WEBVTT - Ep. 077: African Hunting 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:13.360 This is me eater podcast coming in you shirtless, severely 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.640 bugg bitten in my case underwear listening podcast. You can't 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:42.640 predict anything, Okay, um uh, the machine on is now, Thomas. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.360 I've been looking at your name. I've been looking at 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.280 your name and don't don't tell me how long? Well 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.320 my entire life. I've been looking at your name of 0:00:55.360 --> 0:01:00.160 magazine you were very personal, precocious, how like? How how 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.440 many it feels like my entire life? How many? How 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:08.959 many magazine articles have you written? Thousands and now now thousands, 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:14.440 now hundreds? Maybe you know I've written, um, you know 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.160 the last few years. I've probably written more television shows. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.240 I'm not a very fast writer. I'm a half fast writer. 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:23.560 Do you ever hear that quote from I think it 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.840 was our w Apple had that quote that I can 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.759 write faster than anyone who can write better than me, 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:34.520 and I can write better than anyone who can write faster. Yeah, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:36.959 I've I've I don't know. I mean I probably am 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:42.880 good for twenty articles a year, feature articles a year. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.000 What do you mean writing television shows? I write? I 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:53.240 write for Right, for Trev Goudy, for um Sasquatch Mountain Man, 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:58.440 and His Monster Fish show. Right, what I write this 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.800 like enter animal enter, No, it's like it's like, and 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.200 now as the deer comes towards Jim, Oh, you write 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.160 the narration the voice over, so you're coming in after 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.960 the cut's been put together. And I have one of 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.840 those charming little golden mices in my house too, that 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:20.600 mean the golden moose. Oh like an award. Yeah, it's 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:22.960 like you got on yourself over here? Yea? And for 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.040 what for narration? For writing for his Fish and show. 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:30.960 They decided that they will make they'll make the show 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:33.160 and then they'll send it to you and you'll be like, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:35.760 and they'll be some scratch video and you're going and redo. 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:39.440 You'll write like, what's gonna be the actual narration? Did 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.920 you either read on it? No? No, no, no, they've 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.440 got they've got they have a professional talent for that. No, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:48.960 I I get well scratch vo yeah, well no, not necessarily. 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:52.960 Now it could be like right here, yeah, that's it. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.240 You know, it's um um, you know, give us give 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:01.760 us fifteen seconds here about well whatever, you you know, 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:09.760 what are you doing it? Okay, let let's let's let's 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.280 aside from the fact that it's easy money, which I 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.239 don't want anybody to know. Um, well, there's gonna be 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.359 two or three now, you know. Well, um, you know, yeah, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.120 it's a different muscle, it's a different it's a different deal, 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.400 you know. Um, some are better than others. I mean, 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.720 some are better too to work on the others not 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.400 not not the shows per se, but just individual episodes. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.520 You know, you can I I can tell when they're scrambling. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.880 I'm sure you guys understand what that's like. You know, 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:48.360 you's got a certain smell to it. Yeah, what is it? Uh? Yeah, 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.120 for Dame talks about smells like stinky feet. So you know, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:56.760 so you grew up reading Heavingway because you talk a 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.880 lot about Heavingway in your book. Yeah, yeah, you know, 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.440 and it's and it's Um, I think that was more 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.920 like I had a high school teacher who was like 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:14.120 just Hemingway guy in the sixties, and I started reading it. Um, 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.039 But I also like had I mean, my influences are 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.919 also personal because you don't write. Here's the thing. You 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.640 don't write like an outdoor writer. What does that mean? Well, 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:29.599 you write like a writer. Well, okay, there's outdoor writers 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.479 right now. There's some aspects of outdoor writing in your 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.080 writing that a writer would never think to do, right 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.960 courtesies where you'd be like, instead of I lifted Old Bessie, 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:46.960 you might be like I lifted X caliber Magan model firearm. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:51.440 Dawn was a Primrose promises, which is a outdoor writer 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:54.560 thing to do that a writer wouldn't do unless like 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:56.840 kar Ck McCarthy would do it. But it wouldn't be 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:02.600 the same, It just would be different. Well, no, I 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.039 should say, because Karl McCarthy and No Country for Old 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:08.719 Men doesn't even say like someone had a nine millimeter 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.239 parabellum or whatever. Right, So yeah, so some writer writers 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:17.960 do clarify calibers and grain bullets and whatnot, but generally 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.360 you don't write like you don't write like an outdoor 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.560 writer because there's people here's here's why I'm putting it. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.120 There's people that were gonna be writers. I was gonna 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.120 be a writer. Okay, they're gonna be writers Like I 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.360 gotta be a writer. I don't know what exactly gonna 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.960 write about that will come out in time, but this 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:37.960 is what I'm doing. And then you've got people who were, uh, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.400 I'm gonna do something in the outdoor industry, not sure 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.040 what it is. It'll emerge over time. And those two 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.520 people have very different world views when they each wind 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.960 up being an outdoor writer and and and I guess 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.120 in my case, I would there was a mesh of 0:05:56.200 --> 0:06:03.400 the two of an intersection um where I was influenced 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:08.480 as a young child in the hunting, which was unusual 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.240 because I grew up in like l a because you're 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:15.560 old man didn't hunt. But the guy I learned from 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:19.080 was his friend and I talked about in the book. 