Cameron Hanes and Joe Rogan clash on fitness myths—Hanes dismisses overtraining, while Rogan warns of joint damage—before debating hunting ethics, from zero-waste kills to conservation’s role in Africa, where regulated trophy hunting funds wildlife protection despite Western backlash over cases like Cecil the lion. They critique confined "high-fence" hunts as unethical but defend Corey Knowlton’s $350K rhino culling as a rare necessity, contrasting it with Obama’s disempowering rhetoric and global threats like North Korea’s tyranny. Rogan praises Tom Land’s 240,000-acre conservation-focused ranch, where habitat management trumps profit, proving hunting can align with ecological stewardship when done responsibly. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, tell that story, because that's a crazy story.
And I've talked about it on the podcast without you being here, but I called you after Rhonda Patrick did a podcast with me, and she was telling me about the dangers of what they call non-steroidal anti-inflammatories.
That's what ibuprofen is.
And she was saying it ruins your gut biome, and that it actually causes inflammation.
And so the people that are taking Advil every day for inflammation don't even realize that taking all that Advil actually is causing inflammation.
And then I wasn't, and I almost think it was maybe placebo a little bit because it's like, not only did it not help after a while, but it made it worse, essentially, the inflammation.
So after hearing that and, you know, who's ever going to question Rhonda Patrick.
I would never.
So I'm like, well, I better stop that.
So since then, I haven't been taking anything.
And then I have taken, there's this, you can get it at the health food store.
I don't want people to go and try to do that right out of the gate and then get hurt.
I think that's what frustrates people more than anything is when they're excited to make a lifestyle change and then something happens and then they get hurt.
And I find myself, I see the negative, and I go past all these positive, and then I'll say something because just if I'm in a bad mood, after a whole day of getting beat down by Stupid comments, so I'll have to do something, and then I'll be like, why did I... So then I go back and I'll try to acknowledge some positive ones, because I feel guilty.
That is the one animal that I think people have the most distorted perceptions of because of teddy bears and because of yogi and because I really want to take anybody who has these weird thoughts about bears.
I just really want to bring them to John and Jen's place in Alberta.
Well, that Under Armour commercial you told me was pretty crazy because they had this scene where the wolf snarls and they had to save that scene for the very end.
They said, you know, it was supposed to be me against a wolf going after this elk and then I ended up winning that little the story as it was told and they needed to get the wolf snarling and so they brought some meat out gave it some meat but they said well Actually gave it, then took it away.
And obviously that's going to make any animal upset, especially a wolf.
But they said, once we do that, we're done with the wolf.
i think it shows at the end it should yeah yeah and that was actually i mean people thought that that was edited and it wasn't you know right there with me no it was right there with me um you know they did a great job of putting that commercial together uh it wasn't necessarily snarling at me or growling at me but it was there it was it was fun how big was that wolf I think it was about 130 pounds.
I mean, it's tall.
That's a big, that's what surprised me is how tall they are.
And I think, you know, we were talking about earlier, as far as endurance goes, wolves, I believe, are the number one animal out there, as far as they can run miles and miles and miles, and they're tall, and they can just, you know, their gait is, you know, whatever, it allows them to go for hours and miles.
Yeah, animals, you know, animals pretty much have the advantage over us on everything other than, you know, I mean, they're stronger, stronger jaws.
You know, their muscles stronger for what they have.
We have endurance as a...
Advantage over most animals potential endurance like elk, but don't luckily we have you know, we can use our minds Well, that is the reason why we're so weak.
Yeah, all these people that are into the wolf, save the wolf.
The wolf's okay.
Guys, go to Idaho.
People are freaking out up there.
The wolves are okay.
Oh, more than okay.
They're starting to...
You go to Alaska.
I was in Park City recently in Utah.
And when I was there, we went to a store that had a wolf rug.
And I was like, "Jesus, you guys are selling a wolf rug?" And the guy explained to me, he said, well, these wolves are all shot by the government in Alaska because they're overpopulated.
So they're in these areas where they're trying to protect the moose population for the indigenous people that are subsistence hunters and live up there.
They have like a certain quota and he's like so it's actually like it's a good thing to sell these rugs because they're gonna shoot these wolves no matter what they're trying to keep the populations in check and I think that's that's something that these people that have that because see the problem with like celebrities was like they probably didn't think that shit through at all they just think this is a cool thing to be a part of of course everybody wants wolves to live I'll just go and say we've got to support the wolf we got to save the wolf yeah And so it looks like a cool thing for you to be a
I mean, we're telling the story and it's getting through to some people.
I mean, I can see it.
I can see there's education there.
I mean, and I'm sure you get messages every day from people who have never hunted, who are interested in it, who just want to know what the lifestyle is.
We've sort of romanticized the lifestyle and it's easy to do because it's the mountains and the mountains are, you know, you get that connection and you get that empowerment.
So I think we are kind of turning the tide a little bit.
