The Joe Rogan Experience - #657 - Corey Knowlton

Episode Date: June 8, 2015

Corey Knowlton is an international hunting expert, known recently for winning a $350,000 auction to kill a black rhino in Namibia. He is also known for working with hunter Jim Shockey on television shows "The Professionals" and "Uncharted".

Good? Alright, we're live. This is a perfect time for me to talk to you about this, because I just took a yoga class and had a vegan lunch. Awesome. How do you feel? I feel like namaste. I feel centered. I feel like my chakras are in line. I feel fine. Well, were you aware to have a vegan lunch, did you travel over there with like a car? This is a restaurant. I go to a...

Like a car without leather seats? No. No. Yeah, it's not really a vegan lunch. My car had leather seats. Yeah, so then also on top of that, like your tofu, was it meat flavored? No, I didn't have tofu. I just had vegetables. Okay, well vegetables still taste like vegetables. I did kill a mosquito as soon as I got out of my car, so I don't think that's vegan either. Well, sounds like you're a murderer. Sounds like it to me. Corey, if you don't know, Nolton, the last way, right? Correct.

Did I pronounce your last name? You got it. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on this podcast is I'm a big fan of Jim Shockey. Jim Shockey's show, The Uncharted Show. And something's going on with my nose. And I'd seen you on that show. So when the controversy broke, CNN covered the story. For folks who don't know what we're talking about, Corey, you bid money do, especially with endangered species, is they have to sometimes protect endangered species from their own.

And it seems very counterintuitive. For people who are on the outside looking in, you say, well, this is an endangered animal. Why are you killing one of these endangered animals and trying to call this conservation? But with rhinos in particular or a lot of aggressive animals, even giraffes, the older males, the older bulls, the older non-breeding members of these groups sometimes will attack the young males and kill them. And females. And females. And and calves they'll kill everything and it is just a natural part of being a wild animal when the numbers are strong and healthy it's like it happens in bears every day of the week it's just

a part of being a bear but when it happens with uh something's endangered, like a black rhino, they're forced into a very peculiar situation where they have to most likely either kill or put this animal in captivity. Am I right? A lot of different situations depending on the animal, what it's actually doing, right? But yes, I mean, some of the things you're talking about could apply and this is where it gets counterintuitive so they have a bid and the bid gets to you you want it like what is it three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that's correct yes it's a lot of fucking money um and you went over there you shot this rhino all that money went towards aiding the rhino population.

It wasn't enough money. It wasn't enough. It should have been a lot more money. Because they need more money? Absolutely, they need more money, and the value of that was greater than that amount of money. That was the amount of money that I was able to claw together and make happen. money that I was able to claw together and make happen, the anti-hunting community and the animal rights community came out so strongly against this situation for what I think either misunderstanding or they were trying to keep the contribution down, um, one or the other or both. And, um,

there's people who were much wealthier than I am and had a lot more money who really wanted to spend the money. But at the time, I don't think that they, well, they had a better idea of what was to come than I did. I guess I was a little bit naive about it. But these people are a couple of them are very well-known people. And I don't think they wanted to put their employees and their company and their life, their family, to the same things that I end up going through. They were basically chased out by the anti-hunting community's rhetoric and their attacks. What was surprising to you about this whole experience? Because it had to be a pretty life-changing experience. Like you're a guy who's relatively famous in the hunting world,

being on that Jim Chalky show, and you decide that you want to be the guy, so you spend all this money. What was your goal when you wanted to do this? Did you want to bring awareness to this? Was it something that you felt strongly about? From the very beginning? Well, I've always felt very strongly about conservation and hunting. Okay. Ever since I was young. And, um, but the way this came about was a friend of mine who runs a company called, um, conservation force or a nonprofit 501c3.

And he came to me and said, look, the people I had that are bidding on this are gone. And he asked me if I would bid on it. And the bid that I made was basically within, very close to the minimum bid. There was really no one else. Really? Yeah. The minimum bid. There was really no one else. Really? The minimum bid was $350,000. Well, see, you got to keep in mind, they sell these over in Namibia. They have auctions amongst themselves.

This was the first one that took place in the United States. That's why it brought so much publicity. This wasn't the first rhino that was to be brought into the United States. So this is something that happened before, just not on a public stage in the United States. So they are able to get a certain amount of money already for them, and they wanted to get more over here. That was the whole idea. And so they brought it over here.

The permanent secretary of the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism, him and basically one of the rhino experts of the country came over and took place. They were there at the auction when it took place. So the amount of money that gets raised, this enormous amount, $350,000, in your opinion, is low. It would have probably been much more if there wasn't. Yeah, not in the opinion of many, in fact, low. And I believe it'll come about again, but probably in a different way. And it's going to be at least, I would say, three times higher.

So they're going to do it again. I don't think they're going to do it again in the fashion they did. They're absolutely going to do it again, but they're not going to do it in the fashion they did this time. I don't think. Look, I don't speak for them, so I don't know. But yes, they will continue to auction off these surplus rhinos and it's not hard to get people to to be willing to do this but in order to get people to spend 350 000 to save the rhino just to just to donate to save it without hunting it's pretty difficult

i actually think that's more complicated to because in this situation that I was in, the money had to be proved to go to the right places to benefit the rhino. The path had to be proven to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for them to grant the import permit. So it went through the process, which was like the most vetted process possible on every level. It was the most vetted conservation hunt probably in history. And they do these hunts like this here in the United States all the time. They auction off special deer tags, special elk tags, special sheep tags. This year I was in an auction where a mule deer tag went for $385,000. So they do these all the time to raise money. So they do these all the time to raise money.

So it's not like a new idea. But in this case, it was the most vetted way for the money to get to the source. And I believe in conservation. I believe in hunting as a means, as a tool to help perpetuate it and keep these animals alive. So I had a personal vested interest in the process. And there's other people like me who feel the same way, and they are happy to donate to that. Like you're saying, just to get somebody to do it, well, where do I give it to? How do I know the money's going to the right place? Right. It's similar to, I don't know if you know about the Red Cross controversy.

Did you see that that just came out a couple days ago about Haiti? Millions and millions and millions of dollars went to Haiti to help people after what was the big earthquake they had? Is that what it was? And they built like five houses. They don't even know where most of the fucking money went. It's just a complete fuck fest. Look at this. Half a billion dollars spent six homes built jesus

christ well i think that speaks to the point that i was trying to make yeah and that's obviously a different scenario we're talking about who knows what that is you're looking at you look at your news source there salon.com it's the greatest yeah there you go so unbiased. They love everyone equally. So what do they have to say about you? Anything mean? Well, yes. Most everybody who had an agenda to it that was against what the whole process of what I was doing. And this goes all the way from the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to trying to make it look like CITES and IUCN aren't the world's foremost, you know, experts. Okay.

What are those companies? What is that? IUCN is a group that puts together the red list of endangered species. Okay. They are the foremost experts on this subject. And a guy named Michael Knight heads up that African rhino specialist group. And he's the foremost expert in the world on rhinos. Okay. So you've got, you have the world's foremost experts in this. You had the WWF, a guy named Chris Weaver in Namibia, who heads that up. You had WWF behind it. You had IUCN behind it. You had CITES behind it. You had

U.S. Fish and Wildlife, which, you know, I've come down on two different sides with them. Sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I don't. Okay two different sides with them. Sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I don't. Okay. But in this case, I absolutely agree with them. So you had like the foremost authorities in the world all agreeing with this. And then you have a large amount of people who type in 75 characters on Twitter and feel better about it. And, you know, they're weighing in.

And in today's day and age, you look at that, and it's like a handful of people who are emotional about something outweigh public, you know, I mean, the experts of the world opinion. Well, it becomes very controversial, first of all, because it went on at the same time as they were broadcasting another species of rhino that was going extinct. There was three of them left, one male, two women, and the male wasn't breeding with them, and they were like, this is it.

You're looking at the last three of these rhinos. Sure. And it also, part of the reason is it falls into this category that people call trophy hunting, and it's very different than going to the supermarket and buying meat from an animal that was killed for meat. The idea of trophy hunting bothers a lot of people because they think what you're doing is you're going over there and you're shooting something to prop up your ego. You're shooting something because, you know, you want to be the master. You want to go over there and blast this thing and take a picture, grip and grin and smile. I think that's like a, I'm sure throughout history that's existed, but I don't think that that's a accurate representation of people who you can call

trophy hunting, whatever you want. I mean, you can put it on, if you're out there looking for the biggest cow elk, because you want the meat, all right, you're being selective about which one you're picking. Okay. So for what the truth about let's quote unquote trophy hunting is you're going out there looking for the most mature male of the species that you can find. Okay. And you're going through a selective process. And I think there is amongst hunters, there's definitely a movement going, you know, Jim and I used to talk about it all the time.

We would go out. We're looking for the oldest male of the species we can find because that's the best one to take out. He's already breeded. He's going to go down. He's going to fall over dead on the mountain if it's a ram, and birds are going to pick his eyes out while he's alive. He's going to go through a horrible death, and we're going to spare that animal that. And so there's a lot that goes into that. And I understand people say, okay, that that's what it is. Joe, like for instance, I've, you know, I just met you today and my idea of who you are

isn't who Joe Rogan is. The only person that knows who Joe Rogan is, is Joe. I think some other people know. Jamie knows me. Okay. Well, whatever. All right. And in reality, you're the only person that knows who Joe Rogan is, is Joe. I think some other people know. Jamie knows me. Okay, well, whatever. All right. In reality, you're the only person that knows your thoughts. Okay, my point is, I can't put why you, the decisions you,

that brought you to where you are right now, I don't know what that is, okay? And in this case, I had hundreds of thousands of people. Put this sucker right there. I'm sorry. I had hundreds of thousands of people trying to say,

you did this for this reason right they don't know what reason i did it for right they never talked to me they never met me okay and so yeah okay you want to go ahead and lump everybody in there because it's easy for you to disenfranchise them well you're you're defending yourself here and i would be defensive too if i experienced the kind of barrage of hate that I've seen leveled your way. But that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is give you a chance over a couple hours to speak your mind. Yeah. And so what people have a problem with, I think, is people that want to kill things and don't eat them.

There's some people that have a problem with you eating meat. There's some people that have a problem with you eating fish. Some people go deep with it, right? I think there's varying degrees of outrage when it comes to people killing animals. But at the top of that list is what they call trophy hunting.

And that's someone who kills it that doesn't have any intention of eating it. If you kill a mature mule deer because it has an awesome rack, you're still going to eat that animal. It's still food. It's delicious food. You're going to eat it. You're going going to donate it you're going to do something with it yeah it's

delicious food and it's it's there's a reason why people hunt them it's because they they taste fantastic it's high quality protein it's great for you you're not eating a rhino right did you eat it absolutely the first thing you ate it right there on the spot did you absolutely what does it taste like it was better than elephant really you ate elephant sure whoa what does it taste like? It was better than elephant. Really? Mm-hmm. You ate elephant? Sure. Whoa. What does that taste like? Not as good as rhino. So what part of the rhino do you eat?

Well, we delivered the entire thing to a whole village. You know, our group wasn't hungry enough to eat the entire rhino right there. I would imagine. Yeah. I mean, how many thousands of pounds was this thing, by the way? You know, I'd guess it was between 2,500 and 3,000 would be my guess. It was a large animal. And did they have any refrigeration in this village, or is it just they eat what they can? You know, to the extent, no.

There were so many people that that wasn't going to be a large issue. Yeah, I've seen that before with an elephant hunt on television. It was a documentary on the controversy in these hunting camps in South Africa. And they shot this elephant and donated it to these villagers. These people came with baskets and stuffed these baskets with elephant meat. And they cut that entire carcass down to bite-sized portions or meal-sized portions in just a matter of a few hours. It was insane. It was crazy to watch. So when people think of this being just a waste, just killing this animal. They're wrong.

They're wrong. A hundred percent. That wasn't really discussed at all in the news. That was never covered. I never saw one article that covered the fact that you fed it to people. Yes, we did. There's a video of it on CNN. Did they show the feeding of it to the people?

Absolutely. I got pictures of it on my phone. There you go. I'll show you right here. I believe you 100%. I'm not questioning you. Well, look, I want to show you. Okay.

You're sitting across from me right now. I'm looking at the CNN article. I don't see any pictures of it. If you go to the meat delivery. Is there a link in there? It should be. I've got it on my phone. But, for instance, here's me standing in front of the village, a selfie with the entire rib cages of that animal.

Whoa. See, after the black rhino hunt, a village celebrates meat delivery. Oh, okay. After the black rhino hunt, a village celebrates meat delivery. Oh, okay. So this is a separate video other than the one that I had watched, which was the title of that was Texas Hunter Bags His Rhino in Controversial Hunt in Namibia. Yeah. So not so controversial to the people that you delivered the meat to. Absolutely not.

Those people, like if you look at them, they're very excited to get this protein. An elephant, huh? people like if you look at them they're very excited to get this protein um an elephant yeah the idea of meat wastage in africa isn't that look in the united states it's hard for us to comprehend it because we've got a system of such excess that the poorest the poorest among us are the most overweight you go to africa a poor person is skin and bones. Right. Okay. You know, people say that money is the root of all evil. Poverty is the root of all evil.

You go over there and see it firsthand, it's horrible. And so they're not wasting an ounce of that meat. Now, this animal had been targeted because it had killed one young bull already, and it was an older, angry male with not a whole lot of time left right is that the idea that's correct and it i believe it had killed more than that through its life it had been transported already to this area like when it was around 19 years old and how old they live oh look i saw a list that had there, and they had them alive in the field listed at over 37 years old. Wow. So, you know, they live at least that long.

You're not that old. How old are you? I'm 36 years old. How long have you been doing this big game wild hunting thing? I got into it when I started guiding hunts when I was 16 years old. You started guiding hunts when you were 16? My first, I graduated high school, I was guiding hunts when I was 16 years old. You started guiding hunts when you were 16? My first, I graduated high school. I was guiding hunts through high school. What kind of hunts?

Whitetails? No, like ducks and ducks and geese and stuff. And then I slowly got into hunting. It's what, it just became a passion to me. We grew up real, real poor. I just laugh all the time when I see people talk about how, you know, We grew up real, real poor. I just laugh all the time when I see people talk about how, you know, like I'm some rich, over, you know, super talk about my family and the oil business and whatnot.

I was already, before my brother and my father, their partner, had any success in the oil business, man, I was in my 20s. I was, you know, I'd already charted my path and was going. I wasn't aware of your background. I was going to ask you that, too. Where the fuck did you come up with $350,000? Luckily, I've been successful in life. Especially in the hunting business, I was very successful in guiding hunts and setting up hunts. That's how Jim and I got together. I was booking hunts all around the world.