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.280 I mean, why why am I? Why am I writing 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.960 about Africa? You know at this late date, UM would 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.000 be a late date. It is a late date. I 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.080 mean you know that in your life. No, I think, 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.000 I think, I think, I think. I think that the 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:40.919 whole for the parameters around African writing have changed a lot. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:46.920 You know, there was a time when it was, as 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:48.440 I think, I say somewhere in the book, I mean, 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.320 the greatest adventure money could buy. Okay, let let let's 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.640 pause from it. Pause because you've recently published the book 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.440 August in Africa. So just I just want people to 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.680 be aware, like like so in this book just came 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.640 out or not within a year, so or what Yeah, 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:12.640 within six months. Yeah, and it's and so uh so. 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.520 But the some of these pieces you wrote long ago, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:19.000 they're forty years old. Some of them I started to 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.400 collect it. So you're saying, like after writing has changed 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.040 between when you began, Africa has changed from when I 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.640 began to when you're now putting this out in book. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:38.280 African Hunting has changed. Um because of Cecil the Lion. No, No, 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:40.760 I don't think so. I I think Cecil is the 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:45.240 least of the worries. Um, I don't, I don't. I 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:49.720 don't know that there's any way of putting that particular 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:53.040 genie back in the bottle. That's that's been going on 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:57.440 since Born Free, you know, you know, back in the 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.880 six it's been going on for a Can we hold up, 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:05.800 we hold off on this for a second. Um, So 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.080 you're old man and hunt. You were born in l A. 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.280 He had a buddy that hunted was and went to 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.920 Africa in the fifties on on on very little money. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.119 Was your dad a writer? No, my dad was a 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.520 machinist and actually he and his brother owned a company. 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.080 So who was the first writer you knew? You mean, like, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.200 what made you aware that there's a thing called writers, 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:35.400 and that you could be one. You know, it was 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.880 that again. These are these are these are wonderfully probing questions. Uh, 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.400 you know, I don't know. I mean, that's a good question. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:50.400 I had a certain facility for words, you know, which 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:54.720 which is as I get older, is is fleeting away. 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.000 But really, thank you? Um oh no, I just I 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:00.800 know what you're saying, know what you're saying, because I 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:02.800 feel like it's happened to me and then it comes 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:05.600 back again. Though, but in some ways it's it's the 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.679 you know, it's it's it's it's like it's like I 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:12.439 I my fastball is not there anymore, but I'm learning. 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.720 I've got a lot more, uh you know, sliders and 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.200 and and fork balls and stuff I can. My technique 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:23.079 has gotten better, I think, so I like to think. 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.640 So anyway, those are terms for tricky baseball pitches. Yeah, 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.000 un educated enough in sports like that. When someone says 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.600 like fastball, I'm like, I'm like trap tracking track. Yeah. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.960 Well maybe all our listeners, you know, are huge baseball fans. 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:45.559 Right well. Anyway, um, so, I mean, if if if 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.520 I'm gonna be a totally autobiographical it was the nuns. 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:53.360 It was the nuns and grammar school that they singled 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:58.000 me out and they said you can write, yeah, and 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.440 and that was like and like I think, like anything else, 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.200 it was like this was a wonderful way to get attention. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.440 You know, Yeah, I'm with you. And it's funny when 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.320 you go when someone when you need to express the 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:18.640 thing like what caused something? Yeah, because there's all there's 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:20.240 it's like a game you can play, like you know, 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.640 like like I'll often say like, yeah, I kind of 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:24.440 wish I hadn't done my first book the way I 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.080 did it. My wife said, well, we wouldn't have met 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.480 because I'm like, okay, but that's like that old story 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.200 where the guy goes back in time to hunt a 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.559 dinosaur and steps on a They find a dinosaur. It's 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.280 about ready to die anyway, and I really careful, rob 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.640 he's shooting a dinosaur. He stepped on a butterfly and 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.960 comes back in the Nazis in World War two and 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:49.880 and Trump is president. So you do get into like 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.640 what made it become that you became a writer, and 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.680 it's it's a hard thing. I've kind of like I 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.600 look at him like it's kind of because of my 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:03.760 tenth grade English teacher, Robert Keaton, sure kind of like 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.559 if I had to go, like, oh that right, right, 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.880 And and as far as the Hemmingway thing, I'll get 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:15.000 put a plug in for my sophomore UM English teacher 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.320 at the you know, with the Jesuits, was Tom McCambridge, 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:24.600 who's still around him, still talking um. But I knew 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.719 about hunting before I knew about Hemingway, except well, that's 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:34.000 not really true, because I think this is very weird. