Episode 544 - Ned Makim | 5,510,384 Dead Pigs

Summary

Blood Origins Podcast Summary

Title: Blood Origins
Host/Author: Blood Origins Inc.
Episode: Episode 544 - Ned Makim | 5,510,384 Dead Pigs
Release Date: March 13, 2025

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Introduction to Ned Makim and the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association

In Episode 544 of "Blood Origins," host Mike Axelrod engages in an insightful conversation with Ned Makim, the National President and Acting Executive Director of the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association. Ned discusses his pivotal role in transforming the perception of pig hunting in Australia by leveraging data to demonstrate its environmental and economic benefits.

Changing the Narrative: A Data-Driven Approach

Ned emphasizes the importance of changing how pig hunting is perceived, not just as a sport but as a significant contributor to conservation efforts. He states, “It brings awareness to non-hunters that it's more than just killing animals” (02:43). This perspective aims to showcase hunters as dedicated conservationists rather than mere game killers.

The Great Australian Pig Hunt Initiative

A major focus of the discussion is the Great Australian Pig Hunt, an initiative designed to collect comprehensive data on pig hunting's impact. Ned explains, “The whole premise behind it is to create data to showcase how good a job these guys are actually doing” (02:53). This competition encourages hunters to participate actively while providing valuable statistics to support conservation programs.

Key Components of the Hunt:

• Data Collection: Hunters submit information monthly about their pig hunts, including the number of pigs killed.
• Prizes and Sponsorships: To incentivize participation, the hunt offers substantial prizes, supported by sponsors like Caliber Country and Wild Game Innovations Australia.
• Nationwide Participation: The initiative aims for country-wide engagement to ensure the data accurately reflects the true impact of pig hunting across Australia.

Ned proudly reveals, “We have killed 5,510,834 pigs” (05:17), highlighting the substantial contribution hunters make to controlling pig populations.

Partnerships and Sponsorships

The success of the Great Australian Pig Hunt relies heavily on partnerships with local businesses and sponsors. Ned acknowledges the support from companies like Caliber Country and Wild Game Innovations Australia, which provide essential gear and financial backing. He mentions, “They are incredibly supportive of the lifestyle and they also hooked us up… and they were thrilled that we were interested” (26:24).

Relationship with Government and Media

Building a collaborative relationship with government bodies and the media is crucial for the association. Ned explains how they engage with government agencies by providing data that aligns with governmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This strategic interaction helps in gaining legitimacy and support for their conservation efforts.

Regarding media relations, Ned shares strategies to handle public perception: “If you've got to deal with the media, the first person into the newsroom tends to be treated as either the hero or the credible source” (77:22). By proactively sharing their successes and data-driven results, they aim to shape a positive narrative around pig hunting.

Challenges and Overcoming Stereotypes

Despite their efforts, the association faces challenges such as combating stereotypes and misinformation about hunters. Ned remarks, “All bigotry is based on ignorance” (06:25), emphasizing the need for education and open dialogue to dispel negative perceptions.

Specific Challenges Discussed:

• Social Media Backlash: Negative and uninformed comments on social platforms can undermine their efforts. Ned notes, “The dumbest and most ignorant people will make the most noise” (12:40).
• Internal Organization: As a volunteer-driven organization, maintaining structure and direction is vital. Ned shares, “We've only got a small percentage of that [120,000 pig hunters]... We don't want to become... just want to hunt” (11:03).

Economic and Environmental Impact

One of the standout points in the discussion is the economic and environmental benefits of pig hunting. Ned provides a compelling comparison: “The government spent $13 million to get about 100,000 pigs. Now our guys are spending about a million dollars a day hunting pigs” (43:29). This highlights how hunters offer a cost-effective alternative to government-led pest control programs.

Environmental Benefits:

• Population Control: Hunters significantly reduce pig populations, mitigating their destructive impact on agriculture and native ecosystems.
• Conservation Funding: The economic contributions from hunting help fund broader conservation initiatives, ensuring sustainable environmental management.

Future Plans and Expansion

Looking ahead, Ned outlines plans to continue and expand the Great Australian Pig Hunt with seasonal variations to maintain interest and participation. He mentions, “This coming year we'll do one in the winter for us and the dry season for the north of Australia” (52:21). Additionally, they aim to enhance their data collection methods and foster stronger collaborations with academic institutions for advanced research.

Conclusion: Building a Sustainable Hunting Community

The episode concludes with Ned expressing optimism about the future of pig hunting in Australia. By focusing on data-driven results, strategic partnerships, and effective communication, the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association is paving the way for a more respected and impactful hunting community. Mike Axelrod commends Ned’s efforts, stating, “You're doing the right way, man... keep doing what you're doing, brother” (72:20).

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Notable Quotes

• Ned Makim (02:43):

  “It brings awareness to non-hunters that it's more than just killing animals.”

• Ned Makim (05:17):

  “We have killed 5,510,834 pigs.”

• Ned Makim (06:25):

  “All bigotry is based on ignorance.”

• Ned Makim (12:40):

  “The dumbest and most ignorant people will make the most noise.”

• Ned Makim (26:24):

  “They are incredibly supportive of the lifestyle and they also hooked us up… and they were thrilled that we were interested.”

• Ned Makim (43:29):

  “The government spent $13 million to get about 100,000 pigs. Now our guys are spending about a million dollars a day hunting pigs.”

• Ned Makim (52:21):

  “This coming year we'll do one in the winter for us and the dry season for the north of Australia.”

• Ned Makim (77:22):

  “If you've got to deal with the media, the first person into the newsroom tends to be treated as either the hero or the credible source.”

• Ned Makim (72:23):

  “We've got to ensure we're proactive in our approach, engaging with all stakeholders and presenting our data-driven successes.”

Conclusion

Episode 544 of "Blood Origins" offers a comprehensive look into the transformative efforts of the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association under Ned Makim’s leadership. By adopting a data-centric approach, fostering strategic partnerships, and effectively managing public relations, the association is reshaping the narrative around pig hunting and demonstrating its vital role in conservation and the economy.

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Timestamps Reference

For ease of navigation, notable quotes and key discussions are referenced with their corresponding timestamps in brackets (e.g., [02:43]).

Transcript

[Robbie]

Hunting is not easy. It never has been. It takes dedication, motivation, a lot of patience and quality gear. If you manage a food plot, put up stands or need just one more game camera, we can help. @midwayusa.com we opened our doors in 1977 and continue to put customers first by offering super fast same day shipping for just about everything for the outdoors. Go to midwayusa.com Midway USA brand product designers have one straightforward develop high quality technically sound products and deliver them to customers at reasonable prices. If you are immersed in the shooting sports industry and pay close attention to every single detail, you know our products are built right and stand up to everyday use. Who has shooting mats and range bag systems to hunting clothing and just about everything for the outdoors? Log on and shop 247 with superfast shipping.

[Mike Axelrod]

Midway USA.com Ned McKim is the National President of the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association. He's also the Acting Executive Director. I wanted to have a conversation with Ned because he and the association is absolutely changing the narrative, the rhetoric, the visual representation of who pig hunters are in specifically Australia. And they're doing it by doing things a little smarter. They are going after data. What impact does pig hunting have on the environment? What impact does pig hunting have on the economics tied to pig hunting in Australia? What you'll learn in this podcast is that the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters association has come up with this idea called the Great Australian Pig Hunt. Sounds amazing and really the whole premise behind it is to create data to showcase how good a job these guys are actually doing. So enjoy this conversation from halfway around the world of a subject that you may not be familiar with or that you may not do, or a subject that you absolutely love doing. I really love this conversation with Ned and hopefully we're going to speak with Ned in the future to talk about other opportunities as well as initiatives that they're putting forward. So really enjoy this podcast. I had a great time listening to Ned and his love for what he does and what his association is all about. So there's a reason why I started Blood Origins, and that reason is simple, is that I wanted to convey the truth about hunting.

[Ned McKim]

It brings awareness to non hunters that it's more than just killing animals.

[Mike Axelrod]

How do I start it?

[Ned McKim]

Brittany? My name? Does my hair look okay?

