Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marsha for RADIOI and today I will
Speaker 1: be reading National Geographic Magazine dated December twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading service intended for
Speaker 1: people who are blind or have other disabilities that make
Speaker 1: it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now
Speaker 1: for the first article titled Islamic Art the Art of Arabia.
Speaker 1: In northwest Saudi Arabia, the artistic heritage of the Alulah
Speaker 1: Oasis is literally carved into the landscape, from the enigmatic
Speaker 1: rot art of the Neolithic era, through the colossal statues
Speaker 1: of the Dadanite and Lehanite kingdoms to the monumental architecture
Speaker 1: of the Nabtaeans. Alula was already steeped in artistic tradition
Speaker 1: when a new and distinctive art form began to emerge,
Speaker 1: Islamic art. After the founding of Islam in six ten CE.
Speaker 1: The religious spread rapidly and in time became associated with
Speaker 1: a recognizable style of artistic expression. Because of Islam's Arabic roots,
Speaker 1: its art has often been associated with Arabia. The reality
Speaker 1: is far more complex. Islamic art drew little on Arabic
Speaker 1: artistic traditions. The Islamic faith is a way of life.
Speaker 1: Religion touches almost every aspect of the daily experience, as
Speaker 1: well as the life journey. As such, Islam comes with
Speaker 1: a strong, unique and unifying cultural identity that is reflected
Speaker 1: in its art. Islamic art encompasses much more than pieces
Speaker 1: created explicitly for religious purposes, such as an illuminated Koran
Speaker 1: or an intricately carved men mianbar in a mosque. It
Speaker 1: is the art of Muslim people everywhere. Any work created
Speaker 1: by a Muslim or for a Muslim over the fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred years of Islam's existence falls under this classification, and
Speaker 1: the geographical and historical range of Islamic art it is
Speaker 1: huge and instantly identifiable. Initially, artistic expression was not fundamental
Speaker 1: to Islam. Art is not directly mentioned in the Koran
Speaker 1: or early religious texts. As the faith spread, conquered lands
Speaker 1: continued their own indigenous artistic traditions. However, as a unified
Speaker 1: Islamic state emerged under the Umayad and Abbasid caliphets, a
Speaker 1: distinctly Islamic form of art was also emerging. But by
Speaker 1: this time Islam had also moved far beyond its Arabian
Speaker 1: roots and had embraced an array of cultural influences. However,
Speaker 1: for all its extraordinary diversity, there are four broad artistic
Speaker 1: themes that transcend place and time to be consciously recognizable
Speaker 1: as Islamic. Vegetative patterns, geometric patterns, figurative art, and calligraphy
Speaker 1: have long been consistently employed by Islamic artists to form
Speaker 1: a cultural compesion across ethnically diverse following of Islam. These
Speaker 1: four forms of artistic expression are found wherever Islam is practiced,
Speaker 1: and all have powerful stories behind them. Intertwining plants, stems, leaves,
Speaker 1: and flowers are found on objects throughout the Islamic world,
Speaker 1: but foliage patterns like these were not new. Such designs
Speaker 1: predate Islam and are present in the cultures of ancient
Speaker 1: Byzantium and Sasanian Iran, where early Islam firmly established itself.
Speaker 1: This local artistic tradition was adopted, adapted, and developed by
Speaker 1: Islamic artists, and their experimentations spread through Muslim lands. By
Speaker 1: the twelfth century, a highly abstract and distinctive style of
Speaker 1: Islamic foliage patterns had emerged, found in architecture, textiles in
Speaker 1: every form of object. This style came to be known
Speaker 1: as Arabesque. These Arabesque patterns were neither specifically Arabian nor
Speaker 1: religiously symbolic, but they remained a unifying feature of Islamic art.
Speaker 1: Another instantly recognizable style of Islamic art is the geometric pattern.
Speaker 1: These abstract designs, often formed using circles, squares, stars, and polygons,
Speaker 1: can be linked to Islamic interest in mathematics and science.
