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

Episode Date: September 8, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with author Nathalia Holt, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Nathalia's new book, "The Beast In The Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda" is out!; get presale tickets for MeatEater's Christmas Tour 2025 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 and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's F-I-R-S-T-L-L-I-T. We're joined today by big-time writer Nothalya Holt, one of the most credentialed writers we've had on. No, that's not true. Among the most, I mean like a writer-writer. I think David Gran is going to have some words about that. I'm not sure that's true, but I'm really excited to be here. Among the big-time, like, writer-writers. Oh, that's very bad.

Among the big-time writer. You know what I mean? Here's what I'm trying to say. We've had, not on I think about, we've had a number of esteemed generalists, but you're a generalist nonfiction writer. 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. On the lower rung of the top, no, I'm joking. Yeah, that's me.

Among the most. Bottom shelf. Yeah. Among our prestigious writers we've had on the show, our generalist nonfiction writers that we've had on the show, that we've had on the show. Nathalia Holt is here, and her new book is The Beast and the Clouds and get this,

this is what we're going to talk about today. I had no idea. Up until the 1930s, this is the story we're going to tell. Up until the 1930s, it was debated whether there was actually, like in the Western world,

there was an active debate. Is there such a thing as a panda bear? That's right. This is the last large mammal. Unknown to size. science, up until the 1930s, up until the Roosevelt's did this expedition, there was serious debate in the scientific community about whether pandas were real. People would say like, hey, there's this big white and black bear up in the mountains,

and people would be like, bull shit. Right? 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 him. That is not a bad game. Yeah, it's not bad. Every time the hunter sees an animal, he's got like, but is it interesting? He got a lot of interesting animals. Yeah, it worked. 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 almost as if I'm describing to you a unicorn, 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, 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. 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. 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. And so you have all these expeditions. that go out to China, desperate to find the panda, and they all return empty-handed. 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 Roosevelt's 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. They thought they were going to find one of the most aggressive predators on Earth as they search out. Like a polar bear to climb trees. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And, I mean, really, when the Roosevelt's, you 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 Roosevelt's. These are not accomplished scientists, although they obviously have a lot of experience as hunters. And they're going with a rag tag group.

So as they're leaving, as they're going on this expedition, few think that they are the ones that are going to be able to discover the panda. So you mentioned having a PhD. What did you study? I have a PhD in molecular biology, and I've done field work in a lot of really interesting places in Alaska. in redwood trees and 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. And you are Nathalia Holt, Ph.D. You're a New York Times bestselling author. So Beasts in the Clouds, which you're here to talk about today. Past Books, Wise Gals, Rise of the Rocket Girls, the Queens of Animation, and the book, Keard. 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?

It's Reagan Institute. So it's this, it's a science group that's part of Harvard, MDH, and MIT in Boston. Okay. She is a former fellow at the, I would read that Reagan, because we know how Reagan spelled. I know. I understand. It's someone's name. Like, it's one of the things we learned from Reagan. I was spelled Reagan. The Reagan Institute of M.G.H., which is the Massachusetts General Hospital. Oh, okay. MIT, the alma mater of Ted Kaczynski.

Nice. No, he was a teacher there. In Harvard University. And you live in Pacific Grove, California. I do, yeah. Okay. So we're going to pick up this story. And I got my first question coming out of this when we pay.

pick the story back up is um we got to go back up because i need to know what like what kind of a dad was roosevelt so just stew on that at a minute yeah it's an important question before we embarked them on this journey of trying to shoot or collect a panda bear against all odds i need to know was roosevelt like an absentee father um that that you stew on at a minute okay but first 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 it's all in the south and it's the Christmas tour so my first idea is that we would make a poster 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 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 or Randall wanted to do the tour he wanted to do the tour of the South along the path of Sherman's March

and I said said that to you in confidence. And it's like, it was going to be the tour march to the sea. The tour upholster is going to be the Yankees. The tour pollster is going to be the Yankees are coming again.

But we checked with a couple Southerners. I felt away. Hunter Spencer. We called Hunter Spencer. First per 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.

he thinks it's a little too soon. Oh my gosh. So maybe in a hundred years. What's in a hundred years? The 20, the 2-1-2-5, if this is the 20-25 tour, the 21-25 tour, the 21-25. When they're just doing holograms of us tour. Well, no, we'll just need to bring Steve back like the dire wolves. In the 20-end of century, maybe we'll do the, the Yankees are coming.

But instead, we're just branding it more of something. can get on board with. Well, well, that most people can get on board with, which is the Christmas tour. But I do want you to know, you know, 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. The Christmas tour is 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. we're bringing clay

yeah clay will be there he's from Arkansas uh huh there'd be a little twang on the stage like southish yeah southish he's coming we could have done it like that

um since Clay's from the south and uh um Brent's from the South we could have had it be like the reconciliation tour and the poster would be

Yankees and Confederates It would look like the paintings of Appomatics Yeah Yankees and Confederates with our arms around each other And we call it the reconciliation tour And it'd be that Yankees And Arkansas people

Are coming to your town But are you gonna wear the hats Is my question We're not We're going to all Santa Claus It's just like we're putting the When I heard about this My first thought was

Last year I had to make do with a pretty not movie quality Santa Claus costume for all of the office hijinks. And so I thought if we're doing a live Christmas tour, maybe it's time that

we invested. Because I believe me, I went to the sites and I went to all the websites of real high quality Santa gear, just because it seems like something that you know, you buy once and you're good for 15 years. Like a dude that has a job at a mall.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's wearing a legit suit. Like, I looked into the different styles of belts. You know, a lot of them are actually overalls underneath the jacket, the different trim styles. And then to say nothing of the wigs and beards. I did a lot of research. So when we have our budgeting meeting for the tour, I'm going to, I have a presentation. Like a tailored suit.

