The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 725: Dispatches from Africa - Steve's in Tanzania!

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Professional Hunter Morgan Potter of Robin Hurt Safaris on Day 1 in the Luganzo Tongwe Game Reserve. Topics Discussed: Tanzania's land management system; how regulated hunting in Game Reserves directly contributes to wildlife conservation and local communities; pursuing Cape Buffalo bulls; and more. Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Ever wonder what happened to the hundreds of thousands of buffalo that used to call the Eastern United States home? Or what caused the rise and fall of Bob White Quail? Backwoods University, hosted by me, Lake Pickle, is the latest addition to the Bear Gryse feed

on Meat Eaters podcast network. Together, we'll seek out a deeper understanding of wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. After all, you can't love what you don't understand. Search Bear Gryse on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast and hit that follow button to enroll in Backwoods University now. All right, guys, we're coming at you virtually live, like damn near live from Tanzania in Africa.

And if you listen to the show, you heard me complain about when we have to sit on episodes for various stupid reasons that I can't explain and then release them later. These were just released and as they happen, as we're in Africa hunting with Morgan Potter from Robin Hur's safaris. And so we're gonna do little updates. Nothing major to update yet, but what we are gonna do is kind of lay the, set the scene of where we're at and where we're not at.

And there's a thing in when, if you study the writing process, one of the things they'll teach you is they'll teach you to go gross to close, meaning start with a wide view and narrow in. So start us with a wide view. We're in Tanzania. Yeah.

What does that mean? What does that mean when you're looking at the African continent? Yeah, so Tanzania is on the East Coast below Kenya, above Mozambique. The Middle East is off to the northwest. Yeah, north, northeast. Oh, sorry, northeast. Yeah, northeast. And then, North, Northeast. Oh, sorry. North. Yeah.

Northeast. And then, uh, yeah. You see, you've got Kenya to the North, Mozambique to the South. And then, yeah, I mean, Tanzania shares borders with a bunch of countries, Rwanda, Burundi, uh, Uganda and, uh, where else? Zambia. Okay. And one of the things that one of the most important things I think people

should understand is, um, it, it has part of the thing important things I think people should understand is it has part of the thing that every American's heard of, including me, it has part of the Serengeti. Yes. Yeah. It's got all of the Serengeti, which is contiguous with the Maasai Mara, which is Kenya's component. The border being the Mara River. So yeah, the Serengeti is like, were talking about it. So you're like quintessential, you get a postcard from Africa. There's a picture of a flat top acacia on there,

lions sleeping underneath of it, big grassland in the background. Not where we are right now. No, not where we're at. And I've remarked you 10 times over the last few days, that having been like raised on those wildlife documentaries and those images that are taken in that ecosystem, I'm going to get to how different this is. But like having been raised on that, like that's sort of an expectation you wind up having or I sort of felt like other than the Congo, right? Other than the jungle, I picture like that's what Africa looks like. Yeah.

The flat top acacias and the open grasslands. Yep. And it was cool because prior to us starting and hunting, we got to go look at some of that stuff. Yeah. And it is like you can see forever. There's like drafts hanging out, zebras wandering by. And even when I knew we were going to come hunt, eat, no, Western Tanzania, I had no idea that was going to be like this.

Yeah. Right. Like if you showed me a picture where we're at right now, I would never in a million years guess, well, that must be Africa. Yeah. Right. No, for sure. And I bet even if you looked at like regular photo tourism,

the number of people that would get to experience Yeah, no, for sure. And I bet even, even if you looked at, like, regular photo tourism, the number of people that would get to experience this particular type of habitat and environment, like this part of Africa, would be just a vanishingly small number, like 5% or less. Yeah. You know, the bulk of tourism is centered around that northern circuit. So north of Arusha there into the Serengeti and Gorogoro crater where we were, Lake Natron, Tarangiri, these sort of areas that- Yeah. Yeah, they do.

They have that very quintessential like Africa look, particularly East Africa. And what's great about it and that stuff is this really good wildlife viewing because you can see so far. Yep. You can see a long way. And then being where it is with all that kind of volcanic activity in that part of the rift, the soil is very rich and the rainfall is quite consistent.

