Episode 367 - Robbie Kröger

Summary

Cleared Hot Podcast Episode 367: Robbie Kröger

Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Robbie Kröger
Release Date: December 30, 2024

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Introduction of Robbie Kröger

Timestamp: [02:22]

Andy Stumpf welcomes Robbie Kröger, a South African native and American citizen residing in Mississippi. Robbie comes from a hunting family and brings extensive experience in conservation, addressing topics such as rhinos, elephants, and poaching.

Andy Stumpf:
"Today's guest, his name is Robbie Kroger. Robbie Kroger, a native of South Africa, now an American citizen living in Mississippi, member of the hunting family. And today's conversation is all based around conservation."

Conservation and the Role of Hunting

Timestamp: [04:12] - [11:12]

Robbie emphasizes the importance of shifting the narrative from merely "saving" certain species to sustaining them through responsible hunting practices. He argues that hunting plays a crucial role in conservation by providing necessary funding and management for wildlife populations.

Robbie Kröger:
"One of the things he brings up in this episode that I couldn't support more is this narrative that is no longer true about certain species and how we can shift the narrative towards sustainment and just the role that hunters play in the conservation ecosystem."

Personal Stories and Experiences

Timestamp: [05:00] - [15:11]

Robbie shares his recent activities, including multiple trips to Costa Rica and a Christmas party in Nashville. He highlights his involvement in charitable initiatives, such as supporting underprivileged kids through Jiu Jitsu programs funded by hunting-related events.

Robbie Kröger:
"What we're doing is we're using hunting to fund projects that help communities, like building soccer fields and providing medical support. It's about creating sustainability for both wildlife and people."

Rhetoric and Media Influence on Hunting Narratives

Timestamp: [14:30] - [23:18]

Robbie discusses the pervasive negative rhetoric surrounding hunting, particularly on social media platforms like Instagram. He explains how Blood Origins aims to counteract these misconceptions by presenting factual information and positive stories about hunting's role in conservation.

Robbie Kröger:
"I have learned my lesson in trying to change people's minds on social media. It is not a medium... People are pretty fixed in what they believe. Instead, we focus on long-form content to truly capture attention and convey our message."

Specific Conservation Examples

Timestamp: [15:48] - [45:33]

Robbie delves into various conservation projects, such as building staff housing for medical clinics in Zambia and managing elephant populations in Botswana and Tanzania. He critiques the "Save the Elephant" narrative, arguing that sustainable hunting is essential for maintaining healthy wildlife populations and habitats.

Robbie Kröger:
"Operation Noah was incredible. These communities rely on hunting revenue to fund conservation efforts like building medical clinics and schools. Without hunting, these projects wouldn't be possible."

Storytelling and Outreach Efforts

Timestamp: [74:05] - [99:22]

Andy and Robbie discuss the importance of storytelling in changing perceptions about hunting and conservation. They highlight Blood Origins' efforts to produce documentaries and podcasts that showcase the positive impacts of hunting on wildlife and communities worldwide.

Andy Stumpf:
"We wanted to tell a hunter's story in a way that’s gripping and authentic, similar to how Christian testimonials are shared. Through Blood Origins, we’ve produced 83 impactful stories that highlight sustainable hunting and its benefits."

Robbie Kröger:
"Our documentary 'Lionheart' played a significant role in changing minds about lion hunting in Colorado, contributing to a decisive electoral victory against banning certain hunting practices."

Conclusion and Call to Action

Timestamp: [133:28] - [138:48]

Andy and Robbie conclude the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with Blood Origins through donations, sharing content, and following their platforms. They stress the importance of understanding the true role of hunting in conservation and urge listeners to support sustainable practices.

Andy Stumpf:
"If you feel inspired by our podcast, consider donating to Blood Origins. Absorb the content, share it with your community, and help us continue the conversation about sustainable hunting and conservation."

Robbie Kröger:
"By sharing our stories and educating others, we can shift the narrative and demonstrate the crucial role hunters play in preserving wildlife and supporting communities globally."

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Notable Quotes

• Robbie Kröger at [05:00]:
  "We're using hunting to fund projects that help communities, like building soccer fields and providing medical support. It's about creating sustainability for both wildlife and people."

• Robbie Kröger at [14:30]:
  "I have learned my lesson in trying to change people's minds on social media. It is not a medium... People are pretty fixed in what they believe."

• Andy Stumpf at [74:05]:
  "We wanted to tell a hunter's story in a way that’s gripping and authentic, similar to how Christian testimonials are shared."

• Robbie Kröger at [45:33]:
  "Operation Noah was incredible. These communities rely on hunting revenue to fund conservation efforts like building medical clinics and schools."

• Andy Stumpf at [133:28]:
  "If you feel inspired by our podcast, consider donating to Blood Origins. Absorb the content, share it with your community, and help us continue the conversation about sustainable hunting and conservation."

---

Key Takeaways

• Sustainable Hunting as Conservation: Hunting, when properly regulated, provides essential funding for wildlife management and community projects.

• Changing Narratives: Blood Origins focuses on storytelling to shift public perception from viewing hunters negatively to understanding their conservation efforts.

• Global Conservation Efforts: Projects in Africa, New Zealand, and other regions demonstrate the positive impacts of sustainable hunting on ecosystems and local communities.

• Media and Education: Long-form content and authentic storytelling are pivotal in educating the public and countering misinformation about hunting.

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For more insights and to support their mission, visit Blood Origins and follow their podcast on popular platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Head to livenation.com to get your tickets.

[B]

Now that's livenation.com ladies and gentlemen, good morning. We have made it to the last episode of 2024. Man, it has been an amazing ride up to this point. I think. I've been at the podcast for seven years now and I can't thank everybody enough for the support and allowing me to do something that I enjoy more than I thought than I ever could. 2025, if it turns out the way I think it's going to, is going to be pretty amazing this next week. There are some things that may lock in, that should lock in, that are on track to lock in, that are going to be pretty wild and I'm going to bring everybody along on the journey. I just don't want to get in front of my skis and talk about something until I'm absolutely sure it's going to happen. But if it does, it's gonna be amazing. On that note, let's talk about today's sponsor. It's Black Rifle Coffee. But this episode comes out right before the first of the year. Christmas opportunities, they're gone and that's okay. And let's just keep this one short and simple. What a better way to start your year if you're a coffee lover or you know, a coffee lover by either gifting yourself a coffee subscription or somebody else get the coffee you like delivered when you want to set yourself up for success. The main page of blackrifflecoffee.now.com right now is showing gift cards because that's a really good way actually to give people things. That requires less shopping time upfront for you. So there's that option. I've covered the roasts at length. You have the lightest on the far left, extreme dark or extra dark on the far right. All the things that you can enjoy coffee in supporting the the brand, flying the flag, if you will. It's metaphorical. Sometimes I say that and people ask where I sell flags. That's not what I'm talking about. Samples and bundles, new releases down below. Let's go and see if we can though.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

If you go to the coffee tab right up top, there's the Coffee Club and ECS exclusive coffee subscription. That needs to be changed. It's the typo to Evan's coffee subscription. Those are the two places that I am going to point you to begin your 2025. And that's all I have on the business side of the house for 2024. My guest today is Robby Kroger. He is a fascinating man. And I'm going to say this up front. I think the South African accent to me, because I can't even imagine what I sound like to him. It could be my favorite. I. It's. It's a tough one. I really enjoy. I enjoy South African. I enjoy Aussie, Kiwi and Brits. I'm not going to rack and stack them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

We don't need to. We don't need to get weird about it. But I could listen to those people talk forever about anything, and they. And I still would be paying attention because I love the sound of their accent. Anyway, today's guest, his name is Robbie. Robbie Kroger, a native of South Africa, now an American citizen living in Mississippi, member of the hunting family. And today's conversation is all based around conservation. And I've had a few of these conversations shorter form on the other podcast. I do change agents, rhinos, elephants, poaching, the whole nine yards. It's a fascinating topic. And one of the things he brings up in this episode that I couldn't support more is this narrative that is no longer true about certain species and how we can shift the narrative towards sustainment and just the role that hunters play in the conservation ecosystem. It's a fascinating conversation. Can't thank him enough for making the travel up here to northwestern Montana. And with that, let's get into it. Episode number 367 with Robby Kroger. Enjoy.

[A]

Okay, got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south west of the smoke. West of the smoke.

[B]

Smoke.

[A]

Okay, copy. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, wait a minute. Give it to me. I mean, it cleared hot. Can't be cleared out.

[B]

Super good. Really good.

[A]

Really good. Super good.

[B]

Not Andy.

[A]

No, I look good. Yeah. Okay, good. Perfect.

[B]

Physically, I and you and everybody in this room and everybody's ever watched the show knows that it's not possible for me to look good, which I've accepted a long time ago, could give two. Which ties into.

[A]

God.

[B]

It's been a whirlwind week. So we were out in Costa Rica probably, I think the fifth or sixth time we've been this week. I just got back at 105.

[A]

Damn.

[B]

With a day in Nashville, though. We were at a Christmas party in Nashville. A friend of ours who owns a Jiu Jitsu gym in Woodstock, which you. I'm trying to. I can't remember where you've joined us on trips or where you haven't. Have you ever been to his. To Dance Alpha bjj? Yeah. The single coolest, most beautiful, well designed Jiu Jitsu studio I've ever.

[A]

This is in Costa Rica in Asheville.

[B]

This is actually in Woodstock, Illinois, so a suburb of Chicago. So we've been to there a bunch of times. But he teaches a seminar at a gym there called Hero BJJ and it's based around a 501C3, so all the local kids actually get to train for free. So he hosts a seminar per month.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And takes a small scrape from. This is my. I'm probably speaking out of school a little bit because I don't know exactly how he structures it, but this is how I guess he does a small scrape of this seminar. So he'll get world champions or very recognizable people. People will fly in. They combine a vacation with Jiu Jitsu, and he pulls enough out that it funds the school or the Hero BJJ for the year. So we go in December and Dan donates every penny from the camp. So I think Ron was saying that they're at over six figures total of giving back.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And while we were there, they did their Christmas party. They get a backpack and school supplies for the year.

[A]

These are all underprivileged kids. I mean, or any kid that can. Any kid can show up and get it.

[B]

And again, I don't know the exact structure that Ron has economically in comparison to the first world, the world that you and I live in daily. I would say, yes, they're underprivileged from an economic perspective. I don't know too much about their living conditions, but they train for free. He has a bus program that will go pick them up and bring them in. We've donated geese, we've donated school equipment.

[A]

Ratchet.

[B]

It's fucking awesome. So I think that was our fifth or sixth year. And then we. What are you messing around with on the chair? What are you doing?

[A]

I'm trying to get it to not go back. There we go. Got it.

[B]

You got it? You locked it in.

[A]

I actually pulled it out and I was like, oh, I broke it. And then I. I put it back in.

[B]

So we would wheel that off camera and just put you in the other one and figure it out at some other time. But on the way back, we got invited to Go to a party, a Christmas party in Nashville. So very diverse suitcase. It was a little bit more of a not too dress up, but dress up and up. So Costa Rica to Atlanta. Atlanta to Nashville. Nashville here.

[A]

And Costa Rica was vacation.

[B]

Vacation. Well, some of my better friends were trying to choke me to death.

[A]

Oh, so that was as well.

[B]

Yeah, it was for the camp. The one that is the.

[A]

Oh, the fundraiser fund.

[B]

The fundraiser one. Yep.

[A]

Gotcha. Gotcha.

[B]

Yeah, we just did it. He does it every December is the month that he gets. He's the single instructor for. I don't want to say he might bring in other instructors, but he's the main instructor on their website for that month. It's just awesome. The whole thing is cool. You get to train, and I always make sure. And two of my kids were there with me. I'm like, let's go to their Christmas party because I want you guys to see how impactful it is.

[A]

Hell, yeah.

[B]

And Ron's talking about stories of these children who are crying because they have their own set of colored pencils. That's. That's an optic that I want my kids to have and to understand.

[A]

Well, you need to bring them to Africa and let them show what hunting's doing for kids. It's un. Like you think that's impressive, but it's a short. Till they're poor. Poor.

[B]

It's a short flight, though, right from here.

[A]

Yeah. 16.

[B]

16 hours. I might send them alone on the way home.

[A]

On the way home because of Johannesburg, sort of in the summertime, you get massive thunderstorms on the high felt. It knocks the temperature down by 20 degrees every day. It's beautiful. So when I first arrived in Mississippi, I was like, this place is hot and this place is humid.

[B]

How did you decide on Mississippi PhD?

[A]

I just picked up a PhD at the University of Mississippi.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And I came and that was it. Like, I was like, all right, let's. Let's move everything. My. My brother had left to go to Australia. My parents were already in Australia. I was going to come to do a PhD. I had a girlfriend back in South Africa. I was like, don't worry. I'll be back in three and a half years. And I arrived, and she was down with that. No, she wasn't. Because six months later, there was no more girlfriend. And especially with a American accent in Oxford, Mississippi. I was just like, geez, this is the South. Beautiful woman. Yeah, it was amazing, but the weather was crazy. It was hot. It was humid.

[B]

In the summer, you'll die.

[A]

Yeah. And I was like, okay, I'm just. We just need a thunderstorm, and it'll drop the temperature. And literally the thunderstorm came. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And I walked out, and it couldn't possibly get steamier. And it got steamier.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was like, this is absolutely nuts. Anyway, so sitting on. In Joburg. I flew back from Joburg on Monday.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And we were on the Runway, sitting in the plane for two and a half hours before the flight home. Because you're going against.

[B]

Yeah, against the headwinds.

[A]

Headwinds is 16 hours and 45 minutes.

[B]

I don't think it should be legal for a plane to be able to fly that long. I feel like they have 18 pilots up there just rotating.

[A]

It used to be worse. It used to be eight hours. And you used to land at Dakar, Senegal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They wouldn't let you off the plane. Used to sit on. They used to wake everybody up. Used to land, sit on the plane for an hour and a half, and then they take off again for another nine hours. Used to be 18 and a half.

[B]

So where does your Joburg fly at? Land. Atlanta.

[A]

Atlanta, okay. Yeah. There's another direct flight, Joburg to Dallas, which United takes.

[B]

I do. That would be a place. So I've been to Kenya. I spent 10 days in Kenya. That's really my only time in Africa. And you want to talk about a stark contrast between I'll call it what we have here in America and what others do not. We were. At the time, I was working for a strength and conditioning company. I was managing their charitable initiatives. We were working for. I think the name of it was coins for Kenya to build schools. And so we were there to see what it actually was. And I mean, to go with. And walk with the women whose job is to put the water on their head and where they were drawing the water from. And I. You know, we walked with them and followed the path. Like, that's not potable. And they're just straight on their head. Directly across from us was a clinic. And I'm using that in the loosest of terms. A woman walked in who was pregnant. She gave birth and took the baby home. I believe it was that day, if not the next morning, in a wheelbarrow. She walked both ways by herself.

[A]

Yeah. The poverty in Africa is holy. You can't. You can't fathom it until you see it.

[B]

Yeah, it's. I don't. I. I think it transcends explanation, for. Sure.

[A]

Yeah. You think you've got it hard. And you think you've seen poor people and when you see poor people in Africa, they're not sad, they're not like poor me, pretty me freaking happy people.

[B]

Sometimes when I'm in those places I think they have a more enriching existence because they are not distracted by the, that we are bombarded by all the trivial basic life.