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.240 I mean, and I don't know how these things happen. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:42.840 I was seven or eight years old and I was 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.800 riding with my father in his um I think it 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:54.960 was a Buick Wildcat six one, and we were turning 0:11:55.000 --> 0:12:03.480 down this street called Cherokee and Owny, California, and the 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:08.760 radio news came on and said, author Ernest Hemingway is dead. 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.800 And this was in the summer of that year, and 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:16.800 I really had no idea who he was. I was 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:23.880 seven years old. And then fast forward into high school 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:32.679 and this other you know, this strange serendipity of you know, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:38.800 forces coming together whatever. Um. So yeah, I mean, you know, 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:40.439 I think that was part of it. I think there 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.680 was that a lure of being What kind of writer 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:47.200 is this guy? Hemingway, you know, I mean he can 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.360 write about you know, he can he can write about stuff, 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:52.760 he can do stuff. He knows about stuff. I mean, 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:54.600 I think there's a great line that that ultimately, you 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:58.880 know what, writers have to know something, and he knew. 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:00.960 I mean, you know, he knew how to dig worms 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.280 and go and go fishing in the big two hearted river, 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:07.120 you know, which doesn't exist. They don't think or doesn't 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.160 you're little too hard? Yeah, So I mean it's it's 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.920 I mean he also he he didn't he like fumbled 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:14.880 with the directions or I'm on purpose to kind of 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:19.840 like you know, um then you mean like the Nick 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:24.080 Adams stories. Yeah, I mean he fudged the directions so 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.040 if you if you follow them, you'd never find the place. Yeah, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:28.720 I mean he didn't. He wasn't going to tell you 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.960 where he is particular horn. I grew up in Illinois. 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.800 Now when he shot himself, yeah, catch them idahole, catch 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.600 your mind with a shotgun. I believe was purchased from 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.600 Abercrombie and Fitch. It was a boss ten gage with 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:46.120 with dual triggers, but didn't wind up being there's the 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.000 thing to have. Not long ago, his family took the 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:54.079 shotgun down to have a mechanic destroy it. Well, it 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.440 took He took a he took a cutting torch and 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.400 cut the hole. This is in Sylvia, callabe that the 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:03.400 heavy ways guns, and they and they and they did that. 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:04.960 He went and buried it and they never found it. 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.079 But he took a couple of pieces, like the trigger, right, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.280 put in a match a little piece of the sideline. Yeah, 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:11.760 and put it in in a match. And they were able 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.720 to go back and and piece it all together. Because 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.040 it had always been thought that he had shot himself 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.280 with some different shotgun. It turned out that the pieces 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.840 in that matchbox was from a different shotgun or whatever 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.240 he thought he killed himself with. Now you know you're 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.160 something special when people will later argue about what gun 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:33.040 it was you killed yourself with. Yeah, but but more 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.880 than a heavyweight, Like I feel like when you write, uh, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:38.760 I don't think you you don't write like Hevyway. I 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:40.560 don't think you like try it right like Hevingway. But 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.360 the stuff he wrote the seventies sounds it reminded me 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.080 a lot of like other guys that are right in 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:50.040 the seventies even where like early Jim Harrison, early time 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.080 mcgwaen um and it sounds it kind of reminded me 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:58.560 like the structure of the stuff, well, a disjointed in 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.520 structure that also reminds yea of the other guy that 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:06.080 shot himself in Big Sarah, California, Richard Broad Again, did 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.240 you read all those guys or was it just something 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:12.080 in the air. No, I read all those guys, you know, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:17.040 I mean, you know that was the the the idea 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:19.120 that you could actually be a I think one of 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.840 mcgwyn's favorite words of sportsman, you know, and and actually 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:29.320 right about it, I had no interest in well, I didn't. 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.280 I didn't live in that milieu anyway. I was. I 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.120 was never gonna write about Manhattan, you know. I was 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.280 never gonna write the j McNerney kind of stuff. You know. 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.720 I wasn't gonna write novels anyway, as it turned out, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.320 Um though I did have I have one Nolla. But anyway, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.720 they snow Leopard, the snow or Tail and Alan Jones, 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.360 not the snow Leopard, silver tail, snow lips tail, which 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.240 was not t a I t a y. It's it 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.120 was what we finally came with Alan Jones over Bank 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.880 Tell Pressidy here in town and he says, hello, uh 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:05.400 we uh that's we came up with. So anyway, Um, yeah, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:06.640 you know, I mean it was it was. Yeah, that 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:08.760 stuff was out there and that was that was where 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.640 you looked. You know, it was you know, it was 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.520 that was the way it was. I somehow I had 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.720 this notion that you could actually make it as a 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:22.080 writer and not have to get sucked into academia or 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:28.280 someplace else. One of my uh this apricot and uh, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.400 you know what people say, like speaking of which, or 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.560 like let's say you're talking about frogs, you know, and 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.160 you're like, yeah, frogs are generally a lot of frogs 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:41.360 are green. And then someone will say speaking of frogs, um, 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:43.600 and then I'll tell you something about frogs. I found 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:46.560 myself a lot of times in conversation like wanting to 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.440 raise a point that I can't even say speaking of which, 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.760 but like it's not even related to what we're talking. 