Speaker 1: But again, while such patterns reached their peak through Islamic art,
Speaker 1: they were originally adapted from the classical traditions of Greece, Rome,
Speaker 1: and Sesanian Iran. Building on these traditions, Islamic artists elaborated
Speaker 1: and built on simple forms like circles, duplicating, overlapping, interlacing,
Speaker 1: and combining them into complex and intricate patterns that stress symmetry, balance, proportion,
Speaker 1: and order, while also offering the possibility of infinite expansion.
Speaker 1: Little wonder then, that this is one of the most
Speaker 1: prolific forms of Islamic art in the world. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: most misunderstood influence on the emergence of Islamic art was
Speaker 1: that of figurative representation. Depictions of humans and animnimals. Initially,
Speaker 1: figures continued to be widely used for decoration, as they
Speaker 1: had been for centuries before Islam, but around the eighth century,
Speaker 1: the use of figurative forms in religious works was expressly
Speaker 1: forbidden by Islam, based on the belief that God alone
Speaker 1: could create living forms. This aligned with Christian thinking at
Speaker 1: the time, and both religions actively eradicated the human form
Speaker 1: from their religious art. However, figurative representation in secular art continued.
Speaker 1: Perhaps in deference to the religious prohibition, Islamic artists often
Speaker 1: stylized their figures, creating a great variety of figural designs,
Speaker 1: though conspicuously rare in sculpture, stylized figures or integral to books,
Speaker 1: where miniature paintings supported the text for both esthetic and
Speaker 1: practical reasons, providing a visual aid for those who could
Speaker 1: not read the written word itself. Channels one of Islam's
Speaker 1: Islamic arts most distinctive and distinguished forms of expression, calligraphy,
Speaker 1: and it is here that we found a profound connection
Speaker 1: to Islam's origins in Arabia. The Koran was written in Arabic,
Speaker 1: and the Arabic script had a particular propensity for being
Speaker 1: written decoratively, which was eagerly cultivated by Islamic artists. Named
Speaker 1: after the city of Kufa, located in now modern day Iraq,
Speaker 1: this style has a geometric elegance that combines esthetic beauty
Speaker 1: with a form and spacing that makes it demanding to read,
Speaker 1: serving to slow the reader down to concentrate on the
Speaker 1: word of God. Many forms of Kupit calligraphy emerged through
Speaker 1: the centuries, but the earliest example records the death of
Speaker 1: a caliph in six forty four CE and is engraved
Speaker 1: on a rock in Ailulah. Today, Islamic art is still
Speaker 1: being carved into the landscape of Alulah. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Desert ex Alulah brought together acclaimed international artists to create
Speaker 1: monumental works amid the red sandstone canyons of the desert.
Speaker 1: The temporary exhibition included a piece by Saudi artists Dana Awartani,
Speaker 1: where the dwellers lay the concave structure, an homage to
Speaker 1: the ancient Nabatean tombs of hegra draws on Islamic arts
Speaker 1: reliance on geometric design. Indeed, Aratani's works often revolve around
Speaker 1: the highly codified and symbolically latent language of geometry. With
Speaker 1: works like these, the Islamic artistic tradition continues to thrive,
Speaker 1: embedded in a landscape that is hosted art for millennia. Next, Love, Hate,
Speaker 1: and rattlesnakes. They've been revered as symbols of renewal. They've
Speaker 1: been reviled as everissaries of the underworld. They've been hunted
Speaker 1: and harassed into the dark corners of our imagination. But
Speaker 1: can our fears be debunked before an icon of the
Speaker 1: American West disappears? By Elizabeth Roight, The night of near
Speaker 1: continuous rattlesnakes was mellow, the temperature pleasant and humidity low,
Speaker 1: the beer cold under a crescent moon. The electric golf
Speaker 1: cart rolled silently over hilly paths. When our head lights
Speaker 1: illuminated a venomous snake. Matt Good would hop out, a
Speaker 1: drink in his right hand, a snake stick in his left,
Speaker 1: and calmly present the creature from my inspection. Unlike the
Speaker 1: amped up fellows on YouTube snatching hissing vipers from beneath
Speaker 1: the wooden boards, Good never shouted, dude. It was early
Speaker 1: September and the herpetologist's field season was winding to a close.
