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:21Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:01:22Speaker 04

  There's so much desperation and desire in this hunt. You can really feel it when you read through their journals. They want it so much.

• 1:01:28Speaker 03

  And the clock is ticking.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  And the clock is absolutely ticking.

• 1:01:31Steven Rinella?

  And where they are is, so obviously it's a bunch, it's a bamboo forest, but it's like rugged, steep country.

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:01:37Steven Rinella?

  Mountainous country.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's mountainous. So it's not high Himalayas peaks, but it is, it's very difficult to hike through.

• 1:01:43Steven Rinella?

  Yep, yep. And so when these guys take them out to look, they take them to like some spots they've run into them. But there's not like herds of pandas.

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  No, there are no herds of pandas.

• 1:01:54Steven Rinella?

  You're looking for onesies.

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you, we can imagine that at the moment when they finally see a bear print in the snow.

• 1:02:02Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it's in the snow?

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's very exciting when that happens. Um, and it's a, it's a really big moment in the book and it's a big moment for them because they are so excited. The Roosevelts are like, finally, we're doing this, we're going to get this panda. And all of the hunters around them are like, oh no, I don't want to go, I'm not doing this, we can't keep going. And they have to convince. Cause they don't want to kill a panda.

• 1:02:25Speaker 03

  They didn't think they'd find one.

• 1:02:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Steven Rinella?

  Hold on, Randall, how are you contradicting the author?

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Oh, no, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  No, Randall's right, he knows.

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  No, no, this is what, what you were saying earlier, like the, the, the, the ye.

• 1:02:37Steven Rinella?

  Randall's like, I'll tell you what, I put my panda in my panda book.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I, I saw this, I saw this book whenever it was announced in, in January or December and I, I pre-ordered it because it has everything that I enjoy, just expeditions, uh, Roosevelts, uh, mountains and, uh.

• 1:02:57Steven Rinella?

  Bears.

• 1:02:58Speaker 03

  And yeah, I'm a big zoo guy, so pandas are objects of incredible fascination for me.

• 1:03:02Steven Rinella?

  You're a big zoo guy?

• 1:03:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I thought we talked about this.

• 1:03:05Steven Rinella?

  No, we didn't. I know you're a big estate sale guy. Randall's really into estate sales.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Sorry, I've, I've, I've got a, yeah. Got a, I'm very, I'm a Renaissance man.

• 1:03:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, he's into a lot of stuff.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  But no, I, I didn't mean to interrupt.

• 1:03:18Steven Rinella?

  I knew about the estate sales, but I didn't know about the pandas.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  Well, you never know what trinkets you're gonna find.

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at a zoo this weekend, it was great.

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  There's a lot of shelving in the book, actually.

• 1:03:27Steven Rinella?

  So, they hit a track. I like this that it's in the snow.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Steven Rinella?

  But, um, where a panda lives, what's the deepest snow a panda could deal with? I mean, are they sometimes in, in serious snow or is it more?

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yes, absolutely.

• 1:03:43Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:03:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, they can get, so at this point, you know, we're getting into spring, so it's sort of, it's rain, it's snow, at this point it happens to be snow, which is very lucky because they're able to find the tracks. And in fact, the whole time they're following these tracks, the sun starts coming out and they're very anxious that the trail is just going to disappear.

• 1:04:02Steven Rinella?

  I got you. So, uh, but in peak winter, a panda is not hibernating, but is hanging out in potentially serious snow.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  Isn't that interesting?

• 1:04:13Steven Rinella?

  Eating his bamboo.

• 1:04:15Speaker 04

  Constantly eating.

• 1:04:16Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Now, to get back to my question, and maybe you're both.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  I'll stay out of it.

• 1:04:20Steven Rinella?

  No, no, I want to hear your take. Maybe you're both right. They see the track, but then some of their guides start getting, they're conflicted, or they get reluctant.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:31Steven Rinella?

  Randall says it's because they, what, what did he say? They want to go home?

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  No, they, they, I mean, my understanding is that they agreed to take the Roosevelts out thinking that they would not actually have to go through with the thing.

• 1:04:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  They're like, we'll just march these guys around for a couple of days, collect our paychecks, and then these guys will go, because like, there's no chance we're actually going to hit a track.

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  My co-author is right.

• 1:04:55Speaker 03

  So when they hit a track, they're like, oh, maybe we.

• 1:04:59Steven Rinella?

  All right, yeah. See, they're like, they're like.

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  I read the book.

• 1:05:02Steven Rinella?

  They're like, we shouldn't have taken them to where they actually are.

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a lot of regret, and so not all of them continue.

• 1:05:08Steven Rinella?

  Weird call, because they could have just totally BS them.

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Steven Rinella?

  You know, like the Coronado expedition, they get these guides who deliberately, like, they're trying to find these Native American settlements. And they get these guides who are like, I'm not taking you there. And then they'll just tell them some total horse shit and take them somewhere else, because they're trying to protect other Native Americans.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:05:31Steven Rinella?

  So like, oh, you want to go to where the main settlement is? Oh, it's over that way, you know, and they'll go for days. One of these guys, they actually kill him, once they realize he's leading them on.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Steven Rinella?

  So it's surprising that these guides, as conflicted as they are, they actually go to the spot.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  It is surprising, but I think that just goes to show how rare pandas are, that they did not think they would find one, even looking in the right place.

• 1:05:54Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Yeah. So they cut a track.

• 1:05:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:05:58Steven Rinella?

  And, uh, what, they, they trail it.

• 1:06:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, they start following it, and they start seeing bits of broken bamboo as they go, so they know they're on the right place.

• 1:06:07Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 04

  Immediately, some hunting dogs begin to howl, and the Roosevelts are very upset. Hunting dogs are something that they have never liked to use, they've never even allowed it for most of this expedition. They did it this one day, just to kind of keep people happy, and, uh, they're just beside themselves. They end up dividing, where Ted goes on one trail and Kermit goes on another. Um, and so Kermit is now.