Yeah, like a real Santa suit. And then are you actually doing full-on boots or are you doing boot covers? because 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 I don't like that one bit

yeah well we can talk about it you're going to bring the suit well that's yeah so here's a deal for people for Southerners out there you know who you are if for Christmas right you'd be like, hey, what I want is tickets to the Christmas tour.

Yeah, Uncle Eddie will be in town, you know? You know, so that's what you should. So if you're listening, tell your spouse or your boyfriend or your girlfriend that what you want is tickets to the Christmas tour. And Randall's going to be there in a suit. There'll be carols. And listen, don't be afraid to bring your grandpa because we're not going to bring up the war between the states. Like, I don't want you to go on their thing. bring that up again.

I don't want you to think we're going to enter into a big controversy. It's just pure Christmas tour. Yeah. We're going to sing carols. We're going to do like a normal meat eater live show. There will be contests and whatnot and people will 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, you know, I'm not going to say it anymore.

Yeah. Here's where we're going. Six stops. Birmingham, Alabama. Oh, I got a great Birmingham story I'm going to tell on that. I went to have drove, I took a greyhound across the country.

That would be a good idea. I was just told it. Good gracious. Birmingham, Alabama, Nashville, Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Fayetteville. I was just joking.

Fayetteville, Arkansas. I just talked to Evan Felker. He's going to come. to the from turnpike troubadors he's going to come to the show and him and clay are going to do the bird hunters live at the start of the show wow isn't that cool maybe he could carol for us a bit too Dallas Texas where we've been before and Austin Texas where I don't think we've done a show if you want to go to the meat eater.com you can sign up for a thing we got for a pre-sale Ho, ho, ho.

And a rebel yell. Ho, ho, ho, and a rebel yell. Coming to the South. Good gracious. I was going to tell a big story about having a hard hat because Randall's like, I'm not going to tell that. I'll probably get back in the pan of bears, but. Randall's under pressure to get all your things from growing up out of your

Ma's house and she wanted if you still wanted your hard hat. Yeah, that and a crossbow. And a cave of our knife. Yeah. But never mind that. What kind of dad was Roosevelt? Was you mean? Like he couldn't have been around much.

You're wrong about that, actually. Really? 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 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. 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 they're also disadvantages.

That's what I'd be curious about is when I was reading. I didn't know that they did crazy expeditions like their own man did. So I was picturing two 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 had. 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 it's you know it's a little bit of both because obviously he loved his kids very passionately he was very affectionate with them but he put a lot of pressure on them. 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. At what age? 10. He has... I know what that looks like a 10-year-old nervous breakdown. I mean, you can imagine that it's not easy to be the son at Teddy Roosevelt. This is a larger-than-life figure. And he is very concerned about his sons being strong. He

He says repeatedly in letters that he's worried that Kermit is going to be a weakling. He says that to who? His bodies? 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 1909. 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. Okay. And then after Teddy Roosevelt loses the election in 1912, they go on a River of Doubt expedition. And, of course, that one is told so beautifully in Candice 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. There's no way he's going to be able to do that. Because of his own limitations or because of his popularity? 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. I've heard of this, but I have no idea what it is.

The teapot dome scandal. Sort of like in the way back of my head, there's like, I feel like you've heard of that. This is a few years ago, so, you know, it's been a while. The teapot dome scandal. Yes. And so after that, even though Ted was not convicted of any crime.

He was implicated in this. He got canceled. Yeah, he got canceled. In fact, you even have Eleanor Roosevelt campaigning against him in a giant teapot costume. What? It's brutal.

I mean, that's your family. The family, yeah. So that's, you know, FDR and Eleanor where there was a feud between them. So they're distant cousins. 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?

I have. Is that not true? I don't think so. I think it's just the way that people from different areas pronounce the name. So it was like Roosevelt across the board. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

Yeah. And then in this story you're telling, which one, just so people are kind of, where this is like foreshadowing which of his two boys ends up killing himself that's kermit okay he ends up killing himself and he's the one rolled up in teapot dome no that's actually the eldest brother got it 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 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. They were ready to go do something different and going into the woods going on hunting expeditions was always a big part of their lives so how like how did they get 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 like how do they become the

recipients of this and be like hey we'll be the ones that go find it you know 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. And at this point in time, how many pandas are alive? It's hard to say.

So the best estimate we have is somewhere in the 2000 range. There's not a lot of pandas. At that point, there's only 2,000 pandas? Yes, pandas have always been fairly rare. And 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 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. hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart you got steep ground long distances and miles of crown land that aren't always easy to navigate that's why onex hunt just got a serious upgrade for hunters in canada now you can get nationwide coverage for less than the cost of a box of shells with major updates to crown land layers and new parcel boundaries where available scout access boundaries and terrain with confidence before you even lace up your boots

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this is like deep I won't judge if you don't know the answer to this let's say you go back let's say we went back 10,000 years or whatever to hell was it like was it at a time was there a million pandas do 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

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.