Speaker 1: For ever twenty years, the University of Arizona research scientists
Speaker 1: and his students have been capturing snakes, including western diamondback rattlesnakes,
Speaker 1: tiger rattlesnakes, and black tailed rattlesnakes. They have found more
Speaker 1: than seven thousand so far on the cart paths of
Speaker 1: Ora Valley's Stone Canyon golf course just north of Tucson,
Speaker 1: and on the private roads dotted with multi million dollar
Speaker 1: homes that surround it. On the best night, Scood's team
Speaker 1: might bag up to twenty snakes in a campus lap.
Speaker 1: The next day, his students measure, sex, weigh and mark
Speaker 1: them for recapture, using paint on their rattles and inserting
Speaker 1: tiny micro chips under their skin, then return them to
Speaker 1: their site of capture. Good's central research question, how does
Speaker 1: the ongoing conversion of Christine Desert to housing developments affect
Speaker 1: snakes posed something of a conservation paradox Compared with snakes
Speaker 1: in more natural areas, The Stone Canyon ones are growing larger,
Speaker 1: producing more offspring, and expanding their ranges among the mcmagiens.
Speaker 1: It helps, perhaps that most homeowners are absent during the
Speaker 1: hottest months. As we rolled over a bridge past an
Speaker 1: artificial waterfall, Good exclaimed, look at this productivity. Thanks to irrigation,
Speaker 1: berries and blossoms abounded, attracting primary consumers such as the
Speaker 1: silky pocket mice. We saw scampering among the along paths.
Speaker 1: On the lush fairways, Our headlamps revealed the small herd
Speaker 1: of javelinas, members of the Pekerey family, in a stand
Speaker 1: of trees, a retreating mountain lion. Good had seen bob
Speaker 1: pats here, coyotes and raccoons. Clearly this was an eden
Speaker 1: for snakes. We had plenty of rodents, birds and eggs
Speaker 1: to eat, and the rocky outcrops styled by bulldozers provided
Speaker 1: plenty of places to hide. Who had had placed informational
Speaker 1: signs here and there in an effort to curtail people's
Speaker 1: baser instincts smashing rattlesnakes with golf clubs, But the nearby
Speaker 1: roads were occasionally greasy with flattened reptiles. You gotta ask
Speaker 1: who had said, with a sigh, is this development and
Speaker 1: ecological trap? How sustainable is it? The fate of all
Speaker 1: species is tied to antipomorphic disturbances. A golf course could
Speaker 1: loose its water supply, for example, and half the birds
Speaker 1: could DeCamp. The one thing you can count on people
Speaker 1: to view, he said, mess things up. The snakes of
Speaker 1: stone care Onion may be doing well, but the fate
Speaker 1: of most other rattle snakes more than fifty species occur
Speaker 1: exclusively throughout the Americas, is grimmer. From southwestern Canada to
Speaker 1: central Argentina, people continue to capture them for the pet
Speaker 1: or skin trade, swerve to flatten them as they warm
Speaker 1: themselves on roads, and chop up their habitat with subdivisions, pipelines,
Speaker 1: and sell towers. Timber rattlesnakes, once abundant, have been extirpated
Speaker 1: in a number of northern US states and Ontario, and
Speaker 1: they're threatened or endangered in pockets throughout their broad US range.
Speaker 1: Several other species are categorized from generally threatened to critically endangered.
Speaker 1: I got a taste of how far conservationists will go
Speaker 1: to protect Pennsylvania's remaining timber rattlesnakes on a sunny late
Speaker 1: summer day, sporting canvas snake gaiters. Thomas LaDuke, a herpetologist
Speaker 1: at East Stroudsburg University. Picked his way along the rocky
Speaker 1: ridge line of Hawk Mountain, twenty six hundred acre reserve
Speaker 1: that's wildly popular with birders during migration. When the brush
Speaker 1: to our right opened to a view of the valley below,
Speaker 1: we stepped off trail. Look, le Duc said, nodding toward
Speaker 1: a rocky shelf of pink and gray conglomerate. Not ten
Speaker 1: feet away, I discerned a thick pile of yellow and
Speaker 1: black coils. Somewhat incredulous, I crept infintesimis, infintesimously closer, anticipating
Speaker 1: the characteristics of a tail rattle. Nothing. The snake wanted
Speaker 1: only to pass. To my right, I saw another heap
Speaker 1: of snake, female, said le Duc, probably pregnant. Her head,
Speaker 1: like that of all rattlesnakes, was triangular, tapering quickly to
Speaker 1: a narrow neck. Her pupils were vertical, and the yellow
Speaker 1: and black chevrons down her spine looked as plush as velvet.
