Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Marcia for RADIOI and to day I
Speaker 1: will be reading National Geographic Magazine dated March twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: As a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading service intended
Speaker 1: for people who are blind or have other disabilities that
Speaker 1: make it difficult to read printed material. Please join me
Speaker 1: now for the continuation of the article I began last time,
Speaker 1: entitled The Fight to Save the Desert's most Tenacious Bird
Speaker 1: by Jessica Kutz. In each tent, PVC piping extends from
Speaker 1: the dirt, creating a six inch passageway to the human
Speaker 1: made bureau. The tunnel measures about sixteen feet long and
Speaker 1: descends to a depth of roughly four feet, which ensures
Speaker 1: bureau's stakehool as outside temperatures increase. The tunnel connects to
Speaker 1: a main den created by cutting a plastic fifty five
Speaker 1: gallon drum in half to simulate the size of a
Speaker 1: typical dwelling and owl might find in the wild. Thirty days,
Speaker 1: the two birds inside each tent will be fed a
Speaker 1: daily diet of three dozen of three frozen mice to share.
Speaker 1: Once the canopies are removed, volunteers will return for a
Speaker 1: week to provide more snacks while the animals get accustomed
Speaker 1: to their new hunting grounds. The idea for such specifically
Speaker 1: engineered and executed translocations began more than three decades ago,
Speaker 1: when avid conservationist Bob Fox and his now late wife
Speaker 1: Sam were volunteering to help injure animals at an Arizona
Speaker 1: Game and Fish Department facility. In nineteen ninety one, Sam
Speaker 1: was granted permission to foster a baby barn owl named Chia,
Speaker 1: and the couple built a small aviary in their backyard.
Speaker 1: When Chia was old enough, they were surprised to watch
Speaker 1: him enthusiastically begin to foster displaced nestlings that required a
Speaker 1: permit from both Arizona and the US Fish and Wildlife Service,
Speaker 1: which encouraged the Foxes to open their own rehabilitation center,
Speaker 1: a professional grade facility in the Phoenix suburb of Cave
Speaker 1: Creek that houses hert raptors like barn owls, ospreys, and hawks.
Speaker 1: It had to become a passion because the work is
Speaker 1: so involved, Fox says. The Fox's home phone became a
Speaker 1: sort of twenty four hour hotline from people who discovered
Speaker 1: injured birds in Arizona. Burrowing owls are listed as a
Speaker 1: species of concern, and the state's Game and Fish Department
Speaker 1: has become proactive, recommending that construction sites be surveyed ahead
Speaker 1: of any building so owls can be removed. Over the
Speaker 1: past twenty years, Wild at Heart has grown to a
Speaker 1: small staff and a larger volunteer cores, fielding increasingly frequent
Speaker 1: calls for humane trapping and relocating. The idea for an
Speaker 1: artificial burrow came from Sam Fox. There was no mechanism
Speaker 1: for relocations Bob Fox recalls, and so when they were
Speaker 1: ready for relief, Sam said, well, you can't just toss
Speaker 1: them out. You've got to build something for them. The
Speaker 1: rescue group ultimately designed nests that were inexpensive to build
Speaker 1: and easy to install, but it faced a difficult learning curve.
Speaker 1: One year, a single badger chewed through fifty burrows in
Speaker 1: search of an easy meal. Another year, heavy rain led
Speaker 1: to flooding, making the nests nests unlivable. The burrows now
Speaker 1: feature mesh wire below the drum to protect the dens
Speaker 1: from burrowing critters. Most of the pipe entrances are slightly
Speaker 1: raised and surrounded by rocks, keeping them elevated in case
Speaker 1: of flooding. The team also added wooden stake perches to
Speaker 1: give the owls a spot above ground to scan for predators. However,
Speaker 1: the real challenge happened once the tents came down. We
Speaker 1: had these puzzles, says Greg Clark, the nonprofit's habitat coordinator.
