Episode 558 - Ben Hudson || Vegan Farmer VS. Hunting

Summary

Podcast Summary: Blood Origins Episode 558 - Ben Hudson || Vegan Farmer VS. Hunting Release Date: May 13, 2025

---

Introduction

In Episode 558 of Blood Origins, host Robert Arrington engages in a thought-provoking dialogue with Ben Hudson, a vegan farmer and co-founder of an animal sanctuary. The conversation delves deep into the contrasting philosophies of veganism and hunting, exploring their respective roles in conservation, biodiversity, and sustainable agriculture. This summary captures the essence of their discussion, highlighting key insights, debates, and mutual acknowledgments.

---

Backgrounds and Personal Journeys

The episode begins with Robert introducing Ben Hudson, emphasizing his unique position as a former hunter who transitioned to vegan farming. Ben shares his upbringing in the timber industry and his early involvement in hunting, fishing, and trapping.

• Ben Hudson [04:39]: "Growing up I was a hunter, so I wasn't always a vegan... I grew up in the timber industry, so we always had access to a lot of different land to do hunting and outdoor recording."

Robert acknowledges Ben’s profound shift from hunting to veganism, highlighting the authenticity and depth of Ben's intellectual and ethical transformation.

• Robert Arrington [01:00]: "Ben is a very astute intellectual that has thought deeply about who he is, why he does what he does."

---

Evolution from Hunting to Vegan Farming

Ben elaborates on his journey towards veganism, citing increasing awareness of biodiversity, environmentalism, and the impacts of hunting on ecosystems. His experience with international hunting, particularly in Argentina, served as a catalyst for his ethical shift.

• Ben Hudson [15:00]: "One experience was like, we were duck hunting... my brother dragged in a few ducks that were completely rotten and just decomposing in the water. So that to me was kind of like, something's wrong here."

Ben's encounter with his wife’s pet rabbit further solidified his belief in animal sentience and the unnecessary cruelty inherent in hunting.

• Ben Hudson [16:35]: "I recognized she had, you know, preferences, she made friendships with cats. It was just like, really wild to me to see this animal that I'd always seen as a resource, to see it as an individual."

---

Defining Conservation: Hunting vs. Vegan Perspectives

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the differing definitions of conservation. Robert argues that hunting contributes to wildlife management and habitat preservation, citing examples from Africa where hunting revenues support large conservation areas.

• Robert Arrington [38:18]: "For instance, Kruger National Park... the buffalo herds... the lions... that's conservation."

Ben counters by emphasizing a broader, non-interventionist approach to conservation that prioritizes ecosystem health without exploiting wildlife.

• Ben Hudson [38:35]: "Hunting is the exploitation of wildlife for your benefit... conservation is protecting and preserving a broad perspective on ecosystem health."

---

Conservation Funding: The Role of Hunting and Alternatives

The debate extends to how conservation is funded. Robert asserts that hunting licenses and related fees, although constituting less than 10% of overall conservation funding, play a vital role in sustaining certain wildlife populations and habitats.

• Robert Arrington [32:05]: "Hunting is a funder of conservation. Would you agree with that?"

Ben acknowledges the contribution but highlights the growing reliance on non-hunting sources such as the USDA and NGOs, especially as hunting numbers decline.

• Ben Hudson [35:19]: "They account for less than 10% of overall conservation funding... over 90% is funded through taxpayers or non-hunting related NGOs."

---

Agricultural Land Use: Plant-Based vs. Animal Agriculture

Ben presents compelling arguments about the inefficiency of animal agriculture, which uses approximately 80% of agricultural land to produce less than 20% of global calories. He advocates for a shift towards plant-based diets to optimize land use and promote biodiversity.

• Ben Hudson [23:01]: "We can grow 14 times the amount of calories per acre when we just grow plants compared to even the most efficient of animal products."

Robert, while appreciating the argument, admits a lack of expertise in agricultural practices but remains open to understanding the implications of land use on conservation.

• Robert Arrington [63:26]: "You’re actually for more, less animal agriculture areas, more wildlife areas... that’s good."

---

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management

The conversation delves into the effectiveness of hunting versus protected areas in maintaining biodiversity. Robert cites examples where hunting funding has directly supported wildlife populations and their habitats.

• Robert Arrington [43:56]: "... how can you not say that? That's conservation. It's an amazing source."

Ben counters with studies indicating that protected areas and national parks often exhibit higher biodiversity rates compared to hunted regions, advocating for non-exploitative conservation methods.

• Ben Hudson [45:54]: "We see studies that compare national parks... having higher biodiversity rates over time than these areas that are hunted."

---

Philosophical and Ethical Considerations

The hosts explore the ethical frameworks underpinning veganism and hunting. Ben emphasizes a rights-based approach, asserting that animals possess inherent rights due to their sentience, which inherently conflicts with hunting.

• Ben Hudson [54:30]: "A rights-based approach from the vegan ethics perspective would grant sentient individuals inherent rights just on the fact that they are sentient."

Robert, while respecting Ben’s stance, argues that conservation often requires population management that hunting facilitates, especially in ecosystems lacking natural predators.

• Robert Arrington [73:45]: "How do you protect biodiversity on an individual level?... It's about the population."

---

Alternative Conservation Funding and Future Directions

Ben discusses alternative funding mechanisms beyond hunting, such as ecotourism, governmental funding, and NGO contributions. He stresses the necessity of diversifying conservation funding sources in light of declining hunting participation.

• Ben Hudson [56:11]: "Assessing the viability of Ecotourism as alternative... Alternative Funding Mechanisms for Conservation."

Robert concurs on the need for multiple conservation tools and urges maintaining all available methods to safeguard wildlife and habitats.

• Robert Arrington [61:14]: "Why would you want to toss one out... So many tools to protect."

---

Conclusion

The episode concludes with both hosts acknowledging areas of agreement despite their differing philosophies. They underscore the importance of open, respectful dialogues in advancing conservation efforts and addressing the biodiversity crisis.

• Ben Hudson [71:59]: "Having these conversations is how we all grow and be better."

• Robert Arrington [77:02]: "Well, man, thank you... I hope that you do start a cooperative because people are going to be, you know, they're clamoring for that."

---

Notable Quotes

• Ben Hudson [15:00]: "Something's wrong here... we're carrying more animals than we can actually use."

• Robert Arrington [38:18]: "Hunters viewing wildlife as an economic asset... that's conservation."

• Ben Hudson [54:30]: "A rights-based approach from the vegan ethics perspective would grant sentient individuals inherent rights just on the fact that they are sentient."

• Ben Hudson [66:43]: "One of the main things is companion planting... using honey locusts and other thorny plants to make an impenetrable barrier."

• Robert Arrington [73:45]: "But then how do you protect biodiversity on an individual level?"

---

Final Thoughts

This episode of Blood Origins offers a balanced exploration of vegan farming and hunting within the context of conservation. Robert Arrington and Ben Hudson present well-articulated arguments, supported by studies and personal experiences, fostering a nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between human practices and environmental stewardship. Listeners gain valuable insights into the ethical, practical, and philosophical dimensions of sustainable land use and wildlife management.

Transcript

[Robert Arrington]

Fishing trips anywhere, anytime. Fishingbooker.com for almost 50 years, Midway USA has been America's go to source for just about everything for shooting, hunting and the outdoors. Go to midwayusa.com to see our latest.

[Ben Hudson]

Deals and promotions and take advantage of.

[Robert Arrington]

Our super fast same day shipping. If you need a cooler, a new fishing rod, another rifle, ammo or a reloading press, you can find it all@midway USA.com thanks for your business.

[Ben Hudson]

Hey, what's up happy people?

[Robert Arrington]

This is Robert Arrington from Deer Meat for Dinner. If you're into bow fishing like I am, you need to check out Cajun Bow Fishing. I've been using their gear for years, from the Sucker Punch Pro to the Winch Pro reel. It's tough, it's reliable and it works. Whether you're just getting started or you ready to take the step to the next level. Head over to cajunbowfishing.com and check out everything Cajun Bow Fishing has to offer. I trust their gear because it works. So if you're hitting the water soon, make sure you're rigged up with Cajun Bow Fishing. You will not regret it. Well, you guys have asked for it and so we are delivering. This is the podcast with Ben the vegan farmer Ben Hudson. I got tagged into a post where he stated hunting is not conservation. And from there we had some comments back and forth. We slid into each other's dms, which sounds dirty, but it wasn't. And we amicably said, hey, let's get on a podcast and chat about it. And what you'll find is Ben is a very astute intellectual that has thought deeply about who he is, why he does what he does. And we have a straightforward, maybe not so much straightforward conversation around hunting, animal, agriculture, conservation, you name it, we tackle it. And I think you'll hear me say this at the end of the podcast. What I love about this conversation, and you'll hear me say it at the end, is that you'll hear Ben multiple times say, I agree with you Robbie. And you'll hear multiple times me, Robby, saying, I agree with you Ben. So enjoy. Fascinating. Take a lot from it. And yeah, we're going to do this again for sure. 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.