[A]

Right. And their, their trials and, and, and tribulations and anxiety comes from where am I going to eat now? These are big things, right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where am I gonna, where's the next meal coming from? Where's our water coming from? You know, am I gonna make sure that the. If you're a young boy or a young teenager, boy, is the flock going to the goat flock or the sheep flock or the cat flock. It's going to get nailed by a lion today or a leopard today or how am I going to protect and make sure that the family's assets are still intact when I come home? And I'm still intact when I come home. Right. And I haven't been smacked. Yeah, it's different lifestyle.

[B]

I wish those experiences they, I wish that they stayed longer. You I feel like travel back and forth enough where it's, it's more palpable. Even myself, I was there again for 10 days and man, it is on your mind. It's like front facing of your mind for a good amount of time but like anything else it slowly fades and then you start complaining about things on your thousand dollar phone while drinking your eight dollar latte.

[A]

It's a different, it's a different mentality, it's a different lifestyle and I feel absolutely privileged to be in the position I'm in because I get to see it all over the world. It's not just yeah, Africa is an easy low hanging fruit example, but I've seen the same thing in New Zealand. You know, really first world New Zealand where you go into part of town that you're not supposed to go into and there's old elderly Mori guys, that super sad story. Been kicked out of their home by their family because they know that the government will take care of them, the government will house them. And this individual, Mr. Jim that I got to meet, he knew that we were coming, we knew that we were coming with the camera crew that day put on his best, you know, dress, he had a fedora hat on, he had his just amazing smile and we were delivering venison that had come out of, of the woods, essentially the big forest there called the Kaimanawas. And he was so grateful for the venison and this food bank that was giving him this food through hunting and through hunters. But the fact that he was there was the most, was the saddest story. And you're like, this is first world here, man.

[B]

Yeah, like, you know, I bet you can find. I mean I haven't spent a lot of time in deep inner city Chicago or the extended suburbs of Detroit.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But I've heard and read about horror stories. I feel like on those fringes, even in the first world you can still find pockets of that. And I think most people live oblivious. And I wonder if it's intentional oblivion to the fact that that is. It's easier to not think about it is to actually think about it and then ask yourself the question, is this something that I care deep enough about to actually try to do something about?

[A]

Well, and I think to be honest, my total existence with Blood Origins is, is that is showcasing because there's this rhetoric, there's this PR around hunting and hunters that you guys are a bunch of gun toting your evil people. Evil gun toting hooligans. Not me, of course not. Of course.

[B]

Even though I was describing some of my Instagram posts and the comments people make on them.

[A]

But it's like, but hey, let's dig a little. Let's go beyond skin deep levels and let's show you these people that we're impacting in these crazy places in the world. Let's show you the education pieces that we're putting in place. Let's show you the medical clinics that are being built. We're building staff housing, nurses and doctors. Staff housing in Zambia right now in a community called Kamukezi Village. The Kamukezi Village is a set of community that got relocated when Kariba Dam was built in Zimbabwe. So Kariba Dam back in the 50s was the most, was the largest man made dam in the world. Incredible place. You can get a houseboat that goes from Kariba all the way to the other side and you can park your car in it. And it's this beautiful ferry that just goes.

[B]

How do you spell that? Michael?

[A]

Do you find Kariba K A R I B A.

[B]

It's the beauty of this massive TV and Kariba.

[A]

So it's Kariba Dam. That's it right there. It's incredible. It's got this really cool mystic character called in Yami Nyami Yamin Yami is this like water beast snake that protects the waters. But you can imagine a valley, you can see how deep the valley is behind the dam, Michael.

[B]

God damn it. Go to the images portion to use the Internet. Scroll up.

[A]

So interestingly enough, images. God, you can see how deep it is. And what happened with Kariba when it was first built. Obviously it's a massive valley. It had communities in it. And they were like, guys, you need to move. Yeah, you're gonna get flooded out. Additionally, there was phenomenal wildlife. This area has phenomenal wildlife all around it. And the Zim parks guys at the time. So when you start digging into professional hunters, operators, parks guys, Zimbabwe is like the Five Star. They're the tier one operators in Africa. Okay? These guys back in the 50s did a thing called Operation Noah. So type in Operation Noah. Kariba Dam, Operation Noah is these guys going onto islands, grabbing rhinos. They didn't have tranquilizer guns. They didn't have nets and whatnot. Grabbing rhinos and walking them through the water off these islands, grabbing snakes, grabbing monkeys, all sorts of things. Look at this.

[B]

I would have grabbed a really small rhino. Even though I deeply appreciate that rhino there on the. Yeah, the four. That's. I like the one with the four children. This is actually. Remember how my vision board this year, Michael, was a helicopter and a miniature wiener dog. 2025's vision board is shaping up nicely right now because it might be get.

[A]

You involved in rhino conservation. Easy.

[B]

No, no, I just, I, I might want a rhino. Are there rooms?

[A]

You want a rhino?

[B]

Well, that picture is pretty cool. It's drinking from a straw out of a bucket and four children on it.

[A]

Listen, I can, I can put you in touch. We can take you to many, many orphanages, rhino orphanages in Africa in which you can feed rhinos, your kids can feed rhinos, you can take care of rhinos.

[B]

Can you bring one home? Is it actually illegal to own a rhino in the us it is not. See, that's what I'm saying. Unless it expressly says you cannot, I feel like it means you probably should.

[A]

There are white rhinos in Texas right now.

[B]

See, I already know where to start my search, Michael. Yes. Google what size u haul a rhino stress would fit in. And I will ride, I will drive up front. You will be required to feed and provide the medical care for the rhino in the back. This vision board is really taking shape.

[A]

Operation no was incredible. But these, this, this community, this kamikaze community was told, man, you need to get out of here. So they got placed between the top end of Kariba and Victoria Falls. So the Zambezi comes down and it's pretty much no man's, land. We call it the forgotten Zambezi. And these guys have been forgotten about. It's, it's the end of a dirt road. Nobody goes down this dirt road. Some random person built a clinic for them. But there's no staff quarters. Yeah for anybody to occupy the clinic. So they come once every four months. If something really happens, they've got an eight hour walk to the most basic clinic. They've got a three day walk to anything substantial from a medical perspective. So we approached Bagara. Bagara is the rifle company. We said, hey, we've got a really cool conservation project for you. Would you be interested in building staff houses, nursing houses and doctors houses for this clinic? And here's the letter from the Zambian government that says if you build it, we will place, we will put doctors in there, we will put nurses in there full time.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

And Bergara said absolutely. How much do you need? And I said I need this much. And they're like no problems now too.

[B]

With things like Starlink where the connectivity and comms, I mean it's unbelievable. It is for a remote place like that. Can you imagine, absent those type of communications. I mean they would have been, the doctors would have been just as remote and maybe they would have had a vehicle to take them on a not smooth road drive for you know, a threat to life. Limit eyesight. It, the velocity, the technology is increasing I think makes that stuff so much more tenable. Yeah, that's amazing.

[A]

So yeah it's, that project is a pretty cool project but it just shows the levels that hunting and hunters will go to to help humanity.

[B]

I don't think people understand that. It's. I have learned my lesson in trying to change people's minds on social media. It is not a medium and by that I mean a site like Instagram which is, hey, here's a picture among millions of pictures and you might read the first sentence of a paragraph, whatever it is. People are pretty preformed in what they believe. And you know that the algorithm feeds you more of what you engage with. And instead of arguing and trying to educate them about that, I would rather do something like this. The long form I think is the best opportunity to capture the attention. I would say, God, it's hard to change people's minds.

[A]

Yeah, I will, I'll, I'll agree and disagree at the same time. So people say to me all the time because that's where we live. Yeah, but Origins lives in the digital media sphere. That's what we're known for. We get tagged into.

[B]

Well, it's your jam.

[A]

Everything.

[B]

I get to be in that world for maybe 45 days if I'm lucky. It's your GM year round. So for you guys a better strategy.

[A]

But. But there's also people have to sit to me, what's the point? Like why are you wasting your time? And here's my typical response. We get tagged into all sorts of posts. You can imagine what we get tagged into. Like Leonardo DiCaprio does something. Dan Belizerin does something.

[B]

What did Leonardo DiCaprio do? Let's get.

[A]

It was like, it was like a woo wolf post and it was like management. No, it was, it was. And obviously he is not posting nothing. Somebody else is posting on his account doing. I don't know what they're doing. Yeah, but it was a wolf. It was a wolf post. And we just said, we went in there and explained a wolf management position. So whenever I comment on any of these posts, whether it's person who has 100 followers or 100 million followers, I will write the post in a way that I'm not going to change that person's mind. You'll never change that person's mind, whoever's posting that.

[B]

But you might catch somebody else.

[A]

Dan Belizeran did change his mind in an Instagram story discussion. Let me just say that he went back and forth with you at 4:30 in the morning. All of a sudden like four months later, I get a and lucky. I wake up early 4:30 in the morning.

[B]

I wake up four months after your response. He hits you up.

[A]

Four months later. He just went. And I was like, oh, he's in. And I, we literally went, I'll show you. It was like it was a 45 minute back and forth discussion on IGDM to me. And really? And I said dude, just come out. You just told me you are cool with hunting. You just tell me, you just told me you're a hunter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So why did you post this picture of you in Africa saying I've never experienced anything so amazing. I can't imagine why somebody would come here just to hunt for fun. Well, I was like.

[B]

But then that fun in air quotes. Hunting is what is funding the conservation here in the US as well. I don't think people understand whether you enjoy hunting or not or pro hunting or anti hunting, if you enjoy wildlife and wildlife management and people whose jobs are dedicated to research and understanding those are funded by the hunting industry. People don't understand that.

[A]

Well, that's my job. And so in those, in those comments I'm not changing that person's mind. But I know 100,000 people just read what I wrote.

[B]

Yeah. And I know that Dan's page or.

[A]

Any of those big pages, and 30,000 probably looked at it and went, wow. I never knew a hunter could speak like that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or I never knew that. That makes sense. Logically. That makes sense. The best response I've ever gotten, I was, it was on one of these big vegan platforms. I can't remember what it was. And one of the responses was, I'm a bleeding heart vegan, and even this guy makes sense to me.

[B]

That's excellent.

[A]

Brilliant.

[B]

Have you ever watched YouTube videos of vegans finding their way back to a nice ribeye?

[A]

No. There's videos like that.

[B]

Yes. It's as if the light of the sun is reemerging into their. I mean, I. There's a lot of people who want to be vegan from a moral perspective. And my baseline stance on everything is, if you're an adult and you're a consenting adult, I don't give a shit. I want you to have your beliefs, and I want you to believe in them as deeply and passionately, be as violently aggressive. And I don't mean, like going out and fighting people, but in your belief in those things. I don't agree with them all. And when it comes to the vegan approach, I'm not so sure we're designed to live that way, because some of the testimonials of these people that find their way back to meet, they're like, I feel like I'm alive again. And I want that for everybody. But also, if you want to live on whatever it is, live on whatever it is. The videos are amazing.

[A]

And if it works for you, if it works for you, all the better for you. Right? And from a vegan perspective, when I think vegans also get a bad rap, like hunters get a bad rap, because.

[B]

The extremist vegans, well, they're also savage murderers.

[A]

Yes, that is true.

[B]

Yeah. Not the vegan themselves, but there's no way. I think I heard Joe talking about this most recently. There's just no way for any species on this planet to survive without an impact on other species. But there is a limit at what people care about. Like, they don't care about flies, and they don't care about the things that are killed by pesticides or mice or the deer that are killed in the fields, any of those things. But if it gets to, like, a pig, they're like, nope, that is a sentient being or whatever it is. So they care about everything above that and ignore the fact that their morality and their choice in it as well is also fucking wiping things off the face.

[A]

Well, you've just so it's funny you mentioned that I was sitting in Puffuri, so puffer is in the way. Northern Kruger national park is in Limpopo Province and outside of Pafuri is very good agricultural land. Right? Soybeans, huge citrus farms and whatnot. Now, sitting with a section ranger there, and the guy was talking about old Farmer Pete. Let's go, Farmer Pete. And Farmer Pete was talking about his soybeans and they were in a conference and the guys were like, man, are you guys having problems with kudus And Farmer Pitty? Yeah, the long, twisty horned animals. And Farmer Pitt. And his Afrikaans goes, yes, like these kudos. They smashing my coot. They're smashing my soybeans. And the guy goes, well, Farmer Pete, what are you gonna. What are you doing about those kudus? And he goes, which in Afrikaans means, I shot him. I showed them. They ate my soybeans and so I shot them. And those soybeans are being grown for the vegan lifestyle, covered in blood. Same thing with citrus. Citrus farms. The amount of vervet monkeys and baboons that are being killed every year to protect the citrus crop. So it will blow your mind.

[B]

How would you. We can sit here and throw around wild conjecture on the vegan community, which, again, I have nothing against. How do you think they work their way around that again? Is that something that they choose to be ignorant of? Or is that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. I think that.

[B]

Is that the equivalent of somebody just goes into a Safeway or a grocery store and this is how I get my meat. Because they want to just outsource it to somebody else.

[A]

And I don't think people are blatantly turning a blind eye to it. I think they're completely uneducated. I think they're completely misinformed. They have no real idea of what happens on the ground for a certain monocrop to be created for them. They have no idea. Same thing with hunting. When people look at hunting, they have no idea what it actually is. They have no idea of the impacts, the benefits, the consequences of the activity of hunting. And it's just. For a very few, it may be a blind eye for the vast majority. You've been misinformed. You've been misinformed by a narrative that is painting the wrong picture for you. So I'll give you an example and you can you can replace what I'm about to say, which is elephants with wolves, with polar bears, with grizzly bears and we can talk about horses differently.

[B]

Grizzly bears is a good one because they have gone back and forth here in Montana about to list delist what to do.

[A]

And the court just ordered them to push the report. The report that's been out that has been required for the last two years. Court order has just been put in place. They have to deliver before January 20th.

[B]

Here in Montana for.

[A]

For the grizzly bear period.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

I was Hageman, the one that Hagerman has been after. Senator Hageman has been after the entire time. Fishing Wildlife Service. Where are you? Where are you? Gone past the deadline. Past the deadline. Where are you? Are we working? We're working. We're working. Court order, as you said, you guys need to deliver.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So there's a huge rhetoric out there and you probably will. I'd love to hear your opinion. It's called save the X. Let's call it Save the Elephant. And you do believe we need to save elephants?

[B]

Sure. I love elephants.

[A]

Why do you think we need to save elephants?

[B]

Because they're kind of awesome.

[A]

They are awesome. They're magnificent.

[B]

I mean, I think any animal to include humans plays a role in the ecosystem.

[A]

You think elephants are in trouble?

[B]

No, I think in certain areas elephants are in trouble.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And it depends on what you mean. I mean, there are people who hunt elephants for just the tusks.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And there are people who help hunt elephants for the meats. There are people who think that you can just go to Africa and just go and shoot an elephant as if it's a non governed or regulated activity. Yeah, exactly. I've had enough conversations with people in mediums like this that I know that it is. They are not in danger. But it is a better narrative to say that they are and to highlight in a hunter. You know, the grip and grin photo, what they call in the US of it's that one is to me, it's tough to swallow. I know why they do it and I understand the argument against it.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And I have a foot actually in each bucket. To me I'm just like, not my thing. And also for me, not my thing to hunt an elephant.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

Even if I was given the opportunity. I like, no.

[A]

My grandfather hunted a bunch of elephants in the 50s and 60s in Mozambique.

[B]

And I know people who have hunted elephants. And it's not. You're not going out there. What's the Disney elephant?

[A]

Dumbo.