Speaker 1: As I stared, she slowly uncoiled, creating an uncanny illusion
Speaker 1: of moving in two directions at once, then disappeared into
Speaker 1: a crevice. Voodook and I continued over the ridge line,
Speaker 1: then descended to a talus filled just below the heavily
Speaker 1: traveled trail. At first I solidly rocks. Then, as before,
Speaker 1: I became aware of another reality. A coiled snake the
Speaker 1: diameter of a fedora on a prominent boulder than six
Speaker 1: feet away. Another scanning the boulder fields careful to move
Speaker 1: only my eyeballs, and made out six more rattlesnake piles.
Speaker 1: Atop one A clutch of neonates, khaki colored with brown stripes, squirmed.
Speaker 1: Born alive just yesterday, Leuduke said, they already were more
Speaker 1: than seven inches long and venomous, with hollow fangs and
Speaker 1: one tiny tail segment called a button. Each time a
Speaker 1: rattlesnake sheds its skin up to twice a year for adults,
Speaker 1: more often for the young, it gains another rattle segment.
Speaker 1: The rattles often fall off, so segments don't always reflect age.
Speaker 1: After a week of parental protection and behavior more often
Speaker 1: seen in mammals, the babies fend for themselves. They shed
Speaker 1: their skin for the first time, then may start following
Speaker 1: a trail of small animals such as mice and shrews,
Speaker 1: using a scent detecting organ at the roof of their
Speaker 1: mouth known as the vomuro nasal organ and heat detecting
Speaker 1: organs inside small pits between their eyes and nostrils. They
Speaker 1: ambush their prey, inject a dose of highly toxic venom,
Speaker 1: then swallow their meal. Pole As the weather cools, young
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes follow their mother's chemical trail back to the family's
Speaker 1: den or hybernaculum. They overwinter coiled with kin of all ages,
Speaker 1: including males returned from asse nations with females up to
Speaker 1: two miles away, as well as with other snake species
Speaker 1: such as racers and copperheads that might at other times
Speaker 1: prey on the rattlesnake offspring. During hibernation, snakes have no
Speaker 1: interest in eating if they don't mask, if they don't digest.
Speaker 1: The Duke and his students radio tagged and tracked timber
Speaker 1: rattlers for almost three years on Hawk Mountain, estimating their
Speaker 1: population in size and pinpointing their most important hybernocula. Females,
Speaker 1: alongside newborns and subadults, spend most of their time basking, feeding, mating,
Speaker 1: and giving birth within several hundred yards of these underground
Speaker 1: layers and legions of bird watching human visitors at the time,
Speaker 1: LeDuc had recommended that the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary reroot its
Speaker 1: ridge trail to avoid this basking site, which it did.
Speaker 1: People picnic on these rocks, not knowing how close they
Speaker 1: are to snakes. La Duke said. Nowadays, herpetologists consider the
Speaker 1: location of dens and basking sites state level secrets. Some
Speaker 1: spend hours scouring social media persuading enthusiasts posing with snakes
Speaker 1: to remove geotags from their Facebook and Instagram posts. It's
Speaker 1: great that people are interested in rattlesnake's, Luduke said, but
Speaker 1: they don't realize the magnitude of their impact on the population.
Speaker 1: Persuading the public to protect venomous snakes can be difficult.
Speaker 1: Rattlesnakes have booth fascinated and terrified us with their ability
Speaker 1: to remain hidden and their surprisingly strong bodies, needles, sharp fangs,
Speaker 1: and toxic venom. As biologist Edward O. Wilson has written,
Speaker 1: it pays in elementary survival to be interested in snakes.
Speaker 1: Human's relationship with rattlesnakes have always been complicated. The Hope
Speaker 1: of the US Southwest considered them messengers to the rain
Speaker 1: giving spirits of the earth, and including rattlers in biennial
Speaker 1: rituals the Aztec and Yucatec Maya of pre Columbian Mesoamerica
Speaker 1: venerated rattlesnakes, linking them with rain and the planting season.