Speaker 1: The owls would lay lots of eggs in the tents,
Speaker 1: and everyone thought that was wonderful, except some eggs were
Speaker 1: being abandoned, and no one really understood that. Several years ago,
Speaker 1: the Fish and Wildlife Service had questions about habitat simulation efforts.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, an agency study of Wild at Heart's
Speaker 1: practices compared one hundred twenty two nest sites, some translocated
Speaker 1: with others in undisturbed areas that didn't require relocation. For
Speaker 1: the next two years, Wild at Heart worked with an
Speaker 1: independent team that included Martha Desmond, an ecology professor at
Speaker 1: New Mexico State University, and David H. Johnson, founder of
Speaker 1: the Global Owl Project, which provides evidence backed strategies to
Speaker 1: help guide owl relocation. It turned out that Wild at
Speaker 1: Heart had been placing too many owls together, six to
Speaker 1: ten owls in the enclosures. That seemed to be a
Speaker 1: big stressor for all of the owls and how well
Speaker 1: the eggs would be brooded. Clark says relocating males in
Speaker 1: breeding season marched to August caused another issue. The males
Speaker 1: didn't have experience hunting in the area, and once the
Speaker 1: tents came down, the free mice disappeared. The females often
Speaker 1: abandoned their nests in search of better partners. Everything crashes
Speaker 1: and burns, says Johnson. All of this led to high fatalities.
Speaker 1: By affixing radio transmitters to forty three translocated owls and
Speaker 1: forty two resident owls, the researchers could track the fallout,
Speaker 1: knowing that translocated birds always suffer higher mortality rates. In
Speaker 1: this case, the death toll among them recently moved was
Speaker 1: more than double, with twenty four translocated owls dying compared
Speaker 1: with eleven resident ones. It was not a good situation
Speaker 1: at all, says dead Desmond, But the new data inspired changes.
Speaker 1: Wild at Heart now uses smaller tents, spread farther apart,
Speaker 1: and only pairs the owls. Those steps, plus the continuous
Speaker 1: feeding schedule, demand a lot from volunteers to find sites
Speaker 1: that are protected from development and near good food sources.
Speaker 1: Clerk is looking beyond big population centers, making it difficult
Speaker 1: to recruit people willing to drive. Being limited to certain
Speaker 1: seasons for the releases is also a challenge because Waldette
Speaker 1: Heart can't control how many owls it gets. Johnson, who
Speaker 1: conducts research with organizations around the world on translocation, says
Speaker 1: that waldett Heart stands for the sheer number of owls
Speaker 1: it receives. In a typical year, it has around two
Speaker 1: hundred owls that need to be relocated, but in peak
Speaker 1: home building years that average rises to more than two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty. Lately, renewable energy has added to that pressure,
Speaker 1: with over a hundred owls being relocated in the past
Speaker 1: two years. Because of solar projects. Many relocation sites can
Speaker 1: house only about fifty birds if the sites are full
Speaker 1: Uprooted owls might stay longer in the aviaries, where they
Speaker 1: may lose their fitness that can affect survivability when they're released.
Speaker 1: In search of solutions, the team has begun to build
Speaker 1: relationships with some of the solar developers that are moving
Speaker 1: into existing owl territory. Long Road Energy, a company developing
Speaker 1: around ten thousand acres in the area, recently agreed to
Speaker 1: leave thousands of acres undeveloped. It's also working with the
Speaker 1: non profit to build new boroughs on designated land. Owls
Speaker 1: are adaptable, Johnson says. We can be successful. We just
Speaker 1: have to think through our methods a lot more. That's
Speaker 1: what's changing now. Two months after the tents were taken
Speaker 1: down at Martin Farm, Jennon Reedon, a biologist at Wild
Speaker 1: at Heart, drove across the dusty grassland, weaving between widely
Speaker 1: spaced borough sites which were marked by their wooden stake purchase.
Speaker 1: By now, the relocated birds should have fled or taken roost,
Speaker 1: and below ground the owlets were getting ready to fledge.