[B]

Dumbo you're not going out there looking for a random dumbo. They're going out there working with the locals, finding the one that is probably.

[A]

Oldest or the one that's causing the problems in the village, causing the problems.

[B]

Or is likely not going to make it through the next season. You're not just wandering around like, oh, hey, there's a mother with a young one, and just go ahead and blast the mother. And from my understanding of people who choose to do that, which again, is not a choice I would make, it is very. It's a structured approach that probably would do more to save the elephants than maybe that argument of just telling everybody that they're at risk without the population actually being.

[A]

Yeah. So I would change Save the X. Let's call it Save the Elephant to sustain the elephant today.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So the idea though, of saving the elephant, if you take it on the anti use, anti hunting crowd, is a money spinner. Save the wolf. Save the grizzly bear. Save the polar bear. Save the elephant. It's a money spinner. If those animals are doing well, it's not a money spinner anymore. Right. There's no need for the money spinning anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if you look at elephant specifically, there's hundreds of NGOs that are elephant specific. NGOs, non governmental organizations, non profits.

[B]

Michael, just for shits and giggles, put it. What would you put into Google to find those NGOs?

[A]

Elephant. Just go elephant nonprofit.

[B]

Because I bet you it's just.

[A]

Oh, it's a laundry list.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They'll come up with a laundry list right here. And that laundry list will say. And the same thing, if you click on one of their websites, go to that first website right there. Look at them.

[B]

Wildlife sos. Yeah.

[A]

Any of these that have an elephant, the first thing you'll see them say is this. They'll say, elephants have declined by 90% their population.

[B]

God damn it, Michael. Find an elephant. One that's wildlife in general. There we go.

[A]

An international saving the elephants. The first thing it's going to say, saving elephants and habitat worldwide. Okay. There's going to be some sort of rhetoric in here that talks about, stop.

[B]

The snares, the massive.

[A]

Let's lions and giraffes, endangered species. So here, protecting elephants. Right. They're doing all this thing, living with elephants. Endangered species. So is elephant and in fact an endangered species? It's a good question. It's actually not listed from iecn. It's a vulnerable species, not classified as endangered anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But let's talk about countries. So let's just go around the. The horn. South Africa. You can't give an African elephant away in South Africa, period. So you want to add it to your, your, your board.

[B]

Yeah, vision board.

[A]

Vision board.

[B]

But you guys don't have those enough.

[A]

You can't. No, not really.

[B]

What do you guys call it?

[A]

We just get done.

[B]

I mean, that could be called a get done board.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This is just a visual representation of.

[A]

What you're not gonna do.

[B]

No, of what you want to do.

[A]

Oh, yeah. That'll never come to fruition.

[B]

And now if you're lazy, Michael has boards and boards and boards stacked up. And here, here he still sits over there with freaking. So rodecaster.

[A]

So South Africa. You can't give an elephant away for free. There's no more space for elephants. Namibia pretty much at carrying capacity for the amount of elephants they have. Botswana, the largest elephant population in the world. 132,000 elephants in 21 of the area of Botswana as surveyed. There's probably 150,000 elephants in Botswana, way over carrying capacity. Zimbabwe, way over carrying capacity. Mozambique, probably at carrying capacity. Tanzania, probably way over carrying capacity. Kenya is a different story. Kenya lost 80% of its wildlife since 1977 because they banned hunting in 1977. So they're building back their wildlife populations today.

[B]

So how did they lose it by banning it? What happened there?

[A]

Lost value. Wildlife lost value in 1977.

[B]

Gotcha.

[A]

It's the simplest solution to saving wildlife all over the world. If wildlife has value, it's going to stay on the landscape. If you value elk, you're going to keep elk on the landscape. You look at it as an economic asset. You don't want to absolutely kill it. You don't want to decimate it. You want it to grow so that your kids can hunt elk in the future.

[B]

So I can give you a fantastic example of that. I've been very fortunate through Black Rifle in Evans specifically to be able to go hunt a very awesome ranch in Utah. It's not high fence. They just happen to own the terrain that the elk love.

[A]

Big habitat, big connectivity of landscapes.

[B]

Their rules are tight. They want you to shoot an 8 year old bull or above. And they have wildlife specialists that are working there. And they know exactly how many bulls that they need to kill and exactly how many cows that they need to kill. Not because they're trying to kill as many as possible, but because that would put the holding population for that terrain at the optimal level so that the genetics can express to the best way possible the healthiest elks the biggest racks, the healthiest herd. And it's.

[A]

And why do they have that elk? Why do they have that in place? Have you ever asked that question? Why? Why, why? Why?

[B]

I would. I mean, my hypothesis on that would be is because it maintains that allure of people wanting to come there for it. It has value to go to your point.

[A]

Has value.

[B]

It has value. And it's.

[A]

It has value to an Evan Hayford. I want to go and hunt these guys.

[B]

It's frustrating as fuck when you're there because you see a massive forest animal and you're like. And the guy goes, no. I'm like, okay, but what about that one? They go, no, I can't fucking take this anymore, because I would shoot any one of these on public land.

[A]

But.

[B]

But it's amazing because of the effort that they put in. And it is what it is because the value it has to individuals and brands, and that's why they want to come there. And they charge an ungodly amount of money that I would never be able to afford on my own. But that's the experience you get, and that's why they do it. So it happens here, even in the.

[A]

US what you're talking about, same thing as Atara, New Zealand. An Axis deer in Pakistan, an elephant in Africa.

[B]

First off, Pakistan and Axis deer just go to Hawaii. All right. That's way less dangerous. Landmine.

[A]

It's pretty cool. So this whole elephant thing, just to get back to it, the. The rhetoric is 90 of elephants. The. The population has declined by 90%. Well, 90 from what like it used to be. Millions of elephant will win where there are millions of elephants. 1900s. Nope. 1800s, 1700s maybe. How many people in Africa in the 1700s? Very few. Yeah. Today there's 2.6 billion people in Africa. There's going to be 5 billion people in Africa in 2050. So what do you need to do now? Especially what all the countries I just described. When it comes to elephants, you don't need to save the elephant anymore. You need to sustain the elephant. You need to manage the elephant. Literally. In the last 10 days, a very huge, controversial topic came out of South Africa tied to elephants. There's a game reserve. A lot of the game reserves in South Africa are managed by the government. A number of those game reserves, no hunting is allowed.

[B]

And this is where you'd see, like, pictures of the safari truck. And 100. Okay, 100.

[A]

And there's. So there's a game reserve called Madiquir M A D I K W E. So if you type in Medique, you're probably going to find this video that I'm about to talk about.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So Medique is a closed system. It's a high fence system. I can't remember how many acres Mediqui has. It's like maybe 30,000 acres or 45,000 acres. A big property.

[B]

That's a lot of fence.

[A]

But the ecological management assessment of Mediqui was. So put Medique elephant. Just put Modiquir elephant. And then go to the news. And then go to the Mediqua elephant population. Yep. And then go to news.

[B]

Just scroll down my. Oh, yeah, there you go.

[A]

Conservation and starvation. Mediqua Game Reserve, a wildlife tragedy. This is the nspca, this is the spca. Not even a hunting organization going into Mediquis saying, what the f are you guys doing? The ecological assessment of Modiquira said, you're only supposed to have 250 elephants in this property. There's 1500 elephants in this property.

[B]

Oh, they're going to eat it until it's.

[A]

There's not a single tree over three meters left on the property. When you look at imagery, see if you can see of any imagery. There's an image.

[B]

There might be some on this article. Mike, first off, accept the cookies. I hate the cookies.

[A]

So there's. It's obviously a fenced reserve. So look, you can see elephants dying. 56 elephants have died. And that's what an elephant looks like. You should see the buffalo and the kudu and everything.

[B]

That is an incredibly emaciated elephant there.

[A]

No, it's. They're done. Yeah, they're done. And there's eco tourism lodges in Mediqui. There's 30 of them. How are they not saying, man, the asset that we are selling for photographics is gone. We need to do something about this. There's a fence. When you. If there's an image that you can find of the. Of the fence, it looks like paradise on the outside of the fence. And a bomb has gone off on the inside of the fence.

[B]

Almost like hungry elephants are trapped on the inside.

[A]

Yeah, and it's. It's not just. And it's this rhetoric that is save this magnificent elephant. And yes, it is a magnificent. Just go back and see if you can go to images. Go to images now. Good. Scroll down, scroll down. Yeah, probably you're not going to see it, but I can probably find an image for you. On my. On my.

[B]

Yeah, I was going to say, or maybe the Madiqui on WhatsApp fence line.

[A]

Let me see if I can find something here.

[B]

There's one of those images up on the left. Yeah. I'm just wondering if you could find. That would be an interesting compare and contrast.

[A]

So it's just these. I. This idea that, oh, we should have done something, we're not going to do anything is here. Look at this craziness. There's the image.

[B]

Holy cow.

[A]

It's. It's. It's like.

[B]

It's.

[A]

It's night and day.

[B]

I'm gonna hit the Ford on this and see if I can. Should be able to airdrop it. Yeah, you could probably airdrop that to Michael.

[A]

All right, I'll airdrop that to you right now, buddy.

[B]

Yeah, because that's. That's a stark difference.

[A]

So it's just. And you. You speak to the rhetoric of, you know, sustainable use. And here I'm putting airdrop on. Send copy with airdrop. Should. Airdrop on.

[B]

Should be. Yeah.

[A]

Andy's.

[B]

Yep. Fire away.

[A]

All right.

[B]

It's more like Michael's imac, but.

[A]

You got it. Yep.

[B]

It's opening right now. Sweet. So first off, how awesome is airdrop?

[A]

Dude, I don't understand the technology.

[B]

I don't want to.

[A]

I don't understand it to work when.

[B]

I need it to work.

[A]

Unbelievable. So it is. It's this idea that. Look at that. Wow. Look at that. They call this Devil's Corner because mediqua goes up to the left and goes up to the right. But you can see the stark difference. Just look at the trees. It's. It's.

[B]

There is truly nothing left there for them to eat.

[A]

There's nothing left for anything to eat. Andy, it's not just elephants. You have sacrificed every other species of mammal. Insects, birds, vultures. Birds of prey that need large trees to nest in. All because.

[B]

Save the elephant.

[A]

You need to save that elephant.

[B]

So what's their move? What are they gonna do?

[A]

There is only one move.

[B]

I mean, you gotta kill some elephants.

[A]

You gotta kill a lot of elephants.

[B]

Yeah, that might be a PR nightmare for them, but maybe do that on a week where you don't have a lot of tours or.

[A]

But just. Again, let's logically think through this. What can you do? You can't translocate any.

[B]

Because I was gonna ask that. What if you cut a hole in the fence and they just happened to already.

[A]

I told you, South Africa doesn't need any more elephants. Nobody wants more elephants. So you'd have to send them to Angola or Zambia or. Which is probably. To move 30 elephants is probably 5.

[B]

Mil also, how well if they were emaciated would they tolerate the travel? How well would they be able to survive in a new area if they had to fight other element?

[A]

You know, so they are waiting on the reins. So let's just. I want to be sure that somebody's not going to point out what we're talking about and go, oh, you got. There's been a massive drought. That's what's happening. Yes, that is true. We are in a drought.

[B]

There's a drought on the other side.

[A]

Of the fence to 100%.

[B]

So.

[A]

100%? Yeah.

[B]

It would look better with rain, but the outside of the fence would still look way, way better.

[A]

There has been a lack of a logical approach to wildlife management, an approach that includes sustainable use. Medique took the position and not just Mediqua, the government. Because I think the government would be like how much could we sell an elephant for in Mediqui?

[B]

Probably a good amount.

[A]

25, 000 US absolutely. That's a lot of money.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the ecotourism lodges that are inside that are paying some bucks are like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want you hunting in here. And so they've put the pressure, the antes have put the pressure to say no sustainable use of wildlife is going to happen in Mediqui.

[B]

Then it will close.

[A]

Well, here's the result. Yeah, it's not going to close, but here's the result. Well, and no tourists take pictures of 100%.

[B]

Yeah. So in their desire to keep the hunting out of that. And again this isn't like a pro hunting stance and the desire to keep the hunting out. They're going to choke off the resources that they're using to sell for ecotourism which is going to terminate in them not having any ecotourism.

[A]

And his. Here's the be all and end all. The reason why they said no hunting in Mediqui is they believed that hunting tourism and photographic tourism were not compatible. Wherein they are actually very compatible. It works in many, many, many reserves all across South Africa and the African region in which you've got areas and you can coordinate it. Everyone's got radios.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That a hunting company is going to come in and they're going to very have a very limited quota. They're going to do things and nobody's going to know and they're going to generate significant revenue. There's a reserve called Timbavati in South Africa. They are a very high end ecotourism place. They do a phenomenal job but even on their website. If you go to the website, they've done the analysis. It's like 600 tourists. The amount of money 600 tourists brings to 60 hunters.

[B]

Yeah, that checks out.

[A]

It's just the amount of money that's coming in from hunting. They need it because Timber Vardy has rhinos. They need to protect those rhinos. Protection of rhinos in Africa right now is ludicrous. And the only way that people can protect rhinos is having massive revenue coming into the properties. You don't get massive revenue except very few places through photographic tourism. You get it from photographic tourism and hunting tourism working together.

[B]

There's parallels to the US too, for a US based listener. And you mentioned a lot of the species. So where we are, we're northwestern Montana grizzlies. And a hot topic in kind of this triangle of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. Wolves.

[A]

Wolves, Yep.

[B]

And just do a little research on what happened when they introduced the old wolvesies back in there. Holy shit.

[A]

Yeah, but I think wolves, again, the rhetoric. I always come back to rhetoric. Right. Because that's what they're. I'm listening to what they're saying. Yeah. They being the anti guys.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

The anti wolf management guys. The anti use guys. And they'll say again, save the wolf. Right. Wolves need saving. You can't delist wolves and relegate management of wolves back to the States. Because what's going to happen is we're going to return back to what it was 60 years ago in which wolves are extirpated from these landscapes, which I.

[B]

Don'T think is the case.

[A]

Dude, it's never going to happen.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And why do I. Why am I very confident in saying that? We've got a perfect case example. Idaho. Idaho has 1200-1400 wolves on the landscape every year. Okay. In Idaho you can do everything that you can imagine to hunt a wolf. Thermals, trapping, snaring, helicopter, all the tools. And a bounty. We won't call it a bounty, but an incentive.

[B]

As in they'll pay you for a. If you kill a wolf, essentially.

[A]

No, you kill a wolf. I think the foundation of. I think they're called the foundation of wildlife management or something. I could remember what their actual name is. It's a 501C3. And I know, I think you get 500 bucks a wolf.

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, yeah, something like that. What's it called? 750. 750.

[B]

You know why it's not 500 anymore? Because they need more wolves killed.

[A]

Well, these guys in Idaho only kill between I think it's like 400 on average every year.

[B]

Okay, that number will scare the. Out of people.

[A]

But it, but if, if, if the rhetoric was true, there should be no wolves in Idaho, but we still see 1200-1300 wolves in Idaho every single year. Yeah, we're not going back to extirpation. We're not going back to the wolves being endangered. We live in a different system. We live in a very highly regulated system. We don't live 60 years ago, 70 years ago, and wolves are getting, nowadays, I would argue, probably a lot smarter of an animal than it was 60 years ago.

[B]

I would agree.

[A]

From a persecution perspective.

[B]

They adapt just like we do. I. I understand people not wanting wolves to be hunted. Not that I. Again, that's another one where. Not really here nor there. It just. It doesn't spark my fire.