I started when I was 16, taking people duck and goose hunting. Texas is obviously know obviously a different place I don't know how much time you spent in Texas but hunting yeah Texas hunting and fishing is a part of life it's just and for the most part it's very accepted okay and even if you don't do it you have a family member that does. You got a buddy that work does. And so people are, I mean, I'm telling people in Texas aren't that judgmental, really. I mean, about this, at least. And so anyway, you know, we're all growing up together as a family and it's a part of our thing, you know, and my granddad, we were, I mean, I grew up in poverty when I was real young. And what we had to do was go hunting and fishing, you know, and we got, mean, I didn't ever got I don't think I shot my first deer till I was, you know, 15 or 16 years old.

And so I did this bird hunting and then I graduated high school and I went and got a job working for a guy in Colorado, guiding mountain lion hunts. And then I, you know, got another, started another business up with floor tile and made money. And I was saving my money up to go hunting. And I met another guy, a guy named Aaron Nielsen and him and I started up a company together and we started taking people on hunts. We'd say, we'd go on these different hunts on ourself. We'd go there, find the area, check it out and go on these adventures and then come back and get people together and go on more of them and it's kind of snowball and snowball when i met jim in 2001 or two back then um you know i was just getting into it and i already you know knew quite a bit i'd already hunted africa

i'd already gone through a lot of places in the world and just got into it and said, Hey, Jim, you want to go to Africa? And we went and that was his first African trip. And we went over there, had a great trip, filmed it for a video at the time. He goes on and becomes more successful in his TV stuff. I keep doing what I did. And then a few years later, we came up with this idea to start this TV show about our lives as professionals in the hunting industry. And we called it the professionals. And, um, cause personally, Jim and I would talk about it and I'm not gonna speak down about these people, but are at the time on the outdoor television world, you know, which is a different thing than most TV in a lot of ways. I think you've talked about it on your podcast before. Um, we were like, well, a lot of ways I think you've talked about it on your podcast before we were like well a lot of these people are calling they're

saying they're professionals but they're getting like a free bow you know we're actually making our livings doing this you know taking people hunting and outfitting and guiding and whatnot we just what's also the quality of the show yeah true yeah shows are excellent they're really well done especially uncharted could easily be on the Discovery Channel or the History Channel. I mean, it is a great show. Yeah. And so that was kind of our goal.

We wanted to chronicle this and make the production level as high as we could and show people that, you know, there is a human side to this. And that's what was our goal. So do you get frustrated when you watch, like, there's some reality, or not reality shows, there's some hunting shows that are on television that, you know, are essentially like cable access shows. I mean, they're just really poorly made, bad editing, bad personalities. I mean, that's those guys' dream. I'm not going to say I get frustrated at it. You know, it's just like everybody who plays baseball is not going to be Mickey Mantle, right?

So, I mean, it doesn't bother me too much. But do you feel an obligation when people flip through the channels and they pause on one of those shows? And that's their exposure to hunting. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that every single one of them, even ours, would be a true representation of all of hunting. You know what I mean? So, it's hard. You know, I feel like we strive for that. I mean mean personally look i watched a lot i don't watch hunting shows because i lived it you know what i mean i really lived it to the fullest i've been everywhere i could

have ever dreamed of and i've seen everything so it's hard for me to watch it you know it'd be like you you're going outside of all the fights you've watched your you know are you going to get really excited about watching two bums duke it out in front of the studio? Unfortunately, yes. Okay. Well, that's why Primer was so good. Okay. It's so good at what you do.

I like watching little kids beat each other up. Okay. All right. Sorry. As long as nobody gets hurt. Swing and a miss. But I see your point. I totally see your point.

So you started out hunting essentially for food. Well, yeah. Well, no. We ate them. Part of life. Part of life. You know, I mean? Well, yeah. Well, no. We ate them. Part of life. Part of life. I mean, I grew up. We went hunting.

We shot doves. We shot quail. We ate them. Okay? We went fishing. We were catching release and boiling grease. Right. Okay?

We were catching crappie and eating them. That was part of life. How did you go from that to shooting an elephant? Well, if you really like hunting and you go over there and you learn more about it you know and you have a passion for it you if that's what you want to do you just go right but what what leads you to want to shoot an elephant like what personally yes i just loved hunting i love the idea of being out there i love the idea of being with there. I love the idea of being with local people. I love the idea of seeing the way it worked in other parts of the world. I mean, I had like I had a burning, crazy desire to go experience nature. Right. Okay. And be a part of the cycle of life in an intimate way everywhere I could go. cycle of life in an intimate way, everywhere I could go. Like people don't realize it. I don't think, and it's hard, you know, like I'm really, and I'll get into it later with you really

interested to hear your path that brought you to it. I'm sure you've talked on it and we don't have to talk on it. Cause you probably right now, it doesn't bother, you know, if you've talked about it, your listeners get bored of it or whatever, but I'd really like to know it. Okay. Because you, you, you probably understand. I don't want to like speak for you, but I'd really like to know it. Okay. Because you, you, you probably understand, I don't want to like speak for you, but when you're that close to an animal, when you're within bow range of an animal, it's a different experience than you have going to seven 11 or whatever you're going to have in a normal life. And so in a way that would be the way I would translate it. I just wanted to go everywhere i possibly could and i read everything i possibly

could and i learned everything i possibly could especially about i had a real passion for asia i've hunted all over asia everywhere that i could go in asia i went you know i could go down the list it astonished you and so i went over there and and asian hunting is by and large brutally hard why is that i mean i mean we went to nepal you're up to almost 17 000 feet you know you walk in you walk out you know your whole camp is you're being carried in or carrying out a lot of times and if you're backpack hunting you're carrying everything you live in you know i mean i'm 36 years old going on like 86 years old because of all the diseases and stuff my body's been through. Giardia and all that shit?

I never had giardia, but I had one they couldn't figure out, the Mayo Clinic one time. And it was killing me. And then I had malaria. I've had that. I've had numerous other infectious diseases that were destroying me. At 20, let me think, was 22 years old, I got malaria. And my fever got so bad that my gums were immediately like a 40-year-old person. Your gums were?

Yeah, like a fever damaged your gums. I guess I'm not a doctor. That's what they told me. What happens to your gums? I don't know, man. It's something that has to do with high fever for a long time. I don't know. So it just like makes your gums recede or have all the dude malaria is a bad deal yeah i've

had a friend who had malaria yeah and so i didn't catch it till later part of the problem is like the medicines they give you make you feel bad right so you don't really notice it coming on at first it's almost better in some circumstances just not to take the prophylactics and i'm not going to say anybody should do that but personally i do that a lot unless i just know i'm in a solid malaria area and then you'll know that it's coming on sooner because by the time it hit me i was really sick so you're talking about the anti-malaria medication you take before you get it yes yeah i had a friend who took that and he was drinking and apparently you're not supposed to take it and drink and he he went crazy like he got violent and apparently probably larium the one you take once i think that was exactly what it

was yeah yeah it'll make you hallucinate and freak out people hear you say that you have a passion for it you know and that you love being in wildlife and i understand that but they the big question would be why not just go there and see those animals like why would you want to go and kill an elephant like what is what is it what is it about i you know it's the same thing it's hard for hard for me to put it in words but i mean i believe that human beings are part of the cycle of life i believe your eyes are in the front of your head i believe you have canine teeth not for eating eating salad salad's good for you though it's great eat it have it up okay and so i believe that's why you have them i believe that

we are predators i believe it's a part of us right and so for me to explain something that is a part of me it's hard like that it's hard for me to say and and and i think people get caught up in well you just enjoy the killing it it's like you don't you don't hunt to kill it's you kill to have hunted in a lot of ways and i've been on 12 you don't hunt to kill you kill to have hunted what do you mean by that if you're a hunter you're going out hunting you're not going out killing if i like killing things i'd work at the chicken plant and I'd get 11,000 chickens every day. If I really got a thrill out of killing stuff. Okay. And I've gone on like, I've gone on 12, like hunts that I went on unsuccessful sheep hunts. And those were some of the best hunts that I ever had. And it wasn't anything

about killing the animal or not killing the animal. Yeah. It's a goal, but that was kind of part of the reason that brought me to those places. You're not going to go to these places, man, for no reason. Okay. You're not thinking when people think about, you know, Africa, they're thinking about the Maasai Mara and a nice East African or, or Kruger park type photo safari. You're not going into darkest Africa on the border of the Congo or in the Congo, or, you know, these nasty places in the world to go take pictures. Most people aren't going to do it. or in the Congo or, you know, these nasty places in the world to go take pictures. Most people aren't going to do it. Not even the photo people. You're going to get to like the rawest of the raw. They're going to go and do that stuff. It's brutal on you.

It's not comfortable. You go out and hang out with, you know, with pygmies who are very tough people, for instance, been to Cameroon and they're waking up every morning. A lot of them, People, for instance, have been to Cameroon, and they're waking up every morning. A lot of them, you know, their lives are hard, okay? It's not a nice existence, and you go out there and exist with them. It's a different thing. So you feel compelled to go to these places and compelled to hunt. Absolutely.

See, people have found out you're killing an antelope or something like that. It seems normal. You know, you're shooting that, you eat it. But shooting an elephant to people, they have a hard time with it because they're intelligent and they're social creatures and they know each other for, they have insane memories. Most all these animals are intelligent. Are they? Really? White-tailed deer, if they're hunted, they're really intelligent. Wolf, extremely intelligent

wolves are very intelligent yeah okay they're they're look in a in a in a way in an innate way to stay alive they're they're much more intelligent about their environment than you and i ever would because that's their home and they live in it so it's it's a different thing and yeah elephants are they intelligent? Absolutely. Okay. Do they have ethics and emotions? No. I mean, outside of, you know, rawest form, I think I've been around animals that I thought were angry.

Well, they definitely have emotions, right? They get upset at dead loved ones. But ethics, that's, you know, that's a human construct. There you go. And that's what happens is when people are trying to apply human constructs to animals, what right does the antelope have not to be killed by the jaguar? Or I'm sorry, the leopard. What right does it have not to be killed by the leopard?

I mean, it's a part of its life. That makes sense to people. What doesn't make sense is the desire. I think, for some people, there's a desire to go over there and shoot beautiful animals. A white-tailed deer is beautiful. It's killed every day. I agree. But it seems normal to people because it's killed every day, because we kill it and we

eat it. An elephant seems like something that you see at the circus. It seems like something that's in danger. Then there you go. There's a whole thing. There's 250,000 elephants in sub-Saharan Africa. How endangered does that sound to you? Yeah, that's true.

I wanted to get to that. Okay. But you asked normal people, the average person, with the average exposure to elephants, and they think they're endangered. Okay. Unfortunately, that's not true in sub-Saharan Africa. In places like CAR, it's true. They're in trouble.

And in these places, sometimes they actually have to kill these elephants because they start encroaching on human territory and stomping villages. Just population control. I know a guy who killed 1,200 elephants. Jesus Christ. Okay.

1,200. Why did he do that? Population control. So he lives down there. Yeah, well, I don't even know if he's still alive now, but anyway, yeah. That was his thing. He worked for the government killing them. And when you do this, you have to spend a considerable amount of money to kill an elephant, right? Not necessarily.

No? What do you consider a considerable amount of money? How much does it cost? I mean, you can go over there sometimes. I mean mean i know people who've shot them for a couple thousand dollars you could shoot an elephant for a population you're not you're not bringing the tusk home you're shooting it and then the village eating it and what do they do with the tusks that would be like on a cow probably just a female in population control i mean the least that i've ever heard of anybody shooting a bull elephant for you know in recent times probably like eight thousand dollars $8,000, $6,000, $8,000 bucks. And then the government just keeps it tough.

And the government keeps it tough and does what with them? I don't know. Depends what, you know, what do they put them in storage? I don't know exactly what they do with them. And that's a weird thing because of the ivory trade. Correct. The poaching and the ivory trade. I mean, that's what we see all the time when we connect elephants with death.

We see these animals, they're sawed off tusks and the rest was left behind. That's poachers. That's criminals. Horrible criminals. So if you go over and you shoot an elephant, you shoot a bull elephant, you can't bring the tusks back. Yes, you can. You can.

And certain, like if you shoot one in South Africa or Namibia right now, you can import them. You can. Absolutely. I like if you shoot one in South Africa or Namibia right now, you can import them. You can? Absolutely. I thought there was a ban on importing ivory. Only in, they shut down Zimbabwe until they changed their structure. It's not because there's not enough elephants there. They have, you know, thousands and thousands of elephants.

In Tanzania, they shut down the import for different reasons, you know, with regards to poaching and whatnot. And so the only thing that kills elephants is rarely lions will kill them, right? Other than people. Other elephants. Other elephants. Yeah. And so it's one of those apex animals that if people don't step in and do something about the population. They destroy the habitat.

And they can get out of control. That's Botswana. Botswana is bad? Yeah that's botswana eastern yeah eastern botswana is bad in that they destroy it's like a tornado a lot of places i went to a place the place that i hunted elephant was in botswana and it really looked like a hurricane had come through it just looked like the whole landscape was demolished and it was just because of elephant absolutely you're dealing with some enormous i mean how much does a big elephant weigh you know i mean well over 10 000 pounds is 14 i mean the biggest one i've probably seen i would have guessed 14 foot tall it's a huge animal it's a different experience hunting an elephant

yeah i would imagine you know it's a totally different thing and you the the thing that you have to understand there there's different reasons to hunt different things okay you know it's not like a hunting is some giant giant just broad stroke and in in the case of elephants you if you want people to to have a positive benefit local people who really determine like the survival of any animal, it's local people. You have to put a positive benefit on it for them. If it's just living next door to an elephant, you don't want that. If it's living next door to a lion, you don't want that. And so you're trying to understand that. You have to give them a reason

to keep it there or it's not going to be there. Did you ever see Lewis Thoreau's documentary on the hunting camps in Africa? It's very interesting. It's very good. If you don't know who Lewis Thoreau is, he's a documentarian from the UK. And he really gets very, very thorough on subjects. And he spent a lot of time in this South African hunting camp. But it got down to the end of it. And, you know, he was pastoring this guy who ran this camp to the point where the guy said, you don't get it.

Africa is fucked. He goes, it's fucked. He goes, they destroy. The only way you're going to keep these fucking animals is if they're worth something. That's been a French pH. I think he was... The way you're talking. I don't know what he was.

My accents are terrible. No, it's 100%. But that's what he's saying. He said it has to be worth something. Dude, I look at it like a lot of people in the Western world are looking at it through an ethereal mist and not getting it. If it pays, it will stay. Period.

Right. If it pays, it will stay. Period. Right. If it pays, it's going to stay. Do you think that part of the problem with people and their perceptions of hunting is just based on this really weird, insulated world that we live in where you could just go to the store and buy meat and most people- Hold on. Hold on. The vast majority-

100%. Let me be clear. 100%. That's the problem. that is the problem they and in addition to that they think that timon and pumbaa who are disney characters created by a couple guys and drawn up and given personalities my daughters love them okay and so do mine okay but they're not real exactly okay the real timon and pumbaa are out there fighting for their lives and would eat each other. Okay?

All right, that's the way it works. And would eat you. They would eat you. They would do anything. Like, okay, the real animals out there are doing anything they can to survive. Yeah, you saw that woman who's the editor from Game of Thrones got pulled out of her car last week. Yeah. Fuck.