Speaker 1: Redon spotted something in the distance and slowly rolled to
Speaker 1: a stop. Breezing her binoculars wore a better look. Through
Speaker 1: the lenses, she could see a family of owls, complete
Speaker 1: with eager fledglings, stretching their wigs for some test flights
Speaker 1: at five weeks. They don't necessarily leave, but they can
Speaker 1: fly well, Readen says, and if they know how to hunt,
Speaker 1: then they'll be independent. On top of the burrol, a
Speaker 1: juvenile owl stretched its wings while another got a running
Speaker 1: start and took off in flight, completing a short loop
Speaker 1: before returning to the ground. Because the fledgings weren't banded,
Speaker 1: it was hard to tell if they were the progeny
Speaker 1: of the translocated owls, or perhaps owls from elsewhere in
Speaker 1: the area. In a typical release, around a quarter of
Speaker 1: translocated owls might stay and breed. They usually lay about
Speaker 1: six eggs, the rate observed in non translocated owls, but
Speaker 1: not all end up surviving. On average, a new owl
Speaker 1: family can raise two juveniles, marking this making this family
Speaker 1: one of the luckier ones. Inevitably, some owls move to
Speaker 1: natural burrols they liked better. That's part of why the
Speaker 1: arid grasslands of Martin Farm were chosen in the first place.
Speaker 1: The area has good proximity to natural burrow builders like
Speaker 1: badgers and ground squirrels that still populate surrounding fields that
Speaker 1: have yet to be developed. Crucially, none of the owls
Speaker 1: were returned to the land they came from, which has
Speaker 1: since transformed into construction sites for housing developments or solar fields.
Speaker 1: Redent saw Cooper's hawk circling far above the little owls.
Speaker 1: It was a potentially dangerous predator, but she didn't seem
Speaker 1: concerned the family could always retreat underground or take their chances.
Speaker 1: Offering them that opportunity felt like its own kind of success.
Speaker 1: Burrowing owls in a booming megacity built on the flat
Speaker 1: expanses of the Sonoran Desert, Metropolitan Phoenix is growing dramatically
Speaker 1: as it absorbs farm fields and wild scrublands trained favored
Speaker 1: by burrowing owls. In a unique effort to save the
Speaker 1: underground nesters, experts and volunteers have relocated hundreds of hours
Speaker 1: away from encroaching development. Next. Hunting for my Father's Butterfly,
Speaker 1: a daughter's epic quest to find one of the world's
Speaker 1: rarest butterflies, a species named for her father by Rena Effendi.
Speaker 1: My father once told me that the average life span
Speaker 1: of butterflies is seldom more than a few weeks. Obsessed
Speaker 1: with them since he was a boy, he caught thousands
Speaker 1: during his lifetime using pins and tweezers. He'd straighten their
Speaker 1: wings on a wooden spreader, not a single antenna damaged.
Speaker 1: He'd then affixed the insects to a foam board by
Speaker 1: piercing tiny needles through their thorax, and apply chemicals to
Speaker 1: preserve their bodies and wings. He'd meticulously arrange butterflies and
Speaker 1: moths according to their species and family in display cases.
Speaker 1: With the help of a magnifying lens, he'd inscribed their
Speaker 1: Latin names on labels smaller than a sunflower seed. Encased
Speaker 1: in glass. His specimens glistened. My father, Rustam Effendi, was
Speaker 1: a Soviet Azerbaijani lepidopterists, a pre eminent authority on butterflies
Speaker 1: and moths of the Caucasas region. In my childhood home
Speaker 1: in Baku, Azerbaizan, he was a rare guest. He spent
Speaker 1: most winders hibernating in his studio apartment in a different
Speaker 1: part of the city, waiting for the butterfly season to begin.
Speaker 1: In late spring. As soon as the last patches of
Speaker 1: snow melted on the lower plains, he'd journey into the
Speaker 1: mountains to study, hunt, and collect. He'd bring back cocoons
Speaker 1: in jars, caterpillars squirming in match boxes, and butterflies folded
Speaker 1: into envelopes, all of which he fussed over with the
Speaker 1: keenness of a mother tending to her newborn. He dedicated
Speaker 1: his life to his work and died in his mid
Speaker 1: fifties when I was turning fourteen. I hardly knew my father.
Speaker 1: My memories of him are disparate snippets, a collection of
Speaker 1: faded photographs and conflicting accounts. Over the past three decades.
