Episode 616 - Charles x James x Robbie || Kill vs. Harvest

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Origins Foundation Podcast

Episode 616 – Charles x James x Robbie || Kill vs. Harvest

Date: January 15, 2026
Host: The Origins Foundation
Guests: Charles, James, and Robbie

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Episode Overview

This episode brings together three prominent figures from the hunting and conservation space—Charles, James, and Robbie—for a nuanced, in-depth conversation around the language hunters use (“kill” vs. “harvest”) and how those terms shape public perception of hunting, conservation, and wildlife management. The discussion touches on the importance of words, shifting public narratives, the misappropriation of conservation language, and how hunters can better articulate what they do to non-hunting and anti-hunting audiences.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Words Matter: Framing the Hunting Narrative

• Purpose of Language: The conversation opens by highlighting the careful selection of words in framing the hunting narrative, especially when speaking to the non-hunting public.
  • Charles: “I feel like our biggest impact...I would much rather talk to non hunters because I think that's where the biggest impact is...I really pick out my words...to be more definitive.” ([03:41])
  • James: “I'm a words guy, you know, like my degree was in literature and writing...I am picking words on purpose most of the time.” ([02:43])
• Hunters as Storytellers: The group notes hunters must regain control over words that have been co-opted and weaponized (e.g., “coexistence,” “conservation”), stressing the need for clarity and honesty.

2. Deconstructing “Conservation” and “Preservation”

• Misuse and Dilution: James launches a critique of the term “conservation,” arguing it’s lost tangible meaning due to being used in contradictory ways by opposing factions.
  • James: “Everybody is trying to use the same word in such different and polarizing ways that it now doesn't mean anything at all.” ([08:16])
• True Meaning: The hosts discuss conservation's roots in the “wise use of a resource,” and differentiate it from “preservation,” which is often the philosophy of anti-hunting groups.
  • Charles: “A conservationist in that context, the anti...animal anti hunting organization would not be in favor of the utilization component.” ([11:53])

3. “Rewilding” and Coexistence Concepts

• Rewilding as a Loaded Term: There’s a discussion on how “rewilding,” like “conservation,” has been captured by different groups and can mean wildly different things.
  • Robbie: “Rewilding is making the place...as wild as possible, bringing the wild back to wildlife. And what does rewilding need? It needs stewards, it needs management, it needs use, it needs utility, it needs value. That's rewilding.” ([16:41])
• Coexistence vs. Cohabitation: Charles explains that true coexistence with wildlife requires mutual respect and boundaries, not simply living alongside animals in urban environments.
  • Charles: “Coexisting is that grizzly bear needs to have a healthy fear of me. Needs to have a healthy fear of humans...” ([13:42])

4. “Kill” vs. “Harvest”: The Crux of the Debate

• Audience Matters: Charles prefers “harvest” when addressing the public but is candid about using “kill” among hunters. He points out the regulatory, management-based connotation of “harvest”—noting it's the term state agencies use.
  • Charles: “If you and I are ever hunting together...I'm never going to say, hey James, I harvested an elk...But for a non-hunting audience, I like harvest. And I think there's a reason why every state...has a harvest report.” ([20:17])
• Euphemism or Clarity?: James counters, seeing “harvest” as a euphemism, warning against language dilution. He fears that softening language might amount to apologizing for hunting.
  • James: “It's a euphemism to say harvest...I just don't want to lose ground, and I really don't want to lose ground at the cost of being disingenuine.” ([27:00], [34:28])
• Robbie’s Marketing Perspective: Robbie acknowledges using terms strategically based on the audience, equating “harvest” with sustainable agricultural practices and explaining its appropriateness in a management context.
  • Robbie: “Marketing 101 is you dial your rhetoric, you dial your narrative, you alter your words to fit your audience...I believe that's a better term for them to understand who I am and what I do.” ([31:35])

5. Regulation, Purpose, and Ethics

• Management versus Killing: The difference lies in regulations, reporting, and limits. “Harvest” and “manage” imply structure; “kill” is neutral and can be negative if context is ignored.
  • Charles: “A harvest under the system that we operate, it's regulated and it's legal. If it's not legal, it's called poaching. That's not hunting either.” ([36:15])
• Balance and Responsibility: The group deconstructs the public’s idea of “balance in nature” and whose responsibility it is to manage wildlife populations.
  • James: “Balance is a verb. It is something that we're striving towards and we can never achieve...Nature is not a terrarium where we can get everything perfect and static.” ([49:26])
  • Charles: “I feel like the non hunting public needs to understand the purpose for what hunting is...” ([36:15])

6. Handling Predator Hunting and the “Only Kill What You Eat” Maxim

• Predator Ethics: The notion of only killing what you eat is critiqued. James describes his philosophy around hunting predators to maintain ecosystem balance, even if they aren’t consumed.
  • James: “I have an obligation in my thought process to hunt predators...I can't only be an extractor of the prey base if I'm leaving another extractor in there.” ([49:26])

7. Does the Language Debate Matter to the Public?

• Internal Debate or Public Concern: Is “kill vs. harvest” a fight among hunters, or does it matter to the general public?
  • James: “I think that this is infighting and that ultimately I believe it's weakening ourselves from within. And that's one of the reasons that I've held onto the language that I use.” ([62:26])
  • Charles: “I think they care when we give them a reason to care. Or, you know, I think about ballot initiatives a lot and things like that. That's why I want to do this. I want to make the anti-hunting argument irrelevant.” ([65:01])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Coexistence:

  • Charles ([13:42]): “Coexisting is that grizzly bear needs to have a healthy fear of me...It’s not wild to me. Animals begin to lose their wildness. I don't view a mountain lion in my town walking around looking at humans and giving no Fs at all as a truly wild animal.”

• On Language & Euphemism:

  • James ([27:00]): “I think that it's a euphemism to say harvest. And in doing so, we're also falling victim to the idea of charismatic megafauna, which is a tremendous issue throughout wildlife management.”

• Defining Conservation:

  • James ([08:16]): “If we go by the definition, it's the prevention of...wasteful use of a resource...we have to acknowledge that we're talking about a resource, something to be utilized.”

• On Responsibility and Rewilding:

  • James ([53:16]): “[Noblesse oblige] means if you're capable of doing something, you are obligated to do it. And that's what I believe our role is as humans.”