• 1:06:32Steven Rinella?

  Can you back up to the hunting dog issue?

• 1:06:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Steven Rinella?

  What don't they like about it? They feel it's counterproductive?

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  They're, yes, they believe that it's just going to scare away the game they're tracking.

• 1:06:42Steven Rinella?

  It's gonna stir everything.

• 1:06:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's been a problem throughout the expedition. And it, you know, it's really interesting because for a lot of these scientific expeditions, the hunters that got the game were not the scientists. They were local hunters that were used to get these animals. But the Roosevelts do not believe in that. They believe that they're the ones that should be getting these animals. And I mean, that really makes sense.

• 1:07:04Steven Rinella?

  They're the ones that pull the trigger.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're the ones that will really want to do the work.

• 1:07:08Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Speaker 04

  Um, and so hunting dogs have been this issue. But they wanted to keep these ye hunters happy because they know they don't even really want to be there. And they kind of had to convince them to keep going even through pretty bad conditions.

• 1:07:20Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:07:20Speaker 04

  And so they were letting these dogs go so that they could hunt some pigs for food later.

• 1:07:24Steven Rinella?

  Oh, so they got dogs out for different reasons?

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Steven Rinella?

  I, oh, so, uh, that makes more sense.

• 1:07:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:29Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so they're like, hey, they're here, they want to hunt, they want pigs, they want to eat.

• 1:07:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:34Steven Rinella?

  So they're gonna cut their dogs loose.

• 1:07:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:07:36Steven Rinella?

  And then these dogs are raising hell in the panda zone.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  The worst timing ever. Yeah, it could not be worse.

• 1:07:41Steven Rinella?

  Understood.

• 1:07:42Speaker 04

  Finally, Kermit gets through the bamboo and they get to this magnificent dragon spruce tree. Dark green needles, it's just beautiful. And Kermit sees the panda stick its head out of the tree.

• 1:07:56Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 1:07:57Speaker 04

  And it's...

• 1:07:58Steven Rinella?

  It's up in the tree.

• 1:07:59Speaker 04

  It's up in the tree. Yes, it's in a hole in the tree. It's not too far off the ground and it's kind of looks sleepy. And he immediately says, go get my brother. Because they have made this plan from the beginning that when they see a panda, they're going to shoot it simultaneously so that they both get the credit.

• 1:08:17Steven Rinella?

  Oh my god, really?

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  I know, it's very, it's kind of ridiculous and many people...

• 1:08:22Steven Rinella?

  It's like having little kids around.

• 1:08:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  It kind of is, and I think part of this is that...

• 1:08:29Steven Rinella?

  It's so infantile.

• 1:08:35Steven Rinella?

  Good lord.

• 1:08:36Speaker 04

  But it's kind of adorable.

• 1:08:37Steven Rinella?

  No, it's not adorable.

• 1:08:38Speaker 04

  That's adorable? I want to be daddy's favorite.

• 1:08:43Steven Rinella?

  You always get to shoot everything Kermit.

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  That's a good crack voice.

• 1:08:47Steven Rinella?

  Phil, thank you.

• 1:08:50Steven Rinella?

  I like the idea. Shoot everything.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  It's like, it could be like a firing squad where one of them is a blank and one of them has a natural live round.

• 1:08:56Steven Rinella?

  If you had told me, if you had told me that, that neither of them, uh, wanted to have the guilt of killing the panda, and so they had a plan like you're saying, where there's a blank and a live round, you know, and then so they never really know who killed the panda, but that they both want to be the guy that got to say they shot it.

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  No, there's no guilt at this point because they don't know what the panda's like. They're, they think they're going to shoot at this panda and it's going to attack them.

• 1:09:23Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:25Steven Rinella?

  Okay, that reason.

• 1:09:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, you gotta get two bullets in it.

• 1:09:28Steven Rinella?

  They're like, they're so afraid, they want to make sure it goes down, they want to make sure that it's a human, there's a hundred ways they could have spun this, but to spin it that they wanted to both be able to say they got it, it's just like.

• 1:09:41Steven Rinella?

  It's kind of pathetic.

• 1:09:44Speaker 04

  Well, interestingly though, Teddy Roosevelt would often take turns on his expedition and he would get annoyed if people didn't take turns shooting animals because he felt it was only fair, everyone should get a fair chance at taking these shots.

• 1:09:58Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:09:59Speaker 04

  So it might be part of that.

• 1:10:00Steven Rinella?

  So it's dended up in a tree?

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Steven Rinella?

  And then, is it dended up in a tree because the dogs have baited it up?

• 1:10:06Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:10:06Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  Not at all.

• 1:10:07Steven Rinella?

  So they track it, just they happen to just find it?

• 1:10:09Speaker 04

  They happen to find it.

• 1:10:10Steven Rinella?

  And there it is all doped up in a tree?

• 1:10:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:10:12Steven Rinella?

  They, they feel that it's lethargic?

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:10:14Steven Rinella?

  Cause they're not knowing, they're, they're like expecting ferocity.

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're expecting ferocity, absolutely. And so Ted comes, they get out their Smithfield rifles and they-

• 1:10:23Steven Rinella?

  I mean, they gotta be excited as hell.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, they're very excited. They've been waiting for this moment for months. They've tracked very long to get there. And so finally Ted gets there, they get their rifles, and they've selected these Smithfield rifles because they're light, they're easy to carry, and it's one that Kermit used in Africa when he was hunting elephants. And so they fire at the bear and they are very fortunate in that it's coming out of the tree and so they're able to get a shot on it. And then they then then they trail it and then finally are able to track it down and kill the panda. But it's not at all what they expect. This is not a bear that immediately turns on them and is trying to attack. It is clear right from the beginning that the hunters they're going with are right.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  This is a gentle animal. This is not a polar bear. This is not a grizzly bear. This is something very different. And pretty soon after, we see they begin to show regret in their journals. They talk about how this bear is a gentleman, that this is not an animal that should become a trophy animal. But that's exactly what happens. And and what's also interesting-

• 1:11:33Steven Rinella?

