Hunting is in Our Blood | ROBBIE KROGER
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 16 minutes
Words per Minute
182.98633
Summary
Dr. Robbie Kroger and his project, Blood Origins, discuss the importance of hunting, its positive effects on the environment and conservation efforts, why there tends to be such a polarization around this topic, and how, whether you like it or not, hunting is in our blood.
Transcript
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Whether you've never been hunting before or you're new to the pursuit or even a seasoned
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veteran, it's hard to deny that hunting is in our blood. It's in our DNA. We as a species have
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been hunting for hundreds of thousands of years, and it really hasn't been until relatively recently
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that the art and science and practice of hunting has come under so much scrutiny.
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That's why I'm extremely excited to introduce you to my guest today. His name is Robbie Kroger
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and also his project, Blood Origins. We talk about the importance of hunting,
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its positive effects on the environment and conservation efforts, why there tends to be
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such a polarization around this topic, both Robbie and my journey into the world of hunting and how,
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whether you like it or not, hunting is in our blood. You're a man of action. You live life to
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the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get
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back up one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
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This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,
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and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder
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of this podcast and the movement that is Order of Man. I want to welcome you to the conversation.
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If you're new, this is a conversation about becoming a better man. We cover everything,
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all the topics that you'd want to address from leadership and self-development and getting in
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shape and developing confidence and picking up new hobbies and skills and how to communicate
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effectively and how to lead and everything else that may be important to you as a man.
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It's my job to give you the conversations and the tools and the resources, guidance, direction,
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instruction, et cetera, et cetera, that you might need in your life to more adequately become the man
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that you're capable of becoming and the man that you have a desire to be as well.
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Well, I've got a very, very good conversation lined up for you this week here in the next couple of
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minutes. I know I say that every week, but that's because every week I have a great conversation for
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you. Some better than others. And this one is definitely a good one, especially if you're
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interested in getting into the world of hunting, or maybe you're already hunting and you want to
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learn more about it because you've immersed yourself into it. Then I think you're really going
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to enjoy this conversation. Now, before I introduce you to my guest, I want to introduce you to
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somebody else. And that somebody else is my friends, Pete Roberts and Brian Littlefield
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over at origin may. Now these guys do rash guards, lifestyle apparel, geese, some of the
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So if you're interested in seeing what these guys are all about and what they have to offer you,
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then I would definitely check it out at origin, Maine, origin, Maine.com. And today I think I've
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recommend this quite a bit. Now I would recommend their bison boots. These are 100% sourced and made
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to be productive as a man. And these are going to help you do that. So head over to origin, Maine.com.
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And then anything that you end up picking up, use the code order or D E R at checkout. Not only does
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that let them know that you came from this podcast, it'll get you a 10% discount, which is important
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too. All right. Origin, Maine.com use the code order at checkout guys. Let me introduce you to my
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guest today. His name is Dr. Robbie Kroger. He's a biologist who currently holds a position as the
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science coordinator for the Gulf coast ecosystem restoration council. I know that's a handful, but,
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or a mouthful I should say, but, uh, he's doing some amazing things in the restoration of the,
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uh, Gulf coast. Uh, he's also a professor at Mississippi state university in the department
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of wildlife fisheries and aquaculture. Uh, but outside of that, he founded this movement that
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we're going to talk about today called blood origins, which is, uh, aimed at sharing the why
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and the who behind hunting and where most shows focus on the sport and the ultimate kill.
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Nothing wrong with that. Uh, this is a little different. Robbie set out to learn and understand
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who hunters are and why they do it. He's got some absolutely, absolutely incredible films.
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Uh, we watched a bunch while he was here at my home in, in Maine, uh, the document, these stories
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and share a site of hunting that maybe you've never seen before. So I hope you enjoy my conversation
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with Robbie Kroger. Robbie, I'm excited to have you in studio, man.
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Yeah. I've been, uh, I've been following you for a while now and, um, knowing that I came
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on here and the kind of guests that, that you've had on here, I'm just super humbled.
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Well, yeah. I mean, we've been trying to work this probably for a year, maybe, maybe even
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longer. Yeah, exactly. Cause what we bumped into each other, what at a Western expo, I believe
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last year, but we knew each other even prior to that. Yeah. So I reached out to you and said,
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uh, can I get in contact with Braxton? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Cause I had just had him
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on the podcast. That's right. And you said, yep, absolutely. Here's his contact information.
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We have subsequently gone to Braxton, filmed Braxton. Amazing, amazing guy. And then we
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just kept in contact and I reached out to you and you had just become, you had just started
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posting about hunting. You literally were just like in the nascent stage of exploring this
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thing that is hunting. I still feel like I'm at that stage. Well, we all are. I have not
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advanced at all. You get to that point where you think you're the best and it's time to hang
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up the boat. I've never once thought that in my entire life about anything I've ever
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done. It's a good, it's a good place to be in. So yeah, that's how we started. And then
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we just kept talking, talking. Then you made the big move up here to main. Yeah. And I was
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like, well, we just need to get this locked down. We need to make it happen. Yeah. Well,
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we're glad you're here. We, uh, we try to treat our guests with, with, with some style.
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So you've certainly wined and dined me. I'm drinking Jocko right now. And then lobster last night.
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That's right. We don't mess around here. We're, we're, we're going to see what that, uh, that go
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does. The origin Jocko go does to you here in the next five minutes or so. Well, so you're talking
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about filming, you're talking about filming a mutual friend, Braxton McCoy. Uh, just, just tell us real
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quickly what it is that you do. I know what you do obviously, but I think it'd be really cool for you
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to give us an overcap and a review of what it is that you're, you're doing. So I run a project called
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the blood origins project, not the blood orange project, but the blood origins project. It is a
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very simple storytelling documentary platform showcasing the heart of hunters. Um, you know,
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your audience may not be, there may be hunters in your audience. There may be a lot of non hunters
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in your audience. And yeah, we have a good mix. I, you know, I would say even the people who are
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non hunters just through the exposure of, of what I've been doing over the past couple of years and
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what you and other guests that I've had on have done in, in the hunting world are, are at least
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intrigued. Right. If they're not hunting, right. If they're not hunters. And so that's the whole
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point of the project is reaching out to that non hunting, uh, base, which essentially keeps our
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lifestyle as Americans in place, the 200 million American voting block that says yes to hunting
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or no to hunting. And you know, America hunters in America are less than 4% of the population
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right now. So we have to do a job of ensuring that we explain who we are. Right. And so the project
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is, I can boil it down to a simple statement. The project is showcasing the heart of the who
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of the hunting community, but also the heart of the why. And so we film people's stories. We film
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people's their why, like, why do you hunt? And everyone has a story. That's the tagline that,
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that we use because everyone has a story. My story is unique to me on how I was raised and
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what's essentially in my blood from a hunting heritage perspective. And you may not have a
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single ounce of hunting heritage in your blood, but that doesn't mean that you're not a hunter and
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doesn't make you less of a hunter. It just means that your story is different. Right. And I would argue
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that, that all of us probably have in our blood at some stage. Right. I mean, that, that is our
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Well, ancestrally, you know, primarily, that's exactly who, um, it's funny. You say that the,
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one of the, the videos, the second to last video that we just dropped in my narrative, I said,
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you know, this woman got bashed for hunting a leopard. And in my narrative, I say, you know,
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she's getting bashed for what humanity was built on, which is hunting. Right. Humankind. Yeah.
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Excellent. I agree. And the amount of comments that I've received on that post to say, who's
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this jackass talking about what humanity was built on? I said, well, what do you think humanity was
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built on? How do you think we got to who we are today? How do you think our brains evolved? How do
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you think we learned to survive? Sure. It was through hunting. Why do people have such a hard time with
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that? I think that today's society is very much disconnected from, you know, who we're supposed
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to be. I think that we have a, and there's a ignorant viewpoint out there on what hunting is.
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And that is, and I'm going to be very blunt here in that that's probably a result of hunters not
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understanding or not portraying their why we have, we have created a bad rap for ourselves over the
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last 20 to 30 years. Sure. It's self-imposed. Yeah. But sometimes, you know, I look at the
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hunting community and I know guys in, in, in the, in the arena, if you will, who, uh, want all the
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praise and notoriety. And I also know hunters who go out and do it because it's their way of life and
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they don't post about it. They don't talk about it. They don't take pictures. They just do their
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thing. And you know, do you feel like those guys have an obligation to share? Like what,
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what's your stance on that? If they're not interested in sharing, you know what I mean?
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Like it's hard because we run into this, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Right. So these
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guys are like, Hey, it's just my way of life. I just do the thing. I mean, I kind of feel like if
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you don't share to some degree, then you allow those who are, are the, the, the vocal people
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change potentially your way of life because you weren't willing to get involved.