A while back, maybe four or five months ago, who was a vegan for a long time, started listening to the podcast, at first was upset about the talk about hunting, ran into some health issues.
His doctor recommended he start eating animal products again.
Started with eggs, worked his way back up to meat, ate meat again, was getting, you know, healthy, grass-fed, you know, ethically sustained animals, ethically raised animals.
Decided to go hunting.
Became a hunter.
Shot his first deer, ate his first deer, and now he's going to be a hunter.
I mean, this guy went full circle.
Part of the journey of him going full circle was listening to people talk about it on the podcast and realizing this idea that he had in his head that these people that are out there hunting are all people that hate animals and they're cruel and they're just rednecks that are going out there drinking beer and shooting these animals and laughing and hooting and hollering about it.
You know, well, there's a couple points I want to make there.
One of them is, your podcast has been amazing for the education part, and I mentioned this, Adam and I did a podcast with the Gritty Bowman, and I said, you know, Joe's podcast, just because the type of person Joe is, as far as being open-minded and giving everything a chance, not coming in with biases, are the same type of listeners you have, you've kind of cultivated, or You know, they like you because, I don't know, they see themselves in you maybe.
But anyway, so those people have come in and listened to these podcasts like this without that bias.
When you listen to it and listen to us talk about it, it's not the redneck, you know, laughing because they're killing things, the person they may have thought.
It's, you know, this whole thing, this whole thing we talk about.
And so this podcast in particular has, I think, been a huge tool as far as promoting hunting and ethical hunting and Just the empowerment of being a hunter.
And so that, I don't know, just this venue, I don't know.
I don't know if we could have ever done that without, you know, the Joe Rogan podcast.
Sensory deprivation tanks, that business was going under.
There was virtually no tank centers in the world.
There was like one of them in Burbank, and I had heard one of them was in San Francisco.
They were hard to find.
There was none in New York.
Like one guy had one in an apartment in New York that you could rent out.
A guy had one like that in his house in Vegas that you could rent out.
There was none.
And now there's hundreds of tech centers all over the world.
And when you fill out a form...
Dude, I got one in 2002. I bought a house.
The house had a basement.
And I bought the house with the basement for two reasons.
One, because...
I wanted to put a tank in there.
And two, because the yard was big, so I could have my dogs running around the yard.
I just wanted to have a yard where the dogs could run around.
Those were my two requirements for a house.
Everything else, I was like, I really don't give a shit about it.
The TV sits there, and okay, here's where the bed goes.
I'm a man, you know?
There's things that women sweat when it comes to houses that dudes just don't sweat.
But for me, a big one was I tried a tank a couple of times at this place called Soothing Solutions in Burbank.
I don't even know if it's around anymore.
And then I put a tank in my basement, and then I started ranting and raving about it, and doing these YouTube videos about it, and then I got a new tank from the float lab, so I gave my old tank away online.
I had like a raffle, not a raffle, but like a random draw.
I said, just send me an email.
I gave an email address out, and I'll just pick a random person.
So I literally just scrolled through my email.
I'm like, bang, right there, and picked this guy out, and sent my tank to him, and had it set up, and sent the salt down to him, and the whole deal.
And then that alone, just having that contest and giving away a tank.
And then putting together this video for the tank.
Red Band put together this really cool video about it.
So these tank centers, because me talking about it on the podcast, started opening up all over the world.
To the point where now, when you sign up at a lot of tank centers, the first time you go there, they say, how'd you hear about us?
Whether it was through the internet, through books, or Joe Rogan.
You're one of the options.
Yeah, I'm one of the options on a lot of their questionnaires.
And that probably has had even more of an impact than hunting.
There's a lot of things that you should probably check.
B12 is a big one.
That's a huge issue with vegans.
Is B12 deficiencies.
And I think if you are a vegan, you should consider supplementing with things that you don't have a problem with eating, like maybe even some cricket protein or mollusks, like shellfish.
People should look into shellfish.
Shellfish, not only are they sustainable, but they're so primitive, they don't even have a neurological system.
They don't feel any fucking pain.
You could eat clams all day long.
They don't know what the fuck is going on.
We have this idea about clams because they do that, Because they close.
Well, they're doing what they think is good to shame people who eat meat or attack people who eat meat and especially attack people who actively go out and kill the animals themselves because they think that somehow or another it will lessen the amount of animals that are killed.
I think the opposite happens.
I think it shores up people's aggression towards vegans.
They firmly plant their heels on the other side of the line.
They're trying to kill wolves as much as possible.
You can kill 100 wolves a day if you can, and that's totally legal.
Because they have ranchers up there, and I think one of his neighbors, a wolf, it was in the middle of the winter, a wolf got a hold of one of the cows, a bunch of wolves, a pack.
So these people are in their house, and they're listening to a pack of wolves tear apart a cow that's like 100 yards from their fucking bed.
Scary, freaky shit.
They live in the real wild.
So these people were sending him all these death threats.
And so he said, look, every time you guys send me one of these, I'm going to shoot a wolf in the guts.