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. So if you laid out a hunk of, I don't know, man, like, you lay out like a hunk of meat hanging there, is he going to, I'll eat that. Here's just going to not eat it. Panda's not going to eat a hunk of meat. He's not going to eat it. No.

Yeah, it's not going to 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. So even if they can get it. 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 consume. 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, They are pretty special. They're very rare for being a bear. So perhaps it's not crazy that the Roosevelt's 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.

Yeah. Man, that blows my mind. Just 2,000 of them. Yeah. Yeah. It's not many. And it's not many today either. 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, 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 the Roosevelt's. 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're 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 track. 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. 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 what they went through

on the trail it is just extreme how close they came to dying multiple times from what was almost killing them well first off like 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 likely of finding one would be. 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, find the panda.

And 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 Roosevelt's, although you may not think of them so much as scientists, they really are bridging that gap. They have that ability to hunt, but then they also have the ability 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. They're traveling with a man named Tai Jack 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 Roosevelt's huh he was alive in the 1990s yeah he's only 18 at the time of this expedition and so he was friends with the Roosevelt's for years they were very close friends um and so to be able to get his account was so interesting um and so he's one of the members of this expedition as well as a man named pseudum cutting who's a naturalist from new york um who 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 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. I got the sense in there, like, especially with him, that in this era of expeditions, it was like it was almost 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. 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 did these trips, the animals

would not be named after them. But this expedition is special because you have the Roosevelt's. And I, yeah, I loved writing about Herbert Stevens, especially because he's kind of funny on the trail. He tends to delay the group. The Roosevelt's get very annoyed with him.

He gets lost the first day on the trail. He's the one they leave behind, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's too slow. You know, in terms of hitting the right expedition, just an interesting thing about that is 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 or 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.

So true. Yeah. It's just like, you could have been like, huh, what's, you know, what one's going to 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. Freeman and Custis. Yeah.

Yeah. Lost to time, dude. Like, no one cares. No one's heard of the guy, you know? Yeah, certainly nobody would have put money on the Roosevelt's for this expedition. They didn't even tell their close friends that they were going after the panda. And how long were they fixing to go for? They were planning to go for six months.

That was their plan. They thought it'd get done in six months. 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. Got it. And just to be clear, their intent, they want to observe them, watch them, but then they're intends to shoot something. Absolutely. And it's very specific how they need to collect the panda so that it's, you know, you know, useful for science. Okay. So they take off from where? So they take off from, well, technically the

trip starts, of course, in New York. But they end up going through Myanmar into the western side of China, into UNAN. And so they're going through a trail that where... This is on foot. 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. But yeah, they're going on foot. So these are all places where there are no roads for cars. It's just trails. Huh. So even like, I just can't, I wish I understood it better,

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. It's just too remote, this area they're going to. 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.

There's also a civil war going on. That's kind of a problem for them throughout the book. So in 1927, 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. And that probably cuts off certain avenues of approach. It does, although the parts they're going to, they're simply are not roads. And so it's interesting throughout the book because as they described the trail, and by the way,

It was so much fun just to go through the Roosevelt's field journals and how they described things. And 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. Okay. Yeah. I wish I had a map of the planet Earth.

Bill, can you pull up a picture of Myanmar and China? Yeah, it'll be a little map in the book, too, if you want to, if that helps, it's kind of right in the front there. I don't know people that see what, me and Mar, what is Myanmar? So it's Burma at the time. Burma at the time. So east of, if you're picturing like the. Indian Ocean it's east of India sort of tucked up there Yes that's right

Northwest Southeast Asia Yes that's a good way to put it Northwest Southeast Asia Do you need it super detailed or you want in context With like the surrounding countries In context with everything else Okay Here

Like that little square Dude I went to high school with lives in Myanmar Oh interesting Maybe his little spot will show there Okay All right. Let me just get my... I can get my head straight here. So they're crossing Myanmar.

Yes. So they're going from... There's kind of this. It's called the Balma route through Burma. And then they're going into Yunnan. And they call it sort of the back door into China. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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 through. Vietnam. 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 mountains of western China. That's right. I would never picture that that's how you would need to do that

at that point in time. It seems crazy. I don't know why. I don't know anything about that area. So what kind of happens to them along that route then? I mean, they may have got to be having adventures left and right. 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 damn good hunting trip right there. Yeah, that's a huge collection. Yeah. And so they are collecting all of these interesting species. They find 19 new species on the trail. 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 section of Tibetan Buddhism. And at that time, you had all of these lamasaries that were along the route. and there were men and women who were llamas who were brought there when their children and then they grow up in the lammas. Just to connect that to people today

like you're like you know just regular old Americans going to hear of the Dali Lama so when you say llamas stems from that same And a Lama seri is like a monastery like a monastery with a llama exactly.

Yeah. Sounds funny when you put it that way. And that's like the government that's the governing system. 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 roosevelt's 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.

These guys aren't like warlords either. Some of them are. Oh, they are? Yeah, so there certainly was fighting. Many of these autonomous regions were fighting the Chinese for their independence. Okay. And so Tibet 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. 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. Oh, they absolutely are. They are. 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 Muli,

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 explain to this ruler of Muli

that they are the sons of President Theodore Roosevelt and he says, who's that? He has no idea. They're like, how about a bowler hat? How about a gun? We could pick one of the other, the bowler hat or the rifle. 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 next king of Mulei, who was at that time just a toddler running around. And it's really interesting to see how those interactions. went along and how they got along with people.