  Was there any conflict in with them to be that?

• 1:11:38Steven Rinella?

  I guess in this in this collection era, there's no sort of on one hand, we should observe it. On the other hand, we should collect it like in their mind, like collection is paramount.

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  Collection is paramount because there is no-

• 1:11:51Steven Rinella?

  Like that's the objective.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  -full specimen in a museum. So they need to do both. And at this point, they've been able to collect some information about the panda and they're going to get more after they hunt it. But certainly getting the specimen is the most important thing for the museum.

• 1:12:07Steven Rinella?

  Do the guys, do the, what is the guides, when they kill it? What like what is the guides' attitude? Do the guides are like, hey, let's cook it up? Or like, what is their sort of demeanor about the whole thing?

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  At first, they do not even want to let the panda back into the village because they feel like this is such a horrible thing that's happened. They don't want it to take the village. And it's only when they realize that Kermit and Ted will have to prepare the animal in the mud and the snow that they let it come into the village at all. And this is the only animal of the many, many they hunted on the trail that Ted and Kermit do not eat. I'm sorry, kind of a tough thing for this podcast, isn't it? I'm sure you're wondering what panda tastes like and I can't help you.

• 1:12:50Steven Rinella?

  Cause they felt bad about it.

• 1:12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, they felt bad about it.

• 1:12:52Steven Rinella?

  And the guides- So their taboo system too, like the guides are not gonna partake.

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  They do not. No, and in fact, the leader of the village ends up buying a goat for everyone to feast with that night. Um, but you can imagine how it must have felt for Ted and Kermit to be preparing this animal with an audience of people around them. That just are absolutely horrified by what they do. I mean, they really see Ted and Kermit as the savages in this situation. Because here they are, having to go through skinning this animal. They're making diagrams of every muscle, every bone. And then, of course, the preparation for the hide, it's pretty intense for anyone to watch.

• 1:13:34Speaker 04

  But you can imagine how the Yi people must have felt watching this happen to an animal that they felt was sacred and gentle, that they didn't hunt.

• 1:13:43Steven Rinella?

  Trying to think of a parallel.

• 1:13:47Steven Rinella?

  I don't know.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  For us?

• 1:13:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it'd be like if nowadays, like if nowadays someone's like, I need to get a bald eagle.

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  A golden retriever.

• 1:13:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, something that would just be like the people are like, man, I don't even want to be nothing to do with this, man. Yeah, it's hard to think of a parallel. I'm sure there's some.

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  I think, I think a dog, maybe. I don't know. I mean, you just don't want, don't even wanna see it.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  I mean, you can't imagine anyone doing this to a panda today, right? Nobody would do this. Um, but immediately after the Roosevelt Expedition, as soon as people learn that they have been successful and where the pandas are. Suddenly, this is the hunting trophy to get. All of these expeditions.

• 1:14:31Steven Rinella?

  Among who?

• 1:14:32Speaker 04

  Among big game hunters in the US.

• 1:14:37Steven Rinella?

  I didn't know that.

• 1:14:38Speaker 05

  You can't see that happening?

• 1:14:40Steven Rinella?

  Well, I could see, I could, I could see it happening if they came, if they had come back with a different approach. If they came back like, no, no, it's like, uh. It's like it eats bamboo. It's real chill. The local people think you're horrible if you mess with it. You're not a he. It's not like there's no like sort of like hero function.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  But nobody's listening to that.

• 1:15:01Steven Rinella?

  Where the herders are glad.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Steven Rinella?

  You know, the herders are like celebrating that you've gotten rid of this thing that that gives them pain.

• 1:15:09Speaker 05

  It's like rare animal.

• 1:15:10Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, just like, yeah, it's a little surprising.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  It's been so many decades of trying to find this animal, of trying to show that it's real, that as soon as there's evidence, yes, it's real and this is where you can find it. It's immediate. Hunters want to go and get this animal. And in addition, you have a number of Americans that want to go and capture live pandas for zoos in the US.

• 1:15:32Steven Rinella?

  That makes sense. But I'm curious what the ye people think of this trend, but let's back up a minute. So they get their specimen.

• 1:15:43Steven Rinella?

  Do they go on to have more interactions? Are they able to find more animals, different demographics, or is it or is it kind of a one and done?

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  They're only able to find that one animal.

• 1:15:54Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  That's it. But they are able to spend some time in the area and sort of document exactly what diet the panda has, what its territory is. And then, of course, they spend a long time being able to prepare the hide, take the bones. They need every part they can.

• 1:16:11Steven Rinella?

  But they don't lay eyes on another one.

• 1:16:13Speaker 04

  They do not. Just the one.

• 1:16:14Steven Rinella?

  God, it's hard to believe, man. Huh.

• 1:16:19Steven Rinella?

  That's it.

• 1:16:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. There you go.

• 1:16:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So it's just hard to think of other things that you'd go that are other like at other species that you'd go and like really find one and then spend time in the area and have it not be that you got into like a pocket of them.

• 1:16:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:39Steven Rinella?

  Or whatever, right? You know what I mean?

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  No, that's it.

• 1:16:41Steven Rinella?

  If you went and found a gorilla, you're going to find a troop, you know, or whatever. But yeah, just you'd come, get one, hang around and just that was it. Just some loner.

• 1:16:50Speaker 04

  That was it. Yeah. And it makes sense when we understand panda biology today because they are so isolated. And of course, Ted and Kermit received many offers to go back and hunt panda again. I mean, they were successful. Yes, with recreational hunters and even with museums because, you know. Chicago wasn't going to be the only one. Every museum wanted to have their own group of pandas to show. But they refused. They would not go back. They would not hunt panda again. And in fact, their lives took a very different turn after the panda hunt.