So the game density there on those short grass plains is very high in comparison to here, where we've got comparatively poorer soils, a lot sandier soil, a lot rockier soil. And yeah, it's sort of a different rainfall pattern too. Consistent rain here too, but it's a different kind of pattern to there. And as a consequence, the game densities are just very different and the species are very different. A lot of that stuff's those desert adapted species we talked about, the Garanook, obviously Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, you know, those kind of species that are very water independent and some of them can go pretty much indefinitely

on metabolic water. Everything out here is a little thirstier, including the species of plants. Yeah. And this is, this is like, I don't want people to get the idea that this is monotonous. It's anything but monotonous. No, no. But I'll have you walk through the different little habitat types that are here, but what do you call this that we're in right now? So what we're in now is called Mionbo.

Mionbo Woodland. Yeah. Like it's like a woods. And what I keep remarking to Morgan is like, growing up in Western Michigan, when you get up in the upper sandy soils and you're just out in the woods and you've got like, like scrubby little oaks and sassafras. It's very reminiscent of that in terms of the density of the trees, the height of the trees. Yeah. But then you go over that way. I think it's that way. Yep. And

you enter this, this valley of palms, eight foot high grass. And I was joking earlier, like from someone that just just to go to off movie references and documentary references, you feel like you're in a Vietnam movie. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. It's very reminiscent. And that stuff. And then all of a sudden you roll over the hill and you're like, dude, I'm in Michigan.

Yeah. No, it is. It's very different stuff going on. Absolutely. Yeah. The diversity here is, is one of the special things about this concession. It's got, with the river there, it's got those kind of, yeah, that river iron habitat, those floodplains, crocodiles, crocodile hippos. And then the real special thing that you've got there is that papyrus swamp, which is, this is a massive tract of intact papyrus swamp.

And then you've got this East African sitatunga living in there, which is a very specially adapted antelope to be able to survive basically its whole life in papyrus swamps. to be able to survive basically his whole life in papyrus swamps. Yeah. I think too that is kind of cool and a little bit unexpected is in certain areas around here, it's like a little bit of a working landscape. Like there's commercial fishermen. They'll use dugout canoes, fishing some of that stuff.

For a couple more weeks, there's guys out collecting wild honey that'll be out here for a couple more weeks. I mean, like very widely dispersed, weeks, there's guys out collecting wild honey that'll be out here for a couple more weeks. I mean, like very widely dispersed, but you see it's not like just fantasy land. You see ways in which people use the landscape to get their living. And I know that brings up a lot of complications around poaching and other things, but it's inhabited in a way, very sparsely, but it's inhabited. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, there's no permanent settlement in here, but there are people that have permits. As you saw today, when we ran into the honey guys, we stopped and checked their permits, make sure their paperwork's all square. And we don't have a problem with that. We're about these game reserves being a livelihood generator for local communities. Obviously, there's the benefits that they get from some revenue retention from hunting and our operations, but we don't want to keep people

out of here entirely. We just, it has to be controlled and it has to be managed. So that fishery is very carefully controlled. Us in conjunction with Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, we're constantly making sure that fishing is being done the right way. You know, not illegal nets being used, other illegal methods such as netting off the whole river or coming into the

game reserve waters themselves. And that's really important to make sure those fish have a sort of safe spawning ground and a bit of a reservoir so they can then, those waters that are getting fished commercially can be kind of restocked by those game reserve waters. So it's beneficial to the fishermen to adhere to those rules too. And then yeah, the honey hunters, it's the same thing as long as they're not interfering with our operations and as long as they're not delving into other unlawful activities while they're here, we're very tolerant of that and we want to support those livelihoods and see people do well.

There's, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like there's like sort of like three types of land management here, which isn't totally dissimilar to something you'd find in the US where you have national park land that doesn't have any of those activities on it. Right. Zero. It's just like photo tourism. We're near a national park. Um, and roughly how many acres or how many square miles of the national park that's near here? Yeah, it's pretty big one. I'd say it's somewhere

in that thousand square mile kind of range. And, uh, Morgan mentioned to me when we got here that last year, the thousand square mile national park, what's it called? It's called Oogala National Park. Had 14 visitors. So if you're looking for a very quiet national park. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, again, like I'll chill for Oogala National Park all day. People should make a visit. It'd be great, but it shows you.