Speaker 1: As a journalist and photographer, I became fixated on reconstructing
Speaker 1: the story of his life. Years ago, I came across
Speaker 1: his Wikipedia page and clicked on a link that led
Speaker 1: me to a picture of a modestly colored butterfly. The
Speaker 1: description underneath read Satirus efendi, species of the Nymphalidai family.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the page, I learned that Yuri Nekrutenko,
Speaker 1: a Lepidopterus from Ukraine, discovered a new butterfly species in
Speaker 1: the Caucasas in nineteen eighty nine and named it in
Speaker 1: honor of Rustom, his close friend and colleague. Later I
Speaker 1: found out that Yuri had joked with my father at
Speaker 1: the time, since you've only had daughters, your surname will
Speaker 1: live on with a butterfly. Let's hope it does not
Speaker 1: go extinct. But his namesake is perhaps one of the
Speaker 1: rarest butterflies in the world. Only a single generation hatches
Speaker 1: between mid July and mid August, flying in its mountainous
Speaker 1: habitat ten thousand feet above sea level two withstand harsh conditions.
Speaker 1: Setyrus efendi has furl like scales on its wings and
Speaker 1: a dark brown color that may keep it warm. Its
Speaker 1: most distinguishable physical trait is two black markings like eyes
Speaker 1: with white pupils, each glaring from the center a corner
Speaker 1: of the wings. For two weeks, the insect flutters over
Speaker 1: the Zengezer Ridge, which spans a hundred miles across the
Speaker 1: border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, two countries in the grips
Speaker 1: of a decade's long conflict. As one of the few
Speaker 1: lepidopteras in Soviet Azerbaisan, my father captured numerous species, each
Speaker 1: one stored at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Institute
Speaker 1: of Zoology in Baku, where he worked for more than
Speaker 1: three decades. Many years have passed since, and much of
Speaker 1: his collection is turning to dust. I searched for mentions
Speaker 1: of Setyris efendi in scientific works he authored in his
Speaker 1: field journals and among the remaining specimens in his collection,
Speaker 1: but found no trace of it. I concluded it was
Speaker 1: one of the only endemic species he hadn't caught. I
Speaker 1: wondered if I could my father's hunting grounds to find
Speaker 1: the butterfly. I laid out a path retracing my father's footsteps,
Speaker 1: consulting the maps he had made of the places he
Speaker 1: had traveled, a research area that is now constrained by
Speaker 1: the politics of the day. Despite his reputation as one
Speaker 1: of the Soviet unions leading butterfly and moth experts, he
Speaker 1: was never able to obtain a doctoral degree because he
Speaker 1: adamantly refused to join the Communist Party. The decision narrowed
Speaker 1: his career options. Authorities forbade him from traveling outside the USSR,
Speaker 1: so instead he criss crossed his home region of the Caucasas,
Speaker 1: making his maps with black dots to show where he'd hunted.
Speaker 1: A constellation of them run along the southeastern mountains toward Armenia.
Speaker 1: The world he traversed in those days has changed dramatically.
Speaker 1: When he died in nineteen ninety one, the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: was on the brink of collapse and wars loomed in
Speaker 1: the Caucasus. Today, the plains and mountain passes where he
Speaker 1: had peacefully hunted more than forty e years ago would
Speaker 1: be largely unrecognizable to him. These changes wrought by time
Speaker 1: and conflict, added new obstacles to my journey a hostile habitat.