• 1:17:25Steven Rinella?

  I want you to tell that because I want you to get to how the one of them kills himself. The other guy died young, too.

• 1:17:30Speaker 04

  He did, yeah.

• 1:17:31Steven Rinella?

  But with the Yi people you spoke about, do they

• 1:17:40Steven Rinella?

  this core, this habitat area, this area they're at, is it sort of like uncontested that that is their homeland? That they are the governing, like the Yi people? Is it like that they are the governing body there?

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  Absolutely, at that time, yes.

• 1:17:55Steven Rinella?

  So if, when they come back and all of a sudden it creates kind of a gold rush where people want to go collect this, you know, like a hunter collector who's not affiliated with a museum, wants one for his personal collection. Is it even possible that you would do it outside of outside of the authority of these people? Do you mean like that you could just kind of go to this area and hang out and shoot this thing? They don't want to get shot and not need to worry about what they're, how they're going to react to that?

• 1:18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a good question because there is a lot of angst, even when the Roosevelts are there, about what they're doing.

• 1:18:33Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:34Speaker 04

  But there are no laws. And so you can imagine that it's not that difficult for these hunters and for people who are looking to collect pandas to come in with the right bribes, be able to find people that will help them.

• 1:18:46Steven Rinella?

  I got it, yeah. Like some outcast or whatever is like, yeah, I'll do it.

• 1:18:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Steven Rinella?

  I'll do it for the right amount of money.

• 1:18:52Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:18:53Steven Rinella?

  I see. How many, how many, can you even take a guess, like in the next couple of decades or whatever? How many pandas enter private collections in the US or private collections anywhere?

• 1:19:05Speaker 04

  It's hard for me to assess exactly what that number is.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  Certainly for museum collections, we know that there are dozens that came back for museums and that museums were really intent on getting as many animals of as many different ages as they could. And part of that is because the exhibits themselves were popular, but also because they wanted to do comparative biology to be able to really look at what the history of the panda was and how it fit in with other bears. And certainly, the track record for bringing live animals to zoos in the United States is just atrocious during that era. You have all of these cubs that were brought back and none of them survived very long because people just didn't know how to take care of them.

• 1:19:49Steven Rinella?

  How to care for them. Presumably, the way to get the cubs is they'd go and just shoot a female and take the cubs?

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  Yes, absolutely. Which then provided the benefit of also getting a skin that you could bring back. And they needed the cubs because that's really the only way you could smuggle it back to the US. They were, you know, bringing this through the Chinese government, but not declaring that they actually had pandas.

• 1:20:12Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so they're, even though they're in Tibet and there's like hostilities between the Tibetans and China, the kind of flow winds up being through...

• 1:20:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:20:23Steven Rinella?

  The flow winds up being like a Chinese market?

• 1:20:26Speaker 04

  Yes, because they have to, as they take a boat back home, they have to do so through China.

• 1:20:32Steven Rinella?

  And what is the, if, if there's like a little bit of a taboo with the people that live there, if you get down into mainland, if you get down that mainland, if you get down into like places where there's Chinese authority, what is the attitude there to the panda? Because now it's funny that, it's funny that our perception is that it's this symbol of China. You know, like, like you get up to like Nixon and he like negotiates for it, right? And they bring this panda for the thing.

• 1:21:04Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:21:04Steven Rinella?

  It's like a symbol of China, but at that time, it would have been a symbol of Tibet.

• 1:21:09Speaker 04

  At the time, it was just this brand new animal that had been described for many people.

• 1:21:14Steven Rinella?

  A symbol of no one or whatever.

• 1:21:16Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:21:16Steven Rinella?

  I got you. It wasn't like a national, it wasn't like a, like a point of national pride.

• 1:21:20Speaker 04

  It was not yet. So it's, it's interesting how that came to be. I mean, it's weird to think of the Roosevelts as being part of creating that, isn't it? Um, but certainly China had some regulations about what animals you could take. And while there weren't any laws about panda cubs yet, um, the people that were smuggling the panda cubs out were declaring them as dogs that they were taking home.

• 1:21:43Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:45Steven Rinella?

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• 1:22:30Steven Rinella?

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• 1:23:12Steven Rinella?

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• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  And it's fascinating too, to just think about. So their expedition is in 1930,

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

  28 to 29.

• 1:23:52Speaker 03

  28 to 29. And when you're talking about Nixon, I mean, that's just a couple of decades later. Like that's gripped the imagination is like, this is China's, I mean, I think a lot of Americans would just assume that panda is China's national animal. And it's like, if you were to go back in Chinese history, you'd see documentation of this, but it's, it's so recent.

• 1:24:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's 40, yeah. In 40 years, it became the like, it became like sort of the mascot of, of normalizing relations with China. And they didn't even, in 1930, they didn't know about them. And in 1970, it's like, look, China, it's a panda bear. Yeah, like it really blew up.

• 1:24:31Speaker 04

  It really did. As soon as the Roosevelts come back and people can see this exhibit for themselves, there is this pandemonium. People get really excited.

• 1:24:40Steven Rinella?

  Did you make that up or is that been made up before?

• 1:24:42Speaker 04

  I wish.

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  Big panda probably came up with that a long time ago.

• 1:24:48Steven Rinella?

  It's kind of amazing, man.

• 1:24:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. People were so excited about this animal. They really didn't even know existed before. And how could you not? Pandas are very cute.

• 1:24:58Steven Rinella?

  And it's that little rush, because here's the other thing is, is um, I know there were never many, but that little flurry of activity must have a, from a conservation perspective, it must be pretty destructive pretty immediately.

• 1:25:12Speaker 04

  Yes, immediately.

• 1:25:14Steven Rinella?

  Cause they're, they're so rare anyways. And now you're whittling away at something that's, that lives at such low abundance.