And along the way, like, here they are on the right continent, kind of than 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? Doug, you know, but it's kind of surprising. But you can almost think, you could think of analogs from here that you, let's say you were different bear. Let's say you're very curious about, 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 they're like a what yeah that's a great analogy it would 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 and then you would describe it you would try to say hey this is what they look like and people 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. And you're like, I'm curious about the polar bears.

Yeah. And in the interior, they're like, I've no idea you're talking about. You're close, but you're not. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot like that way it's sort of easy to imagine. But it also seemed like, it's like a big white and black, super cuddly.

Yeah. Bear. And it lives around here. It is more like describing a unicorn than a grizzly bear. 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. Oh, it just takes forever.

Okay. 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. So they lose all of their food. Stolen? No, it's just so cold that the mules decide.

that they have to leave. They're out. 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.

Dying from exposure. Yeah. Okay. And so it's just one struggle after and 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 the people call it low low 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. And they don't have any idea. I mentioned like Lewis and Clark Expedition, right? They have an idea where they're able to defend themselves. Right? I mean, there are. their 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 no that is absolutely not their hope and there's some interesting parts along the trail 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 it was it was certainly one that paid well. It was one 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 that are women that are head on the trail that end up scaring away some bandits as well. So they certainly were able to have some backup from their guides. But what we see is that even when they're in positions where the Roosevelt's 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 learn from their dad. So these guys that people tell them that warn them against, what is their final act to go to this area? How do these people live? Like, kind of like sketch out what their sort of lifestyle is. So these are the ye people and they live in these remote villages in the, mountainous regions of central China. They have a lot of animosity towards the Chinese. And they

pretty much tend to keep to themselves. And so first, when they meet the Roosevelt's, they're very suspicious because the Roosevelt's 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 Roosevelt's are Catholic priests that are come to be missionaries. And so they're very upset. And they're hostile to that. Yes. And so it sort of takes some convincing. No, they're not here to proselytize. We're here to kill these little birds and take their skins. It's not what you think. But what happens is that the people do not hunt panda. 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 try to explain to the Roosevelt's, these are gentle creatures.

We don't hunt them. But they are hunters. But they are hunters. Absolutely. And they've made like, even though they've come to some kind of cultural 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. Yes. And the results 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 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 Roosevelt's 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. Oh, I see. 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 where it was, or apiary, sorry, not aviary, where the panda was, you know, at some point threatening them. And that has only happened twice before is what they told the Roosevelt's. 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 efforts.

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And don't worry, we didn't leave out any of the gory. details. Pre-order meat eaters American history, the hide hunters, 1865 to 1883, wherever you get your audiobooks and you'll be ready to dig in when it's available to listen on October 14. Can we hit a couple biometrics on pandas? Sure. What are we talking about? How many pounds is a panda bear? Man, I know that and I just, it's lost my brain. I can't remember. You say 500 to 800 pounds. No.

I don't know. I'm going two to three. Okay, this is, sorry, I can't remember. The National Zoo weighing up to 250 pounds. That sounds about right. How could you've gotten more rights than me? Yeah, that's pretty good. Rarely reach 200.

Without actually saying 250, I said from two to three. I think, I guess I'm just thinking of all the hair, you know. They're very fluffy. Yeah. Okay. And then they don't den, or do they den? They don't hibernate. So 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. Okay.

And then what's their sort of, do they spend a lot of time with their cubs like a normal, like other bear species? 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. And they end up communicating with each other through scratches on the bamboo and then through rubbing their glands on these scratches. And so a female will learn of a male that she is going to possibly mate with through that smell. 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, and they are so isolated that really it's only through those scratches through that rubbing. Do they have any vocalizations? Oh, I'm sorry, Corinne, go ahead. Oh, just when you say the scratching, is that a visual thing? Like they leave a sign and then... Well, it's mostly how they rub their glands on the scratches.

Got it, got it. So it's more of a scent thing and not a visual sign. It's absolutely sent. That's amazing if they're like, oh, look, a sense. sign of, you know. But I wouldn't surprise about that because bears you scratch trees you know, like prominent

like prominent trees or trees like 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. And then any kind of calls they make?

They don't. They don't make. They're very quiet. They don't go brr. Unfortunately no. No. Even if they did vocalize, it probably wouldn't sound.

It'd be like, man. Something really cute. Now, as chill as they are, as chill as they are, do the males, will the males throw down, like, over a female? It has not been observed in the wild whatsoever. So, Chia is always chill. Very chill. Like, they're doped up. They like that.

Yeah. Yeah, so the Roosevelt's end up describing them as a gentleman. That's how they put it. They're gentlemanly. but do they okay if you roll up on a Pamp okay is isolated

and what elevation are we talking about like where are they at in the Himalaya how high 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 like snowy high peaks okay so that was on that was they were up there because of they needed to travel through the area

they weren't searching I mean they were still searching because they weren't sure where the panda was I mean, they have, like, no idea where to look. I see. 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 just sort of clueless the whole time. I know guys like that. I know guys the hunt like that. 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, this is our best shot here. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. 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. And the clock is ticking.