• On the Limits of Public Perception:

  • Robbie ([31:35]): “Marketing 101 is you dial your rhetoric, you dial your narrative, you alter your words to fit your audience...I'm assuming that then I'm going to use that term because in my belief...that's a better term for them to understand who I am and what I do.”

• On Shaping the Narrative:

  • Charles ([65:01]): “I want to make the anti hunting argument irrelevant. And I really think we can do that. We can outsmart them, we can out strategize them, and we can play their game.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:41] – Importance of Words in Shaping Public Perception
• [08:16] – “Conservation” as a Loaded Word
• [13:37] – Cohabitation vs. Coexistence with Predator Species
• [15:35] – On the Need for Precise Language Beyond “Conservation”
• [16:41] – Discussion of “Rewilding” and Stewardship
• [18:30] – Introducing the Kill vs. Harvest Debate
• [20:17] – Charles on Audience-Specific Word Choice
• [27:00] – James on Harvest as Euphemism
• [31:35] – Robbie’s Marketing Perspective & Fitting Language to Audience
• [36:15] – Kill Vs. Harvest: Definitions and Public Explaining
• [49:26] – Obligations Around Predator Management
• [53:16] – Responsibility, Noblesse Oblige, and Wildlife Stewardship
• [62:11] – Is This Debate Just Hunter Infighting?
• [65:01] – The Power of Engaging with the Non-Hunting Public

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Conclusion

This episode offers both an engaging and intellectually rigorous exploration of how hunters must carefully navigate the languages of wildlife management, conservation, and public engagement. The panel agrees that, while internal debates over language like “kill” versus “harvest” can seem like mere semantics, the words hunters choose wield real power in shaping public attitudes and the viability of hunting as a tool for conservation. The ultimate takeaway: know your audience, be honest but strategically clear, and never cede control of the language that defines your actions.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

So five years ago, there was a reason why I started this movement. And the truth then is the truth now that we need to champion our narrative. We need to champion the truth around what we do and who we are. There's a sweet spot with a gun, you know, too heavy and it's a.

[A]

Burden to walk with.

[B]

Too light and you whipping it. Why is the projects are important to the hunting community?

[A]

It's. It's a. I think it's not only important. I think it's. I think it's vital. I think it's. It's just in time.

[B]

It's like snakes and ladders. You guys are climbing the ladder, and then somebody does something stupid and you just slide down. That is such an amazing analogy. Snakes and ladders.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, ivory, in my opinion, was the plastic of its age. Okay.

[A]

The expensive going up, it goes a.

[C]

Long way with families. We are families that do need it.

[B]

Let me close this door because I have a little wiener dog. What? You are. You're laughing because I said wiener.

[A]

I'm really glad you finished the sentence out.

[B]

I'm sorry. The first happen. What are we doing here today? You're telling the whole world. So first time all three of us on a podcast. All three of us are podcast hosts. So we'll figure out how this. This operates and runs. I don't.

[A]

I don't know if I am. I. I wouldn't say that. But, yeah.

[C]

I'm gonna act like a guest today. So this is on you, Robbie.

[B]

I like it. I like it. I'll take it. I'll take the mantle of responsibility for the three of us.

[A]

All on you.

[B]

We are obviously people that are passionate about our vocation. Some of us are now, you know, it's careers, it's what we do as a living. But hunting is something we love. Hunting is something we defend. Hunting is something that, you know, people get worked up about. And more often than not, it comes down to words, comes down to rhetoric. And we all live in the space where we watch our words, we watch our rhetoric, we Watch our narrative. We think about what we say. James, maybe not so much, but us, we think about what we say, right? James?

[C]

I think about it. I'm a words guy, you know, like my degree was in literature and writing.

[B]

What?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You didn't know that?

[B]

Yeah. Damn. I'm learning something. That's amazing.

[C]

No, I mean that's the beginning for me. So I am very careful about which words I use when I have the mental capacity to show that care. I don't always get it right, usually don't. But I, I am picking words on purpose most of the time.

[B]

I think that is, you know, you, you nailed it on the head from a purpose perspective. What is the purpose of our words? What is the purpose of why we use what we use? And I obviously think about it a lot. I live in that sort of space between a general public, non hunter, anti hunter hunting space. Charles, you do the same. What do you, what do you think about it, Charles? Do you think a lot about words?

[A]

Constantly, lately, I think that's all I think about. Yeah. Because I, I feel like our, our biggest impact A. I don't really like talking to hunters anymore. I would much rather talk to non hunters because I think that's where the biggest impact is. So because of that, not fully. Not just because of that, but because of that, I really pick out my words and not to, not to in any way make them weaker. It's to be more definitive. And that is because I believe the non hunting public, some anti hunters, but the non hunting public really has no idea what we do. And they've been given words and definitions by the media, by anti hunters. And I feel like we can redefine them and should redefine them with better words because it's more representative of what it is we actually do.

[C]

Can I throw out a troublesome word right off the bat?

[B]

Something that's just bugging me like within three minutes you're going to derail this podcast. Go ahead.

[C]

I waited a long time. I feel like three minutes is pretty good. How about conservation?

[B]

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[C]

What a bummer of a word. Everybody is trying to use the same word in such different and polarizing ways that it now doesn't mean anything at all. That if we go by the definition, it's the prevention of. Of a wasteful use of a resource. Right. And I really like that because it is the definition. And within that, we have to acknowledge that we're talking about a resource, something to be utilized.

[B]

Correct.

[C]

I think that's very important.

[B]

Correct.

[C]

And we're also talking about waste. So we're acknowledging that this resource is available for utilization, but it also requires it. And through that requirement, we need to be diligent in the efficiency and the purpose of how it's being used. And not everybody wants to look at something that we're talking about within the realm of conservation and say, this is something to be used. Right. That's not necessarily a warm and fuzzy feeling to look at a population of animals and think of them as a resource. But if we do think about them in those terms, then that's how we can manage that resource and actually make sure that it's there in perpetuity or increasing in value or increasing in abundance, if that's what's required. If there's too much of it, then we need to decrease that. Right. Because a surplus is a problem as well. So that's where I fall back on conservation. But even within just talking about this, we come up with another really problematic word, especially whenever we're dealing with predators. For some reason, we fall back on the euphemism of manage. And like, that is. That is just like the quick draw word whenever we're talking about predators. Like, we need to manage these predators. We got to manage everything.