[A]

Doesn't spark my fire either. But I'm totally okay with somebody who wants to hunt a wolf.

[B]

I am too, because I understand the conservation and the management aspect of it. Grizzly bears is another one. Not really my jam. But if the people who. It's literally their job that specialize in this and they talk about holding capacity and, hey, we have grizzly bears coming into neighborhoods and being habituated to eating out of people's garbage cans. God. I watched a video on YouTube while we were on the trip. A guy was trying to open his card where he gingerly went up to it and roped something around the handle in the back because he pulled it out and the fricking bear comes around.

[A]

Like a Toyota Hilux. Yes.

[B]

I think that was a black bear, though. But that's kind of the same thing because, you know, blacks and browns and again, not my. Not my cup of tea. And I also understand, though, why people, they look at that, you know, especially with the. Oh, God, this isn't it. But I'm sure it's exactly the same thing.

[A]

It's pretty much the same.

[B]

My question is, how'd the bear get in the car?

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. This they're doing. Trying to do the same thing from a long way away.

[B]

Oh, my. That big old black.

[A]

A big old black bear.

[B]

Is that a black.

[A]

Yeah, it's a brown. It's a black bear. It's just a color phase. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

I would have had a rope that was several times longer than that. Blacks. I have been around blacks enough that I by no means have a laissez faire attitude around them. I have shared space with a grizz one time, and I instantly realized I was the bitch in that situation 100%. Like, I'm gonna go ahead and back away. Excuse me, sir. I'm sorry that you haven't seen me, but I'm gonna go ahead and sneak my happy ass out of here.

[A]

Yeah, I don't know why, but, like, African animals like lions and leopards, buffalo, elephants, they don't scare me as much as a grizzly scares me.

[B]

Have you heard about the mountain biker.

[A]

Story with grizzly bears?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

No.

[B]

Michael, this is actually a good time because I've told this story many times and I think it's true, but I'm also retelling it.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

There was an incident. It was up here, I think it was in the last 10 years, of a mountain biker using a ski mountain, you know, in the summer months coming down and there was a grizzly bear in the trail. He ran into it and it swatted his head off.

[A]

His head off. No. No way.

[B]

I have heard this story.

[A]

No way. Like, clean off. No, that's.

[B]

That's the Internet.

[A]

That's Hollywood stuff.

[B]

Maybe. Well, he died for sure. Whether his head was still intact is the only question.

[A]

I can imagine him like getting his neck broke, but not severed.

[B]

I mean, maybe this bear was excellent in both timing and placement. I'm not sure. But what I am sure, though is he ran into the bear and he is dead.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it doesn't say anything about his.

[A]

Head, but yeah, he full on ran.

[B]

Into the bear and like center punched a fucking grizzly bear on a mountain bike coming around a blown blind turn and that was the last of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I have heard from a couple people that it was his head. I've also heard there is a good chance I will likely continue telling the story in that manner.

[A]

Even though you just heard the truth.

[B]

I have not demonstrably had it shown to me that it isn't true.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Some. I mean, is it. He did die. Yeah. I don't want a Tim Kennedy that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know. You know what I mean, Michael?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Precision matters, right? Maybe it did. Maybe it did.

[A]

Maybe it did.

[B]

We'll let the reader figure that out. The listener decided for themselves.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Grizzes are up here. The guy who makes my T shirts for the podcast, he has them in his yard. Sometimes they put them in those big metal containers and they take them away and they come back. I mean, at some point in time, especially as the population grows, they're just getting pushed around and pushed out and. Yeah, I don't want to go outside and see grizzly bear in My garbage.

[A]

Well, it's tough now because you have to be uber aware in the landscapes that you want to. You want to recreate in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Versus. And I understand grizzlies being back on the landscape. I totally get it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But there's also now a social element that is. There's again, this is stuff that's happening all over the world. There's more humans, more people in the landscape, more people pushing against habitats in the landscape. And so you have to constantly be thinking, how do we, how do we coexist here? How do humans and wildlife coexist? Because the world isn't. It isn't the sea of the sea of Habitat anymore with like islands of humanity.

[B]

Yeah, it's everywhere.

[A]

It's a sea of humanity now with these pressures and pushes on, these islands of habitat, these pockets of habitat. Though you may think like the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, you know, it's 10 million acres. Yeah. It's big. But it's still being pushed on. It's been still being pressured on from.

[B]

Pretty much every direction too. Yeah, yeah. A little small excursions into their little carving out here, carving out there, but it's all just being kind of molded.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Same thing for in Africa, same thing in New Zealand. And so again, when you start thinking about, I think about it, land use, like a gradient of land use. You look across the world and you say, okay, what land use percentage wise, out of 100% is pro habitat? What do you think is the number?

[B]

Single digits?

[A]

Yeah, I would say probably 5% of 100% is for habitat. So now let's extrapolate that 5% out. So what under that 5% constitutes something that's going to protect habitat. You've got your carbon credit, biodiversity credit models that are coming out of the EU that are being buying up big swaths of land. Okay, You've got your wilderness slot, which is your Bob Marshall Wilderness, your jungles in Africa, your vast open areas in Alaska and Canada. Okay. Then you've got a philanthropic model, which is big philanthropic organizations around the world paying big bucks to save habitat. Right. Then you've got your photographic tourism guys that are paying money to go into different areas. And then you've got hunting tourism.

[B]

That's it.

[A]

Those are your only tools in the toolbox.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To save habitat, which at the end of the day is the most fundamental thing that you need for wildlife conservation. Without habitat, you've got nothing. So forget wildlife for a second. Let's just focus on habitat. Those five things are the things that protects habitat. Out of 100%, we're talking about 5%. So why would you ever be against any of those tools in your toolbox for wildlife conservation? If you were a true wildlife conservationist and you're truly interested in saving wildlife and perpetuating wildlife for your kids and your grandkids to see one day, why would you be against those tools? Especially since we have such a limited toolbox at our disposal.

[B]

Yeah, I can't give you a reason why you should be or would be. I mean, here's the most important question. How the did you meet ag?

[A]

So before we answer that massive shout out to ag, Greg, you know actually his.

[B]

The toehold flip flops, which people can about the price all they want to. A lot of them are very unique leathers and skins and that actually does tie into the conservation as well because it's bringing value to the animal.

[A]

Post 100. So that's what, that's how I connected with ag.

[B]

Something to do with the.

[A]

I saw a post about sustainable leathers. Actually I saw a post where he says, I invest in anti poaching work in Africa.

[B]

Did he do that in the writing underneath a picture of like a chick with her tits out though? Because.

[A]

So have you heard of.

[B]

It's very confusing marketing.

[A]

Have you heard of the Purple Cow? The book the Purple Cow? I don't even know. No, no cow. How are you not hearing cow cow?

[B]

I don't know this, but you sound like you're from a different planet.

[A]

So there's a book called the Purple Cow.

[B]

Okay, I have not heard of that or the Purple Cow, in case there is one.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think ag's heard about the book Purple Cow either. But the Purple Cow. The whole premise of the Purple Cow book is that if you look out in the field of Jersey cows, there's one cow that's a purple cow.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

And they stand out from a marketing perspective. And AG is a purple cow because he sells flip flops, but really all he has on his Instagram is tits and ass.

[B]

Yeah, okay, that is accurate.

[A]

But the guy sells thousand dollar flip flops that he's got a four month waiting list to fulfill. If there isn't a purple cow out there, that is it.

[B]

The number of guys I know who will say, hey, I love your site but I can't follow you guys because my wife will kill me.

[A]

So. So he posted something about anti poaching and leathers and I was like, dude, I want to. I want to talk to you. Yeah, because I want to. I want to know more about.

[B]

So deeply connected.

[A]

And so I went to Vegas and sat down and we had a podcast about sustainable leathers. And his leathers are elephant. He uses elephant a lot. He uses hippo a lot. Starts using. He's using a little bit of crocodile, ostrich, stingray, sharks. All sustainably harvested, all sustainably sourced. And so we just got into that, and I said, man, ag, I've got some super contacts in South Africa and Zimbabwe that I'd like to help you with. And he told me that one of his most. The greatest selling set of flip flops that he has ever sold with a murder hippo. Flip flops.

[B]

I know somebody who has a murder hippo purse.

[A]

Okay. And so the murder hippo is a hippo that was a problem animal that was killing people in Africa.

[B]

And he got the skin, hence the murder.

[A]

And so I said to him, I said, look, I know a lot of people in Africa that deal with problem animals all the time. Yeah. So whilst I was in South Africa, we found a number of problem hippos. So he's very picky on his hippo hide, supposedly.

[B]

I'm sorry, I'm already ideating a new business tranche for him. It should be the normals, and then we should have the murder category. So people. And I don't want to tell people what to get, but they can pick and choose whatever speaks to their heart.

[A]

Exactly. And so the. Probably the. The one that is easiest to get is crocodile. Yeah. And so the picture that I showed you. And I'm not airdropping this to you, Michael, because I showed you it earlier.

[B]

Can I describe it?

[A]

You can describe it.

[B]

It is the underbelly. It's a crocodile, Right?

[A]

Crocodile. There's no alligators in Africa.

[B]

Underbelly of a crocodile split. There was no tail in it, but I'm gonna assume from tail to throat.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And what was pulled out of it was a human arm.

[A]

Human arm.

[B]

And you can fill in your imagination on how that got onto the inside.

[A]

Yeah. So crocodiles do not see humans as threat, just see them as feud. And so in Africa, people in rural Africa are dependent on water sources for their drinking, for their bathing, for their washing, Everything that we take for granted in the dry season. So at the end of the dry season, everyone knows where the water is, and they all know where the crocs are. As the rains come, more water comes available. And so. But they. So they go to new water sources. But crocs also move to new water sources. And so these big crocs These big lizards just take people left, right and center. And so there are people, specialist people in Zimbabwe, in Mozambique, in South Africa that will get issued permits by the government to eradicate problem animals.

[B]

How do they identify one croc from the other? I mean, if there's a bunch of them and somebody does get snatched from the shore, how do you find that one?

[A]

It's difficult. More often than not there is a single crocodile that is in the area. Everyone knows about the animal because these guys are people. Yeah, murking people. But also they are very familiar with these guys obviously know the land, they know the waters, they know the animals. And they're like this guy, this is the problem guy right here. This is the problem guy. And if you take the problem guy out and people are still getting smashed, then obviously you hit the wrong guy more often than not. That takes care of the problem. And so you've got. And again, I talk about this all the time because I live it, my life lives this right when you. There was a post put up by one of the biggest anti hunting charities is a charity called Karmagawa. A lot of people don't actually realize when they follow it, they don't actually know what it is. And a guy called Timothy Sykes runs Karmagawa completely anti hunting. And so they'll use, they'll use pictures of hunting trophy pictures to generate money for their wildlife conservation efforts. I don't know where their wildlife conservation efforts go and where the money goes, but for instance, they had a picture of a huge crocodile strung up in the tree and there was a white guy standing next to it. Yeah, okay. Not the greatest picture, but I knew the crocodile, I knew the hunter, I knew everyone in that picture. I knew everything about that picture. And so they posted. We get tagged into it just like I talked to you about. We'll write a big rhetoric and what I'll do after it is I'll go through the comments to see if there's anybody that I know that's commented. I. E. Did Andy Stump say, oh, this is disgusting?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because I didn't see the post.

[A]

You did not. You did not. But a very good friend of mine today, Jen Wiederstrom. Jen Wiederstrom was the one of the original coaches of the Biggest Loser. She's been at winter strong. She's in the Birdsorin summer strong circles kind of thing. Oh, sorry about that.

[B]

You're good.

[A]

And she commented, how disgusting. How can humans be so terrible something. So I DM'd her. I said, Jen, you don't know Me, but we run in the same circles. I know this person, you know this person kind of thing. I said, they didn't tell you the true story about this crocodile. There were six pairs of shoes in that crocodile's belly when they opened it. And she said, oh, my gosh, that's unbelievable. That's horrifying. Why didn't they tell us?

[B]

The answer to that question is in the question.

[A]

Because that wouldn't have fit with their narrative and what they want to do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so from a crocodile perspective, again, let's be logical. What do you want to do in these scenarios? Do you want to help people? That is save the crocodile. Let's go back to that. Save the crocodile. You shouldn't be hunting these guys. You shouldn't be killing these guys. Okay. They're taking people. They're killing people. They're taking mothers away from their children. They're taking fathers away from their children. They're leaving people destitute. So we should do nothing? No. Should we take them out? Probably 99% of people would say yes in that scenario, Especially if it was.

[B]

Targeted problem animal was habituated towards doing those things.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So that's step number one. What's the value add to step number one? The value add to step number one is that a hunter come in, spend US$18,000 killing a man eater, solves the community's problem and multiplies it with a massive economic injection that could then fund schools, that could then fund medical, that could then do all sorts of things.

[B]

And ag makes flip flops.

[A]

And going back to ag, hopefully we can get a couple of these skins out of these crocodiles out of Zimbabwe.

[B]

Well, walk me upstream from. Because he's briefly talked to me about it a little bit.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

His production.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Upstream towards the actual animal itself. How does that process play itself out?

[A]

So as I understand it, and don't kill me ag if I get it wrong, but what he's doing is he's got a broker that is sourcing leathers from all different parts of the world. Most of these leathers. So for instance, if it's a Zimbabwe leather, an elephant leather, those animals were problem animals. And so they're being taken out by outfitters, operators, government workers, because a community has said, hey, we've got an elephant. It just took out all of our crops. It just destroyed the borehole. Come in, take it out. They take out the elephant, they take the panels of skin off of the elephant. All of the meat gets used by the community. Yep. That's another Fallacy. Everyone goes, right, nobody's going to eat elephant. I've been next to a dead elephant. They started a fire right then and there. They started cooking meat immediately. It is utilized to the nth degree. That is, again, a lot of rural Africans have very, very little access to protein, if no access to protein. So the whole meat scenario from an elephant, a problem. Elephant, elephant is going to be utilized by the community. The skins typically are never utilized because there is no industry. Again, from a value add proposition. There is no industry in Zimbabwe because the aunties are saying, you can't use elephants, you're not allowed to use elephant, you're not allowed to drive a value from elephants. So what, what happens is these panels of skin then go to the government, the government then puts them into their tanneries. The government tans these skins and then they're offered and used as a trade mechanism out.

[B]

Is there a black market for that as well?

[A]

No, not really.

[B]

I was going to say that would be a tough one.

[A]

No, not really. Yeah, there's not really. You know, again, that, that's, that bothers me a lot when that sort of, the illegalness gets roped in with the legal aspect of regulated hunting. You know, for instance, the Fish and Wildlife Service right now has a petition out or proposal out for listing of giraffes, quote, unquote, Appendix two or Appendix one endangered. And they list the Southern African giraffe in there because of likeness to endangered Western African giraffes and Eastern African giraffes. And you're like, why are you putting a species of giraffe, a subspecies of giraffe, in the same category as all these others that are doing a shit job, doing a terrible job because they're not utilizing it and you are hamstringing the people that are doing a great job that are protecting giraffes, that are sustaining giraffes, that are increasing the population of these giraffes. And you're saying, we're going to put an extra hurdle on you. We're going to put an extra permit hurdle on you just because of potential illegal activities due to likeness. It makes no sense. You're hamstringing the people that are doing the conservation work that you're supposed to be for Fish and Wildlife Service.

[B]

How did you get started in all this?