[Ben Hudson]

It brings awareness to non hunters that.

[Robert Arrington]

It'S more than just killing animals.

[Ben Hudson]

How do I start it? Brittany? My name.

[Robert Arrington]

Does my hair look okay? 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, a feminist that works for a nonprofit 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. I think you are somebody of the same ilk as me. And when it comes to conversations like this, it's not a right or wrong conversation. Maybe for me, I don't want to put words in your mouth. It's more of an amicable discussion with two people that have information, that have opinions, that have intellect, are intelligent enough to have amicable discussions, especially in society that we have today. And so, and I said, as I do, I, I do a terrible job of introducing because we can just jump into all of the things that we want to talk about. But I'm going to pause, I'm going to introduce you, Ben Hudson, the vegan farmer. You reached out to me or I was, I was tagged into one of your posts. I commented, I DMed, I said, man, let's just love to have a conversation with you because again, you're very, very different than the typical people that I get posted that I get tagged into. So let me let you introduce yourself, Ben. And what do you do? Who are you? That kind of stuff.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, absolutely. So appreciate the opportunity here. And yeah, my, my grow, grow. So growing up I was a hunter, so I wasn't always a vegan. But yeah, growing up I was hunting, doing a lot of fishing and trapping as well. I grew up in the timber industry, so we always had access lot of different, you know, land to do hunting and outdoor recording.

[Robert Arrington]

Did you grow up in South Carolina or North Carolina? One of the Carolinas, Right, South Carolina.

[Ben Hudson]

Here actually about 20, 30 minutes from where my farm is now. So very, very close to home here. But yeah, I grew up hunting, fishing, all of that. As I got older I really got interested in like biodiversity and environmentalism. So I started studying more and more also about like health and got into like plant based diets and also started learning more about the impacts of hunting and other exploitative practices, you know, that, that were having impacts on ecosystems around me and kind of began to question a lot of what I was taught, you know, in the hunting culture that I grew up in. So now I operate a veganic farm, so we practice organic agriculture and we also. So it's about 100 acre farm, so we have a lot of wildlife area. We're actually restoring former pasture or hay farm into like food forests. So doing a lot of rewilding projects. We also sell at a farmer's market local to us. And I also have co founded a nonprofit animal sanctuary with my wife. So we stay very busy.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, you said we and I noticed you had a wedding ring on. Is your, is your wife a part of the farm? She works with the farm on you. With you?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, absolutely. She, she's a huge part. She's actually out doing some seed starting right now and working in the garden. So yeah, it's, it's a busy season right now coming into, you know, spring. So we're, we're getting very busy with a lot of different farm work getting ready for spring market. So yeah, she's.

[Robert Arrington]

Is your 100 acre farm like one of those? Because we haven't found one here in Memphis. But I love. It's one of those cooperatives that people can buy in and they get their like box of vegetables by the month.

[Ben Hudson]

So we've been wanting to look into that. Right now we just do farmers market like one a week. We might move to like two a week. But we're probably pretty, pretty small scale right now. We do like market gardening. So we're just kind of getting into 100 acres.

[Robert Arrington]

Isn't small scale. Dude, that's a lot of work.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, absolutely. But we do a lot of stuff like fruit trees, you know, so we do a lot of tree planting. Again, like about 50% of our property is devoted towards rewilding and wildlife habitat. So protecting. Unfortunately, when we first came out here and purchased the property, we had a lot of local folks who had gotten comfortable poaching on the property and trespassing. So a lot of, you know, our first year or two was kind of talking to the neighbors and introducing ourselves and being like, hey, you know, we really don't want hunting going down here. We're doing some different kind of work. So yeah, it's been an interesting road. Kind of talking to other farmers in the area too because of a lot of what we do, whether it's conservation work, animal rescue or farming is, you know, pretty unconventional, I would say.

[Robert Arrington]

Look guys, I'm a hunter, right? And when I go hunting, I like to figure out how to get my trophies back home as expeditiously as possible. Well, you don't have to look much further than safari specialty importers. We know that trophy importation can be quite a headache. That's why safari specialty importers strives to make it as easy as and hassle free as possible. They have access to a bonded warehouse, you won't be charged storage fees and you get a dedicated team that's readily available and will update you at every step in the process. They'll even go one step further. Safari Specialty Importers is working with us at Blood Origins and they are going to donate $100 from every shipment that they work with to conservation projects that include anti poaching, community development and wildlife conservation. At the end of the day, choose to spend your money with a team that's dedicated to you and is dedicated to helping show how hunting is a great conservation model. Hassle free logistics, fuel and conservation go with Safari Specialty Importers. Did you know that in 42 states it is 100% legal to buy a suppressor and protect your hearing? Silencer Central pioneered the simplified silencer buying process. It allows you to buy a suppressor online or over the phone. You go through all the paperwork with a certified expert and that suppressor ships directly to your front door. I don't even believe it, but I've done it and it's come to my door. You can buy a suppressor and have it shipped to you. They offer the best in service, a suppressor expert to make sure you get the suppressor you want. And from there they take care of everything. They take care of the paperwork, the applications to the atf. They even set up a free trust if you want one. And if you don't have the money, put down an interest free payment plan. It's incredible. You get access to your own customer portal online. It tracks your progress. So why not go get started today? Go to silenceessential.com or call 866-811-6536 and with today's fast approval times, you're actually going to be shocked at how quickly your suppressor arrives at your door. Bushnell has been a longtime 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 send 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. Sure, sure. Are you getting any equip money to do any of your wildlife work on your property?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, so actually this was going to be the first year but we actually haven't heard anything because of all the freezes that have happened. But yeah, we have supposedly will be able to get funding for some pollinator gardens like in some of the pastures that we're restoring in the food for it. We're also going to be doing bluebird boxes as well as bat boxes. So yeah, a lot, a lot of work with the USDA in that regards.

[Robert Arrington]

Sweet. Yeah, they've got some great programs, you know, crp, obviously. Wrp, wrp, some of their WIP programs. I was a professor in the wildlife fisheries department for almost six years at Mississippi State University. And it was just one of the big things that we incorporated into agricultural landscapes was, you know, where are you, you know, economically from a farming perspective, where are you losing money essentially? You know, how can you break even or actually make money through these amazing USDA programs? Benefit wildlife, create corridors, create connectivity, all those bits and pieces.

[Ben Hudson]

Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean that, that's a huge part of the gaming agriculture as well a focus on the local ecosystems and improving biodiversity since, you know, organic agriculture avoids the use of pesticides, herbicides, you know, insecticides and such as, well as like tillage or you know, other kind of conventional practices that are seen as destructive to soil health or local ecosystems. A lot of organic agriculture is focusing on, you know, building native habitat for improving biodiversity to help with those issues that pesticides and oversize would typically help with. Yeah, the, the USDA funding is definitely going to be huge for that. We also, this is our first year being veganic certified, so we've gone through the North American Veganic Certification program. We actually won a grant with them because of our work doing rewilding and stuff. So we got some money for some fruit trees and some native seeds and stuff like that. So yeah, lots of fun, you know, in that department as well.

[Robert Arrington]

So this is full time, right? You've taken this full time? This is your full time job?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, so I started my career in computer science and the software industry. I did almost 10 years of working for myself as well, as working with different software companies. Kind of moved from software engineering into management positions over time. But that the more I spent, you know, at a computer, in the office, the more I realized I really want to get out into the field. I got really big into, like, growing my own food in my backyard when I was living in the city. So it was kind of just a natural progression. The wife's dream was to have an animal sanctuary and rescue. So we started looking at farm property to kind of, you know, merge those two goals that we had. And, yeah, here we are.