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.960 But a favorite thing of mine about Tom mcgwain speaking 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.520 of no speaking yeah, speaking of mcgwain, he writes great 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:10.119 short stories. Still to this favorite Yeah anything yet, Hi, Hi, 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:13.000 I like Tom mcgwaen, So mcgway so writes, I mean 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.760 he writes phenomenal short stories. There's two short story writers 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.520 I like right now. I like Tom mcgwaen, and I 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:22.600 like a girl named Curtis sit and Felt. I don't 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:27.120 know her. Yes, yeah pieces in New York, dude, Yeah 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.639 she is good. So mcgwaen. He's got an essay he 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.920 wrote about hunting, and it's like a seventies style essay. 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.440 Everybody's essays in the seventies all were kind of the same. 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.400 It's just good versions and bad versions of it. Like 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:44.120 like pasta, right, like spaghetti, meat sauce. You're looking at 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.640 something it's good to something that essays in the seventies 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.840 looked a certain way. His word, the good version, well 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.480 it was. He he's got this piece he wrote where 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.480 in it he's imagining a conversation I talked about this 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.960 all the time. He's imagining a conversation between a hunt 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.159 her in an anti hunter, and the anti hunter is 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.480 taking the hunter to task and like, why do you 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.480 have to kill deer? What did dear do to you? 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:14.760 And the hunt was like I can't talk about it 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.480 this way, and I know, why do deer have to 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.520 die for you would you die for a deer? And 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.560 he says, if it came to that, yes, yeah, yeah, 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:31.960 and that is I mean in circles and a spiral 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.280 and a wheel within a wheel. Now it's the like. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:41.040 His editor for that piece was Terry McDonald, who coincidentally 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:45.560 later became my editor at Sports a Field. I know that, Yeah, 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:50.080 that's the and and then he uh, and you know, 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:56.720 and then his his I took Terry Terry out on 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:58.800 an ant well. I went back to New York and 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:02.040 I was saying, like, you're a doing an outdoor magazine. Xea, 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:06.359 yeah here he ever hunted anything. He goes, no, does 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:09.720 that matter? Yeah? I said, yeah it matters. And I said, 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.879 come out to Wyoming and we'll hunt antelope with black 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.439 powder rifles. And he said, okay. So you know, we 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:22.880 came out and you know, he was out in this 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:25.960 blind I guess, and this antelope walked by and he 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:30.560 killed it very you know, serviceably. And then I was 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.280 walking out to them and I got up to him 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:34.040 and he was like looking at me and he said, 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.240 you know, Tom, I saw you cross in the fields. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.159 I yeah, And I suddenly had this urge to shoot 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:48.560 and kill you, and I said, really, Terry, yes, yes 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.880 I did. Anyway, that that evening went on for quite 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.399 a little while, and the next morning he had to 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:57.600 catch a plane and I had to come in and 0:19:57.640 --> 0:19:59.399 wake him up and ask him what he wanted for breakfast, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.480 and he said, I'll have the surfer breakfast. And I 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:04.600 got the surfer breakfast and he goes, he goes, yeah, uh, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:10.119 twinky and a pepsi. Anyway, but he actually commissioned that 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.359 piece by mcgwayne mcgwayn piece, yeah, and it was actually 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:16.560 mcgwain went to him, well, he said, I want you 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.159 to I'm starting he was starting Outside, and so I 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.520 want you to write a piece for Outside, and uh, 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.560 mcgwayne said, I don't suppose you'd want something about hunting. 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.760 And he goes, well, it's not really kind of where 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:31.720 we're at. But sure, yeah, I've wedged I've wedged the 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.240 number of house hunting stories into Outside over the years. 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.080 There you go, you gotta cram them in there. If 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.639 you try hard enough, you can stick it in there. Now, 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.399 there's the thing you say in your book that really 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:44.360 surprised me. I want to make sure that you think 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:51.760 this is correct. The Africa has a lower percentage of 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:59.919 what one would call wilderness than does the world in general. Supposedly, Uh, 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.359 that are that those are the statistics that I guess 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:05.320 it kind of makes sense if you think about and 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.679 and it's like if you think about the boots and 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:13.680 its semantics, the circumpolar boreal like they are the Antarctic. 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.080 You know, there's but the other figure that's more interesting, 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.960 I think is that there is more wilderness in North 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:27.080 America than there is in Africa. I just well, but 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:32.000 you have to realize that the African Africans are essentially 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:37.919 pastoralists and agrarians. So they are, you know they are, 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.199 and there's some there's a billion of them, you know, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.960 there's a billion Africans, and and they tend to be 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.360 spread out. You know. It's it's if you took off 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.120 here and went up in the mountains someplace, and we're 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.720 walking around, you would be surprised to run into somebody. 