[A]

So my, my grandfather. I've got a good story for you after. Once I finished this, this question. My grandfather immigrated to Mozambique in the 1950s. Where from? From Germany. My grandfather was. When he, he was born in Russia. And when he went across to Germany when he was 18 years old, this is 1939, 1938, 1939. And he has. His family is in northern Germany and Hamburg at the time. And he needed to get a job. And so his job was he became one of the members of the Jugant Luftwaffe. The Jurgen Luftwaffe is the Youth Flying Brigade. At the time, Hitler was not allowed to have any military units. And so he created these like youth education camps or whatnot. And my grandfather was part of that. He was part of the Jurgen Luftwaffe.

[B]

I don't know if this is the start to a good story.

[A]

No, it, it's.

[B]

I feel like you're loading up that your grandfather was a Nazi.

[A]

No, no, no. So he, he told, he remember telling me a story where he was holding hands with his. The guys that were in the Jugan Luftwaffe and Hitler went past in Hamburg. Anyway, he left when the war broke out in 41. His uncle said, you need to get out of town. And he went back to Russia and so married my grandmother. Long story short, he decided screw winter. He's never going to go through winter anymore. And he immigrated the whole family from Germany to Mozambique in the. In the early 50s.

[B]

Had he ever been or he's are we dart against a map.

[A]

He remembers when he was five years old, sitting in a dentist offer in Russia, dentist's office in Russia. And there was this colored illustration book of Africa. All these fucking wildlife. And he's like, that's where I want to go, all right? And he took the whole family there and imagine landing in Africa in the early 50s. It was the heyday of Africa was Portuguese East Africa at the time, Portuguese colony, extremely well off, abundant wildlife. Like you talk about. Like there was Africa of Africa.

[B]

No people like the way people used to talk about bison here before we just Hemingway.

[A]

It's the Hemingway days. It's the Roosevelt days of Africa, right? I get goosebumps thinking about it. They would load up the Unimog for three weeks and go into the hinterland and take a 50 gallon casket of white wine. And that's what they would have. And they would go. My father would hunt. My father was a 16 year old and he would hunt impala in the morning for liver, for breakfast. That was what my grandfather wanted. You go hunting impala every morning. You bring him back, we cut the liver out of it. Obviously the meat is going to be used for the camp and that's what we're going to eat. And they went elephant hunting, leopard hunting, buffalo hunting would come back to the rivers. They would come back to their camp at night and the, the camp staff would know that they would dig this huge hole in the river bank. There was no water in the river, but if you dug down into the sand, water would percolate into these little pools and these guys would come hunt. We're hunting all day long and they literally just strip down naked and get into this pool of water and they'd have the gin and tonics in the middle of Africa.

[B]

I mean, that is slightly gay, but I'm here for it.

[A]

It was amazing. Yeah, it was. That was Africa of Africa.

[B]

A bunch of dudes in a sand hot tub with gin and tonics with no clothing around.

[A]

They loved it.

[B]

That is crossing some barriers and boundaries.

[A]

So he was a huge hunter. And I never got to hunt growing up as a kid because I grew up in Johannesburg, eight and a half million people. And so all I got was stories, written stories. I never got like I would have expected to sit at my grandfather's big leather arm back chair with the fire roaring and him telling escapades of elephant hunting or leopard hunting or driving boats down rivers drunk and hippos overturning the boats and stuff which happened. But he never talked about it. He was never like an audio guy. It was more of a written story guy. Didn't think about hunting, didn't know anything about it. And then I came to the States to do a PhD and two years into my PhD, I met a very good friend of mine, one of my best mates. Now Landon Lee, who's, you know, 6 foot 6, 230 pound redneck, you hadn't.

[B]

Hunted up until this point?

[A]

Nothing. I'd hunted doves twice. That was it.

[B]

I mean, are we really going to call that hunting? Sorry, dove hunters?

[A]

Not really. Not really. I didn't know about it. I did nothing. And so this guy says to me.

[B]

But even though in Jburg, so eight and a half million people, nothing, there was never even a chance to go somewhere and hunt or the, the community.

[A]

That I was within. Nobody hunted, okay. Nobody talked about hunting. Well, I wanted to be a game ranger.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's where my love of wildlife came in South Africa. Every young boy wants to be a policeman, a fireman, a lawyer, and also a game ranger. You want to be the Land Rover jockey, that's. There's an elephant. You see that bush? It'll give you, it'll take care of your toothache, you know, kind of thing. And so I got to deer hunt for the first time in Mississippi. And that was it, you know, that was my beginnings of, of hunting. And as I got, you know, finished my PhD, got a job. Got a better job. Got a better job. Obviously your hunting arena starts expanding.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And I start thinking about this and I want to go hunt that. And then I had two boys. I've got two little savages now. Savage little anymore. They're 12 and 11, but at the time there were five and four. When I started thinking about this thing and I was like, man. And I started rereading my grandfather's stories and there was a story of him in Khabarovsk, which is the town that he was born in, in Russia. And he would go out of town to go hunt geese. And he talks about bringing geese home as like a 12 year old boy to the family and being so proud to bring these geese home. Right. And I was like, man, I wonder if we can go back to Cabarros today and do you think we can still hunt geese today?

[B]

Probably like not today maybe, but when you were thinking about this story, it was probably a little bit more tenable for you.

[A]

True, true.

[B]

They're a little busy over there right now.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So it's like. And then he wrote names of people in these stories and I was like, can we find that person or a relative of that person and talk to them? And that's how sort of the idea of storytelling came about. I'm not a. I'm not. I wasn't. I don't have a cinematography background, I don't have a videography background. I'm a scientist. But I have a creative side to my science, which is how do we communicate science, what we do, how we do it, how we implement it, the results of it. To somebody who has no idea, I.

[B]

Think that's equally as an important step as the science itself. Otherwise you're talking in an echo chamber to the few people that understand. I don't want to use the term obscure, but let's just say topics that may be a little bit more difficult for people to understand or reach.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If without that storyteller bridge, it's like.

[A]

Well, that's what's happened. You know, hunting and hunters are supposed to be the best storytellers in the world and we've forgotten about it.

[B]

Not everybody's really great at telling stories.

[A]

Well, sitting around a campfire in a hunting camp, you know, you can tell.

[B]

Them to other hunters in that setting. It's. It's the story that bridges to the people who will never experience it.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

But they could develop an appreciation 100%.

[A]

So that's where we started at. And we just started telling. I wanted to tell a hunter's story. I wanted to tell the heart of a hunter. And I wanted to tell it in such a way that would really be gripping. And so at the time I was teaching Sunday school with my wife and I was using this Christian testimonial platform called I Am Second. I don't know if you've ever heard about it.

[B]

I have not.

[A]

So I Am Second is this way. It's this, this film project that films Christian testimonial projects. And it's this white chair. It's got this one light. There's no B roll. All you do is they just focus and looks like there's 50 cameras around them. It's a straight on interview. It's not a quarter turn interview to the camera, just straight into straight on. Looking at the lens, it's super uncomfortable to watch it. They get really emotional. It's super authentic. It's super full of integrity. And the one. And I remember watching this eight years ago and it was a guy called Josh Hamilton. Josh Hamilton was the pitcher for the Texas Rangers. Okay. Drafted out of high school as a pitcher when you're 17 or 18 years old. He got into a massive. And this is me recalling when I watched this video eight years ago. I haven't watched it since. That's how impactful it was to me that he was in a car accident with his parents. His parents both died in the car accident. He turned to drugs and alcohol to cope. And he remembers. And he was living with his grandmother at the time. And he remembers going to bed and having a dream and he was fighting the devil in his dream and he was losing and he thought that, man, I'm gonna die in my dream. And he woke up and he was so scared that he climbed at his 26 year old kid. 26 year old. He climbed into the bed with his grandmother and said, I need to sleep with you tonight when you sleep in this bed with you. And so he gave his life over to Christ. He's got his whole testimonial and then he changed his vice from drugs and alcohol to tattoos. And now he's got tattoos everywhere, I bet. And he remembers going to bed and having the same dream again. And he started beating the devil. And he's communicating this through this video platform.

[B]

By himself.

[A]

By himself. There's no on those questions. And you're just like, oh man, unbelievable. I was like, imagine a hunter communicated like that. Imagine a hunter could explain themselves their why. Just like that. I said, okay, let's do it. That's what I want it to look like. And so we've done 83 today.

[B]

Oh, that's awesome.

[A]

Of those kinds of stories, what's been.

[B]

The most powerful one you've heard?

[A]

Ah, this. It's, It's. It's the single toughest question that people ask me.

[B]

Probably because they're all awesome.

[A]

They're all different. Yeah, right. They're all different. Like, we've got Jeff Rowley, who's the professional skateboarder out of California.

[B]

Which one spoke to you the most?

[A]

I think the one that has most meaning to me, not spoke to me because they're all. They all have different whys. And I've got it. I've got a unique why. And when it speaks to me, then that person's why resonates with my why. But the one that speaks more most to me is that I was. It was really early on was a guy called Cuz Strickland. He lives in Mississippi. And it happened to be that my parents were visiting Mississippi at the time. And I said to Cuz, I said, hey, cuz, would you mind my dad coming with us to film you? He's like, no problems. And then he says, would you like your. Would your dad like to hunt? And at this time, I've never hunted with my dad, only the dove hunting. I've never done big game hunting.

[B]

I said, man, that'd be amazing for big game hunted.

[A]

He hadn't hunted since the mid-60s, okay. In Africa. Hadn't shot a gun since the mid-60s. So he comes, we deer hunt, and on the way up there, my dad says to me, he says, what's this whole blood origins thing? And I explain. He's like, I don't get it. Old school dad.

[B]

I was just gonna say, you gotta love your dad.

[A]

Old school.

[B]

Like, you know, that sounds like a fucking stupid idea. Thanks, dad.

[A]

Old school. And so we hunza. We didn't get anything. The next morning I sat down Cuz and I interviewed Cuz. And my dad was sitting on a rocking chair behind me. And once I'd finished, I stood up and I went back to him and I said, how was that? And he goes, now I understand. Now I understand. So later that afternoon, we got in a deer blind and three does stepped out probably 90, 95 yards. I said, dad, can you see him? And he's like looking through the scope, and he's looking up. Looking through the scope and looking up. I was like, oh, My God. And I said, you see the one on the left? Yep, yep, yep. I said, just. She's broadside right now. Just. You do what you need to do. Gun goes off. We all look at each other going, he missed. And now he's got a bad back. And I'm like, look, just stay right here. We're gonna go look for blood. Just stay right here. So we go down the food plot, can't find blood. We go. Did a big circle. And as we do the big circle, like 30 yards, all we see is a white belly. I was like, oh, my God, he did it. He killed it. And I. And we're hooping and hollering and hugging each other, and all I hear is the old man going, what are you. What are you yelling about? I was like, what are you doing over here? He's hobbling down the food plot. I said, you killed it? He's like, I did. I said, yep. And the guy hadn't shot a rifle since the mid-60s, and he shot it in the heart. I was like, damn. Okay. And so that, to me, is the most meaningful thing because I never, ever after that, I've never hunted with my dad again. That was the only time I ever got down to them. And he died, you know, three years ago. And so, interestingly, I told you I had a really good story before I started talking about my grandfather. And it actually happened to me yesterday as I was flying up here. You are proponent, obviously, of guns, and you have probably good stories of guns.

[B]

I have, good and bad.

[A]

Do you have what would be the oldest gun that you own? Do you know?

[B]

Oh, I am not somebody who collects antiques, so any gun I have would be of the modern era.

[A]

Okay. Okay. So my grandfather, as I told you, was a. A storyteller, wrote a bunch of stories. One of the stories that he wrote that I've read lots of times is called Guns in My Life. And one of those guns is a.270 Seiko that I have from the 1960s. And then he talks about a.416 caliber that he bought off of a Portuguese woman whose husband used it to kill somebody. And he bought it from her because he needed a big game rifle to hunt buffalo with, and he wasn't comfortable with a.375. He wanted a.416 Rigby caliber or higher. So he got this gun, talks about it. It moved from my grandfather to an individual in the mid-90s as a loaning of the gun. Mozambique had gone through a revolution at that time. He had to get Rid of his guns or smuggle them out to South Africa. And so we talked to this guy in the mid-90s saying, hey, could we get the gun? This is 1993. I've got a fax from my grandfather, my father, February 16, 1993, that says, we're loaning you this.416 caliber. Here's the serial number. Let us know when we can get this rifle back. Rifle disappeared.

[B]

Shocker.

[A]

Until three years ago.

[B]

No way.

[A]

Three years ago. Because blood origins has been. I've been talking about my grandfather, been talking about my. This gun. I. There was two professional hunters sitting in the Orange Free State. It's the middle of South Africa, in the middle of nowhere, sitting around a fire, talking, having stories. And this guy Rudy says, hey, let me tell you about this gun. And James goes, oh, tell me about it. And Rudy goes, oh, it belonged to a guy called Leo Kroger in Mozambique. And James says, what? Who did you just say? He said, leo Kroger. He says, that's Robbie Kroger's grandfather. And Rudy goes, I don't know who Robbie Kroger is. James goes, I know who Robbie Kroger is. And he leaves me an Instagram voice note that says, I think I found your grandfather's gun. Send me pictures. Send me my grandfather's book. Send me everything. I was like, okay, I don't know how to validate that this is the gun. Okay, can we find the guy in the mid-90s? Did you sell the gun? We found the guy in the mid-90s within two days. Yes, I sold the gun. Okay, now let's find the serial number. Oh. Unbelievably, after five moves two different continents, I still physically have the facts from 1993 that had the serial number 1911. And the gun had a serial number 1911. It's the gun.

[B]

No way.

[A]

So last November, I go back to South Africa for the annual general meetings of hunting associations. I meet Rudy. I buy the gun, I touch the gun. We podcast about the gun. I'm going to export the gun now. Export it, send it to the. The companies, get everything lined up, get shipped. In May, middle of June, I get a notification from the exporter. Guns gone missing. Guns gone. I said, how is it gone? It got scanned into the airplane in Johannesburg. Did not get scanned off the plane in Atlanta. So I said, okay, I know what happened. It went up the ramp in Johannesburg. They took the picture. It then got taken off the ramp and got given to a rhino poacher because it's a 416. Rigby, I know what happened. Not giving my money back. No, we're not giving you money back. Delta closed the the case mid September. Confined this year. Okay, this year, mid September. So now I've been in South Africa for three and a half weeks, and at the custodians agm, Annual general meeting of a professional hunting association. I meet a guy who's a big fan of blood origins. His name is Peter Erasmus. Peter works for Badger Cargo. That's his company in the cargo business. And I tell Peter about my gun going missing, my grandfather's gun going missing. He's like, oh, will you share the waybill number with me? Let me do some digging? Yeah. I said, sure. Sent him everything last Thursday. And he sends me an email three days ago which says, your gun was labeled to go here. Documents were labeled to go somewhere else. So the gun has no documents. The documents have no gun. The airplane left Atlanta, left Johannesburg. It stopped in Cape Town. It stopped in San Jose. Your gun was in a compartment with nine other guns. The eight. Eight guns were passenger cargo guns. Yours was. Or passenger luggage. Yours was labeled as cargo. We're still investigating. I was like, geez, how do you find all that information?

[B]

Yeah, that's way farther down the road than you were before.

[A]

Wait, so 7:30 yesterday morning, I get on the plane from Memphis, Tennessee, to Salt Lake City, and Peter Erasmus calls me, and he goes, when next are you going to be in Atlanta? I said, please tell me what you're saying is true. Yeah. And he goes, I found your gun.

[B]

Where was it?