That's a real lion. That's a real lion. That's not Lion King. that's not lion king that's not no and even that was in a park situation fenced in yeah okay like and not one thing people don't like lion is a big deal with me i've hunted lion been on many lion hunt do you eat lions you don't eat lions in general cameron haynes is gonna eat a lion if he shot it yeah well that dude would eat a shoe if he shot it. That's fine, but it's not the reason. That's not the reason to go hunting a lion. Well, what is the reason to go hunting a lion? In reality,

if you want to keep lions around in wild areas that aren't parks, you have to have a local benefit for it. That's the best reason. You have to have some sort of financial incentive for the people in the area. Financial incentive for people in the area. And also prevents poachers by hiring rangers. Well, or just like, for instance, in this black rhino situation, there wasn't anybody in there going to rat out where these black rhinos were at. You deal, you go to South Africa, and I was actually hunting in a place the other day that was in the middle of the rhino war.

Okay, while I was there, they killed a poacher the night that I one of the nights i was there okay and it's a real deal those people are having to lie detector test their staff monthly okay it's real simple i saw this because the staff are poachers their staff are tipping off poachers whoa okay people in the government are tipping off poachers it's an easy deal okay well i just saw a white rhino isn't a black rhino. You got to keep that in mind. Okay. A black rhino is what you shot. Yes.

And a white rhino, which was brought back from 30 animals to over 20,000 because of incentivizing people to own them and then being able to sell them on a hunting market. Okay. And for whatever other reasons, they were put into private ownership they went from 30 animals to 20 000 wow okay the white rhino is very docile in general not all of them okay and they're much i mean you would they're just easier to to be around a black rhino has not a lot of tolerance in wild areas i mean you saw you saw that on our hunt. It charged Ed, tried to kill him. Okay, so anyway, white rhino are just more docile.

They're going to be hanging around, whatever. It's easier for the poachers to kill. And obviously, there's more of them, a lot more. And so anyway, it's just an easy animal for poachers to get. And if somebody sees it on the side of the road, they tip off the local guy. for poachers to get. And if somebody sees it on the side of the road, they tip off the local guy.

Okay? They were paying between $800 and $1,000 per bullet on the black market to kill these white rhino. Or any rhino. $800 to $1,000 per bullet? That's what a poacher would pay.

I don't... What do you mean by per bullet? Buying a bullet on the black market to put in this gun and go poach a rhino. Pow. They have to pay that much for a bullet? That's what these people in this gun and go poach a rhino pow they have to pay that much for a bullet that's what these people were paying because they got 375 you

can't go kill a rhino in general with just a freaking 22 right okay so to get a 375 or 458 bullet that's what they were paying to to get that bullet so they had to get the bullets through illegal means as well absolutely they're criminals right it's not like you and i are getting together and going out there and saying, let's go kill a rhino today. Okay, and we're going to go get our bullets we bought fair and legal here in the United States or wherever we bought. I think

another issue that Lewis Thoreau covered in his documentary and that a lot of people are not aware of is that a lot of the lions or excuse me, a lot of the animals in Africa that are being hunted on a regular basis were on the verge of extinction just two decades two decades ago maybe three okay and when they started doing those hunting camps now these animals are thriving and the reason why they're thriving is because they're worth money and that that bothers people

it bothers people the idea that the only way these animals are surviving and thriving is if somebody is willing to pay money to go over there and hunt them because these people who are sitting there looking at it ain't doing a damn thing to save them joe okay they're saving them to death by making uneducated comments and throwing up just typing 75 characters into twitter or your facebook page isn't saving a rhino it's making you feel better right and these people's feelings are in the way of the actual conservation of wildlife through the people who know how to conserve wildlife. Well, this is something that for me as an outsider who slowly ventured into the world of hunting, I had to learn. And that's why I kind of sympathize with the people that are on the

outside that aren't aware of all this. When someone says, yeah, I couldn't imagine someone going to Africa and shooting these animals. It's so fucked up. I take a deep breath. Okay, I want you to define that. And it's a long conversation. Define what you just said. What screwed up about it?

Well, their idea is that you're going over there with bloodlust. You're on this orgy of murder over there gunning down all these different animals and posing with their their heads that's their idea and it's wrong but it also it doesn't cover the reality of the money that's involved in paying for those tags and going over there and flying over there and paying for these hunting camps to stay open has kept these animals in enormous populations where they were dying off just 20 years ago. That's a reality. And it's the only reality that we have documented in Africa right now as far as conservation of a lot of these game animals. Especially outside the parks.

Look, a lot of the parks are spared because they're surrounded by game management areas and hunting areas. By game management areas and hunting areas. And sometimes they have to take those parks and they have to have either someone come in and minimalize or control the population and kill some of the animals because they get too high or they have to open them up for hunters. Yeah. I guess the best way I could put this is this. Most everybody would agree that humans are complicit in the plight of a lot of these animals. Do you agree with that? Yes. Okay.

Then why shouldn't humans be complicit in saving them and keeping them around? Okay. Through a traditional method that has worked in conservation for hundreds and hundreds of years. Look, the idea not to hunt wasn't a part of humanity for just recently, maybe the last couple hundred years into the forefront, maybe the last 30 to 50 years. Okay. It wasn't nobody thought about it. We're going hunting. Well, before refrigeration, it was like one of the only, we have to do it on a regular basis.

75 years ago, we were basically in an agrarian society in a lot more ways, right? And people looked, they had, if they're going to have lamb chops, theyrarian society in a lot more ways, right? And people looked. If they're going to have lamb chops, they're going out there and killing that lamb right there. Okay, how many people who eat lamb chops today are going to go out and kill that lamb? Almost none. And that's where it gets weird. It's very weird. And to you and I, I've heard you speak about it, it becomes very hypocritical.

It is. It's 100% hypocritical. But it's also wild that the hypocritical is the most common. It's more common to be hypocritical about meat than it is to not because of this system that we've set up that's very effective that allows you to go to any store anywhere you want and just buy meat instantly. How long did it take you to truly understand martial arts and everything about it? A long time. And you still don't know everything about it? No.

Okay, but how many years? I think I was probably just getting started about 10 years in. Would you look like, do you think most people would consider you an expert in martial arts? If not, I don't know who is. Okay, all right. I mean, I get paid to do it. Okay, you get paid to do it. It's your life, all right?

So if I was going to ask you a question about martial arts or a move in martial arts or what it took, you give me a good answer. Okay. When it comes to most styles, some styles I don't know that much about. Then it's no different in this. Look, I've watched. I can't tell how many fights that you've done that you've been color for. Okay. And I can sit there and say this or that or the other,

but to be inside that ring, I can't imagine what that's like. So I'm not going to say, I know what it's like to be one of these ultimate athletes. I can't imagine what that's like. I can't imagine what you have to put your mind through your family, through everything. It's the exact same thing with this. All right. I've done this since i was 16 years old now i'm not an expert on wildlife management or wildlife biology i trust experts when it comes to hunting pretty close to you know you could ask almost everybody in the international hunting community i think they would say that cory knows a lot about it so it's you have to be in it to really understand it. Okay, you can't just be from the outside in.

And what it comes is there's so much, look, hate and anger are the lowest hanging fruit. It's the easiest thing to reach to. And today we're in an era of rush to outrage. This technological social media world, it's just like a giant boom shift. And I think we're still lost in that. And, and 20 years ago, if I went on a rhino hunt, nobody would have known about it. Nobody would have cared about it. They know hunting exists. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. And things went along. Now the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. The people who are the most outraged. Okay. They talk about it. They scream about it. And if you're someone who gets a lot of attention,

like you're an actor, comedian, whatever, they're looking at these people, you know, their comments and they look at the headline. They don't look into it any more than that because we have a very short attention span. News now is headline, headline, headline, headline, headline. Trust me. I know I've been a part of it. You know, this will, I've talked about the black rhino a lot. It goes away, and if some event came up, it comes right back, and as soon as it comes up, it's gone again. And for the animal rights people, there'll be somebody who will kill a dolphin or stab a frog or whatever,

and they'll move on to that. Have you had a debate with anybody in the animal rights movement? Lots of them. And what was their take on this? When you try to explain your this when you when you try to explain your point of view you try to explain that this is an aggressive older male that's not breeding anymore that had killed at least one young bull was a danger to the breeding population of an extinct or an endangered rather let me let me do it again animal rights movement like a

hardcore i've talked to a few of them. Okay. And after they get done talking to me, almost every one of them, you know, find some middle ground. Okay. Animal welfare, which was why I would say there's a huge difference between animal rights and animal welfare, animal welfare, or I promise you, or you and me, nobody wants to see an animal mistreated. Nobody wants to see an animal suffer. We understand that animals are used for part of human humanity, and we probably wouldn't survive in the world without them the way we do now okay animal rights is a total different thing all right to some of those people it's a religion okay it's it is their life i would agree with you okay uh you know somebody like i watched um

you know i really hate it but there was a person that you did a show, you talked with on Opie and Anthony a while back, who's one of the leaders of Ricky Gervais. Yeah. And so he comes out and says things. And, you know, he said a bunch of inflammatory things towards me and towards anybody else. Right. And it's not it's not it's about his emotion about it. It's not about if that if the facts are helping the black rhino survive. These people would rather there not be an interaction with humans and animals.

They think the second of freedom of you releasing your pet, okay, some of them, and if it got hit by a car right over there, that minute of freedom is better than a lifetime of being Joe Roon's pet. They obviously haven't seen my dogs. Okay, and then they lump pets in. They lump pets in. I'm sorry, they lump animal welfare in with them. They try to make like that they're bigger

because they get these animal welfare people. And a lot of those animal welfare people hate that. They don't want to be lumped in with them. You know, because they know that, you know, like Michael J. Fox said that he didn't look at an ant and the life of an ant any more didn't look at the life of an ant any more or less valuable than the life of his son. What?

Yeah. He really said that? Check it out, bro. Yeah, but he's got a disease. That shit's fucking with his brain. Okay. Well, I think this was a long time ago. But anyway, they say a lot of things like that.

That's an insane thing to say. Okay. But that's obviously, you're talking about a certain, that religious side of it, the ideological side and the problem they have really, especially with me is that I had a gigantic mountain of facts and scientific material, wildlife biology on, on my side of the argument i talked with a guy um for a different show they're doing a documentary on this um it's a show called radio lab i don't know if you know yes i do yeah they did love that show they did a two-hour document or i don't know how long it's gonna be they're doing a huge documentary one of the guys came over with me on this hunt

and uh i talked with a this guy robert i don't know what his last name is, Krolwich or something. Okay. You know who I'm talking about? Yeah, I know exactly. Okay. Well, a big fan of that show. Okay. So I talked with him at length last week and a half ago, 90 minute conversation. And what I found is the more intelligent the person you have this debate with, the much easier the debate is to have. And so I talked to him about it. He didn't get it. He didn't get, like, you know, what drives you or me to go hunting.

But he told me I had one of the best hard arguments, if not the best, that he'd ever gone up against, that this placing value on them is going to keep them around. At the end of it, at the very end of the conversation, he was like, Corey, you know, you have a really great sense of honor for this, and I really respect it. It's refreshing, and I think you're right. And so, but it took 90 minutes of going through, like I said, that ethereal mist of all the BS that's out here about this subject. Manufactured outrage.

Manufactured outrage. Okay. And a lot of times why people are profiting off of it. I mean, PETA, you know, killing all these pets, you know, however many they have. Yeah, that's a hard part for people to swallow. Okay. If they don't know. Tell people if they don't know the facts behind that.

Well, they're killing thousands of pets a year. And they just euthanize them because they can't take care of them? They're just killing them. Okay, so it's extremely hypocritical. How the fuck do they justify that? There's no kill animal shelters. I don't understand how they don't run something like that. Look, spay and neuter your pets.

If all the pets are spayed or neutered, there ain't going to be any pets left. Right. Okay, it's... Look, spay and neuter your pets. If all the pets are spayed or neutered, there ain't going to be any pets left. Right. Okay. You're dealing with almost psychotic level ideological people. You know what my favorite ones are? Who? The people who break into restaurants and release lobsters back into the ocean. That's great.

You know, I can tell you this. For these people who called me, sent me messages, threatened to kill my children, threatened to burn my house down, rape my wife, every single thing that you could ever imagine. I mean, for those people to say they're going to do that, just in and of itself is ridiculous and hypocritical. Right. Okay. You're against killing right okay you're you're against killing but you're you're willing to kill me you want to kill and rape and kill your children absolutely that had nothing to do with the rhino at all nothing to do with any of it

what my wife hunts my kids hunt i guess they want to kill them for that they want to kill them look i'm mad it's not about what you're doing it's about my feelings and my feelings are more important than what you're doing if it's right my feelings. And my feelings are more important than what you're doing if it's right or wrong. And what they want to do is show you somehow or another what it's like to be feared or to be in fear, to be hunted or hated. You know how many people came to my face, Joe, and said one thing?

How about zero? Yeah, zero. Most people wouldn't. Okay. And I will sit here and talk with any of them. Well, I think that's a real problem with social media. The real problem is anonymity and the lack of the social consequences. If I look at you in the eye and I say something really fucked up to you, and you raise your eyebrows at me like, what the fuck did you just say? And then I feel that.

And you feel it and I feel it. But when you just say something mean on Facebook, it hits that person. You say, I hope your fucking whole family dies in a fire. You know, those rhinos are majestic. You go on about your day. You don't even get a response back. You don't feel anything back. Yeah, and that makes them mad, too.

But I responded to lots of them. Well, I just retweet them. I let other people respond. I had a bunch of people angry at me because I went bear hunting, and I just retweeted a lot of their shit. Like, you're a bully. You know, you're a bully. You sick your fucking followers.

I didn't sick anybody. You put some shit on the internet. I let people know about it. I didn't even say anything. Go ahead. Look at it. Do you feel, and how many people came out after you about the bear? A lot.

A lot. But I feel like there was a tremendous amount of ignorance on their part. First of all, because I do eat bear. People were saying, you know, you're killing it. You're not eating it. I absolutely eat it. I like eating them. They're delicious. And you have to keep the population down. And you also, you're dealing with an animal that kills the fawns of all the moose, all the elk, all the deer that live up there. Your facts are getting in the way of their feelings. It's true. Well, it's also what Steve

Rinella has this great phrase. It's called charismatic megafauna and the anthropomorphic Asian of these animals like Yogi bear and Winnie the Pooh They are locked into people's head these fucking Disney depictions of bears are locked in people's heads This is what saving the animals to death Well, you know what it is is just it's not doing a damn thing but get no people getting right Right, yeah, it's keeping people look it kept the but people getting riled up. The outrage of it's keeping people... Look, it kept the contribution for more money going. You see what I'm saying?

Well, in California, it's fucking up a lot of things. California, these ideas have actually... I mean, California doesn't even have a fish and game department. They have a fish and wildlife. Yeah, well, they can call it what they do. But they call it what they call it. It's run by people who are more animal activists than they are pro-hunting. I don't know.