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Well, if you, if you're gonna, if you're going to moan and groan about it, then you definitely
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have to get involved. No doubt. Um, but you know, there's a certain something to,
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you know, hunters being hunters for who they are. I think social media today, unfortunately is,
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is the downfall of hunting. You know, the fact that you, you know, the whole idea of a trophy
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picture, somebody, you know, smiling, right. You know, gleamly behind this animal. And that's
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all you post and say, big buck down. It's like, well, that's, that's unfortunately what's giving
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us a bad rap because who, somebody who doesn't understand hunting, somebody who doesn't understand
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the context of hunting, somebody who has never experienced what that means and the effort that
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has gone into that one picture. We'll see that picture and go, Oh wow. They're just smiling
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because they killed something. Right. But there's so, I mean, we know that there's so much more
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behind that smile, but that's all they see. But that's all they see. The hunting community to
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today. And I believe that we have a new tribe. I believe that we have a new wave of hunters
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and their narrative changing what hunting is being perceived as that it's, you can have a trophy shot.
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There's nothing wrong with the trophy shot, but there's something wrong with not providing
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the context behind what that trophy shot means. Well, I think there's this thing that, that hunters
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naturally believe that people understand it. So for example, you know, I posted some pictures of me
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with the dead animal that I'm, that I'm proud about, right? Because I've gone through the effort
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and the work of harvesting that animal and setting out and accomplishing what it is I wanted to do.
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And I have comments like, are you going to eat that? To me, like that is an ignorant question
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because of course, like what, what else would you do with it? So what that signifies to me is that
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individual, any individual who'd asked that just has no idea. Right. And I don't use the word
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ignorance as, as a, uh, uh, uh, criticism. Well, maybe a criticism, but I'm not saying that in a
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negative way. I'm using ignorance as it's intended, meaning you just don't know. Right. And because
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you're so disconnected, right? You, you're so disconnected from your food source because you
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can go to the grocery store and pick up a package of beef. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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Sure. And I know that society today, that is a luxury that we have. It's not the society that we
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had 60, 70 years ago where you had to go hunt for your food. You can go to the grocery store
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and get your food. It's just a choice that hunters make to say, I prefer to know where my food came
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from. I prefer to know how that animal died. I prefer to know that that animal lived a life that
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was the best life it possibly could live. And then I took the most ethically clean, painless,
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instantaneous death shot that I could possibly take. Right. And you, you know, the packaged beef and look,
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I'm not being hypocritical. I go to the store. I get. Sure. I think most hunters probably do to some
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degree. And it's just, that's part of the lifestyle of hunting. I will say and take it one step further.
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The whole food aspect, the food argument is one that is used a lot in a rhetoric against hunting.
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What do you mean? And so, so. We don't need meat. Is that what you're saying? Is that what they.
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No, it's more like, uh, you know, don't, you shouldn't be hunting unless it's for food only.
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That's the rhetoric that is used a lot against us. As I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my
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head around that. Like what else would you be hunting for? Oh, are you talking about animals
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that you wouldn't consume or. No, I would be. Or somebody having, you know, a rack or something on
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their wall. Correct. Okay. So for instance, I didn't go to Australia to hunt a Buffalo for the,
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for the meat. Right. So why did I go to Australia? Right. Right. Shame on you. Exactly. And so I went
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to Australia to hunt that Buffalo because it was a way for me to get into a place, to see a place,
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to go and push my body to a place that I didn't know that it could go to experience an adventure
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beyond belief. And somebody would say to me, well, Robbie, you could do that without killing
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the animal. And I said, no, I couldn't because I wouldn't have gone. It wouldn't, I wouldn't have
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traveled three days. I wouldn't have expended all this money. I wouldn't have gone, pushed myself
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into the back country of nowhere where probably no white man has ever walked before to connect to
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this, this primal urge that's inside of me to just go there, to just sit in under a tree for three
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days and go, oh, great. This is great. And I'm going home now. Right. I could do that in my backyard.
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No, you go for a purpose. And I think that's what hunting is. Hunting gives you a purpose,
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a purpose to go, a purpose to get into a place that you've never been before, a purpose to go into
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the back of the Yukon and chase a doll sheep. Right. That doll sheep is going to be delicious,
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no doubt. Sure. And the food is not going to be wasted. The meat is not going to be wasted,
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though. That may not be your primary purpose for why you go. The indirect benefits of the harvest
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is going to be the meat. You're going to take it home. Sure. In Africa, the meat's going to go to
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the communities. The indirect benefits of somebody hunting in Africa is that it's protecting wildlife.
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Yeah. It's not getting poached. Agriculture is not coming in. You can massive economic
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uplift in areas that have nothing. Medical, jobs, infrastructure, you name it. Just because
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somebody wants to, the purpose of them going, wants to go and test their abilities against
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a critter. Well, and they're not. The ideas of harvesting the meat and experiencing the adventure,
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putting your skills to the test, those things aren't mutually exclusive. And I think that's what
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people get confused a lot of times when I get those comments, for example, where guys say,
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well, are you going to eat it? It's like, yes, it is possible to enjoy doing something like hunting
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and it also be very practical at the same time. Right. And I think what, if you, if I'm, if I'm
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understanding you correctly is what you're saying is that people have a hard time wrapping their heads
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around, it should just be, if you're going to hunt, it should just be practical. It shouldn't be like
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this enjoyable thing you take pleasure in. Correct. Okay. And, and, and here's, and here's the dichotomy
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of the space. People say, oh, you enjoy hunting, which means you enjoy killing. Right. So there's a
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reason why we're called hunters and not killers. Right. Right. Killing is the way that I, the way
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that I describe it. Killing has a finality to it. That killing is almost like, um, it happens every
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single time. If you kill, it means you went out, you killed. There's a finality to that effort.
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Hunting by definition is search, chase, seek, which by definition has what built into those three
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things. Failure. And so hunting is not called killing because for the majority of the time,
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you never kill. Right. At least for me, the odds are higher that I won't for me, it seems like.
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For all of us. Right. And I think that, that's also, you know, we, we, we're talking through
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like fallacies around hunting. That's another fallacy around hunting that you just go out
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there. Yeah. First thing that comes out, you shoot it. Done. And it's done. They just walk
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out and you kill it. Right. No. You know, there's many, many instances where you don't get the
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animal. Many, many instances where you see animals, but you never kill because not old
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enough. Right. Not the right animal. Right. Not the right sex. I mean, there's all sorts
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of reasons. All sorts of reasons. Sure. And many, many times people spend a lot of money.
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These huge African safaris, doll sheep, you're talking 30, 40, 50 grand. Yeah. Tens of thousands
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of dollars. And they don't come home with nothing. Yeah. Yet they thought they, they would say
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that it was still the most successful hunt that they went on. Not kill, but hunt. That's
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interesting. Not kill, but hunt. Yeah. Yeah. I never understood. I never looked at it that
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way. And so you take, I'll take that rhetoric one step further and coming back to comments
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and people and, you know, tying it back to the project, the project, this is the purpose
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of the project. It isn't education, but it's more of like, this is, you know, why somebody
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hunts. Right. Somebody says, well, you guys are just, you're killers because you, you have,
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you want the thrill of the kill. Hmm. Well, that's asinine. If we're all about the thrill
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of the kill, why would we spend 50 grand to go try and get an animal? Right. Yeah. There's
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significantly easier ways to do it. Go down to the local abattoir and volunteer. Right.
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They're not going to say no. You can kill all you want. Right. Right. But that's not what
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we're doing. Yeah. That is, that is interesting. And it's, you know, what, so I, I, I went on my
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very first hunt in, I believe it was November ish of 2017. And I remember killing that deer.
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It's this one right behind me on top here. That's my first year I shot. And, uh, I, man, I was just
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so anxious as I was, you know, lining up my shot and going through breathing and like, can't make
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sure I get a good shot here. And finally took the shot. And, you know, I was so excited when I saw
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the deer, but at the same time, it was this bittersweet moment because I had the excitement
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of completing my objective. But then you see this majestic animal lying on the ground, knowing that
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you're the one that ended its life. And now for me was a really cathartic moment, realizing that,
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you know, I wouldn't at that point, like call myself necessarily a hunter, even though I had hunted,
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but it helped me realize that, Oh, these, I would say that most hunters, they don't like,
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they don't like overly enjoy the killing aspect. It's just part of the process that needs to be
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done in order to secure the meat and have that adventure.
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Yeah. And it's, you know, it's half a percent of the endeavor and you know, that, that moment
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and you felt it, it's that, it's that like, you know, 10th of a second as that, as your fingers
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hitting the trigger, it's like, okay, I'm about to do this.
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There's this, there's this chasm between life and death.
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That you're in charge of. And, you know, it's not something you, it's not trivial.
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And you don't. And that's, I think, you know, one of the parts of who we are as hunters and as we breed
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a new tribe of hunters, like my sons, your sons, you know, being very cognizant of, you know, what
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this means to us and, you know, being also very cognizant of the fragility of it being taken away
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Right. Or being taken advantage of, which happens too with poaching and some of these things as well.