It's so remote. Yeah, it's so remote. And again, for your average tourist, who's not, who wants to see the big five, right? And a million wildebeest in a day. This isn't the place to go. You're not going to see that. You know, even, even us driving around today and it's been a bit of a, you know, we've been pretty focused on going places where buffalo hang out today. You know, we haven't been going to a lot of areas where you'll find a big diversity of

species. So that's why it's kind of been a quiet day in that sense. But I mean, you can have days like this where, you know, the miombo is just a bit sterile sometimes. Well, one thing I should clarify, and I've told you this, like a thing that drew me to wanting, that drew me to wanting to hunt Cape buffalo is it's the kind of thing you get in there and shake hands with. Yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? Like you get in that thick stuff with it

and they're dangerous and it just like, that was exciting to me. It's like being in there. So I don't mind the thickness. It's just different than what I saw in the other part. But to get back to this land management thing, so you have a national park, which is kind of like for Americans,

the picture, like picture a national park in the US, very similar model. Very similar model. What is very different would be the game, like a concession or wildlife refuge. Like I can't think, maybe you can't, I can't think of a way to explain that with an American analogy. Yeah, there's nothing in the US that would be similar, that would be a good kind of analog for this. It's something that goes way back.

Within that category, there's subcategories, right? Where we were in Masai land is called a game controlled area. That's got looser rules around land use. There can be some permanent settlement there. There can be some seasonal sort of settlement. There can be livestock grazing. There can be a few other activities that would not be acceptable here, given that this is a game reserve. And then you've got a couple of below game controlled area. You've got a couple of other tiers too, that are even more kind of loose as far as what's allowed in there, land use-wise from local people.

But we're very lucky that this area has been designated a game reserve by the Tanzanian government. Luganzo. Yep, Luganzo Tongue Game Reserve is the full name of it. And it's a magnificent piece of ground. This is the size of Yellowstone National Park. Yeah, yeah, roughly the same size. Yeah, it's a huge chunk of ground.

And yeah, just having that legal protection from the government gives us the ability to really make sure that those more destructive forms of land use, like livestock grazing, which isn't in and of itself inherently destructive necessarily, it's just that here where there's such a big predator population, that inevitably leads to conflict And that can and that can be you know, the predators can come off badly from that You know cutting trees is something we don't want to see here. This is a very important piece of intact woodland That's really supporting a lot of different species in the miombo and the kind of miombo edges So we want to see that intact Yeah, I think just a touch on that for a minute for people is

like, here you have elephant, giraffe, zebra. I mean, like here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. If you sat here, you could watch go by elephant giraffe, zebra, kudu, leopards, lions, lions. Yeah, Eland, sable, rhone, harder beast, topi. I mean, there's, there's a huge variety of species in here. And for how big it is, you guys take so like for how big it is, you guys kill such a small amount of animals that I feel like it's like, it's like from a management perspective, it's effectively equivalent to a park.

Yeah. It really is like, it's not like it's, it's, you know, it's like very selective. Like you were, you were explaining to a park. Yeah, it really is. It's not like, it's like very selective. Like you were explaining to me here, you guys are only allowed to kill male specimens of anything. Right, exactly. You know? And it's really small numbers, like a few of these, a few of those, a few of these.

Yeah, it's a handful of species. And we've managed it that way deliberately. One of the great things about the Tanzanian system is we get a quota that's based on research. So right now we're actually working with Tawiri, which is the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute, and some other outside NGOs to do a study on predators in this area. Predators, including ones we can't hunt, like wild dogs, for example, which are entirely protected. So we're trying to get a handle on how many predators we've got here, which can better inform our offtake.