[Robert Arrington]

So in the beginning, you mentioned you were a hunter. Grew up hunting. Was there something that, like, was like, man, that's it, I'm done. Like, I don't want to be a hunter anymore. That converted you over?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I. I would say there were a few things. I mean, we. We did a lot of, like, bird hunting, dove, duck, that kind of stuff. So I. I was part of a lot of, you know, I would say, like, well, meaning hunting. We did a lot of investment in, you know, waterfowl habitat and stuff like that. But over time, I kind of saw that it was an exploitative practice. You know, I didn't need to be consuming these animals that we were hunting. It was a lot more for recreation. I also had done, like, international hunting, so we actually flew to Argentina a few years before. My kind of, like, ethical switch, I would say. And I did see some practices there. In Argentina, like, I saw a dairy farm for the first time, which was pretty disturbing. But I also saw some practices in Argentina that was a little overexpo of the wildlife, I would say. One experience was like, we were duck hunting, and at the end, we were helping the guides kind of pick ducks out of the pond that we were in. And my brother actually dragged in a few ducks that were completely rotten and just decomposing in the water. So that to me was kind of like, oh, man. Like, you know, something's wrong here. Like, we're carrying more animals here than we can actually use. And that kind of rubbed me wrong. But I kept hunting. But then I had an experience where I really made a connection to kind of, I'd say traumatic, but it wasn't super traumatic at the time, but an experience I had as a child, rabbit hunting, where I was hunting by myself for the first time with a little BB gun, which, of course, I probably shouldn't have been hunting rabbits with a BB gun, but I was following this rabbit and trying to kill it, and I couldn't kill it with the BB gun. And I recognized that that rabbit was suffering in the time, but, you know, being brought up and hunting, you know, I was kind of like, oh, it's fine, you know, it's just one rabbit. But later on, and as I grew up and had other experiences at hunting and recognize that it wasn't a necessary thing for me to be hunting, I actually met a domestic rabbit for the first time who was like a pet. You know, a companion animal was actually my wife's rabbit of almost 10 years. And I recognized her personality. You know, I recognized she had, you know, preferences, she made friendships with cats. It was just like, really wild to me to see this animal that I'd always seen as a resource, to see it as an individual, to see that individual, you know, and her personality. Um, so, yeah, that to me was my kind of ethical switch where I realized not only is it unnecessary, but I did see it as, like, cruel for myself to be participating in hunting when I didn't need to.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah. You know, I'm not. It's. It's funny how I complete. I completely understand the vegan lifestyle. That's. And I understand. I applaud you for it. I couldn't do it. Okay. Just based on who I am and what I do, I don't think a vegan lifestyle would benefit me from a health perspective. I know people who it works very well for. I know people who it does not work at all for. I do believe that a vegan lifestyle is very much tied to a Western world philosophy in terms of, you know, and India is. Know, India is a third world and India does have a lot of vegetarianism there, but they've also got a very different religious look out outlook on animals, too. But I, you know, I'm in Africa a lot. I'm from Africa. And you wouldn't, you won't find a vegetarian, you won't find a vegan. And I'm not. Again, I applaud your lifestyle. I think that if it works for you and it fits with your philosophy. Amazing, right? The only problem I have is, and this is not to you, is when people call me a bad person for the choices I've made.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure.

[Robert Arrington]

Right. And it almost gets to the societal thing like, ah, you're a bad person because you believe in Trump. And I'm like, I don't have a choice. But yes, I do. I, I do. And I love some of his work. I don't love all of his work. Right. Or you chose this camo. This camo. And so I think we're allowed to have differences in, in how we approach things and philosophies are different. And, and you've mentioned the reason why you've chosen to be a vegan and that's amazing. I've had a lot of conversations with vegans to say, look, I think hunting and we can get into the conservation element of it because I know that that's something you've done a lot of research into. I think hunting as a lifestyle is as close to a vegan philosophy as you can get. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

[Ben Hudson]

I do hear that a lot. Yeah.

[Robert Arrington]

Because here's why, here's why the reason why you're a vegan and maybe let me ask, I think you're, I think vegans are tied to animal welfare versus animal rights. Okay, I see you don't see that difference. No, you're, you're an animal rightist.

[Ben Hudson]

I actually did hear some of your conversations with other vegans and I, I was kind of confused by their like, definitions. I did want to say too, um, you mentioned like, there's no vegan or vegetarians in Africa. I actually know some and work with some there, there's some I've met from South America and there's also a group in Tanzania who is a vegan activist in Tanzania. So I would push back a little bit on that.

[Robert Arrington]

But I will, I will apologize, I will apologize and said I shouldn't have said there are none. I shouldn't have said there are none because that, that bites you in the ass every single time. For the vast majority, for the vast majority. They aren't. There certainly are vegans and vegetarians in Africa. Yeah, the vast majority are not.

[Ben Hudson]

And I wanted to ask you too, like, I, I, I know there's a lot of different kind of, I, I would say misconceptions about what veganism is. So I like, I would ask you, like, what is your understanding of like, you know, veganism?

[Robert Arrington]

Well, I'm not a vegan, so. But my understanding of veganism is that you do not want to impart any suffering on any animal. Yeah. So writ large. Right.

[Ben Hudson]

I think that's where a lot of the misconceptions about welfare come into it. A lot of people consider veganism like a diet, but that would be a plant based diet. Veganism, as far as the vegan society dating back to the 1950s when it was first created, is a philosophical, philosophical stance and a social justice movement against the exploitation and use of animals as far as practicable and possible. So it's not really against the harm of animals. It's against the exploitation and use of animals. So I think there's a lot of like cultural misconceptions about, you know, veganism as far as like, is it about welfare, you know, just improving the animals conditions or you know, is it just a diet? So yeah, I would just, you know, like to clarify for, for your audience and yourself as well that true veganism is a philosopher philosophical stance against exploitation. So it is a little bit more broad than, you know, most people, I think, you know, lend it.

[Robert Arrington]

That makes sense. Yeah. Um, and so, you know, I'm, I don't think I'll ever be of the ilk that is not using animals, which is what you just described. Veganism is. I'm, again, I think like you've heard me say before, I think I'm, I'm, when I talk about hunting, I think if, if it's those, not the, the real philosophically hardcore vegans ones that are just like, hey, I don't want to eat meat. Because I've seen the conditions that people, you know, that animals are in. From a meat eating perspective, I think hunting is as close to that lifestyle as you can get if you decide to eat meat.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure, yeah. And I, I, you know, have a lot of discussions online with, with, you know, hunters and I, Everybody wants to know if, you know, it's more ethical to hunt than, you know, to like pay for meat at the grocery store. And I would say, you know, sure, that is closer. You know, like you are taking responsibility for taking that life. But ethically, you know, from a fundamental level, if you're still taking a life when you don't need to, you know, like we, we do have modern evidence. The American Dietetics association has come out and said repeatedly that a plant based diet, you know, exclusively plants, is applicable and, you know, sustainable for all, you know, humans. And it can also provide health benefits like a reduction in, you know, heart disease, diabetes, certain cancers like colon cancer, which are correlated with red meat consumption. So yeah, there's a lot of different reasons to, you know, maybe adopt a plant based diet. And I definitely like to get into, you know, some of the conservationist perspectives of why a plant based diet would be really beneficial for conservationists to consider.

[Robert Arrington]

So you said it would benefit all people.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah.

[Robert Arrington]

Then, yeah, I don't think that that's true.

[Ben Hudson]

Okay, what, what do you think, you know, the main issue with.

[Robert Arrington]

Because I've seen people become unhealthy. Yeah. On a vegetarian diet. On a plant based diet.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure. But I, I mean surely you would concede that, you know, scientific evidence, when we review scientific literature that's more important than like anecdotal evidence. I mean, I, I could also point towards like.

[Robert Arrington]

But there's, that there's plenty science to say the opposite. There's plenty science to say that meat based diets are good for you.

[Ben Hudson]

No, I, I would definitely challenge you to find me some evidence for that.

[Robert Arrington]

I, I have, I could send you links after links, after links.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, please, please, I'd love to, to review some for sure.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah. Look it, unfortunately, today's world science gets published left right and center right and people are publishing science, unfortunately not in the objective lens that it used to be published in, but tied to the funding sources that typically are given the money. And so it's not going to take a lot of work to scratch the surface and find somebody saying a vegan lifestyle is the be all and end all. It's not going to take you a lot of, of scratching to find that a vegetarian diet is the be all and end all or that a semi meat eating diet is the be all end all or the opposite end of the spectrum. A pure carnivore diet is the best thing possible.