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No, and I think the community, you know, there's a, again, talking about fallacies, there's a huge,
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another big chasm between poaching and hunting.
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Right. Which is funny because a lot of the issues that people have with hunting is already
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illegal. You know, like, like not harvesting the meat. Oh, you, you should harvest that meat.
00:21:47.260
Well, yes, that's actually illegal not to harvest the animal.
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You have to, there's wanton waste laws all over the US.
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So people, but people don't, they don't realize that. It's like everything that you advocate
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for is already regulated and it's actually not only regulated, it's regulated by the hunting
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community because I want to sustain something that my children and my grandchildren and so
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on will be able to do thousands of years from now.
00:22:13.440
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the hunting community, unfortunately, has a bad rap of, you know, pointing
00:22:19.800
the finger at each other, you know, bow hunters better than a right hunter.
00:22:25.960
And so the hunter versus hunter hate is something that we're trying to, you know, figure out how
00:22:31.540
to get rid of. And, you know, I like the Bible verse where before you call out the speck in
00:22:38.260
your brother's eye, right. Call out the plank that's in your own.
00:22:41.080
Exactly. And I think that's the stance of the project as well.
00:22:43.920
It's like, we're not going to, we're not going to call out fellow hunters, but we're going
00:22:51.140
to explain something in a very even keeled manner to say, or maybe even slide into their
00:22:59.760
DMs and say, Hey, that trophy shot where the tongue of the deer is hanging out.
00:23:04.080
Yeah. Like, man, that was a great buck. Congratulations. But maybe next time let's clean it up a little
00:23:09.400
bit or let's, um, you know, I'd love to hear the story. Right. Tell me more about the story
00:23:14.500
about how you found that buck and how you, you know, what it meant to you. And did you
00:23:20.180
eat it? If you did, how about a picture of you and your family enjoying it or you and your
00:23:25.540
friend? You know, it's funny even being here in Maine, I had a neighbor come over. Somebody
00:23:30.020
had dropped off moose and bear meat on our doorstep about two weeks or so ago. And I had
00:23:35.220
an idea of who it was. And anyways, I was out in the field with my kids the other day
00:23:38.760
and we were sledding down this, this steep hill we've got out back and a truck pulls in
00:23:43.420
and it's my neighbor. And he's like, Hey, did you get the package that I dropped off? And
00:23:46.820
I, and I figured it was him. And I said, yeah, he's like, I just wanted to share that with
00:23:49.800
you. That was so amazing to me that he was willing to share his harvest, his effort. I mean,
00:23:55.540
we don't know each other. We've met three times since we've been out here. And
00:23:59.660
his willingness to share something he's so proud and excited about is really telling.
00:24:05.720
Well, I think that is a key aspect of hunting is this communal sharing of the harvest. And
00:24:15.980
it, and that is primal in itself, right? That's what you did. You went out and you killed it.
00:24:19.860
That's the point. You have the hunters that, exactly.
00:24:22.780
So, and here's something you don't see. And it's pretty funny. If you think about it,
00:24:28.780
we will go and spend, you know, looking at the deer at the wall on the wall or the moose,
00:24:33.940
right? The moose probably per ounce of meat is probably tens of dollars, right?
00:24:42.160
It's an, it's expensive. It's probably the most expensive meat that you have in your
00:24:46.780
house. Sure. Okay. 10 times more expensive than filet mignon. Yet you're so willing to part
00:24:54.120
with it. You're so willing to share it, right? How many times have you gone to the grocery
00:24:58.760
store and bought 25 filet mignons and said, Hey, neighbors, here, I bought some steaks for
00:25:04.820
you. Never, never. No way. That's interesting. Yeah. It's interesting. Expensive of expensive
00:25:12.300
meats. When you add it all together, guns, ammunition, travel, days of spent in the field,
00:25:20.740
right away from family. Yes. A lot of sacrifice, sacrifice and cost into that, that ounce of
00:25:26.420
meat. Yet you're willing to part with it because you want somebody else to share it with you.
00:25:29.820
Yeah. I guess it, it speaks to the fact that it's more than just the meat itself. It's,
00:25:33.920
it's, it's, you want to share the experience. You want to share the story. You want to brag
00:25:38.520
too. I mean, let's be real about that. Exactly. You get to relive the story. Yeah. Yeah. People,
00:25:44.680
you sit around and you talk about the endeavor and the experience and, you know, you watched
00:25:49.660
the, the Buffalo hunt last night. I did. Yeah. You know, we didn't, we talked about, and you
00:25:55.100
felt it through the film. Yeah. We went to hunt and we went to kill, but the film wasn't
00:26:00.540
about that. The film was about the, the experience. Right. Connecting to the land.
00:26:05.820
The thing that I liked in that video, I mean, it was a great video. I don't think it's released
00:26:09.380
yet. Maybe by the time this podcast releases, it will have. Uh, but the thing, the part that
00:26:15.300
I really liked about it was after the hunt was over, how you guys enjoyed, I assume it
00:26:19.600
was the backstrap, but you guys enjoyed the backstrap over the open fire and you were sitting
00:26:23.420
around and I, and I thought about that. I'm like, man, I imagine these guys are joking around.
00:26:27.260
They're telling stories. They're talking about, you know, where you messed up along the hunt
00:26:31.760
on the way and on the path and where it went right and where it went wrong. Like, that's
00:26:35.500
a pretty cool experience. And just sitting around the fire, looking at each other going,
00:26:38.420
can you believe that that just happened? Yeah. You know, in the middle of nowhere, as I
00:26:42.520
said, probably in a place that no white man has ever walked. It wasn't like we knew what
00:26:47.700
we were getting into because nobody had ever stepped foot in this place. And we just went
00:26:51.580
hunting and hunted. And if we turned up an animal that was of the right age and was mature
00:26:56.680
enough, then we were going to go after it. And fortunately it turned out the way that
00:27:03.540
we wanted it to turn out. Yeah. Cause I saw a couple of videos last night of yours where
00:27:07.120
it didn't quite go so well. We'll get into that in a minute. I wanted to talk about something
00:27:11.700
you said with a grocery store. Uh, and, and again, I mean, nothing wrong with going to the
00:27:15.400
grocery store. We, we go to the grocery store and it's convenient and it's nice. And you know,
00:27:20.780
I I've been fortunate enough and you have as well. And most people listen to this podcast
00:27:24.100
to some degree that, you know, they can make an income, not, not hunting, not going out
00:27:28.740
and doing their thing, but they can make an income enough where they don't have to do
00:27:32.380
that. Right. It's the luxury of not having to do that. But it's really interesting because
00:27:36.540
you hear a lot of people who will say things like, uh, we've, we've, we've outgrown hunting
00:27:44.360
or, or we've evolved past hunting. I'm just going to go into the store and get my meat.
00:27:48.420
And it's like, you hypocrite. Like there's no way to sugarcoat that, that whether you're
00:27:55.940
eating a burger, a ground beef patty from the grocery store, or you're, or you're out
00:28:00.980
in the wilderness for weeks, harvesting a moose, an animal had to die. And so why is it
00:28:07.160
that a deer's life is more valuable to you in your mind than the cow that was raised in
00:28:12.820
the slaughterhouse? And people will say this, well, it was raised to die. Have you heard
00:28:18.840
that? I have not heard that. I've heard that. I've said, well, it was, it was, that's, that
00:28:23.100
was its purpose. Well, so it was, it was meant to die. It's like, that's a justification.
00:28:29.240
I don't, I cannot for the life of me fathom how somebody has twisted this in their mind
00:28:36.680
to the point where eating a hamburger from Burger King, well, a real hamburger, not the
00:28:42.280
impossible burger, right? But a real hamburger from Burger King is more ethical, say, than
00:28:49.460
going out and, and harvesting a deer. Right. That's weird to me.
00:28:53.080
Yeah. I think, you know, when it comes to that, as you can, as you can likely imagine,
00:28:58.320
I've pretty much had them all, right? And we've got, I've got my arguments laid out.
00:29:02.120
Well, I, in your line of work, I imagine you'd have to. So, you know, when somebody says,
00:29:06.800
you know, why don't you just go to the grocery store? The first line of rhetoric back is,
00:29:12.480
you know, it's tied to understanding that, you know, I took the life of the animal. I'm
00:29:17.360
not allowing somebody else to do the killing for me, you know, so I'm taking responsibility.
00:29:22.000
Right. What's interesting then is when you start going down the line, you look at the, I told
00:29:27.040
you this 4% of the American population is hunters. It's less than 1%, I believe.
00:29:32.120
I think it's like 0.8% are vegans. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Right. Super, super, super low.
00:29:37.400
So small. So you start pushing back with, you know, whatever we're pushing back on and
00:29:43.640
you say, well, let me ask you a question. Do you eat meat to this anonymous keyboard?