And the great thing is we're only obligated to utilize 40% of the quota that we're assigned. And we seldom go over that on any given. Oh, they want you to use 40%. We're mandated to use 40%. We're mandated to pay for 40%. So we get an assigned a quota but we have to utilize 40% and we rarely go over 40% You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Ever wonder what happened to the hundreds of thousands of buffalo that used to call the eastern United States home? Or what caused the rise and fall of Bob White Quail? Backwoods University, hosted by me, Lake Pickle, is the latest addition to the Bear Gryce Feed on Meat Eaters podcast network. Together, we'll seek out a deeper understanding of wildlife, wild places, and the people who

dedicate their lives to conserving both. After all, you can't love what you don't understand. Search Bear Grees on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast and hit that follow button to enroll in Backwoods University now. The land we're on, I keep trying to make analogies to the U.S. You could wind up thinking of it like, in a way, you could think of it like national forest land. Meaning we're on land that's owned by the federal government in Tanzania. The federal government in Tanzania

has two objectives, like preserve wildlife. Correct. Like create wildlife habitat, preserve wildlife, but also monetize the landscape. Absolutely. So they're able to monetize this huge chunk of ground, simultaneously preserving wildlife by auctioning off these blocks to a safari company or however you put it, like a hunting guide in operation.

Then they come in and say, okay, you operate within this piece of land. Our biologists will do some sort of assessment of what's there. You're allowed this level of take. And then besides that you're paying a fee to utilize the land, they're then saying every animal that comes off, the money is in our pocket. That's correct. And it applies like a big value to the wildlife. And there's something that you had said that kind of like helps me, because this is all

very new to me, but there's a comment you made that helps me think about it is I was talking to you about like you guys eat a lot of game, you know, like every night we eat game from stuff you guys' clients have gotten. And I was saying, well, when you guys want something to eat, can you just go get what you want to eat? And you were saying like, at this point, it's too valuable. Yeah. Like that stuff, those animals are all assigned value

by the government. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it makes no sense for us to utilize them that way. They're far too valuable. So yeah, that quota we do have and that we do intend to utilize, we're saving it exclusively for our clients. And the value of the animals, that's something that's set by the government. Correct.

Yeah. And a place can upcharge or not, but that's what they expect to see. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. They have their fixed amount that they want for each one of those species, which is great because the trophy fee, to really simplify it, big broad brush terms, the trophy fee pays for the conservation.

Yeah. And the beauty of these areas is out here, as you've seen driving in here, really there's a couple of little things, like there's a bit of mining, there's a bit of forestry going on in these areas, and there's some kind of more larger scale agriculture. But in general, the big competing land use here is subsistence farming, which is so marginal and so destructive. So for the government to have the foresight to say this area, if we protect it, is going to be something that generates revenue, not just for central government, but for local communities as well,

which can offset some of that need for constant subsistence farming. But aside from that, it also is something that's infinitely renewable. You know, this doesn't, aside from our efforts it also is something that's infinitely renewable. Aside from our efforts to preserve the area, which is all kind of baked into our costs, it's a cost to doing business, putting in these roads, maintaining the area so that it's accessible and we can conduct anti-poaching, we can conduct our safaris efficiently. Aside from all that, the government doesn't need to invest in these areas really. I mean, they have a budget and they do do a lot to help support us in protecting the area. And that's kind of something we do together. But in general, it's not a high

investment thing, but it's got a very good return. You returned me to something I was trying to do. I want to talk about anti-poaching in our game worn that we're hanging out with. Yeah. But I wanted to, I was talking about those three use types. I was saying like national park, which would be very similar to what an American would imagine a national park would be. A concession, which is different than what you'd picture.

And then the third category being like, sort of like an undesignated landscape that, and this is going to be very weird to Americans, is like an undesignated landscape that has like very unregulated subsistence farming activities. Yeah. Meaning it's like, like if you, if you go back and imagine the, if you go back and imagine the American frontier of the Appalachian region in 1770, 1780,

it's like in Boone and guys like that, it's basically what they did. Yeah, like they just kind of go into a place, chop a bunch of stuff down, burn stuff, grow a crop, deplete the soil, bump along, grow a corn crop. And it's kind of, it's still like that. Like you just have like communities.