Speaker 1: Ideally I would have traveled over land from Azerbaijan to
Speaker 1: Armenia as my father had, but the countries are now
Speaker 1: bitter rivals, their borders sealed and militarized. Since the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, they fought over control of Nagorno Carbash, an
Speaker 1: autonomous region in the mountains of Azerbaijan home to a
Speaker 1: majority ethnic Armenian population. In the thirty years of war
Speaker 1: and occupation since the towns and villages my father regularly
Speaker 1: visited had been reduced to rubble. The Zangaynzer Railway, his
Speaker 1: main transportation across the plains, had long ago been dismantled,
Speaker 1: its tracks repurposed as anti anti tank traps. Many of
Speaker 1: the fields where he'd hunted for butterflies had been dug
Speaker 1: out with trenches and littered with land mines. The conflict
Speaker 1: is ongoing. Five years ago, Azerbaijan fought a forty four
Speaker 1: day war to recapture the provinces surrounding Nigorno Karbak, which
Speaker 1: it had lost to Armenia three decades earlier. A ceasefire
Speaker 1: was broken by Russia and resulted in a handover of
Speaker 1: large territories to Azerbaijan. Most recently, in the fall of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Agerbaijan captured the Autonomous Regions de facto
Speaker 1: capital of Zenkendi Stepanokert, displaying displacing more than one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand of its ethnic Armenian inhabitants. To recreate my father's commute,
Speaker 1: a petitioned top government agencies in both countries. After months
Speaker 1: of negotiation, Azerbaijan gave me permission to approach the Armenian
Speaker 1: border from its territory with a military escort. On this trip,
Speaker 1: I got to see the same mountain roads where my
Speaker 1: father traveled by bus or hitched car rides from strangers,
Speaker 1: but I was never allowed to cross into Armenia clues
Speaker 1: from the past. In spring of twenty twenty two, I
Speaker 1: was finally permitted to fly to Armenia from Istanbul to
Speaker 1: Yerevan on one of the first operated direct flights in
Speaker 1: two years. Ahead of the trip, I was curious if
Speaker 1: there was some one on that side of the border
Speaker 1: who still remembered my father. His former colleagues introduced me
Speaker 1: to parkv Khazaryan, An ethnic Armenian taxidermist and insect collector.
Speaker 1: A native of Baku, Parkhev sixty nine, now lives in
Speaker 1: northern Armenia in his ancestor's remote village. Where I visited him,
Speaker 1: we were like the two halves of the same apple,
Speaker 1: he said of my father, who was twenty years older
Speaker 1: than Parkhev, who is my teacher, my mentor. Parkhev had
Speaker 1: fled to Azerbaizan amid ethnic tensions in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: taking with him his most prized possession, eleven boxes of
Speaker 1: preserved butterflies. In his sparsely furnished home, time appeared frozen
Speaker 1: in the late eighteenth. In the late eighties, a bulky
Speaker 1: old Soviet Ukrainian refrigerator held his rhinoceros beetle collection in
Speaker 1: one room. Under the bed. I noted a green canvas
Speaker 1: backpack identical to my father's. The sight of it brought
Speaker 1: back memories of him packing for his hunts, fitting his
Speaker 1: whole life into a bag like this, Bottomless like a
Speaker 1: magician's hat, it contained jars, lamps, vials, match books, a
Speaker 1: set of tools to spread wings, strips of paper soaked
Speaker 1: in cyanide, poisoned for the butterflies and so much more.
Speaker 1: From a stack of duck dusty boxes, Parkhev pulled out
Speaker 1: a pink one full of pinned butterflies. Two caught my attention,
Speaker 1: satirus offending. The mail was still intact, large and deep brown,
Speaker 1: with velvety, furry looking wings. Parkhev told me he caught
Speaker 1: the specimens on the Armenian side of the border, in
Speaker 1: the mountains of Vayot's Zoor in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, just a few months after my father died.
Speaker 1: It's not a coincidence. I caught it then, he said.
Speaker 1: Roustam made himself known my father's tools. A few months
Speaker 1: later in the summer, I returned to Armenia, this time
Speaker 1: to search for the butterfly with Parkv, where he'd found
Speaker 1: the pear in his collection more than thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Together we've traveled up the Serpentine Road in the mountains
Speaker 1: of kayatt Zor in the back of a Soviet Army
Speaker 1: all trained vehicle. We combed the idyllic mountain plateau carrying
Speaker 1: translucent butterfly nets, round at the bottom, not pointy like
Speaker 1: the regular kind. The net was attached to a bamboo
Speaker 1: stick with a brass grip, just like my father's. This
Speaker 1: is Rustom's technology. The net is in the shape of
Speaker 1: a woman's bra. You go whoosh like that, said Parkuev
Speaker 1: as he swung it as the sun set behind the
Speaker 1: jacked rocks. On our first day we left empty hamden
Speaker 1: Ah ross Dam. I hope you're watching us from up there,
Speaker 1: Parkev said, pointing theatrically toward the sky. We've arrived at
Speaker 1: ere Parnassos. We returned to the same spot every day
Speaker 1: for a week, but the butterfly evaded us each time,
Speaker 1: the mythical butterfly. Aside from Parkhev, there are only two
Speaker 1: other people alive today who are known to have encountered
Speaker 1: Satir effendi in nature. One of them is a Russian
Speaker 1: entomologist named Dmitri Morbun, who observed a small cluster as
Speaker 1: recently as twenty sixteen flying over the Zangezer Ridge in
Speaker 1: the Nestivan Autonomous Republic and Azerbaizani Enclave bordering Armenia. For
Speaker 1: three years, I enlisted Dmitri's help and expertise. It's a
Speaker 1: truly mythical butterfly, said Dmitri, who told me my father's
Speaker 1: work influenced his early career. The habitat is so remote
Speaker 1: and inaccessible most scientists refuse to believe it actually existed.