But if you just go on a six-hour car ride, just keep going north, keep going north, get out of your car, and I want you to go for a two-mile hike into the woods.
Just go for a two-mile hike, and I want you to sit there for a day.
Just sit there for a day.
You're going to see some shit.
And you will realize, you will, oh, this is a different world.
This world is, this is a wild world.
Like these things out here, they don't give a shit if people are real or not.
They are there doing what they've always done.
The bear running around looking for shit to eat.
The animals are running around looking to get the fuck away from things that are trying to eat them.
Yeah, I think people have an idea about it based on the excess that people have committed.
I mean, people have committed some atrocities when it comes to animals in this country alone.
own.
Everyone's seen those stacks of buffalo heads and when they were doing market hunting in particular in the 1800s and many people attribute that to hunters erroneously, that's not really what it was.
What killed off all those animals was a thing called market hunting.
And this is back, people have to realize there was no refrigerators back then.
And so you weren't getting steaks and freezing them and there was not a lot of large scale agriculture back then either.
There was a few ranchers and farmers, but when people had all these animals that were out in the wild, and they could hire these people that were in the military that had just gotten done with the war, and they were good shots, this would be a good way to make a living.
Go out there and shoot some buffalo.
Bring back the tongues.
Buffalo tongue was a...
Like, they would shoot a giant buffalo and just take the tongue.
They'd take the hides, and sometimes they would take the meat, and then they wiped out almost everything.
They wiped out most of the deer, most of the elk, most of the antelope, until guys like Teddy Roosevelt came along and went, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hit the fucking brakes!
We've got to protect these animals.
We've got to protect this land.
We've got to protect these animals.
We've got to set up private, or public land, rather, where you can't do anything to it, where people could just...
Roam and hike and camp and fish and hunt and do whatever you want.
And we've got to make sure we protect these animal populations because they got down to some incredibly low number of elk at the turn of the century, right?
Okay, it says the elk population in North America stood at about 10 million animals before European settlers came and systematic wholesale hunting began.
Wow.
That's amazing.
Colorado became famous for his trophy hunting and European gentlemen traveled here to try their luck.
If you walk down the street, if you eat steak, and you walk down the street, and you saw, like, for some reason, someone had put coolers of prime rib eyes just sitting there, you'd be like, what the fuck is this here for?
But when you think of it like that, I mean, so when we're looking at this picture, I know people listening to the podcast can't see the picture, but I mean...
I think we have and I think it's important to relay experiences because I think there's things to be learned From a lot of experiences, you know, like talking to you and talking to Courtney Dolwalter about just ultra marathons and endurance running.
There's something to be learned from that about the kind of mindset that it takes to do that.
I think having these conversations with you guys has changed the way I look at those things.
Well, I put something up not long ago about suicide, and it was amazing.
How many people sent me messages?
I mean, how many people are affected or just are dealing with negative thoughts of their own and little mini battles.
And it's just like that one post.
I don't know.
I think people just need to know that there's people out there that care.
But I don't know how when they get in that cycle of pills, I don't really know.
I'm not a doctor.
I don't know how that works.
I don't know what they're dealing with.
I just know that, you know, social media can be used.
It can be irritating sometimes, but man, it can be good, especially for people like that, just able to reach out and maybe, you know, get some support or encouragement or something.
It's even harder for younger people because they don't have a lot of life experiences and they don't know that a guy like you or I who's lived a long time and have seen a lot of shit, you've gone through your ups and downs and when you hit a down you go, well...
This sucks, but I know it's gonna get better.
Just gotta figure out why it sucks.
Address why it sucks.
Apologize if you need to.
Correct whatever the issue is that's making you feel like shit.
Pull yourself out of it.
Do a bunch of positive things.
Next thing you know, you're gonna be okay again.
And sometimes when you're 21 years old, you think the world's over.
I mean, I remember when my girlfriend dumped me when I was 18. I was so fucking bummed out.
I couldn't imagine.
I couldn't imagine living without her.
I was like, I can't believe that this is over.
I can't believe.
You're so devastated because you're fucking, you're a baby.
You're an 18-year-old baby.
You don't know jack shit.
But when you get older, and you've had more life experiences and more things, you get more perspective, and you kind of understand, like, what this feeling is, this bad feeling, and you just know, well, hey, I just gotta get the fuck out of the house, I gotta go hang out with my friends, I gotta go do a bunch of positive things, go hit the gym, take a yoga class, do something fun, and then everything's gonna be okay.
You realize, hey, you know, Life's not perfect.
There's no such thing as a perfect life.
It doesn't exist.
You're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs, but when you're 21 years old, it's very difficult to see that.
And also, who knows what else is going on in his life, whether it's pills or whether it's head trauma.
A lot of football players wind up killing themselves.
When you said, well, you go hang out with your friends, it sometimes...
Because I've been in certain groups where even my friends aren't positive.
You know what I mean?
So you're like, that even makes it worse, they can.
So, I mean, that's where I see the positives of social media.