And I can see that if you didn't have, and flying over it, you see that they're gigantic. You see geometrical shapes that are gigantic though. It'd be like you'd look at like for as far as you can see, you see a straight line and it winds up being where stuff is slash and burn ag and livestock grazing and it comes up to like a game reserve. Then it's like wilderness. Yeah. Then 10 minutes later,

whatever, five minutes later, you fly over the other edge and it goes back to like slash and burn ag and livestock grazing. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the issues that we have is that there isn't really a buffer anymore. You know, it's that, that human kind of activity is right up against our boundaries, which is a, is an opportunity and, you know, and a sort of risk. The risk is if, if those communities aren't being properly served, if they're really struggling, there's always that temptation for encroachment as far as pushing livestock in here, pushing agriculture in here, poaching activities like that. But if those communities are properly served, they could be great partners for conservation too.

They can really help us out in protecting these areas long-term, policing outsiders that might be coming in looking to do criminal activity, and then they might be able to do They can be great partners for conservation too. They can really help us out in protecting these areas long-term, policing outsiders that might be coming in looking to do criminal activity and a great source of employees and people that we can just generally cooperate with. So we see that not in such a negative light. It presents both an opportunity and risk. And we're just always trying to tweak our operations and adjust our kind of posture to where those communities are on side, they're seeing the benefits,

and they're working with us rather than we're kind of like at odds. Let's touch on another aspect that we'll close up with what our objective is going to be over the next few days. But here's another aspect that would blow Americans' minds. What anybody would define as a wilderness area, with what our objective is going to be over the next few days. But here's another aspect that would blow Americans' minds. We're in a, what anybody would define as a wilderness area.

Yeah. Okay. You guys have, you call them roads, you guys have trails. Yeah. Like if you didn't tend to this in two years, it's gone. It's gone. Yeah. So you guys have a trail network. You have a camp, you have vehicles.

Yep. So what the Tanzanian government's able to do is they're able to put a law enforcement officer, like a game warden, with you in your truck. So his responsibility is like, what are you up to? But also you provide the infrastructure and transportation for him to then patrol the wilderness. And like today, we went out and ran into some dudes doing wild honey.

And like the guy with us, who's carrying an AK-47, like asked them for their honey license, which he produces out of his pocket and checks his paperwork, you know? And it's just like, it'd be like, if someone said like, hey, while you're hunting in the U.S., if someone said, hey, while you boys are elk hunting, do you mind giving our game warden a ride around be like if someone said like, hey, while you're hunting in the US, or someone said, hey, while you boys are elk hunting,

do you mind giving our game warden a ride around so he can see what's going on? You know, just be like, it's like completely like, yeah, it's impossible to picture. But it's like such a different but interesting system. Yeah, it is. You make it possible for wildlife law enforcement to occur in this area. Yeah. And otherwise it probably wouldn't. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and that's always been a big thing for us. Our relationship with Tawa, which is the agency that he comes from, is about cooperation. We want to do things together. Our goals are very much aligned. When our business works, their revenue looks good and their outcomes as far as wanting to see habitat restoration and stable or growing numbers of wildlife and intact wilderness, they're meeting their goals too.

So very much everything we do here is in collaboration with them. Right down to, I mean, and you know, right down to the fact that, yeah, the relationship with him is not adversarial. I'm not like... He jumps on and looks for trash. Yeah, he's jumping out. He's really keen on, he's really invested in our success because that's where, that's where their bread's buttered.

Right. And then even our anti-poaching patrols behind the scenes, that's done totally in cooperation with Tawa as well. That's a joint venture between us and them to everyone's mutual benefit. So yeah, that's one of the really nice things here. These law enforcement guys to us, they're not like the fun stoppers, you know, they're there to help us. Another fun one that I think would be just surprising. I can think of one example in the US, I'm sure there's more, but like there's some black bear units in Alaska where if you hit the bear, that's your tag.

Yep. Okay. You touch the bear, that's your tag. Here, if you wing it, that's your... Comes off your license. Wounded, lost. Yep. And that's like, that's the hunter's chance.

There's no being like, well, let's go get another one. No, no, no. I mean, there are things where you have multiples on license, but you're still paying for that first one. And so that's another great reason to do your practice before you come, take your time. And if you don't feel good, don't pull the trigger. That's a big one.

I can bring my clients right up to that point, but once it comes to pressing that trigger, that's all on you. So, but we won't have any issues there. Don't plan on it. Okay, so explain where, how this is gonna play out over the next few days. Like as we try to get a buffalo.