[Mike Axelrod]

My name is Mike Axelrod. Start again. Yeah, I hated it too. Braxton, you said something in the car to me. You said that you were living on borrowed time. There's a perception around who hunters are, what we're supposed to be, and A feminist that works for a non profit that is a hunter that has only eaten wild game for the last 20 years is likely not the thing that people think about when it comes to a hunter. So I asked you, and I apologize, Ned, right now I will apologize. And I apologize that I did not reach out to you earlier and that we have not interacted earlier. Maybe it's a really bad assumption. Have you heard of Blood Origins before I reached out to you or Blood Origins Australia?

[Ned McKim]

I have. I've been somewhat caught up in my own little world to investigate it, but I.

[Mike Axelrod]

But you've heard about us.

[Ned McKim]

You've heard about us, I've heard about you and I knew we were on the same team.

[Mike Axelrod]

Nice. I like that. I like that a lot. It. Australia tends to have. Unfortunately, you have hunters that are on different teams.

[Ned McKim]

Yes.

[Mike Axelrod]

It's crazy.

[Ned McKim]

See how, how I think though is that we can all run in parallel. We don't all have to be best friends if we're all aiming at the same eventuality. We don't all have to be hanging around having a beer together. We just press on on the basis that we're doing it for altruistic reasons now.

[Mike Axelrod]

And there's no reason to put anybody down. No, people do things differently, but we're all interested in the same thing, which is ensuring our lifestyle is around for our kids and our grandkids to enjoy. And unfortunately, the world that we live in today is very much a socially driven world from a media perspective, from an opinion perspective, from whatever you want to call it. And we just have to recognize that we can't just be like, well, let's. That doesn't matter. It does matter.

[Ned McKim]

Culturally, we're very different from the rest of society. And if we're going to not only prosper, but like, if we're going to survive, we have to learn the language. And the language from our perspective is about finding. Finding all the common areas that we have with the rest of society and then being able to explain the uncommon areas in terms that the rest of society can understand. It's all bigotry is based on ignorance and distance. And so we, a lot of hunters just seek to mind their own business. And if people, people ask me, what's your ultimate objective? And it is just to be left alone. Like normal people don't get involved in all of this politicking and all that sort of stuff because it's just, it, it's hard and it's frustrating and it's not hunting. So yeah, I love that.

[Mike Axelrod]

All bigotry is, is based on ignorance.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And, and it could be about anything. And people can be, for some reason, bigotry towards hunters and their lifestyle is considered acceptable by the people who are making moral judgments in society. And we just meet that head on and just go, that's not acceptable. You don't have to like us, you don't have to agree with us, but let's talk about it, you know, so we've been trying. We're in our 20th year. We're just about to celebrate our 20th anniversary.

[Mike Axelrod]

Bushnell has been a long time supporter of blood origins. And in keeping with the spirit of our collaboration, we've come up with an amazing idea. Bushnell is eager to help you get set up for conservation success. That's right. They want to help you. The conservation and research community is dominated by good people doing good things and investing significant time and effort for the benefit of habitat and the species. So what do you need to do? Pretty simple. Send us your conservation story and. Or your conservation wish could be managing whitetails. It could be understanding your environment or species or something else related to conservation. What would you be able to do if you had a great trail camera setup? We will select the best story every other month and sends you a camera bundle. Cell camera, normal, SD camera, SD cards, as well as optics. Everything you need to get set up for success. I can't wait to see what you submit. You can email [e-mail] DM US. Message us whatever you want. We are not hard to find. Good luck. Are you one of those shooters or hunters that have not yet plunged into the world of putting a silencer on your rifle? The only question I have for you is why not? Okay, okay, okay. Look, you're probably saying, but, Robbie, it takes like 10 months to get your silencer cleared. You're living in 2022, my friend. Today, applying and receiving for a silencer is down to literally weeks. Ordering one is easier than ever as Silence Essential makes it simple to apply. You go to the website, you buy a silencer, and everything is handled by them. From then on in as little as a few weeks, your silencer will show up at your door. You don't even have to get off the couch. It is literally that simple. Just go to silence essential.com today. Go get your silencer. Well, Ned, before you, because people are going, you know, who is this guy? Robbie? And you do a terrible job every time. Robbie, you do a terrible job every single time. You don't introduce the guy, he just comes on you just start talking. I get it, I get it, I get it. I apologize. I apologize. Ned McKim, welcome to the Blood Origins podcast, all the way from Australia. You in New South Wales?

[Ned McKim]

I'm in New South Wales. I'm in a. What would be a small town to you guys called Inverel in our version of the New England region.

[Mike Axelrod]

Listen, Inverel, I know it very well. My uncle used to be a mining engineer.

[Ned McKim]

Oh, yeah? Yeah, he was in.

[Mike Axelrod]

In Verrall. My mother is a geologist. She trained to be a geologist. She's from Sydney. My whole mother's family is from Sydney, Australia. I consider it the dark side of my family because I'm South African. And we just don't want to associate with those Australians. You know, we need to keep them at arm's distance.

[Ned McKim]

Are you South Africans and got your own view of the world?

[Mike Axelrod]

But no, I love Australia. I love New South Wales. And yeah, Inverel, you know, it just brings back good memories as a. As a kid, a real young kid. So, Ned McKim, you represent. I don't know your official title. I assume you're the director. Executive director of the Australian. Go ahead.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, I'm the national president and the acting executive officer of the Australian Pig Doggers and Hunters Association. Now, the. It's a very. A long and convoluted title, but essentially the, The. The national president is an elected position, and then we just say acting executive officer so that we've got someone in that chair making decisions on operational matters and acting because we've got. We don't have any paid positions, so.

[Mike Axelrod]

We'Re all just 20 years old. You're 20 years old. How big of an organization are you guys?

[Ned McKim]

Oh, look, we're relatively small. We're only a few thousand members. The Australian cohort of pig hunters is about 120,000 people. According to the estimates. We've only got a small percentage of that. The nature of pig hunters in Australia and probably elsewhere is they just want to hunt. That's all they think about. They don't want to become. They don't want to be members of an association. We have to just continually, you know, sell them the benefits. And we have occasional wins as every now and then there's a. An attempt to shut us down because we're. We're beasts. We're animals, you know, where we shouldn't be allowed. And we'll be able to bring some logic to that argument. There's. The people who hate us are eternally active. They're just. They. They. It's the easiest way for me to explain it is that they're like hunters. I think about hunting all the time. I, you know, wonder if the pigs are thinking about me. I'm just, it's, my mind's full of it. And that's the people who hate what we do as opposed to the people who are just misinformed. The people who hate what we do are ever vigilant, looking for a chance to send us to the dustbin of history.

[Mike Axelrod]

Which is why social media plays a critical role in today, right? Because one little image, one little video and it sets us back 20 paces, 20 years kind of thing in terms of everything that we've been doing.

[Ned McKim]

And dumb is loud. So on social media the, the dumbest and most ignorant people will make the most noise because that's, that's how they make their way in society. They're not doing anything else. They just become outraged about something and they will. Like if you and I are talking, say, and we're on the same side and we start talking about big cats, you might be thinking lion and I'm thinking tiger. So we can be, we, there can be a disparity between what we're saying and we're on the same team. So the people who hate us are on a completely different team. And if, you know, we were, if they're talking about big cats and we're talking about big cats, it can be like it's not even just in the same species. They'll be just thinking you're baby murderers and we're good guys. And that's just it. It's like, see politics now everywhere, particularly in the States though is absolutely cleaved down the middle and each side is one's evil. Like you see these turn this comical to us, but one side's got God on its side and the other side's got God on its side. So God's battling God and, and you know, and everyone's trying to take this moral high ground. It's just insane. But then that, that's mimicked by dumb loud people on social media. We don't help ourselves of course, because we've got our own dumb loud people and they'll, they'll just do something stupid or they will.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah. And it's a black eye on everyone else, right. It's the bad apple in the barrel syndrome.

