The First Tigers in America, with Carmen Maria Machado (episode 8)
Award-winning author, queer visionary, and Val’s wife Carmen Maria Machado reads us fascinating old-timey articles she found while trying to find the answer to a seemingly simple question: when was the first tiger brought to America? On this long and winding road, we learn about a very old tiger named Jim, two badass 70-year-old Texans who fought some sort of big cat, hippos with very Irish names, and the “panda-monium” of Washington D.C. in 2004. I promise Tiger King is only referenced once.
Royal Bengal Tigers, a painting attributed to Johann Wenzel Peter. Painted before 1829. (WikiCommons)
SHOW NOTES:
Tigers are known to live roughly 8-10 years in the wild. They can live up to 25 years in captivity because of the lack of natural predators. So Jim the Tiger was indeed very old. (Source: KidsFeed.com)
Here is Carmen’s twitter thread about the tiger: https://twitter.com/carmenmmachado/status/1404089399453831172
Titles of articles Carmen read aloud during this episode:
“Fight with an American Tiger,” January 29th, 1853. Found via the New York Times Article Archive.
“A Dying Bengal Tiger,” December 28, 1885. Found via the New York Times Article Archive.
“Jim the Tiger Dies of Old Age,” January 15, 1886. Found via the New York Times Article Archive.
“Boy Killed by Tiger: Lion Cub Keeper in Indianapolis Absentmindedly Enters the Wrong Cage,” February 16th, 1901. Found via the New York Times Article Archive.
“A Baby Hippopotamus: Mr. and Mrs. Caliph Murphy Are to Be Congratulated,” December 3, 1889. Found via the New York Times Article Archive.
The baby hippopotamus turned out to be male and was named McGinty, but he died seven days after his birth of pneumonia. (Source: New York Times Article Archive.) Fatima and Caliph did breed several more times and Fatima bore about ten offspring total, though not all survived. You can find an article on the old Central Park menagerie and the controversy over its practice of giving its animals Irish names on a blog called The Hatching Cat: True and Unusual Animal Tales of Old New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Murphy with one of their offspring (I think his name was Caliph II). Source: The Hatching Cat blog.
Book recommendation from both Val and Carmen: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Val’s dad’s infographic on zoos was originally printed on the website Treehugger. Full link: https://www.treehugger.com/arguments-for-and-against-zoos-127639
PETA & racism: I didn’t do a deep dive, but I found an article on USA Today called “PETA ridiculed, criticized for comparing 'speciesism' with racism, homophobia and ableism” and an article on CivilEats called “Is the Vegan Movement Ready to Reckon with Racism?”
There is an article in Mental Floss about the young black man held captive in the Bronx zoo in 1906. His name was Ota Benga, and he was a member of the Mbuti pygmy tribe from what was then known as the Congo Free State.
We can’t tell you about Carmen’s short story yet, but I will upload this note once she is able to announce it! Stay tuned.