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The Wild with Chris Morgan

How the quest for the giant panda changed modern conservation

1/20/202653 min

There was a time when the existence of the giant panda was nothing more than legend. A fairytale to those in the western world. Whispers of a black and white beast echoed around the early 1900s.

In this episode, my conversation mixes three of my favorite things - bears, mystery, and adventure as I hear an incredible story that Dr Nathalia Holt tells in her book The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers’ Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda. But this story is about way more than just two brothers’ dangerous search for a myste...

Clips

Hunters Refuse To Pursue
The Shot And Regret
“I’d Sooner Stuff My Son”
When Conservation Meant Killing
Saved By Mountain Women
Defending The Cranes
Birth Of Panda Protections
Monks In Yellow Robes
A Radical Shift In Science
Pandas Are Still Hard To Find

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Speaker 10:00

    You know, every day on Up First, NPR's Golden Globe-nominated morning news podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story are questions. What really happened? What really mattered? What happens next? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow Up First wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why.

  2. Chris Morgan· Host0:22

    Hey, wildlings. I hope you're enjoying this season of The Wild. If you want even more content, you can head over to our Patreon. We've got extended interviews, polls for you to vote on, and stories and chats you won't hear anywhere else about The Wild behind the scenes. There's a link to our Patreon in the show notes of this episode. Okay, enjoy the show.

  3. Nathalia Holt· Guest0:43

    Joseph Milner was an American missionary who was living in China. [upbeat music] And during one of his visits to the marketplace, he saw an unusual pelt, black and white. He'd never seen anything like it before.

  4. Chris Morgan· Host1:00

    The year was 1919. This missionary, Milner, had a feeling that the unusual pelt he'd stumbled across in a little Chinese market was something special. So he bought it and shipped it home to the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

  5. Nathalia Holt· Guest1:18

    And here it caused a sensation. The museum announced that they had this animal. They had a creature from Tibet, a rare beast.

  6. Chris Morgan· Host1:28

    People didn't

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