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.840 You know you could, but I mean in places if 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.960 you know, there is almost no place in Africa where 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.720 you will not run into somebody. They'll be on foot, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.320 they may be carrying a spear, they may be driving 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.439 a cow, they may be doing whatever. You know, but 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:18.400 that tempers the definition of wilderness, you know, So it's 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:20.439 it's it is more. I mean it is a it 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.879 is a rural society more than a wilderness society. Is 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.600 that a probably probably possibly of um, maybe the landscape 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.879 or the people requiring a larger piece of the landscape 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.680 they have they have to elude Um. I don't know 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:37.960 if you don't Val guy stuff in BC. But we 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:39.800 talked about that guy every day. Yeah, I love him. 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:44.600 He's a great guy. Um Vale's anyway, so Val would like, 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.000 you know, Val is like what I was asking him. 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:51.880 I said, what will produce more biomass? And he goes, well, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.600 you gotta remember African is, as he says, thin soils. 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.200 They don't. They didn't have the advantages of glaciers pushing 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:05.760 all this top soil down like we have here, and 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.280 so we have a much more fertile base as it were, 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:15.560 that you can you can grow a lot less in 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.320 Africa than you can here. And because of that, the 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.760 people tend to be more spread out, and so they're there. 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:26.040 It's like how cows are spread out. Yeah, if you 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:30.040 go look at like like grazing ratios in Florida, cows 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:32.840 per acre. Yeah, let me look at cows per acre 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.000 in West Texas. It takes a hell of a lot 0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.119 more ground. I mean, if you want to if you 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:40.119 want to raise cattle, you go to Iowa and you 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.520 feed him silage. You know, that's that's the sensible way 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:46.119 of doing it. Um. You ever see a map of 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:49.440 where you could raise cattle that'll supplemental feed. No, but 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.800 I'm sure it's fascinating. It's not a big chunk of ground. No, no, no, 0:23:53.840 --> 0:23:55.600 it's I mean it's and it's like, you know, it's 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:59.159 how much how much corn is raised for cattle? So 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:03.560 uh yeah, that really threw me for a loop. And 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:06.159 and and as you like, I've never I've never stepped 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:12.280 foot on Africa. I've always been kind of interested in 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:18.359 going there. Um And I've come kind of close sometimes 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:20.960 to go in there hunting. But I have so many, 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.080 so many things about it. Give me pause, and I'll 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:26.280 ask you about a lot of those things. But it's 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:33.199 I'm coming at you in discussing this, um not not 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.800 from an educated perspective. Yeah, I don't know what I'm 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:39.480 talking about. Oftentimes I have the luxury of talking. That 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:45.080 doesn't stop a lot of people from feel like what 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:47.200 what doesn't happen is a lot of people don't lay 0:24:47.240 --> 0:24:50.480 that out right. Well, that's that's that's an admirable position. 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:54.000 You're talking your you're talking to your book, and this 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:55.240 might be a good way to kind of lay out 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:57.000 like when you started going there, how many times you've 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:58.760 been there? You're talking to your book at a point 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:02.240 where you say, there's old school African hunting and there's 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:06.480 new school African hunting. Ryan, what are they? And when 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:12.280 did and when did uh that that? When did it tip? Well? 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:17.760 I think I can't deny that there are probably aspects 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:19.879 of what I kind of think of as old school. 0:25:20.560 --> 0:25:22.720 Let's put it this way. When I first started going 0:25:22.720 --> 0:25:27.040 to Africa forty plus years ago, you when you're in 0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:31.359 the twenties, it was it. Yeah, when I first started 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:36.840 going there, it was we would go out, we we 0:25:36.880 --> 0:25:38.880 would go to the game department and we would get 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:44.680 licenses and permits. It wasn't just complete you know, las 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:48.439 a fair but in the permits were expensive or inexpensive 0:25:49.040 --> 0:25:51.720 all relatively speaking, It depends on where you were, you know. 0:25:51.760 --> 0:25:53.320 I mean, I guess they were expensive at the time, 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:55.880 but I had I It wasn't like buying like elk 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:58.520 tags as a resident or like buying a deer tag 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:02.920 as a resident in Florida. Yeah, yeah, well I don't Yeah, yeah, 0:26:02.920 --> 0:26:04.440 I mean it was. Let's put it this way. I 0:26:04.440 --> 0:26:07.639 mean it was. It has certainly become exponentially more expensive 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.280 for what it was, like it's a head of inflation. Yeah, 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:15.399 what it was in those days was probably not considered cheap. 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:21.159 I had the benefit. I had some money that I 0:26:21.200 --> 0:26:25.760 had gotten, and I had enough money to either, let's say, 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:29.200 go put a down payment on a house or go 0:26:29.280 --> 0:26:31.680 to Africa. This is the first time you went. You 0:26:31.720 --> 0:26:34.800 didn't go as a writer? No, I wasn't. I wasn't published. 