They have no mountain lion season here yeah and because of that there's a lot of fucking mountain lions no no no no doubt about it there's a place called dahon ranch that i hunt out of they have one waterhole that they have a trail cam on they found 16 different mountain lions what's in balance about that what's in balance about that there's no balance it's crazy these the guys who work on the ranch, they don't like it at all. Not a goddamn thing they can do unless one of them is threatening. Unless one of them takes out livestock or becomes a threat to people, they can't do a damn thing about it. And when that does happen, then they have to fill out all this paperwork. It becomes like a huge nightmare. They get investigated. That's why we have a ton of game animals in Texas

and we don't have a ton of mountain lions. And that's how it should be. It's not like the mountain lion population is endangered. Not in any way, shape, or form. But they're goddamn predators, and they don't give a fuck about your kids. They don't give a fuck about your mom. They don't give a fuck about anybody that might have to be on that trail.

You're not going to have the predators for ethical treatment of humans. Yeah, do you think mountain lions get tweeted when they kill someone's dog? We're dealing with an extreme hypocritical situation. We're dealing with an extreme lack of knowledge about the subject matter. And we're dealing with people's emotions. And look, I have a lot of compassion for their emotions. I understand it. Okay, I care about these animals too.

They may not get it. Okay. And to me, I've definitely did everything I care about these animals too. They may not get it. Okay. And to me, I've definitely did everything I could from a personal standpoint. And once I was involved with this situation, I went to the more liberal media outlets to bring it to this. Okay. I could have gone on Fox news and I've been preaching the choir when I brought CNN with me on the hunt. Yeah, you did. Okay. So I went over there. I was very, very honest and upfront with them about everything that I went through, everything they saw.

They came and saw the entire thing. And so what I've seen is they got attacked because they said, oh, this was ridiculous. Y'all were so behind him and involved with this. Man, that is crap. Well, you know what that is? If you don't share the opinions of the people that oppose it, then you're some sort of a shill. They did.

Yeah. They did. Yes, absolutely. Once they get there, and that's the reality of the situation. I mean, I had some conversations with people about this when this thing went down, and I said, look, I'm not going over there to shoot any rhinos. I have no desire to shoot a rhinos. I have no desire to shoot a rhino, but you got to pay attention to what you're talking about because you can't just

talk shit and say this guy's an asshole and this rhino didn't need to be killed. You have to look at it from a balanced perspective, objectively with no ideology attached to it. And when you do that, you realize that there's a lot of people, a lot of conservationists, a lot of biologists who are pro-culling of certain animals in any population to keep that population healthy. Again, it seems counterintuitive, but it's important. What seems counterintuitive about it? Well, it seems counterintuitive to the people outside.

They're looking at, I'm going to kill an animal to save the animal. Let's talk about the term endangered for a second cool with that. Yes okay, very crude drawing here of Africa and Let's say that you if an animal is up here Okay, and then you have our animal down here those are two separate populations So you made Africa you cut it in half and I went to east and I went to south. Okay. Okay? Or what they consider east Africa. Right.

Alright? If an animal up here is in trouble, and there's tons of them down here, you're gonna see whatever animal it is, I'm not gonna use any specific, on endangered, when this animal of the same species is fine. Right.

Okay. Well, but also because Africa is fucking gigantic. It's gigantic. If you look at Africa, this is the United States. Yeah, we've shown that on the set before. We've taken an image of the continent of Africa, and you could put everything in there. You put China in there. You put the United States in there.

Everything but Russia. South America. Yeah. Russia's pretty goddamn big. Well, I flew across Russia one time, nine hours, and never left the country. Whoa. That's a big-ass country. So, anyway, if the animal up here is, it's going to be on the endangered species list,

even though it's fine down here. Right. Okay? So, for instance, in Namibia, if you pull up, go ahead and pull up Southwestern Black Rhino on Wikipedia. Okay. And I'll kind of walk you through this a little bit. I want to see him pull it up and let's see if he pulls up the right one.

Southwestern black rhino is a different. Subspecies. Subspecies. Oh, okay. So it varies genetically in some sort of way. Okay. Now, look right there at the conservation status of the southwestern black rhino. Conservation status.

Okay, what does that say? VU, threatened? Vulnerable? Vulnerable. Does it not say endangered? No, it doesn't say endangered. It says vulnerable. What's the difference?

Wow. Why is it wow? Because it's not endangered. In Namibia, it's not endangered. It's considered vulnerable. Wow. Why is it wow? Because it's not endangered. In Namibia, it's not endangered. It's considered vulnerable. Okay. Okay, and that's the IUCN list, bro. That's the list that everyone looks to.

So least concern is the highest level. Least concern is black bass, white-tailed deer. Okay, and then what's NT? NT is near threatened. Near threatened. So it goes from least concern to near threat. That seems like a kind of a biased designation to begin with. It's not healthy population.

It isn't even on the list. It's just least concern. Yeah, and even when you get into vulnerable, you get in there least concern. That's not a concern of going endangered. Okay, what's a healthy population, whatever? It's not a concern of going endangered. But it's right next to endangered. That's the of going endangered. But it's right next to endangered. That's the next distinction.

No, it's right next to threatened. VU is vulnerable. What is EN? Least concern, threatened, extinct. Okay, and then you have EW is extinct in the wild. Uh-huh. Okay, so you have to get into this. Okay.

The reason that they're not endangered on this is because namibia has a surplus amount of them okay in namibia it's not an endangered situation they have a surplus amount right when you say surplus people say like this guy's talking about widgets you're talking about tires you're talking about things carburetors look i don't have a degree in economics but you know i'm saying like the word the term surplus to a living thing, it gets people weirded out. Yeah, it's 7 billion humans or whatever we're at. Is there enough of us? I think this is a surplus, people.

Okay. So my point is you get into that. In Namibia, they have a surplus amount. Okay. So what is the population? Man, I can't tell you exactly, but I believe more than 2,000. It'll say on that. And the black rhinos, the ones that you hunted, are different or the same as this particular?

That's the one I hunted. That's the one you hunted. So there's a few thousand of them. Yeah, of that subspecies in Namibia. And is there other black rhinos? There's different kinds of black rhinos? Yeah, there's different subspecies of black rhinos. Like, for instance, when you were saying the one that was going extinct the one that went extinct there was a western black rhino that

went extinct and what is the difference in these rhinos like how can they tell the difference it's just different taxonomy different things about them you know different you know versus a black tail no no no that would be two different species but it's really close that would be a desert desert mule deer versus a Rocky Mountain mule deer. Oh, okay. Something like that. Well, like, mule deer are weird where the designation is the I-5. Like, east of the I-5, it's a black-tailed west, it's a mule deer.

Yeah, that's another, right there along that. But they're essentially the same animal. Right there, they could be essentially the same. It's just like this is transferring over, right? Right. But if you shot one, it would be considered a mule deer in a specific location if you shot the exact same animal across the i5 it's it'd be a black tip that day he's a black tail yeah so this is not like that with these rhinos it's no you're

talking about more distinct yeah diversity like like i said here here here okay okay they're totaled separate populations so they have these animals. They know that there's a fairly healthy amount of them, and they're trying to maintain and grow the population through the resource of the actual animal themselves. So by auctioning off this big game hunt and spending $350,000, they then take all this money. It's accounted for very meticulously. It all goes into this conservation fund.

It all pays for, what, rangers? All sorts of different things. It went into the Namibian Game Products Trust Fund, and it has a list of these things. You could pull that up, too, I'm sure, if you wanted to. But it's a list of things. You're going through it. Okay. Okay, so basically it had, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife to allow the importation of it,

they had to find a non-detriment finding, meaning that the taking of this animal is not detriment to the species, and it had to have a positive finding as well, positive benefit to the species. So do you have this animal now? No. Are you eventually going to get it? Yes. So are they stuffing it for you? No, it's still in, it's, it has to go through a process before it's imported in the United States. I mean, it's only been, I don't know how long it's not even, it's not been a month since I hunted the animal. So they take it and

they're going to ship it to you? Do they taxiderm? No, that'll happen over here. Okay. And you will just put this in your house or something? Well, I mean, like I said, I've said this a lot of times. I have to look through it through what the permit actually allows me to do as my personal property. I can't ever sell it. I can't do stuff like that. Okay. But what I want to do and, you know, and I'm going to talk to them about this once it gets here is can I loan it to different museum, put it on display at different places, you know, to keep the awareness alive about it. I never was in this cause I was like, Oh, I can't wait to have a black rhino. That's not what I was in this for.

Well, what were you in it for? Like, what was your ultimate goal when you decided to spend that money and take that trip and shoot that rhino? What was... I have a belief system in sustainable use as a, and within that, hunting is a tool of sustainable use to keep animals alive. So did you recognize that this was a high-profile situation and it would be something that you could use as a platform? No, I didn't recognize that.

I mean, I was told that day when we had the auction that my name wouldn't come out for a while. It came out like within a few hours of the auction. Somebody tweeted it. It wasn't even supposed to be spoke of right then. And then it came out, and I kind of felt, to be honest, bullied. You know, I was like, you know, I believed in this enough to be a part of it now. Now it's out. It is what it is.

I can't do anything about it. It wasn't my desire. OK, I knew it would eventually come out. And I do know I don't think anybody could have expected what would happen with it. I mean, I didn't expect to the degree of it. I've seen other things, but I've never seen anything to this degree. Well, we live in a new world. You know, we live in a world of instant, instant outrage and instant reaction to that outrage.

You know, if this had taken place 20 years ago, you really had no recourse. No one, I mean, even if they got upset, they got upset in their small groups. They read the paper together like someone, did you see this? This guy shot a rhino. Fuck that guy. And that'd be the end of it. There was no way to reach out to him. Now that conversation is for everybody to see. Yes. For everybody to see, everybody to join in, everybody to take the moral high ground and, and very few people to take a nuanced, objective look at it and realize, wow, like there's, there's a lot of gray area,

like many things in life. I'll tell you a real interesting deal. When it first happened, some children whose parents were activists, okay, they wrote me a letter about why I was doing this. Okay. They told you why you were doing it? No, they asked me not to do it. And they did this letter. Okay.

And I did this interview with these kids. I had, like, this guy was doing a documentary about them or whatever, came down and asked me if I would talk to them. And they're kids, which, you know, I understood that. I was very nice and very calm and cool with them. I have been with everybody, really. And they asked me a lot of questions that were really, you know, to me, I considered, you know, almost like common knowledge type questions. But then I asked them this. I said, if there's three black rhinos left, okay, and let's say it's one male or two males and a cow or whatever. And one's killing the other two. Can you shoot that black rhino?

Okay. They're going to be gone. You don't have time to think about it. This is the moment. Can you kill that rhino to save the species? Okay. And the, the boy, the older boy kind of got it.

This, this is deep in the conversation. This is after, you know, 30 minutes in, he was kind of got it. This is deep in the conversation. This is after, you know, 30 minutes in. He was kind of coming around, okay. But the girl was, she was younger and she was pretty much stuck with it. But I pressed her. I was like, well, you know, look, you've asked me all these questions. I've answered everything.

Can you do this? You know, if you really believe in the survival of these black rhino. And she's like, I just don't know. And I was like, well, that's why we have experts that do know and that they exist and that they're in charge of this and so you yourself joe could you kill that black rhino would you kill that black rhino to save the species yeah okay it's just immediately immediately it just seems like if one of them is trying to kill the other one and you're talking about it's like it's a pragmatic answer to a complex question.

That's right. You have to do it. You have to do it. Or you have to let them go extinct. Those are your two options. That's your options right now. Yeah, that's it. Okay.

If the one kills the other one, and who knows if he dies in the process, because it's not like the one's going to let the other one kill him. They're going to fight. They're going to fight. They're going to impale each other with those fucking horns. Yeah. They might get infected and die, and they might be the end of it right there so that to me that's uh look albeit of extremely over simplified question to a very complicated thing right okay when you're dealing with these wildlife experts that put this

together that's kind of the question they're going through okay that's part of the question but it's it's very complicated when you start putting value on things and trying to figure out which rhinos, which way, which method, which place, which community with all these things. That's the big question. What are we going to do to keep these animals alive? to keep these animals alive. And unfortunately for these animals, they cannot afford the morality of the average person and the average person's thought process on this. They can't afford it.

Okay. They need experts. They need money. And they need a value. Anytime you put a hunting license on something, you put a value on it. Okay. One time, I don't know, man,

the second season of Professionals, we went down to Paruay and we went and darted jaguars okay they didn't have but you say darted them you're talking about tranquilizing them tranquilize them so they could tag them so we put collars on them radio collars and we moved one okay if and we moved it to get it out of an area where it was a threat of being poached by the local indian tribe unfortunately two weeks later it went back to that same area and they killed it okay they're like we'll give you the jaguar hide but you know we want 80 for this collar okay it meant nothing to them it had no value on it. Now, had that Jaguar been worth 20,000 bucks or anything to their community, they'd have done anything in the world to protect

it. It's that simple. I mean, if you have gold running around in your backyard, you're not going to protect it. That's why I have such a real issue with people not understanding this. Just imagine this. This rhino's horn on the black market's worth, whatever, it's worth three times the weight of gold. Something like that. That's insane. Okay. All right.

Now, that's on a black illegal market. Now, if you put a value of it three times the weight of gold on an illegal market and you have no value on it in a legal market what's going to happen people are going to kill it and they're going to sell it illegally okay let's talk about you know i mean i don't know how far i'm going with this and if it's even the right direction but if you just put a blanket no okay how well would that work like in something like the keeping people from doing drugs how well did it work on alcohol in the 20s okay blanket no and then you take enforcement out of it how well would it work doesn't work at all okay in paraguay they had no way to enforce their laws they had no people out

the field doing it so what's going to happen it's not worth anything the animals are gonna get poached because there were something that there Well, those weren't even worth anything. Nobody was paying them anything for it. They were a negative benefit to the community. They were worried about our goat. They were killing goats. They were killing whatever. So they're killing them just to protect their lifestyle.

Yeah, and their life, look, I mean, the idea of death by wild animal isn't something we deal with here in the United States. Rarely. Very rarely. But, I mean, you're not walking down the streets of L.A. thinking this mountain lion is going to freaking rip my head off today. Okay, if you're in, like, Zambia, and you're rolling down in the evening time in rural Zambia, okay, and you're on a bike, you're thinking a lion might be around here.

Okay, and you know people have been killed by a lion. It's a different thing. Okay, now let's say you live out there joe this lion's worth nothing to you to you alive okay now you go out there it's killed some of your livestock your property's damaged what are you gonna do you're gonna kill the lion okay it's killed your it's killed your child what are you gonna do you're gonna kill the lion okay now if you know there's no benefit coming why not poison around here? Let's put some poison in this will kill the whole pride And that's what they wind up doing that's exactly what they wind up doing a lot of places people

I think have a real issue with monetary like attaching money attaching a monetary value to life like attaching money, attaching a monetary value to life. People have a real issue with lots of things, Joe. There's people who don't. The thing I learned about my situation was you don't realize how many people hate you just because whatever you believe. If you're a Christian, there's people that hate you. If you're a Muslim, there's people that hate you.