00:29:49.520
Right. And you will be amazed that the percentage of responses that we are vegan to the percentage
00:29:57.080
of the American population, that's 0.8%. All of a sudden, everyone, it's almost like when
00:30:02.220
you see that response come back, you know that you hit them in the right spot. Exactly.
00:30:08.200
Oh, geez. Right. I'm being a hypocrite. Exactly. Because I can go eat a burger yet. I'm against
00:30:13.600
hunting. And there's no, there's no difference from an ethical standpoint. Like if you have,
00:30:18.780
look, if you're a vegan and you don't eat meat at all, you know what? I can actually
00:30:23.860
understand that. Absolutely. And hunting is not your thing. And, and, and you find it
00:30:28.380
unethical and inhumane. Hey, got it. Check. At least you have some integrity. Yeah. But
00:30:35.160
if you're telling me that you're going to go chow down on a burger at Burger King or wherever
00:30:38.640
else, or the steak at Outback and, and, and then get upset that somebody else is going to
00:30:43.840
eat a different kind of meat that they went out and harvested that that's a problem. I do like that
00:30:48.160
you talked about responsibility though, because if you're out hunting what I have experienced,
00:30:54.240
and again, not, not all of our meat comes from hunting. It seems to me that you're going to be
00:30:59.140
significantly more responsible with the sanctity of life. Right. Right. Because you didn't have to
00:31:05.440
look in that cow's eyes that you got the ground beef burger at, at, at the grocery store. Like
00:31:10.600
you didn't have to look at that. You didn't have to go out and hunt that. You didn't have to spend
00:31:14.440
time away from your family. You didn't have to be out in the woods and potentially risk your own
00:31:18.620
health and wellbeing. Like you didn't have to do any of that. So there's no cost. Granted,
00:31:23.860
there's the few bucks you have to pay for it. But if you go out on a hunt, there's a cost associated
00:31:29.580
with that. And because there's a cost, you're going to take it more seriously. You know, it's like that
00:31:35.400
old adage. Like if, if, if, if somebody gives you something, you're not going to treat it nearly as
00:31:40.040
respectful as if you go out and earn it and buy that thing yourself. I think it falls down the
00:31:44.500
same path. Well, I would take it one step further than cost. It's because you, because you know that
00:31:51.820
you have the ability to take that animal's life. Um, I think that there is a, you know, vegan lifestyle
00:32:03.280
is all about animal rights and an appropriate hunter that understands responsibility can almost
00:32:12.620
understand that from a vegan's perspective because you're wanting to take that animal's life and you
00:32:18.760
want it to end the life as quickly and as instantaneously as possible. The last thing you
00:32:23.320
want is to wound that animal and cause it harm and cause it pain. And you know, as a hunter,
00:32:30.160
you typically are looking for mature animals and those mature animals are, you know, getting
00:32:36.580
close to the end of their lifespan and nature's cruel, right? Nature's, nature's a beast. Nature
00:32:43.420
doesn't care. Nature's deaths are violent. Right. Do you follow that Instagram? Nature is metal. Holy cow.
00:32:53.080
But that's nature. That's nature. That's what it is. That's who Gaia is. Gaia is violent and
00:32:59.080
unethical. Gaia? Gaia. Mother Earth. Okay. I never heard that. G-A-I-A. Okay. That's the...
00:33:05.820
Interesting. It's like a hippie name for Mother Earth. Okay. I wouldn't take in you for a hippie.
00:33:10.660
I never, I never heard that before. I love the term Gaia. Okay. It's almost like she being represented
00:33:17.180
as this being, Mother Earth. Right. Entity or something. Yes. Sure. Um, and it's violent and
00:33:25.980
it's, it's, it is tragic and it's, it's everything that's not what a hunter is trying to do when
00:33:34.880
it takes the, and it ends that animal's life. Right. But people don't see that. You know,
00:33:39.400
that's also the power though of social media. You know, we talk about social media and people
00:33:43.220
posting their pictures with their dead animals and you actually brought up a good point.
00:33:47.360
Not, I'm kind of getting off to two subjects here, but, uh, you know, with the tongue hanging
00:33:51.860
out and the blood everywhere, like my buddy Colin Cottrell, he's the, he's the person who
00:33:56.420
took me hunting for the very first time. Do you know? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're connected
00:34:00.300
with him. So we went and hunted in Texas and the first deer I shot, uh, was, was that deer
00:34:07.840
I told you there behind me. Um, and as we went and, you know, found, tracked the animal,
00:34:12.940
which it didn't go that far, which was good because that's the point. Uh, we're going to
00:34:17.280
take pictures. He's like, all right. He's like, let's, you know, he grabbed the tongue. He stuck
00:34:20.580
the tongue back in and he's like, all right, like wipe this blood down. We wiped some of
00:34:23.780
the blood down. We got them positioned. And I kind of asked about it and he's like, we
00:34:27.160
just, it's an animal, you know, it's like, it's, it's a living thing, even though we're
00:34:32.920
going to take a picture because you're proud of what you accomplished and you want to be able
00:34:35.700
to remember this experience. We also want to remember that this is an animal and we want to
00:34:41.300
treat it humanely, even in death. And I thought that was a very fascinating perspective. He's,
00:34:47.000
he was dead on. Cause I see guys in the tongues are hanging out and there's blood everywhere.
00:34:51.060
I'm like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Like I realized that's part of the experience, but I think we need to do a
00:34:57.920
better job to your point of elevating the perception of what this is. A hundred percent. That is,
00:35:03.520
that is the whole point of what we do in the project. It's elevating the narrative,
00:35:11.280
changing the why around who we are. It's not changing the why, explaining it. Right. Well,
00:35:19.740
that's the power of social media. So we were saying is, you know, you have these, these dead
00:35:23.900
heads and people taking pictures, but social media is also powerful because I know that even through
00:35:29.260
my relatively small platform, we could talk about other platforms like Joe Rogan's, for example,
00:35:34.800
who, uh, through the power of social media, through the power of podcasting and dialogue
00:35:40.280
and thoughtful, intelligent discussion, even in disagree, disagreement, millions and millions of
00:35:45.780
people have been exposed to the world of hunting in a positive light because of these powerful tools
00:35:52.040
and resources that we have. Yeah. Joe is the central, most influential figure in hunting today.
00:36:01.220
I have no doubt. Yeah, no doubt. By far, like period, you know, he's just, and that's, but that's what
00:36:08.740
hunting needs, hunting needs these mainstreamers. And I get, I get riled up a little bit when,
00:36:16.060
you know, the anti-hunting establishment has all of their mouthpieces. Sure. Huge celebrity.
00:36:22.040
Naomi Campbell, you know, Trevor Noah, they have all these big celebrity mouthpieces with huge
00:36:30.300
platforms pushing against hunting. I was like, where the heck is, where are our celebrity
00:36:36.300
mouthpieces? Right. And they're out there. They are. They just don't want to say nothing. Well,
00:36:41.020
it's, it's, it's risky for them. It is a risk and I get it. Don't, don't get me wrong. I'm not
00:36:46.160
trying to, you know, get on that bandwagon. It's, you know, who I think could actually do a lot
00:36:50.240
of good is Chris Pratt. Yeah. But he's vocal about hunting. He's, he's, he's, he's completely
00:36:55.240
out there. Exactly. But he's vocal. He says I'm a hunter. He's okay with being out there
00:36:59.120
saying he's a hunter. Right. Um, if he listens to your podcast, we'd love to have him on Blood
00:37:04.340
Origins. Oh, he, he listens. No doubt. Not only does he listen, he takes notes. Nice. But
00:37:10.300
no, those are the kinds of guys that we need. The mainstreamers, the, you know, the Mario
00:37:14.740
Lopez's of the world that hunt, the, the Von Miller's of the world that hunt, the David
00:37:21.400
Goggins now that has started hunting because of campaign. Has he, I know he's, I know he
00:37:25.560
picked up a bow as he started hunting too. I'm sure it's just inevitable. Yeah. Well
00:37:29.780
and, uh, Jocko Willink, same, same thing. He had that, uh, successful elk hunt several
00:37:34.640
months back. Same, same concept. Man, let me hit the pause button, the time out real
00:37:40.640
quick. Um, as of the release of this podcast, it's new year's Eve and you're likely thinking
00:37:45.780
about what you want to do differently come next year, 2020 tomorrow. That's noble. You
00:37:51.580
should definitely be thinking about what the new year will hold. That's a good first
00:37:54.640
step, but unless you're willing to do something about it and tap into a new way of thinking
00:38:00.200
and operating, uh, it's likely that you're going to fall into the same patterns that you
00:38:04.540
always have and that you, and most people continue to do. You've got to have something
00:38:09.820
new in your life. And that's exactly why, uh, the iron council can be so powerful. Hundreds
00:38:15.480
of men have banded with us and use the tools and the framework and the accountability to
00:38:20.640
lose weight, fix relationships, get married, get strong, secure promotions, start new businesses,
00:38:27.380
develop self-confidence through action, everything, everything that you might want to achieve
00:38:32.580
come 2020. Uh, we've got some tools and systems and processes that will help you accomplish
00:38:39.520
more of those things and potentially make 2020 your year. I always hear around this time
00:38:45.220
of year, people say, you know, in 2019, I was just warming up, but 2020 is the year.