[Ned McKim]

Or they'll just respond stupidly. Bug, bug respond in an over the top manner. And by nature I'm an impatient and ill tempered person and you have to learn just in general Terms as a man, you learn to manage that. But in the position I'm in, I can't just go, you're an idiot, mate. Like, like. Or worse. Australians swear a lot, of course, and I'm conscious that that's not the culture in the States, but you have to go, okay, I appreciate that's what your point of view is. Here's some facts. We've done some research and, you know, and eventually what the best you'll get out of the real zealots is, oh, well, you know, you've got all your facts. But I still don't agree. That's cool. We don't have to agree. You just have to leave us alone. So if the fight is not on social media, that can be the spark. The fight is really with politicians, academics, you know, that's where we need to be talking. That's our position. So that, like, for instance, we, we have very good relations with landholders. So in New South Wales, there's a group called New South Wales Farmers. They're very big, they're very politically astute, and they carry a lot of weight because farmers always do because they're producing all the food and the export income. So.

[Mike Axelrod]

And you guys must be best mates with them because of what you do. You know, pigs just, you know, in America specifically, pigs are, you know, destructive individuals economically. Right. They'll tear up a cornfield just overnight.

[Ned McKim]

Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

[Mike Axelrod]

It's unbelievable. So, yeah, that must be a great relationship.

[Ned McKim]

But because of the way pig hunters have appeared in the past, I think we were considered a political liability because we weren't organized. So we spent 20 years getting organized and we, we had no model. We just had to start. And better men than me started it, um, and, and set it up. And it's just fallen to me in the last few years to do what I think, you know, is, is. Is the right thing in terms of setting a direction. Um, I've got a good committee behind me and they keep me very honest, um, because they're all, they're all still active. Everyone on the committee is still an active hunter. Um, so that's like a board of directors, and they, they're just very open. What are you doing? Why are you doing that? That seems like a stupid idea. And you've got to be able to convince them as well.

[Mike Axelrod]

Nothing like your board of directors telling you that's a stupid idea.

[Ned McKim]

Oh, yeah. And, but see, I'd welcome that. Like, if I can't convince them, I'm not going to convince anyone else. You know, but this, this year just gone. Has been a major lurch forward for us because I've got a very good Queensland chairman, Mark Beatty, and he was, he does a lot of groundwork. So he was running around Queensland, going to any meeting, you know, as we'd say, going to the opening of an envelope. So anything that was going on, he, he'd attend and listen and, and he'd come back to me and say, right, we're just not getting heard. You know, everyone's got daha, you know, we've got no data. You know, he just kept saying, data, we've got to have data. That's the language they're using. And so these were meetings talking about the potential incursion of exotic animal diseases, which hilariously are referred to as eads. Now that of course has another, another meaning in another world. And, and it's, it always makes me laugh anyway. Emerging. I think it's, it's emerging or emergency animal diseases, because we're, we're clean. That's, that's how Australia survives as a small country. We're clean. We don't have foot and mouth, we don't have.

[Mike Axelrod]

Right, right. Your biosecurity is through the roof.

[Ned McKim]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's massive, Massive. And we take that seriously. That's one of our pluses, is that we're conscious of that. So he was going to all these meetings and of course the commercial piggeries, they're very organized. There's a big lot of them in Queensland and turns out they loved us because they're just going, right, well, you know, kill pigs, kill pigs.

[Mike Axelrod]

So they do. They don't. They don't. So these commercial piggeries, are they open pasture piggeries and are they seeing interactions? They vary.

[Ned McKim]

Some are and some are intensive, but they, we're all absolutely aware of, of the wild pigs and they've got things like, you know, double perimeter fences.

[Mike Axelrod]

So there are issues with wild pigs coming in.

[Ned McKim]

Oh, yeah. Yes, because they, for a start, there's just the smell of food and occasionally some of the sows in the piggeries are in season. So a big boar, as you'd imagine, will go miles and miles for a bit of loving. So. So they're just sprung in. So we got to know them and they were very good to us and they were thrilled that we were interested. So we learned a lot from them and we learned that we needed data and so we just used to go, right, well, we're pig hunters, we're not statisticians, we're not researchers. We're not anything. We're just blokes who like to hunt pigs. So what the hell do we do? So anyway, we came up with this idea to gathered, gather data as best we could. And so we. That took the form of a big competition and this all came together in about four days.

[Mike Axelrod]

So who came up with this idea? Like, you guys got this. Obviously you're getting hit from multiple fronts, saying, look, guys, we, you have no, we have. We don't know what you do. We don't. We don't see the impact. You guys have to, like, tell us, like, if you want to be, if you want to be heard and you want to be taken seriously, what are you guys doing on the landscape to justify your existence? Did I capture that correctly?

[Ned McKim]

Yes. So we had no means of communicating. We just said, oh, we kill a lot of pigs, you know, and, and it's a cultural right, you know, it's just sort of like a child. And of course, we were treated like children, which is very frustrating. But it was Mark and I just talking because we, we talk every day. We're squillion kilometers apart, but we talk every day. Like, what are we doing? Who said what? What's the membership doing today? You know, rah, rah, rah, rah. Because he's a. He's a good, active operative and he thinks differently to me. So, I mean, I mean, if it's, if it's one train of thought, you only ever stay on those tracks, you know, and you're, you're, you're trapped by it. So we talk every day and we were saying, how do we get data? Like, what is data? Like, what are they going to look for? And anyway, between us, it was him and I have came up with this idea to have a competition because we. There's, there's all sorts of competitions for pig hunters just on the ground. In Australia, there'll be the so and so pig comp to raise money for the, you know, XYZ school or.

[Mike Axelrod]

Oh, there's lots of those.

[Ned McKim]

Lots of those sort of things.

[Mike Axelrod]

And one of those competitions, typically, if they're. Those guys are like raising money. People enter a hundred bucks a team and they.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, that's right. And they might as. Yeah. And some of the prizes are extensive, you know, new quad bikes and things like that. And they will come from everywhere and bring in their pigs, you know, and they weigh them.

[Mike Axelrod]

Oh, so it's all. Is it. I'm assuming dead pigs.

[Ned McKim]

Dead pigs, that's right. Dead pigs.

[Mike Axelrod]

Not live Pigs bringing corralled now can't.

[Ned McKim]

Legally transport a live wild pig in Australia. Okay.

[Mike Axelrod]

So it's like most pigs killed heaviest pig.

[Ned McKim]

That kind of stuff that can be ugliest dog. They'll just have any number of, of of of prizes and people will go there and they go there to socialize and there's commercial stands and things like that and people selling gear. And so we already knew that pig hunters liked to come together. What they, they still like to just hunt and they love looking at pigs. They just love it, you know, so the weigh ins at these competitions are massive, you know, and of course they have a bar and everyone's, you know, having a few rums and, and oh, that's a big pig. Oh, that's not a big pig, that's a domestic. Oh, it's off. You know, Scott stole, you know, so there's all that sort of lifestyle stuff that we were aware of because we'll go to those events too and have our little stand saying, oh, you know, we exist to help you guys. Oh, you know, what have you got for free? And give me a sticker. And you know, like, however we thought, well, we've got to have a competition but we can't weigh in pigs. Australia's a big place. You know, it's.

[Mike Axelrod]

We wanted to have this competition countrywide, right? It wasn't just like nationwide.

[Ned McKim]

Nationwide, we're going to have it nationwide. How do we do that? And it's just, okay, you know, people just. It can't be about biggest peaks because somebody's going to lie. Oh, look at my pig. It's so many kilos. Oh, mine's 0.5 of the kilo more, you know, so we thought, okay, it's just got to be a lucky draw. So people just send in their pig. Can't be the most pigs because we could get a distorted result. Because remember, we're chasing diet. It can't be biggest because egos can get involved and then you can be accused of it. You know, that people, our opponents, we're trying to put ourselves in that chair would be going, oh, people just lie, you know, because they're going to win a prize or something like that. And we'd already been told at some of the meetings I'd attended that hunters lie, hunters just lie. And you know about how many pigs they get. So just lie. And then if you suggest that, well, the government agencies that if hunters lie, then why wouldn't the government agencies be lying? And that's nearly ended up in that particular day Nearly ended up in a fistfight. Um, because it was again that we were, it was open slat. He didn't say anything about hundreds. But if the same logic was reversed, it was, how dare you insult me? You know, and it was. So there was just this madness going on in terms of communication. So just fairly quickly it came together, right, it's gotta be lucky draw. It can't be any suggestion of someone lying about stuff. It doesn't matter. Put in a little pig this big, you could still win a big prize. And we went, right, prizes, God, what are we, what are we going to do? So we just got on the phone, it was about three days and we pulled together about $50,000 in prizes. And so we had monthly prizes, three prizes each month. And then we've got. I'm about to do the draw for the annual prize. The annual prize is, you know, about $9,000 worth of thermal and spotlighting gear. Amazing, amazing, all that sort of stuff. There's a, an electric motorbike for stealthing around getting these and there's a good rifle. And we, we found, we found we've got some wonderful friends who'd just been looking for an opportunity to support us. And a couple of, couple of companies in particular, just like a couple of companies became three month sponsors that they do. They'd cover three months. Two companies had prizes every month for us.