[A]

It was, as we suspected, labeled as passenger luggage.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And just unclaimed. Sitting in unclaimed luggage in Atlanta. And so he sent me a picture, and so it's on the plane to come to Memphis next week.

[B]

No way. That is amazing.

[A]

And so I'm gonna get it back.

[B]

Is that hard to import a firearm?

[A]

It's not difficult. You just got to get your pillow.

[B]

Yeah. What are you gonna do with it?

[A]

Oh, I'm gonna kill buffalo with it.

[B]

I was gonna say you should go squirrel hunting or something like that.

[A]

So my father. You can't hunt buffalo right now. My grandfather hunted bu. Flow in a place called the Sa river in Mozambique.

[B]

So if you get here to the U.S. is it difficult to travel with it back to Africa to hunt with her? That's pretty straightforward.

[A]

Straightforward. Okay, again, paperwork.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. Airlines that will accept moving guns to.

[B]

Be familiar with people traveling over there to hunt 100.

[A]

Yeah. You've just got to take the risk that I'm Gonna now put this gun that has now come back into my position.

[B]

I was gonna say man that you're rolling the dice again.

[A]

Exactly. Anyway I thought that would be a cool story for you that it just happened l. Yesterday.

[B]

How hard is it to find ammo for that thing?

[A]

Nothing. 416 Rigby is easy. Is it?

[B]

I am.

[A]

Yeah. Everyone, any everyone creates a 416 Rigby. It's a very, very popular caliber for big game. For big game animals.

[B]

People would think given my background that I am a super a gun nerd. I'm not. People would, you know, hey, did you ever, you know, hand load your ammo or any of this stuff? Like it came in a metal green box that had a cardboard brown box and I put that in my backpack and if the gun went bang, the gun was good.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm familiar with the calibers that I used and my theory actually for hunting is given that I'm an idiot and I will do things like leaving for a hunting trip without any ammo, I need to be able to stop somewhere local, at least in the US to pick stuff up. So. 301 mag. I can find that anywhere.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

416. I don't know. I've never looked for it. But I'm going to start now.

[A]

You can find it.

[B]

I bet you.

[A]

I probably could.

[B]

Yeah. I feel like that's a big round.

[A]

It's an okay round.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not a 458 lot. It's not a 500 Nitro Express. It's not a 600 Jeffrey. It's a good solid big game round.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And people, you know, obviously there's arguments. Just like a six five Creedmore to 308.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

There's big arguments in the dangerous game community. What is the best caliber? Well, the best caliber is in the hands of the right shooter. Putting it in the right place.

[B]

I am a firm believer that accuracy is far more important than caliber. Just this last hunting season was a good example. Had a friend. There's a huge. There is. That's not a huge debate because the hunting community. I'm not going to call it huge, but there's a debate. 65 Creedmoor versus Elk. I have killed a few Elk with a 65 Creedmoor. But you have to hit it. Soft tissue. You can't. It's not probably going to go through the front shoulder which is the experience that we had in Utah and never to be seen again. Never found a drop of blood with a friend of mine.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

It'd be like oh, it gotta be six'five prc because it'll punch through like. Yeah. Or you could just back it towards the hips just a few inches and just go straight through both sides and you're gonna be okay.

[A]

And get close enough that, you know, even more deadly.

[B]

Indeed. So how, when you came to the US you were getting your PhD, did you keep a good connection with where you had come from in Jayburg, where you're going back and forth because it seems like you're deeply tied into South Africa and hunting and all that? How did you put that back together?

[A]

It's just, it's. It's the magic of social media, really. Honestly, like, the people that I know working, the people I know now, the places I get to see now, is far beyond what I was doing when I was living in South Africa. Wow. And it's just because nobody has ever decided to do what we set out to do, which is, let's just. Let's just showcase you guys for what you actually do. You've got a conservation project. Hey, we want to build a soccer field. Let's build a soccer field. John X Safaris, Eastern Cape. Let's build a soccer field and let's tell the world about it. It's called Everyone deserves to play. And you talk about giving people education, you give people medical. How about giving people joy?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Giving people the sense of, you know, hope and laughter, of being able to play soccer on a flat field with.

[B]

No rocks for a lot of people, I feel like, and it sucks to say this, I feel like they may have a difficulty in understanding joy and soccer in the connection between the two, because we are stimulus bombarded. Whereas, like we talked about. I think we opened with just talking about the stark difference between essentially the have and the have not.

[A]

So there's just. I'm complete. I'm every, you know, daily. The. The amount of stuff that comes into this phone in terms of the mole network that we have around the world now, in terms of, hey, this is happening. Oh, did you see this happening? Did you see this? You need to talk about this. Here's a story for you. Oh, here's a project for you.

[B]

How do you decide which ones you're gonna devote your attention to versus the ones that they may seem interesting, but you just don't have the bandwidth.

[A]

So in the beginning, it was just yes to everything because we needed to.

[B]

Establish that only lasts so long.

[A]

Yeah. So now. So now you get a feel for it. Like when somebody approaches you with X, it's almost like immediate, like, oh, yes, I'm in. You don't even have to tell me anything else. I'm in. Or it's like this, I, I've got a feeling like there's something else there and I'll push back and I'll be like, hey, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this. And they'll typically won't come back with what I need. And so they'll just disappear into the wind. Or we'll just say yes, sounds great, just a little busy right now and we'll put it on the back burner. And so that's the, that's the sort of the train that we're on right now. So we've got. If somebody had to cut us off today. So we're 501C3, we're a non profit so it's completely tax deductible donations to what we do. If somebody said to me, you're done today, we've probably got content, enough content on the shelf in post production, in pre planning or just filmed that could last to the end of 2026.

[B]

How many people do you have working for you now through them?

[A]

Just me really, but we've got contractors. So that's the model we have is that I've got everyone I need, I've got the best, as I say, we've got a stable of the best cinematographers in the world. I've got. Our main team is a team out of the, out of Wales called Slots media. They do 90 of my work. Africa, New Zealand, they come to the States. There's another great team in North Carolina called Land Limited. They do great work. Land Limited. One of the things that we were very known for this year. I don't know if you came across your radar or not, but obviously Colorado came across your radar, right? Proposition 127 and pushing back against this ban of, of hunting. We saw this coming three years ago we looked around the corner with the help of folks out of Colorado and we said we need to do what we do best for Colorado. So we built a film called Lionheart. And Lionheart was talking to the non hunting majority about what a lion houndsman is, what their heart looks like and what their relationship is with their dogs and their hounds and the lion itself. And we, we, we timed it perfectly. The initiative came through, it went to the ballot, we dropped Lionheart in September, October, time frame leading up to the elections in November. And we certainly had an influence in changing people's minds and certainly had an influence in spanking them by 11. Hell yeah, we spanked them. It wasn't just by 1%. Yeah, by 11.

[B]

So in 2025, Lions will be back on the docket. Not, not that, not the voting doc. I should say back on the ability to hunt.

[A]

Yeah. They were never off. Okay, they were never off, but they.

[B]

Were threatening to be.

[A]

The petition was we're going to ban the hunting of mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado. And the. And the public of Colorado stood up and said, no, we're going to let scientists do the wildlife managing. We're not going to let the ballot box do the managing for us. We're not going to let the public manage lines. We're going to let the scientists CPW do their job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it wasn't just by 30,000 votes, which is what the wolf. With the wolf reintroduction that we lost by 39,000 votes. It was like less than a percent.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This time we won by almost 400,000 votes. 11%. But that's not going to be the end of it. So Randy, they've already started nibbling around the edges in Arizona. So they went to Arizona, same people behind the scenes, and they petitioned the commission in Arizona to say, we want you to ban the use of dogs of hounds for mountain lion hunting.

[B]

Do you think the people that are on the opposition of this, is it a moral position for them? What do you think that drives them? Just an anti hunting. They just 100%.

[A]

Yeah, they just hate hunting. And you, there's, you know, there's rhetoric and voice recordings out there of the Wayne parcels of the world that used to be Humane Society, now it's Defenders for Wildlife or something like that. Who says our mission is to remove hunting and we're going to start with the low hanging fruit which is predators.

[B]

God, that is so myopic. Especially if you're going to a grocery store and just all your. I mean you're outsourcing the. Just outsourcing the killing of the animal.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

Not that I would eat mountain lion. And again, that's not my cup of tea. I've offered a mountain lion hunt. I don't.

[A]

And it's bloody delicious, by the way.

[B]

Are you serious?

[A]

Unbelievably delicious.

[B]

I'm gonna take your word for that. I am not eating cat.

[A]

It comes across like a pulled barbecue and you do it like a pulled barbecue slider. It is un freaking believable.

[B]

If we're ever at a place that's serving it, you can have my serving.

[A]

No, no. You will eat it.

[B]

I will not. My Wife can tell you, I am not very expl. Exploratory when it comes to my food.

[A]

We'll just tell you it's pork.

[B]

I'll be so pissed if you tell me cat is pork. That's, you know, it's just not my jam. I tried black bear. One of the first animals. Actually, the very first animal that I killed with my bow was a black bear. And they were in feeding season and it was in Canada, and they were eating these Saskatoon berries and they made some sausage with it with the Saskatoon berry in it. You could have fed it to anybody and asked them what animal it was. And 102 out of 100 people would not have told you that it was bear. I haven't had any since, but. Yeah, again, just kind of not my jam, though.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What? No pun intended, but what is the origin of the blood? Origin name. How'd you come up with that?

[A]

So it wasn't originally called Blood Origins. It was called in the Blood. And so when you watch a Blood Origins episode, it ends. Everyone has their own story. This is mine. It's in the Blood. And I'd filmed three of them. Three pilots. And we went to a very famous hunter in the industry who's done it, was probably a pioneer from a filming perspective. We are called Will Primos.

[B]

And I've heard that name.

[A]

He's an amazing guy. He's out of Mississippi. Started Primos hunting.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Probably used a Primos hunting bugle call or hoochamama or something like that.

[B]

I knew what hoochie mama is. You don't want me anywhere in the forest when a call. I can do a calculator call. That's all you need with like a. Basically a. A call with training wheels.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a little.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I watched. I was. I was sitting on a couch watching him watch my content. And he turned around to me, same thing. Jim Shocky said to me. He says, how did you film this? I said, oh, you know, I won't give out my secrets. And then he said to me, do you own it? I said, what do you mean? And I said, well, you know, I've got the federal trademark. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. Who else is in your backyard right now? And I said, well, there's this guy in California called Fire in the Blood. Had a lot of money, had a Wi Fi company or whatnot. And then there was a kid in Wisconsin that was like in the Blood outdoors. And he said, pivot now. Change your name right now. Interesting, because you're going to have heartache in two or three years time when some one of these guys or somebody else does something within the blood in their name and it's going to refer back to you and all of this stuff. You're gonna have to change then. So, okay, let's think about this. We want, you know, what is hunting? Hunting is tied to us, it's tied to humans, it's tied to how we originated. If you go back in your ancestry, there is going to be some sort of hunter in your lineage. Where does that lineage come through in you today? It's buried in your DNA. That's buried in your blood. And so it's sort of your blood origins really. And so when you look at our logo now we used the, the logo was very much blood written and in the middle of the two O's is a helix. And so now the moniker for blood origins now is just the helix. So it's a DNA helix that obviously.

[B]

Connect the, the two for the infinity as well too. Yeah.

[A]

And so what comes out of the helix is, you know, your family tree becomes the hunting family tree. It also is all of the dots that are connected. If you think the middle of the helix is the hunt, that's where it starts. And then all these dots that come out of the hunt itself, all these things that are connected to the hunt, connecting the dots beyond the hunt. So that's blood origins. Yeah. We've got some big plans that we're about to expand. We've got some, some bigger sort of. We've been focusing on the anti hunting rhetoric for so long. But if you take one step back, the much bigger rhetoric that you have to counter is the anti use rhetoric.

[B]

Just of the land use of people.

[A]

Being involved in management of wildlife, the use of wildlife per se, the use of wilderness areas, connecting to the land, all of that stuff.

[B]

Do you have a bucket list project that you haven't been able to do yet that you're looking at pie in the sky? If you could just pick somebody or somewhere or combine both of those and like this will be the apex of it all. What is it?

[A]

Yeah, I think big wildlife conservation, Big wildlife conservation. Something that, you know, let's do a $10 million project and let's splash it on CNN and Fox and everywhere in the world and say, look at what hunters are doing. Just watch. Look.

[B]

It was shocking to me, the stats, at least the most recent ones, recent ones that I've seen. Hunting is on a decline in the United States. I don't know where it is globally. But I say that that is based off, I believe, though, permit and tag sales. The data I saw that it was actually hit. It trended a little bit in the, in the opposite direction.

[A]

So the data that you're seeing is in terms of percentage of Americans that hunt. Yes, that percentage is going down, but.

[B]

Is that just due more to population growth?

[A]

100. It's all relative. Right. When you look at population of hunters in the US it typically fluctuates between 11 to 15 million. It sits around there constantly and it's been that very constant. That's it. That's all we are.

[B]

I mean, what are we now? 364.

[A]

So we're about 4% of the population.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So. But when you rewind the clock to when we were 280 million in America and we still had 14 million hunters, we were 7, 8%. So the, the percentage is going down, but our numbers are staying relatively constant. What the tag allotment kind of thing, what you're seeing there is I think, just a, an outcome of technology, an outcome of business, an outcome of, you know, people being. Having more resources available and being able to afford different types of hunts, or people saying, well, I'll do the tag application for you. You know, somebody else does it for you. And so there's a little bit more pressure, a lot more people wanting to be involved in certain hunts. And so that's why you see more pressure on certain places.

[B]

Would you say splitting your time? So you call Memphis home now?

[A]

Memphis is home. Yeah. My wife's family's in Memphis. Two savages can go spend weekends with the grandparents. Wife is super happy and so. Yeah.

[B]

Does she hunt?

[A]

She does not. She is. She has a PhD in 18th century Gothic literature.

[B]

She's a horror writer, a PhD in 18th century.

[A]

Incredibly intelligent, super articulate.

[B]

I have never heard the pairing of those words.

[A]

I cannot, I cannot have an argument with her because it's like I get schooled every time I have an argument with her. And so.

[B]

And she's just cranking out literature.

[A]

Yeah. So she's done two non fiction books. One is called Monster She Wrote and Monster She Wrote is a, a non fiction biography of 70 women, I think, or 54 women. And that the horror genre was actually built on the backs of women, not on the backs of like a Stephen King. And she's got a second book called Toil and Trouble, which is about spiritualism and the occult. And she just landed a contract for a third book, non fiction, all about horror in the water. Sharks, Sirens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Krakens, Depths, darkness, that kind of stuff.

[B]

The first one of those I don't like at all.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know if any of those other. I mean, it's dark, deeper you go. But the Kraken, I don't know.

[A]

I don't know if she put the Kraken in there.

[B]

I feel like that was early sailors just exploring.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And telling. It was like a tail. It was like. It was an octopus that was probably really big that turned into like, something that ate a vessel.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's awesome. She's got a bunch of fiction books that we've written, but we haven't sold any yet. Get. That are just crazy amazing. Like somniloquists coming into small towns and taking over people's minds and doing some crazy stuff.

[B]

What is her writing method? Does she sit down and carve out a certain amount of time, or does she just write when she's inspired?

[A]

The latter. And it's difficult because I could imagine how frustrating it is for me. I'm like, I wake up at 4:30 kind of guy and I'm working all day long. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As a writer, I don't know if that works.

[B]

You just. You'd be forcing some. That just came out.