Speaker 1: Sertius efendi appears to have gone extinct in a few
Speaker 1: of its early known habitats, including where it was first
Speaker 1: discovered by Yuri Nek Rutenko, and its threatened populations are
Speaker 1: even more vulnerable because the rise in global temperatures has
Speaker 1: forced shepherds to graze their flocks at higher altitudes than
Speaker 1: the animals feed on the same cereals, as does the
Speaker 1: butterfly species. After ascending the wrong part of the ridge
Speaker 1: on the first attempt, I came back to Nassivan in
Speaker 1: the summer by air, circumventing Armenia Armenian airspace by flying
Speaker 1: over Iran Dmitri joined me to identify the exact location
Speaker 1: on Zeizer Ridge where he had found the butterfly several
Speaker 1: years ago. The steep seven hour climb parts gree part
Speaker 1: narrow goat trails was more arduous than my previous one.
Speaker 1: I kept asking myself what am I doing? Unlike my father,
Speaker 1: who was at home in the mountains, I have felt
Speaker 1: more at ease in the city. About halfway through the climb,
Speaker 1: my heart was beating frantically and I was dizzy with vertigo.
Speaker 1: When we finally reached the top, there were no butterflies
Speaker 1: in sight. As I recovered the following day, Dmitri speculated
Speaker 1: the shifting seasons made it difficult for us to predict
Speaker 1: the timing of their hatching. My discovery. For a third
Speaker 1: straight summer, I treked up the mountain in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Muscle memory had formed over time, and I was fueled
Speaker 1: by my own stubbornness. Dmitrie accompanied me again, but on
Speaker 1: this trip opted to bring back pack horses and set
Speaker 1: up camp for four nights. Temperatures dropped drastically after sunset,
Speaker 1: and my tent flapped in the persistent wind. Every day
Speaker 1: at dawn we ascended the ridge to hunt, and each
Speaker 1: day we returned having seen nothing. After five days of this,
Speaker 1: I was exhausted. I had hardly slept, and I had
Speaker 1: begun to come to peace with the idea that I
Speaker 1: would never seize a tearce offendi in flight. Yet I
Speaker 1: also realized that my pursuit had achieved something else. It
Speaker 1: had brought me closer to my father. I walked in
Speaker 1: his beloved meadows and mountain peaks where I knew his
Speaker 1: spirit roomed free. I met people whose faces lit up
Speaker 1: as they remembered him. I'd gotten to know his old friends,
Speaker 1: who opened a window into his life. I had come
Speaker 1: to know him better than I ever did when he
Speaker 1: was alive. As Dmitri and I packed up the camp
Speaker 1: on our last day, the sun suddenly appeared and the
Speaker 1: wind subsided, so we decided to search one last time.
Speaker 1: While hiking, we came across a single bush of stepa,
Speaker 1: an endemic feather grass, swaying gently in the wind, a
Speaker 1: foods for the species caterpillars. The gray the grass was
Speaker 1: a sign both hopeful and discouraging. We presumed more of
Speaker 1: it had been consumed by live stock. Around noon, we
Speaker 1: sat down for a break and I closed my eyes
Speaker 1: to rest. When I opened them, I saw a large,
Speaker 1: dark insect rapidly flying twelve feet above me. It's him,
Speaker 1: it's him, I screamed, pointing. Dmitri sprang to his feet
Speaker 1: and ran in the direction of the northern slope, bouncing
Speaker 1: on rocks like a mountain goat. I ran after him,
Speaker 1: but couldn't keep up. Dmitri confirmed it was definitely my
Speaker 1: setyus Efendi. There was no doubt I spotted the male species.