00:38:50.000
Well, let's make it. So band with us in the iron council, whatever your objective is for
00:38:54.260
the new year, we're going to help you codify the process of making it a reality. And you can
00:38:59.620
do that at order of man.com slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council
00:39:06.200
band with us, tap into the network, tap into the resources, and, uh, you will be well equipped
00:39:12.240
as we head into the new year, 2020 and accomplish big things as men guys. You can do that after the
00:39:18.320
show, order of man.com slash iron council. For now, let's get back to the conversation with Robbie.
00:39:24.360
It is interesting though, because for these guys, you've got to think, you know, with their livelihood
00:39:28.960
and how, how they make a living in a career and, and what they talk about and how they reach people.
00:39:34.940
Yeah. It's, it's a risk and they have to do it tactfully because they don't want, well, it's hard.
00:39:41.920
It's easy to say, well, they should just, just talk about it. But then if it's you, it's like,
00:39:46.200
the guy got to be a little weary of what I'm putting out there into the world. Cause this could
00:39:50.440
jeopardize what else I'm doing, which I think is actually a problem. Not, not only with hunting,
00:39:55.400
just society in general, like for example, is, is, is if I put something out there, uh, about me
00:40:01.720
hunting or God or something I believe about society or politics or spirituality or whatever,
00:40:09.200
something polarizing, it shouldn't be a risk. You know, if, if people don't agree with me,
00:40:15.860
that's fine. But we have this thing in society where, you know, people are going to dox you and
00:40:20.280
they're going to try to cancel you all because you happen to see things a little bit differently.
00:40:24.700
And that's kind of, that's, that's pathetic. And frankly, it's un-American.
00:40:28.760
No, I think that, again, that's another thing we're striving for is in, in terms of response,
00:40:34.760
you know, not, not being the ultra poke you in the eye type response, but to say, Hey man,
00:40:42.360
I hear you. I see your point of view. I get it. I said, but here's ours. Right. You know,
00:40:49.480
here's where we, we do amically, amically disagree. Sure. With you. And that's fine.
00:40:56.280
Should be okay. Right. Right. Um, I guess where people have a problem though, is, is they just
00:41:04.880
think it's so unethical. And, and that's one of the hard things is that there is no, there
00:41:10.980
is no objective standard of what is and isn't ethical. Right. Like I, I believe that hunting
00:41:15.940
is, is completely ethical. I don't, I don't, there's nothing wrong with hunting in my world,
00:41:20.940
in my perspective, in my mind. And somebody can believe just as adamantly that there is
00:41:27.040
something completely unethical about going out and killing an animal. And they are so set
00:41:32.600
in their ways. And I'm so set in my ways. And that becomes a problem. Again, it shouldn't
00:41:38.180
be though, because it's like, I'm not, I'm not impacting you. Like me hunting is not hurting
00:41:43.800
you. It's not impacting you. If you don't want to hunt, cool. Don't hunt. For example, I don't,
00:41:48.400
I don't know of any hunters that actively pursue and, and attack, uh, vegans. Right.
00:41:58.680
Cause they don't care. Right. Like fine. That's weird. Like that, that's the, that's the thought
00:42:03.180
process. That's weird. That guy doesn't eat meat, but okay, whatever. Yeah. But you flip it around and
00:42:07.820
it seems it's only going one way. But there are a couple of vegans out there that I think would be
00:42:12.900
the same way. It's, it's, I agree. That's true. That's true. You always get the, it's that extreme
00:42:19.320
left, that extreme right. That just seems to have such a loud voice. Well, that's what you,
00:42:25.740
well, you get rewarded for it, right? The more, it seems like the more moronic, the more idiotic
00:42:30.460
you can be, the more likes you get, the more attention you get, which translates a lot in a lot
00:42:35.240
of cases to attention and money and things like the notoriety and power. And so people are rewarded
00:42:42.480
for acting like fools, frankly. And that's disturbing to say the least.
00:42:48.220
Just not to change topics or not, but why did you start hunting?
00:42:54.260
Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm really trying to be thoughtful on this as to, as to all the reasons why.
00:43:01.580
Well, the first reason, the obvious reason is Colin invited me. Okay. Now, if I wasn't intrigued
00:43:07.800
or curious about it, I would have said no, because it would have been easy for me to say, no, I'm
00:43:11.600
good. Cause when he called me up, we didn't really know each other at the time. He reached
00:43:15.960
out. He was a follower of what we were doing. I think he listened to the podcast at the time
00:43:19.000
and he just said, Hey, you know, um, uh, I've got a friend and he wants us to manage some
00:43:22.700
land down here in Texas. And I'd love to take you hunting. And I'm like, well, thanks, but
00:43:27.060
I don't hunt. And he's like, I know that's why I want to take you. It was like, I want
00:43:30.040
to introduce you to the sport. It's like, Oh, okay. What do I need? He's like, well, it's
00:43:35.080
a rifle and a bow hunt. So you'll need to have, bring the rifle down. You'll need to bring
00:43:38.480
the bow down and practice with it and get all dialed in. And we'll take you down here
00:43:42.300
and we'll put you on a hunt. Uh, but there was something very intriguing. I grew up in
00:43:48.220
until I was 13 years old in Southern California, no exposure to hunting at all. Nothing. Uh,
00:43:56.500
in fact, I probably leaned more towards you shouldn't hunt with the background and the
00:44:01.140
way that I was raised. Then we moved to a small town in Southern Utah when I was 13 and
00:44:05.960
hunting was life. We had fall break, which more appropriately would have been titled opening
00:44:11.880
week break. Cause that's when it, it wasn't coincidence that it was just happened to be
00:44:18.060
timed during the, the opening season opener. So, uh, yeah, I remember high school kids,
00:44:25.320
my buddies, they're driving around in their trucks and they'd have the rifle in the back
00:44:28.240
window of their truck on their gun rack. I'm like, what in the hell? Like, where did we move?
00:44:31.820
Like had this redneck place in Southern Utah. And then during that week, I, I saw deer popping
00:44:39.100
up, hanging down from outdoor basketball hoops. And I'm like, what is this place? Every house
00:44:45.820
that had a basketball hoop had a dead deer hanging from it. And that was my first exposure to it.
00:44:51.240
And so when Colin reached out, I thought, you know, like, this is something that seems challenging.
00:44:55.740
Yeah. Uh, a lot of the guys that I had respect for that I admired and respected had hunted or were
00:45:03.040
hunters. And I thought, you know, this is something that may be a hobby that I, that I would enjoy that
00:45:08.880
I would find meaning and purpose in. So I'll go give it a shot. And that was in, like I said,
00:45:13.840
November of, of 2017. And I've probably been on, I don't know, 12 to 15 hunts since then.
00:45:21.660
So I've really immersed myself and gotten very involved in it. And I love it. I love it.
00:45:26.760
So now that you're immersed and tying it back to, you know, this podcast, which is called the
00:45:33.260
Order of Man. Yeah. You know, you have now started to experience some of the characteristics
00:45:38.580
that you want to see yourself, you want to see in yourself as a man. Oh, definitely.
00:45:45.880
From hunting. Definitely. And that you want to imbue into your kids. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I,
00:45:54.680
you know, I wouldn't say, here's how I would, here's how I would say it is I don't believe
00:46:00.620
that you need to be a hunter in order to call yourself a man. Correct. But I believe that being
00:46:06.820
a hunter will make you a better man. Yeah. There's, there's, there's elements about it from,
00:46:12.080
from risk to effort to, uh, frustration and patience and all of the virtues that we've espoused
00:46:20.200
over the past five years in this movement that they can be found elsewhere too. I'm not saying
00:46:25.120
you can't find them elsewhere, but hunting seems to encapsulate a lot of the work and
00:46:30.160
the ethic and the values and the virtues that we will, that I anyways, believe are critical
00:46:36.140
for men today. I will add one more to that. Okay. Which is the ability to put your kids
00:46:46.440
in a situation that they understand the value of life. Agreed. And they then be able to understand
00:46:58.420
their, you know, where we sit as humans in this life cycle of life begets death begets life.
00:47:08.420
Right. And the sanctity of life and what that means to the family, you know, so that they can
00:47:14.740
then sit at a table and eat the food and they're like, yeah, we know exactly where that meat comes
00:47:18.740
from. And so all of a sudden now you've got six year old, like my boy is seven and six. I'll purposely
00:47:24.100
point out to them. I said, what, what meat are you eating tonight? And they're like, deer. I said,
00:47:30.580
yep. Where'd the deer come from? They said, you killed it, daddy. That's right. I killed it. I said,
00:47:36.580
I killed it because this is for us, you know? Um, so to me, that's, that's something you can't,
00:47:45.780
you can't buy it. You can't, you can get discipline, you can get patients, you can get responsibility.