[Ben Hudson]

Well, I would encourage your audience, you know, and yourself to maybe look into some of the modern evidence. Like I mentioned, the American Dietetics association is the largest group of dietitians and nutritionists in the world and they've come to that conclusion that I mentioned earlier, that a plant based diet is adequate and can even provide health benefits for the vast majority of people.

[Robert Arrington]

So you're telling me the association of Dietitians and Nutritionists in America, which probably represents a monstrous group.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Robert Arrington]

Has come forward and said eating meat is bad?

[Ben Hudson]

Oh no, they're, they're just saying that a plant based diet is adequate and can provide health benefits like I mentioned.

[Robert Arrington]

So they're not saying that they have not come out and said that a red meat diet does not provide the same benefits?

[Ben Hudson]

Um, no, no, like, like I mentioned, like I, I'm trying to be very precise in my language because they, they actually just republished th, this study which is a meta analysis about the different, you know, nutrition and epidemiology studies to support this, that a plant based diet can be adequate and provide health benefits, like I've said. But yeah, I mean, if you're interested in, you know, the health impacts of, you know, certain meat or dairy, there, there's definitely studies that we could look at on that as well. A lot of those I have on my website we've got a pretty big list of over 300 different scientific studies that support the position that, you know, plant based diets are adequate and provide health benefits as well as linking, you know, consumption of red meat to things like colon cancer, increased risk of cancer, I believe like 15% increase compared to no red meat consumption. We also have, you know, link to obesity and diabetes with meat consumption. But yeah, I mean, I'm not here to say that like, you know, a certain diet is perfect. I'm just here to, you know, educate maybe yourself or your audience that a plant based diet can be adequate for people, which I think is really important when we start to correlate, you know, diet to environmental impacts specifically for things like that. I think you and I and your audience care about like biodiversity, you know, and.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would, I just want to be clear here. I'm not advocate, I'm not saying that what you do is bad. That's how I started. I said I'm all for it. Right. It's just not for me. And I'm not saying that the benefits of plant based, a plant based diet isn't good. It certainly is. People do well on it, people sustain themselves on it. And I don't think that there's people out there saying, and there's evidence to the other side to say the same thing that you're saying, but from the meat perspective. So the only difference here is philosophic, is philosophy, is a philosophy around how you value that animal.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure, yeah, but that's it. Again, I would say definitely, if you have these studies, I would love to see them again. I do lots of debates online. I've never actually had somebody provide me with a scientific study that supports that, you know, meat actually has health benefits, especially when compared to a diet that does not have meat. So yeah, but again, like, I'm not here to discuss diet. I definitely would.

[Robert Arrington]

And we're not, we're not in the health space either. So.

[Ben Hudson]

Exactly. Like, I'm not a professional. Like, I'm just really passionate about science. I love researching things. But yeah, I mean, as far as conservation, I think one thing like I do like to talk about the plant based diet for is in land use. So we can grow 14 times the amount of calories per acre when we just grow plants compared to even the most efficient of animal products. So, you know, for anyone who is still consuming animal products, maybe that, you know, they buy at a grocery store, not necessarily as a hunter, but if you are contributing, you know, towards animal agriculture, Animal agriculture is responsible for 80% of our agriculture land use, but makes up less than 20% of our calories globally, which is a huge issue because we do know, I'm sure you're aware that the leading cause of biodiversity loss is expansion of agriculture, the main driver being animal agriculture. So that's something I talk to a lot of conservationists and hunters about, is like, hey, it's great, you know that, that you're interested in biodiversity and conservation, but we also need to look at our individual contributions and how that impacts the larger picture.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah. You know, again, I, I am not and I won't, I won't even begin to start speaking about like regenerative agriculture, cows and land mass and what you can grow and how you can grow it. I know nothing about it. Right.

[Ben Hudson]

That's specialty. So.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, and so I, you know, that I am though, you know, firmly in the hunting space. I am firmly pro hunting. I am firmly. And here's where we will have differing of opinions, but that's okay. You've, because you've mentioned many times that you don't, you don't like, not. No, I don't want to put words in your mouth. You've mentioned exploitativeness or exploitation, exploiting animals. It's one of the reasons why you stopped hunting. And so obviously you are, you've, you've created a position that you've said hunting is not conservation. Right. And exploitation is obviously is the opposite of conservation. And so I, I guess maybe I, I'd like to get your opinion on what is the definition of conservation in your mind, if exploitation is the opposite of it?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something I always like to define terms, you know, when I'm discussing with hunters because I do get answers sometimes from some, some hunters that are really focused on like wildlife management, which is definitely a part of conservation. I agree. But my definition of conservation is more the protection and preservation of a broad, you know, perspective on ecosystem health. So we're looking at water, soil, you know, air and wildlife as well. So, so when I think of, you know, the definition of conservation, that's what I'm looking at is the broader picture of conservation. And you know that that includes, like I said, land, so, well, air, animals in the ecosystem. So I, I don't consider myself a preservationist, but I do consider myself a non interventionist conservationist because I think a lot of the issues that I typically talk to hunters about, you know, hunters will like to argue about overpopulation and you know, hunting being a tool for That I, I've found scientific evidence against that argument. But I think that, you know, a lot of hunters seem to overlook, you know, the broader conservation. And I've had debates with hunters where, you know, they'll make a claim like hunting is the main funder of conservation, you know, which I'm sure you're aware is just not true. It might be the main funder of wildlife.

[Robert Arrington]

Who says it's the main conservation? Who says it's the main conservation?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I've had debates with quite a few hunters online and of course, you know, these are random books online, so take it, you know, with a grain of salt, of course. But, yeah, it's, it's very concerning. And I, I've had other discussions even with people in my own life who also are under that impression, which I think comes down to the definition of conservation. Right. And what you consider as conservation. But I think it, it's broadly accepted that conservation is a lot more encompassing than just wildlife management.

[Robert Arrington]

So are you. So that, that, that funder. Let's just talk about the funding for a second. I, I would not say main funder.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure.

[Robert Arrington]

I would say hunting is a funder.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure.

[Robert Arrington]

Of conservation. Would you agree with that?

[Ben Hudson]

To some degree. I would get into the details about, like, what wildlife management actually means within conservation and what the goals of wildlife management are, because I think often when I investigate, you know, what hunting is funding through licenses, licenses, fees, the Pittman Robertson act, for example, and a few other tactics on hunting girl, they do account for less than 10% of overall conservation funding, based on the studies I've.

[Robert Arrington]

Seen in the U.S. less than 10%.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So even the USDA alone is about six times the funding, which obviously the USDA, as you know, is funded by taxpayers. So the USDA loan in 2023, I believe, was 6 billion. And the Pittman Robertson act was just around 1 billion. So even just the USDA funding for conservation through equip and other programs like that for soil and water are six times what, you know, that is. And then you start looking at.

[Robert Arrington]

But USDA doesn't fund any. I know you've talked about wildlife management. USDA doesn't fund any wildlife management, period.

[Ben Hudson]

Right, but we're talking about conservation funding, right?

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, but wildlife is a component of conservation. It's not the be all and end all, but it is a component.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I agree, I agree, but you asked me about, like, conservation funding in general. Right. Like that includes land, soil, water.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah. And when you, when you target. I agree. It encompasses all those Ecosystem services. But often for all of those ecosystem services to proliferate on the landscape, you need to have a focus value or focus species. The focus value could be a species, it could be pollinators. Right. You're going to get a pollinator garden. So that is the value. The pollinator is the value. And there's multiple benefits that come from the pollinator. You get, you get soil health, you get water quality improvements, you get deer habitat, you get bird habitat, you get all those things because of the pollinator. Same thing happens with wildlife management. You have a deer, a turkey, an alligator, a gopher, tortoise. That's all funded through pr that has all of these trickle down effects. Pollinators, birds, soil health, water, all those ecosystem services come with the same thing.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure, yeah, I agree.