And I wish I could respond to everybody who sends me messages and just say, hey, you know, and it's cliche, keep hammering or whatever, but I know I get inspiration from people online.
I agree with you and I think that's one of the things that social media can do that's positive and also podcasts can do that's positive.
There's people that are listening to this conversation right now that they're taking comfort from it.
They might be either stuck in a shitty job or they might be alone and they're here with us.
They're here hanging out and they realize there's people like us out there.
There's friendly, positive people out there.
Even if you're alone, At least you're not around negative twats.
There's a lot of negative people around, and it's unfortunate that they're negative.
I wish you could fix them all.
But sometimes life gives you these lessons in the form of disastrous lives that you witness.
And you see these disastrous lives and you just go, oh my god, I gotta get the fuck away from this crazy asshole and live my life in a more positive, productive way because I see what can happen if you blame the world for all your problems and all you do is hate and you hate on people that are successful and you hate on people that are...
Whatever.
Wealthy, good looking.
Pick the thing.
Girls that are thin.
Whatever the thing is that you hate on.
There's so many people out there that waste all of their energy doing that.
And if you're around them, you can't fix them.
It's so hard to fix people.
But what you can do is see what they're doing that's so negative and Just completely degrades the quality of their life and just don't do that.
Recognize.
Recognize that this is not the way to live and then go listen to a podcast with some positive people and say, look at this guy.
This guy's out there Eating healthy, doing good things.
He lost 15 pounds.
She went running and decided to start doing marathons, and he did this, and this guy's building a fucking house.
You can find a lot of positive examples of people online today.
That's one of the reasons why I'm so drawn to ultra-running.
I mean, because whether you like running or not, the people that do that are some great, positive people.
They're savages.
Oh, but they're also...
You get so used to winning those many battles in a long run.
I mean, you have to...
And you get strength from each other.
So, at the finish line or during the race, is you can get a bond.
There's a saying, you know, he who sheds his blood with me will be my brother.
And it's like, it's not...
That's probably derived from war and I get that it's not like a war or anything like that but it's going through a mini battle and when you do that with somebody and you share that experience you get that connection and it's like and it's why even though I don't know Courtney that well I know What she does.
And I really look up to her ability to just be a beast.
And that whole environment, the ultra running environment and community is empowering for me for sure.
And that's why I love even just being around people like that.
And it's weird to share an experience like that with somebody because you can be similar, but in the course of something like three days like that, you're in low points at different times.
You know what I mean?
And so it's really hard.
It's really hard to win each of those battles because at one time when you might, I don't know, it's just, it seems like that'd be easier, and I think in some respects it is, but it's, man, it's tough.
You know, on Moab, that one started off and I felt terrible right out of the, I mean, I felt, I was like, we were, God, I don't want to think, like 19 or maybe 15 miles in, something like that at an aid station.
I just, I was like, I wanted to be fresh and I wanted to feel light on my feet and I wanted to get out there.
And I was like, it's not a good sign when I didn't because, you know, we just essentially started the race and it was hot and I had run out of water already one time.
And my legs felt heavy, and so it wasn't looking good.
And then Courtney was way out ahead, and they were saying...
I didn't really know who she was at that time, so me and my brother Taylor, we were thinking, well, in the 70s would win the race.
So I thought, well, I want to go out and aim for finishing in the 70s.
I was like, oh, well, they just went too fast, you know, because I'd done that before, like a Bigfoot the year before, and I thought, well, they'll come back, you know, so meaning we'd catch up or they'd come back.
And I think the guys with her ended up dropping off a little bit, and then she never came back.
You know, you see some of these track athletes, and they got the tight little shorts on, and the singlet, and they're like, you know, she's just like, with kind of a baggy shirt and baggy shorts, and then just crushing people.
Imagine getting whooped, not just whooped, but whooped 22 miles ahead by someone who's eating nachos and drinking beer and eating candy.
I just love that.
I love someone who doesn't make any sense, who's just so much better, and it's just like, wow, we gotta fucking throw a monkey wrench into this whole idea.
But what I like about her also is I flew home the other day.
I can't remember where it was from, but I flew over.
In the Cascades of Oregon, there's a Middle Sister, North Sister, South Sister, and then Bachelors where everybody goes and skis, and then Broken Tops right there.
So I filmed it, and I'm like...
I tagged my brother, Taylor, and I'm like, hey, can we knock off all five of these peaks in 24 hours?
It's fascinating to me that that is the appeal of sheep hunting to a lot of people, is that it's so incredibly dangerous.
That being up in those high peaks and stepping on shale and on these crazy peaks where to the left is just a steep drop-off, to the right is a steep drop-off.
If he could get it together, but what he needs to do, and this is critical, He needs to work on his ground game, needs to work on his wrestling, and he needs to be with a real top-flight MMA camp.
But the guy's done an amazing job of building his skills up in five years.
And the thing is, Francis is so goddamn good that most people he spars with, most people he fights with are fucked.