[B]

You don't think.

[C]

But that's not actually what you mean when you say manage.

[B]

You don't think ungulate herds are talked about in the management context, they are.

[C]

But we tend not to talk about. We tend not to use that word when we're talking about hunting. If somebody says we need to manage these predators, what they usually mean is, there's too many of them and we need to reduce that population through legal hunting and trapping, et cetera. But if we have too many elk, we don't say, these elk need to be managed, we say we need to hunt more elk.

[B]

Right.

[C]

It's just kind of interesting. But conservation is a word that I almost feel like we need to abandon as a community who believe in conservation. But if People who are more leaning towards preservation want to hold onto that word and use it wrong. I say let them do it. And we need to find our own language around that.

[B]

What do you think Charles, is the different, what do you think people's confusion is, is between conservation and preservation?

[A]

Well, this depends on and James was hitting on a little bit. It depends on who you're talking about. There are, there are plenty of what I would consider anti hunting organizations that are now calling themselves conservationists. And you see it in the news headlines all the time. A conservation org states this and I'm like oh, who is that? And I'll go, go to look and it's you know, defenders of wildlife or something. And they are, I look at them, I'm like they're a conservation.

[B]

I think that's contrary to the waste. The, the, the, the, the, the definition that James just put forward which is the smart use, wise use of a resource. A conservationist in that context, the anti. Use, anti, you know, animal anti hunting organization would not be of, in favor of the utilization component of the conservation definition?

[A]

No, I don't think that they are in favor of that. I don't at all. I mean simple point blank, I, I, I, I can't find where they are actually in support of hunting. Right. And I believe hunting is a conservation tool. If you want to be really definitive. People say hunting is conservation and some people pick on that. I get what's trying to be said. Hunting is a conservation tool. There's other aspects to conservation outside of hunting. Sure. But a tool in that space is hunting. And that's important I think to, to realize and understand that. And you know it can get nitpicked but I think it's important we hold on to that word. I think words have been taken from us. I see this all the time. Words get co opted and redefined. Coexistence is a word I think hunters should use because the anti hunters when they use coexistent, they're not actually defining coexistence the way I understand it. They're defining cohabitation which is not based in reality. It really has a sort of Disney esque feeling about it.

[B]

I can live in the same yard as a grizzly bear, can live as a coexisting, as a cohabitating.

[A]

That's cohabitation. Coexisting is that grizzly bear needs to have a healthy fear of me. Needs to have a healthy fear of humans for the betterment of all of us, for the good of the grizzly bear, for the good of the humans and good and good, you know, less conflict. Coexistence isn't mountain lions walking down my sidewalks, which they do here. I'm 15 minutes away from San Francisco. I don't think that's coexistence or, sorry, that, that idea that's like this cohabitation coexistence is that mountain lion that looks at me walking down the sidewalk like, oh, a human. I don't think that's good for us. It's not. It's going to cause conflict. And it has and it does. And different species, mountain lions can live a little closer to humans. I don't mean to get off track, but, you know, I don't think grizzly bears do very well on the edges of towns. I don't think wolves do very well on the edges of towns. And, and it's not good for them to be, to be brought here. So when, so when people say, oh, we need to coexist with them, all the coyotes that we have in Golden Gate park right now, and I think there was a toddler that was pulled away from a coyote in the last year or something like that. Anti hunting orgs are celebrating this. This is, this is coexistence. Look at all the coyotes in golden the Gate Park. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think it is at all. You know, it's, it's just, it's not wild to me. Animals begin to lose their wildness. I don't view a mountain lion in my town walking around looking at humans and giving no Fs at all as a truly wild animal.

[B]

James, you mentioned conservation not being the ideal term. What would be the ideal term for what we do?

[C]

I don't know that there is one. I don't know that there's a word that can blanket it. Because if we're talking about what we do as hunters, we're a primary funding mechanism. We are a primary management tool when it comes to reducing specific populations. Beyond that, hunters are there to understand animals and understand ecology just by having a lot of time and presence in those areas. But that, that knowledge isn't acceptable to anyone outside of the hunting group.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Biologists don't, don't accept that. Politicians don't accept that. It's not, it's not certifiable, it's not peer reviewed, it's anecdotal. And you get your two minutes and then they move on. So I don't have a good word to replace it.

[B]

I think I have One.

[C]

Okay, what you got?

[B]

And I think it's a co opted term as well. And the only place in the world that I know that they've actually wrestled the term back is New Zealand, where you're going, James.

[C]

All right.

[B]

It's rewilding.

[C]

Ooh. There's a stigma. There's a stigma with.

[B]

Because it's been co opted. Just like coexistence. The coexistence is not quite the stigma that rewilding is, but the rewilding stigma is a coexistent stigma. Right. It's this. Putting them back with us. Where in New Zealand has said no. Rewilding is making the place, to Charles's point earlier, as wild as possible, bringing the wild back to wildlife. And what does rewilding need? It needs stewards, it needs management, it needs use, it needs utility, it needs value. That's rewilding.

[C]

Yeah, that's an interesting one. I first started hearing about rewilding at the same time that quinoa was invented, which was about 2012. If you heard of quinoa before 2012, you're not actually being honest with yourself. But that's about when I started to see that happening. And, and the, the folks that were using it, they, they weren't necessarily people that I could connect with very well. And, and they would for sure be people who were, who are today opposed to hunting as a conservation or as a management tool. But no, it is an interesting term and, and it, it should probably get a little bit more consideration. The, the, the one that we're, we're here to really talk about though, and I am so excited to talk about this is Kill versus Harvest, boys.

[B]

Well, everybody's been waiting because the title of this podcast is probably going to be Harvest versus Kill and it's going to get everybody's hack.

[A]

Not Kill versus Harvest. You're going to, it's going to be Harvest versus Kill.

[B]

Oh, I could Kill versus Harvest. I'll change the title. Okay, we'll just change the title right now. So there it is done. Kill versus Harvest. And it, you know, it stems from the beginning of this conversation. Words matter, reasons matter. So it all started, this podcast started because Charles and the team at HAL put out a post, a multi carousel post of using the term harvest and the context in which it is used. James commented, we commented. It's like, hey, why don't we get on the podcast and talk about this? Because that's the best medium to have really good long form discussions. And we all agreed. So here we are. So how About I do this. How about I let Charles, you set the tone because you posted about it and then James, I want you to respond and we'll go from there.