And the clock is absolutely ticking. And where they are is, so obviously it's a bunch, it's a bamboo forest, but it's like rugged steep country. It is. Mountainous country. Yeah. So it's mountainous. So it's not high Himalayas peaks, but it is, it's very difficult to hike through. Yeah.

Yeah. And so when these guys take them out to look, they take them to like some spots they run into them. But there's not like herds of pandas. No, there are no hearts of pandas. You're looking for onesies. Yeah, so we can imagine that at the moment when they finally see a bare print in the snow. Oh, it's in the snow. Yeah, it's very exciting when that happens.

And it's a really big moment in the book, and it's a big moment for them because they are so excited. The Roosevelt's are 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, because they don't want to kill a panda. They didn't think they'd find one.

Yeah. Randall, how are you contradicting the author? Oh, no. Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, Randall is right. He knows.

No, no. This is what you were saying earlier. Like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, Randall's like, I'll tell you what I put in my paper. In my panda. I mean, I, I saw this, I saw this book whenever it was announced in, in January or December. And I, I, I preordered it because it has everything that I enjoy. Just expedit.

Uh, Roosevelt's, uh, mountains, and, uh, bears. And yeah, I'm a big zoo guy. So pandas are objects of incredible fascination for me. You're a big zoo guy? Oh yeah. I thought we talked about this. No, we didn't. I know you're a big estate sale guy. Randall's really into a state sales. Sorry, I've got a, yeah, got a, I'm very, I'm a Renaissance man. Yeah, he's into a lot of stuff. I didn't mean to interrupt. I knew about the estate sales, but I didn't know about the pandas. Well, you never know. Trinkets you're going to find.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was at a zoo this weekend. That's great. There's a lot of shelving in the book, actually. So they hit a track. I like this that it's in the snow. Yeah. But where a panda lives, what's the deepest snow a panda could deal with?

I mean, are they sometimes in serious snow? Oh, yes, absolutely. Okay. 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. I got you. So, but in peak winter, a panda is not hibernating, but is hanging out in potentially serious snow. Isn't that interesting? Eating as bamboo. Constantly eating. Okay.

Now, to get back to my question, and maybe you're both right. I'll stay out of it. No, no, I want to hear you 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. Yes. Randall says it's because they, what did he say? They want to go home?

I mean, my understanding is that they agreed to take the Roosevelt out thinking that they would not actually have to go through with the thing. They're like, we'll just march these guys around for a couple days, collect our paychecks, and then these guys will go. because, like, there's no chance we're actually going to hit a track. My co-author is right. So when they hit a track, they're like,

oh, maybe we. All right. Yeah. See, they're like, I read the book. They're like, we shouldn't have taken them

to where they actually are. Yeah, it's a lot of regret. And so not all of them continue. Yeah, because they could have just totally beassed them. Yeah. 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.

Yes. 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. Yeah. So it's surprising that these guides, as conflict as they are, they actually go to the spot. It is surprising, but I think that just goes to show how rare pandas are, that they

They did not think they would find one even looking in the right place. Even if you were in the right place. Yeah. Yeah. So they cut a track. Yes. And they trail it. 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. Yeah. Immediately some hunting dogs begin to howl. And the Roosevelt's 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, to kind of keep people happy

and they're just beside themselves. They end up dividing where Ted goes on one trail and Kermit goes on another. And so Kermit is now... Can you back up to the hunting dog issue? Yeah.

What don't they like about it? They feel it's counterproductive? They're, yes. They believe that it's just going to scare away the game they're tracking. They're first going to stir everything. 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 Roosevelt's 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. They're the ones that pull the trigger.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, they're the ones that will really want to do the work. Yeah. 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. Okay. And so they were letting these dogs go so that they could hunt some pigs for food later. Oh, so they got dogs out for different reasons. Yeah. Oh, so that makes more sense. Yeah. Okay.

So they're like, hey, they're here. They want to hunt. They want pigs. They want to eat. Yeah. So they're going to cut their dogs loose. Yes. And then these dogs are raising hell in the panda zone.

The worst timing ever. Yeah. It could not be worse. Understood. 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 huh and it's it's up in the tree 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 they both get the credit oh my god really I know. It's very, it's kind of ridiculous and many people. It's like having little kids around. Yeah. It kind of is. And I think part of this is that. It's so infantile.

Good Lord. But it's kind of adorable. No, it's not adorable. That's adorable? I want to be daddy's favorite. You always get to shoot everything. That's a good person. Phil, thank you.

I like the idea Shoot everything It's like it could be like a firing squad Where one of them is a blank And one of them as an actual line If you had told me If you had told me that Neither of them

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 so they never really know who killed the panda But that they both want to be the guy They got to say they shot it

No there's no guilt at this point because they don't know what the pandas like. They think they're going to shoot at this panda and it's going to attack them. Okay, that reason. They got to get two bullets in it. They're like, they're so afraid. They want to make sure it goes down.

They want to make sure that it's a humane. 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, it's kind of pathetic. 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. Okay. So it might be part of that. So it's dend up in a tree? Yeah.

And then is it dend up in a tree because the dogs have baited it up? No. Okay. So they track it just they happen to just find it. They happen to find it. And there it is all doped up in a tree.