[Mike Axelrod]

Who are those two companies?

[Ned McKim]

So one's called Caliber Country. They're a shop in Tamworth and they.

[Mike Axelrod]

Were shout out to Caliber country and Tamworth for stopping. Thank you so much.

[Ned McKim]

They, and they are incredibly supportive of the lifestyle and they also hooked us up then because they got onto some of their suppliers and say, these guys can be trusted, they will have a red hot go at making this work. I think you should be involved. And because Calibre country has a big turnover and they've invested a lot in the industry, their suppliers are listening to them. So they were central. And then there was another just mom and dad show. I shouldn't say just, but it's a small show, family show, and they're called Wild Game Innovations Australia. And they went every month. And they started as a. I met them at the Narrabri Pig Competition. They were next to me. We had our stands there and I, I like the guy and I like his family and I like what they were trying to do. And he's clever and so he made a series of custom mounts for every spotlight that was on the market and then every thermal that was on the market. So the thermals get mounted on whatever spotlight you've got and whatever thermal. He's got a mount that'll marry them and the electrics and things like that. Wild Game Innovations, Wild Game Innovations Australia. And they just came in, you know, on it and like I said, so, you know, are you looking to sell stuff? What do you want to achieve? And he said, oh, that's just, you know, we're just doing it for the calls and the same as Caliber Country. So of course we're going to carry on this year with people like that. Beretta came in, they were a three months sponsor. Uncle Alba's Dog Food came in for three months.

[Mike Axelrod]

That's a, that, that's a, that's a market right there. The dog food market. Dog. The dog market. There'd be a bunch of sponsors and companies there.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And it's, we went like, if someone put that, we'd ask different people. The first person to put their hands up to what we were after. That was it. And then, thank you very much. I'm dancing with this one, you know, that's it. You leave like you dance with who you came with. So that we ended up with a tremendous sponsor list, all sorts of stuff. And I, you know, we've got them on our, on our website and all that sort of thing. We're trying to even. One guy, one member, one of our members just jumped in first and he, I just knew him as a pig hunter. Turns out he's quite a successful a person when, when someone's doing a subdivision for a suburb or something like that, he's the one laying all the cabinets, you know, the wireless cables and the this and the that. His business is doing that. And he was a much bigger commodity than I ever knew. And so he just put up a thousand dollars worth of fuel for one month just out of. So there was just, there was interest there. And we thought, gee whiz, there's just some latent stuff here. We might be onto something. And so we launched it and we. Oh, we had to like.

[Mike Axelrod]

You had to come up with a name. Don't you have a name?

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, it was the Great Australian Pig Hunt.

[Mike Axelrod]

The Great Australian Pig Hunt.

[Ned McKim]

We went big. And I was saying before, I don't look like a tech guy because I'm not a tech guy. I'm a, I'm a pick hunter. So we had to learn how to set up forms and things that people could fill out and how we could then separate bits of information in our forms. You know, like, how many pigs did you get seven. How many boars? You know, oh, six. Was it a breeding age? And then, you know, did it smell like a boar? Because that, we just divided on that sort of thing, you know, sows and then sour. Was your breeding age? Like, was she over about 25 kilos? Say 50 pounds? Thereabout? Because if she's at that weight, she's breathing. That's the evidence, you know, that we, we have. So we started. And what, what local government area are you in? What shire, in your case, in the county? Because no one's going to say where the cause be.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

[Ned McKim]

But they're going to say, well, in.

[Mike Axelrod]

This, in the Hunter.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, in the Upper Hunter region, Morey Plains Shire, Carpentaria Shire, up in the Gulf, you know, all that sort of stuff. So then we can, at some point we can drill down and go, okay, this is the indicative numbers for your, your area. Then we knew that we wouldn't get, we, we, we wouldn't get all pig hunters in Australia who had been involved. So we had to go, what, what's a legitimate multiplier that we can use to say this is indicative of this many pigs being caught Australia wide? So we got people to register that they were going to be interested. And then separately they would, they would fill out a form each month. Every time they went for a hunt, they might, you know, get home from the hunt. Da, da, da. Build blogs. I'm, you know, here, got these pigs here and then send us photos and then put the names of the dogs and their mates and kids and things like that in the photos. And so we had something to use in terms of publicity. It's a reasonably comprehensive plan.

[Mike Axelrod]

Sure, sure. Then it's the great Australian Pig Hunt.

[Ned McKim]

What did you expecting? Pecan. That was that. And we did a, like, we've got a pretty. We're not tech people and we're not artists, but we're good scramblers, you know, so we did a good poster.

[Mike Axelrod]

It sounds exactly what. There's a company in Queensland that I love. I haven't, I haven't. They did a couple of stickers for me, but. Have you heard of Wild Creek Graphics?

[Ned McKim]

Yes, yes.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah. Those buggers are amazing. They would, they would put up, they would create an incredible poster with a great Australian pig hunt. I bet you that would be, that would be amazing.

[Ned McKim]

It's. So I'll send you the graphics and the posters that we've done so you can have a look. We're really proud of them. You know, we think we've Done a reasonable job, but I mean, we're open to all sorts of stuff, but we've got hardly any money, you see, so we've just got to go. 1. One of the things about Australians is that they're very good at adaptive thinking. So the, you work with what you've got. We don't have the resources as a nation or as individuals to be able to bring in vast numbers of people with big wallets and things like that. We've just got to go, right, well, I've got a piece of wire and I've got a hammer and I've got a piece of wood and so we'll make a TV or you know what I mean, like something that'll be functional. It's like, like our friend at Wild Gum Innovations, he just looked something and then just started making things. So we, we did that. People would, would, would send in this information and we had, we had our, in our poorly tech savvy minds, we got things that would email us when the information came in and we'd be able to keep track of it. We could then, you know, download each month all the information into a spreadsheet and go right into the month we caught this many pigs. So then how did we multiply that? So I have for some years been collecting research on anything that says pea hunting is great or hunting in general is great. And we repackage it and in a. So that we have all the research and then I'll read it and go through and go, oh, here's the key points. You know, pig hunting is great. Pig hunters are all super human. You know, men and women, we like kittens and you know, have a nice day, whatever the key points were. Sorry, I keep hitting my computer here because I'm a bit animated. So we'd get the key points and put them in a short, sharp little document with a nice picture on it and we'd lead that to all the stuff that verified. So we already had a really good research bank on the value of hunting, say in New South Wales, per hunter. We had stuff on, well, just anything you could imagine. We. Because that's just one of the things I do is I absolutely trawl looking for research. And we've made some friends in the research community and every now and then they'll say, oh, you might be interested in this, you know. So we've got a friend who's an anthropologist who's doing a part of an international study on what is it with pigs and humans? Like, why are people obsessed with wild Pigs. And he came out from Czechoslovakia. He's an Australian, but lives in Czechoslovakia. And he came out and we took the punch on him being a person that we could allow in. And he just, he, he absolutely lived up to that, to that trust, because he's just interested in, he's not interested in, what side are you on? He's just, why are people interested in pigs? Like, what is it that drives you? And so he's been all over Australia talking to people and he's been at my house and we've, we've hunted numerous times and all that sort of stuff. But he will often just contact us and say, you might want to read this, it's interesting. Or someone here saying this about pig hunting, you know, and it'll be all out. And so anyway, we had that. I started looking through that and going, right, well, look, if we get.