00:47:52.100
You can get a lot of the characteristics that are a part of who we are as hunters doing another
00:47:58.500
endeavor. But the idea of connectedness to the land and the sanctity of life and, you know,
00:48:06.580
the responsibility of like being the, the heavy weight of responsibility that is when you take that
00:48:12.020
life and hunting is, I'm not going to say the only, it's one of the few places that that can really
00:48:20.580
be embedded into, you know, our ethic, our ethos and our kids ethos. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that.
00:48:30.100
I think there's also something to be said for the stakes at which we play. You know,
00:48:35.220
a lot of people ask me cause I was in Iraq in 2005 and six, I was in Ramadi and, and a lot of people
00:48:39.700
ask me things like, you know, what did you learn or how did that make you a better man? The most,
00:48:44.740
one of the most powerful things for, for that experience for me being there was that if I made
00:48:49.780
the wrong decision or a bad call or made a mistake or did something stupid, then there was a likelihood
00:48:57.220
that somebody would die. Not like somebody would have a bad day or, you know, maybe somebody got sued
00:49:03.860
or somebody lost their job. No, somebody died. That means that a, a husband couldn't go back to
00:49:11.940
his wife. A father couldn't go back to his kids. A leader in the community couldn't go back and coach
00:49:17.460
teams and be involved in politics and lead his neighborhood and mow his neighbor's lawn and do
00:49:22.180
all the things like somebody died. And, and the stakes at which we play are valuable, especially,
00:49:29.860
I think for men, because it teaches us to play for real, like play for keeps. I think hunting is
00:49:37.620
very much the same way. There's loss. Like you're killing an animal. The stakes at which you're playing
00:49:44.260
when you're hunting are high and because they're high, it's more likely that you're going to take that
00:49:50.180
a lot more reverently than you would had the stakes been non-existent or something significantly
00:49:57.060
less important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's just part of who we are. Well, and, and, and the other
00:50:03.700
thing that you had mentioned just a minute ago was, was our role as human beings in, in the wild,
00:50:10.820
in nature, in, in this experience of, of life. And I think a lot of people who aren't familiar with
00:50:17.780
the world of hunting don't see that connection. They believe that somehow humans are disconnected
00:50:24.100
or that we should be disconnected. Like we have nature over here and then we have humans over
00:50:30.740
here. It's like, well, no, no, we are nature. Like we are an integral part of it. You would actually
00:50:37.540
know probably the statistics and everything better, of course, than I would. But it seems to me that the
00:50:42.980
more that we embrace ethical hunting and our, and our nature of hunting, the, the better the wilderness
00:50:51.060
and the wild and the animal population does. Yeah. If we do this correctly, if we ignore it and say, well,
00:50:56.980
I'm not going to manage it. It's going to manage itself, but maybe not in the best way possible. Yeah.
00:51:01.700
I think there's, so there's a lot to unpack what you just, you just laid off the thing. Sure. Yeah. So I'll try and
00:51:06.900
unpack it in a logical manner. Um, number one, there is no ecosystem on this planet that hasn't
00:51:14.260
been impacted by humans today, which is not like when people hear that, I think they see that as a
00:51:20.420
negative. It's not a negative. We are part of the deal. Like we're part of this thing. You're part of
00:51:27.220
the deal. And if you did see it as a negative, the outcome of that me is that then we have a responsibility
00:51:34.420
to manage. Well, I think if you see it as a negative, then I'd have to ask, well, what are
00:51:39.460
you doing here? Well, I think the negative part is like, yeah, we messed it up. I was like, okay,
00:51:45.060
yeah, we messed it up. But again, we are the, you know, we're the solution of this land and we have
00:51:51.780
the solution and we have to manage. Right. And management comes in many, many different forms.
00:51:57.620
Hunting is one management tool that is used for maintaining population dynamics, maintaining
00:52:06.660
habitat use. That is just one of the many suites of tools that managers humans have to manage both
00:52:14.660
ecosystems, habitat and wildlife populations. If you look across the world, there's a number of
00:52:22.260
of success stories of hunting. A lot of people will say, well, hunters caused the extinction of
00:52:28.180
many, many, many animals. Well, I'll say it's true, but that was in the 1800s. Right.
00:52:36.260
That was called market hunting. It was unregulated hunting and it was tied to a supply and demand type
00:52:45.860
system. That's why we lost passenger pigeons. That's why we almost lost bison. We lost many,
00:52:51.060
many species. Yes. Because of hunters, not going to deny it. But when we started understanding that
00:52:58.260
we needed to manage the system, when we understood, started understanding principles of wildlife
00:53:03.620
ecology and the behavioral ecology of, of different animals and wildlife and how they interact.
00:53:09.540
Well, it's hunters and legislation that has been put in place specifically here in the US,
00:53:15.140
Pittman-Robertson Act, the Dingle Johnson for fishing. Those acts were put in place so that
00:53:23.540
hunters could provide money through their conservation efforts, through license sales, through excise tax on
00:53:30.180
guns and ammunition and tackle and rods and reels. A lot of people don't know that. That everything,
00:53:36.020
every bullet that's sold in this country, every rifle that's sold in this country, every piece of camo that's
00:53:40.180
sold in this country has an excise tax tied to it that gets funneled back into a fund that then
00:53:45.060
funds conservation on the ground in every state of the US. Right. Well, that's why I say, you know,
00:53:49.540
I think hunters have done more for conservation efforts than anybody else. There's a, well,
00:53:54.980
you know, Donnie Vincent, I'm sure maybe you've, maybe you've had him, uh, done a feature or something
00:53:58.820
on him, but, um, I'm going to butcher his, his thought here, but he says, you know, we,
00:54:03.220
if we want to save, we, what does he say? We can't save something from too far of a distance.
00:54:09.220
And he's talking about conservation efforts. He's like, look, if you, if we really truly want
00:54:13.140
to be conservationists, we have to be involved. And for him, that means involved in hunting,
00:54:18.820
involved in the process, understanding the ecosystems, understanding the animal movements
00:54:22.580
and patterns and how they breed and at what rate they breed and what their predators are and what they
00:54:26.660
eat and what their environment is. Yeah. He's a conservationist as a hunter. Yeah.
00:54:30.900
Probably makes them a better conservationist. Yeah. So in North America, there's multiple,
00:54:35.460
uh, examples, wild Turkey, antelope, elk, mule deer, bison, all these populations have been reestablished
00:54:43.700
and are now sustaining and growing and increasing because of hunter efforts. So there's the North
00:54:49.460
American wildlife management model is a, is a testament to what hunters can do to improve wildlife.
00:54:57.220
No, and, and this is the beauty about it. Nobody else can claim fame to those populations,
00:55:05.780
except hunters because of what we've done in the funding that went in front of it. Same thing in
00:55:10.980
South Africa, early, uh, mid 1970s, you probably got 500,000 head of wildlife in South Africa, massive
00:55:18.900
agriculture. Um, the majority of those head of wildlife were in nature, uh, national parks and game
00:55:25.060
reserves and whatnot. All of a sudden farmers in drought times realized that, Hey, it was actually
00:55:31.700
more economical to turn agricultural lands back to wild lands, wild places and grow wildlife in this
00:55:38.900
wildlife tourism business start, which is obviously an ecotourism side of things, but it also has a lot,
00:55:46.340
large hunting component to it. So now you've got game management and, and wildlife population, uh,
00:55:53.220
growth occurring across wide swaths of South Africa. And today the wildlife population of South Africa
00:55:59.220
stands at 22 million from 500,000, right? Holy hunting. Right. Um, and then, you know,
00:56:06.020
you talk about places like Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, Mozambique, many, many examples of
00:56:14.180
millions of acres of wilderness being protected because of hunting operations. And the only reason that wildlife
00:56:20.180
is protected there comes down to one thing, which is value. If you can put a value on that animal,
00:56:29.940
a hunting outfit puts a value on that animal that is not only the meat is economic uplift is medical,
00:56:37.220
is jobs, is infrastructure. Sure. Then all of a sudden you've got five, six, seven things that
00:56:43.620
is tied to the value of the animal. And it's more valuable to keep the animal on the landscape
00:56:47.460
than it is to remove it. I think where people get hung up is they would say, well, you know,
00:56:53.780
that animal is, is invaluable. Right. And so they're looking at it from a feelings perspective,
00:56:59.460
rather than let's logically, I'm not saying we shouldn't take feelings into consideration. We
00:57:04.980
certainly should. I think most hunters do, which is why they want to end an animal's life
00:57:09.220
quickly and humanely. If they weren't worried about that, then they would just, they would just blast it.