Yes. They feel that it's lethargic. Well, yes. Because they're not known, they're like expecting ferocity. Yeah. they're expecting ferocity absolutely and so ted comes they get out their smithfield rifles and they gotta be excited as hell yeah oh they're very excited they've been waiting for this moment for months they've

trekked 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 um 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 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 that are going with are right this is a gentle animal this is not a polar bear this is not a grizzly bear yeah this is something

very different and pretty soon after we see they begin to show regret in their journals they talk about how this bears a gentleman that this is not an animal that should become a trophy animal but that's exactly what happens and and what's there was there any conflict in with them to be that i guess 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 collection is paramount because there is no 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 um but certainly getting the specimen is the most important thing for the

museum um 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 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. Yeah, they felt bad about it. Yeah, they felt bad about it. And the guides, so their taboo system too, like the guides are not going to partake. They do not. No. And in fact, the leader of the village ends up buying a goat for everyone to feast with that night. 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. But you can imagine how the ye people must have felt watching this happen to an animal that they felt was sacred and gentle that they didn't hunt. I try to think of a parallel. I don't know.

For us? Yeah, it'd be like if nowadays, like if nowadays someone's like, I need to get a bald eagle. I'm trying to be like a golden retriever. 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. Yeah, it's hard to think of a parallel. Of course. I think people have it. I think a dog, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

I mean, you just don't want. don't even want to see it. I mean, you can't imagine anyone doing this to a panda today, right? Nobody would do this. 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 come among who? Among big game hunters in the U.S. I didn't know that. You can't see that happening? It's this rare animal. I could see it happening if they came, if they had come back with a different approach. But if they came back like, no, no, it's like, 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 heat. It's not like, there's no like sort of like hero function. But nobody's listening to that yet. Yeah. You know, the herders are like celebrating that you've got rid of this thing that that gives them pain. It's like rare animal. Yeah.

Just like it's a little, yeah. It's a little surprising. 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 U.S. But I'm curious what the yee people think of this trend, but let's back up a minute. So they get their specimen. Do they go on to have more interactions?

Are they able to find more animals, different demographics, or is it kind of a one and done? They're only able to find that one animal. Okay. 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.

But they don't lay eyes on another one. They do not. Just the one. God, I don't believe, man. Huh. That's it. Yeah. There you go.

Yeah. It's just hard to think of other things that you'd go that are other, like, other species that you'd go and like really find one and then spend time in the area. Mm-hmm. And have it not be that you got into like a pocket of them. Yeah. Or whatever, right? You know what I mean? No, that's it.

If you went and found a grill, 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. 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. With recreational owners. 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. I want to, I want you to tell that.

Because I want you get to how the one of them kills himself. The other guy died young, too. He did. Yeah. But with the Yi people you spoke about, do they, this core this habitat area this this area they're at is it sort of like uncontested that that is their homeland that they are the governing like the ye people is it is it like that they are the governing body there absolutely at that time yes 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 like a hunter collector who's not affiliated with a museum wants one for his personal collection is it is it even possible that you would do it outside of outside of the authority of these people do you know I mean like like that you can 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 yeah it's a good question because there is a lot of angst even when the Roosevelt's are there about what they're doing yeah yeah 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. I got it. Like some outcast or whatever's like, yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, exactly. I'll do it for the right amount of money. Yes.

I see. How many, can you even take a guess, like in the next couple decades or whatever, how many pandas enter private collections in the U.S.? Or private collections anywhere? It's hard for me to assess exactly what that number is. 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. Presumably the way to get the cubs is they'd go and just shoot a female and take the cubs. 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 U.S.

They were bringing this through the Chinese government, but not declaring that they actually had pandas. Okay. So even though they're in Tibet and there's like hostilities between the Tibetans and China, the kind of flow winds up being through. Yes. The flow winds up being like a Chinese market. Yes, because they have to as they take a boat back home, they have to do so through China. And what is the 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 when you get up to like Nixon And he like negotiates for like right and they bring this panda for the thing it's like a symbol of china but at that time it would have been a symbol of Tibet at the time it was just this brand new animal that had been described for many people or a symbol of no one or whatever yeah I got you it wasn't like a national it wasn't like a like a point of national pride it was not yet so it's it's interesting how that came to be I mean it's weird to think of the Roosevelt's as being part of creating that isn't it? But certainly

China had some regulations about what animals you could take. And while there weren't any laws about panda cubs yet, the people that were smuggling the panda cubs out were declaring them as dogs that they were taking home. Hunting big country

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wherever you get your audiobooks, and you'll be ready to dig in when it's available to listen on October 14. And it's fascinating, too, to just think about, so their expedition is in 1930, 28 to 29. And when you're talking about Nixon, I mean, that's just a couple decades later.

It's gripped to 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 so recent. Yeah, in 40 years, it became like, it became like sort of the mascot of normalizing relations with China. And they didn't even, in 1930, they didn't know about them. 1970. It's like, look, China. It's a panda bear. Yeah, like, it really blew up. It really did. As soon as the Roosevelt's come back and people can see this exhibit for themselves, there is this pandemonium. People get

really excited. You make that up or is that been made up for? I wish. Big panda probably came up a long time ago. That's why I'm the low tier writer. It's kind of amazing, man. Yeah, people were so excited about this animal. They really didn't even know existed before. And how could you? do not. PANDAS are very cute. And it's that little rush, because here's the other thing is, 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. Yes, immediately.