[Mike Axelrod]

You.

[Ned McKim]

Know, so there's so many hunters supposed to be here, and the value that they're spending, according to the government's own research is about $1032 a month on pig hunting. They're twice as active as all the other hunters. They go out twice as often as other hunters. Right, I'm starting to get that. Okay, okay, so we could use that to multiply these figures out if, if we've got a participation rate. You know, there's. So there's 700 people registered and there's a hundred people or 150 people actually putting in pigs. That's our 15% of hunters hunt in that month. So we'd apply that to the 120 odd thousand hunters Australia wide and go, well, okay, the participation rate would be about this number x thousand people. And then we could multiply the average pigs, like the average number of pigs per month, per hunter. Because you've got, say a hundred hunters and they've caught 1500 pigs. You know, that's 15 pigs per month. Now the, the average stays pretty close. It's the lowest is about 15, and the highest was about 21 pigs a month on average. Some people are getting leaky, you know, but some people, yeah, sure, sure.

[Mike Axelrod]

Some are getting one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ned McKim]

But they're still a hunter and we still want them. So it wasn't about a, you know, who's the biggest and who's the hardest and who's this and all that sort of stuff. It was just, if everyone's. Anyone who's a hunter is in. Anyway. So then the, one of the smartest things that was said to us was said to us by a Guy on the committee, he said, no one's going to believe us anyway because we're just pig hunters. What you guys have to do is think about who's going to, you know, just double check what we're doing. We need a voice that says these guys are legit, trying to do this the right way. So we started asking the people in our world that we'd been going to these meetings with, and we had a good contact in the commercial pig world, said, I know someone. He's an associate professor at a university. He loves research. He loves dead animals because that's. That's data to him. You know, he'd done some big studies. Get him to have a look at it. I'll introduce you. She introduced us to him, and that started a wonderful relationship because it turns out that he's a bit of a rock star in that world and people listen to him, and he just looked at everything and went, no, look, this. That makes sense. That's. That's all researchers ever do. It's this. Where'd you get that figure from here? And. Oh, yeah. Okay, good. So can we use your number?

[Mike Axelrod]

He was your auditor of your data.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And I mean, he's. He's. We have yet to be fully audited, so.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, but I'm saying academically, to give you credence on the numbers.

[Ned McKim]

Correct. He was someone who was saying, whatever the numbers come out as, that's a correct process. What you're doing there is supportable. That's how research works. And you can legitimately use that multiplier to prove this, provided you say this, et cetera. So we started doing that and just bang. These figures turned out to be huge, like, for us these days.

[Mike Axelrod]

So let's. Let's just. So today, let's just go. You've. The great Australian peg hunt has happened for one year in 2024, right?

[Ned McKim]

Correct. Yes.

[Mike Axelrod]

How many pegs did you do, you think through your research and your data, how many pigs do you think you guys killed in 2024?

[Ned McKim]

Five and a half million.

[Mike Axelrod]

Five and a half million.

[Ned McKim]

5,510,834.

[Mike Axelrod]

You'll have to send me that number. Okay.

[Ned McKim]

So what that is.

[Mike Axelrod]

That's crazy.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And I mean, we were thinking it might be more, but. But see, if. If you've got 120,000 hunters and say 17% of them are active and 17% or so of them are getting 17 pigs a month, it starts to add up. Yes. Your active number of the 120,000. Times this, times that so the other figure. So that's about. I'm sorry, I'm just going to refer to my notes here. I've got notes, I'm very note oriented. So that's still about 15,000 pigs a day that, that hunters are killing far and away greater impact than any program that's being run by anyone. Because the argument was always, oh well, hunters don't achieve anything. They're just getting a few pigs. You got.

[Mike Axelrod]

And the Australian model, for everyone who's listening to this, who doesn't have a clue of what's happening, the Australian model model is because a pig is a pest species or, you know, most, not most, all the pest species as well. We don't like to call them pests. I think they're a natural resource just like a pig is. But, but the government takes care of the control. The government's doing the helicopter shooting, the poisoning, the, the, the 10, 80 drops, all that kind of stuff.

[Ned McKim]

At a cost of about $100 per egg.

[Mike Axelrod]

Extremely expensive, correct? Extremely expensive. But because I saw the numbers and that's why I reached out to you, you guys are doing a better job than the government for pennies on the dollar.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So the government. And we're not attacking anyone or anything like that.

[Mike Axelrod]

No, we're not.

[Ned McKim]

No, no.

[Mike Axelrod]

This is proving your value.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. This is just about what are we doing. And some of it is we don't like being pushed around. So some of this is a reaction to being dismissed or hunters don't achieve anything. What do they achieve? Look, we've got this data that said we've got. So in New South Wales, we've made good friends now with the, with, with people that we used to be notionally opposed to or who were opposed to us because we're communicating in the same language now. And so they spent about $100 per pig and they'd spent 13 million to get about 100,000 pigs. Now our guys are spending, according to the data, a million dollars a day. Just under a million dollars a day hunting pigs. So they spend. The cost comes out to about $60 per pig our guys spend to get.

[Mike Axelrod]

Their pigs into the economy of Australia.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And mostly in rural areas where it's incredibly important. Know, we're a very centralized country. The, the perception of Australia is all these rugged individualists living in the bush and wrestling crocodiles and things like that. But the vast majority of people are living in a tiny little strip of land near the sea.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yep.

[Ned McKim]

Where, where everything's concreted. And then they have official Little bits of bushes they can walk in. And, and they're the people that often are the most vocal about environmental issues and living in the most environmentally degraded area in Australia.

[Mike Axelrod]

Well, those should be your best friends. Now the most vocal people on environmental issues that are saying we've got pest species, I. E. Pigs that are at high population numbers that need controlling. Hey, we just found a friend that we didn't know was there.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. Bigotry is a funny thing though that sometimes some of our people, we've got some people who are referred to, people who referred to as greenies in Australia. Environmental type people, we think we're greenies, we're environmentalists. But sometimes it's used in a derogatory term, as a derogatory term. Greenish. Oh, they wouldn't understand, you know, da da da. And we're trying to educate our guys and say greenies are our allies, they're not the enemy because we're all in the same boat. Lots of the green movement are supportive of whatever it takes to get rid of pest species and restore natural environment, et cetera, et cetera. You then have sometimes a wrapped up in that movement can be the animals are people, people like the animal liberationists and the. And so they will hide us no matter what.

[Mike Axelrod]

But what do they say? They say no, let a wild pig be free. Let a wild pig do what it needs to do. Let a wild pig keep destroying the environment. Come on man, everyone's going to laugh in their face.

[Ned McKim]

That's. Well they do, but there's still a core group of people who will do that. The next step up, level up from that is the people that say yes. But it can't be left to a bunch of idiots just running around in the bush. You know, they can't be managed. It has to be done by the government. You know, the government will solve it and someone else must pay for that. You know, the government must pay for that. So part of this whole process for us is to go, well, we're not idiots just running around. We're actually achieving, you know, some fairly high level objectives. In fact, one of the government agencies, we did a joint press release which was a lovely breakthrough. But they said that hunters were responsible for broad scale day to day population suppression of pigs. And their job was hotspots go in with a chopper. And that's how they were seeing it. They'd go in with a chopper in a hotspot that someone might have a sorghum crop that's got 5,000 pigs in it. We're not going to catch all those pigs in the first night, but they could shoot a lot of them with a chopper. So it might be that that's where that money is, is. Is best used. The key thing we got out of that was, okay, so we're all on the same team. Correct.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah. It's not, it's not, it's not that you're. You're not using this data to snub what the government's doing. What the government is doing is essential, is necessary. You guys are partners in this effort.

[Ned McKim]

Absolutely. And see, now that we've got the language to use and some data to support it, and we can show the workings. You know, we haven't just bucked it out of the air because we've been doing reports every month and we send them off to people. Ministers, members of Parliament, you know, sundry people charged with, but public servants charged with, you know, the managing pig. So we send them information and just to keep them informed of what we're doing. And through that, we've developed a dialogue with people. And we're not trying to be more than we are. And our base level is that hunting is a cultural legitimate thing to do. And so we stand by that. This is what. It's deliberate. We're not saying that the only reason people should hunt is because they're going to get rid of pest. We're just saying that in the context of hunting, that's a. It's a reasonable lifestyle. We've got a cultural imperative to do it, you know, et cetera. We can now show that it's a significant economic driver. There was already data floating around about that. But pig hunters have, to a certain extent, been sidelined in the past because they were just seen as a bit of a rub. You know, they unmanageable, you know, a big herd of cass.