Yeah, so yeah, we're early season here. The cover's still really thick. Lot of thick vegetation, a lot of tall grass. So that's kind of got a double edged quality to it where we, we're gonna, it's gonna make it easier for us to sneak up on them, but it's gonna make it harder for us to find them. So we're really focusing on finding tracks. And that means getting up early, well before dawn, transiting through

those less productive areas and getting to kind of Buffalo hotspots, which at the moment is these little valleys that kind of feed down to the Ugala River. And those valleys hold Buffalo. And in there we have roads that kind of transect them. A lot of those roads, unfortunately right now, are still pretty wet. So that's why we've done a lot of walking today,

just trying to kind of find those tracks on foot. But in an ideal world, we'd cut those tracks where they've crossed one of our roads or where they've come from water. Or we'll find them on foot if need be. And once we find a good viable track, you know, this morning we had a bit of an issue with there was tracks mixed in with other tracks and the buffalo had been feeding and a herd had crossed over the bulls and then the bulls had crossed back over the herd. And it was just extremely difficult to sort out to where it didn't seem like a good use of time. But eventually if we keep at it, we're going to find a set of tracks where there'll be some feeding, but then we'll see where they've lined out to go look for shade and look for

a place to lay down and ruminate during the day. And we're going to get on those tracks and follow them until we find those buffalo. Yeah, that's part that excites me, man Yeah, it's gonna be good. It's so hard to picture. Oh, and it's it's a different feeling I mean, it's been cool today to look for tracks. I love old tracks and different tracks But when you're on a track that's really got some substance to it Like you've got something to really chew on and you see the guys are on it and they're following it and they're engaged That's a different feeling and I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to feeling that vibe.

It's kind of... Take a stab out here. How many miles might you cover today? It really depends on what you're doing, but I bet in some of these days we'll do 100, 120 miles in the car. And then, you know, probably... And all on trails. Oh, all on trails.

And then anywhere from four to 20 on foot, just depending on how, where we end up and how close we can get the car to come pick us up. all on trails and then anywhere from four to 20 on foot. Just depending on how, where we end up and how close we can get the car to come pick us up. We were kind of lucky today. We did a few miles and we were able to get the cars in front of us to where we didn't have to walk back to the rigs so that was really helpful

but it's not a guarantee. That was a good trial run. Yeah, it was a good dry run. Yeah, I wish we'd picked up some fresher tracks in there but if we keep at this, it's going to work. And final last thing, we're looking for bulls that are at the end of their life. Yeah, exactly. And they're in a non-breeding phase.

We're looking for bachelor solitary bulls or bulls that are in the company of a couple of other bulls outside of the herd. So they're in a non-breeding phase. And they might be how old? Anywhere from eight to 12. 12 would be the extreme upper end. And then sort of an eight, nine year old would be right in that sweet spot that we want.

You know what that's very similar to is like doll sheep. Oh really? Oh interesting. So that's kind of when they're coming to the end of their productive life. Yeah, a lot of doll sheep. Like 12 is like really old. 10 is kind of the sweet spot.

Nice. Yeah, for a big ram. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, a nice old bull is what we're looking for. And we're going to find him. He's out here. Yeah. All right.

We'll keep coming. We'll keep dropping more things. And we'll cover all kinds of different aspects. We're going to talk to trackers, who are the stars of the show. Oh, absolutely. 100%. Trackers.

100%. Probably won't talk to any camera guys. It's been proposed, but I don't think we're gonna do that. We'll think of all kinds of interesting things to talk about. Stay tuned. ["The Day We Found Our Way In"] Ever wonder what happened to the hundreds of thousands of buffalo that used to call the eastern United States home?

Or what caused the rise and fall of Bob White Quail? Backwoods University, hosted by me, Lake Pickle, is the latest addition to the Bear Gryse feed on Meat Eaters podcast network. Together, we'll seek out a deeper understanding of wildlife, wild places, and the people who dedicate their lives to conserving both. After all, you can't love what you don't understand.

Search Bear Gryse on Apple, iHeart, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast and hit that follow button to enroll in Backwoods University now. This is an iHeart podcast.