[C]

Better cock your hammer, Charles.

[A]

I should just look at the Instagram post and read that, but.

[B]

Do it.

[A]

The carousel wasn't a large part of it was about words. And I think the day before I had created a different carousel about why words matter. Because you see words like slaughter and murder and all the, all the terms that are thrown on, on hunters in the debate and. But I also like to think about hunters ourselves and how we use certain words. And I think it's important that we recognize our audience or who our audience. I don't, you know, I guess everybody has a different audience. But for me I'm recognizing we have a bigger audience than hunters because I actually want to go somewhere, I want to have an impact. 4% of the population isn't really going to do much. So I like again, like I said in the beginning, I like to be definitive so specific on kill versus harvest. Let me start off with this, James. If you and I are ever hunting together and I come out of the woods, I'm never going to say, hey James, I harvested an elk, okay? I'm never going to say that to you because I'm going to say I killed an elk or I shot an elk or I got an elk or some other thing because you understand what happened, right? So I don't have to explain my words to you or to you, Robbie, because you guys are hunters and you get it.

[B]

However.

[A]

If I am going to make a post about something talking about in the, in the, in the hunting arena and I, and if I realize that my audience is going to be non hunters or people who are curious about it, I'm not going to just stick with kill. I'm going to want to define exactly what happened. I want to define what you can come up with other words for it. But I like harvest. And I think there's a reason why every state that I can think of has a harvest report. Like when you kill an animal, take an animal, you have a harvest report that you fill out. There's harvest statistics and all that. The reason why is I believe the anti hunters kind of take our words out of context and then they, you know, these guys are just out there killing something and that's it. And they're only out there for the trophy, for the head and because they're psychopaths and blah, blah, blah, blah, all down the line in management, which is A great system. You know, it has its issues, but it's a great system that we have in the United States here. And it's a management system. And when I go out and hunt, I'm not thinking about how I'm managing. Like, oh, I have to go out there and manage. I'm going out there because I love to hunt and I love the wild game. I don't necessarily eat everything that I kill. Right. That I think there's a purpose, that management has a purpose and harvest has a purpose. But when explaining this, what does harvest mean under the system, the North American model? It means, yes, I'm going out and I'm stalking that animal, killing that animal, and then I'm going to that animal and I'm breaking it down and I'm packing out that meat and I'm bringing it back and I'm eating that meat and sharing with my family, whatever, friends, all the, all, all the good things. I'm not just out there killing. So that's sort of, you know, going against the trophy hunting narrative. Mind you, a lot of states have rules, have laws against wanton waste, but I don't know too many hunters. There's a few, I'm sure, but I don't know too many hunters who go out and just kill something and leave it and, and, you know, are just committing want and waste when it comes to bear and wolves and all that. Do I want to kill a wolf because I just want to go kill one. Is that the only reason? Just because I have this bloodlust? No, I don't think so. I think there's a. And I'm not going to eat a wolf, but there's purpose to it. James, your. Your podcast with Justin Russell, right, That's his name. Fantastic reasons. That's why I want people to listen to this. There's purpose to me going out and hunting a wolf. Am I going to eat that wolf? Absolutely not. But a lot of ways that to. To shake this out, you could look at it as well, the state, the biologists, they claim wolves are having this impact on, on, on elk. Well, if I go out and take out a wolf, I might have a better hunt later for elk that I do like to eat. Now that's a personal reason, right? That's kind of selfish. Like I'm doing it, you know, for the elk. And a lot of hunters, they like to say that kill a wolf. You just saved X amount of, of. Of elk or deer or mountain lions. Oh, I killed the mountain lion. You just killed 52 or you just saved 52 deer that year. Because people say they, you know, that, that lions, you know, they kill a deer a week. You hear that a lot. But isn't there, and then beyond our selfish reasons or whatever reasons we're going out to hunt, isn't there also a management reason to this whole system? Isn't there also a, a quote unquote kind of balance between predator and prey? And do we not have a responsibility as humans in this modern day where we have 350, 400 million people in North America or just in the United States, let alone the world, 8 billion people? Don't we have a responsibility to steward those, those animals and that wildlife? And I think if we can define those things better, we have a, it becomes more reasonable if we can get away.

[B]

So Charles. Yeah. So, Charles, you're saying you use the word harvest for two reasons. First, reason, get away from rhetoric that may be used against us thinking that killing is that rhetoric. And two, harvest has a specific management context to the management of populations within a specific state, specific species, and there is a management definition underlying harvest. Like you said, harvest reports by the game agency, those kinds of things. That's why you use harvest.

[A]

That's why I use harvest in the, in the, depending on who I'm talking about. Yeah. And it's no big deal. Like, I don't know why it's such a big, like I, I, I see these debates and people kind of lose their minds over the kill and harvest thing. Like, I don't know why, but I choose harvest because.

[B]

Do you agree?

[C]

Well, I think that it's a euphemism to say harvest. And in doing so, we're also falling victim to the idea of charismatic megafauna, which is a tremendous issue throughout wildlife management.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So the, the porcupine, for example, is all but extinct in the mountain lion rich areas of eastern Oregon. Mountain lions are the biggest predator of porcupines. We used to have a lot of them, now we have almost none. But it's not a charismatic animal. So nobody, nobody even really noticed that it was gone. We wouldn't necessarily say that we harvested a limit of ducks. We wouldn't necessarily say that we went out and harvested fish. It really depends on the species. And the more charismatic the species is that we're talking about, the more we might feel inclined to lean on a euphemism like harvest so that it's more palatable for somebody who is going to be coming after us for this thing that we just did. Right. I don't know if it makes it more palatable to somebody who opposes hunting to say harvest versus kill? I truly don't know that. Maybe it does. And then when we talk about other words like slaughter, that means something completely different from me. Coming from a background where butchery is an art form, if somebody says I butchered that, what they're trying to say is that they made a mess of it. If you watch an actual butcher at their trade, they are surgeons. They are masters of efficiency and precision and the same thing with the slaughter portion of that process. So I think it's an opportunity to also talk about it. And you know, when do we say, when do we say harvest versus kill? Right now, even for us here, talking is really going to depend on the species that we're talking about.