Speaker 1: As I stood up on the spine of the ridge,
Speaker 1: scanning the slope, it flew right over me once again.
Speaker 1: For a flash of a second, the brown shimmering wings
Speaker 1: appeared in stark contrast with the sky and the sand
Speaker 1: colored terrain. It's here, it's flying, I yelled again to Dmitri,
Speaker 1: and we both watched it dive over the steeps Rocky
Speaker 1: Cascade and disappear farther down the slope. These next articles
Speaker 1: from in the April twenty twenty five National Geographic. Could
Speaker 1: this really be the Holy Grail? By Becky Little? Lost
Speaker 1: for millennia and surrounded in mystery, the Holy Grail is
Speaker 1: arguably the world's most elusive Christian relic, but for centuries,
Speaker 1: clergy at Spain's Valencia Cathedral have believed a cup in
Speaker 1: their possession is the Holy Chalice of the Lord's Supper.
Speaker 1: Many variations exist in Grail lore, but a common theme
Speaker 1: is that it is the vessel used by Jesus at
Speaker 1: the Last Supper and also used to catch his blood
Speaker 1: at the crucifixion. In these tellings, it's a sacred object
Speaker 1: sought by monarchs and king and knights like King Arthur
Speaker 1: and Sir Galahad to prove their purity and virtue. The
Speaker 1: Chalice of Valencia first appeared in Spanish historical accounts in
Speaker 1: thirteen ninety nine, when the monastery of San Juan de
Speaker 1: la Paiga bestowed it on King Martin of Aragon. One
Speaker 1: of his successors, King Alphonso the Fifth, was likely the
Speaker 1: first rus uller to suggest the cup was the Holy Grail.
Speaker 1: This may have been a strategic way to legitimize his rule,
Speaker 1: as only the most virtuous could obtain the relic, says
Speaker 1: Martin Muveise, a medieval art professor at Utrecht University in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. To day, the chalice can be seen in
Speaker 1: Valencia Cathedral's Chapel of the Holy Grail. At first glance,
Speaker 1: it may appear as a solid goblet, but it's actually
Speaker 1: three separate pieces, a simple stone cup, golden handles, and
Speaker 1: a jeweled stone base. Next. Racing to save Hawaii's precious snails,
Speaker 1: researchers are searching for radical solutions to protect these little
Speaker 1: understood species. A century ago, the Hawaiian Islands were home
Speaker 1: to more than seven hundred fifty species of land snails
Speaker 1: almost all found nowhere else in the world, says David Sishko,
Speaker 1: a wildlife biologist and National Geographic Explorer coordinating the state's
Speaker 1: snail extinction prevention program. But in recent decades, forest clearing
Speaker 1: and invasive predators like carnivorous snails have wiped nearly half
Speaker 1: these little understood species off the map. Another hundred species,
Speaker 1: including the Oahu land snail, face imminent extinction. Hawaiian researchers
Speaker 1: have joined with National Geographics Photo Arc Species Impact Initiative
Speaker 1: to hold off that fate by surrounding small acreages with
Speaker 1: six foot high solid walls tricked out with booby traps,
Speaker 1: among them, slick slides, snares, and electrical arrays to strap
Speaker 1: stop predators. The aim to just keep the snails on Earth,
Speaker 1: says Cisco, until better technology comes along. There is no
Speaker 1: time left. It's now or never. By Jason Biddle next.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty eight, National Geographic was founded by thirty
Speaker 1: three bold thinkers, scientists, explorers, and scholars who aim to
Speaker 1: reimagine the way we encounter and understand our world. They
Speaker 1: were meeting a critical challenge of their time. Has changed
Speaker 1: since then, of course, but at National Geographic. We are
Speaker 1: still inspired by the idea that people driven by a
Speaker 1: shared commitment to make the world a better place can
Speaker 1: have an enormous impact. It's in this spirit that we
Speaker 1: present the inaugural National Geographic thirty three, an initiative that
Speaker 1: spotlights and onerous visionaries, creators, icons and adventurers from across
Speaker 1: the globe who believe that our world needs imaginative solutions
Speaker 1: and urgent action and our answering to call. This concludes
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