00:57:14.420
Right. So again, but I think where most people get hung up is they think that that animal is
00:57:21.380
invaluable. They're looking at it from a, from an emotional perspective, rather than logically,
00:57:26.260
how is this going to serve not only us, but also the animal population and wildlife and everything
00:57:30.980
else that these people say they, they're advocates for. Yeah. No, it's, it comes down to the dichotomy,
00:57:38.980
which is kill one to save thousands. Hmm. And that's so difficult for somebody who values the
00:57:46.420
life of an individual to understand. Right. Hunting doesn't occur. Management of a species
00:57:52.020
doesn't occur at an individual level. The management of a species occurs at a population level. Hmm.
00:57:56.740
So you gotta look at the wellbeing of the population. If you come in and put an added value to the animals
00:58:04.180
that are, are past breeding age, that are the older class animals of the population,
00:58:10.740
that really by removing them out of a population, you now have provided more resources, grass, habitat,
00:58:19.700
nesting, breeding resources to the remaining population. Then. And again, this is where people
00:58:27.940
struggle to understand taking the life of that older class animal just increased the ability to
00:58:36.820
increase the population across the board. Right. And that is such a difficult concept to understand.
00:58:44.500
Um, and it's something that we just got to, you know, continually push out there.
00:58:49.460
Make aware. Make aware and educate people around is that this idea of hunting,
00:58:57.780
you know, reducing animals to nothing. That makes no sense because hunting is an economic endeavor.
00:59:04.660
Right. And so the animals become an asset. Right. They want to renew that asset.
00:59:09.060
Why do you want to reduce your asset? You want to grow your asset. Right. How do you grow your asset?
00:59:14.500
Well, you look at it as a, at a population level. Sure. Take out the older animals,
00:59:18.740
make sure you've got good anti-poaching efforts in place, got good habitat, good stewardship,
00:59:24.900
being very selective. You're being, and it's a, it's a sustainable use model of a resource. Right.
00:59:33.540
That is there, wants to be used, needs to be used. Well, and I think the other thing that we,
00:59:40.420
we ought to understand as well is that if you go into the wilderness and you take an animal from the
00:59:45.380
wilderness by killing it, it's not like that wasn't going to happen. Like if you didn't,
00:59:53.140
that was going to happen whether you showed up or not, that pack of wolves or the coyotes or what,
00:59:57.700
or nature itself or Gaia itself, like was going to claim that animal. Correct.
01:00:03.460
This is just another means of claiming the animal and managing the population. It will be managed.
01:00:07.220
Correct. We need to make sure it's done most effectively and most efficiently. And with our
01:00:11.540
intervention, I guess, that's probably not the right word, with our involvement.
01:00:14.740
Involvement. With our involvement, it's, it's done, it's done better. It's more efficient. It's more effective.
01:00:20.980
Yeah. Because we are part of nature. We are not separate from it. Right. So, uh, so what's next
01:00:29.860
for you? I mean, obviously you're, you're doing your films, which are really cool. I think we
01:00:33.460
watched half a dozen last last night. Two of them, I think, hadn't been released or one of them hadn't
01:00:37.780
been released yet. Um, what's next, what's next for you in the, in the next season? Yeah. What's the
01:00:43.220
next projects, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. So we're in the middle of season four right now. I don't know when
01:00:46.740
this podcast will drop, but, um, we've just, you know, we want to show, continue to showcase the
01:00:51.860
who, uh, we want to showcase the diversity of hunters. You know, we just had Corey Anderson,
01:00:56.980
the African-American, uh, you number five, light heavyweight. He's gonna be fighting in February.
01:01:02.420
Hopefully then he gets a title shot after that. We'll have to add you up. Cause we did a fight
01:01:06.100
nights last night. That was a good card last night. That was a great card. Um, so we're just continuing to,
01:01:13.380
you know, push the, push the envelope of the why. Yeah. The push the envelope of our heart.
01:01:19.220
And that means telling, uh, more mainstream stories like your story, you know, hopefully
01:01:25.460
bigger mainstreamers, um, getting away from the choir essentially. And, and then just going and
01:01:31.940
telling more unique stories around how, you know, the idea we've talked about a lot today is the idea
01:01:38.740
that hunting is conservation and there's really not very good content out there to showcase what
01:01:43.780
hunting really does for the land, what it really does for the community, what it really does for
01:01:48.660
people. What do you think has been lacking in? Cause I mean, there's, there's an infinite number
01:01:53.220
of shows and films and documentaries and projects. So why throw your hat in the ring? What was missing
01:02:00.980
that you saw needed to be there? Cause I've seen like, frankly, I've seen some great stuff.
01:02:05.700
Yeah. You know, I see what, uh, like Donnie Vincent, what Donnie puts out there,
01:02:09.460
Brian Call, Gritty Bowman, like some of these guys put some amazing, amazing stuff out there.
01:02:14.500
And I totally agree. I think all of that stuff is amazing, but you asked me what's missing.
01:02:21.540
Two things. One, there's not a project out there that is not about self.
01:02:25.780
Hmm. And so the fact that people know my voice, that's, that's the whole point of the project.
01:02:33.780
The project is not the thought that what they know. It's all they know. Right.
01:02:36.820
I don't know Robbie. Yeah. Robbie's not anyway. It just so happens that a couple of these hunts.
01:02:42.580
Yeah. I was the person. Sure. Sure. Could it have been done? Would I have preferred it to be done with
01:02:49.060
somebody else who had the same ethic? Yeah. Because that's showing us. That's the point of the project.
01:02:55.300
The project's not about me projects about us. And that's what was missing out there. There's a lot
01:03:01.140
of shows out there, but it's all about a person. It's all about the self. It's not about showcasing
01:03:06.740
who our community is. And so that's what our, that's what was missing. Number one. And number two,
01:03:13.220
there was a indoctrination to what hunting content is supposed to look like. And I said, screw that.
01:03:23.060
I want it to look like this. So when you look at our episodes,
01:03:28.260
nothing like it looks like that anywhere in the hunting space. Right. And so that's step one,
01:03:33.220
number one, the films itself. I wanted the films to have a purpose. I wanted to have a meaning.
01:03:40.660
Um, like if we go to Africa and we tell the hunting is conservation story,
01:03:45.700
typically what you get is the self on a hunt, killing an animal, and then them sitting next
01:03:53.380
to the animal and talking about the conservation of that animal. Right. As an afterthought almost.
01:03:57.620
Yeah. Because the whole point was the hunt was the hunt. Right. And so why not go? And as we talked
01:04:03.540
about yesterday, why not go and spend, create a film that is almost 24 hours in the life of the tracker,
01:04:12.420
the person who's like the boots on the ground kind of guy. And you know, they're on a hunt,
01:04:22.580
That just happens to be the activity. That's the activity he's doing because that's how it's
01:04:26.660
getting employed and that's part of the story. And, um, you know, for instance, you know,
01:04:31.700
in terms of the way that we storytell, I could envision a film where a shot goes off. You hear
01:04:38.020
the shots. You don't see the impact. You don't see the hunter shooting. You're watching the tracker
01:04:44.260
the entire time. You can hear the shot and you can see his reaction and you can see him start doing the
01:04:48.820
work and seeing the blood on the ground. Right. You know, seeping into the soil and the dirt and,
01:04:56.260
um, you know, him getting a part of that meat to take back to the community village and whatnot.
01:05:08.740
What a, what a hunting, a piece of hunting content is supposed to be. So that's to me,
01:05:16.980
why we threw our head in the arena. We wanted to showcase the heart of hunting, the why,
01:05:25.060
and the why is you and the community, not me. And we wanted to do it in such a way that people
01:05:33.620
are like, Oh, this isn't you. Yeah. This is, well, I think people are feeling that. I mean,
01:05:38.020
I do every time I see, see what you're doing. That's right. That's why I wanted to have this
01:05:41.220
conversation. It's like, yeah, this is going to show a different side of things that I think
01:05:47.300
will expose those who maybe have never been exposed to hunting or at least in positive light
01:05:53.140
or seeing this side of it, uh, in a way that that is significant. Now, whether they go on their own
01:05:58.180
hunt or whatever, that may be irrelevant, but at least they see it differently.
01:06:01.780
Well, I think the key point, the key phrase that you just had is for those that may not have hunted,
01:06:10.820
that's who we're talking. Right. Right. That's a big difference. That's the huge difference.
01:06:15.700
All of the hunting space pieces are geared for the hunting space. Right. Sometimes it seems like,
01:06:24.660
well, the risk of sounding crude, just like a big circle jerk sometimes. You know what I mean?
01:06:29.780
It's like, let's wow. What an image. Well, that that's not exclusive to the hunting community
01:06:36.180
either. That's, that's, that happens in podcasting that happens in the entrepreneurial space,
01:06:41.700
right? We're all stroking each other's ego and telling each other how great we are. It's like,
01:06:45.300
what about all these other people out here that could be served? And I think that's where the value
01:06:48.980
that you bring is that, all right, good. Yeah. We got the hunters, but we don't need to convince them.