If you're an atheist, there's people that hate you. If you're gay, there's people that hate you. They're just not exposed to that level of hate. I got exposed to the level of hate that people have for me. Okay. Back in the day, you lived your life. I lived my life. It was more, I mean, it was almost more of a libertarian existence because I would never have anything to do with you. Okay. And today on social media, I'm in a room with thousands of people that hate me anytime I get on it. Okay, they hated me to the extent my Facebook's gone, dude.

Did you delete it? No! I can't get on it. It won't allow me to get on it. What do you mean? It won't allow me to get on it. If I do it right now, I'll do it in front of you. It says it's disabled. I put my email address in there. It says it doesn't recognize it. So does that happen? Does it hack it? It had to have.

Did you contact facebook i mean yeah through all these things through their method and then i'm just like i'm done with it you know i couldn't figure it out i'm done i mean i'm not the computer genius wherever and i like i'm outside tons of people under 20 000 people you know and uh there were just mainly a lot of those 100 is gone and so they took my voice out of it right there well that's in a lot of ways it was good for my family if you if you if you look at it like these four walls like joe's got to go home he's got to be with his kids his family right my mom my wife would go on there they'd look at all the hate and make him upset i mean i got the skin thicker than the rhino now you could have whoever in the world

sitting over here telling me whatever and i mean this is because of this absolutely what was it like when it first started coming at you a different story yeah like just a giant ray you know different like raging wall of emotion you know like I'm angry I'm upset you know things like that but you realize that what made me feel a lot better was a lot of the people that would just say you know karma type threats you wish you die, hope you get cancer, whatever. I would respond to them when they'd send me those messages. Nine out of ten, maybe even more than that, said it was just a knee jerk reaction and apologized. They realized there was a human on the other side of it.

So you think when they see you on CNN or they see you on a website, see your face, a photograph, they don't necessarily think of you as a person. No. They think of you as an expression of something they disagree with. Here's a name on something I don't like. Hmm. And you went back and forth with these people for a few days or how long did you do? I mean, usually the first message. Really?

Yeah. I mean, if I still had it, I could show you. How much time did you spend i mean usually the first message really yeah i mean i if i still had it i could show you how much time did you spend doing lots i cared to reach out to ricky gervais i would i'd love to talk to him about it you know i mean look he's a comedian he can probably get it i searched his name you know and well he loves animals yeah yeah i searched his name and it came up right underneath ricky martin it's probably a good place for him how dare you i mean he's living la good place for him. How dare you? He's living la vida loca.

Leave him alone in Miami. Look, man, look, whatever. I'm open-minded to it. Honestly, I think if he was sitting here with me, you've sat with him, what would he say? Well, when I talked to him, he didn't have any problem with what I was doing. I told him that I hunt for food. I don't hunt things that I don't eat. And I practice very hard, make sure that if I shoot something, it dies quick.

That's very ethical. And there was really not much you could say. I don't even know if he's a vegetarian. Is he a vegetarian? I don't know, man. Look, man, I'm living my life, my kids, bro. I understand. I had arguments with people online.

I found out that they had a dog. And I'm like, what do you feed your dog, motherfucker? Yeah. What do you feed your dog? Angel farts? Honestly, Joe, if you could bring him here, if you could get that they had a dog and I'm like, what do you feed your dog motherfucker? Yeah, what do you feed? Honestly Joe if you could bring him here if you could get that dude to come here and sit with me Mm-hmm. I would love nothing more than it. You know, I'll talk to anybody about it Do you think that there's like a certain certain social currency to standing up for animals certain social currency to taking that photo? Putting it online and going how do you think man? I think there is. Absolutely there is.

I think people do certain things not just because they believe it, but also they put it out there because they want everyone to know they believe it because it jazzes them up. Honestly, if he was here, I would show him nothing but love. I would care about him as a human being. And, you know, he called me a murdering scumbag. Is that what he did? How dare he? Yeah, whatever. What about the rh about the Rhino you shot a murderer yeah it doesn't matter like a facts doesn't matter like a rhino cop so look if he was here I'd

hug him I'd be nice to him I tell jokes with him okay look I understand here's the thing I understand that I was in front of him as an agenda he's a comedian okay and he is a professional comedian. Okay. And he feels passionate about stuff. Okay. He can say what he wants and I'm sure he can take a joke as good as he can give a joke. I would hope so. Okay. So, so, so I don't have a problem with that. I understand that I was just something for him to talk about that day. It doesn't bother me. I don't, I don't take any of this stuff, you know, maybe just a slat, It would be inhuman to say I don't take all of it personally. I take some of it personally.

You know what I mean? That's a very healthy approach to it. That'll definitely help you. I mean, what are you going to do? Are you going to sit there and look at all the anger and hate in the world and let that change me? If you sit with the devil, you don't change. I mean, the devil doesn't change. You do.

The consequences of actually acquiring food are just so much more brutal than people want to imagine um chicken mcnuggets aside even getting grain you know i i watch this thing on the the machines that they use to to get corn and wheat from fields those fucking things are brutal they they chop down everything that's in that field and they catch fawns and rabbits and squirrels and just anything that gets in front of those wheels just gets churned up and sliced apart so the only way you're gonna buy grain is you i mean you're gonna buy it in a store unless you're growing your own grain and picking it by hand, you're most likely involved in some sort of animal murder, whether you want to believe it or not.

It's the reality of being a human being in these complicated times. They're trying to disconnect us from who we are and what we are as regards to the cycle of life. Don't you think they're trying to do that because they are disconnected by the system that they subsist in? Absolutely. I think that was one of the main reasons why I wanted to get into hunting because I recognized a big contradiction. And as a comedian, as a person who thinks about shit a lot, I look at things that don't make any sense. And I just go, how is this? How come this doesn't make any sense? And so many people just accept it.

You just hit it. You said, as a person who thinks about things a lot, okay? You didn't say a person to react to everything that I see immediately, okay? You have the benefit of time, Joe. You have the benefit of self-reflection, all right? I read about you a little bit. You said you did the self-deprivation chambers, all these things, right? You're trying to find out who you are as a person and you're trying to find out where you're at as a person. You're questioning things, questioning things, thoughts and feelings and emotions you have. I don't think by and large, a lot of people that live everyday life have the opportunity to do that or take the opportunity to do that. I don't think a lot of people do I think you're probably right and I think there's also the reality that we're all under the influence of the momentum of culture and when cultures when cultures accepts certain types of behavior and

Certain types of behavior are not prevalent like hunting that those types of behavior that aren't prevalent get mocked or minimalized or misunderstood and That I think when you, you deal with the system that we all operate under, there's a few people that are really aware of what the system really, truly is. And those are the people that work in the slaughterhouses. Those are the people that breed the cattle. Those are the people that work in these insane confined chicken factories where they just stuff all these fucking animals where they've made laws where you're not allowed to take photos you can go to jail if you work in one of those plants or if you sneak into one of those plants and take photos of the ridiculously inhumane conditions at these

chickens and these pigs there's different states have made laws because it's inconvenient for people to know the truth it's like no different than the outrage that people had when you couldn't show Coffins when you couldn't show American flag draped coffins they were putting a ban on them in the media after the Gulf War started and people were freaking out that Like look, this is my fucking family dying over there You're telling me you can't take a picture of the coffin that my family's on because you don't want people to know the reality of People dying well, that's insane. It's information You can't take a picture of the coffin that my family's on because you don't want people to know the reality of people dying. Well, that's insane.

It's information. It's all it is. And when they're trying to keep information from you in any way, shape, or form, that's always bad. Make your own fucking opinions. Devise your own opinion or come up with your own opinions on things. But you have to be able to have access to information to have a really informed opinion. Well, and there's not been a day and age that I think we've had more access to information, and it seems like people would rather get outraged than informed.

Well, it takes a long time to get informed about this shit. People think that they, you know. I agree. To be fully informed, yes. You could have watched these CNN stuff that we did, and you'd have had a pretty good idea. A decent idea. Okay.

And at least if you read into the article, you'd know where to go, right? You could know to go to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife page and look at it. But what happens is, is people have strong emotions about it. And then they have what, you know, opinion bias, right? I don't agree with that because it doesn't back up what I believe. Right. And you can get confirmation bias online going to a hundred different websites that are anti-hunting and anti. The world's foremost experts agreed on it.

Okay. And like, and again, I'm not trying to get away from what the point you're trying to make is that people don't have a real idea of the reality of the machine that feeds us. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. They don't have, they're not, they don't understand that they don't have a personal relationship when they bite into a quarter pounder with the cow in the way that my grandmother, my great grandmother who ran a dairy would. They look at a quarter pounder the way most people look at a potato.

Okay. And the people look, you know, just being around you seem pretty open-minded about things. I don't see, as you're looking across here, the person that's going to judge me for whatever. Okay? The people who are judging us about this, by and large, are doing it while eating a hamburger and having a Louis Vuitton purse. Okay? I enlarge are doing it while eating a hamburger and having a Louis Vuitton purse. Okay.

They're there. They need to look within themselves and say, is the enjoyment that I get from having this Louis Vuitton purse or eating this hamburger, what is different about that enjoyment than Joe Blow gets from shooting a duck? Okay. He's, he's enjoying hunting. He's enjoying shooting a duck. Okay. He's, he's enjoying hunting. He's enjoying shooting a duck. Okay. You're enjoying, I'm loving this burger. I'm loving this steak. I'm loving these shoes. I got, I'm loving my leather seats, my BMW. Okay. Is your enjoyment more validated than his? What's the difference here? It's a good point. It is a good point It is a it is a good point that you will get people that are absolutely outraged about hunting or absolutely

Outraged about the death of any animal and yet they're driving down the street and there's just murdered animal skins everywhere You look it on people's shoes on people's bodies in their cars in their briefcases their briefcases covered in animal skins in their cars, in their briefcases, their briefcases covered in animal skins. Every convenience store you stop at has meat sticks and those fucking ground-up things that they turn into burritos, and every restaurant, everywhere you look is filled with animals. There is no bounds to the hypocrisy of it. Okay, now if you're 100% real, legit, true-D vegan, okay, who makes sure that on the level of growing in his backyard, he's not affecting any animals life other than his house took up a place that an animal could

live. Okay. So if you're that guy, I kind of, all right, you know, I get you. If you're not that guy, then where are you at with this? Right. Okay. And are it, why do do you if you're not going to go over to africa or you're not going to go to asia you're not going to go to the third world and either help fund or personally put your butt on the ground and live to save these things and protect these things and care about these things and be intimately involved with their life, then what are you doing? Where are you at with this personally? People need to ask themselves these questions. What value does a black rhino have to you?

It's another interesting aspect that people get upset if you do enjoy what you're doing. If you enjoy hunting, if somehow or another you get some sort of pleasure out of this hunt, then it's bad. What they would like you to do is do it with total somber thinking and very, you know. I would say lots of, you know, probably the majority of hunters have absolutely, at least in the very minimal, a certain degree of reverence for the animal. And like someone like Jim who, you know, I have never met anybody that had more reverence for the animal and like someone like jim who you know i have never met anybody that had more reverence for an animal okay and like so and i learned a ton from being around him and he was he went to extremes and like we would talk about this we're representing hunters on this show okay we're representing hunters what we're doing

hunters are going to watch this okay we would talk about how what we thought how we wouldn't step over the animal okay now you know look you mean if it's down yeah yeah we wouldn't step over we walk around them we do everything we we care for we'd try to kill them as quickly and painlessly as possible we'd talk and learn everything we could about them why would you not step over them we just we just didn't think it was right so you have you had a conversation about this lots yeah okay and like you know understand like when we when we cut the the cameras are off now we're dealing with it we're moving around the animal to cut it apart, to quarter it, right, to take care of the meat, all right? But right now at this moment, especially the immediate moment after the animal's taken, the life of the animal's taken and leading up to it, like I said, I said on the show, I was emotional after I shot the rhino.

If anybody looks at it, you can go back and look at the Nepal episodes we did. We went to Nepal. We hunted with these Nepalese Sherpas, okay, who lots of them were Buddhist. So you understand Buddhism. A lot of them didn't want to harm animals, right? And they hunted and they understood it, okay, in a real way. How does that work if they hunt but they're Buddhists? They took people to kill it.

They were a part of it. Did they eat it? Those people ate it. The Buddhists. They took people to kill it. They were a part of it. Did they eat it? Those people ate it. Those people ate it. The Buddhists ate it. Yeah. You're on the side of the mountain.

You're surviving. There's just no other options. Look, they eat rice or whatever. I don't know which ones ate what. But a lot of them ate it. Yeah, I saw people eating it. Because there's not a lot of options for nutrition. Yeah, you're up there and you're living.

But anyway, so I'm living with these people and these people like you you like you have you you've developed relationships on a hunt would you say the relationship you develop hunting or any different have you noticed anything different about it they're very intense very very you get a bond you understand a certain you understand a certain aspect of a person, um, when you, you see them tested and like, especially a mountain hunt, when you go hiking on these mountains and you see people pushed, you see people that are willing to pussy out. You see people that get, get too tired too quick. They get mentally weak and you, you see people who don't. And you see, you see what, you see what their character is about when they're pushed.

When you're in a dangerous situation, when you're forced to be quiet, you're forced to be patient, you're forced to be disciplined, you find out what someone's made of. Because a lot of people are fucked up. A lot of people are all ADD'd up and they can't pay attention and they don't know how to stay focused and be a contributing factor in a successful hunt. And that's one of the reasons why I think men in general, we have an aversion to people who are loud but aren't saying anything, call too much attention to themselves, have a distorted perception of their own abilities. I think a lot of that boils down to that would make a very unsuccessful hunter. And I think these things are ingrained in our DNA. I think there's a part of what makes a man a man or makes a man, what makes a man, what people value in human beings, what people value in masculine traits,

is ability to hold your own mud, ability to stay calm under pressure, ability to come through when the chips are on the line. And I think you learn a lot about someone when you hunt with them. You learn a lot about whether or not someone can keep it together when they have the shot lined up, whether they can draw back on a seven-foot black bear and make the right shot. Yeah. And so you have different relationships and different bonds. Okay.

It's part of, like, you think about people hunting mastodon, hunting whatever. Okay. Throughout history, thinking about the Indians. Okay. Think about everything, even, you know, Europeans. out history, thinking about the Indians. Okay. Think about everything, even, you know, Europeans, there's things that happen on a hunt that aren't going to happen in daily life. They're just not. And especially on a rural wild situation where you are aware of what's going on around you and your actions have immediate consequences.

Okay? Jim and I had a rule, and Jim, I don't know if Jim came up with it or whatever, but we talked about it daily, and it was the five rules of hunting. Safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. That's it. It ain't a successful hunt if somebody breaks their leg or dies. Okay? And we know a lot of people who are dead.