Speaker 1: According to one early nineteenth century account, some Western Cherokee
Speaker 1: felt an obligation to avoid killing rattlesnakes out of respect
Speaker 1: for their tightly knit family organizations. The Apache associated them
Speaker 1: with rebirth and renewal, while other Native American cultures linked
Speaker 1: them with violence and revenge. For early European colonists, rattlesnakes,
Speaker 1: found only in the New World, symbolized virility and fearlessness.
Speaker 1: In an infamous political cartoon from seventeen fifty four that
Speaker 1: urged colonial unity, the timber rattlesnake is separated into chunks
Speaker 1: representing the original British colonies. Under the snakes that the
Speaker 1: words join or die later A rattlesnake in the model
Speaker 1: don't tread on Me were used on the Gadsden flag,
Speaker 1: which rallied the colonial Continental Marines during the American Revolution.
Speaker 1: That flag, with a snake loosely coiled into a pyramid
Speaker 1: and ready to strike, has been brandished ever since by
Speaker 1: those with an anti government right, but reverence extends only
Speaker 1: so far. Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, communities offered
Speaker 1: bounties for dead rattlers, a practice New York and Vermont
Speaker 1: continued into the nineteen seventies. States organized some still do
Speaker 1: annual round ups that slaughtered hundreds, sometimes thousands, of snakes
Speaker 1: in the name of safety. In the cold Northeast, where
Speaker 1: hundreds of or rattlesnakes may overwinter in a single den,
Speaker 1: their mass exists in the spring made them particularly vulnerable
Speaker 1: to wholesale extermination. I'm blue in the face from teaching
Speaker 1: people that snakes aren't out to get you, Matt Good
Speaker 1: said as we hummed through Stone Canyon. But I don't
Speaker 1: know how much progress we've made. Throughout much of the
Speaker 1: South and Southwest, is legal to kill many rattlesnake species,
Speaker 1: and some people kill a whole lot. Sweetwater, Texas population
Speaker 1: ten thousand, has held its Rattlesnake round up annually since
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, when hunter Is extracted more than three
Speaker 1: thousand pounds of Western diamondbacks from their hideaways in the
Speaker 1: nearby countryside. Sponsored by the local jcs A youth leadership group,
Speaker 1: the event continues to attract tens of thousands of visitors
Speaker 1: to the Noland County Coliseum and procures a yearly average
Speaker 1: of fifty eight hundred pounds of live rattlesnakes. Some are
Speaker 1: collected on roadsides, but most are captured by hunters who
Speaker 1: cruise the state, busting up rocky cracks and crevices with
Speaker 1: crowbars and flushing their quarry from dens with aerosolized gasoline.
Speaker 1: The eradication of a purported menace was the Sweetwater round
Speaker 1: Up's founding goal, as it likely was at the nation's
Speaker 1: twelve other round ups, but today its aim is unmistakably financial.
Speaker 1: The round up by snakes from hunters at a fluctuating
Speaker 1: per pound rate, It sends most of them to the
Speaker 1: coliseum's cool shack, where they are dropped beer battered into
Speaker 1: fry pans, and sells the rest to vendors who will
Speaker 1: convert their skins into wallets, boots, purses, and trinkets. The
Speaker 1: three day event raises cash for local charities sixty three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in twenty twenty three, and visitors annually inject
Speaker 1: over eight million dollars into the local economy. Kieren Hunt,
Speaker 1: head of the local Chamber of Commerce told a Texas
Speaker 1: newspaper that for many folks in Sweetwater, this is Black Friday.
Speaker 1: This is what Black Friday is like. For the snakes
Speaker 1: piled ankle deep in octagonal wooden pens, they mostly they
Speaker 1: remain coiled. Some rattle continuously and indication they feel threatened
Speaker 1: in the while these solitary predators may rattle just a
Speaker 1: few times in their entire lives, many suffocate to death,
Speaker 1: and those with enough energy circle the perimeter of their pen,
Speaker 1: constantly searching for an exit. The air stinks of right
Speaker 1: guard deodorant sprayed to mask the snake's pungent musk released
Speaker 1: in fear. Inside the milking pit, handlers squeeze yellowy venom
Speaker 1: from snake's bangs into a glass funnel atop a baby bottle.