They're so rare anyways, and now you're whittling away at something that's, that lives at such low abundance. Yeah, and that's why Ted and Kermit became so passionate about protecting pandas afterwards is because they knew how. How rare these bears really were. Yeah, if there's only 2,000 of them and like 200 museums want one and a few hundred collectors want one, you're talking about it. You're like, you're removing a significant percentage of the global population. 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. But, 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 and 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 Seological 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. It's just, it becomes so atrocious how many cubs are being stolen from China and that die shortly after. You know what in our world, you know what they call this spot burning. He's a spot burner. 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 it really was now, I imagine this happening. We should really turn around and go back. He has the guilt, he comes in the conservation movement, but what age are these guys when they do the, what

age are they in 1930 and how long do they live, the brothers? 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 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 um home he lands on day one D day yes yeah the only guys of a heart condition a couple days later 50 something years old 56 yeah and receives the Medal of Honor um posthumously for his actions on D day really yeah oh shit I know that 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 well how

How, okay, how is he, at the time of this expedition, he's not in the military? No, he's not, yeah. So he enrolls somehow in his 40s, advances to a generalship? Well, I mean, he had a, you know, a few connections to get there. It's a different model of military. He's in a command position by 1944. Yes, he is. Yeah.

I mean, he had also served in World War I, and so he was certainly, he had also been involved in. This was kind of sandwiched between the two experiences. 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. Dyes of a heart condition. Yeah. Yeah, he'd been hiding it from his doctors. He didn't want anyone to know.

Because he thought he would pull, they'd pull him from service. Yes, exactly. You'd almost think that he'd been pulled from doing anything. risky just from a PR standpoint. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like there'd be like a high profile, right? Like a high profile fatality that the army wouldn't want.

Yeah, I mean, you might. The army might not want in some way, you know. I can see why you would think that. But the Roosevelt's 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. Yeah. So the one dies from the heart condition toward the end of World War II. Yes.

And then the other brother, what comes to him? So he had died earlier in 1943. So he was also involved in World War II. He served in several different places in the Middle East and in Europe. But he was struggling. He had become an alcoholic. And he was not receiving great treatment for that. And so they sent him to a fort in Alaska. Fort Richardson. Oh, yeah. And he ended up killing himself there. That's where? Mm-hmm. Really?

Yeah, he was talking to a buddy of his, and 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 going to go to sleep. And Kermit says, I wish I could sleep. Oh, you killed himself in Fort Richardson, Alaska? Mm-hmm. Yes, he did.

Yeah, it's such a sad story. How did he kill himself? He had a gunshot Do you know what kind of gun? I don't I'm sorry Where did he shoot himself You know?

I know it was in the head It was Yeah Son of a bitch In Fort Richardson Dude I had no 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 Yeah it's an interesting Little bit of history

They haven't been written about much, and I do feel like it's important to give these brothers their due because they really did, you know, they really furthered their father's mission of combining conservation and hunting. It was something they were very passionate about. And this expedition was incredibly successful at the time. And certainly the after effects were not what they expected. The consequences are not what they thought would happen. But what you really see is both brothers who felt passionate about protecting the panda and were always, always cared about conservation. Yeah. What year did their, what year did their old man die?

He died in 1919. Okay. And they were what age then? So let me think about that. So normally a normal age. They were both in World War I when they received a telegram that said the old lion has died. It was how the telegram put it to let him know their dad had. died.

And they had to be like, that must be referring to our father. I have a terrible feeling. This refers to our father, but I can't confirm. The old lion. I'm trying to make a joke about that in the bear hunt game that they played, but yeah, be like, dude, are they talking about dad? Yeah. If so, that's terrible.

The old lion. I didn't realize dad got a lion. They had known it was coming. He was definitely weaker. Ever since the River of Dow, that just weakened him. He was never the same after that expedition. And he must have been 70-something then. Yeah.

Yeah, he was getting up there. Wow, what a 50s? Now, what did these brothers? Did these brothers have kids? They did. Yeah, and actually, I've been in contact with a number of members of the family now. Like, did one of the kids? 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. Is that right? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Hey, what a wild story.

Yeah, I just can't believe how, you know, like, like, Theodore Roosevelt is, he's inescapable. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? All the exploits and the timelines. And then just like these boys, it's just, uh, yeah. I just hadn't, like, heard about this stuff. One of the sort of strange things that occurred to me when I was doing my, when I was in grad school, because all the Boone and Crocket Club records are at the University of Montana.

So I was reading a little bit about the Boone and Crocket 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 20s and 30s, 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 legacies and also wondering how they push things forward and make names for themselves. And, yeah, it's really fascinating when you think about, I feel like oftentimes we think about conservation. especially is like these moments yeah like there's this moment of the boon and crockett club and 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 yeah like this filled in a lot of blank spots for me because like you hear about Teddy Jr. and Kermit but you it's really I've never had someone sort of put a face on them for me so it's really that's what I've been really fascinating. 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's 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. Have you ever personally been able to see a panda on native ground in native range?

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 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 shoot animals as much these days. We have other ways that I'm sure future historians and scientists will find barbaric.

And, you know, I'll probably say, oh, we use tranquilizer guns. and took genetic samples. 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. How many are in the wild now? It's interesting because today there are about 2,000. But that is coming back from a low of 1,000 in the 1970s.

So 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 um 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 i would have like i said earlier when i was surprised that there was only two thousand somehow in my head that had the bottleneck being much tighter. Yeah.