But he runs to the top of the food chain, a guy like Stipe, Stipe can avoid all the dangerous stuff, drag him into deep water, get him diminished, diminish his endurance and his ability, and then overwhelm him, which is what Stipe did.
Yeah.
Francis can learn from that.
He can learn from that.
He can learn from that and he can get better at all those areas that he had problems with.
Yeah, but the endurance is something you can work on.
You can work on all those things.
I just don't know how...
I'm sure he worked hard.
I'm absolutely sure.
But I don't know how hard he was pushed.
So there's a difference between working hard and being pushed.
If he's training with a guy like Cain Velasquez, for instance, prime time Cain Velasquez, if Cain's in his prime, Cain's taking him down left and right.
He's going to try to have to get up all the time.
He's doing rounds with Cain.
You're going through hell.
You're going through five minutes of hell, and when that bell goes off to end the five minutes of hell, you're just like, holy shit.
I didn't think it was a bad decision, but I thought it was a very close fight.
It's hard for me calling fights because when I'm calling them, I'm just looking at what's happening, I'm trying to talk, but I'm not scoring it.
I don't score.
If you score, you've got to keep your mouth shut.
You should have a piece of paper in front of you.
Eddie Bravo used to do it for the UFC. He used to score in between rounds, and he had a great system where he would put a line down the center of a paper, and it would be one opponent on the left side and the other one on the right side, and then he would write down kicks, takedowns, submission attempts, and all that stuff, and then defense.
Those are little categories, and they would put check marks next to one.
And then he would go over why he thought someone won and what kind of score he gave.
He had a very good system.
And I think that's the only way to fairly judge a fight.
Unless it's like Valentina Shevchenko's fight, where you just go like, what the fuck?
I gave her like...
10-2.
I mean, it was so overwhelming.
I mean, a 10-8 round is a disgrace.
It's like a 10-6.
If you gave her just a 10-8, you'd be like, who the fuck are you?
It was a bad matchup, because that girl, I believe that was her UFC debut.
So, to have a UFC debut against a woman who's fought for the title against a world-class striker, I mean, literally one of the very best strikers on the planet Earth, male or female.
Yeah, well, I put up that clip of when she was saying the Lord's Prayer there, when you were up there and you were talking about how it was terrifying or something like that.
I put up that little clip.
That was crazy.
She was so in the zone.
It's from you guys.
On fight night, before the fight, you guys were standing there and they were showing that from the weigh-in.
Keep saying Tompkins because of Sean Tompkins, but Wonderboy is doing things from a sideways karate stance that a lot of people just don't know how to handle.
Wonderboy has these crazy front leg sidekicks and front leg roundhouse kicks.
Have you ever watched his fight with Johnny Hendrix?
It's one of the best examples.
He hits Johnny Hendrix in the gut with a sidekick, and then Johnny Hendrix is still there, so he roundhouse kicks him in the face with the same leg, and you see Johnny's like, what in the fuck?
Because it's just something like, he didn't see that in training.
Exceptionally good at those karate techniques, and a lot of people aren't.
And so with Muay Thai, most of the time when guys were learning Muay Thai and bringing it into MMA, they were doing a few things.
They were throwing the leg kicks, they were throwing the knees to the body, the elbows, normal Muay Thai techniques.
But they were missing some of the subtleties.
So some of the better Muay Thai fighters started training with some of the better MMA fighters, and then slowly but surely those techniques started leaking in.
It's amazing how many fighters, like Gilbert Melendez, when he fought Jeremy Stevens, Jeremy Stevens cracked him real early in the first round with that low leg kick, and you see it immediately swelling up.
Hey, and then also this weekend, the Secretary of the Interior, Zinke, on Friday is going to announce a big, I think it's a big win for conservationists, and we're going to protect the winter migration routes for deer and elk from development.
So that's been a big thing that I told them when I met with them back in Vegas, I don't know when it was, a couple weeks ago, that it feels like We've taken some hits as sportsmen as far as the national monuments being shrunk, you know, and you can argue that both ways.
Drilling on the coast, you know, a lot of people don't like the prospects of that.
So I'm like, man, we could use a wind and brought up the winter migration routes and protecting those from any development just so those animals can get down and get to the winter range.
When food's hard to come by, and so that's going to be announced on Friday that he's going to make that happen.
I'm on the International Wildlife Conservation Council, which doesn't have anything to do with North America, but I'm just kind of using that as an excuse to talk about North America.
It's because he said that he doesn't see how conservation helps elephants Which, okay, that's one thing.
But then he said, or any other animals.
And I'm like, wait a second.
Okay, you can't, we can't say conservation hunting as a conservation tool doesn't help any other animals, because we've proven here in North America, it's that it's a model that works.
So I didn't like how he worded that and lumped that on together.
And I'm like, was that I was Was that just a poorly worded tweet?
What's going on here?
So then he said he was going to look at that ban regarding elephants because, you know, if there's no value on the animals, we know what happens.
And if there is no hunting, it's pretty much the death sentence of the animal.