Speaker 1: A filthy centrifuge sits nearby. What's the venom for drug research?
Speaker 1: A handler answers vaguely. According to longtime JC Milking Pit
Speaker 1: chairman Dennis Comby, the Sweetwater round Up sells large quantities
Speaker 1: of venom to private companies that make anti venoms, but
Speaker 1: he won't reveal their names. In fact, companies that produce
Speaker 1: anti venoms or use venom for research, either keep their
Speaker 1: own captive snake colonies, or by venom from zoos that
Speaker 1: collect it under some sterile laboratory conditions. They inject this
Speaker 1: venom into large donor mammals like sheb horses, which spurs
Speaker 1: the creation of antibodies that distilled into anti venoms are
Speaker 1: used to disable toxins in snake bite victims. Medical research
Speaker 1: sures are keenly interested in venoms hundreds of proteins and
Speaker 1: enzymes which attack blood cells, damage muscles, or destroy the
Speaker 1: central nervous system. Researchers around the world are experimenting with
Speaker 1: venom derived compounds that block or neutralized pain pathways, potentially
Speaker 1: offering an alternative to highly addictive opiates. Rail snake venom
Speaker 1: has been used to treat blood clots that occur deep
Speaker 1: inside veins, and to develop drugs that lower blood pressure
Speaker 1: and stop heart attacks and strokes as they happen. In
Speaker 1: the education pit, handler David Sager, in a stetson and
Speaker 1: tall boots, pass among a dozen or so snakes, offering
Speaker 1: snake factoids and describing Western die backs as mean, dangerous,
Speaker 1: and ugly language that helps rationalize their persecution. With a
Speaker 1: snake stick, he crowds animals into a coil, pins their
Speaker 1: heads and lifts them from photos. He drops snakes to
Speaker 1: the floor, kicks them, and antagonizes a snake with a
Speaker 1: balloon until it strikes pop. The crowd, ranging from toddlers
Speaker 1: to retirees, gasps. If education is the curtain raiser, skinning
Speaker 1: is the round up's denouement. Jac's pin live snakes to
Speaker 1: a wooden block, then sever their heads with a single
Speaker 1: mashetty chop. Still, writhing bodies are hung from a pole.
Speaker 1: Sometimes gall bladders are removed. They can fetch several dollars
Speaker 1: each and are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Then, for
Speaker 1: a twenty dollar fee, visitors separate skin from sinu, appoint,
Speaker 1: anoint their palms with snake blood, and leave their red
Speaker 1: handprints on the wall. Even young children participate. I wander
Speaker 1: the dirt floored colosseum. The masked snakes look beaten down, stressed,
Speaker 1: possibly injured. If the is all about education, teaching the
Speaker 1: public that Western diamondbacks retreat from threats, hiss and rattle
Speaker 1: and warning strike enemies only as a last option. Bite
Speaker 1: non venomously twenty five percent of the time, and are
Speaker 1: relatively easy to avoid. Why continue to stoke fear that
Speaker 1: results in mass slaughter? According to the Centers for Disease
Speaker 1: Control and Prevention nationwide, in the average of five people
Speaker 1: a year die from venomous snake and lizard bites. While
Speaker 1: some snake hunters claim to be protecting livestock, which abound
Speaker 1: in west central Texas, it's very rare to see cattle
Speaker 1: bit and by rattle snakes, says veterinarian Bud Aldridge Junior,
Speaker 1: who's been practicing in sweet Water for fifty five years,
Speaker 1: and bytes are unlikely to be fatal. What explains the
Speaker 1: round ups persistence? The money, yes, but as Morehead State
Speaker 1: University philosophy professor Jack Weir put it in a case
Speaker 1: study published by the Journal of Conservation Biology, round ups
Speaker 1: are away of continuing the extras and adventure of the
Speaker 1: cowboy saga, proving one's manhood and identifying with the local ethos.
Speaker 1: Though published in nineteen ninety two, weirs thesis appears to
Speaker 1: hold true today. I ask j C President Jimmy Hendrix
Speaker 1: if his organization would consider switching to no Kill's shows,
Speaker 1: as a few other round ups have to each his own,
Speaker 1: He answers, I understand Pupil's point that, yeah, we're killing rattlesnakes,
Speaker 1: but that's certainly not what we'd want to make a priority.
