In 2016, Chris Bell, a ranger with New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, was the sole human inhabitant of a small island off the west coast of the country, called Mana Island. He was there to take care of the island’s fragile and recovering ecosystem, including a colony of Australasian Gannets at the top of a high cliff overlooking the sea. But there was one catch. All but one of these striking seabirds were fake, made of concrete and paint.
This week on Radiolab, producer Annie McEwen tells us a love story about a rogue bird and what happens when the things we want for animals clash with what they seem to choose for themselves.
Special thanks to Melody Thomas and Kirsten Johnstone from Popsock Media, the New Zealand-based podcast company. Thanks also to Mathias Kom and Ariel Sharratt from The Burning Hell and Steven Lambke at You’ve Changed Records.
Visit Friends of Mana Island at https://manaisland.org.nz/ to learn more about conservation efforts on Mana Island.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Annie McEwen
Produced by - Annie McEwen
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Diane A. Kelly
and Edited by - Alex Neason
EPISODE CITATIONS:
Videos -
There are many Nigel-inspired songs and poems, find links to a few of them below:
See Nigel with his concrete mate (https://zpr.io/kZZC9erwauCD)
Nigel the Gannet song video by The Burning Hell (theburninghell.com)
Nigel [w/ score] (https://zpr.io/t47J6VkqAXLj) by Angus Davison
Nigel the Lonely Seabird (https://zpr.io/4gSSv5MX8xTa) by Daniel Henderson
Nigel (https://zpr.io/FuLupaZG42sn) by Avem
Nigel No Mates (https://zpr.io/hckrSSdBXKE9 ) by Dainius Kučinskas
Nigel Gannet (https://zpr.io/kddxySdXqd3C) by Fred Pilcher
Nigel (https://zpr.io/88HdTWRSd2UF) an Experimental Animated Short Film About a Lonely Gannet
Literature -
Poetry inspired by Nigel the Gannet (https://zpr.io/xBiW9usvAkpy)
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How did a freshly looted Egyptian antiquity end up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Why did it take Kim Kardashian to crack the case? And how much of what you see in any museum is stolen? (Part 1 of “Stealing Art Is Easy. Giving It Back Is Hard,” first published in 2023.)
SOURCES:
Andrea Bayer, deputy director of collections and administration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Matthew Bogdanos, assistant district attorney in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
Patty Gerstenblith, professor emeritus of law at DePaul University College of Law.
Jim Marrone, staff data scientist at StubHub.
Victoria Reed, Bettina Burr chair for provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
RESOURCES:
"Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art Displaying Objects That Belong to Native American Tribes?" by Kathleen Sharp (ProPublica, 2023).
"More Than 1,000 Artifacts in Metropolitan Museum of Art Catalog Linked to Alleged Looting and Trafficking Figures," by Spencer Woodman, Malia Politzer, Delphine Reuter, and Namrata Sharma (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2023).
"The Art Market 2022: An Art Basel & UBS Report," by Clare McAndrew (2022).
"The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side," by Ariel Sabar (The Atlantic, 2021).
"Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala Photo Helped Solve Looted Gold Egyptian Coffin Case," by Samantha Ibrahim (New York Post, 2021).
"Tracking and Disrupting the Illicit Antiquities Trade With Open-Source Data," by Matthew Sargent, James V. Marrone, Alexandra Evans, Bilyana Lilly, Erik Nemeth, and Stephen Dalzell (RAND Corporation, 2020).
"Provenience and Provenance Intersecting with International Law in the Market for Antiquities," by Patty G. Gerstenblith (North Carolina Journal of International Law, 2020).
EXTRAS:
"The Hidden Side of the Art Market," series by Freakonomics Radio (2021).
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First up on the podcast, ScienceInsider Editor Jocelyn Kaiser joins host Sarah Crespi for the latest science policy news. The two discuss recent grant cancellations by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the likelihood that the agency will spend its budget by the end of its fiscal year on 30 September.
Next on the show, crew aboard spacecraft that enter deep space are likely to be exposed to a radiation source we don’t often encounter on Earth’s surface: high-speed protons coming from solar storms or cosmic rays. So to protect astronauts, researchers are using plastics to defend against this dangerous form of radiation. Jordan Houri, lead scientist for space exploration at StemRad, talks about testing the protective capabilities of specially designed vests aboard NASA’s Artemis I mission.
This week’s episode was produced with help from Podigy.
Image credit: NASA/Lockheed Martin/DLR/StemRad
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Angela Buchdahl was the first Asian American to be ordained as a rabbi, and now she is among the most influential rabbis in the world. She and Stephen Dubner talk about boundary-crossing, the aftermath of October 7, and whether you can be a good Jew without believing in God.
If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, you can watch it on YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Some people are remarkably good at reading the emotional temperature of a situation. They can pick up on what others are feeling, manage their own emotions, and respond skillfully. What's their secret? This week, we explore the science of emotional intelligence with psychologist Peter Salovey.
Emotional intelligence is one of the most popular ideas in psychology. It's also a term that's widely misused and misunderstood. We explore these misconceptions in a bonus conversation with Peter Salovey for Hidden Brain+ subscribers. If you're not yet a subscriber, you can hear it with a free seven-day trial to Hidden Brain+. Please visit support.hiddenbrain.org or apple.co/hiddenbrain to listen to that episode. Your subscription helps support the research, writing, and audio production that go into every episode of Hidden Brain. We appreciate your support!
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