Well, we'd probably have to explain that to a lot of people that don't know what we're talking about, but Africa, there's a lot of animals in Africa that were on the verge of extinction just a few decades ago.
And what they did was, it's a very controversial thing, especially to people that don't hunt, but what they did was they created a lot of these game preserves where they had these animals and they had a financial interest in keeping these animals alive because people paid a lot of money to come over there and hunt them.
So now these animals that were on the verge of extinction just a couple of decades ago are thriving in record numbers.
But they get hunted.
So for people that are concerned about the welfare of these animals and their wildlife lovers, they're in a weird predicament because it's hunting that's keeping these animals alive.
But even in this country, 11% taxes on bullets, on hunting equipment, on all the different things that people buy.
And this was a self-imposed tax that sportsmen put on the purchase of these goods so that it would go towards wildlife.
And billions of dollars, billions of dollars have gone to preserving wetlands, preserving wildlife habitat, reestablishing populations of animals in all these different areas where they're diminished.
It's like the amount of money that has gone towards conservation from hunters versus from PETA or the Humane Society or any other welfare group, it's not even remotely comparable.
And for a photo safari, where they have them set up is that they go on pretty much the same route.
So the habitat just gets hammered.
I mean, you know what a national park here, the most popular places, you know what those look like.
It's a freaking dump.
So when you have those photo safaris that go on the same track, basically you're hammering the habitat.
You're not getting back to the back reaches where the poachers are killing the animals.
You know, that's still happening back there.
And then to get a pride of lion in to where you can take pictures of it, they're still going out and shooting zebras and impala and different things, buffalo, throwing them out there so the lions are there eating.
So there's still animals dying, but there's just the animals aren't benefiting from it.
So when you think of like in the bush of Africa, if a farmer there has a crop and there's elephants getting in there thrashing his crop, The elephant has no value to him.
What has value is the crop.
And if the elephant's in there trampling it, he just wants the elephant dead.
And with regard to lions, you know, so if lions are coming in and killing the goats or whatever that, say, in Tanzania that they're raising, they're just going to put...
That place, they had to kill a bunch of lions because people stopped lion hunting there.
And so because they stopped lion hunting there, they had this excess of lions, and they were destroying the undulate population, so they had to go in and just slaughter these lions.
So the $50,000 per lion that they would have made that would have gone towards all sorts of different things, protection of the habitat, the different conservation officers that work in that area, instead, there's no money.
and then they actually have to hire someone to go and do that job.
And this is the argument about British Columbia as well, that this is exactly what's going to happen up there.
The argument that you're getting from the people that are in the field, that are out there every day, is that what's going to have to happen is you're going to have a bunch of problem bearers, and they're going to have to hire people to go after these problem bears, and it's incredibly expensive and very, very dangerous.
And, you know, in Africa, too, so those animals are dying, and when it's hunters that are doing it, numbers are very controlled.
The harvest is very controlled.
You can take X amount of animals out, and this money will go towards, you know, this enhancement of a waterhole, this Paying for the anti-poaching unit, which when I was over there was $1,000 a day to pay for guys to come in to keep the poachers out of there.
Without that money, none of that's happening.
So instead of having a very regulated harvest number, the poachers will kill however many.
They are hiring people, but they have a financial incentive to keep these animals alive.
It's very problematic for a lot of people.
They don't like to hear it.
And I've read this article, this ridiculous article that said that that's not true, that trophy hunting is not what sustains these animals, and you can get just as much from a safari.
I mean, if he was just by himself and he said that and that was an honest reaction and he still had respect for the animal and it was just the fact that he pulled it off.
Yeah, well, it's definitely better for the population of rhinos as a whole, because people don't like the idea of raising something as a commodity, raising wildlife as a commodity.
Did you ever see the Louis Theroux documentary about wildlife in Africa, about those...
I forget what it was called, but you can watch it on YouTube.
That, to me, was a better piece and one of the most...
Interesting things because Louie is a he's a very smart guy, but he's also a very nice guy Yeah, he just kept asking questions and pestering people and getting to the heart of it But he also showed like these fenced-in lions and they're throwing a dead cow over the top of the fence and the lions are tearing it apart It's fucking crazy.
I didn't see it, but it's it's weird because the these Lions they're never wild like they're feeding them and then people go over there and hunt them as if it's like a wild lion Yeah, it's it's super weird I couldn't hunt in a fence.
I'm going to not address that part and just address hunting in general.
Hunting in general Is what's necessary for the future of animals.
I mean, until it gets down to a number where maybe the white or black or whatever rhino that is, that's only down to a handful, obviously you're not going to hunt those.
But by and large, hunting is what keeps these animals, the population viable.
Like I said, very magnified because you're getting a huge amount of money and there's only a few animals, but it's easy to see, hey, killing this one is going to save animals.
So that's really easy to see.
But that's pretty much what happens with all animals.
It's like people will comment, not hunters, obviously, but they'll be on my page and say, well, I don't have a problem if you kill deer and elk, but there's no reason to kill a bear.