Speaker 1: It's what economically works for us. You think you'd get
Speaker 1: such a big crowd if he didn't kill the snakes.
Speaker 1: I don't know, he says. Western diamondbacks, which breed at
Speaker 1: a relatively young age, are not endangered in Texas, though
Speaker 1: the state's Parks and Wildlife Department acknowledges it doesn't have
Speaker 1: any data from any specific populations anywhere in the state.
Speaker 1: Since nineteen fifty eight, hunters have delivered, unto the Sweetwater
Speaker 1: JCS more than three hundred fifty thousand pounds of snakes,
Speaker 1: equivalent to about seventy thousand rattlers, at a time when
Speaker 1: populations of animal species globally have declined by an average
Speaker 1: of nearly seventy percent. Wanton disregard for life in the
Speaker 1: absence of imminent threat to humans fathers Texas A and
Speaker 1: M University herpetologist Lee Fitzgerald. The round ups do send
Speaker 1: a twisted message. He says, They're not helping the way
Speaker 1: we think about biodiversity. We care about polar bears, but
Speaker 1: these snakes are worthless. Back home, I try to forget
Speaker 1: what I'd seen in the skinning pit and focus on
Speaker 1: that afternoon on Hawk Mountain, where Tom Ledeuke and I
Speaker 1: had contemplated, had contemplated over half a dozen ges dating
Speaker 1: or postpartum timber rattlers, large and peaceful, vital and venomous
Speaker 1: as they'd glided in and out of the sun. Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: counties used to host their own sweet water style rattlesnake
Speaker 1: round ups. Le Duke had told me the festivals were
Speaker 1: hard to stamp out because they funded fire departments, but
Speaker 1: eventually the State Fish and Boat Commission, which break it
Speaker 1: lights hunting, inaugurated a paid permit system for live capture
Speaker 1: of rattlers and used the proceeds to fund community works.
Speaker 1: They recruited old snake hunters to survey populations. Leduke said
Speaker 1: they asked them for data, tag the snakes at round ups,
Speaker 1: and returned them to their capture sites. As the population recovered,
Speaker 1: rattlers were removed from the state's endangered species candidate list.
Speaker 1: Nodding toward visitors toting binoculars along the Hawk Mountain ridge line,
Speaker 1: the Duke had asked rhetorically why herpers or at least
Speaker 1: those board flippers and tail grabbers notching likes on social
Speaker 1: media couldn't be more like birders than they count, but
Speaker 1: not capture. I recalled that Hawk Mountain, before being set
Speaker 1: aside as a bird refuge, was a popular site for
Speaker 1: shooting gashawks, which carried a five dollar bounty. Gashaks prey
Speaker 1: on game animals such as rabbits, grouse, and ducks, so
Speaker 1: maybe there was hope. Its a mental shift, le Duc said,
Speaker 1: first you're a hunter, then an illegal poacher, and then
Speaker 1: with a little bit of education, near someone who helps
Speaker 1: another species survive. Petrick glyffs, including rattlesnakes on basalt that
Speaker 1: painted rock Petroglyph's site and Maricopa County, Arizona, highlight how
Speaker 1: snakes have coexisted with humans for centuries. The rock art,
Speaker 1: created by indigenous peoples dates back fourteen hundred years. Rattles
Speaker 1: are made of hollow, interlocking segments of carratin, the same
Speaker 1: material that forms human figure nails and hair. When rattlesnake
Speaker 1: tales vibrate, the loose segments rattle against each other, sending
Speaker 1: a warning to leave the snake alone. More than fifty
Speaker 1: species of rattlesnakes live across North America. Found in a
Speaker 1: wide array of habitats. Most species remain within two to
Speaker 1: five miles of their birth location their whole lives. This
Speaker 1: concludes readings from National Geographic Magazine for to day. Your
Speaker 1: reader has been more. If you've enjoyed hearing this content,
Speaker 1: please give us a call at eight five nine for
Speaker 1: two two six three nine zero. Thank you for listening,
Speaker 1: and have a great day.