So they went through a 50% decline. Yeah. It's pretty big. Well, it is because the pure numbers are so low. Yeah. 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. Yeah.

Yeah. But to take, you only got 2,000 and you whittle it down to 1,000. I just would have said it at one point, there was 40 of them. You know, I'd have been like, that sounds like my percent. my completely uneducated ignorant idea of what happened I would have guessed it was less oh it's nice I can make up numbers here I like that it's just funny to me because they're you know it's when you're when you're a little kid in the 80s or early 90s 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 I panda's 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 and like I guess 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 you want to know the biggest problem for them from a PR standpoint is if they were like bad mofos and always scratching people up yeah then people would know about them

I think the chillness works against them for PR Do you follow me? Do you know what I mean? Like I'm kind of on a leopard kick right now. I never seen it. Well, I did see a leopard. I 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. Do you know what I mean? Like like, go to a lot of people like, name a jellyfish. I'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. Yeah. Yeah, I think you might be right. Because even when it comes to breeding, they're just too chill. Yeah.

They would do so much better if there's just a little fire in there. Yeah. I'm not trying to advise them or anything. But just like people, the word would have, your perception of it would be different. There's one animal that in 1929 could have just taken one. swipe and change the whole trajectory of the species. 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 Rolls of Elk Boys.

Yeah, then you would have heard of this way sooner. The story would not have been buried for as long. Yeah, but they just killed like a little teddy bear, man. You know the teddy bear story? Is that in the book? It is in the book. Yeah, it's a good story. Yeah.

It's a hard one not to tell, dude. It's a hard one not to tell. So what's your next book going to be about? Do you know yet? I don't know yet, but I really enjoyed getting to talk. about animals and nature and expeditions like this it's it's fun i got a hot tip for you oh tell me i don't know if i should tell you now oh come on what are all the people learn about the hot tip okay i'll tell how quick are you at turning out a book not very clear because a lot of people are going to hear this tip here's a hot tip here's a hot tip here's a hot tip bradbury that's good

yeah so there's this botanist okay and right around 1811 1810 who's a hot tip There's this botanist. He wants to go explore the American West and take botany samples. He's actually, 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. He's got this assistant with them. They get to the end of their expedition, and Bradbury is, he's going to do some other little side trip.

But he sends his lackey home with all the. samples he then delays his timing a little bit and gets kind of rolled up in the new madrid you know you know the new madrid earthquake when the when the when the rivers ran backwards no like the mississippi ran backward okay it was all tied into like tecumse okay there's a huge huge isistatic rebound earthquake causes all this decimation is tied up in all this crazy shit then he He's still trying to get home in the war of 1812 breaks out. He's delayed Saddam Long.

By the time he makes it back to England, his assistant has, like, written him off or whatever and has published the material, has published the material on his own. Oh, that's tough. 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 in his, whole crazy story. Yeah, it sounds really interesting.

Yeah. We should probably cut that out. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's fascinating, too, that, like... So you're going to write it? Yeah, I'll get on it right now. 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 20s and 30s,

obviously like the river of doubt you know is one thing but then the 20s late 20s 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 and all that kind of stuff like it's just a it's a really fascinating period in geography 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 yeah It's fascinating Hmm Congratulations

Thank you It's hard-write books 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 Roosevelt's had such Interesting reading material on the trail They read Jane Austen and Janeair Yeah What kinds of interesting novels You wouldn't necessarily expect them To be pulling out

on the snowy Himalayas. How long to take you to do the whole thing? About five years from start to finish for this one. It was, you know, it takes a long time 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 that was great to just help compare, really help 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.

And you were doing magazine work during that time? Yeah. Yeah. And I do some ghost writing too. So I kind of... For who? Wouldn't be very goalful. I can't say.

Yeah. Huh. Really? Yeah. It's fun. I like ghost writing 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.

Huh. Yeah. I read that you studied Chinese for a number of years, too, with some of the source material in Mandarin that you were translating or it was more oral with any interviews? 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 see it through a really different lens of history, a completely different time period, into places that just, it just don't exist.

This trail that I describe, it's not there today. You cannot find that trail. And so to be able to travel, to really feel like you're there during that time period was just so fascinating. Well, thanks for coming on. Thank you. I so appreciate it. Yeah. Again, Nathalia, everybody calls her Nat.

That's me. Nat Holt, Nathalia Holt. The Beast and the Clouds, the Roosevelt Brothers, deadly quest to find the mythical giant panda. Is there like a lesser panda? Is there? Well, there's the red panda. Oh, okay. I've seen one of those.

Yeah. Not the one. That is he. I want to Randall's Zoos. The Beast in the Clouds. Check it out. And learn about all the subtle details that we didn't include today. Yeah.

There's plenty in there. 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'd get one. I kind of gave away. the ending. I would have ended that. You know, they shot together. I'll have ended your thing at like, crack, crack, bang, bang. And it'd be like, you have to read the book to find out what happened.

Let's go back. Yeah, we'll just, yeah, erase everything. Another cut here, Phil. Thanks, man. I appreciate you coming on. Yeah, thank you. When you finished that Bradbury book, come back. Oh, yeah.

I got a lot of questions about there. I told you everything I know. So there's like some holes. There's some holes in my understanding. All right, thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. In the heat of battle, your squad relies on you.

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