• 1:25:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's why Ted and Kermit became so passionate about protecting pandas afterwards is because they knew how rare these bears really were.

• 1:25:28Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. If there's only 2,000 of them in like, 200 museums want one and a few hundred collectors want one, you're talking, you're like, you're removing a significant percentage of the global population.

• 1:25:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, so it's for them, it became very disturbing what happened. They did not expect that it would blow up quite so big and that you would have so many people going out to kill pandas and to steal cubs. And so that's why they ended up making some big changes, especially with Kermit. You see him taking these roles in leadership in wildlife conservation that, you know, obviously, Teddy Roosevelt is such a leader in conservation and what he did. So certainly the brothers were following in his footsteps. But you see Kermit doing some interesting things. For instance, he went on an expedition to the Galapagos where instead of going out and

• 1:26:22Speaker 04

  taking animals as they had before, they now were trying to study them, create a breeding program for Galapagos tortoises. So he really changes his perspective of how he goes out and does expeditions from them then on. It's no longer the same. And in addition, he ends up becoming very passionate about creating laws to protect pandas. So he becomes Vice President with the New York Zoological Society and then becomes President of the Audubon Society, where he works very closely with Chinese officials to create laws to protect pandas. And we see even Ted as well becomes pretty upset with what's happened.

• 1:27:05Speaker 04

  It's just, it becomes so atrocious how many cubs are being stolen from China and that die shortly after.

• 1:27:12Steven Rinella?

  You know, in our world, you know what they call this? Spot burning.

• 1:27:17Steven Rinella?

  He's a spot burner.

• 1:27:19Speaker 03

  Well, I sort of had the thought when they're talking about the Yi people coming out, it's like your buddy wants to go hunting with you and he really wants you to take him to one of your spots and you go to one of the bad spots and then a big buck walks up and you're like, oh, this really wasn't how I imagined this happening.

• 1:27:33Steven Rinella?

  We should really turn around and go back.

• 1:27:37Steven Rinella?

  He has, he has the guilt, he comes in the conservation movement, but what, what age are these guys, when they do the, what age are they in 1930 and what, how long do they live? The brothers?

• 1:27:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, so they are in their 40s during this expedition and then they both died during World War II. So Ted was 56 years old when he was the only general to land with the first wave of troops on D-Day in Normandy and he's very famous for getting up on that beach and saying, we'll start the war right from here. He was this, this real hero of that moment. Many people did not think that he would survive that day and he was hiding a heart condition. And so he ends up dying just a few days later from that.

• 1:28:24Steven Rinella?

  Hold on, he lands on day one, D-Day?

• 1:28:28Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:28:29Steven Rinella?

  Dies of a heart condition a couple of days later.

• 1:28:32Speaker 03

  At 50 something years old.

• 1:28:33Speaker 04

  56, yeah. And receives the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions on D-Day.

• 1:28:40Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:28:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:42Steven Rinella?

  Oh shit, I didn't know that.

• 1:28:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, both brothers served in both World War I and World War II and both got involved in World War II very early before the US got involved.

• 1:28:52Steven Rinella?

  Well, how, okay, how is he, at the time of this expedition, he's not in the military?

• 1:28:58Speaker 04

  No, he's not. Yeah.

• 1:29:00Steven Rinella?

  So he enrolls somehow in his 40s, advances to a generalship?

• 1:29:05Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, he had, you know, a few connections to get there.

• 1:29:09Speaker 03

  It's a different model of military.

• 1:29:11Steven Rinella?

  He's in the command position?

• 1:29:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:15Steven Rinella?

  By 1944?

• 1:29:17Speaker 04

  Yes, he is. Yeah. I mean, he had also served in World War I and so he was certainly.

• 1:29:25Steven Rinella?

  This was kind of sandwiched between the two experiences.

• 1:29:28Speaker 04

  Yes, and he was, he had a big role in Operation Torch, so he had, he did have quite a few years of leadership during World War II before he died.

• 1:29:36Steven Rinella?

  Dies of a heart condition?

• 1:29:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, he'd been hiding it from his doctors, he didn't want anyone to know.

• 1:29:42Steven Rinella?

  Cause he thought he would, they'd pull him from service?

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly.

• 1:29:46Steven Rinella?

  You'd almost think that he'd been pulled from doing anything risky, just from a PR standpoint? Do you know what I mean?

• 1:29:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:53Steven Rinella?

  Like, there'd be like a high profile, right? Like a high profile fatality that, that the army wouldn't want?

• 1:30:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you might-

• 1:30:02Steven Rinella?

  That the army might not want in some way, you know?

• 1:30:05Speaker 04

  I can, I can see why you would think that, but the Roosevelts were certainly very passionate about serving in the military. It was really part of their, their heritage and, you know, even during World War I, you have their younger brother Quentin who died.

• 1:30:18Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So the one dies from a heart condition.

• 1:30:21Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:22Steven Rinella?

  Toward the end of World War II.

• 1:30:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:30:24Steven Rinella?

  And then, and then, and then the other brother, what comes to him?

• 1:30:26Speaker 04

  So he had died earlier in 1943, so he was also involved in World War II. He'd served in, in several different places in the Middle East and in Europe. Um, but he was struggling. He had become an alcoholic.

• 1:30:41Steven Rinella?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  And he was not receiving great treatment for that. And so they sent him, um, to a fort in Alaska, Fort Richardson.

• 1:30:49Steven Rinella?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:30:49Speaker 04

  And he ended up killing himself there.

• 1:30:51Steven Rinella?

  That's where?

• 1:30:53Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:30:54Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:30:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was talking to a buddy of his and he, he said, you know, this buddy was like, oh, you know, what are you doing tonight? And they were chatting a little bit and his buddy said, oh, I'm gonna go to sleep. And Kermit says, I wish I could sleep.

• 1:31:09Steven Rinella?