[Robert Arrington]

So where, where did the 10% come from?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, so there's actually a few studies published again I, I've got them linked on my website. Happy to share them with you. That do show that it's about 8 to 10% that does come directly from hunting or hunting related funding. So Pittman, Robertson, you know, et cetera are licensing fees through the state. So that, that's a culmination. And it also includes like NGOs so like ducks Unlimited, et cetera. Um, when you compare those to non hunting related NGOs and funding like through, you know, taxpayer funded, like I mentioned the USDA. Yeah. The over 90% is funded through taxpayers or non hunting related, non governmental organizations.

[Robert Arrington]

Do you, is the study that you're talking about? Because are you talking about the Mountain lion foundation study with Mark Smith and Donald Wohl?

[Ben Hudson]

There is one that, that does support a few others. I think there's like two or three that would published within a few years and also supported that as well. But they are a little bit outrated now. But from my understanding the trend is still towards more non hunting related funding because like I'm sure you know, you know, since 1980 we've had a decline in the amount of registered hunters. Of course that fluctuates. I totally understand that. But as we see less hunters, you know, registering for hunting, paying for licensing and fees to go out and hunt, we're obviously going to have to adjust how our conservation, you know, efforts are funded.

[Robert Arrington]

So couple of things. The Marks with Donald Wall piece is not a study, okay. It's never been peer reviewed, it's never been published. It's just on their Mountain lion foundation websites and really an opinion piece and I understand how they got the 94% because all they did was they say well at that time 6% of the population were hunters. And that essentially is your tax burden at 6%. Everybody else's tax burden is 94%. I do think you make up, make a really good point though in that hunters really are not seeing conservation from a habitat perspective. They're seeing it purely from the value that they are looking for, which is wildlife. I would when split the way that you split it, habitat conservation work, that is a, it's really the vast majority and I don't know what that percentage is. It could be 70, 80% could is tied to federal government work, BLM, U.S. fish and Wildlife, USDA, that kind of stuff. There is a bunch of state specific habitat management work that does happen through pr, through other things on the state level, budget, budget work. But at the federal level, the federals, the feds don't interact with wildlife at all.

[Ben Hudson]

Well, the BLM does.

[Robert Arrington]

Sorry, I made a mistake again, I said at all. But blm, they're not. So for instance, elk in Colorado. There's no feds working on elk in Colorado. It's a state led issue. Turkey's in Mississippi. It's not, it's not, you know, USDA focusing on turkeys. It's rather the state focusing on turkey. So I think from a wildlife perspective, I think you can say, I think you can say hunting is conservation on both elements. It's just a matter of degree of how much they're contributing. And I would agree with you and say if somebody says that hunting is funding everything, you're wrong. But does hunting play have a slice of the pie? And maybe that slice of the pie is much smaller from a habitat perspective, but much larger from a wildlife perspective. The answer's yes.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure, yeah, I can agree to that. I, I guess I would like to point out like, you know, when, when I say hunting is not conservation, I'm speaking like from the first position of semantically, right? Because hunting is the exploitation of wildlife for your benefit.

[Robert Arrington]

Right?

[Ben Hudson]

Like going out and killing wildlife for your benefit. So that, that would be my definition of hunting. And again like conservation from my perspective is protecting and preserving, you know, wildlife. So I, I would, you know, see just even semantically hunting is in contradiction to conservation. Now we can talk about, you know, it funding indirectly. But I would like to propose the analogy of like a hospital that's funded by, you know, selling cigarettes. Right? Like if the hospital selling cigarettes, you know, to get more patients, you know, and that's their main funding for supporting the hospital. I would say that's a little bit of a contradiction. Right. So I, I think, you know, it's a little frustrating to me to hear hunters try to argue that hunting is conservation. Now I definitely get the argument of like it can fund wildlife management. But again like what is that wildlife management for the intention is for more hunting exploitation. So in my mind that's more of like management for hunters to continue to exploit. So I burn a lot of, you know, friction with that idea of like hunting being a form of conservation when in reality, you know, hunting is in contradiction to conservation. And that is cool.

[Robert Arrington]

So let me pose something to you because I really want to hear your component to this. I get the whole analogy of the hospital and the smokers, but I would say that's very much tied analogy wise to your philosophy of, of use of wildlife and making it sicker. Right. I would say it's, it's opposite in that and I'm going to give you an example here soon that hunting views wildlife as an economic asset. And from a conservation perspective, hunters and there's bad apples across the writ large, across the world that you've seen that happen in Argentina that didn't value the wildlife as, as we all hoped they would that they want more of wildlife on the landscape. They want to make sure that it's in balance so you're not harming or exploiting other species and we want to do that for perpetuity. To me that's a definition of conservation because you're protecting and preserving wildlife and by doing putting value on the wildlife, whether it's an elephant, a lion, a buffalo, a white tailed deer, a bear, you're protecting everything underneath it because of that keystone species analogy, right? That you focus everybody benefits. And here's the example. I can take you to many different places in Africa in which areas are hunted and wildlife is increasing. But more importantly, and that's and the wildlife is increasing so that the money needed to protect these areas occurs because of that action. Because of the activity of somebody saying I want to travel half around the world and kill a buffalo regardless of the motivation. And we, the motivations are completely different. Podcast right for a second. I want you to remove the motivation of that individual and see the consequence of his action. The consequence of his action is protecting half a million acres of land, sustaining multiple species populations of species of animals, not to mention insects, birds, soil, health, you name it. Everything that you've discussed. If a hunter wasn't in that area because of value, the people in that area do not value the wildlife the way that Hunters value that wildlife, unfortunately, but it's a reality. And they'll move in, exploit the wildlife, you know, do a slash and burn kind of agriculture, create your field, open your field up, and then move on, Move on. And I can show you again, example after example after example. To me, that is like the. I would honestly say the epitome of conservation in that regard, from a hunting perspective, even to the point where, for instance, there's a project in Mozambique that was a hunting block, severely degraded. They went in buffalo herd was at like 2000. It's actually one of the most amazing wetland ecosystems in the world. The marumeo that I've never seen that I really want to see half a million hectares of floodplain of the Zambezi Delta today. The buffalo herds, like at 28,000, all because of being protected through hunting. And then they realized that there were no predators in the ecosystem. The lions had been poached out and gone. So hunter dollars brought in lions. 24 lions got brought in today. There's 105 lions on the landscape. It's like 12%, 15% of all lions in Africa. To me, that's like. Like, how can you not say that? That's conservation. It's an amazing source. So from a. But hunters are exploiting wildlife, but we need to. To be able to keep these areas and do the things that we do in these areas.

[Ben Hudson]

So I would disagree because I have found studies that show that if we're focused on, like, biodiversity, which I think, again, I think we can both agree that's an important part of conservation. We actually see studies that compare, like, national parks and, you know, protected areas having higher biodiversity rates over time than these areas that are hunted. We see this in places in Africa. We also see this in other places in the tropics. So I would go back to my analogy with the cigarette and say, you know, if we don't need to be exploiting, right, and kind of causing the same issues we're trying to fix. Right. That I would say hunting is potentially an exploitative issue that conservation needs to, like, regulate. And you're talking about the funding from, you know, trophy hunting going back and helping, you know, conserve these areas. If we see equal or better, you know, benefits from something like ecotourism, you know, protection through NGOs. If we see equal or better benefit from these same systems that don't involve exploitative practices, I would say we should be erring towards those, especially given that we're currently in the biggest biodiversity crisis that we've ever seen in Modern history. And I think when we look at the mammal biomass in the world, wild mammals account for only 4% of global biomass of mammals. The rest is humans and our farmed animals. You know, so when I looked at that, that was one of those first things that was just like a, you know, a big eye opener for me is like, how can I justify exploiting 4% of the mammal biomass, you know, when all of these other issues are connected to our exploitative practices, you know, as humans. Not necessarily just hunting, of course, you know, but in agriculture, industry, etc. If we're trying to rely on these exploitative practices to fund the savings, you know, we're not addressing the core issue, which is the exportation, in my opinion.

[Robert Arrington]

So you, number one, you're going to have to send me those studies that show that hunting in Africa changes biodiversity. Because what I just described to you, I don't see how from a management perspective. And management is needed. Okay. This idea that, again, this is a question that maybe I'll just pose right back to you. Today's society has, our human population is pressing on wildlife and habitat all over the world.

[Ben Hudson]

Agreed.