[B]

So interestingly, I love the idea of the euphemism. Right. The euphemism is the replacement of a word with another word to make it less harsh. Okay, so now let's, I want to, I want to couch it to both of you in a, in the context of these species. I think James nails it on the head. We use these different terms for different species, but I actually think it might be the opposite. You would think a mega charismatic species, you would want to use the euphemism of harvest overkilling. Agree or disagree?

[C]

I, I, I want to use the best word all the time.

[B]

But if you were, let's just, let's just go with it. If you're going in that context, like you were doing, you were, you were applying a term to make it less harsh, you would apply that less harsh of a term to a species that is as charismatic.

[C]

Like a wolf, Like a wolf, like, like an elephant.

[B]

Okay. In a wolf. An elephant's different. Elephant, I think, to me is different. But let's just stick with wolves. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say harvest a wolf. I've always heard people say kill a wolf. Nobody's ever done the euphemism for a predator, wherein that's exactly the context it should be used for if we were adopting the approach that a more charismatic species requires a wood that is less harsh. But we don't.

[C]

Well, I think within harvest, there's also a connotation of utilization for food. Harvest is a farming term. It's a farming term. We harvest carrots, we harvest wheat. So as hunters started finding a requirement to apply that to what they were doing because they were taking heat from people, then they're like, well, no, this is a food resource gathering Type of thing. So I'm going to use the word harvest. Trappers are another one. Like they're very, very afraid of getting trapping taken away for good reason. People are trying all the time to end trapping. And they use dispatch as a euphemism. Right. They're the most conscious of everybody about using the most watered down term that they can. Has that helped them? I'd say not at all.

[B]

It's a good point. It's a good point. I've heard. I have. I think the harvest is obviously the thing that it's tied to the most is what you just talked about is crops, combine. Going through the field, harvesting crops, I'd never actually thought about. I'd actually never thought that the crop analogy could apply to the word harvest. So I'm going to interject myself quickly because I'm supposedly the host of this podcast, but also have an opinion. So I'm going to put out my opinion. I've never thought about the connotation of harvest. To me, I've used the word interchangeably because if you strip down what I do, I'm in the marketing field. Marketing, the narrative perception around hunting to people that don't understand hunting and marketing 101 is you dial your rhetoric, you dial your narrative, you alter your words to fit your audience. And so if my audience understands harvest better than killing, and I don't have a survey to your point, James, I don't have a survey of the non hunters that say yes or no. I'm assuming that then I'm going to use that term because in my belief, and my belief is not grounded in science, it's not grounded in data on a survey, but I believe that that's a better term for them to understand who I am and what I do. However, given Charles's carousel post, and I started thinking more about this harvest and thinking about crops, and farmers harvest crops. They also harvest nuts, fruit, that kind of stuff. And when you think of a population of elk, so let's look at the population of elk in Oregon, the biologists look at that population and as a crop, they look at it and go, how much of the, of the population, how much of the crop can we take off without damaging the crop for future growth?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you're harvesting this excess off the population. And that is an appropriate term of art for that action. I was like, wow, it actually fits very well from a management context of harvesting the excess, taking the excess. You're not killing the excess, you're taking it off, you're harvesting it, and then that excess grows the next year and you harvest it again. So that's how I thought about it since our little exchange on Instagram led to this podcast. James, thoughts, reactions?

[C]

I see where you're coming from. I do. And I see the value in using. Using language that's the most palatable for your audience. I just don't want to lose ground, and I really don't want to lose ground at the cost of being disingenuine. And I'm not saying that that's what this is, but it's the road to get there, for sure. At some point, are we. Are we sacrificing the language with, with the correct definition for something that, you know, gets farther and farther away from it until we have to fall under the definition of that new word that we've adopted? That, that's, that's my fear is like, you know, don't. Don't give up an inch. And when I, When I saw some of the, the actions from, you know, some groups within the hunting community to really water down this, this image of what hunting is and, and to change the language and change the way we're taking pictures and things like that, I, I had an abhorrence to that immediately. I, I didn't want anything to do with that. And I also paid attention as that experiment played out, and I don't think it did us any good. I, I don't see. I don't see those efforts yielding a benefit. In fact, I feel like it's worse now than it was before. There's no control for this experiment, though. So, you know, maybe it held on to ground that we would have otherwise lost. I, I don't know that, Charles.

[A]

A lot of things there. I, I do want to. Specifically when you brought up the crops, Robbie, I, I gotta admit, and I thought that was a given. I thought everybody understood that. Like, I think that's the way I've always thought about it because of the management system in, in. In North America. Like, we have, you know, estimated this much population. Hunters can take out this much. It's renewable, it comes back. I've always seen it as a crop, and I figured that's why state game agencies use the word harvest. And so I want to point out a few things. And James kind of brought up butcher. When people use butcher, that means they screwed something up. But, you know, a professional butcher, that means something else. But kill. What. What does kill mean? Right, so kill is just an outcome. Something dies. If you kill something or somebody or whatever, it can be legal or illegal. It doesn't define any of that. Whether it's legal or illegal. It can be hidden, it can be reported, it can be wasted and it can be used. Right. A harvest under the system that we operate, it's regulated and it's legal. If it's not legal, it's called poaching. That's not hunting either. It's counted. So we turn in these harvest reports. So it's counted and it's reported. I think all, well, almost all states do that. Some, sometimes it's voluntary, sometimes it's mandatory. It happens under limits. So harvest happens under, under limits and it becomes the, the baseline for the, the, the, the years that follow. Right. So how they do this year, was it a dry year, wet year? All those things, all these things come into place. I just think harvest is more definitive and I'm, and in James, I'm, I'm not really ever trying to convince anti hunters. I'm in love with the general non hunting public and I've been living in San Francisco here. I've been just talking to people and I got this little podcast thing going that I actually haven't really released yet at all. I'm just talking to non hunters and I'm asking them questions like how do you feel about hunting? What's the first thing you think of? And some people have good things to say something, some people don't. But I'll try and get the trigger words going because they don't. They're not waking up thinking about hunting, you know, so I have to egg them on a little bit. Like what about trophy hunting? About when you hear that? And they'll come up with these, with these reasons. And, and, and I, I do the math. I'm like, well who told them that? You know? Well, it definitely wasn't us. It definitely wasn't coming from the hunters because we don't talk to the nine hunting public. We just do our thing. We don't, we have no, almost no impact on the non hunting public. Who does have impact in the non hunting public are the anti hunters and they spend a lot of money like their audience. They're trying to get more non hunters and convert them into anti hunters. Right. I wish the hunting community was trying to get more non hunters and convert them into loving and understanding and supporting hunting. I'm not talking about R3, I'm not talking about becoming hunters. I'm fine with no more hunters. But I feel like the non hunting public needs to understand the purpose for what hunting is for what when we say things like Matt, when I say manage wolves I put out, you know, blogs or actions or whatever else I say we need to manage wolves. Because the, the instant reply from the anti hunters is if we delist wolves, they get exterminated, they're all going to die. We have to keep them on the endangered species list because hunters are going to go out there and kill them all. Nope, that's not the way it works. It's impossible. We want to manage them and here's what this means. So now let me break it down for you and I love doing that because the only thing that I have seen so far that the anti hunters can reply to that is something emotional or calling me names or just saying, no, you're lying. You, you just want to kill everything in sight. Look at the mount on your wall. You just like killing everything. Well define what killing is to me then and I'll ask them those questions. And they can't because they know. Well some of them know, some of them don't. Some of it's just ignorance and you know, emotions. But the ones who do know, they will not define the success of management that has happened in the last hundred years. Ask him this question, okay, if we can't delist wolves now, at what population do wolves need to get to? Where you say, okay, management is appropriate now? The answer will always be never.