  Why, he killed himself in Fort Richardson, Alaska?

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Yes, he did. Yeah, it's a, it's such a sad story, you know?

• 1:31:16Steven Rinella?

  How'd he kill himself?

• 1:31:17Speaker 04

  He, gunshot.

• 1:31:20Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what kind of gun?

• 1:31:22Speaker 04

  I don't, I'm sorry.

• 1:31:25Steven Rinella?

  Where did he shoot himself, you know?

• 1:31:26Speaker 04

  I know it was in the head.

• 1:31:27Steven Rinella?

  It was?

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Steven Rinella?

  Son of a bitch in Fort Richardson, Alaska? Dude, I had no idea. This is like such a huge blank spot for me, man. You know? Like these two, the pandas, it's like somehow I just have missed all this, like-

• 1:31:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's an interesting little bit of history.

• 1:31:46Steven Rinella?

  These brothers, you know what I mean?

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  They haven't been written about much and I, I do feel like it's important to give these brothers their due.

• 1:31:52Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 1:31:52Speaker 04

  Because they, they really did, they, you know, they really furthered their father's, their father's mission of combining conservation and hunting. It was something they were very passionate about. Um, and the expedition was incredibly successful at the time. Um, and certainly the after effects were not what they expected. The consequences are not what they thought would happen. Um, but what you really see is both brothers who, who felt passionate about protecting the panda and were always, always cared about conservation.

• 1:32:23Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. What year did their, uh, what year did their old man die?

• 1:32:26Speaker 04

  He died in 1919.

• 1:32:28Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:32:31Steven Rinella?

  And they were what age then?

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  So let me think about that. Yeah, they would have been. They were both in World War I when they received a telegram that said the old lion has died was how the telegram put it to let him know their dad had died.

• 1:32:45Steven Rinella?

  And they had to be like, that must be referring to our father.

• 1:32:49Steven Rinella?

  I have a terrible feeling this refers to our father, but I can't confirm.

• 1:32:55Steven Rinella?

  The old lion.

• 1:32:56Speaker 03

  I'm trying to make a joke about that in the the bear hunt game that they played, but.

• 1:33:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, be like, dude, are they talking about dad?

• 1:33:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:07Steven Rinella?

  If so, that's terrible. The old lion.

• 1:33:10Speaker 03

  I didn't realize dad got a lion.

• 1:33:13Speaker 04

  They had known it was coming. He was definitely weaker ever since the River of Dow that just weakened him and he was never the same after that expedition.

• 1:33:20Speaker 03

  And he must have been seventy something then.

• 1:33:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, he was getting up there.

• 1:33:25Steven Rinella?

  Wow, what a.

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  Fifties.

• 1:33:27Steven Rinella?

  Now, what did these brothers, did these brothers have kids?

• 1:33:31Speaker 04

  They did. Yeah. And actually, I've been in in contact with a number of members of the family now.

• 1:33:36Steven Rinella?

  Like, did one of the kids?

• 1:33:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, they all have the same name. They're all Ted. They're all Kermit. They're all Eleanor. Just the same names over and over again. But it's it's been interesting to talk to family members today because they still have photographs and artifacts from this trip.

• 1:33:52Steven Rinella?

  Is that right?

• 1:33:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 1:33:54Steven Rinella?

  Man, what a wild story. Yeah, I just can't believe how, um,

• 1:33:59Steven Rinella?

  you know, like, like Theodore Roosevelt, he's inescapable.

• 1:34:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:05Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? All the exploits and the timelines. And then just like these boys, it's just, uh,

• 1:34:12Steven Rinella?

  I just hadn't like heard about this stuff.

• 1:34:15Speaker 03

  One of the sort of strange things that occurred to me when I was doing my, um, When I was in grad school, because the, all the Boone and Crockett Club records are at the University of Montana. So I, I was reading a little bit about the Boone and Crockett Club in the post-war era. And I mean, there's like a real crisis of confidence, it seems, just when you're reading things, because all of the, the founding generation dies in, you know, like in the teens and twenties and thirties, and then they have these sons. And there's a lot of, a lot of members of the club are sons, like Charles Sheldon, Charles Sheldon's son, Billy Sheldon. It's like sons carrying on their father's

• 1:34:57Speaker 03

  legacies and also wondering how they push things forward and make, make names for themselves. And, and, yeah, it's really fascinating when you think about, so we, I feel like oftentimes we think about conservation especially as like these moments. Yeah. Like there's this moment of the Boone and Crockett Club and the sort of progressive movement, this early conservation model, and then there's this, you know, like the 1930s, right, or 1920s, 1930s, when you have, like, but there's continuity between all those. And as we know today, just from people that we interact with, like in the conservation world, like, it often is a family tradition. And, uh, yeah, like this filled in a lot

• 1:35:42Speaker 03

  of blank spots for me, because, like, you hear about Teddy Junior and Kermit, but you, it's really, I've never had someone sort of put a face on them for me. So it was really, that's what I found really fascinating.

• 1:35:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're interesting men. And it's, it's just fascinating to me, the friendships they continued after the expedition, and how they supported Jack and his dreams. He wanted to become a scientist. He wanted to do an expedition of his own. And they both helped to fund that. And it's, you know, it just, they, they were very different than I expected them to be. And that's always fun, when you find a story in history like this.

• 1:36:20Steven Rinella?

  Have you ever personally been able to see a panda on native ground in native range?

• 1:36:24Speaker 04

  I wish. Yeah, it's not easy to do. You know, even if you you go to China and you go to one of the research reserves, you're really seeing them in an artificial environment compared to what it's like to see them in the wild. And I I spoke with several different panda researchers for this book, and they told me the most difficult part of doing this research is finding a panda, even today, even with all the technology we have, even with the tagging we have. You know, we don't have to go out and and shoot animals as much these days. We have other other ways that I'm sure future historians and scientists will find barbaric and, you know, if I say, oh, we use tranquilizer guns and took genetic samples.