[A]

No, you can't. And so she does different exercises. She'll do like a writing sprint or she'll like, say, okay, I'm gonna do 500 words. Whether it's shit words or not, I'm just gonna put 500 words down on the page. And it's just this, like, constant plotting forward. Some days are better than others.

[B]

Yeah. I always. And it's a personal question because I actually wrote a book, shockingly enough, that'll come out in 2026. I'm almost done with it. It's in the final draft. And I ask every author, like, what. How do you do it? Do you force yourself? Do you just go? Because it's funny how inspiration cannot strike you for long periods of time.

[A]

100%.

[B]

Like, I'm just not inspired.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Mike, you're lazy.

[A]

And then sometimes you. And you get super inspired.

[B]

Holy cow. I mean, there were days where I could crank out 5,000 words, and it was if I had just written and just going and going and going and going and like, vomit. And you come back and like, who wrote that? That's actually.

[A]

That's not half bad.

[B]

And then other days were to her to he the fuck. Not today. Yeah. It's an interesting process. And I tell you what, every author that I have Asked that.

[A]

That. Yeah.

[B]

They have a different. Some people are very regimented. Some people will geographically isolate themselves from everything. Get like an Airbnb in the middle of nowhere and lock them. And they literally will not lock them. They'll lock themselves in. They won't give themselves their morning cup of coffee till they get 250 words down.

[A]

Right.

[B]

They won't feed themselves like, okay, you know, whatever. I mean, if that's how you pay your bills, pay your bills that way. But yeah, I played around with I'll write when I'm inspired. It was funny how often I could tell myself I wasn't inspired. I'm not inspired this week. You know, I just don't really want to force it.

[A]

Exactly. So, yeah. Memphis, Tennessee is home, man.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

21 years in Mississippi and then two years now in Memphis, Tennessee.

[B]

What percentage of your time is actually spent in the US because obviously you're deeply still tied into South Africa.

[A]

This year we're on a. I would say we're on the rocket ship more than ever now. And it's what we've built. And so that's why one of the reasons why we moved back to Memphis is to give my wife support. I think I'd have to total it up, but this year I think I was gone probably 180 days.

[B]

As far as content wise, are you focusing more in the South Africa region? Are you still doing content?

[A]

It's just good, low hanging fruit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But no, we definitely. So we've got it. I have to pinch myself sometimes because sometimes I. I'm gonna forget content that I have as I go through this with you. So we've got a documentary coming out of Georgia that's about hunting, saving sea turtles. That's about to come. That's about to be finished. We're working on wild horses in Arizona. We're working on a project called Saving Bambi in Belgium and France. We'll move to Germany next year. We've got a big. We've got two big stories coming out of Australia tied with meat because Australia has a. Australian. New Zealand have a very unique system in that a lot of the animals, most of the animals New Zealand, all of the animals are non native, technically pest invasive species. So all the deer species, all of.

[B]

Them in New Zealand are.

[A]

Every single one in New Zealand.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah. New Zealand never had any species of mammal on its.

[B]

Be a little bit. It'd be a little bit too much swim. Yeah.

[A]

Only about. That's why they had flightless birds. They were the mecca, biodiversity mecca of flightless birds.

[B]

That makes sense.

[A]

And ducks that, you know, nest on the, on the riverbanks and stuff. And so, so we've got a big. We've got a couple of big pieces coming out of New Zealand. We've got some pieces coming out of Africa next year, big elephant pieces coming out of Botswana, big elephant piece coming out of Tanzania and Kenya. So we're pretty much everywhere, all over the world when it comes to documentary, and that's just the documentary content of impacts, benefits and consequences. Then we're just addressing political issues that people are raising around hunting and pointing out the fallacies, pointing out the falsehoods, pointing out, here's the truth. When you start talking about Victoria, you know, South Australia is about to ban mo hunting. Well, why?

[B]

Why?

[A]

Because it's in their. On their. From their rhetoric. It's unethical and inhumane. And I started based off of what? Based off of the rhetoric that is Bow hunting is archaic. Bow hunting doesn't kill as efficiently as a rifle. And so in that specific example, like, my job is to say, okay, let's, let's think through this a little bit.

[B]

Yes, there's a lot of gray area there. A rifle doesn't always kill quickly either. That depends on the accuracy of your shot. You gut shot an animal that's 24, 36, 48 hours of suffering, if not longer.

[A]

Yeah, any weapon will do that. But let's just look at bows for a second. Are bows getting quicker?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

When you practice your bow hunting, why are you practicing?

[B]

So you can be the most ethical.

[A]

Hunter possible, as lethal as you possibly can be. Because you want to. You want the animal to die? Because you want to. Like, let's be honest for a second, you want that animal?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, so you want to be as lethal as possible. So you're as efficient as possible and as effective as possible? Yes. Okay. Are broadheads getting better, sharper or less effective?

[B]

Better and sharper.

[A]

Are arrows becoming more stable in flight or less stable in flight?

[B]

More.

[A]

And you've got practice?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, then let's talk about medical mechanics. You've probably been cut by a very sharp knife sometime in your past.

[B]

I have cut myself with almost every knife that I've ever owned because I with them constantly.

[A]

When you cut yourself with a very, very sharp knife, does it hurt? No, it doesn't hurt. Why doesn't it hurt?

[B]

Because it's so sharp.

[A]

It's so sharp that there is no pain from a laceration.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So when you bow hunt, what you're creating is a Laceration, you're not causing an impact collision that a rifle bullet does. A laceration through bow hunting is designed to create massive blood loss. And so the animal is going to die through hypovolemic shock. It's going to have blood loss, it's going to lose consciousness, and then it's.

[B]

Going to die, often within seconds.

[A]

And when you look at the medical literature, if you're going to. Again, let's assume the rhetoric from the other side that it's painful, then let's look at the medical journals, the medical science around lacerations in humans and ask the question of pain in that science. And the science shows that there is very little pain associated with those lacerations because of how effective they are, then that should translate to bow hunting.

[B]

And also still left out of that conversation. And we were talking about this, when it comes to this goes right back to the. You make an Instagram post. I put one up with my wife, Leah, the bull that we got in Utah. There will always be and is always one. How could you, paraphrasing broadly, how could you be so mean and impart so much pain and suffering on that animal? And I agree with everything you're saying about both. I was deer hunting with Dudley in Iowa, and he was letting me use one of his new T2 broadheads, the wound channel, the cut on that, the velocity and volume of blood that came out, I've never seen anything like it. And it was an expandable, and I've used expandable and fixed and pros and cons of both. But a leap forward in technology, that thing went 100 yards at the pace it was going, less than a dozen seconds, it was. It was dead on the ground. But to get back to, you know, the comment that is always going to be there of, you know, how could you hurt an animal in that way? How could you impart so much pain? I get that. But that also ignores the reality of what the natural life cycle of these animals would look like. In Australia, if you get rid of bow hunting, the animals are all going to die at some point anyway. So you will save, in a long enough time period, zero animals.

[A]

Well, interestingly, on the South Australian example, they're getting gunned down from helicopter gunships because the government is using shotgun shooters to reduce populations.

[B]

And let's say that they decided they weren't even going to do that. 100% of those animals died at some point.

[A]

100%.

[B]

And if they didn't control the population, we might have a picture similar to what you put up From South Africa, where there's this fence in. Barren and starving in between.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

But there. There's probably gonna be no fence, so it's gonna be barren and starving. I've been around. I'm not a distinguished hunter by any stretch, but I've been out in the backcountry enough around these animals to have seen the deadheads sitting there and the carcasses that were destroyed by other animals and the damage to tissue, the damage to muscle, the infection. I'm no expert, but most of the stuff you see that nature is bringing upon the grim reaper of nature is not sitting in a hospital bed with a morphine drip fading off into the sunset. It's. I mean, just go to the Instagram page. Nature is metal 100.

[A]

No, look, mother nature, savage as. She's a. Yeah. All right. She has no ethics, she has no rights there. She's cruel, she's violent, and there is no morals. As we've said. There's no ethics, there's no morals, there's no rights.

[B]

So how does that anti hunting person in Australia do? They just. They just want nature. They're like, they're okay with that if it's nature.

[A]

Yeah. It's interesting. Australia, again, is such a unique example. They will say, we want to ban bow hunting in which we've. We've all seen videos of arrows zipping through animals and the animal just like, yeah, what just happened?

[B]

And then gets a little drowsy.

[A]

But they're completely okay with a helicopter going up with shotguns and putting six or seven rounds into an animal and it not being killed immediately. Now, don't get me wrong, for the majority, those guys are professionals and they do their job and they. They get it done. But there's still inhumane ethical questions around that practice. And if you've got ethical questions around bow hunting, you should have questions, ethical questions around that too, writ large.

[B]

Is that community okay with the helicopter stuff because it's the government, but not okay with the bow hunting?

[A]

The. The anti community?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. Yes.

[B]

That is what. Yeah, that is some mental hoops you.

[A]

Have to jump to.100.100. Like, it doesn't make sense. It makes no logical sense. Yeah, it's a completely different system of management down in Australia and New Zealand.

[B]

What's wild too, is. I mean, there's the aspect of. And if ever anybody's hunted and watched animals in their natural habitat, man, when a bow hunt goes well and they don't even have ever known you were there, they drift off into whatever is next because you get, you take the time, you buy the best gear that you can, you tune your arrow to your bow and you're looking for broadheads and you're keeping them sharp and you have a practice set and then you have your hunting set and the two shall never mix because you don't want a dull arrow. The stress level at that animal, I don't even know if it would necessarily register. I've been around animals enough to watch what happens when they're getting chased around with helicopters. I mean, we're talking two different. From a, from a. And again, this is a human watching an animal, but just watching their behavior, the wideness of their eyes, the panic nature of their breathing. Getting gunned down from a helicopter is far, far less, are far more stressful, I should say, than a bow hunter out there. And which, by the way, your odds of bow hunting animals from the ground, it's not that good anyway.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. No, look, it's just, it is a bit asinine when they compare those two mechanisms to one another. And you know, honestly, it just comes down to, again, ignorance and a rhetoric that is we hear you, but we don't hear you. Everything. All your arguments make logical sense, but hey, we've got these people chirping in our ear that give us money, that I've politically backed us, that have asked us to push this ban moving forward because we just don't like the idea of hunting.

[B]

Why does it always have to come back to money?

[A]

Always, Always.

[B]

I need more of it.

[A]

More money?

[B]

Yes. So I could just, behind the scenes, puppet master people.

[A]

That'd be amazing.

[B]

I don't know if it would be. I feel like you need a ton of money and I would want to spend it on other things.

[A]

Yeah, probably. Probably.

[B]

My vision board would be full of other things. It'd be full of more helicopters and more dogs and obviously a pet rhinoceros.

[A]

Pet rhinoceros? Yeah.

[B]

What's the most.

[A]

Would you take a black or a white rhino? You know the difference? Black's a lot more aggressive than a white.

[B]

Yeah. I would like more of a domesticated rhinoceros that I could ride around the house.

[A]

Don't think there's such a species.

[B]

Can you housebreak them? I feel like they would take a dump the size of this table.

[A]

They're taken and then they'd scatter it with their feet.

[B]

Michael, you spread it everywhere. Michael is currently our dog watcher. We have a mini docs hound. Would you be willing to watch a rhinoceros? If I had one. And clean up after it. I would charge a little bit more than. Why do you have an echo in your own headset?

[A]

Oi, yoyoi. I don't know.

[B]

First day on the job. Turn your mic off. Whoa, that's weird.

[A]

It's coming from your speaker. There we go.

[B]

Is the monitor still on? Turn back on. You got to see which camera you're using. Well, yeah. If it goes again, though, this is the beauty of the podcast not being live. We can edit that out.

[A]

There we go. All right.

[B]

Problem solving in real time. Yeah. I feel like you get if, like you watch Javi now. So what would be, you know, the difference? It's really. No, no different, actually. I feel like there's enough room at the house.

[A]

You got a mini dachshund.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Mini wiener dog.

[B]

Savage little.

[A]

I love it. We've got one too.

[B]

They have the best personalities.

[A]

10 pound little thing that just wants to burrow into the. Into the blankets, you know, I mean.

[B]

I'll be honest with you. What I love about them the most is they're just. Just desire to constantly give you affection. 100 straight in your face. He will stick his nose in my ear. Oh, my God. And then somehow gets like that little anteater tongue and in there or up my nose. And I'm here for it.

[A]

I was not a small dog guy. I love big dogs. They are the best. Yeah, they are. I'm converted. I am converted.

[B]

Male or female? For yours?

[A]

Female.

[B]

Short or long hair?

[A]

Short. So we have a male Snoopy and Snoopy colored. Black and white Colored.

[B]

Ours is a dapple. So we have a black, brown, white. And he barks at everything that is there. And most things that aren't, as Michael can probably attest to, they are awesome. Oh, yeah.

[A]

God, awesome.

[B]

It's. My wife certainly doesn't have to worry about somebody being able to get into the house at night. If I'm not there, he's not going to do about it. But she'll know that they're there. Yeah, but they are. God, they are absolutely the best. People have to experience it, though.

[A]

Yeah, I love it. I love a little one.

[B]

What is. What's the most heartbreaking thing you've seen digging into this world? Because it's not all. I mean, not all stories are good and not so.

[A]

Mr. Jim was heartbreaking.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In New Zealand. But when we were filming this Botswana elephant documentary, we got word that a gentleman, her father, had been trampled by an elephant. So we drove out to this village and when. I mean drove out like, we drove to the actual village that's ramshackle houses and whatnot, dirt streets. And then we drove another 20 minutes out into the bush to this collection of mud huts. And the, there was, there was a fence around the mud huts. There was just like random poles. Chickens could move through the poles, nothing else could move through the poles. And there's literally six kids from like six years old to one and a half running around. It's dirt. And there's this woman who looks 16. They said she was 20. She was the daughter of the guy. And she told us that, you know, my father got trampled by an elephant. And she didn't cry. She didn't, she had no emotion. Maybe she had expressed all of her emotions already, but the kid that was in her lap was just crying and crying and crying and crying and it was just so dirty and so dusty. Like the kids, you know, his peppercorn hair had, was like almost like gray and, or white. And his face was full of dust and his tears streaming down his face were like making like little rivers of like clean, you know, African skin. And he just sat there and was like, what? This is crazy. And there's no, you know, there was no compensation from the government at that time. They're still trying to figure out what had happened. But she was like, we had no idea, like, what, what happens next. Like, he was probably the breadwinner, he was probably the one who brought most of the money into that little family collection of huts where the six kids were some of their hers or were they all his? Who's going to look after these kids? Who's going to look after this family now? Like, and that's the, that at the end of the day, what strikes home the most is that's the reality for people, right? And you can't turn a blind eye to that. And you can't say that something has to give there. And those are the kinds of things that you, like, you have no control over. You have no way to like help them. Like, even giving them money would have been like a cop out really.

[B]

What are they going to do with it too?