[B]

Always.

[A]

One of our commissioners here in California asked Wendy Keefover, who's with the Humane Society. She said if, if you knew, if we could show you there was 50,000 bears in California, because your whole argument, Wendy, was we only have 10 to 12,000 bears in California. We have to stop hunting. You know, climate change and all the fires and everything else, the bears are going to be wiped out. The head biologist at the time, nobody knew this was happening, came up and said, hey, we've been doing a five year bear study, not done yet, but I think it's important everyone knows that it looks like we have 60 to 80,000 bears in California. So their entire argument was based on we don't have any bears, we got to stop hunting. When he came forward and said this looks like what the study is going to be, the commissioner said, wendy.

[B]

Is.

[A]

This an issue where you are just against hunting because it's not sustainable anymore or if there are 50,000 bears, would you be then in support of hunting because we need to do something to manage this population. And Wendy said there's never a number that we will get to where I will support hunting bears. So there's A, there is a game we have to play and I think it's. And I don't know if, I don't know if game is the right word. There's a strategy that we have to play I think to win this argument. And I think that's what I just explained there, if that makes any sense. That's why I think being a little more definitive and explanatory in our words is so important because once we start doing that the anti hunting argument breaks down because they don't like words, they don't like real meanings. They just don't. They call everything slaughter, they call everything murder. It's like what does that mean? What do you mean? You know, so I look at who if I'm in a room with an anahunter and we're debating, I want to use those words because I think the reasonable audience is always going to side with me because they will. The anaheitners will always end up being unreasonable if you talk to them for more than 10 minutes. So that's why words matter.

[B]

James. James.

[C]

What's definitive about manage?

[A]

So the defendant about manage is the entire, is what management actually means under the system of you know, quotas and population surveys reporting. I mean all of those things fall under management.

[C]

Right, but do you think that somebody who's not, not in either camp, they're not an anti hunter, they're not a hunter. Do you think they see we need to manage wolves and they understand that all of those things fall under the word manage?

[A]

Let me answer your question again. You said what is definitive about management? It's the separation between so if we are going to manage wolves or manage elk or whatever else that means. The, the, that means there's a defined number. So it, as opposed to go out and kill all of the wolves, go out and kill all of the mountain lions, go out and kill all of the bears. Management means we have an estimated guess population guess. Here's how we, here's what we want to take out of the population. That's, that's management. Kill would be no reporting, no harvest, no quotas like that could fall under kill. Like let's just go out and kill them all. That's why I think it's important to the 900 to understand the differences.

[B]

So in your, in your brain Charles, you're saying that using manage harvest provides a definitiveness to that there is a regulatory mechanism behind the action under which we're, what we're undertaking. And if you had used the word kill that has a connotation of being very loose, potentially illegal, without limits.

[A]

I'm not setting up the argument, I'm not setting up the debate. I'm not setting up the conversation.

[C]

With.

[A]

The anti hunters or the non hunting public. If I use the word kill right off the bat, I would like to word, I would like to use management and then maybe have somebody question management so then I can have a chance to explain what that actually means. You know what I mean?

[C]

Yeah. It's an invitation for question because I could make the argument that manage means throw out some GPS collars and monitor them, which changes nothing. Changes nothing. Monitoring is not a needle mover. It's a mandatory precursor for a lot of wildlife biology today. You know, to be, to be more definitive about it, you might say we need to hunt and trap wolves in order to control and occasionally reduce their population. Like that. Those are words that I feel like everybody could look at and they would know what, what it meant.

[B]

Yeah, well, let me, let me push back a little bit. James. You just, you didn't use kill.

[C]

Please do.

[B]

Yeah, you used hunt and trap. You didn't use the word kill.

[C]

Right. Because they're going to be wildly unsuccessful. They're not going to, they're not going to frigging kill anything because it's wolves and it's super duper hard. So what, what's going to happen is we're going to buy a bunch of tags and licenses and go dumb around in the woods and get really cold and be like, this sucks, I'm going home. I wonder who's freaking playing football this Sunday. Like we could go full Wyoming on wolves and be like, hey, have at it boys. And it would have next to zero effect on the population across every western state. I guarantee it. It's too hard.

[B]

Let's go back to the original intent of this whole discussion. We're not really in this discussion of words and this discussion of what we use and the terms we use, it's not really pertinent to the population. It's pertinent to the people that are listening to us.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so let me ask this. And that's why I said you didn't use kill right then all you did was you just said the same thing. We hunt and trap wolves in order to control and reduce the population in order to manage. Like Charles was saying.

[C]

Maybe.

[A]

I also think, let me tell you so you know, there's like a.

[B]

Hunt.