Okay? And we would talk about this extensively and we'd talk about, you know, situations that we'd be in when people we'd see people go, you know, that would go bad and compounded human error. You learn a lot about who you are. And I've taken tons of people, Joe, that had never hunted before people who are against it, whatever. I've taken them from people, Joe, that had never hunted before people who are against it, whatever. I've taken them from all walks of life, from the wealthiest people that exist on the planet to the poorest people that exist on a planet. And once you get out and you go on that hunt and you're next to it, it doesn't matter if you're a mega famous star, it doesn't matter what

you are. You're all on the ground level. You're all on the same level. If you all have packs on, you're all equal. And it's about what we're doing and the emotion of that, that, that happens in the bonding, you know, like for instance, Joe, if you and I were on the side of the mountain in Pakistan or Mongolia, or we'd be with these people and we're sitting here, we have these bonds with them. We're caring about them. You think about their lives. You think about how you can help them financially. You think about all these things, you know, I mean, you're bringing a lot of money over there. You're bringing a lot of just items like pocket knives and packs and stuff that mean a lot to them. You become personally involved with these people and you and I become

more personally involved and learn about our lives, learn about things about our family. We talk about these things. We have the time to do it when we're out there okay and then you you find if there's a situation where you know like you know you've been in when people can die okay i've been in those situations numerous times and i've seen people get hurt i've seen all sorts of things and you it's like a real it's you're you're you're tied into who we are as human beings that in a sense to where a lot of times people don't understand what that is until maybe they're in a car accident, right? They had a, like a traumatic event or something. Okay. That's his, most people probably haven't seen something die, you know? And so it's, you know, in real life, you know, outside,

maybe they hit a dog or a squirrel or something, you know, or especially your actions that cause the death of this animal you become Closer to who you are and what life really is and life I promise you becomes More meaningful I believe because of this I think you put a more value on life when you've been in these situations I personally saw the way that I changed as a human throughout it It definitely broadens the spectrum of what you think are experiences. It gives you a completely different kind of experience. And in a lot of ways, one of the oddest things that I found about hunting is in a lot of ways, it's psychedelic in that way.

Like there's something about locking eyes with an animal that's in the wild that you're hunting. about locking eyes with an animal that's in the wild that you're hunting it's it's you don't you're not thinking about anything other than that moment and there's this weird bond that you have with this animal and when you take that animal and eat it there's a strange high that comes from it and it's not a high like you don't know where the fuck you are you're drugged up there's like an elevated senses sort of a thing there's a there, there's a, there's a connection to life itself. That's very unusual. And it changes your perception of life outside of that. Yeah. I think for each person it's different, but I can tell like when you're talking right now and when you're looking at me as you're talking about it, like you're very in touch with who you are as a person. You're very in touch with how

these things have affected you as Joe Rogan or whoever you, you know, the person you are. I think that's one of the best things about hunting is that when you're out there, if it's your family, if it's your friends, you know, hunting is largely a social thing. Okay. Now, like in instances like, you know, the extreme cases where people who like you look throughout history, Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt, okay. Exploring type thing. It's a different type of person. Even Jim is a different type of person. You know, I have a totally different type of person. Okay. When you're, you're drawn to these things, it becomes a real fabric of who you are, what you're talking about, just eating the animal and everything. It's a fabric thing of who you are, what you're talking about, just eating the animal

and everything is very, it's a fabric thing of who you are as a person. And you're in touch with what you understand that the actions you took resulted in the death of a very real thing. And the death of that really thing, real thing is sustaining your life at that point. And that's the cycle of life. And you're talking about the emotions you feel in it. You know, there's a lot of hunters that wouldn't even get it the way that you've got it. Okay. Because you've thought about it. You know, if they just want, it's just so like, it's such a, it's such a complex thing. And that's why when people ask me, well, how do you feel when you kill it? How are you going to feel when you kill this black rhino? It's so important about the two

things that were, that were most important to people it how are you going to feel when you kill this black rhino it's so important about the two things that were that were most important people was how i was going to feel about it and the money aspects of it okay like it's almost like a crime to have money anymore i think i look at people look at money as a negative thing but everybody wants it i don't i'm lost with that okay and and some things i just give up on trying to understand i guess well that's it's the vast majority of people feel like that don't have it. That's what it is. It's almost like Like looks like someone who's really beautiful like that. There's something negative about it like a Beautiful woman has to be stupid. Yeah, if you think making money hard try keeping money in this world Yeah, it's brutal. Especially if you're spending three hundred fifty thousand dollars a kill right?

It goes quick exactly it goes really quick You know your show that you did with Jim Shockey, that Uncharted show. I didn't see the professionals, but I'm a big fan of that Uncharted show. It's a really fascinating show because it got to show a side of you you don't really see too much of on those type of shows. The Pakistan episode in particular, where you didn't want to go to Pakistan you had been there before it's dangerous as fuck at that time it was real dangerous your family didn't want you going over there nobody wanted me going over there and I've been over there twice

you know and I put them they'd all live that twice you know I've been over there like pre-drones and post-drones and the mentality of people were totally different really absolutely drones changed everything drones changed everything fuck well what's the difference i mean we were hunting in very rural areas okay we're hunting with people who outside of the advent of the tractor and the cell phone live like biblical times. Okay. They could not grasp a lot of the things about our world. A lot of them think that we blew up our own towers.

Okay. I mean, they get media in a different way. They get information a different way. Their attitude was just very very different there was a lot of people that were very i think it struck a lot of fear and people and and so it's just a just a totally different thing and so to regards to the show not going over there on that hunt i'd already been been there twice. I felt like, and, and Brandlin, you know, Jim's son, I don't think Jim wanted Brandlin to go either. Okay. And you know, we had a very real show, meaning like we did our very, very best not to contrive too much. Okay. There's obviously

things like, we're going to just like you and I sit in here, I get here. You're like, Hey, I don't want to talk about that tour on the show. Right. Those types of things. Okay. We're going to wait till we're filming. Right. Talk about this. So anyway, it was just a, it was a hard decision because I love Jim and I personally didn't have an aversion to going there. Okay. But at this point, I put my family through hell so much. I couldn't even tell you. I mean, I've been everywhere on this planet or a lot of the deepest, darkest, horrible hell holes you can ever imagine. And, um, I just felt like, you know, it's not, yeah, I personally thought I put them through enough. Okay. And Brandlin talking to him, somebody I love is probably my closest friend

in a lot of ways. And, uh, I love that guy to death. He, you know, him and I had talks about it too. Okay. And he, it was really, you know, we did all these shows together and it was a really big difference because Brantley didn't have a girlfriend or anything most of the show. And then he gets a girlfriend

and he's getting married to now. Dude, his attitude changed. Sure. Okay. Like he didn't, he couldn't get a lot of ways until you have somebody you're in love with, truly in love with, or, you know, like have kids. Like, I don't need, it's like a human being you are before you have kids.

And after you have kids is a two different thing. If you're a true father or true parent, you know, you're fundamentally changed. Okay. So my decisions were getting changed by this. And that's why a big reason why I didn't continue to do the show. You know, it's like, I'd done everything I wanted to do with it I felt like I ran through the finish line, you know, and am I gonna run the marathon you finish? Do you just gonna keep running when you guys were up in? Way up north when you were on that polar bear hunt with the Inuits the local people

You were I mean that, that was a really crazy scenario. I mean, you guys were essentially watching them hunt, right? You were with them. We hunted, too. You hunted, too. Yes, we were hunting. They kind of didn't show that much on the show.

Because the real reason of that was the idea of Uncharted wasn't to do a hunting show in traditional methods that we just went out and hunted stuff. The idea of Uncharted was to show the way these wild places work and the people who live in them and live off these animals and their value they put on the animal. Okay. And our value for the whole situation. Okay. And our value for the whole situation. And so at that point, you know, that show was more about a culture in a lot of ways that is going away and, and hopefully it stays. So what was the choice was behind the choice to not show you guys hunting for the polar bear? Cause that was a big question that I had had. You didn't show any. Jim explained it really good

in a facebook post about it and you know i think it just it was more about that than anything we had old ladies yes extremely intense they're amazing people and that's where jim's hunted there a lot and those people he's he's like the Michael Jordan to a lot of those people. Hunting is a part of their culture. Like, we would be in the airports up there, and those people love Jim. Okay, they love Jim. They know who he is. Absolutely.

So in these hunting rich areas, he becomes a huge famous star. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Up there, it's the most intense okay they love him well it's such a primitive i want to say i don't want to say a primitive culture i mean it's obviously primitive but it's it's long it's to the bone yeah it's been around a long time and they've been doing it this way for a long, long, long time. And there's not much room. There's not much wiggle room up there.

You're not growing any crops. You're living in intensely cold environments, and there's not a lot of things to hunt. And that polar bear hunt is very important to them. Extremely. And whaling. Whaling. Most important. Narwhal, bowhead, seals, all that. Everybody wore seals. They woreal. Bowhead. Seals. All that.

Everybody wore seals. They wore seal clothes? Wow. So, look, these things need to be protected. Those people really get it up there. Okay? They really get it. For their life.

If they want to continue to live there. They got it. That's it. Unless they're going to ship in canned goods. They do all that. But, dude, it's a value to them. Okay. It's a value, just like when we brought that rhino meat to that village. You don't think they valued that?

What does polar bear taste like? I haven't eaten polar bear. You didn't eat any of it? Dude, it was immediately frozen into a complete rock right then. Just come, because it's so cold. Like, it was so cold. It was so cold. And Jim's eating polar bear, I think.

You know, you could ask him. I didn't get to eat polar bear because we weren't. Those guys literally, the second I shot the polar bear, the guy who was running me, running the hunt, was like, this hunt's over. We're going home. Okay. And we let the polar bear sit there while we were doing the things we were doing for the show and did it frozen to a complete rock over like, I mean, less than an hour. It was like brutal, and we all know it was brutal to skin it, the whole situation.

How'd they cut it up? Like a chainsaw or something? No, I mean, yeah, you could still get in there and hack and get. It just wasn't like when you've dealt with a bear wow you know and i've hunted bears bears are you know how bears are okay it's just a different situation another emotional aspect that people have with it they don Alaska get it, by and large. Okay, they live with them. I understand those bears kill all the other bears. Right?

It's just that some people just don't get it. Did you see that television show, The Hunt? No, man. I don't watch much TV. That was the television show that was hosted by the guy from the Metallica He killed a big bear well, he didn't even kill the bear that's what's really crazy They had a photo of him and they used this photo of him standing behind there It wasn't him. It was a giant bear like pull it up Jamie it

They thought that it was James Hatfield. It's not. It's another hunter. It looks like it. And that hunter, he said, like, hey, that's my fucking bear. Like, I shot that bear. Like, Hatfield is a hunter. He does hunt.

I think he's hunted a bear before. He probably has. But the photo that they used to try to keep them out of the Glastonbury Music Festival. Glastonbury Music Festival. See, there's the photo. It's not him. It doesn't look like him there. No. Now that you look at it that big.

No, I mean, there's a guy who said that it, you know, he's like, look, that's me. That's my fucking bear. I'll tell you when I hunted it. God damn, that's a big bear. Do you enjoy hunting bear? I enjoy it. I like to eat them. They taste good. But the bear hunt itself, what do you do you enjoy hunting bear i enjoy it i i like to eat them they taste good but the bear hunt itself what do you think it's interesting it's but the being in the woods with them is amazing have you hunted brown bear no would you hunt brown bear i don't think so because

i'm not gonna eat them yeah that's so far that's where my head is i understand you understand conservation aspect of it 100 yeah i mean if i lived there if i lived on kodiak island and i ran cattle or something like that i would absolutely hunt them if i for whatever reason you know needed to be a part of it i would absolutely hunt them but and they absolutely should be would you hunt them to raise awareness about bears no no i would talk about it it's not my job if i was a professional hunter maybe maybe if i was on television well see that's the interesting thing about it is the reasons we hunt can be a lot of different things no i i get that

i get that um i mean the reason why i'm asking a lot of these questions a lot of it is just because i want to cover all the bases and take it from a bunch of different angles, play devil's advocate as much as possible. But hunting bears is a very different thing than hunting white-tailed deer. When you're hunting white-tailed deer, you're hunting essentially nature's victim. I mean, these poor bastards, they run around eating berries and looking left and right and jumping away and trying to... They're at the bottom. It's become a science in a way, hunting them. Yeah.

To a lot of people. Yeah. Well, I mean, hunting deer is that you're hunting prey. There's a prey. When you're hunting a bear, you're hunting a predator. Different situation. Totally different. First of all, what's creepy about the bears is they don't make any noise.

This is a big fucking animal. That was the thing about the rhino. It was like a cotton ball. Made no noise. Freaky. 3,000 pound cotton ball. Dude, I'm telling you, bro. It was just like a bear.

It reminded me of a black bear. They just know how to sneak around. Dude, it was in sandy soil. It made no noise. Wow. One time we sat down. We walked like, I don't know. I mean, we walked over 20 miles after

the rhino and uh this day we had walked about 10 at this point and like the cnn guy was a big dude bro okay he was a 280 300 pound man you know and he hung in there the first day he threw up and after seven miles he started barfing everywhere he but he really wanted to be involved with it and he got it and uh we sat down we were sitting down the next that rhino 40 yards away that rhino got up ran off and we never heard it wow ran off you could see where it just ran are they just really good at like distributing their weight? It's their place, man. I don't know how they do it. Like I've hunted elephants. You would have heard that thing. Like you would have seen it for one, but you would have heard it. You hear them. Rhino, you didn't hear anything. You never hear bear unless they want you to hear them. It's the weirdest thing.

But the reason I asked you about the brown bear was, um, because I believe in the United States, a brown bear is like similar to the situation with the lion or some of these different animals, you know, whatever you're talking about, you know, certain animals that, you know, strike things. North America is probably the closest thing we got, you know, to that, would be the brown bear. Yeah. You know, and they're hunted a lot.

People get it, by and large. And I guess to a lesser extent, by and large, people don't have as big a problem with it, I think, as they would African animals. I don't know why. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people that have a really hard time with brown bear. Of course. But there's a lot of people that don't. I mean, even people who hunt.

There's a lot of people in North America that hunt in North America. I never go to Africa. You see what I'm saying? So even amongst hunters, you know. Yeah, I think it changes the distinction whether or not you're hunting something you're going to eat or not. And you can eat brown bear, but not that many people do. No, it's a management choice. What does it taste like?

Have you ever eaten it? No, dude. I've only shot one, and I hadn't eaten it. It was eating a rotten sea lion. It's eating stuff that's going to make it pretty rough. It had ate the head off of a giant rotting sea lion. You want to see a picture? Sure.

So it would smell and taste probably a lot like it. probably a lot like it it dude it was it was an extremely um extremely smelly odor like rough nasty situation it was really gross smelling yeah for many people don't know one of the most delicious meats apparently is black bear that's been eating blueberries. Whoa. Black bear. Oh, God. Just ate the whole head off that thing, huh? Yeah. And that bear had claimed that thing. That's an enormous bear. It was laying right on top of it. Where was this? That was on Unimak Island in Alaska, way out in the Alaskan Peninsula. And that bear was just laying on it. And I flew in out there and there was a guide who set up the camp, you know, and we flew in and he hadn't been there that long. And I was just laying on it. And I flew in out there, and there was a guide who set up the camp, and we flew in, and he hadn't been there that long. And I was just like, well, what do you think about that bear?