0:26:35.760 --> 0:26:39.439 You know, I got you. So I just went, you know, 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:41.040 and it was like it was like it was like, 0:26:41.280 --> 0:26:43.119 what are you gonna do when you get back? You know, 0:26:43.320 --> 0:26:45.800 this is my question more than anything else. And I 0:26:45.800 --> 0:26:48.320 didn't have an answer. I mean I didn't. Well, I 0:26:48.320 --> 0:26:50.160 guess I'll come back and try to write about something, 0:26:50.960 --> 0:26:55.000 you know. But I, for some reason, because of my 0:26:55.160 --> 0:26:59.520 experience of a friend of my father's, his influence on me, 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:04.600 you know, too many books read at two young an age. Um, 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:06.640 I wanted to go. I wanted to see it. That's 0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:09.400 a quote in your book were Hemingway what what Hemingway 0:27:09.440 --> 0:27:12.680 books that we're Havingway were one of the characters says, hey, 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:15.760 we should go to Africa and go hunting. Their characters 0:27:15.920 --> 0:27:17.720 never had any desire. He goes, that's just because you 0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:20.840 haven't read a book about it. That's yeah, that's from 0:27:20.920 --> 0:27:25.000 uh the sun also right, but anyway they Yeah, No, 0:27:25.080 --> 0:27:29.720 I mean, it's it's the you know what was I 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:33.440 gonna say? Are the the that I when I went there? 0:27:34.080 --> 0:27:36.520 You you had, you were, you were mobile, you moved, 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:39.240 you know you if if we will go, we will 0:27:39.520 --> 0:27:41.960 we would go into an area and we would find 0:27:41.960 --> 0:27:44.320 a spot and would go, you know, under the fever 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:46.960 trees and we would put the tents up and then 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:50.160 we would hunt them and then and not hunting. These 0:27:50.160 --> 0:27:54.240 aren't fenced areas. Just just no, no, no, no no. 0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:56.480 When you say we, who is we, Well, me and 0:27:56.640 --> 0:27:59.040 I'd have a professional hunter, you know, they would just 0:27:59.119 --> 0:28:00.680 be the two of us, two of you got on 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:03.080 the track. That's another thing I mentioned in the book. 0:28:03.080 --> 0:28:05.280 I mean, because basically you have you know, there's there's 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:07.960 it's it's a it's a polite fiction that the professional 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:11.080 hunter is there for you know, but the guys who 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:13.919 are really doing the work are the trackers because they 0:28:13.920 --> 0:28:16.760 are so good at what they do. But in those 0:28:17.600 --> 0:28:20.680 so it was still you professional hunter and multiple trackers. 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:24.520 The professional hunter is like a liaison. He's he's a 0:28:24.600 --> 0:28:28.480 legal requirement, but he's also he's more than that. But 0:28:28.520 --> 0:28:31.080 it's not a legal requirement that he be white. No, 0:28:31.359 --> 0:28:34.960 And I've hunted with black professional hunters you know who've 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:39.600 been are great guys, I mean like native born well, 0:28:39.600 --> 0:28:41.280 I mean, I guess most of white professional hunters, well 0:28:41.320 --> 0:28:43.640 know you mentioned a lot were born in England and elsewhere. 0:28:43.760 --> 0:28:45.600 Not necessarily no, I mean some of them. You know, 0:28:45.640 --> 0:28:47.440 the first guy hunter with John Fletcher, he was actually 0:28:47.440 --> 0:28:50.840 born in India, um, but he was he was a colonialist, 0:28:51.040 --> 0:28:55.200 I guess, is a you know, without any pejorative attachment 0:28:55.240 --> 0:28:58.800 to that word. Um. But he was with Kurt, Donnie 0:28:58.840 --> 0:29:02.280 and Selby, you know, and that was that was you know, 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:05.480 this wasn't this is kind of the way it was 0:29:05.520 --> 0:29:09.520 in those days. Is I found a night I knew 0:29:09.560 --> 0:29:14.200 the name Kurran Downey, um, which is what an outfitter. Yeah, 0:29:14.920 --> 0:29:17.520 it was like Robert Rourke, you know, and those guys 0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:21.360 hunted with with Kurran Downey. And then Harry Selby is 0:29:21.400 --> 0:29:25.680 the guy who was Rourke's professional hunter and and and 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:28.880 he he put in with these two guys and they 0:29:28.920 --> 0:29:35.040 became Kurve Downey and Selby Safari's and I actually knew 0:29:35.080 --> 0:29:39.040 the name. I had no other information on them. And 0:29:39.080 --> 0:29:41.440 I a friend of mine had gone to Nairobe and 0:29:41.440 --> 0:29:43.520 he'd come back with the phone book. He'd stolen the 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:44.960 phone book because he thought it was pretty cool to 0:29:44.960 --> 0:29:47.160 have U, you know, the night robe phone book, And 0:29:47.280 --> 0:29:48.440 so I looked it up. I got their name and 0:29:48.480 --> 0:29:49.920 address out of the thing, and I wrote him a 0:29:49.960 --> 0:29:51.080 letter and I said I want to go home with 0:29:51.080 --> 0:29:54.320 you guys. And this letter came back with all these 0:29:54.360 --> 0:29:57.840 blue lions on the outside of the letter going, we'd 0:29:57.840 --> 0:30:02.520 love to have come pretty cool and um, so that's 0:30:02.520 --> 0:30:04.920 how I got over there. You know, now, of course, 0:30:05.080 --> 0:30:07.959 today you're gonna go to like the conventions, and you're 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:10.000 gonna go to a booking age and you're gonna you know, 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:13.040 you're gonna it's all it's all gonna be brokered for you. 0:30:13.080 --> 0:30:16.640 It's all going to be negotiation anyway. That's and that's 0:30:16.680 --> 0:30:19.320 the way it is, And I don't I'm not one 0:30:19.360 --> 0:30:20.880 of those kind of guys who like says, well that's 0:30:20.960 --> 0:30:23.080 you know, that makes it all bad. It's just the 0:30:23.120 --> 0:30:27.040 way it makes it the way it is. But um 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:29.240 so we note when I first went there and and 0:30:29.280 --> 0:30:32.920 it was and it was that was still this this 0:30:32.920 --> 0:30:35.000 this hold over of the kind of some of the 0:30:35.040 --> 0:30:40.200 worst aspects of colonialism. I'm not gonna deny that. When 0:30:40.200 --> 0:30:43.120 I the way I hunted in Kenya and at that time, 0:30:43.480 --> 0:30:45.000 I mean, this is the way that people have been 0:30:45.040 --> 0:30:48.040 hunting for seventy eight years, you know, and it was 0:30:48.080 --> 0:30:51.440 the way. What was the way? Like what's that that? 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:55.680 It was the structure, the the organization, you know, the 0:30:56.400 --> 0:30:58.840 fact that you were going into an area and you 0:30:58.880 --> 0:31:01.400 were hunting. You know, we were the But what was 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:05.560 colonial because it was exploitative of the well it was 0:31:05.600 --> 0:31:08.480 it was a skin color. Was was you know, a 0:31:08.560 --> 0:31:14.560 factor a factor uh in I mean in compensation in hierarchy. No, 0:31:14.720 --> 0:31:16.920 it was just the way it was. But it was 0:31:16.960 --> 0:31:20.400 a factor. And what it was the way that was 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:25.440 the way the Safari system had been structured and and 0:31:25.480 --> 0:31:31.080 it evolved from you know, like Roosevelt on is you 0:31:31.120 --> 0:31:33.760 had you had a professional hunter with a licensed hunter, 0:31:34.320 --> 0:31:36.200 and then it was you know, he would set up 0:31:36.240 --> 0:31:38.960 the camps and he he had responsibility, and it was, 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:41.239 you know, what they wanted to make sure. It was 0:31:41.320 --> 0:31:44.240 that when the Mazoongu, the crazy white guy who's going 0:31:44.280 --> 0:31:46.760 over here to hunt, he's not gonna get killed because 0:31:46.800 --> 0:31:49.840 we don't want him to be killed. That's gonna look bad. 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:53.800 It's not gonna be good for our our tourist industry, 0:31:54.040 --> 0:31:56.560 you know. I mean the second time. The first time 0:31:56.600 --> 0:32:02.200 Hemmingway went to Tanzania in Gnyka in those days, that 0:32:02.400 --> 0:32:05.880 was on his own dime, or at least his wife's 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:10.960 uncle's dime, you know, and it was a pretty expensive 0:32:11.000 --> 0:32:13.240 deal in those days. You figured out it's not you 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:15.600 when he went back the second time to Kenya for 0:32:16.120 --> 0:32:20.400 I don't know how long months he was there um 0:32:20.440 --> 0:32:25.040 as the guest of the Kenyan Game Department, because they 0:32:25.080 --> 0:32:28.200 wanted we would love to have some promotion to get 0:32:28.240 --> 0:32:31.120 people here too. You know, we're we're kind of on 0:32:31.160 --> 0:32:34.440 the cusp of the Mau Mau uprisings and we're getting 0:32:34.440 --> 0:32:36.840 some bad press and we want to you know, we 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:38.880 would love to have you come in here and and 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:42.800 you know, hang around, and so that's what he was. 