[A]

To eat gets thrown around, but more importantly, only kill what you eat. And I've, I've heard that a lot this Is also why I like to use harvest or management because they both have purpose. It doesn't mean, it doesn't always mean that you are using it for food or that you're killing that animal for food. Doesn't always mean that there's purpose. Wolves, right? Probably grizzly bears. Although I would eat some grizzly bears for sure. But I'm not gonna eat everything, you know, I'm not gonna eat all predator. I'm never gonna eat a coyote. Few people do. I'm never going to. But is there a purpose for it? That's, that's also so. Because that can, that can put yourself in a corner, right? Only. Only kill what you eat. I can back yourself into a corner really quick when it comes to.

[C]

Oh, it's, it, it's, it's ridiculous. I think it's very, I think it's very selfish as well. Interestingly, and this is, this is a complete aside, but I hang out with a lot of former snipers. They're, they're my buddies and about half of them will not hunt predators. And I find that so interesting. And I don't really understand it. And I have, you know, great conversations with them about it. I feel like if I'm going out and hunting prey species like deer, elk, bunnies, you name it, then I have an obligation to hunt predators as well so that we can work back towards some stasis in that ecosystem. I can't only be an extractor of, of the prey base if I'm leaving another extractor in there. So this morning I'm up in the dark and I'm hunting predators and I killed a coyote. I did not harvest a coyote for sure. I didn't even walk out there. But I have an obligation in my thought process to hunt predators if I'm also going to hunt their prey species. Always understanding that balance is a verb. It is something that we're striving towards and we can never achieve. We pull the levers that we can and we're never going to get there. And nature is not a terrarium where we can get everything perfect and static because that just doesn't exist. I think that is also a massive understanding. And in the conversations I have with non hunters, the word that comes up every single time is balance. Balance in nature. I don't know what people are imagining in their mind when they think that that's possible.

[B]

Well, they're imagining what you just went through this morning. That's what I believe. I believe that this morning and all your thought processes is running through a management lens.

[C]

But they're, they're offset, right?

[B]

So that, you know, it doesn't matter. It's still management.

[C]

Well, it's, it's still management, but it's not balance.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

It's not.

[A]

What do you mean by balance?

[B]

Let me ask.

[A]

50, 50. Are you like, are you saying, do you think that's what people are when they say balance? Like 50, 50 or what, what's. Define, define that if you can, because I don't, I don't even know if I could.

[C]

I, I, I believe that most non hunters, when they talk about balance in nature, are imagining a world without people or areas without people where cats and dogs get along and hot dogs are free at Costco and everything is perfect and everything, all these populations are perfectly maintained and any illness or disease is immediately canceled out. And it's just this perfect, what's the word? Utopia of wildlife, flora and fauna. I really believe that most people think that that can exist and that it could exist in an isolated wilderness area that's surrounded by agriculture and urbanization. It cannot. It is truly impossible. And those are some of the longer conversations that I end up having is teasing that out and breaking it down and getting somebody to a place where they actually are imagining the reality of this and understand that it's constant flux and that as humans we are capable of affecting these populations negatively or positively, and that we're always going to be managing for an objective and that we're going to do what we can in order to achieve it. There's this French notion called noblesse oblige, and it comes from the, like, the cavalier days where nobility still fought in battles. And it basically means nobility obligates. And this is still taught in military leadership today. However, what I take that to mean is if you're capable of doing something, you are obligated to do it. And that's what I believe our role is as humans. But it is on hunters and biologists to actually do the thing, because nobody else is going to.

[B]

James, let me ask this question. This is going to be a very provocative question. And I've, I have been accused of this. Charles has probably been accused of it. Do you believe that if somebody uses harvest instead of kill, are they, Are they apologizing for being a hunter? Are they, you know, dare I step into the whole being a snowflake kind of world? Is that what these people are? Is that what's happening?

[C]

I think generally speaking, and this isn't what Charles is doing, but generally speaking, when people use the word Harvest. They're afraid to talk about who they are and what they do.

[B]

I don't want to talk about thinking about the audience. Go ahead.

[A]

I don't want to stop. I understand both sides of this. So I don't want to stop putting up pictures and, and you know, of, of deer that I kill or whatever out, you know, things like that. So what James was talking about earlier, kind of the push to stop that because it's hurting us. I get the argument that it's hurting us because we have no response to it. We have no pr, we have no advertising, we have nothing that is framed for the non hunting public. On why hunting is a good thing at all. So all people see is just a bunch of dead stuff. And then it gets labeled by. Gets labeled as. This is trophy hunting. And some of those people just go, oh my God, they're just doing it for the, for the head and whatever, blah, blah, blah. They don't see any purpose or anything like that. I think that it is possible to. I like to kind of put it in people's faces. But I also then like to have a good answer for it.

[B]

Right?

[A]

So I'm not afraid to show a kill or blood or breaking down a deer. But I want to give a real good reason for it. And those real good reasons can be. I have an awesome story. When you sit down with people and have dinner, actually face to face, things change, right? You have a conversation with somebody and all of a sudden you're not the monster they might have thought you were five minutes ago. Because we probably have a lot more in, in common than, than we don't. Most people still eat meat. I mean, this whole thing, I. Sometimes I lose my mind. I'm like, hold on, like 89% of the world's eating meat and you're freaking out because I went and got meat.

[B]

Out of the woods.

[A]

Maybe you just, maybe you didn't know I went actually used it for meat. Is that what it is?

[C]

Like, I don't know.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's always different for each, for each person, I think, and, and who you're talking.

[C]

Well, there's al. There's also this thought that a lot of people have that if we weren't hunting those animals that they wouldn't die. To some ext, it seems like that.

[A]

I mean, it's like, is that true? I mean.

[C]

Well, they're smart people. They just haven't run the experiment out in their minds.

[B]

And I think it's.

[A]

That's what helped us to have that conversation. Like, if we engage, the better we're gonna do.

[B]

And.

[A]

And then, you know, if they see, you know, a dead deer or a bear or something like that, they might not have the reaction to it because they understand the process and they understand, you know, some aspects to. To what that means. I think that's. I think that's important, for sure.

[C]

And they. They also imagine most of these animals dying, either old, sick, or weak. Right. That. That. That rhetoric has been pushed onto people forever. And they think that that's what. That's how predation occurs. And we're learning that that's not true. That's. It's not true that the data does not support that. So if. If we're imagining young, healthy animals getting killed by predators, predators killing each other, infanticide among cougars and bears, cannibalism, things like this, like that, that starts to hit a little bit differently because ultimately a lot of people are anthropomorphizing these animals, and that convolutes the entire situation.