Have you seen it? He's like, no. He said, I think it's big. I was like, well, why do you think it's big? He said, because I've seen six other bears come up to that cliff and look down and turn around and leave. He's like, it was his. Wow.

This show was interesting, that show The Hunt, because it was one of the few shows that I've ever seen on television that, you know, you have a lot of these subsistence living shows, you know, like Alaska, The Last Frontier, or Life Below Zero, but this wasn't about subsistence at all. It was about hunting to control the populations and trophy hunting. I mean, that's what these people were doing. I mean, they did cook up some backstraps on one episode.

Some people sliced up some. I don't get, like, the whole thing about, like you said, they go there. Dude, in these camps, just a trophy hunt, the animals aren't getting wasted. Right. Okay, you're getting into what's drawing a person out there to benefit it, regardless of why he's there in his mind, whatever it is, okay? If the result is good and the result is benefiting it, you're judging his desires to do something on what's going on in your head.

You're not looking at the result. Well, you say that the meat doesn't get wasted. If you leave it around, it gets eaten by other animals. On a brown bear, that's right. On a brown bear, okay, the other animals eat it. Whatever bears, the biggest predator of other bears, the bears eat them. Yeah, they're all cannibals. But bears, the biggest predator of other bears, the bears, they eat them. Yeah. Okay. They're all cannibals.

Okay. But I'm saying like by and large throughout hunting, there's only a few animals that don't get eaten. Okay. You know, like I said, lion. Hyena. I've shot some hyena. I wouldn't eat hyena. Baboon.

My brother ate the lungs of a baboon. Whoa. On a bet? No, because he was hungry. Really? Well, and that's what the locals were eating. And he thought, well, if I'm going to eat a part of it, I'm going to eat their favorite part. And it was the lungs.

The locals liked the lungs, huh? Mm-hmm. They boiled them up. What did he say it tastes like? He didn't act like it was too good. I mean, I didn't get into it. We were in Central African Republic in the middle the middle of you know the people before us the people they just got the camp back from the chattian rebels and shot it up you know we weren't really talking about stuff like that god baboon

lung what is the nastiest thing you have eaten when you've been hungry on these camps oh man have you ever eaten an animal that you regretted no No, but I mean, I've eaten things that weren't like, like, like you said about the elephant. By the time we shot the elephant, we were hungry. I mean, we just threw it on coals and we're just eating it right there. And it wasn't an astringent thing. It was food. But, you know, I haven't really gotten into something like, you know, Jim eats that igu nook.

Okay. Which is like, it's like fermented walrus meat. Oh, it's like the Icelandic people do with sharks. They have that fermented shark. Yeah, yeah. They just leave it out there in a vault. Yeah. I haven't tried that.

You know? But I would try it. I mean, I've watched Jim eat a lot of crazy crap. He's living a very odd life, Jim Shockey. No doubt. I mean, and I say that with all due respect. I'm not saying in a negative way he's if if you don't know his show just i mean even if you're not into hunting

at all like like you said that show's not really necessarily about hunting that much i mean it is but it isn't it's a lot of it is a it's an in-depth discovery of the cultures that he's visiting and and the emotions that we like we would go through on the hunt i mean i've cried on the show twice man i cried when i shot a previously onessionals when I shot a blue sheep. And just because we had a real ordeal. And it was just like a relief and an emotional thing. And then I cried talking about my granddad one time. That was the Pakistan episode.

And so it's just like we were very real about it. We wore everything on our sleeve. And what is he trying to do? He's just soaking we were very real about it. We wore everything on our sleeve. And what is he trying to do, going to all these different – he's just soaking up a lot of different experiences? Is that his perspective on this? I mean, you'd have to talk to him about it. And I don't even know if he would – you know, I love the guy. I've been with him a lot. And, you know, a lot of our life was connected for over a decade and still is in a way.

And he's just, he has a different attitude about it, almost like I would say some of the explorers might have had. In his mind, I'm not saying that he has any delusions of grandeur that that's what he's doing, but he has a different attitude about it. And I think, you know, we both wanted to see what's left. Like, I mean, when you're going to Papua New Guinea, you're going to the edge. When you're going to the rural, I mean, we're dealing with people who are, you know,

cannibals and believed in witchcraft and all sorts of stuff, you know. What's it like hanging out with cannibals? I mean, look, I shouldn't put, I didn't deal with a cannibal, but I deal with hanging out with cannibals i mean look i mean look i shouldn't put i didn't deal with the cannibal but i deal with people who knew cannibals and understood cannibalism right right and we're we're afraid of it so they knew people like they knew it knew it to be they knew it to be knew it to be a real thing okay and like for instance one time i was hunting in uganda and uh we talk about people's different attitudes and stuff jim and i went to uganda on one of the first hunts when it reopened we're hunting an animal called sessi island sitatunga what's it called sessi island sitatunga

what is that it's an antelope that lives in a swamp on an island. Okay. And like, I mean, we value it. You know, we love it. But anyway, so we're over there and they were talking about this big problem they had with over in a certain area of Uganda on Lake Albert where they were buying bushmeat from the Congolese, just basically almost like from a grocery store.

It would come across on a boat. It would all be cut up and everything. And the way they got the people to quit it was they said the Congolese are selling you human meat too. And they believed it. Well, Vice did this piece on Liberia, and that was a real issue. In Liberia, they were selling human meat on these food carts on the corner. And this guy recognized it as human meat because he'd eaten human meat.

Yeah. There you go. What the fuck? That's the difference between, you know, Sherman Oaks. It's the disconnect of what is really happening. When you think about it, think about this. Think about like this war we have going on versus ISIS, right? And we're sitting over here.

And, you know, I've been close back, you know, to Al Qaeda and stuff like that when I would go to that part of the world, okay? I've been, you know, on the border of Afghanistan and probably in it and didn't know it, okay? For sure. And it's just't know it. Okay. For sure. And, and it's just, it's a huge disconnect. If you were over there and you see them selling 12 year old girls naked in a bazaar and have an auction in Syria where they're just selling them as property for sexual abuse, whatever sex slave. And it's just, they're, they've kidnapped them. That's what they're doing. You're going to have, if you saw that going down, who isn't going to be like immediately want this stopped. Okay. It's no, you're going to, it's gone. You're going to do it. I mean, it's just

the different mindset. I mean, that we have, I'm not saying that people want that to continue in any way, shape or form, but if you saw it, you'd feel differently about it. No doubt. Well, there's definitely different ways of living in this this age in 2015 and there's some ways that people are living every day just to get by that would horrify most people and and what they consider normal what they consider normal yeah what is normal our normal versus their normal yeah normal up the fly river in papua new guinea is far different than here normal in a pygmy village in cameroon is far different you're talking about you know like you talk about recreational drug use okay in papua new guinea they do this thing called boo

or boo way and it's like i don't know exactly what it is but they take lime and they take something else they put in their mouth and it has a reaction it's like, I don't know exactly what it is, but they take lime and they take something else and they put it in their mouth and it has a reaction. It's like a low-grade meth. People from this big all the way up to grown people on it their entire life, they're living in an altered state forever, and their mouths are red, okay, with this stuff. It makes this nasty red blood.

So you're out there with a high person that looks like a zombie. Okay. I may eat people sometimes. They're a high person that looks like a zombie. Oh, God. See if you can pull up Buway. Okay. Just B-U-W-A-Y

whatever. Pull it up and see if you find it. New Guinea. Papa New Guinea. Okay. Alright. And Cameron. w-a-y whatever pull it up and see if you find it papa new guinea okay all right in cameron and a um village one time i would say every single person that i met that was like you know local people on the hunt i think they were high on weed from the morning that they waked up to the they from from when they woke up to when they went to sleep. It's just part of their existence. In Cameroon. Yeah.

It's just part of their existence was their daily life was so hard they're looking for any kind of escape out of it. Okay. It's just brutal. I mean, and if you and I had to live in it, if you had to, you know, understand, look, I don't judge them. I don't have to live there. Right.

And, you know, you and I get to go home and sleep in comfortable beds. We get to take a shower every night. I mean, just go. Just go. I challenge the average person to go two weeks without a shower. Just go two weeks without a shower. Have one pair of underwear. See what your existence is like.

And then do it in the jungle. Then do it in the jungle, man. Of Cameroon. Do it wherever. Around the mountains. New Guinea. Afghanistan. Or mountains of Pakistan.

Mountains of Mongolia. What is the scariest place that you ever went to when you were doing all these nutty adventures? I've had some scary, scary ass incidences of falling. You know, I thought I was going to die from falling twice. And I had a guy save my life in Armenia. Went on two unsuccessful sheep hunts there, and I fell. It was horrible.

I thought I was done. How far did you fall? Well, I was sliding on a sheet of ice, and I had my stick, and I kept my stick buried in, and it saved me, and this dude risked his life and came and saved my life.

Wow. And so I was looking down at 2,000 feet and then going off, sliding straight down 2,000 feet and going off a cliff a few hundred feet and then going down to the bottom. Whoa. And then, you know, I've had animals, you know. The closest animal that ever nearly got me was a black bear.

Where was this? That was in Alaska. What happened? Silly stuff, you know, just real thick. And I was hunting with an Athabascan person, you know, half and half, or person. It was half Indian, half white person, and awesome guy. And we were walking, and we were actually moose hunting, and I had a bear tag. We were walking.

We were actually moose hunting, and I had a bear tag. And I looked straight down, and I saw this bear print on the ground. And I looked at it, and I said, man, that's like the freshest track I've ever seen in my life. I was like, it must have just been here. I'm talking to this dude just closer. You know how you walk when you're hunting right and i hear i look up and it's climbing the tree right here okay we jumped it so i threw up i shot it anyway we tracked it and um it was really really thick like those have you hunted in alaska or even like um okay or south

british columbia or anywhere on the coast british columb yeah. Yeah, like those alders, you know, it's just nasty thick brush, right? And anyway, I couldn't see anything. You know how quiet a blackberry is, right? So the guide sees it, and he sees it, and I can't see it. He's like right in front of me. I'm like, shoot it. If you can see it, I can't see it. Boom.

Dude, it flipped out. It just, just destroying everything around big seven foot black bear, you know, just destroying everything around it. And it rolled and I shot in there, boom, boom, boom. And I shot in there and, um, you know, I thought I got it, you know, I felt pretty good about that. This whole thing happened just like in a few minutes. Okay. It just wasn't very long. Right. And, and then I walk over there to see where the bear's at. I'm walking around like, you know, walking and I'm looking, looking, looking, looking. And then I look and the bear's just like right here looking the opposite direction.

Okay. So live. Very. And just turned and just went as I fell down. So you fell back and shot it. Yeah, I fell back and shot it. Yeah. And that was just and but you know different situations like as far as the country goes you know i've had i had been a lot of different scary places with regards to you know people more than anything you know i've

hunted ethiopia a couple times some of the people were real weird oh my god that's a guy's got that stuff in his mouth there you go that's what they looked like over there. What's that stuff called again? Boo is what they called it. Boo way or something. I Googled it. It's called batel nut. Yeah, it's some kind of nut.

Yeah, yeah. And it's got some sort of, what's the effect of it? Well, it's obviously a bad effect on your teeth. Yeah, it seems like it. Jesus Christ. Huh. Beetle nut. Yeah.

And it has some sort of a narcotic effect or a meth, a stimulant effect? Yeah, a stimulant effect. Is it like that cat stuff that they chew? That's a different deal. I mean, dude, dude i'm not you know just a bunch of i don't know a lot about drugs so but jesus christ it's a hard life it's a very hard life and you think that all these experiences going to all these different places have made you appreciate your own existence here in civilization more a hundred percent it makes you really like just like the

way people are abused in other places and the way they don't have right of life the value of life there if you're abused you know and you're just taken advantage of by whatever the government the local every sit you're just the situation you're plight in the world i don't think that you know people say well there's no value of life and i understand you know i watched one time a guy didn't want to spend 40 bucks to keep his kid alive and let him die he said he already spent 100 and that was enough oh okay you're getting into real situations joe like that you see different ways people look at it and and so now look is this every person there no but that's situations that happen those are choices

they had to make Wow and so yeah like absolutely it makes me appreciate America makes me appreciate our bill of rights makes me appreciate our political system makes me appreciate you know we we pitch about things here that the other world would die to have as a complaint. You know, we're upset that traffic's bad. We're upset that, you know, my wife is mad at me. I come home at five 30 and I said, I'll be on the right. Okay. No cannibals. Yeah. I mean, we're, you you know people are upset about you know this transgender situation i mean dude who cares you get to go home and hug your kid and you got a whole the world's biggest army dying for your rights dying for you you have a giant system that's protecting your life you have people dying for you every day that's one way to look at it another way to look at it people would say is that giant

system is set up by the military industrial complex to steal resources in other countries okay that's why everybody's coming over here right right? It's the best, for sure. This is the best possible situation. That's why we're not flooding into Cameroon today. But it doesn't mean that it's ideal. You and I are on a boat to get to that better life. Well, we know that it can be better. I mean, that's, I think, what the argument is.

The argument isn't we should stop complaining. No, no, no, I'm not saying that we should. I'm not saying they can't be better, but I'm just saying when you see it. Right. It's far better than New Guinea. It's far better than Somalia. It's far better than Somalia It's far better than a lot of the places you've tried Yes, absolutely when you when you do travel to these places and you you do go over there and you experience their life

does it give you his feeling of Like almost like helplessness like you can't you can't do enough to help these people the system that they're involved in the life that they live there yeah the community and that they're sort of entangled in i can tell you hunts i've gone on with my dad and he brought 20 full giant cabela's bags just worth the gifts for him you know just giving stuff at the very end we my dad's name larry we called it larry mart we just let them all come in and just pick everything they wanted you know and mostly giving them things to hunt with no just soccer balls frisbees clothes toothbrushes anything you know and these are people that like need it and this is not something that anybody would expect from you. They see this thing about you killing the rhino. Dude, I'm like so judged.

I don't, whatever. I don't care what people expect. I know what my life's like. I know what I do. But you certainly must have some feeling about it. Otherwise you wouldn't respond to them, right? Like the ones that look, yeah. I mean, I have a feeling about it.

I try to, I'm just trying to like bring some awareness that, hey, maybe there's more to this than what you see. You can hate me. That's fine. Whatever. I don't care. Well, CNN, like you said, they came under fire because that's kind of exactly what they said. You mean they went over there and reported?

They did. They went over there and reported? They did actual real journalism, which is getting rarer and rarer. We talked about that. The reason I felt comfortable with those guys, everybody in the world wanted to come. Okay. Look, it's there.