[Mike Axelrod]

But now you have economic and environmental benefit data.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. And it's.

[Mike Axelrod]

To your existence and, and the, the.

[Ned McKim]

The hunters just bought into it. They just got into it and they'd be. And you know, they. So we did social media posts every day. Every bloody day. It's 5:30 in the morning. Right.

[Mike Axelrod]

Welcome to my world. Welcome to my world.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah. So 5:30 every morning, right up. Okay. Oh, there's some good pictures. There's some good pictures. Oh, that's good. Okay. Oh, there's. There's Courtney again. She's out with a mother. That's great. You know, and there's. There's the. The Gosling family in North Queensland. Look at them having a go again. You know, because you start to. You get to know these people that you didn't know before and then sometimes you're talking to them on the phone. Yeah, g'day, it's Ned here. Sorry about that. Sorry about calling you so early. What's the name of that dog? I want to use that photo. Oh, that's Rough it. Radio sign. So in Rough it or whatever. And so every day then we're just posting photos of pigs and saying, yeah, look at all this. And then details of the supporters, you know, our corporate partners. And the net effect was that we started adding a bit over two members net every day, like to join to the association. Yeah. So that started to give us a little bit more weight and a little bit more money to go. Well, let's get that posting done, you know, because we're very cautious. We don't think we've got any money at all because we've got members money, you know what I mean? So we're cautious about how we spend that because it's easy to create an atmosphere where all those guys are just spending all that money on lollies and beer, you know, like, sure, sure, sure. So we're going, right? This is what we're spending the money on. And it's. All the work that's being done is volunteer work. Like, you know, no one's paying for the 5, 5:30am and I'd be ringing Mark, he's in Queensland and they're an hour behind because we've got daylight saving in New South Wales and Queensland doesn't. So if I'm up at 4:30, he could get. At 5:30, he could get a call at 4:30. And he's a builder, so he'd be thrilled, of course, with me waking him up or, you know. But anyway, every day there'd be something like that. We'd certainly, we'd certainly converse every day all through this. And what are we doing? Why are we doing that? Why hasn't that happened? And at the, at the time I'm doing that, he's going through our website and all of our IT stuff and he. And he knows nothing about it, but he just bought himself just going, I think I found something here. That's that we should have ticked this box here and it says this audio ticket. So the progress, it was like being on a war footing. Medicine progresses dramatically during a war. Technology, you know, because there's an imperative.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah.

[Ned McKim]

And technology advances dramatically. We advance dramatically through this because we just went at it like it was. Every day was like the, the last 10 minutes of the, the biggest football game of the year for us. That's date of origin, New South Wales versus Queensland. And Mark's a fierce Queenslander and I'm very pro New South Wales. So we'd be talking about, you know, how any team could win in that last 30 seconds because someone would pull out a piece of brilliance, but the team would have got them into a position where that bit of brilliance only had to go over 10 meters instead of 50 meters.

[Mike Axelrod]

So, Ned, are you guys, are you guys doing, is the, is the great Australian hunt continuing?

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, well, we're like. Short answer, yes. Not in the same format over the next two years. We haven't colored her on this yet, so you've got a scoop. We're doing seasonal hunts, so this coming year we'll do one in the winter for us and the dry season for the north of Australia where we'll go for three months, same thing, you know, report all the things. And we would use that as comparative figures to the same period in the, the year long hunt because we think there was a bit of hunter fatigue when it ran for 12 months. Great figures, but you could just see them sort of dropping each month.

[Mike Axelrod]

Do the doggos hunt pigs every month? Is that, is it, is there a month that they like to chase pigs versus other months?

[Ned McKim]

Well, it, Australia is a big place, so you've got very variations in terms of what pigs are doing and the weather too. So at the moment in the north, you're in the wet season, so it's wet and stinking hot, you know, so it's easy to overheat a dog. Wet season, the crocs move around more and they'll appear like on your back lawn. So they're like, you run into them and no one likes running into them. They're not fun, like just for the Americans. That's, they're a serious thing. It's not a joke. Like, that's not a joke.

[Mike Axelrod]

No joke. Salties are no joke.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, they'll, they're actively hunting you. They're the only thing in Australia that's actively hunting people. Other things will kill you. Lots of things here will kill you, but lots of things everywhere will kill you. You know, I've had that discussion with Americans. Oh, how do you deal with the snakes? Well, how do you deal with bears?

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[Ned McKim]

But it's just whatever you, whatever you're used to. Like, they'd say, oh, the bears are mostly there. And then you do this, you do that and say, well, the snakes don't want you. The snakes are trying to get away. Just don't box them into a corner and don't, don't fiddle with them.

[Mike Axelrod]

But cross, let me ask this. The last, the last question I had around this was, you know, there's. Whenever you do something like this, a competition of this magnitude, sometimes you'll get a little pushback from the community specifically. And I've got two part. Question one is that you're making us kill all the things that we love to go kill. So there's less of them now. So why are we doing this?

[Ned McKim]

So to answer that part immediately, no one has any belief that we will wipe our pick. There are squillions of them here. Odd people have said that. Well, why would we, you know, why would we wipe the mouth and we won't have anything to hunt. The vast majority of people understand that that's never going to be a situation where there's no pig. So that's easily answered. So we're doing this so that people give us respect and give us value because then we can argue for our continued existence. We can be legislated out of existence as a stroke of thing.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, yeah. You know, so this the second question I had, do, and I assume this is obviously very unique to the individual who likes to go pig hunting, but are there people that pig hunt that are just like, I don't really care for shooting sows, small sows or babies. I want the p. I want the balls. That's all I'm interested in. That's all I'm going for. Which would skew the data a little bit, if those are the kinds. So I wanted to know, in your community, is there a lot of those or is it just sort of haphazard?

[Ned McKim]

Everyone. I'll just say this, sort of broadly, everyone would prefer to get a good boar, one good boar, than 10 sows. That's the natural run of the thing. However, shooters get more choice. We've got shooters, bow hunters and doggers in our world. Shooters get more choice about which ones they shoot. The dog is the dogs go for whatever they want. Now, some dogs will, what we call pick the mob, and that's gallop over pigs to get to the boar at the front. And they're highly prized, those dogs, you know. But the key governing factor with all of that is the access. Most of the hunting we have is private land hunting and what we call a cocky, which is a farmer. They determine what the rules are and some of they don't keep data. They're just going, right. All we're seeing is little babies running around. You're just killing the big ones. Right. You're off. You know, we want someone that's going to smash these numbers. So that becomes the pig hunters will do what it takes to have legal access. So if a landholder allows you on there to hunt pigs, you're killing everything there's.

[Mike Axelrod]

But that makes sense. That makes sense. There's the driver is the landowner here.

[Ned McKim]

Yes. The imperative is to keep access.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah.

[Ned McKim]

You know, that's the truly valuable thing. So we are, we, we've got public land access in New South Wales, in some state forests. We've got national parks access in the Northern Territory for our association members and things. So where and where this year we're pushing hard on getting some public land access in Queensland because there's a burgeoning number of pig hunters and only a few land.

[Mike Axelrod]

No public land access. No national park access in New South Wales to pig Hong Kong.

[Ned McKim]

None in national parks but in state forests which are essentially tree farms, like areas set aside neither planted or housing and so on for timber or native country that's managed by a different body and they're about 20 years ago there was an arrangement that was just a perfect combination of a balance of power and things like that in the New South Wales government. And one of the deals done was that managed hunters could access state forests. So that's done. That's a. You know, they're getting so strange that.

[Mike Axelrod]

They won't let managed hunting specifically in the context of, you know, keeping numbers of animals down, managing numbers. Why would they not.

