For the Birds

Summary

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Radiolab: “For the Birds” – Episode Summary

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Episode: For the Birds
Air Date: July 24, 2014
Hosts: Robert Krulwich, Jad Abumrad
Guest Contributors: John Moalem, Joe Duff, Clarice Gibbs

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Episode Overview

This Radiolab episode dives deep into the entanglement between human lives and wildlife preservation. Focusing on the story of whooping cranes and a woman named Clarice Gibbs, the podcast raises profound questions: Can animals be truly wild in a world dominated by humans? What, if anything, are we willing to give up for the sake of wildlife? Through storytelling and first-person interviews, the show uncovers the messy, emotional realities behind species conservation and the unavoidable intersection of human needs and environmental ideals.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Inescapable Human Influence on Wildlife

• Introduction to Dilemma ([01:50]):
  • Robert Krulwich: Highlights how human activity has left few spaces untouched, making it nearly impossible for animals to remain truly wild.
  • Key Question: "If you want to give the other creatures on Earth a little more room to be wild and independent, then what do we have to give up? In fact, how much are we willing to give up to make that happen?" (Krulwich, [01:56])

2. Operation Migration and Whooping Cranes

• Background of the Project ([03:03]):
  • Joe Duff: Describes the efforts to create a new migratory flock of endangered whooping cranes by teaching them routes using ultralight airplanes.
    • "One of the most spectacular birds in the world. Five foot tall, is pitch white with black wingtips, got a seven foot wingspan, beautiful flyer." ([03:03])
  • Efforts to keep the cranes wild include staff dressing in crane costumes and avoiding human imprinting ([03:55]).
• Release into the Wild ([04:17]):
  • Cranes are gently released into Florida wilderness, expected to find their own territories and avoid human contact.

3. Conflict: Conservation vs. Human Need

• Cranes Encounter Clarice Gibbs ([05:07]):
  • The first wild-hatched migratory whooping crane since 1878 and its family settle in Clarice Gibbs’ backyard.
  • Issue arises: "She had all these bird feeders... and that's not good sign." (Joe Duff, [05:36])
  • Conservationists worry: Birds becoming accustomed to humans puts them at risk (e.g., being shot by vandals; six cranes lost in the project, [05:46]).

4. Clarice Gibbs’ Perspective & Emotional Depth

• What Birdwatching Means to Clarice ([12:05]):
  • Clarice, caring for her husband with Alzheimer's, finds solace and connection through the routine of birdwatching on their porch.
  • "He would just kind of watch... as I'm sitting here talking to you, there's all kinds of birds around right now feeding." ([12:57])
• Birds as a Link to Memory ([13:54]):
  • Seeing birds, especially the whooping cranes, momentarily restores her husband’s presence:
    • "Oh, to me, it was like... he came back to me for a little bit when he would see things like this, it would just... make him so happy." ([14:05])
  • Clarice’s refusal to remove the feeders is a refusal to lose those moments.

5. Ethical Complexity and Conservation Realities

• Conservationists’ Dilemma ([15:53]):
  • Joe Duff empathizes, mentioning his own father also died of Alzheimer’s, but underscores the efforts and risks for the species' survival:
    • "The cost of that is the demise of a bird, that other people have spent a huge amount of time..." (Joe Duff, [15:53])
• No Clear Answers ([17:38]):
  • Chad Abumrad: "These are two people who both love the bird but can't agree on something about it." ([17:38])
  • Conservation requires minimizing human presence, yet, as Chad notes, "As human beings, we don't seem to be able to do that." ([17:42])
• Lasting Tension ([18:23]):
  • Joe Duff accepts the perpetual imperfection:
    • "I would love it if these birds could just exist on their own... but that's never going to happen. It's just not going to happen." ([18:23])
  • John Moalem: "No matter what happens with any of these species conservation projects, we're not going to strike some balance where we never have to think about the power that we're exerting in the world... That's the end game. It's... that forever." ([18:36])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On having to choose:
  • "He's asking her to say goodbye to her husband for the sake of a bird species." (Robert Krulwich, [18:06])
• On the impossibility of a perfect solution:
  • "This give and take-- that's what it is. That's the end game. It's... that forever." (John Moalem, [18:36])
• On the fragility of independence:
  • "We all have our own personal requirements and we put those over and above anything else, including wildlife. And that's why wildlife is in such peril." (Joe Duff, [17:52])