01:06:53.940
That's correct. We need to, we need to show people who, who aren't hunters, who, who grew up,
01:06:59.860
in Southern California, like I did, and never were exposed until they were 13 years old,
01:07:04.100
or would never have had the chance had Colin not reached out to me and said, Hey man, let's go on
01:07:09.220
a hunt. Like those are the people that I think are going to add a lot of value to this narrative,
01:07:14.260
to this important story that you're telling. Yeah. And I would, you know, challenge the people that are,
01:07:19.220
you know, three people that are listening to this podcast. Cause there's, there's, there's at least
01:07:22.580
four. There's at least, come on, man. Give me some credit.
01:07:25.620
No, no, no, no. It wasn't credit to you. It wasn't credit against you. It was credit against me.
01:07:29.620
They've gotten this far. Um, but I would challenge the people that are listening. If they are hunters,
01:07:34.980
one to be narrative changes, like start thinking more about how you post things and what you say
01:07:43.460
and what it means. Cause you don't know who's looking, you don't know who's watching.
01:07:47.860
I would also add to that. I know you're going to say, I have another point here
01:07:51.380
is reach out, please. Like if you're a hunter, reach out to somebody who's not because what you
01:07:59.140
may not realize is that I get so many messages and I know that I will after this conversation
01:08:06.660
from men who will say things like, man, I've always wanted to hunt and I just don't know how,
01:08:12.580
I don't know how to start. I don't know where if you would reach out and, and Hey, you know,
01:08:19.380
to your neighbor, for example, or, or a guy that you work with, Hey, I'm going hunting this week.
01:08:24.660
I know you don't have a tag. Maybe you're not even a hunter, but you might be interested in
01:08:28.420
coming along. Like I'll put you to work. We'll help you. You're going to pack out some meat with
01:08:32.180
me. You're going to help me look for an animal and just like, come hang out. We're going to camp
01:08:35.780
for three days. Like come hang out with us. That would go such a long way in promoting what it is
01:08:41.860
we're doing. Yeah, absolutely. No, you're right. Um, so that's to the hunting community. And I had
01:08:47.620
one more thing. Actually, I'll add one more thing to the hunting community. One of the things that we're
01:08:52.100
starting to do in our project, which is we can only tell so many stories. We've only been so many
01:08:57.940
places at once. And so what I've started doing is I've started almost opening it up to the general
01:09:03.460
audience to say, everyone has an iPhone. iPhones record amazing videos, do a selfie,
01:09:11.940
send me your selfie. And we're calling it. This is my why. Hmm. So sit yourself under a tree,
01:09:18.740
whether you're hunting or you're with your boys or you're with your girls or you're whatever.
01:09:23.720
And you just get inspired, turn that camera around, shoot a selfie video, watch for wind,
01:09:30.240
because audio kills things. Right. And just in less than a minute, explain what you're doing
01:09:35.100
and end it by saying, and this is my why. Yeah. So anyone listening to this, do it. Send it to us.
01:09:42.260
I like that. Right. That's the whole point of the project. We want to hear from you. We want to hear
01:09:46.500
from the community to the non hunters that are listening to this. I would say, you know, you know,
01:09:53.980
I hope we've inspired a little bit of thought around, you know, challenging them, maybe the,
01:09:59.840
the perception of who we are as hunters. Um, but we want to hear from you too. Like,
01:10:05.960
what don't you like to see? What, what is it that you want to understand more about? What is,
01:10:11.620
what is the thing that you just can't wrap your mind around? Uh, because we have the answers.
01:10:16.460
It may not be what you want to hear, but we can couch it in such a way that
01:10:21.720
it may, you know, reach a middle consensus or middle ground. Right. Or, you know, even if it
01:10:29.780
doesn't, it's just an understanding. Okay. I get it. I'm still not interested, but I get it.
01:10:37.500
That's okay. Got it. And we're good. Yep. Yeah. Right on. Well, I love what you're doing. Well,
01:10:42.600
let's, uh, let's wind things down. I want to ask you a couple additional questions. I didn't,
01:10:46.360
I didn't prepare you for this. So I, I, I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit,
01:10:50.800
but I ask all my guests, what does it mean to be a man?
01:10:58.120
I think what it takes to be a man, I'll couch it in being, uh, I'll couch in being a husband,
01:11:05.600
a dad, and then a man and being a husband. It means, and I think all three is tied to sacrifice
01:11:14.780
understanding that there is change involved in who you think you are and that you have committed
01:11:24.120
yourself to a partner that, you know, and I'm struggling here because I'm right in the,
01:11:32.940
and we talked about this, I'm right in the middle of this kind of thing. Um, that you've got to
01:11:39.300
sacrifice what you think is right. What you think is right, but you know, is wrong to ensure that that
01:11:49.320
person that you've committed your life to is supported in the way that they need to be supported.
01:11:54.480
Hmm. Uh, for being a dad, it's something again, I'm struggling with right now is sacrifice of this idea of work-life balance
01:12:06.400
and being there, being present and, you know, making sure that, you know, they're, they're getting the characteristics
01:12:15.640
that you want them to have as men when they grow up. And then as a man is,
01:12:25.300
you know, sacrifice, showing people that you do sacrifice for your family, you do sacrifice for your wife.
01:12:33.760
Um, and then I'll add one more characteristic, which is integrity and, you know, being in integrity or being
01:12:44.200
out of integrity, you know, showing up, doing what you say, you know, you, you, you've got very little in this
01:12:54.120
world, but your word. And so if you give your word, live in integrity by your word.
01:13:00.940
Yeah. Powerful. I dig it. All right. How do we connect with you?
01:13:06.680
Um, blood origins on every platform you can possibly find, uh, origins, not oranges.
01:13:13.940
Again, do people say that? Do people get that blood oranges?
01:13:17.940
Somebody sent me a picture of an IPA that said it had blood oranges. They're like, Whoa, I thought you had a beer.
01:13:22.860
Yeah. And then I realized it was oranges. That's funny. Um, origins, origins, blood origins. Um,
01:13:30.500
Instagram's our handle at blood origins, Facebook, blood origins. We're not on Twitter, uh, YouTube.
01:13:37.580
Um, you know, we're pretty much everywhere. Just type in blood origins into Google and you can find
01:13:42.880
all of our episodes. I think we're up to like 39, 38, 39 stories now. And, uh, yeah, big things to come
01:13:50.620
in 2020. Awesome. We're looking forward to it. I'll sync it all up. So the guys know where to go.
01:13:54.940
Robbie appreciates you, our friendship, you coming out here, spending a couple of days out here.
01:13:59.300
Uh, we've had a good time. We did fights last night. We got, we've got a couple more hours
01:14:03.840
before you got to get back. So we're going to do turkey hunting in the spring with me and my,
01:14:08.400
my family, which will be fun. Yep. Uh, should be a good time. Yes, sir. Appreciate you, man.
01:14:13.620
Thank you, man. There you go. My conversation with the one and only Robbie Kroger, a little
01:14:18.900
different. Uh, I hope that you enjoyed it. If you haven't checked out blood origins,
01:14:22.740
then I highly suggest that you do again. I think it's going to give you a perspective
01:14:27.120
and a side of hunting that again, potentially you may never have seen before, which is the why
01:14:32.340
and the who behind these hunting, uh, excursions that, that we see. In fact, I'm going to be hunting
01:14:39.020
here in the next couple of days. And, uh, and I, and I like hearing the stories of who's behind the
01:14:44.140
hunt. I like sharing camp with people that I respect and admire and hearing their stories and
01:14:49.060
why they got into it and how they got into it. And, uh, if Robbie's organization, blood origins,
01:14:54.580
doesn't illustrate that perfectly. I don't know what does, uh, connect with blood origins on Instagram,
01:14:59.480
Facebook, YouTube, watch their videos, wherever you're doing the social media thing, you'll be able
01:15:04.060
to find them. And then also connect with me on primarily Instagram and Twitter at Ryan
01:15:10.700
Mickler. My last name is spelled M I C H L E R getting a lot of traction there. And then YouTube,
01:15:16.260
youtube.com slash order of man. And you can watch this video on YouTube if you're interested in that
01:15:21.080
as well. All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. Thanks for being on the path with me.
01:15:24.880
What an amazing, amazing, uh, 2019 can't wait to roll into 2020 and the things that we're going to
01:15:31.960
accomplish together, uh, with your help and your assistance, please, if you would share this,
01:15:36.980
all right, that's a great way to get this message out to those who need it. And trust me, as we roll
01:15:43.560
into 2020, there are millions and millions of men who need the message of reclaiming and restoring
01:15:49.520
masculinity. That not only is it okay to be a man, it's encouraged that us men do it. All right,
01:15:55.480
guys, hope you have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow for the very first episode of 2020.
01:15:59.900
2020. And, uh, we'll catch you then until then go out there, take action, become the man you are
01:16:05.080
meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your
01:16:09.700
life and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.