• 1:37:08Steven Rinella?

  Put drugs in them.

• 1:37:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm sure it'll be judged in decades to come. But it's incredible to me how difficult it is even today for these researchers to go out and find panda in the wild.

• 1:37:20Steven Rinella?

  How many are in the wild now?

• 1:37:22Speaker 04

  It's interesting because today there are about 2,000.

• 1:37:26Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:37:26Speaker 04

  But that is coming back from a low of 1,000 in the 1970s.

• 1:37:32Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:37:32Speaker 04

  So there was there was a time period where it was really difficult for pandas, and it's it's really thanks to sort of that continuity that you're talking about, about these protections that have been given to them to to protect their habitats, which have just become more fragmented now. And it's what's what's fascinating is that the protections that have been given to pandas are also helping other species in China.

• 1:37:57Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. I would have, like I said earlier, when I was surprised that there was only 2,000, somehow in my head I had the bottleneck being much tighter.

• 1:38:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Steven Rinella?

  So they went through a 50% decline.

• 1:38:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's pretty big.

• 1:38:10Steven Rinella?

  Well, it is because the peer numbers are so low.

• 1:38:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:13Steven Rinella?

  But like you normally, normally these imperiled species, the bottleneck is much tighter than a 50% reduction, but you're usually talking about like a million animals.

• 1:38:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but to take, you only got 2,000, you whittle it down to 1,000. I just would have, if you'd said at one point there was 40 of them, you know, I'd have been like, that sounds like my perception, my completely uneducated, ignorant idea of what happened, I would have guessed it was less.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  Oh, it's nice I can make up numbers here like that.

• 1:38:41Steven Rinella?

  It's just funny to me because they're, you know, it's when you're when you're a little kid.

• 1:38:47Speaker 03

  In the eighties or early nineties and you like hear about endangered animals, right? Like the pandas, one of the poster children for that, but I've, you know, spent most of my life thinking about animals and panda is just one that's always sort of out here is like an other, like I can't picture them in the wild. I can't, like you don't have, you don't, you don't see like footage on a nature documentary of a panda doing things like, for whatever reason, they, they're very unique, just sort of in my imagination.

• 1:39:23Speaker 03

  And like, I guess in, in sort of the cultural imagination, like it's a, it's a very strange animal. When you just think about, what do you know about pandas? What do you associate with pandas? Yeah, I don't know. And then it starts to make sense when you realize how rare they are and how recently they were discovered.

• 1:39:42Steven Rinella?

  You want to know the biggest problem for them from a PR standpoint? Is if they were like bad mofo's and always scratching people up?

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:50Steven Rinella?

  Then people would know about them. I think the chillness works against them for PR.

• 1:39:59Steven Rinella?

  Do you follow me? Do you know what I mean? Like, like I'm kind of on a leopard kick right now. I've never seen, well, I did see a leopard, saw a leopard in the wild. I'm on like a little bit of a leopard kick. One of the things that fuels a leopard kick is a leopard kick is learning about just how like effortlessly they dust people off when they put their mind to it. And so it creates that, like that ferocity is respected from far.

• 1:40:24Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? Like, like you go to a lot of people like, name a jellyfish. They'll be like, the box jelly. Well, why is that? Because it kills people. Do you know what I'm saying? Like the snakes, the bad killing snakes are the snakes that people have a high level of awareness about.

• 1:40:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:40:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think you might be right because even when it comes to breeding, they're just too chill.

• 1:40:43Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:43Speaker 04

  They would do so much better if there's just a little fire in there.

• 1:40:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I'm not trying to advise them or anything, but just like people, the, the word would have, your perception of it to be different.

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  There's one animal that in 1929 could have just taken one swipe and changed the whole trajectory of the species.

• 1:41:00Steven Rinella?

  If he'd have been like, if he'd have thought, I'm going to come down out of this tree and I'm killing these two Roosevelt boys.

• 1:41:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, then you would have heard of this way sooner. The story would not have been buried for as long.

• 1:41:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but they just killed like a little teddy bear, man. You know the teddy bear story? Is that in the book?

• 1:41:16Speaker 04

  It is in the book. Yeah, it's a good story.

• 1:41:19Steven Rinella?

  Tell dude. It's a hard one out to tell. So what's your next book on me about? Do you know yet?

• 1:41:24Speaker 04

  I don't know yet, but I I really enjoyed getting to talk about animals and nature and expeditions like this. It's it's fun.

• 1:41:31Steven Rinella?

  I got a hot tip for you.

• 1:41:32Speaker 04

  Oh, tell me.

• 1:41:35Steven Rinella?

  I don't know if I should tell you now.

• 1:41:36Speaker 04

  Oh, come on.

• 1:41:37Steven Rinella?

  What do other people learn about the hot tip? Okay, I'll tell. How quick are you at turning out a book?

• 1:41:42Speaker 04

  Not very quick.

• 1:41:43Steven Rinella?

  A lot of people are gonna hear this tip. Here's a hot tip. Here's a hot tip. Bradbury.

• 1:41:50Steven Rinella?

  That's good. Yeah. So there's this botanist, okay? And right around eighteen eleven, eighteen ten, there's this botanist. He wants to go explore the American West. And take botany samples. He's actually start. He's like, one of his observations is about the, you know, honeybees aren't native. So looking at like how honeybees moved across the country. But he goes out and has all these crazy adventures. Collecting plants. And he's got this assistant with him. They get to the end of their expedition and Bradbury is a, he's gonna do some other little side trip. But he sends his his lackey home with all the samples.

• 1:42:30Steven Rinella?

  He then delays his timing a little bit and gets kind of rolled up in the New Madrid. You know, you know where the New Madrid earthquake? When the, when the, when the rivers ran backwards?

• 1:42:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:42:40Steven Rinella?