[Robert Arrington]

And to me the idea that we need to step back and take our hands away from it and go like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't have to be involved. Let Mother Nature do her thing. I don't think that there are places, there's very few places in the world that we can actually allow that to happen because of the press of humanity. And so management to me is needed to do exactly what you're looking for, which is how do we maximize ecosystem services, biodiversity, wildlife, everything. Biodiversity writ large.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah. So again we're point towards these studies. One is called Effectiveness of Parks in protecting Tropical Biodiversity. That's the one in the tropics. Then we have the African study comparing protected areas to trophy hunting areas. It's called Conservation Performance of African Protected Areas. And we also have effectiveness of parks in protecting biodiversity. All of these were done in the 20th, 21st century, so are fairly recent. And again they, they promote this idea that there are alternatives. Like I would definitely not refute that, you know, a hunting based model can, you know, promote biodiversity through the funding. But again, I would point toward the necessity of it. Right. So if, if we have these other alternatives that don't rely on, you know, viewing animals, sentient animals that can suffer, you know, that have, you know, relationships with their family, have emotions, et cetera, if we don't view them as resources, we can still protect them and promote by the biodiversity potentially Even better. So I think that's really important. And when we also talk about like the overall goals, I would bring it back to the plant based diet. If we can change our food systems again, like the vast majority of our land usage is agriculture and the vast majority of our agricultural land usage is animal agriculture. So if we want to protect and promote and rewild spaces, the best thing we could do is try to shift our food system towards a plant based food system. All of a sudden, all of these rural areas that have been in animal agriculture and pasture, you know, areas the slash and burn like you're talking about in the tropics, 80% of the deforestation in the tropics is related towards growing feed for animal agriculture. So if we look at that as our main issue in trying to rewild these areas and promote more efficient use of our land, I think that's a solution that everybody who cares about biodiversity and conservation could get behind. You know, and, and we do have evidence for this. There's studies reviewing our relationship between our diet and, you know, biodiversity and the impacts on the environment which do show this, that we could reduce our agricultural land if we shift to a fully plant based food System by over 75%. And again, like if the vast majority of our land uses is agriculture and we can reduce our ag land by that much, but nearly 2/3 or 3, 3/4 of our ag land could be rewilded or returned to nature. That would be huge for biodiversity. And I think that that's what is most important to me in relaying to people is that, you know, there are choices that we make every day, regardless of whether we're hunters or not, that directly impact, you know, the environmental issues that we all care about for protecting wildlife.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, you know, again, I'm not going to get into the, that sort of debate because I don't live in that space. I don't know anything about that space in terms of an animal agricultural land mass, in terms of how it moves back and forth. I'd love to see those three studies if you'd send those to me. You know, it's an. Again, it's, it blows my mind because I'd love, again, I'd love to see those studies because there is double the amount of land in Africa protected through hunting than national parks. And so, and again, I'm thinking from a management perspective, how can a place be better managed in some of these places? And would a national park do better than a hunting operator? And the answer is no, they'll do the same thing, they would do the same thing, they would do the same management, they would even cull animals.

[Ben Hudson]

Well, I, I think this is where like I, I like to ask hunters, like, do you believe that natural predators and ecosystems do a better job of managing prey populations than hunters?

[Robert Arrington]

I think that in a system that is void of owl fingerprints, the answer is yes. But because of the human pressure on those ecosystems, there are things that need to occur that humans have to engage themselves in. I think that there are predator populations that are gone from our ecosystems that we need to serve as that predator. Kruger national park, for example, I'll use elephants as an example and then we can move to the States. Kruger national park is, is the premier national park in the world. Has almost 40, 000 elephants in it today. It certainly has lost biodiversity in certain areas, not in all areas. But the reason why they're losing biodiversity in certain areas is because there's no predator for an elephant. Back in the day, there used to be people living in these riparian zones that would push elephants out, that would hunt elephants and elephants would, would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a landscape of fear. I don't want to be here all the time. And so I'm going to sneak in, get my water, sneak out. And the riparian zones were in good shape. I, I, I think that, I think because of us humans, we have to, in certain places and it's a gradation of heavy handedness. From a management perspective in the backwoods of Tanzania where your lion population is in a perfect place, how do you keep the lion population in a perfect place? How do you keep the buffalo population in a perfect place with this push of people around it? The way that you do is you have to have funding. And here's the lot. The last thing I'll say about Africa, because it's unfair for me to talk about Africa and you're not in Africa is you need funding to protect these areas. And for the vast majority, national parks are woefully funded from a finances perspective and need to be propped up. You know, peace Parks is doing amazing work. Africa Parks is doing amazing work. The only reason they're doing amazing work is through philanthropic models. It's not through a use model, it's not through an ecotourism model. So I, I think and then so in America, let's turn to America. I think America is even worse off from a predator perspective because of the push and the cutting of habitat and connectivity corridors and changes in prey movements and predator movements that we, you know, we we almost have to intervene to keep a balance of the ecosystem. We have to keep a balance of the values. Now this is where we would totally differ because there, there is no value of, of wildlife from a use perspective, in, from a vegan philosophy perspective.

[Ben Hudson]

Correct. There would be inherent value as like sentient creatures. Right. So like a, a rights based approach from the vegan ethics perspective would grant sentient individuals inherent rights just on the fact that they are sentient. So that inherent right in and of itself, you know, would be enough for us to grant it like protected status, so to speak.

[Robert Arrington]

But how, how do you, how do you pay for it then? How do you pay for it to stay on the landscape?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I'd love to get into some alternative funding sources. So we have a few different studies that I found on alternative models. I mentioned a few earlier, like ecotourism. We also.

[Robert Arrington]

Ecotourism will not work everywhere, Ben. It is in Africa. Like again, I go back to Africa because it's the perfect example. There are you ask a hundred people, where would you like to go for ecotourism? Ask a hundred Americans, they'll list three different places and that's it. And they want to go in and out. And you talk about exploitativeness, water consumption, carbon footprints, waste generating, you know, you're smiling and I understand because you've heard it before.

[Ben Hudson]

Well, the same issues would come with traveling for hunting, right? Like those are same issues regardless.

[Robert Arrington]

Not if it's not. If it's 66 times the amount for one, one Hunter versus 66 people to cover the same amount of money value, we're going on strictly tighter value.

[Ben Hudson]

Sure, yeah, that makes sense. I would point towards alternative funding models though. Again, like I mentioned earlier, we're already seeing a shift in conservation funding coming from, you know, NGOs, non governmental organizations as well as taxpayers. So again, like with the decline in interest in hunting and exploitative practices of wildlife, we do need to reassess our conservation funding opportunities. So there's a few different studies. One like you, you know, you kind of shrugged off ecotourism. But I do have one called assessing the viability of Ecotourism as alternative.

[Robert Arrington]

I don't, I don't struggle for ecotourism. I think it's a phenomenal tool. It's a great tool. It's not like hunting. I don't, I don't claim hunting as the panacea or the silver bullet. Ecotourism is not the silver bullet. It's not the panacea either.

[Ben Hudson]

I would just say it's like an Alternative to a hunting focus model.

[Robert Arrington]

And we also say in very specific places only.

[Ben Hudson]

Okay, that's fair enough. And I conceded that earlier. But, but I would point to another study which is a little bit more comprehensive, looking at government and NGO funding as well as ecotourism and other methods. But it's called Alternative Funding Mechanisms for Conservation. So that one's a little bit more recent. But yeah, it does show that, you know, there, there is clear benefit in a switch from a focus on hunting as a funding mechanism towards, you know, more generally interesting for the general public, things like birding outdoors, activities that don't involve.

[Robert Arrington]

But that's happening already. Ben, why are they not paying for it right now? For instance, the outdoor backpack tax, why has that never gotten over the finish line?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I agree. I think those sorts of things should be promoted more especially as we see a decline in printing interest. So like I am for, you know, things like that and taxing, you know, and encouraging, you know, higher fees potentially on things like ecotourism and such. So I do think there are alternative funding mechanisms and again, like the vast majority of funding already comes from taxpayers and non governmental organizations. So I think we're going to continue to see that trend going forward.

[Robert Arrington]

Ben. What? You've said it twice and I don't know why I didn't pick up on. You said there's a. I don't want to put words in your mouth. Did you say a lack of hunting, interest in funding conservation or a decrease in hunting? What do you mean by that?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, a decreased interest in hunting. Like I mentioned earlier, the rate of hunters, like registered hunters in the United States, but we also see this in Canada and other countries as well, decrease for the last about like five or six decades. So, yeah, I think, I think that in itself is a big red flag for our need for changing of our understanding of funding for conservation.

