Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bum here. Eggs aren't a dime a dozen, but they aren't exactly in short supply either. It's difficult to imagine fighting a war over an egg, right, but this is exactly what happened in the Great fair Alons Egg War of eighteen sixty three, a time when people went to, if you'll pardon me, great eggstremes to secure eggs. They weren't fighting over ordinary chicken eggs, though.
We're talking about the eggs of the common mirr, a penguin like bird that nests on rocky cliffs and spends its winters at sea. During its breeding season, which runs from May to July, the birds lay spotted, pointy eggs about twice as big as a chicken egg. The blotchy patterns make it easier for the birds to identify their eggs among the thousands that dot the rocks, while the pointed design makes it more likely that the egg will spin in a circle if it rolls out of the
nest rather than falling into the sea. And it just so happens that about two hundred years ago, the common mir's favorite egg laying perch in the lower forty eight was just off the coast of San Francisco. The fair A Lons Islands are a series of small outcroppings of jagged granite upshoots about twenty seven miles or forty three kilometers from San Francisco's coastline. The birds land by the thousands on the islands, nesting, wing to wing, and dotting
the landscape with egg after egg. When the California gold rush overburdened then tiny San Francisco with a largely unsupervised maleu of hungry miners and profit hungry businesses, the area's common mirrors numbered into the tens of thousands, perhaps into the millions, and their eggs were ripe for the picking. Six men decided to profit from the bird's efforts. In eighteen fifty one, they sailed to the islands and claimed ownership, complete with company shares. But it wasn't easy to gather
the eggs. They had to climb steep cliffs slick with sea spray. The highest peak is Tower Hill, three hundred and forty eight foot jagged rise of marble. While being swarmed by mers and many other seabirds that call the Island's home. Still, they persevered, and the Egg Company began making a sizeable profit selling the freely collected common mur
eggs to San Francisco bakers. For the articles episode is based on, the author spoke with Jerry mc chesney, manager of the Falaron National Wildlife Refuge and its Common murr program. He said come mer eggs were an incredibly abundant resource at a time when San Francisco was overwhelmed by people. Flooding in San Francisco not only lacked the infrastructure it needed, but there were no chicken farms to supply such a great need. By the early eighteen sixties, the Egg Company
had some serious competition. Its hold on the islands was tentative at best. Four years earlier, US President James Buchanan solidified the federal government's own claimed the land for a lighthouse, and then, on a summer day in eighteen sixty three, seven armed challengers sailed towards the island. When their three boats attempted to land, the egg company four men warned them off, but the interlopers declared that they intended to
land in spite of hell. What came next, the Egg company owners opened fire and When the challengers fired back, one of the egg company men was killed. The egg company men then fired on and wounded five of the men in boats, who, after twenty minutes of warfare, sailed back to home base. One of the injured men died a few days later. The post gold Rush tension, although not as dramatic, continued for years until commercial egging was banned in eighteen six after the California Academy of Scientists
successfully lobbied for its end. In a late nineteen sixties, the US Fish and Wildlife Service began managing the islands and protecting common murr breeding areas. Even so, the consequences of commercial egging were devastating to the bird population and still echoed today. There are now about three hundred thousand common murr that travel to the islands for nesting season, still fewer than it had before the Gold Rush more
than a century and a half ago. Mc chesney said of the birds, it's something I never get tired of watching. The islands themselves are beautiful, rugged and other worldly, but to be out there during the peak of the breeding season, it's a spectacle to behold. Today's episode is based on the article ridiculous history and fifty years ago men killed for the eggs of these birds on how stuff works
dot com. Written by Laurie L. D. Brainstuffs production of iHeart Radio in partnership with how Stuff Works and is produced by Tyler Clay. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, couple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.