[A]

So to me, you know, we have, we find we, we get to experience things like that and you know, people's loss. Like, we've interviewed a guy, we've never, we haven't done anything with the footage yet. But often what happens in, in this, in the African context is you've got a professional hunter, you've got the wife and you've got the kids. And often what happens is the professional hunter will get killed by a buffalo or an elephant or something and leaves the wife and the kids. On this scenario, this professional. I'm not going to use his name. This professional hunter's wife got killed in a car accident. Massive car accident. He was at home. Home. She went off, got the phone call, she was dead on the scene. And now this guy's left with two kids that are 1 and 2. And he's a professional hunter. And it's like, geez, the roles are reversed now. And what's he gonna do and how's he gonna survive and how's he going to marry this life that he has, which is professional hunting with these two young kids at home.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And to. When the story comes out, it's. It's a. It's a story of triumph at the end of the day, because these kids now, he takes them everywhere. He takes them hunting. The clients want the kids in camp with him. They know it's part of his family. It's part of, like, who he is. He's an incredible guy. He's an incredible ph. But you get, you know, and. And when you're filming a story like that, you know, he's. That happened, you know, probably five, six years ago, he gets choked up a little bit. But we get choked up, like we're listening to this guy pour his heart out. And I think that's the. That's the thing that puts us in the position that we're in, is that we get opportunities for people to just break open their hearts and they express all of the emotions. You know, we filmed a guy that was winning an award for Safari Club International hall of Fame Award. His name was Scott Chapman. Scott Chapman was your size. And when we filmed him, he was. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And he was walking around at like 160 versus 230.

[B]

Just a skeleton of himself.

[A]

Skeleton, right. But still a cool dude. Still talked about, you know, what he loved and whatnot. And we filmed him and it was almost like we knew that we. This was us memorializing him alive. And, you know, at that time, we asked him, said, look, man, you know, do you want to say something to your wife? He's like, yeah. And he poured his soul out and I'm crying. And Jesse Phillips, a Marine that does some cinematography work for me, we're balling, bawling. We put the piece together. Four weeks later, he died. Okay. And so now we have to play the film because you're still gonna win the award. And to Play the film. And we played the film at the last banquet evening of Safari Club International. Full room, thousand people in the room.

[B]

There couldn't have been a dry eye.

[A]

And who's up next? Who's after the film as the keynote speaker is Tucker Carlson. Okay. And so we play the film. And I'm bowling. Jesse's there. We're boiling. Everybody is balling. Right? Film finishes. Standing ovation. His wife comes on stage, accepts the award on his behalf. Tucker. I watched Tucker leave. Let's go to the restroom. I think just before his keynote, he steps up to the keynote and he says, that's the best film I've ever seen. And there was a line in that film of him saying something along the lines of don't wait. Something like that. Scott Chapman. And Tucker was so good that whatever he had prepared for that night went out the window. Because you used that statement.

[B]

He's just straight off the cuff.

[A]

Straight off the cuff for 25 minutes or 30 minutes, using what he just saw with Scott's film, our film. And I got to meet Tucker afterwards. And again, he was just like, man, that was the best thing I've ever seen. And you can see it. I think you can Google hall of Fame. Scott Chapman. Super, super powerful. And again, a privileged position that we were in to. And a. In a hard position because we're memorializing this guy forever. We're giving him immortality.

[B]

Yeah. What a time capsule.

[A]

And we better do a good job because if we don't, we've denigrated this guy and what he's done.

[B]

You guys would be a group of real.

[A]

And luckily, luckily, we're really good at what we do.

[B]

What a small world. So we were at his album Help Dip Christmas party yesterday. That's what we were.

[A]

Cool. Yeah.

[B]

I briefly. I didn't even say a word to him, but he got up and was talking about it. It was. It's an eclectic and interesting group of people, but very, I would say, Hunter centric as well. Again, I'm not a nicotine user, but are zins a big thing in South Africa?

[A]

No.

[B]

Give it time. It's. You don't use that stuff, do you, Michael? You know a lot of people that do, though.

[A]

I know a lot of people. Yeah.

[B]

So I don't know. I guess he has a competing product that they came out with, cuz.

[A]

Oh, the product's called elp.

[B]

Elp? Yeah. A L P, I think. I don't know. I was there for the buffet.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And then Mel Gibson walked by. I'm like, what the is going on? I did not speak to Mel Gibson. Yeah, even those rooms where there's. There's a person. Oh, also, I just view people as people. Like, I've enjoyed your work. Nice. Jump off the top floor handcuffed to that guy and Lethal Weapon won, You know what I mean? Even though it's probably your stunt man, but they're people and I just don't care. And if I'm ever around where there's this person and 50 people trying to talk to them, my move is I go the other direction because I don't want any part of that shit. So I walk by, I was like, okay, I think it's time for us to leave. Small world for sure. Though. The narrative around save, the fill in the blank, is it possible to change? Or is it 100%, you think? Or is there always going to be some level where that's just the protagonist versus the antagonist?

[A]

I think that'll always be, yeah. I think if you look at the last, you know, 25 to 30 years, and don't get me wrong, for, for the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, we needed it. We needed save the X. We needed it. And that's why we have strong populations of all these animals. But today, given the, the booming human population, that narrative, that thought process needs to change to sustain the X, use the X. And so there's always going to be. You're never going to get rid of that, that crowd that says no. Yeah, but I think through the work that we're trying to do, the stories that we're trying to tell, the logic that we're bringing forward, the truths that we're bringing forward, showing case examples of how it works. All of that is starting to. We're starting to tell our story for the first time in 30 years, tell the side of sustainable utilization of wildlife, how it's benefiting people, how it's benefiting wildlife, how it's benefiting communities. And all of a sudden people are realizing, going, oh, I have a similar story like that. I'm going to talk about it, I'm going to tell about it, I'm going to send, share a post about it. All of a sudden you start seeing this tsunami coming of more narrative, more people talking about, thinking about it, telling people about it, and all of a sudden we have the opportunity. I see it all day, every day. I see change all day, every day on social media.

[B]

What for the stories that you're telling, what's the platform that people can go to, the best platform to digest it digital media.

[A]

So you YouTube ish.

[B]

Or do you put it behind? Is it, I mean on the blood origin website as well or everywhere?

[A]

Okay, yeah, just type blood origins into Google, into YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. You'll find us. We're not hard to find. Like Deion Sanders is.

[B]

Is Deion Sanders hard to find?

[A]

Nope.

[B]

Okay. Does he say that he is? Where does that difference come from?

[A]

It's what he says. I'm not hard to find. If you have a. If you have a problem with me. I'm not hard to find.

[B]

I feel like he's probably not that hard to find. Well then you have a podcast too.

[A]

We have a great podcast.

[B]

How do you guys structure your podcast?

[A]

Just a super intellectual, articulate conversation about topics.

[B]

How do you have a structured. I'm always fascinated by talking with other people who do it as well. Do you guys do structure release when Something strikes you?

[A]

100. Yeah. So if we, if there's a hot topic happening anywhere in the world again, we like to be the spear tip of that topic and we'll have a podcast out on it within a week and we'll have talk to the person on the ground. We have the mall network, we can find the contacts, we'll drop the podcast and we have. The beauty of beautiful thing about our podcast is that it's not America centric. So. And you can. We release a lot of podcasts because people pick and choose. They want to listen to it. Oh, rhino conservation of South Africa. I want to listen to that one. Oh, Robbie's talking to a vegan who became a hunter. Oh, I want to talk to that one. Oh, Australian bow hunting. Oh, Tom aged in New Zealand. Oh, saving Bambi and the Bambi Rodeo conservation project in Belgium. Oh, I want to listen to that. That it is varied across the board and it goes from strong, hard hitting discussions of people that have different opinions of mine to you know, non hunters becoming hunters and understanding why they decided to span that chasm to, you know, people that have an issue with me. And I said okay, like Jen. Jen was beautiful. Jen, if you, if you want to listen to a podcast of ours that really explains what we do, go find Jen Weed's podcast with us.

[B]

Do you happen to know which number it was or just.

[A]

No, no, just type it in. Jen Weed BL Origins. I think it's like 418 or something like that. But what she's. I said to her and I do this a lot, I said if you have an issue with me or you want to ask me any Questions, let's come on the podcast. You ask me any question you want, I'll give you an honest, truthful answer right then and there. It's not pre planned. You haven't given me a list of questions. You ask the question, I'll answer your question. Yeah.

[B]

And they don't, I mean, and they don't have to agree with it. I think that's the beauty of this particular long form medium, especially when you have somebody who can sit across the aisle ideologically. I've had plenty of conversations where at the end of it it's like we are gonna have to agree to disagree. But I'm totally fine with that.

[A]

Yeah. And I think society needs to trend in that direction.

[B]

I think the United States specifically, man, this last election cycle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I don't know if it is, it would appear, and this is the issue that I haven't wrapped my head around, is appearances versus reality. What we see in the media, social media, tv, a screen of any kind, versus what I see with my own eyes, there's a large disparity there. It would seem like most of the US was pitted against each other, neighbor versus neighbor, left versus right. In my own day to day, I didn't see a lot of that with my own eyes, but I saw a lot of it when I was looking through, you know, the mediums of media or social media.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So yeah, the US could do a little bit better, I think, to try to find some common ground, come together just a touch. Are you, did you get your citizenship?

[A]

Oh yeah, 2013. Super proud to be an American.

[B]

You probably know more about this country than most Americans because I feel like that test is relatively difficult.

[A]

Well, it's funny, I've got a. Again, storytelling and stories is a part of my life. So when you do that test, you have, have to memorize. There's 100 questions that they, they can pull 10 questions randomly from.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Did you know that?

[B]

No.

[A]

So there's 100 questions you have to learn. You have to learn them all. And you go in and you sit down. So I was sitting down.

[B]

They only give you 10.

[A]

10 bastards. Okay. And so you have to, you have to sit down and you sit down in the, in the, in the room that they call you in. And my wife is next to me, Lisa. Right. Because she's going to get called in once you finish your test and you can look around the room and you go like, that seems fake. That's not real. That's not real. And so then you get called back and they'll they'll start talking about, they'll ask you questions like, birthday, you know, where were you born? Whatnot. And they don't give you any like, hey, we're about to start the test and they just launch into the questions. And you have to get verbal. It's verbal. And so you have to get six, at least six out of the 10, right for you to pass. So I got the first six questions right. He goes, okay, you've passed. I said, okay, hypothetically, what if I didn't get all six? He's like, you'd fail and you'd come back again. I said, okay, hypothetically, I came back again and I failed again. What happens then? And the question, the answer then was, that's it, you're done.

[B]

Really?

[A]

You can't be a citizen.

[B]

Two and done.

[A]

Two and done. That's as I understood back then. Okay. So I finished my test and he starts asking me some more questions. And he goes, okay, wife's name. Gave my wife's name. He goes, wife's birthday. And I said, 8 23, 1980. And he goes, you mean 8 27, 1980, right? I said, yes, sir.

[B]

And so that's not the time to have a brain fart.

[A]

And so the joke in my family, in the household, is like, Robbie passed all of his citizenship tests except the question around his wife's birthday day, and he failed that miserably.

[B]

Was she in the room for that one?

[A]

No, she was not exactly.

[B]

Don't listen to this podcast, Robbie's wife. Make sure you skip that particular section. God, what else do you. Did we miss anything? What else do you want to leave people with?

[A]

Oh, man. You know, again, if you feel that you've been stirred in this podcast in terms of what we do and how we do it again, we're a 501C3. Everything that you give us is tax deductible from a donation perspective. It's what we live and breathe on. But I would ask that if you don't want to give, that's fine. Absorb the content. Share the content. Share the content with your non hunting community, with your friends.

[B]

Equally as valuable.

[A]

It's equally as valuable. And then just follow us. Because by following us, what we're trying to do is we're trying to give you, like through this podcast, information and more specifically, confidence in that information. So that when you sit at a dinner table and somebody at the dinner table goes, ah, elephant hunting is terrible because they're endangered, you can go, sorry, excuse me. Actually, they're not. But by the definition of icn, they're actually vulnerable. They're not endangered anymore. And you can confidently speak about a topic that you may not have had confidence in before, and then you can say one or two things, and then you can go, oh, by the way, just go check out Blood origins. Yeah. You can explain everything. Everything will be explained there.

[B]

And then say fascist. Because there's no argument against that. That's the new buzzword.

[A]

Fascist.

[B]

Oh. I mean, what. Were you not paying attention to the 2024 electoral cycle? Wasn't that one of the magic of bugs words? It was.

[A]

Hold on.

[B]

It was like, misogyny, racism, or fascist. Those are the three. You're talking about elephants. If you run into. You're like, I don't remember what else to say, just like. And you're a fascist if you don't believe me.

[A]

And they're like, interesting. Yeah, interesting. No, look. And I. Look again. Well, I know that we shouldn't do this, but big shout out to ag, connecting us together.

[B]

Oh, for sure.

[A]

I know we had probably touched base, like, two and a half years ago, but. Yeah, I appreciate you. I appreciate the opportunity, the platform, of course, everything. Thank you.

[B]

Yeah, it's. You know, I was not somebody who was actually interested in hunting. It took me picking up a bow and meeting Dudley, him offering me to come on my first bow hunt with him. Right. Wrong or indifferent. My headspace, even moving to Montana, is. I just didn't think it was fair if I got to walk around in the woods with a rifle. I mean, it's. I don't. The. And maybe I don't know the best way to describe it, other than you hear a lot of people, and I'm saying this with no judgment whatsoever, they want to romanticize the moment of truth, whether releasing the error or squeezing the trigger. And quite frankly, it doesn't. It doesn't do it for me. I enjoy everything leading up to it.

[A]

It's almost anticlimactic.

[B]

It's anticlimactic. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but at the same time, it's. It just doesn't overly fill my cup. I enjoy the whole process.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But that particular moment for me doesn't necessarily stand out. And it's not. It wasn't that I had heard stories of people talking about that. It just was. It wasn't something that piqued my interest. And then Dudley gave me a 1400s technology that was exceptionally difficult. That required practice, that required you to close distance on an animal that has instincts, that wants to stay alive. And you get to play around with terrain and concealment and didn't have to worry about COVID so much. I don't want to hunt elk if they're shooting back, because that would be gnarly. But for hunting, you probably should be good with concealment. That's what kind of lit the fire. And then actually going out and experiencing it and then. And the desire to have a little bit more agency about what shows up in my refrigerator right now, I have a full freezer that will last my family and my friends for the next year. And I think that's super cool.

[A]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

And that's my jam. And if people. If that's not their jam and they want to go to the grocery store and hunt that way, which I'm going to say is a little bit easier than with a bone arrow, even though I have seen some amazing Instagram videos where people go into the grocery store with, like, a kid's bow and arrow and they're in the cereal aisle. Cheerios. Everything that they put in their basket, they have, like a little arrow in.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. All right.

[B]

That's an interesting play on it.

[A]

Hilarious. Yeah. Well, big shout out to Dudley. I'm a. He's a big fan of ours.

[B]

He moves the needle. He's a very.

[A]

Like him a lot.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

He's controversial. Is he?

[B]

I think the hunting space is just kind of.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and people. He's. He's received a bunch of flackers for, you know, some things. And I've had conversations.

[B]

Club.

[A]

Exactly 100. But he's a big fan of Blood Origins, and we spent some time earlier this year turkey hunting together. And. Yeah, big fan of his.

[B]

Cool. How about yourself personally on social? Are you just tied to Blood Origins?

[A]

Yeah, I've got a personal social, but it. It's just family cool. Best website, blood origins.org just type in Blood Origins, man. You'll find us again. Not hard to find.

[B]

And you came up here from Bozeman today. Are you staying or you driving back?

[A]

Driving back.

[B]

Oh, let's get you on the road. Thank you.

[A]

Ciao. Hey, music fans, there are some great concerts headed this way.

[B]

Don't miss out on all the shows in your favorite venues, like Deftones at Madison Square Garden, Eagles at the Sphere, and Foster, the people at the Ryman Auditorium. Tickets are going fast, so don't wait.

[A]

Head to livenation.com to get your tickets.

[B]

Now that's livenation.com.