[Robert Arrington]

I will say you're, you're right and you're wrong. You're right in that the percentage is definitely going down over time. We're at like four and a half percent today. The numbers are the number of hunters remains fairly stable, remains fairly stable for 15 years, essentially. So we're in the like 11 to 14 million range. And the reason the percentage goes down is because the American population continues.

[Ben Hudson]

I definitely understand that. Yeah, that's just a ratio thing. Right. But, but it still is over time, if, if hunting interest to stay steady, you would see an increase with the increase in population. So that, that's why hunting interest, I would say, is going down, maintaining while you increase. Your population is not, you know, increasing or, you know, you know, have relevancy there. So. But I do with your.

[Robert Arrington]

Sure.

[Ben Hudson]

But yeah, I still think that, that, you know, is a, is a big indicator that we need to reasset not only our relationship with nature and how we fund protection of nature, but. Yeah, like funding for conservation in general.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah. You know, I break it down like this. I look at the world and I think you'd also look at the world through this viewpoint. I look at the world through a land use viewpoint.

[Ben Hudson]

Absolutely.

[Robert Arrington]

And I say, and I go, okay, what are the land uses? And you've already mentioned this, so it's great. It's actually, it's. You've got a great viewpoint here. What land uses currently in the world from a. If you take it like as 100%, which land uses in the world today are pro habitat and pro wildlife? And I say pro habitat, pro wildlife, meaning all of that trickle down that we've talked about. Right. And I think the number is like 8, 9%. I haven't done the math on it yet, but you start thinking about roads and railways and cities and, you know, trail heads and impacts. It's, it's not, I don't think I'm very far off of that number.

[Ben Hudson]

I think that's close. Yeah, for sure.

[Robert Arrington]

And so then I say, okay, well, what are the 8% of the things that are protecting habitat and wildlife? We've already gone through them. You've got certain agricultural practices that are pro wildlife, pro habitat. You've got NGO philanthropic models that fund habitat wildlife. Then you've got your national parks, your state parks, your communal lands, that kind of stuff. So that's three. You got ecotourism, which is your fourth. You've got, I would say, wilderness areas. I would add in there, the thing, places that, like the jungles, the, the tigers of Russia, that kind of stuff. Right. 5, 6 is your carbon credit, biodiversity credit, models for funding. And seven is hunting. Can you think of another one? Because I can't.

[Ben Hudson]

No, I think that's pretty comprehensive. For sure. Yeah.

[Robert Arrington]

So there's seven tools. We have seven tools to protect habitat and wildlife. And I have this argument a lot with people that hate us. I don't think you hate us, but I have a lot of people that do.

[Ben Hudson]

And vice versa. Right. Like, vice versa, of course.

[Robert Arrington]

Oh, no, for sure, for sure, for sure. I'm like, why would you get rid of one of these tools? We've got so little to protect. Like this thing that value that we value. So Much. Why would you be, why would you want to toss one out of the, of the, of the crib essentially?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I guess like what I, what I would like add to that is that I think a focus on a dwindling part of that. And from my perspective again like hunting being kind of dwindling again like the understanding of the biodiversity crisis and their kind of biomass of mammals being decreasing and the species loss we're already seeing under, you know, say the North American model of conservation or just hunting based conservation in general. If we were, you know, seeing great outcomes from, from those models and protection of biodiversity and increasing of biodiversity in these areas, I would say maybe it is worth investing in that. But again like public sentiment and you know, the population of hunters as a ratio of, you know, general population, as you say, is in the decrease. So why, why should we focus on, you know, a small spec like hunting that is on the decline when we could focus on something like animal agriculture which is increasing, it's taking up more land every single day and people are continuing to demand these products which are directly causing issues that we all care of. So I think in my opinion the opportunity cost, you know, like the biggest opportunity is in agriculture and focusing on agriculture and how we can improve that and make better use of our land and potentially even rewild and return. A lot of this ag land, you know, that has been misused and overexploited into wild areas where we can have, you know, protected wildlife and management of wildlife.

[Robert Arrington]

So you're actually for more, less animal agriculture areas, more wildlife areas so I can hunt more. Well, I think I'm joking, but it's good.

[Ben Hudson]

Yes, I'm for more wildlife areas, no doubt. I mean I love wildlife areas, I love wild spaces. Some of the best mental health, you know, like therapy for me is walking in the woods, going mushroom foraging, you know, enjoying the bird sounds, you know, watching the wildlife. Like I think that is extremely important for mental health. And I think a lot of people who are, you know, stuck in these cities, stuck on computer job, if they got out into nature more, I think that would be a net benefit for humanity. So if we can have more wild spaces, I'm all for it. And I think again, the biggest opportunity is us focusing on agriculture, land use by far.

[Robert Arrington]

No, look, and it's a, it's a great goal, man, and you've got a great ethos behind why you're promoting what you promote. And again, I applaud you. I think again, I don't, I haven't gotten into the research of it. Um, certainly we can do better always from a, an animal agriculture system. And there's, there's many examples of that, of people trying to become better, being more regenerative, being more, you know, dare I say organic. And I didn't, I didn't, I didn't realize that organic meant no till actually.

[Ben Hudson]

So, so it depends.

[Robert Arrington]

Interesting.

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, it does depend. But I would like to point out though, a lot of people think regenerative animal farming is the answer. Regenerative animal farming actually use far more resources as far as land and water than factory farming. Right. So it's kind of contradictory that a lot of people like to focus on like regeneratively raised meat or grass fed meat, because the reality is that those animals require a lot more time to be raised as well as land and water resources.

[Robert Arrington]

Have you, have you looked up any of Alan Savory's work? Have you heard of Alan Savory?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, yeah. And there's actually a bunch of really good debunking articles and studies on what he's promoted. Unfortunately a lot of his studies were very, very poor studies, unfortunately. But I actually got interested in regenerative agriculture because of his TED talk. But the more I looked into the science that was backing what he was claiming, the less evidence I found for what he was saying and the more evidence I found that true regenerative agriculture is actually plant based and trying to rewild the saved land and more efficiently use land. And again, like we can grow 14 times the amount of calories per acre, you know, just growing plants. So that, that's very, very important. I, I think shifting towards, you know, plant based protein sources such as legumes would be huge for.

[Robert Arrington]

Wouldn't you be fighting against wildlife in that scenario? How do you keep wildlife from eating the legumes like constantly and losing money? Essentially?

[Ben Hudson]

Yeah, I'm really glad you asked because this is a really important part of organic agriculture as well.

[Robert Arrington]

Talk about your farm. Give me your example. Like what do you do to stop? Because you obviously have a lot of white tailed deer around you. You must.

[Ben Hudson]

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So one of the main things is companion planting. So not having a big monocrop of stuff, that's just a big buffet, you know, for these animals to come in and destroy even most monocrop and conventional agriculture, they account for some loss from herbivore. So you know that that's kind of baked into a lot of the agriculture already. But in veganic agriculture there's various things we can do. One thing we make use of is wildlife corridors. So we make sure on the outsides of our property, away from where we're growing, these sensitive plants that might be, you know, grazed by deer and other herbivorous animals. We make sure to have a buffet for them on the other side of the property, right. So that they have habitat and carrying capacity kind of away from where we're trying to do our agriculture. There's also things like hedgerows, like using honey locusts and other thorny plants to make an impenetrable barrier. Obviously there's a lot more maintenance and labor involved with that. You can also do fencing. Of course, it varies in cost, but you can do really simple electric fencing, um, like with three or four different lines. It will keep out just about any type of animal.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what people use for, you know, growing soybeans on their food plots, essentially. Yeah, you're doing the same thing. That's a, that makes sense. But if we were to change, if we were to change everybody. I guess I'm struggling because when you get into this big like industrial complex of changing this animal agriculture over to plant based systems, it would be a lot of soybeans, a lot of corn that would be monocrop systems that people are making money on. I guess you'd have to just somebody to do that at scale would just have to say screw the money around the edges where you're getting wildlife conflict, reducing profits. Yeah, right.