If you had a thousand of those living in your neighborhood, you'd have to thin the herd.
You just have to.
The reality of all this stuff is super complex, and I just do not think you get an understanding of it from, you know, in front of your laptop in Vancouver.
So what I like is, you know, with regard to, like, this International Wildlife Council or even...
It just seems like with this administration, and people say good or bad, or mostly bad, it feels like, and that's one thing that I would read CNN, I'd listen to, it's like the same topic.
Two totally different slants.
So it's like, what the hell?
Who do you believe?
So that's why I was happy to be involved so I can actually hear.
But still, it's still hard.
It's still hard to listen and think, okay, so what's going on?
But with my whole thing is like, I kind of look at it as, if I got somebody online giving me advice, Or you give me advice.
I'll be like, well, Joe knows me.
I'm going to listen to him.
That's why I kind of wanted to be involved in these councils and in this part of this decision making.
Because they can listen to all these people talking shit.
All day.
But if I'm there and can actually weigh in, well, then they know me and, you know, it should weigh a little more.
I'm not saying I'm going to agree and it's going to be exactly what I wanted every time, but...
I don't know how else to do it.
And I know that with my voice, because they have trust in me about whatever, even if they agree or don't agree, I'll at least get to share my thoughts.
And so that's what I did when I talked with Zinky the other day.
Yeah, that's what, you know, and I've read all these, man, you would think he was the worst, just like Trump, you know, people, you'd think they were Satan to some people.
But to me, I read the outside magazine article on him, it sounded terrible, and I was like, God, that's not good.
I read a few other things about him, I'm like, but to me personally, it seemed, would listen, Seemed like somebody who, if we were sitting there talking about something and we came to a decision and it made sense, that's what he seemed like.
What he told me is he's concerned he wants to increase hunting opportunities and, you know, public land opportunities.
And that's kind of what I want to hear.
So, I mean, maybe who you're talking to, I understand that.
But it sounds good.
I mean, it gave me a better feeling talking to him than reading the other articles, the articles about him.
And then his staff, great people.
Like I said, just like we'd sit here and talk and it'd make sense.
And even talking with Donald Trump Jr., I'd be like, God, I wish we could just do this right now.
Because it's like you can actually come to a consensus, make a decision, talk it through, and be like, that's how it should be.
And it feels like it's different.
Politics are different because everybody, like you said, there's pressure from different places, but When I think of a politician, I think special interest groups and these other people that are influencing them, and you're wondering why is this for their own benefit, and so you don't really know.
With this, it doesn't feel like that.
It feels like it's trying to make the right decision without being influenced.
I know there's always going to be influence, but without the special interest type influence, and I don't know.
Well, I think the more people like you that are involved in this, and the more people like you have a say, or at least are...
They come to you for advice.
You're going to get at least a more balanced perspective of what the potential hazards are, what's important, what we need to concentrate on.
You know, I think, regardless of what you think about Trump, what people were excited about, about him as a president, would be that the economy would have an upswing.
And it did.
But lately, the last couple of days, there's been a massive decline in the stock market.
I feel like if I just went down that rabbit hole, I'd be stuck studying the stock market for weeks upon weeks, and I just don't have that kind of time, dude.
Like I said, if you have somebody's ear, you just want to be able to tell them what's important to you.
And that's all I want to do.
But I can do that...
Generally better over something I care about like archery or running or lifting weights or whatever like that.
So that's my goal just to, you know, share what's what because I feel like I have a pretty good pulse on what's important to sportsmen and hunters here in North America.
It's really hard to just have a balanced perspective.
I don't think anybody does a good job as president.
I've never seen a single person do it well.
I've seen Obama give very good speeches.
I think he's very statesman-like.
I think he's very...
What Obama did that was excellent was he was very...
He's composed and articulate and smooth, and he represented a highly educated, like a high level of human being in terms of his intellect and the way he carries himself, and I think that's good for the country.
But I think, you look at the drone attacks, you look at the attacks on whistleblowers and on the press, and there's a lot of bad shit about the Obama administration that everybody wants to sweep under the rug, because I think nobody's a good president.
I didn't like how he sort of started a war on cops.
You remember when he was, you know, crucifying some of the arrests they had and it started, people were looking at cops thinking, are these the good guys or the bad guys?
I didn't like that because Maybe there are some bad cops, but there's bad everything you do every job has bad whatever so hundred percent instead of highlighting The people out there protecting our interests and serving the public.
He was highlighting the quote bad cops I guess and it and it put them all in a bad light.
I didn't like that whereas Trump he knows, you know He's highlighting Good police work.
He's highlighting the military.
He's, you know, pride in the good old United States of America.
They like to say, well, no, the politicians are supposed to control the military, and it's supposed to be, you're not supposed to allow the generals to make the decisions.
Right.
There's a debate back...
This is, again, like a lot of other things.
This is a very complex, nuanced conversation that you'd have to have all the facts at your disposal.