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:44.840 I feel I got that because I feel like I'm 0:32:44.880 --> 0:32:49.920 missing something. Sure, the first time you went, you go 0:32:50.040 --> 0:32:55.600 there and you there, there's a feller, the pH he's 0:32:55.640 --> 0:32:59.720 a white guy, right, and there's some element of he's 0:32:59.760 --> 0:33:05.840 a loonial being that European countries carved up Africa and 0:33:05.880 --> 0:33:10.920 they had colonies and there was a offset power structure 0:33:11.280 --> 0:33:15.240 that favored those white individuals or the indigenous individuals that 0:33:15.320 --> 0:33:20.200 lived there. Yeah, and also hunting with you are trackers. 0:33:21.040 --> 0:33:24.800 The trackers are there as you know, they're they're working 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:29.040 for They are hired by the professional hunter, and you 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:32.440 say they do the heavy lifting of the hunting. They're 0:33:32.480 --> 0:33:34.000 the guy who they're the guy. You put them on 0:33:34.000 --> 0:33:36.640 a track and they're gonna they're gonna figure out where 0:33:36.640 --> 0:33:38.880 that track ends up to a degree where you're like, 0:33:38.920 --> 0:33:41.200 holy sh it, this guy is good at tracking. Oh man, 0:33:42.440 --> 0:33:46.320 oh man, like you wouldn't be able to do. You know, 0:33:46.480 --> 0:33:50.240 that's the scary part. If you follow those guys around, 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:56.200 even for a few weeks, you can begin to like actually, 0:33:56.560 --> 0:34:00.200 you know, kind of deceive yourself into figuring out, oh, 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:03.200 what it is they're doing. And you get to the 0:34:03.200 --> 0:34:05.720 point where you're start. You can like, look, oh, here's 0:34:05.720 --> 0:34:08.799 a buffalo track. Look how look how it look? How 0:34:08.840 --> 0:34:12.719 the edge is shiny, it's fresh, you know, it's not 0:34:12.840 --> 0:34:16.040 blown over. You know, so it was probably this morning. 0:34:16.560 --> 0:34:20.120 Let's go, let's get on this track and and go. 0:34:20.360 --> 0:34:24.839 And you also mentioned how the coarseness of the vegetation 0:34:25.680 --> 0:34:28.640 in the buffalo ship, yeah, giving you an indication of 0:34:28.719 --> 0:34:31.160 tooth ways, especially elephants. Elephants you can look at you 0:34:31.200 --> 0:34:33.640 can get the you know, the elephant dounge is like 0:34:33.680 --> 0:34:37.200 this basketball laying on the ground, and you can look 0:34:37.239 --> 0:34:41.080 at how coarse the grass stems are in it. That 0:34:41.160 --> 0:34:44.160 will tell you that it's an older bull because his 0:34:44.760 --> 0:34:47.960 teeth are worn down and he's not he's not chewing 0:34:48.000 --> 0:34:50.919 it as much as he could as a younger one. 0:34:51.200 --> 0:34:54.400 So that's that's an indication of something. It doesn't, you know, 0:34:54.480 --> 0:34:56.560 none of that tells you if your elephant hunting. None 0:34:56.560 --> 0:34:58.560 the tell And I've never hunted. I've never taken an 0:34:58.560 --> 0:35:01.520 elephant with who I would have, but I never have 0:35:02.000 --> 0:35:09.279 um and I add the that the the fact is 0:35:09.360 --> 0:35:12.440 that that doesn't tell how big the ivory is. You know, 0:35:12.520 --> 0:35:14.359 the size of the track doesn't tell you anything if 0:35:14.360 --> 0:35:20.560 it's got a big tusk or not. Right, So old 0:35:20.600 --> 0:35:25.600 school new school, new school is now okay, old school 0:35:25.719 --> 0:35:29.320 is explained more about old school. Okay, well old schools. Essentially, 0:35:29.800 --> 0:35:33.279 you were hunting as close to wilderness in Africa as 0:35:33.320 --> 0:35:36.320 you could find, you know, as we're talking about before 0:35:36.640 --> 0:35:40.120 it was it was when by the definition of oldness 0:35:40.120 --> 0:35:42.719 in this country probably wouldn't qualify. You know, there were 0:35:42.719 --> 0:35:45.120 motor vehicles allowed, you could, you know, but you were 0:35:45.120 --> 0:35:47.960 out in the middle of nowhere, you know, and it 0:35:48.080 --> 0:35:51.000 was and you would find you would run across you know, 0:35:51.239 --> 0:35:55.000 massi who were still I mean guys with spears. Guys 0:35:55.000 --> 0:35:58.520 were still these guys were still spearing lions in those days, 0:35:59.200 --> 0:36:03.520 you know. And and it was all essentially it was 0:36:03.600 --> 0:36:08.239 it was government land, open land, wild land. It was. 0:36:08.320 --> 0:36:11.600 It wasn't controlled by anybody just roaming around you were 0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:14.080 you were. Essentially you would, yeah, you would essentially you 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:18.560 had you had you had arranged for the right to 0:36:18.600 --> 0:36:21.880 hunt it for a certain amount of time and and 0:36:22.000 --> 0:36:25.080 a certain perimeter. You know. They they broke it up 0:36:25.080 --> 0:36:27.760 on what they called hunting blocks, and you would actually 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:31.439 get blocked sixty and you would hunt blocked sixty which 0:36:31.520 --> 0:36:35.600 might be fifty thousand makers. I don't know. I mean 0:36:35.600 --> 0:36:39.400 it was just go on forever and the pH arrange 0:36:39.440 --> 0:36:41.520 that with the government. Yeah yeah, I mean he was, 0:36:41.640 --> 0:36:43.560 he was, you know, that's what they did. They'd go 0:36:43.600 --> 0:36:49.759 to the game department. Now fast forward thirty years to 0:36:49.840 --> 0:36:54.640 the new school New school and you kind of get 0:36:54.640 --> 0:36:57.800 to the South African model and the South African model. 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:03.160 The land is owned by the hunter or by a landowner, 0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:06.120 and then the hunter professional hunter will like sort of 0:37:06.920 --> 0:37:10.640 lease that out, you know, and you'll bring in his 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:17.480 clients quote unquote clients and they will um and unquote Oh, 0:37:17.520 --> 0:37:19.960 I just there's there. You know, you get that, you 0:37:20.000 --> 0:37:22.759 get into that that weird area like as am I 0:37:22.800 --> 0:37:24.560 a hunter? Am I a client? Am I not? You know, 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:26.440 you go back and forth on that. I don't understand 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:28.799 what you're saying. Well, you know, it's it's it's how 0:37:28.880 --> 0:37:33.160 much how much handholding are you getting? Well and and 0:37:33.440 --> 0:37:37.400 meaning a client gets more than a hunter. Client is 0:37:37.440 --> 0:37:40.720 the term I think to avoid confusion with professional hunter. 0:37:41.440 --> 0:37:44.759 You know that that that you are the client is 0:37:44.800 --> 0:37:49.239 a hunter. The professional hunter is the licensed guide on 0:37:49.320 --> 0:37:53.399 the hunt. So I think for the term of art 0:37:54.200 --> 0:37:57.439 is client. You are the client of the professional hunter. 0:37:58.640 --> 0:38:03.480 But that would seem like a really literal perfect word client. Yeah, 0:38:04.120 --> 0:38:07.560 given the guy money to take you hunting, you're his client. Yep, yep. 0:38:07.840 --> 0:38:09.719 The same thing in this country when you go, you know, 0:38:10.640 --> 0:38:14.640 that's the word guided. He he does talk about He 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:18.239 talks about clients. Do you think guys go over there 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:22.120 and then disliked being called clients because they wanted to 0:38:22.160 --> 0:38:24.799 be called well, you know, I mean, there's there's there's 0:38:24.840 --> 0:38:27.160 you know, everybody wants to be jungle Jim. You know, 0:38:27.400 --> 0:38:29.680 everyone wants to come back where you know, as soon 0:38:29.719 --> 0:38:31.319 as they go, they want to run out and buy 0:38:31.360 --> 0:38:33.560 the Safari jacket and the you know with the bullet 0:38:34.400 --> 0:38:37.760 holes or the pouches in the in the in the shirt, 0:38:37.800 --> 0:38:40.080 so that they aspire to be taken more seriously than 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:43.520 they are. Yeah. Yeah, well you know, and and and 0:38:43.560 --> 0:38:45.560 there's a great one I got and I think I 0:38:45.640 --> 0:38:48.399 quote Jim Harrison in the book where he talks about that, 0:38:48.440 --> 0:38:51.680 you know that, um, there there's a there's a certain 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:57.000 amount of African hunting that um is really a polite 0:38:57.120 --> 0:39:01.040 fiction or a little comedy that that that wealthy sportsmen 0:39:01.120 --> 0:39:04.719 play on their less well healed brethren back home. You know, 0:39:04.960 --> 0:39:09.320 it's like they're always getting charged by a lion, attacked 0:39:09.320 --> 0:39:13.320 by a cake buffalo or something. And and well, but anyway, 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:17.080 the and and and there is a point to this 0:39:18.200 --> 0:39:23.279 that um so now it's like, you know, and God 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:25.320 bless him. I mean, if you want to go to Africa, 0:39:25.360 --> 0:39:28.399 go to Africa. And if God who any any hunter 0:39:28.440 --> 0:39:30.520 who wants to go to Africa, if he wants to 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:32.560 go to South Africa and he wants to shoot a 0:39:32.640 --> 0:39:37.439 kudu in a ORICX and a whatever, you know, I don't. 0:39:37.560 --> 0:39:39.640 I don't feel bad about that because the meat is 0:39:39.680 --> 0:39:42.920 going to be used, every scrap of it. But in 0:39:42.960 --> 0:39:46.440 the new school model, what's the main I don't I 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:50.480 still want to say, in the main difference time I 0:39:50.520 --> 0:39:52.520 think it's I think more than anything else, it's it's 0:39:52.600 --> 0:39:57.080 it's it's scheduled in time, and if you go there, 0:39:57.239 --> 0:40:01.000 they run it like a hunt factory in some instances. 