You know, they all wanted to come. The reason I felt comfortable with Jason Morris and Ed Lavandera is I sat down with them and I said, you're going to have to come to this with an open mind. You're just going to have to come and throw away whatever you got. And when you come on a hunting trip, you're complicit in it. I told him, I said, you're going to be there. Look, Ed, if the rhino gets somebody and knocks both the dudes down with guns, you may have to grab it to save somebody's life and kill the thing.

You've got to understand that. Did you show him how to use a gun? Absolutely. I took him on a hunt beforehand i did all this stuff he understood a different hunt before yeah we went on look i was taking people who've never been hunting before i'm not going to put them in there dude it'd be freaking a joke for me to take them out on their first real hunting experience it's an animal that's going to kill them i mean just like them hunting for just just plains game animals just for a day

you know and um that you know i was trying to figure out who could actually make it not get killed. Make it not cause somebody's death. Because when you're looking around. Do you get goofy? Yeah, a couple of them got goofy. Ed ended up being the only person there. And then the rhino charged him. At the wildest crap turn of events. Here's the CNN guy running at me and then the the rhino charged him and i like all like the wildest crap turn of

events here's the cnn guy running at me and coming underneath the gun what did what did he describe the experience like personally what did he take away from it boy it was a it was a eye-opening experience to all those guys like i honestly felt like one of them really was he wasn't on i mean he was kind of real ambivalent but he wasn't like some guy who thought it was the best thing in the world for sure it was really pretty open-minded about it he just wanted to go there and report what was going down true journalist stuff okay they were really pretty hardcore journalistic about it but i i think there when we delivered the meat i think he kind of got teary-eyed i mean he kind of got at that point he kind of got it and and the fact that man this is real you know he got he got a big experience out of it because

the rhino went for him you know he was like he got the fear of an animal trying to kill him you know so he had he had a pretty unique experience about i think he talked about it on there i don't i can't remember but he didn't talk about he didn't talk about you know he didn't talk about the rhino charging him but he for somebody who wasn't involved in hunting he made one of the smartest moves i've ever seen anybody do where he ran where he ran if he ran a different way he probably would be dead right now what did he do well the rhino we had remember i told you that we jumped it right and we sat down right and it left well then we we kept following it and this is this is like the 10 mile point we followed it

we jumped it we we didn't know we jumped it we went over there we saw that we did and we had so many people there we had to keep splitting the group up and then they would come back up and like, right. And so I told it, I said, look, man, if this thing goes wrong, it's going to be when we lose the track. Okay. And so when we're walking along, we lose the track and Henty PH goes with a couple of the trackers one way. I go with a couple of the trackers one way. I go with a couple of the trackers the other way. And then I hear, boom. And it's behind me.

And the two guys in front of me just immediately move from about here to there. So I see them moving, and I heard it behind me. So to make distance, I just took these steps to get to right there. And then turn, because I knew, I thought, well, if I just turn around right here, it's going to hit me. Right. Cause it was so close. And how close man, like 30,

40 feet. Oh, okay. It would have bedded down. We jumped it. Okay. And so it ran, I turned around.

I just saw for that dude, that thing moved like lightning, dude. It was like, I don't know if you're watching a bull riding, dude. It's like a real athletic bull with a saber on it you know okay and so anyway it goes and we were really lucky and henty came back and looked at it and said look

and he said if this thing that this next time it's coming okay we pushed it twice it's hot it's gonna come and so anyway we kept going and I said hey Henty I think you should go back there and let's just split it up again you know put him 100 yards behind us okay and we'll keep one cameraman with me and you and the trackers and then Ed can stay a little bit further behind and another guy who was there with us he goes back there talks to him comes back up to me and this is after we walked another 20 minutes or so and um i said what's up you say yes we're good we start walking and then i hear just like some noise you know and it was the other dude trying to get my attention from like 30 yards back okay and his voice was dry because we hadn't drunk water in a couple hours okay we're out and then i hear henty say ed get down ed get down you know just like run get down run run run and i'm like you know i just

plant my right foot as hard as i could i was like i'm not moving you know i had time to think about that and like in this whole thing lasted like You know, I had time to think about that. And like in this whole thing lasted like three seconds. So I had time to think about it. And then I look and I see Ed just flying at me, like running, like dude, the Cowboys would have picked him up that day. That dude, that big dude, he was flying bro. Like fear is a huge motivator and he's flying at me. He comes like coming from an angle angle like right here where this moose skull is and just ducks and just flies underneath the rifle i know it's coming right i know you know so he knew that you were going to pull your rifle up he went yeah he was well hint he was yelling at him get down get down get down you know because we're really worried about shooting each other right right

right we're all stringed out really what happened was i think ed missed the memo to set back okay and he started walking forward so when he started walking forward the rhino had actually circled around on its own track and in a way was sitting there waiting for us okay so henty and i walked past it well ed starts walking out well the rhino gets up walks around this tree and starts taking steps for him okay like looking like this kind of inquisitive and then just came dude like just was like like a bat out of hell so you shot that thing when it was on a charge it was charging ed he runs under he dude he like moved so quick and i like we talked about it because i was like i was like talk to the producer i was like dude ed's really big bro

you know i was like he's like don't worry he the producer. I was like, dude, Ed's really big, bro. You know, I was like, he's like, don't worry. He's light on his feet. You should have seen him in Ferguson. Ferguson, Jesus Christ. This guy's going to the craziest fucking spots on earth. Yeah. So anyway. Somebody at CNN's mad at Ed.

Yeah. So anyway, he's like, he comes flying underneath me. The animal's charging him. And when it, you know, they don't have good eyesight. Okay. So when he came low, I think that it was so thick that the rhino lost him. Like, you know, lost where he went. And it kind of just veered a little bit to the left.

And when he comes underneath me, I just see it coming and turning, like, just turning, veering. And it's like less than 18 yards. It's right there. 45 feet. And I boom, boom. Whoa. Yeah. yards that's right there 45 feet and i boom boom whoa yeah when you got up to the rhino's body what is what is that feeling like it was like in this case it was different than any hunt i'd ever

been on you know because so much went into the magnitude yeah like like the magnitude of the experience the magnitude of the whole situation magnitude magnitude being that, like, this is, like, the most, you know, hunt under a microscope that maybe ever existed. Without a doubt. Okay. And so I was just like, the stress that was going into it, because we could have shot the wrong one, right? Right. Okay. What happens if the wrong one charges?

Right. You got to kill it. And then we kill the wrong one. That's the worst thing that could happen. Right. outside of somebody dying what what does happen when that happens if you killed you don't bring it home yeah you don't bring it home you leave it it's just the hunt end there that you're done so the 350 000 is gone and this problem male still out there absolutely the absolute worst situation wow and so anyway so to walk up, have the guy, you know, look at it. We saw it from a game camera that was on a water hole.

We saw a picture of it, and the guy said, that's it. This is the one that killed the one last year. This is it. Okay. And so he knew it by there was ear notch from where it had, you know, when they originally dropped that animal off there, so they could recognize it. And so, and there's other animals, you know, the rhinos there, there's just rhinos there. I mean, it's a wild area, you know. And so the reason they're there is that water is there.

Okay. So anyway, we, yeah, just walking up to it, it's just like, it wasn't like, oh, it's over because it really kind of wasn't I knew that all this Storm was gonna happen. You didn't know to the extent. Well this time I knew you know this time I knew it was coming. It really was The most scrutinized hunt the human race has ever known absolutely. I can't think of a close second What's a close second? I really don't have one in mind i never i've never seen anything that got this kind of scrutiny i did yeah and look i've been involved in hunting my whole life and i never seen anything like it and so like it was just like i felt an extreme amount of pressure on me to make

sure everything was done correctly and that's why i felt comfortable bringing them i felt like they were just going to do an honest portrayal of what was up. Have you stayed in contact with Ed since that? Yeah, I've talked to him. You know, he was down at the floods in Houston the other day. I just said, hey, you know, what's up? And, you know, letting him know kind of what else had happened, you know, since then with where the rhino was at and stuff like that. Because he generally had an interest in it.

Like he gave a damn, you know. What is his take on the backlash? What is his take on the backlash? He got to experience some backlash himself during a deal in Ferguson where the Drudge Report reported that he showed where this guy's place was at. So he dealt with a bunch, which I don't know if that was true or not. I really didn't get into it. I don't think it was. But I don't know.

And anyway, he had dealt with a lot of scrutiny before, so he kind of understood it, but he kind of felt a lot like you did, like anybody would. They're threatening your kids. Come on. You know what I mean? This is bull crap, you know? And I think almost every person you would, even Piers Morgan, you know, Piers, when did you see my interview with him? No. Okay. The first time I did an interview with Piers when we caught this big shark over here in Huntington Beach. Right. Okay. He was all over that. That dude loved that.

He thought that was awesome. Long live your fish. And this is the coolest thing ever. Okay. Like, we were kind of surprised, right, when we did that. So then the rhino thing comes up, and one of the producers for that know, calls me and I said, sure, I'll talk to him. And so we are. No, no, no.

Ed called me and he said, do you want to talk about it? You're welcome to talk. I said, sure, I'll talk to peers. That's how that happened. Now I remember. And so they got me on there, dude. And he came like guns a blazing. And at the end of it he's like you may

have a point with the conservation aspects of this but what i don't get is your hunting photos okay so the rage about me standing there next to an animal bothered him like it bothers thousands of people okay and and so yeah but he he said it in a nutshell. He said... You're right, but don't take pictures? Yeah, you're, you know, you may have a point, but this is what pisses me off. Well, that's stupid. That's just a photograph. Why should you not capture that moment?

If you're going to do it, there's no problem with doing it. The actual act isn't a problem But the the photograph of the act yeah, it didn't rage. That's insane. That's insane. Well. He's no longer on the network Well, he's a douche bag Well, I don't say that about a lot of people but that guy was involved in some really shady shit in England With the tabloids where the tabloids had hacked into victims cell phones. Do you know that whole story behind it? Mm-mm. A family of a woman who turned up missing, they got hope because they found that she

had checked her voicemail on her cell phone. Well, it turns out she didn't. The company that he worked for had hacked into her phone, and they were checking her voicemail. Oh, nice. It's tabloid shit, man. And they were checking her voicemail. Oh, nice.

It's tabloid shit, man. You know, and that's a lot of what he did was tabloid sensationalism shit, where even if he had an opinion on something, you know, there's a lot of what they do that, like we were talking about before, they're trying to get social brownie points. They're trying to. Yeah, we're going to attack guns. Look, dude. Okay, if somebody comes in here and you don't have a gun, and I do,

you want me to just let them kill you? Not only the way it's hypocritical he didn't i mean look ted nugent is a funny character to have on when you're discussing that but at the end of the day he's very fucking informed when it comes to that stuff very informed and pierce wasn't prepared for that and he looked stupid he really did he didn't understand like a lot of those shooting deaths or cops shooting people in the act of crimes like murder and domestic violence and robbery. Every time I talk to him, talk to Aaron Burnett on there, they may have come at me a little bit. They didn't have the facts, right? And the problem is if you don't have the facts on your side, and especially in this situation, if you don't have the facts on your side and you're left with, I'm going to cuss this guy out and threaten his kids, you've already

lost, bro. You've lost. And so they're just left with outrage and, okay, but that ain't helping anything. I hope agree with you or disagree with you, if people are listening to this, that they get at the end of the day that this is a very complex situation that is not, it's not black and white. There's no good guys and bad guys and when you're when you're looking at something like hunting you're you're looking at something

that has existed literally since the beginning of human beings it's it's been a part of what what created civilization in the first place what what led to us surviving. And that's been somehow or another co-opted by factory farming and fast food and restaurant chains. And that has become our reality. And our existence is entirely unnatural and disconnected because of it. Our relationship with the very food we eat is delusional. and disconnected because of it. Our relationship with the very food we eat is delusional. And what you're doing by being a part of conservation, whether or not it makes sense to people or whether or not they agree with it or disagree with it, once they look at the actual

facts behind it, they'll see that you're not doing an evil thing. Not only are you not doing an evil thing, you're not doing a thing that even can be logically criticized from the standpoint of conservation. You might feel uncomfortable that someone's going to go over there and shoot a rhino. You might feel uncomfortable about it, but that's your right. When you start looking at the facts behind it, though, it's very difficult to argue against the the idea of hunting as conservation whether you want to do it or not like i said i don't want to do it i don't

i don't want to go to i don't want to hunt a rhino i don't want to hunt a brown bear i don't want to but i understand it i understand it completely and totally from the point of view of conservation well i'm glad that you do i think it's cool that you do do. I think it's cool that you do. And I think that it's cool that you're open minded enough to get something that, hey, maybe you don't want to do, because I think I think that's kind of the issue is like, look, I don't want to do a lot of things, but I don't judge people who do. And I definitely don't judge people who actually have a stake in the game when it comes to keeping something around or keeping something good around. You know? The uncomfortable reality of attaching monetary value to life, whether it's the planes, games, animals that were on the verge of extinction

just a few decades ago in Africa that are thriving now because they're valuable, or whether it's because of white-tailed deer, which there's more white-tailed deer in America now than there were when Columbus came. Yeah, I mean, we could talk for another three hours about, like, conservation success stories. How about elk? Yeah. More elk than have ever existed. Like, Florida panther, even there, okay, hunters brought that back.

Hunters brought the wolf back. Trappers brought the wolf back to North America, okay? Especially in, like, the Southwest, right? Guy named Roy McBride. Google it. in like the southwest all right guy named roy mcbride google it but so you can it's the people who live it have a vested stake in keeping it around and if hunter if you have a problem with um hunters keeping these animals around then don't go take pictures of a rock rock white rhino don't because the reason that why rhino's

there is because of hunters bro period the reason these white-tailed deer in big numbers because of hunters okay so if you're taking a picture of it you may not get it you know and it's insulting to those who have done all the work to keep it around so you can have a opinion about it that's justified or not right it's not it's not it's just your opinion of it okay and it's there for you to talk about it's there for you enjoy at a price you didn't have to pay it's a convenient, it's, I honestly think that, I don't know, the average person, especially when it comes to a lot of these wild animals, really needs to look within their self and think, is their emotion going to help it, and do I really need to, do I hate this guy enough that he gets cancer and dies just because he does something I don't agree upon, and then go over to Namibia and take a picture of black rhinos that this situation helped stay alive.

Period. Okay, I get so sick of the people saying, well, just because you give money in Africa, it's going to corrupt. Not every situation. Give me a break. Give me a break. You know, my dream is for these children that live there to have a heritage that we have with deer, that we have with bear. They can go out to a wild place, lay down at night, hear a lion roar 100 years from now. I give a damn about that.

Sincerely. I believe you. Thanks for coming on, man. No problem. I really appreciate it. It was a nice, long conversation. I think we chewed it up. We chewed it up good. All right. Appreciate you, bro. All right. Thank on, man. No problem. I really appreciate it. It was a nice, long conversation. I think we chewed it up. We chewed it up good.

All right. Appreciate you, bro. All right. Thank you, brother. Corey Knowlton, ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you guys on Wednesday. Greg Fitzsimmons will be here. Until then, enjoy your life.

Big kiss. Big kiss. Big kiss. Big kiss. We'll be right back.