[Ned McKim]

Was essentially a prison. That was the whole basis. And then there were some, you know, free settlers came out. So the mentality is very top down in Australia and the government knows what's best and people, the individuals can't be trusted. So Australians still go about what they're doing. A friend of mine came over from the States, I met him in, in, in the 1980s and he surprised me because he said, gee, Australia is like America thinks it is because people are. He said, you guys just really think free but you're not at war with anyone. They said, well, being at war with anyone, like internally being at war with, with, with people in Historically you lost because the government had control of all the food, had control of all this sort of stuff. There's a book called the Fatal Shore, big heavy book to read. But it details the early colonization of Australia and it was just brutal. Like humans were just disposable and because they were a lower class, they were the criminal class, they were beneath the administration. Now, some of the legal precedent and some of the patterns remain the same. You know, it's like every country has its culture that comes from somewhere. So the concept is that we as hunters can be seen as lesser beings because we like to hunt. And the way we hunt can then be judged by other hunters. And there's all these sorts of little, very much class system in Australia, even though everyone denies that, oh well, we all like a beer and you know, but, but it's different to that. And the political system is very much will tell you what to do. And Australians go, oh, okay, we don't want to be told what to do, so we'll pretend to be doing it and we'll just go and do stuff that we want anyway. So what we're trying to do is to go to our people. The way for us to get to do what we want is to engage with government, give them data that they want, not to have a fight with them and not to, you know, where we've got God on our side and all that sort of stuff. We're just saying we've got all this data. Pay attention to us. Politicians and public servants are always subject to their KPIs, their key performance indicators, like what are they achieving? So if we can bring information that supports those KPIs, then we get listened to. Now that's also what can go wrong if they're KPIs. For instance, if in, in relation to managing pigs, if the people who are managing pigs are being judged on how many landholders that they, they engage with, then they'll send an email. Whether that email is read or not, that counts as engagement. So do you see what I mean? So the things can be counterproductive. We have to come to them with information about, you know, we get introductions through some of our farming connections and things like that because they have political power. So next thing we're talking to different people and explaining who we are and they're pleasantly.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, and then now that, now you introduce yourself who you are, but then you can back it up and go, oh, but we've done this thing. And here's some data to the economics and the environmental benefits. Would you like to continue to have a conversation?

[Ned McKim]

I've described it in the past as. It's like the pigeon and duck dance. So birds have their own dance. So the pigeons, when they want to make, they're doing their little pigeon dance and they all recognize it and the way they Go. And a duck has a different dance now. They're both birds, but the pigeon doesn't recognize the duck dance and the duck dance, it doesn't recognize the pigeon dance. So nothing happens. So we have to learn the dances of all the other birds in this aviary that we're in so that we can connect with them. So politicians have their own dance. They're looking at, how is this going to affect not only the voting public, but their status within the party? The public servants are going, how is this going to affect my ascent through the public service and my superannuation and my, you know, my pay packet and then my holidays and all this sort of stuff? So. And pig hunters have theirs, which is how do we get more access to land? And we'll do all of this, we'll spend our own money hunting pigs and we'll do it all and we'll put a million dollars a day into the economy. We just want to be able to hunt pigs. So you have to find elements of each dance that match up. That's probably a pretty weird picture, but.

[Mike Axelrod]

That'S how we make sense. That makes sense.

[Ned McKim]

That's how we think of it. Like it's a. We think about this non stop, you know. And again, one of our. So we've actually got two things going. We've got the 10,000 a year project going. And I could talk about that if you've got time. But one of our academics explained it to us. He'd met pig hunters and he'd said, so you know how you guys think about pigs? And I said yes. And he said, that's how I think about data. He said, I'm just looking for more data. Is there more data over there? How can I get access to even more data? Is that the biggest data? You know, is that the best data? Am I the data winner? And it just went click right. Okay, so there's part of the dance. We can get access to data. We see pigs as pigs, but if we count them or we take photos of them or snip a bit of their ear off, that can be later on, can be analyzed. But whatever reason, then that becomes, we have an ally there. And then so through a conversation with that professor, he talked about sampling, he said, what you guys have got is access to animals. And every researcher wants access to bodies and parts, you know, because they're, you know. And he said so like a, you know, could you get 500 pigs? And I said, 500 pigs? We could get 5,000 pigs. Like what? What do you mean? He said, well, 500 pigs is a massive sample for a. Someone who's doing a research project and it could take them a year to do that. And about 15 people, because everyone has to line up and have to get out. They have to then all go. Someone's gotta be on holidays. And so they've got an engagement party, so they can't all line up on that day. And then they've gotta set the traps for the pigs or whatever. You could just send in samples. I said, well, how about this? We won't get 5,000, we'll get 10,000 samples for you. And he said, okay, yeah, if you do that, that could be the biggest wildlife study in the world. I said, right, that's what we're doing. We're doing the biggest wildlife study in the world. So in. In conjunction with the, The. The Pig Hunt for prizes, we set up another thing where people would send us in the tips. Just snip off the tip of a pig's ear, drive with. In a plat, in a paper bag. We send them a paper bag, the paper bags. We send them a sticker saying they're a feral pig researcher and another thermo from another company that when we get 10,000, is. We draw that someone wins another great big thermal and rah, rah, rah. So those. We had to meet another mob of researchers then. And they're. They're in Canberra. First guys in Brisbane. These guys are in Canberra. And the lady to whom I was speaking just say, oh, look, we're just DNA nerds. We just love it. More DNA. That's all we want, DNA, you know, so we're, We're. We're just going, right? We've got DNA coming out of our ears. So. What? What?

[Mike Axelrod]

Oh, yeah, let's say we've got a.

[Ned McKim]

Probably a thousand or fifteen hundred years sent to them. We're scrambling around. We've got to buy a fridge, a refrigerator to put them in, because we call it the science fridge. But we actually saw one of them in Darwin. I had to go up there for a biosecurity meeting. So that's four days of traveling. It's a ridiculous distance, but anyway. And in this biosecurity area, they had one of these refrigerators. I said, that must be what Professor Sans I was talking about. And that'll go down to minus 80 degrees Celsius. So. Celsius and Fahrenheit.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, yeah. Super cold. Super cold.

[Ned McKim]

Super cold. It's, you know. Yeah. Extraordinary.

[Mike Axelrod]

Those are expensive fridges.

[Ned McKim]

20. 20 grand. That's what we. So now we've got to find 20 grand. So we're trying. We're scrambling around running competitions and things like that to try. And what are they.

[Mike Axelrod]

What are they going to. What do they need the data for? Like.

[Ned McKim]

We need them to want it, they don't need it. That's where people sort of going, well, what's going to happen with all this data? It's just. It's create a DNA bank for whatever purpose that the overall cost of processing. They call it accessioning at first and that's to they. They get the year. They punch a little thing out of it, they put it in the correct bloody formula or. Yep, yep, yeah, that doesn't wreck the DNA. But, you know, and they put them in little vials and they put them in the science fridge. That's one thing they're doing. Then someone can come along and for about $50 per sample. So it ends up being about a $500,000 research project. We have no chance of financing that. But it exists then. And we have provided this bank of data so that. Because one of. One of the discussions we have at a low level at some of our meetings is the use of the word feral. So in Australia, feral has become feral. Its denotative meaning is domestic animal that's no longer under human control. So at some stage that applied to pigs, but then they apply it to deer now. And like the in. Or they're applied to a fox now, fox has never been domesticated. Like odd people have a. Have a pet fox, but a fox has never been a domestic animal. So feral is the wrong word. But it's become, through a lack of education, it's become feral means pest in Australia. When it's, oh, you could be. If you're drinking, someone could say, oh, God, he's gone feral, you know, because you're playing up or you're loud or you're swearing too much or you're grabbing the waitress or whatever. So not you particularly. I don't know what you like when you drink. But the. So some of the debate is with pigs is at what stage do they cease being a domestic animal that's gone wild and they just a wild animal because they all come from European wild boar and Asiatic wild boar. Depicting Australia, that's a whole story on its own. So one of the things could be pet. How far back is the domestic blood? Other things could be, how related are pigs in different areas? One of the big ones could be the movement of pigs through the landscape. So if there is an emergency disease outbreak. Like, for some reason, there's African swarming fever pops up at Kingaroy, where there's a, you know, piggery near there. So African swine fever appears there. How? The initial concept would be throw a big ring around that and then kill everything inside it. But that mightn't be how the pigs work. They mightn't be in a big ring around it. They might follow a particular ridge line and you'd be able to show that with DNA, that, okay, they follow water courses in this way. So the control mechanism should be all that watercourse or something like that, you know, like, there's also a perception that hunters move pigs around and that could well have happened. I don't know. There's only been two prosecutions in the last 20 years that I'm aware of in New South Wales of people having live pigs on their vehicles. But, you know, anything's possible. But it's the go to position. Oh, there's pigs over here. There's, you know, there's never been pigs there. A hunter must have moved them. Yeah, yeah, pigs move, like. Yeah, they'll follow water courses, they'll follow floods, they'll follow this sort of stuff. So anything could come out of this DNA research. But I mean, that could be 10, 20 years away.