  Like the Mississippi ran backward.

• 1:42:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:42:44Steven Rinella?

  It was all tied into like Tecumseh.

• 1:42:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:42:47Steven Rinella?

  It's a huge, huge isostatic rebound earthquake. Causes all this decimation. It's tied up in all this crazy shit. Then he's still trying to get home and the War of eighteen twelve. Breaks out. He's delayed so damn long. By the time he makes it back to England.

• 1:43:07Steven Rinella?

  His assistant has like written him off or whatever and has published the material. Has published the material on his own.

• 1:43:15Speaker 04

  Oh, that's tough.

• 1:43:17Steven Rinella?

  But if you like expeditions and everything, there's no like really good book that I'm aware of. There's no big, full. Like balls out book on the Bradbury expedition and his whole crazy story.

• 1:43:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds really interesting.

• 1:43:31Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. We should probably cut that out.

• 1:43:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:36Speaker 03

  No, I mean, I think it's fascinating too that like

• 1:43:39Steven Rinella?

  So you're gonna write it?

• 1:43:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'll get on it right now.

• 1:43:42Speaker 03

  Okay. Going back, I mean, like, the age of expeditions, like, oftentimes, I think about them being so long ago, but the idea that this is taking place in the twenties and thirties, obviously, like, the River of Doubt, you know, is one thing, but then the twenties, late twenties, and you also think about, you know, like, this sort of, there's a lot of stuff going on in Asia at the time with mountaineering and all that kind of stuff, like, it's just, it's a really fascinating period in geography.

• 1:44:13Speaker 04

  It is, because at this point, nobody knows what the tallest mountain in the world is, nobody knows the deepest part of the ocean, it's, there's so much exploration still to come.

• 1:44:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, fascinating.

• 1:44:28Steven Rinella?

  Congratulations.

• 1:44:30Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:44:30Steven Rinella?

  It's hard writing books.

• 1:44:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not easy. This was pretty fun, though, I had such a good time going through all these letters and journals, and it's just so interesting, and there are just so many weird parts, too, like, the Roosevelts had such interesting reading material on the trail, they read Jane Austen and Jane Eyre, yeah, all kinds of interesting novels, you wouldn't necessarily expect them to be pulling out in the snowy Himalayas.

• 1:44:55Steven Rinella?

  How many, uh, how long did it take you to do the whole thing?

• 1:44:59Speaker 04

  About five years, from start to finish for this one, it was, you know, it takes a long time to, to find the material, and I was fortunate with this book because I was able to get journals from every member of the expedition, and it was great to just help compare, really helped me create these scenes in a lot of detail, and that's important, I think, in nonfiction, because you want it to feel like you're there, like, you're on the trail, and all those details are part of it.

• 1:45:26Steven Rinella?

  And you were doing magazine work during that time?

• 1:45:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and I do some ghostwriting, too, so I kinda

• 1:45:32Steven Rinella?

  For who? Wouldn't be very ghostwriting.

• 1:45:34Speaker 04

  Can't say.

• 1:45:38Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:45:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's fun, I like ghostwriting, because it's, you know, there's no ego involved, you're just trying to write the best book you can, so it's kind of a fun thing to do.

• 1:45:48Speaker 05

  I read that you studied Chinese for a number of years too. Was some of the source material in Mandarin that you were translating? Or it was more oral with any interviews?

• 1:45:59Speaker 04

  Yes, no, I studied Mandarin in college and my grandfather lived in China for about a decade. And so I've traveled quite a bit in China with him. And so it was fun for me because I've always felt a connection with the country. And so to be able to to see it through a really different lens of history, a completely different time period into places that just, they just don't exist. Like this trail that I described, it's not there today. You cannot find that trail. And so to be able to travel it, to really feel like you're there during that time period was just so fascinating.

• 1:46:37Steven Rinella?

  Well, thanks for coming on.

• 1:46:38Speaker 04

  Thank you. I so appreciate it.

• 1:46:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, again, Nathalia, everybody calls her Nat.

• 1:46:42Speaker 04

  That's me.

• 1:46:44Steven Rinella?

  Nat Holt, Nathalia Holt. The Beast in the Clouds, The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda. Is there like a lesser panda?

• 1:46:56Steven Rinella?

  Is there?

• 1:46:57Speaker 04

  There's the red panda.

• 1:46:58Steven Rinella?

  Oh, okay. I've seen one of those.

• 1:46:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Steven Rinella?

  I want to Randall Zoo's. The Beast in the Clouds. Check it out and um, learn about all the subtle details that we didn't include today.

• 1:47:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's plenty in there.

• 1:47:15Steven Rinella?

  Because you really kind of like shot yourself in the foot on that one. Because you know, you should have said, you got to read it to find out if they get one.

• 1:47:22Speaker 04

  I kind of gave away the ending.

• 1:47:23Steven Rinella?

  I would have ended that.

• 1:47:24Speaker 04

  A lot of spoilers.

• 1:47:24Steven Rinella?

  You know, they shot together. I would have ended your thing at like, crack, crack. Bang, bang. And then be like, you have to read the book to find out what happened.

• 1:47:34Speaker 04

  Let's go back.

• 1:47:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, erase everything.

• 1:47:36Steven Rinella?

  Another cut here, Phil.

• 1:47:39Steven Rinella?

  Thanks, man. Appreciate you coming on.

• 1:47:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:47:41Steven Rinella?

  When you finish that Bradbury book, come back.

• 1:47:43Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:43Steven Rinella?

  I got a lot of questions about that. I told you everything I know. So there's like some holes, there's some holes in my understanding. All right, thank you.

• 1:47:54Speaker 04

  Thank you. Really appreciate it.

• 1:48:23Steven Rinella?

  If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean. A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. That way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you've got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com.

• 1:49:03Speaker 07

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• 1:50:02Steven Rinella?

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• 1:50:41Speaker 00

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