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Segment Timestamps

• 01:50 – Introduction of main dilemma: animal wildness in a human world
• 03:03 – Joe Duff introduces whooping crane migration project
• 05:07 – Arrival of cranes in Clarice Gibbs’ backyard; feeding conflict explained
• 12:05 – Clarice describes her backyard, bird feeders, and her ailing husband
• 13:54 – Emotional link between her husband and the birds
• 15:53 – Joe Duff responds with personal empathy but reiterates conservation priorities
• 18:23 – Final reflections: conservation’s ongoing, imperfect struggle

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Conclusion

In "For the Birds," Radiolab creates an intimate, multi-layered narrative that exposes the heartache and contradiction at the root of wildlife conservation: the very human reasons people cherish nature sometimes stand in the way of protecting it. The episode doesn’t provide answers but instead paints a moving, complex picture of the cost and limits of “leaving things wild”—reminding listeners that every effort to preserve nature is as much about us as it is about the creatures we’re trying to save.

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Transcript

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[John Moalem]

Wait, you're listening.

[Chad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Clarice Gibbs]

All right.

[John Moalem]

Okay.

[Chad Abumrad]

All right.

[John Moalem]

You're listening to Radio Lab.

[Robert Krulwich]

Radio Lab Sharks from wnyc.

[Radiolab Sponsor Announcer]

Yes, and npr.

[Chad Abumrad]

Hey, I'm Chad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krylwich.

[Chad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab, the podcast.

[Robert Krulwich]

And here's what I want to do today. You know, we just did the hour long show about the Galapagos.

[Chad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And in the middle of that show, we hit on this idea that there are so many of us on the planet now doing so many different things which affect the air and the water, that the creatures on the planet can no longer really be uninfluenced by our presence. They can't be truly wild. And that made me wonder, well, if you want to give the other creatures on Earth a little more room to be wild and independent, then what do we have to give up? In fact, how much are we willing to give up to make that happen?

[John Moalem]

I don't know. These are tough questions. I mean, you know, I'm not good at the answer part. Right.

[Robert Krulwich]

So this is John Moalem.

[John Moalem]

I'm John Moalem. I wrote a book called Wild Ones and I'm a writer with the New York Times Magazine.

[Robert Krulwich]

And being a writer, he told me a story. This is a story which sheds some light on this question. But I think you'd have to say it's a difficult light.

[John Moalem]

So there was a family of whooping cranes that had been part of.

[Robert Krulwich]

This story revolves around a project to create a wild flock of whooping cranes.

[Joe Duff]

One of the most spectacular birds in the world. Five foot tall, is pitch white with black wingtips, got a seven foot wingspan, beautiful flyer. This is Joe Duff, I'm the co founder of Operation Migration, the current CEO.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now we've done a story on Operation Migration before in Radiolab, but here's the gist. At one point the whooping crane population in North America was down to like 15 birds, just one flock. So Joe and a bunch of other folks decided to see if they could start a new flock of cranes. So they raised some cranes in Wisconsin and then they teach them a new migration route to Florida by leading them there in an ultralight airplane. Joe, in addition to being founder and CEO, is also the lead pilot. And how long have you been. You've been doing this for a while, right?

[Joe Duff]

I started flying with birds in 93, 20 years.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the key to this whole project.

[Joe Duff]

Joe says is to eliminate all things human. These are wild creatures. You know, we do this whole thing in full costume so the birds don't hear voices, they don't see buildings or any other human paraphernalia. In order to maintain their wildness, Joe.

[Robert Krulwich]

Even wears an all white crane like costume when he's up there in the ultralight leading the birds down to Florida. And when they get to Florida, the.

[John Moalem]

Cranes are supposed to, you know, they're brought to this Chazahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge.

[Joe Duff]

It's a coastal wetland, it's all salt.

[John Moalem]

Marsh in the Tampa area.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the birds are put into, it's called a release pit.

[Joe Duff]

It has 12 foot high fences protected by electric wire. But the whole complex is not top netted. And so after a while the birds realize they can fly out, then they.

[John Moalem]

Go seek out their own territories.

[Joe Duff]

It's called a gentle release into the.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wild or the not so wild. And here's where the problem starts. It's the winter of 2007 and we've got a particular bunch of cranes, this.

[John Moalem]

Family, they were called the first family because they were the first cranes in the population to have a chick that they led south.

[Joe Duff]

The first wild hatch migratory whooping crane in the US since the last nest was reported in 1878.