[Mike Axelrod]

Sure.

[Ned McKim]

We will be our objective if we build the bank.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, no, it's great stuff, man. It's great stuff. It's good thinking again. It's showing, you know, what you guys are doing for research for wildlife, for wildlife management, for pig management in the future. Nobody else is thinking that way. Ned, it's awesome, man. I love it. I love the great Australian pig hunt. And, yeah, keep doing what you're doing, brother. I'm sorry, I didn't. It took me this long to get you on the podcast. I'd love to have you back on and we talk some more about some of the other stuff that you're doing or the outcomes of this year or whatnot. But please reach out to us. Let me know if we can do anything for you.

[Ned McKim]

Well, I'll start including you in reports and things if you like. I'll just email them to you and you can have a look. One of the other things that's happened too, just before we go, is our relationship with the media has just gone from strength to strength because the. Some people see the media as the enemy and there are no enemies. It's just people we haven't converted yet. And most journos are just looking to do their job in the same way most public servants are just looking to do their job. So part of this has given us some really interesting stories to give to the media. So that then generates a level of trust. There's also, if you've got to deal with the media, one of the truisms is that the first person into the newsroom tends to be treated as either the hero or the credible source. So for instance, if Gladys Smith comes into the newsroom and says, oh, the terrible potholes in front of my house, some kid's gonna be killed one day, you know, then the young journo gets very excited, oh, hold on, we'll get a photo of Gladys near the pothole. You know, a poor child could be killed. And the story revolves around that. And then they contact the council and say, what are you doing about these potholes? Well, we've got a plan for over the next six years to, you know, fix all the potholes, but we've got to go for the most dangerous ones first. And so we're going to do that. So the story becomes about Gladys's fear for children because they're going to fall down these potholes or whatever, and the council's not doing anything for five years now if that's just the way it tends to happen. So if I've taught this in the past, but if the council has a good relationship with the media, they're calling them in and saying, right, we're going to talk to you about our pothole program. Sounds very horrible, but this is what we're doing. You know, this area here has a high traffic thing. If that pothole isn't fixed one day, there's going to be a semi trailer wreck there and it's going to be a big disaster. So we've got to have that and everyone can get to work on time. And that's also the link to the big sporting events. So we're going to fix those and then we're going to work our way out and here's the map and here's the plan. And then, you know, Gladys comes along after and say, oh, that's not fair, what about my pothole? The story is about the great planning of the council and one whinging lady who wants it fixed at her house at the expense of everyone else. So you have to be first into the newsroom. Yeah, you've got to be first. You can't be reacting to stuff. And in the past, hunters generally and pig hunters in particular, we just requisite to talk to the media because, oh, they're going to shaft us. They're going to do this, they're going to do that with a little bit of training of what trigger words, you know, can get you into trouble. You can deal with the media all day long. They're just looking for their story, what's the story. So have the contact be it, you know, talk to them openly, show that you're a human, you're not, you know, fire breathing lunatic, and engage them and give them data, give them information. You've got to do the chicken and duck dance or the pigeon and duck dance with them. What do they need? They need readership. What's the sort of thing that's going to get them? Readership? Sometimes it's big numbers, sometimes it's, you know, for some, for some of us it was the number of kids in the photos and the number of women who hunt independently of being partners with a hunter. You know, there's plenty of women who just hunt in their own right and their families are hunting all this sort of stuff. So that's been a side benefit, the amount of positive publicity. On our website. If you look at that in the news section, there's just story after story after story that we lift from recognized papers and from TV and things like that, talking about how hunters are killing all these pigs and how there's now we're working with academics to develop this great DNA bank. It's just massive. And we had almost nothing before that.

[Mike Axelrod]

Yeah, you're doing it the right way, man. You're doing it the right way. And again those that media contact, that media relationship that's just going to grow and grow and grow. And as you said, being first to the, to the pot and being able to, to steer your own narrative. And the way that I talk about it is hunting used to be out of the closet. Today hunting is very much in the closet. We're in the closet. Leave us alone, let us do what we want to do. And every so often the closet door gets ripped open and we get punched in the nose and we come kicking and screaming out and yelling and whatnot. And then time goes on and we go back into the closet and we close the door and we disappear again. That's how we operate. And it's time for us to open the closet door and come out and go, okay, here's who we are. Here we are the Australian Pig Doggos and Hunters Association. Here's what we do. This is the numbers, here's the economic benefit, here's the environmental benefit, here's all These things and we want to talk about it.

[Ned McKim]

If you, if you're running a team of workers or a sporting team or something like that, it was explained to me by a smart operator once, and I've used that ever since, is that 20% of people at the top will go your way because they're naturally going to be either interested in what you're saying or they're going to be self motivated or they're going to be hard workers. So say you've got a football team and you come in to coach that football team of whatever code. 20% of those people don't need you because they will just know what to do. They're just looking for you to what you're going to do with everyone else. 20% at the bottom you'll never reach because they're grumpy or they've got their psychological issues or they hate pig hunters or whatever. It's the 60% in the middle. That's who you're trying to sway a hundred percent. And you've got to sway them. You sway them with positivity and predictability. So you've got to have a plan. It's gotta be logical and predictable and then positivity. You've gotta catch people doing the right thing, not pointing out everyone doing everything else wrong. So that's, that's the basic strategy combined with, we're not going to have the fight on our perimeter fence, we're going to aggressively patrol ours into the wide world. And we're going to have the discussion way out there, not be having the argument right here where we live. They're right on the doorstep. That is too late. You're in desperate stress. If you make a mistake, you're gone. So it's the Australians learned that in New Guinea. Aggressively patrol during the Second World War. Be out where they are, engage them over there, not where you're trying to sleep. So we use a lot of analogies and things like that when we're talking about this and planning and, and whatnot to get a clear picture in our head of what we're doing. And then ideas tend to flow. So we like to say essentially we're making it up as we go along, but it's all within one framework and, and you're a part of that. Like we're thrilled. Like you've said a couple of times, oh, you should have reached out. Well, we could have reached out too, you know. So we.

[Mike Axelrod]

Well, this is the stock, this is the stock man. Ned, I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing More good stuff coming out of you guys and, you know, hopefully we can do something together one day. It'll be cool. You know, I don't think anybody's done a documentary on pig hunters and their. Their impact. Maybe a cool little piece to do.

[Ned McKim]

Yeah, well, we've got plenty of contacts now. We've got people who are with the. Who identified themselves through their participation in ear collecting and, and, you know, adding the data and things like that. We've got tons of people that would be ready to go. But. Yeah, so I'll talk to you separately to this, too, and just see what else we might be able to do because.

[Mike Axelrod]

Absolutely.

[Ned McKim]

We need friends and we need to help you.

[Mike Axelrod]

Well, you got one here. No worries, Ripper.

[Ned McKim]

All right, well, thanks. Thanks so much for this. We really appreciate that people are interested. And for any other hunting organizations, we're happy to talk to anyone about how we've done what we've done. In case there's a blueprint that could be followed, we'll share any level of information. Everyone's heading the same direction in our view.

[Mike Axelrod]

Brilliant. Thanks, bud. Well, that's it for today. I appreciate you listening. As always, leave a review, share it with your friends, and most importantly, do what's right to convey the truth around hunting.

[Ned McKim]

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