[Ben Hudson]

And again, like, we already grow, right. Enough to feed current 92 billion land animals. Again, like 80% of our farmland is devoted towards growing feed or, you know, silage and stuff for these 92 billion animals that we slaughter to eat every single year. Right. So when you Compare that to 8 billion humans, we already grow enough calories as far as soy, corn and all of the other crops we grow, we already grow enough calories to feed 10 billion people. But the vast majority of the crops we grow are fed to animals, Right. Which provide us a, you know, of our calories globally. And there's huge, you know, if, if you look into, you know, the, the trophic system, you know that at each level, further from plants you get, the more energy loss you have up the pyramid, right. So if you're consuming directly plants, you're getting energy from the sun into plants into your body. Whereas if you consume deer or cow or other herbivorous animals, you're going sunlight, plants, animal. Right. So you're having.

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, but there's not like, it's not like an 80% energy loss between autotrophs and heterotrophs.

[Ben Hudson]

But again, like, look at, look at how many animals are ra. Amazing to slaughter, to, you know, not even feed everybody in the world. Right? Like most of the third world countries are growing grains that they then export to first world countries to feed the cows and, you know, pigs and chickens that we all like to eat. So, yeah, I think that's a huge issue that, that we as conservationists, you know, need to look at is our, like you said, land use.

[Robert Arrington]

Well, man, I, you know, I love the fact that, here's what I love the fact of last hour and five minutes. I've probably said, yep, I agree with you. And you've probably said, yep, I agree with you multiple times, which is where we need to be. You know, I think that a lot of people that listen to this will be like, oh, that doesn't make sense. So, Robbie, you forgot to ask this question or then you forgot to ask this question. Yeah, you're right on both ends. We both forgot to ask questions.

[Ben Hudson]

And I'm sure we could speak, you know, on these topics for, for hours and hours, you know, because we're both obviously so passionate about these. And yeah, I mean, I, I very much appreciate, you know, the opportunity that you've had here. And there was clearly a lot of interest from your fans. You know, a lot of people got upset by some of the coyote videos that I was posting about how we protect coyotes on our property, even though we have animals, you know, that could be predated on them. But I, I am an advocate for, again, non interventionist conservation, using things like wildlife corridors to try to make sure coyotes stay further away from the animals and the agriculture we're trying to protect. Same with herbivorous animals. So, like, there are these alternatives that I think are at least worth considering as we go forward in the Anthropocene, you know, and the biggest biodiversity loss and species loss, like, it's unprecedented. And I think having everything on the table and considering that rationally and having these hard conversations, even though we disagree on a lot of topics, I think there's a lot of, like you said, like a lot of really core things that we can agree on and having these conversations is how we all grow and we, you know, be better. So I think it's really important. And again, like, thank you so much for, for, you know, giving me this topic.

[Robert Arrington]

No, you're welcome. Look, I think what you just pointed, what you just touched on is I think, I think it comes down to a gradation of Lots of different things. There's a gradation on principles of use of animals. That's the, the first gradient. Right. The second one is, I think, a tolerance gradient and a value gradient. Right. So there's. You just talked about, you know, my tolerance. Your tolerance, not my, Your tolerance for coyotes and white tailed deer on your farm is a lot higher than somebody else's tolerance for those same species and those. That tolerance spectrum is all tied to value and what you value. And you, from your philosophy and ethos, value certain things. Somebody else is like, no, I value profit and I value my dogs or my chickens more than the coyote.

[Ben Hudson]

I do, too. I do too. But I understand that there are nonviolent ways to protect the animals that I care for. You know, and I think that's what's really important is like recognizing alternatives. I think ethics is a really important part of conservation and of wildlife management. And I think that if more people had, you know, care for these animals, even as hunters do. I admit, like, I understand that hunters really do care for these animals, but I think having an individual perspective, like recognizing the individuals in these ecosystems and their inherent value as sentient creature and their role in the ecosystem, I think bringing those ethics into conservation, especially as public sentiment changes, I think is going to be really important going into the future for protecting and preserving biodiversity.

[Robert Arrington]

But then how do you protect biodiversity on an individual level? Yeah, Well, I think because to me it has. You have to focus on the population to really make an effect. You can't, because there's 10,000 buffalo. How can I individually care about 10,000 buffalo? Individually?

[Ben Hudson]

Right. Well, I think there's a difference between, you know, like only recognizing the species level value and recognizing like individual value and their cumulative value, you know, as a herd or as an entire species. So, like having that perspective and recognizing inherent value in all creatures, you know, within an ecosystem. And we didn't even get into invasive species and alien species, which is another topic. Yay.

[Robert Arrington]

Let's keep that for another podcast.

[Ben Hudson]

Absolutely. Yeah. And I hope you're having back, you know, to. To follow up on 100%. Maybe there's some other questions, you know, your audience has or, or mine as well that, you know, we should touch on. But I think, you know, a lot of these ethic ethical considerations do need to be factored in when we're talking about, you know, protecting animals and protecting wildlife.

[Robert Arrington]

Sure. I can't wait to hear your viewpoint on invasive species.

[Ben Hudson]

I know, I know.

[Robert Arrington]

Feral species.

[Ben Hudson]

You recommend a really good book for everyone watching the new Wild by Fred Pierce. It discusses this and it talks about, you know, the ecological differences that, that are currently kind of being debated in ecology and really since you know, the 1950s and 60s on this idea of like a native purist perspective versus like a chaos theory, like alien species, the, the dynamics, you know, of nature. And I find it fascinating because I, growing up in the timber industry, I was very aware of non native species and invasive species and you know, the, the kind of demonization of a lot of these species. But as I studied like things like permaculture and agriculture, I realized that a lot of these species are finding a ecological niche or you know, they call it ecological fitting in these ecosystems and they're actually increasing biodiversity. Right?

[Robert Arrington]

Yeah, but what, yeah, they're increasing biodiversity.

[Ben Hudson]

Come on, think about it, think about it. A new species come into ecosystem that's more and more species. But, but obviously there nuances if they.

[Robert Arrington]

Do not get rid of or displace four or five other.

[Ben Hudson]

Of course there's nuances as with everything in, in nature. But I, I find it a fascinating discussion and it's something I, I'm trying to do more debates on because it is a really hot button issue right now. And yeah, I definitely would look forward into, you know, maybe an hour or two on that subject in another.

[Robert Arrington]

Heck yeah, let's do it. Well, you can, you can count on it because it, it is it again your, your philosophy around like biodiversity and you know, exploitation, exploitation reducing biodiversity and invasive species and feral species themselves just having their own pressure on biodiversity just because they're there. And then the whole argument of sentience and non use of wildlife if they're not in the right places. Yeah, I can't stop now. We shouldn't start now.

[Ben Hudson]

No, I'm not a like philosophy person really, but I love getting into the philosophical discussions like threshold deontology and you know. Right. Space ethics and stuff. So like it's something I'm new to. But yeah, I, I, yeah, that, that's a topic I think we could definitely even talk on for even more hours, you know.

[Robert Arrington]

All right, well, we'll end it there. We don't want to get into because we'll just keep talking. But look, man, thank you, thank you. You're, you're, you're a top dude. I love the idea that you, you know, you're pouring your heart and soul into 100 acres and doing what you can and you know, again, the rewilding, the corridors, the companion planting. Man, that's kudos to you, man. And I hope that you do start a cooperative because people are going to be, you know, they're clamoring for that.

[Ben Hudson]

Kind of stuff for sure. And, and again, I want to thank you and your audience, you know, for, for having me up here and you know, for having these like controversial discussions because I think it especially in today's day and age. So yeah, I really appreciate it.

[Robert Arrington]

You're welcome, dude. Well, that's it for today. 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 Create stories for life on a scenic eclipse Mediterranean Voyage with scenic it's more than a journey of a lifetime. It's ultra luxury cruising along elegant European Rivieras and idyllic Italian coastlines. It's being immersed in the history and culture of glamorous cities, towns and villages, its colorful architecture, landscapes and regional cuisine. Scenic eclipse in a class of its own. Book your all inclusive voyage now and.

[Ben Hudson]

Save Want to plan your next fishing trip without the hassle? FishingBooker.com is the best way to find and book a fishing charter anywhere in the world. Whether you're chasing trophy fish or just looking for a family day on the water, fishingbooker makes it simple, fast and secure. With thousands of experienced guides, verified reviews and 247 customer support, FishingBooker takes the guesswork out of planning. Visit fishingbooker.com and book your trip today. FishingBooker Fishing trips made easy.