[John Moalem]

And these cranes had wound up in.

[Joe Duff]

This little subdivision, a wetland complex that was surrounded by houses.

[John Moalem]

It was perfect crane habitat. It was basically a marsh. Just so happened that it was in this Woman's backyard. And so the birds, which had been the product of this very intensive effort and tons of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour to be wild whooping cranes were now just in her backyard, and there was free food there. She had all these bird feeders, this whole array of different bird feeders up around her yard.

[Joe Duff]

And that's not good sign.

[Robert Krulwich]

Why is this a problem?

[Joe Duff]

Well, the problem is we're worried that the birds are going to become acclimated.

[Robert Krulwich]

To people to be really safe. Joe says these birds should be afraid of people.

[Joe Duff]

Six of them have been shot by vandals.

[Robert Krulwich]

Six birds have been shot.

[Joe Duff]

Six whooping cranes have been shot in this project by vandals. Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

So what do you do?

[Joe Duff]

We ask the people to stop feeding.

[Robert Krulwich]

Do you have a reverse phone directory or do you have a.

[Joe Duff]

Well, we track the birds. They're all tracked.

[John Moalem]

And so they knew exactly where they.

[Robert Krulwich]

Were, and they were able to figure out that the cranes were in the backyard of someone named Ms. Gibbs.

[John Moalem]

Clarice.

[Robert Krulwich]

Clarice.

[John Moalem]

Yes, Clarice Gibbs. And, you know, they knocked on her door and explained, you know, the whole ins and outs of the project. And would you please take your bird feeders down? And she said no.

[Chad Abumrad]

No?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Chad Abumrad]

Why would she say no?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, John talked to the people who.

[John Moalem]

Went to see her, and they didn't say crazy, but you got the sense that there was this crazy old bird lady who lived in this house who would not take her feeders down.

[Robert Krulwich]

They told John that they thought she was acting kind of erratic and that things just kept worse and worse.

[John Moalem]

And they had actually gone and put a plastic fence around one of her feeders at one point. They had thought she had given permission, but she had no memory of that. So it got bitter pretty fast.

[Robert Krulwich]

And so John decided, I'm going to go talk to this woman.

[John Moalem]

Yeah. So I was sort of girding myself for a crazy old bird lady who lived in this house. But I went to go see her, and it was a. How do I even talk about it? It was a really emotional day for me. We sat at her dining room table, and she was having a lot of trouble remembering the exact chronology of what had happened when she, you know, she said, excuse me. I'm just. It's hard for me to kind of piece things together around that. Around that time. And basically the story emerged at that time.

[Clarice Gibbs]

Oh, gosh. If I.

[Robert Krulwich]

When we heard that story, we decided we needed to talk to Clarice ourselves. So we called her up out of kind of the blue and asked her if we could record the conversation. Record. We would love to do it.

[Clarice Gibbs]

Well, no, it wouldn't bother me at all. I wouldn't mind.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, Clarice will tell us. Her, I gotta say, is a sort of surprising version of this tale in just a second.

[John Moalem]

My name is Zachary Issimo from Sarasota, Florida. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail].

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[Robert Krulwich]

We're back. And we we have just called up Clarice Gibbs.

[Clarice Gibbs]

No, it wouldn't bother me at all. I wouldn't mind.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so you were about to say that first of all, the description how many bird feeders did you have in the backyard, would you say?

[Clarice Gibbs]

Roughly at that time? I think I had two or three in an oak tree that's here in our backyard. And where we live is. It's just, you know, it's a peaceful area and birds like things like that. They don't like to be around a lot of congestion and stuff. And we enjoy them. Well, I say we. When my husband was alive, we, you know, we both enjoyed the birds and feed everybody.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is where the story flipped for me because when those conservationists were knocking at Clarice's door, her husband of more.

[John Moalem]

Than 50 years, he had Alzheimer's and they were sort of hunkered down at their house waiting for his life to end.

[Clarice Gibbs]

Yeah, this was before you Know, the Alzheimer's took him really bad.

[John Moalem]

And what they were doing was spending a lot of time on their back porch looking at the birds.

[Clarice Gibbs]

We would come out here and sit with our tea or lemonade. He would just kind of watch. Our back porch, of course, faces the lake. We have a beautiful yard. We have oak trees. And as I'm sitting here talking to you, there's all kinds of birds around right now feeding. We even have sandhill cranes that have two babies with them.