Well, you need a strong military because the world has some dark places.
And anybody who doesn't think that you need a strong military, you need to pay attention to what the fuck is going on in Syria, in North Korea, in a lot of parts of the world where there is chaos.
And this is an entirely real possibility anywhere.
Anywhere that exists, it can exist here.
If you see horrible tyranny and destruction and chaos in other parts of the world, the only reason why it's not here is because of geography.
If they can get there, they can get here.
If things can go sideways in Iran or in Iraq or wherever the fuck it is, they can go sideways in America, too.
And if you don't think that we need military, you're goddamn crazy.
I would love it if we didn't.
I would love it if we lived in this utopian world where everybody treats people the way you or I would.
Where you don't have to worry about.
If you and I were neighbors, I would never worry about you invading me.
I'd be like, oh, Cam's never gonna bring a gun over and fucking take over my house.
He's a nice guy.
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If the world was like that, it would be wonderful.
And people that I know, like Tim Kennedy, a guy who's been there, a guy who's done that, a guy like Jocko Willink, a guy who's been there, those are the guys that I turn to When I want to know what's going on over there, I want to get a real perspective.
You want to get a real perspective for someone who's been in active duty in a combat situation, who's been to these horrific parts of the world.
They can tell you what's going on.
And when they tell you that it's a better situation, that the military has the handcuffs off, I listen to them.
Yeah, I mean, I really wish that everyone would come back home.
I really wish that no one was in Afghanistan.
I really wish that we weren't the police people for the world.
I really wish that we're not sending young people to die in foreign wars that don't make any sense to you or I or anybody that really knows what the fuck is going on there.
No, that's why you got to respect the people that are over there doing that.
And, you know, it's just like, you know, what a sacrifice, you know?
And it's, I want to never take it for granted that there are, you know, we're safe here, things are going on, but just what's the sacrifices made by people in the military, it's, I never want to forget it.
Yeah, it is a very controversial subject with people because if you're on the left, you want less military, you want less war, you want less violence, you want less everything, and that's a totally reasonable position.
But I think in a lot of ways it's like wildlife.
Like you're talking about it as someone who's never experienced it.
And I think once you experience it and once you've been to these parts of the world, at least my perspective based on the descriptions that I've gotten from people that have been there, that it's way more complex.
There are just parts of the world that are fucked.
And I think it's going to take many, many generations for those parts of the world to become a better place for people to live in and sort of catch up to what we think of as civilization in the Western world.
And I just hope other people just realize that because it's not like I've been everywhere, but I know that the challenges like the women have that you were talking about, it's like, I couldn't imagine that.
Yeah, look, one of the reasons why I'm pro-America is because I'm pro-human being.
And I think there's more chances for people to be who they really want to be and become what they really want to be here.
You know, and I support a lot of left-wing ideas.
Equality and freedom and gay marriage.
I think you should be able to do whatever the fuck you want to do.
I mean, go have fun.
Just be nice.
Just be you.
Just go be you.
So when, you know, people see me and they see this giant American flag behind me, and they think immediately, oh, right-wing, oh, fucking conservative, alt-right, or whatever this is.
So when you boil all that down to 22 minutes with commercials, it just looks like inevitably you're going to get to about 18 minutes in, someone's going to shoot something.
Yay, they got it.
It seems like they're shooting things that are definitely going to be there.
And I think this idea that people have an incredibly short attention span.
Listen, people are consumers of entertainment.
And especially people who love hunting.
I watch a lot of videos.
I watch a lot of hunting videos.
I watch a lot of videos on science.
I watch a lot of shit.
I watch hours and hours of stuff.
Things that I'm interested in.
The people that are interested in elk hunting, they don't want to just see a couple guys laughing and joking around that an arrow hits a big bull and everybody's happy.
And the ones who don't, they weren't going to watch it anyway.
The idea that you get it in 10 minutes and somehow or another it's more digestible in 10 minutes, like, stop!
That's not real.
People have these weird ideas in their head about things.
Like, oh, but the statistics show that more people watch 10-minute videos.
Well, if you want to watch videos about babies chewing bubblegum or some stupid shit like that, yeah.
Yeah, the 10 minutes.
But you're supposed to be showing respect to what is one of the more difficult and misunderstood pursuits in the United States, and that's bow hunting.
It's incredibly difficult and incredibly misunderstood.
And I think it's a noble pursuit, and I think it's also one of the more intriguing things and more interesting things I've ever done in my life.
Well, I know, and I don't know if you could capture it all in one film, but I just know that, you know, if somehow we could capture just more of the journey, because there's people that don't know anything about it, just, like, want to know how to get started.
I don't know if you could have one film that would do all that, but I just know that there's people hungry for knowledge out there that we're reaching, even with this podcast or with social media, that haven't been ingrained.
So, it's like we're making these films To people who are already hunters, who already know everything.
And so to them, oh, we've got to do this in a short period of time, otherwise you're going to get bored because they've done this a million times themselves.