[A]

I know you guys both know this. At the end of the day, probably the biggest issue we face, at least from what I can tell, the biggest conflict people have, I think what runs around in people's brains and their minds is why are. Why should humans, or should humans be involved in wildlife management? Who are we. Who are we to say this is what should be done? Who are we to want to manage, want to kill whatever it is? Who are we to do that? And I think that goes back to rewilding. That's the debate there. And it's up to us to. To really explain that. And I know this is like what Robbie does pretty much all the time, but when he brought up rewilding, the thing I thought about was just, you know, sure, yeah, let's rewild. But it's not rewind. It's impossible.

[B]

No maps. No, that's a really good point.

[A]

The maps not rewind. No, but that's what I think people are thinking.

[B]

Oh, no, for sure. Everyone wants to go back to the 1700s, right. That's where wildlife needs to be. Yeah.

[A]

How many people live in California? And let's just use 1700s. I don't know. Somebody Google it.

[B]

But whatever.

[A]

Let's say it was 100,000 people. Okay. No, 1700s. It totally wasn't even that. Anyway, and grizzly bears were here, right? And, oh, grizzly bears, there are keystone species, and they're apex predators, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's a movement here right now in California, and it's gaining ground to bring Grizzly bears back and it's falls under rewilding. Right. There are 40 million people that live in California. Is this good for the grizzly bears? If grizzly bears could have a preference, would they rather live in bfe, where most of them live, or where would they rather come to California, where they are going to be subject to conflict every single day of their lives? Now, now, yes, I'm humanizing grizzly bears, but what I'm getting at is who are we doing this for? Who is benefiting to whose benefit? Is it actually for the wildlife's benefit or is it for our warm and fuzzy feeling that oh, there's a grizzly bear 60 miles away or 100 miles or 200 miles away? And that makes me feel good. Now.

[B]

Yeah. James and I are going to put forward a paper. We found this archeological dig in San Francisco that shows the occurrence, natural occurrence of grizzly bears in Francisco, San Francisco. And build a petition. Grizzly bears being put back into San Francisco.

[A]

This was one of their favorite habitats right here.

[B]

Exactly. All right, let me, I've got this last, last question, last sort of wrap up thing. Okay. Because I expressed this to Charles and Charles had actually a differing opinion than I do on this matter. Charles is like, what did I say? Charles is so nervous right now. Do we think that this issue, this debate, this whole thing, Kill versus Harvest, the title of this podcast, do we think that this is actually something that the non hunting general public actually cares about? Or is it more of an internal inside the hunting community clash of viewpoints? Clash of apologetics, if you want to use that term. James, what do you think?

[C]

I don't know, but I'm going to find out.

[B]

Okay. I don't know what that means. Maybe I should be scared, maybe I shouldn't.

[C]

No, I'm just, I'll run a little Instagram poll, I'll ask, I'll ask the peoples and we'll find out.

[B]

Let's play a scientist. Give me a hypothesis.

[C]

I don't, I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters. I think that this is infighting and that ultimately I believe it's, it's weakening, weakening ourselves from within. And that's, that's one of the reasons that I've, I've held on to the language that I use.

[B]

I am of your opinion. I think that this is a inside the hunting community apologetics faction kind of issue. I also agree with Charles that it's also people using it in the, in the, in the wrong context without the proper acknowledgement and defining of why they're using what they're using. But Charles, you said to me that you believed it was the opposite.

[A]

Well, I don't disagree that it's not infighting. I mean, hunters, we just fight about everything. But I do. Your question was, do I think it's important, do it? Do I think non hunters care?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. But they have to be engaged. They don't care about hunting when they, they don't wake up caring about hunting. We have to make them care about hunting. And, and I think there are specific words that will lead to a broader conversation with them that we can use with them to get their attention that will lead to them caring about hunting in a positive way. I truly do. From the people that I talk to. That's my proof. And I'm surprised. I'm like, I'm having a hard time finding people who end up hating hunting at the end of the conversation. I really am. Because it's just, It's a human conversation now. Again, this isn't over social media. We're not arguing on Twitter. This is humans being humans.

[B]

We've lost that Rewinding, rewinding what society should be.

[A]

And when you have those conversations, see, I can talk about harvest, but then I can also tell. Then that gives me a chance to tell them about the kill. And what's crazy is they get really interested in, wait a second, how long were you out? They get interested in, like, how long you were in Idaho and what'd you have in your backpack? What'd you do about water? They start asking all these questions because they're like, what, what is going on? And then, and then you got this bear. I love the break. I love to talk about hunting bears because I know it's a trigger for them or people just get kind of. They get a little antsy or uncomfortable about it. But then when I talk about the adventure and then breaking it down and then I feed them bear.

[B]

I. I don't know.

[C]

I don't know.

[A]

It's just for me, I. I think they care when we give them a reason to care. We have to give them a reason to care. Or, you know, I think about ballot initiatives a lot and things like that. That's why I want to do this. I want to make the anti hunting argument irrelevant. And I really think we can do that. We can outsmart them, we can out strategize them, and we can play their game.

[B]

Well said. Well said, James. Last words, final words, final thoughts.

[C]

I just appreciate being here with two, two guys who are as thoughtful as you two. Sincerely, I know I don't compliment either of you ever, really, but I know that you work really hard at this stuff. You spend a lot of time thinking about it. You're both really intelligent people. I. I've genuinely enjoyed this last hour of conversation. Thank you both.

[B]

You are welcome. Thank you for the. The. The discussion opportunities and the ability to think through your answers, put out your viewpoints without worry of. Of recourse.

[C]

I just wanted to feel heard.

[B]

That's right. That's why we put you on here, James. Otherwise, we would never have invited you.

[C]

I just wanted this space. So thank you for holding space for me so that I could feel heard.

[B]

Listen, I think we should do this again. I think if something else comes up in the future that we, you know, is a little bit of a thorny topic. Thorny subject. Store to the three guys. Let's. Let's see what happens.

[C]

I'm here for it.

[A]

This is good. Thanks, guys.

[B]

All right, gentlemen, till the next time. 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.