[Robert Krulwich]

So Clarice and her husband would be there on the porch. And if you've had this disease in your family, you know how painful it is, because here's her husband, and he is just disappearing a little bit and a little bit more, and then he's mostly not there. But when a bird or a bunch of birds come by the bird feeders from wherever he was, he's back.

[Clarice Gibbs]

As soon as he would spot something, he'd say, babe, there it is. There's the hummingbird.

[Robert Krulwich]

And when the whooping crane showed up big and white and wild, that would.

[Clarice Gibbs]

Really get his attention. Cause they are such big, beautiful birds, you know, I could see the. Oh, gosh, like a Happiness in his eyes. And he would smile. Oh, to me, it was like, you know, he. He came back to me for a little bit when. When he would see things like this, it would just. It would make him so happy. And it would make me happy, too, to see how it affected him. I'm sorry. I just. I. I get kind of choked up when I talk about him. We were married for 56 years when that disease took him. And it was hard.

[John Moalem]

Hard from her point of view, it was like a miracle to see a bird like that. And the way that her husband responded to them and just the way that they took his breath away when really he wasn't responding to a lot else in the world.

[Clarice Gibbs]

It's a blessing, you know, when they seem to recognize things and then you lose them again, you know?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah. So that's why when the crane people showed up at her door and said, please take the bird feeder down, she.

[John Moalem]

Said, no, you know, I left that house just, you know, I just couldn't figure out how to make sense of it all once I'd left.

[Robert Krulwich]

Have the people who visited her, having read your account, have they changed their minds at all about her or what they do? Because it's a toughie, this situation.

[John Moalem]

Yeah. I'm sure they would still believe that the birds shouldn't have been fed, but I don't know if they would be Any more sympathetic to her now her husband.

[Robert Krulwich]

And these birds, oddly enough, are the trigger. So I told Joe Clarice's story. So now what do you say?

[Joe Duff]

Well, you know, my father died of Alzheimer's, so I can respect exactly what she's going through and how difficult it. However, the cost of that is the demise of a bird, that other people have spent a huge amount of time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for that entire bird's life until it was a year old, putting in the wild to help save a species.

[Robert Krulwich]

But if you put yourself in her shoes, she says she, by the way, was very careful.

[Clarice Gibbs]

I was very emphatic that we didn't mess with the birds because I knew they didn't want them being confronted with people, you know, because they are a wild thing. And to me, I don't know. We've always loved nature, We've just always loved nature and the wildlife.

[Robert Krulwich]

So she stayed where she felt you'd want her to stay. But it's a hard one to ask that she give up a glimpse at her husband for the sake of the birds.

[Joe Duff]

I suppose I'm a little more pragmatic than that, unfortunately.

[Chad Abumrad]

You would have him make an exception for her?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, at the very least, I would have him understand that she's in a unique place, that he's.

[Chad Abumrad]

No, I don't think it's unique. Well, maybe she is in her particulars, but that is precisely the problem he has to deal with are people like her. She means well, we all mean well. It's not a case of, like, people with guns shooting these birds. I mean, that does happen, but I don't think that's the big problem.

[Robert Krulwich]

No, these are two people who both love the bird but can't agree on something about it.

[Chad Abumrad]

Right. And he's saying, in order to love the bird, you have to negate, you have to just. You have to disappear. And we can't, as human beings, we don't seem to be able to do that.

[Joe Duff]

We all have our own personal requirements and we put those over and above anything else, including wildlife. And that's why wildlife is in such peril.

[Robert Krulwich]

He's asking her to say goodbye to her husband for the sake of a bird species.

[Chad Abumrad]

I know. I just worry that if everybody in the world is like her, then those birds don't have a chance.

[Joe Duff]

I would love it if these birds could just exist on their own somewhere in deep water marshes where they don't ever encounter people. But that's never going to happen. It's just not going to happen.

[John Moalem]

And that's the struggle. It's never going to go away. You know, no matter what happens with any of these species conservation projects, we're not going to strike some balance where we never have to think about the power that we're exerting in the world. This give and take, that's. That's what it is. That's the end game. It's. It's that forever.

[Robert Krulwich]

Special thanks to Simon Adler, who ferried us through this whole project, and also to John Moalem, whose book the Wild Ones is the source of this story. I am Robert Krulwich.

[Chad Abumrad]

Chad Abumran.

[Robert Krulwich]

We'll be back next time.