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:05.480 In some cases that doesn't mean you cannot find places 0:40:05.560 --> 0:40:10.319 in Africa that are not that you know, and I 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:15.600 the more you, for lack of a better term, mature 0:40:16.040 --> 0:40:19.160 in your African hunting, it's less interesting that kind of 0:40:19.239 --> 0:40:22.239 hunting becomes so sketch out that kind of hunting because 0:40:22.280 --> 0:40:25.160 can I tell what I think my my impression. Let's 0:40:25.160 --> 0:40:28.000 start with my impression based on nothing sure, and you 0:40:28.040 --> 0:40:30.719 tell me where I'm wrong. My impression of going to 0:40:30.760 --> 0:40:34.040 South Africa to hunt is you're hunting on fenced land 0:40:36.840 --> 0:40:40.560 and you go and you have a budget. Yeah, and 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:44.640 they're like, you can shoot that and that's five thou dollars. 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:48.440 You can shoot that and that's eight thousand dollars. And 0:40:48.560 --> 0:40:52.160 guys walk drive around on the truck and they're like, oh, no, ship, 0:40:52.280 --> 0:40:54.360 that's what one of those looks like wam and the 0:40:54.440 --> 0:40:56.719 guys like that's six and he's like, well, I can 0:40:56.760 --> 0:41:00.040 only spend twenty, so let's go shoot some more it. 0:41:00.239 --> 0:41:02.799 So I get up to fourteen and I'm then I'm 0:41:02.880 --> 0:41:06.880 aheading on keep the tally going, Um, is that wrong? No? 0:41:07.560 --> 0:41:09.400 Oh well, I mean I mean I mean in the 0:41:09.440 --> 0:41:12.120 in the in the cosmic sense, yeah, it's really wrong. 0:41:12.320 --> 0:41:15.040 But I mean in the sense of of what you're 0:41:15.080 --> 0:41:18.319 gonna what the way things can be can be, and 0:41:18.640 --> 0:41:20.720 I want to make sure I make that clear can 0:41:20.760 --> 0:41:24.759 be that can be the experience. Many people go to 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:27.960 Africa and come back and describe as their African hunt. 0:41:28.200 --> 0:41:32.680 And that plays out over how many days? How how 0:41:32.760 --> 0:41:36.200 fast do you want to shoot him? They're that abundant. 0:41:36.840 --> 0:41:39.160 Depends depends on what the guy's got, you know, I 0:41:39.200 --> 0:41:43.480 mean he's got you know, he's he may have a 0:41:43.600 --> 0:41:47.640 he may have a run on springbok this week. Well, 0:41:47.680 --> 0:41:49.279 he may have he may he may go I've got 0:41:49.320 --> 0:41:55.799 I've got I've got a thousand acres of productive springbuck habitat, 0:41:57.239 --> 0:42:02.160 and I've got that will support fifties springbok or you know, 0:42:03.040 --> 0:42:05.640 and he puts them in there or they're there. He's 0:42:05.640 --> 0:42:09.799 put them in there before they have bread. They are 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:13.440 usually self sustaining and breeding on their own, you know. 0:42:13.840 --> 0:42:16.560 But they are cutting animals loose into there for people 0:42:16.600 --> 0:42:19.200 to go get. No, the animals there, you're just going 0:42:19.239 --> 0:42:21.799 inside to get it. So it's not like, uh, it's 0:42:21.840 --> 0:42:24.520 not like the kind of canned hunt or fence hunt 0:42:24.520 --> 0:42:26.799 where they cut the animal loose in the morning. No no, 0:42:26.800 --> 0:42:28.480 no no, and you go shoot it that down. No, 0:42:28.640 --> 0:42:30.200 they don't do that. They don't do that in that 0:42:30.320 --> 0:42:32.839 from now, well, I can't say that it's a big 0:42:32.880 --> 0:42:36.000 place that's there may be places where that happens. I 0:42:36.040 --> 0:42:39.480 don't know that, you know. I mean, I I've hunted 0:42:40.320 --> 0:42:45.520 in all I've hunted behind fences, and it's it was okay, 0:42:46.040 --> 0:42:52.200 But I very quickly learned the difference because you had 0:42:52.239 --> 0:42:57.400 started out in the wild, yea, And so whenever I 0:42:57.440 --> 0:43:02.279 could go back, you know, I haven't gone to I 0:43:02.320 --> 0:43:07.200 haven't hunted in South Africa in twenty years. It's South 0:43:07.239 --> 0:43:12.960 Africa kind of the center of the new school. What 0:43:13.120 --> 0:43:17.560 remains the center of the old school? Well, Tanzania. Tanzania 0:43:17.760 --> 0:43:21.440 is still rolling around in the woods, is yeah, and 0:43:21.480 --> 0:43:26.840 it's fabulously expensive. It's more expensive to roam around in 0:43:26.840 --> 0:43:31.280 the woods dealing with uncertainty is to not roam around. 0:43:33.640 --> 0:43:35.920 So guys know the difference because people paying for that 0:43:35.960 --> 0:43:39.680 experience there. Yeah, that's the whole point. They're not paying 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:42.120 for the animal, They're paying for the experience when they 0:43:42.120 --> 0:43:46.280 go to someplace like Tanzania, the animal becomes a matter 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:50.000 of indifference. And it's okay, that's not correct either, But 0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:55.960 I'm just saying, you know, it isn't like, you know, 0:43:56.200 --> 0:44:01.200 the first things too many guys can do is go 0:44:01.320 --> 0:44:03.400 up to an animal and go where does this go? 0:44:03.480 --> 0:44:06.919 In the book? You know, and they expect their their 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:09.160 professional hunter to tell them that will be in the 0:44:09.200 --> 0:44:13.520 top the top camper cent you know, and they'll go, okay, great, 0:44:13.800 --> 0:44:22.280 And then I am at a loss fro why that exists. 0:44:23.200 --> 0:44:25.920 But but at the same time I can also realize 0:44:27.239 --> 0:44:31.160 that it does support game lands in South Africa but 0:44:31.239 --> 0:44:35.960 otherwise have absolutely no economic value. So it's it's it's 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:38.040 it's a it's a it's a that's the part of 0:44:38.040 --> 0:44:40.000 it that starts to get really it's it's it's it's 0:44:40.000 --> 0:44:44.000 a bargain with the devil, you know. It's it's Do 0:44:44.200 --> 0:44:47.560 I want to go there and hunt? Probably not, because 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:52.600 why I just don't have a good feeling afterwards. How 0:44:52.600 --> 0:44:56.320 many times do you hunted in Africa? Thirteen or fourteen 0:44:56.320 --> 0:45:00.800 times over the last forty years? No, mean, there's guys 0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:03.760 who have hunted lots. This guys have gone more, much 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:05.480 much more. The guy, the guy who wrote here in 0:45:05.520 --> 0:45:09.960 Dutch my book, Craig Bodington, has hunted a hundred times. Now, 0:45:09.960 --> 0:45:13.320 why in your whole book do you never mention someone 0:45:13.360 --> 0:45:18.720 shooting a hippopotamus? If they do? And I've I've actually 0:45:18.880 --> 0:45:23.320 I would. That's kind of one of my dark secrets 0:45:23.320 --> 0:45:25.359 that I would love to do someday. But I don't 0:45:25.360 --> 0:45:26.960 want to shoot him in the water. I want to 0:45:26.960 --> 0:45:30.279 shoot him on the land. The reason I asked that, 0:45:31.160 --> 0:45:35.200 The reason I asked that is I think that growing 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:40.799 up where growing up in the United States. Well there 0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:42.200 they had a conversation with a friend of mine who 0:45:42.280 --> 0:45:46.360 just gone to New Zealand. And we're talking about wildlife 0:45:46.400 --> 0:45:50.279 management in New Zealand, Okay, where while we're generally the 0:45:50.360 --> 0:45:54.640 wildlife of general interest the hunters is all non native, 0:45:55.280 --> 0:46:00.400 oftentimes delaterious, exotic wildlife. We're talking about like that world. 0:46:00.719 --> 0:46:04.360 And I was saying to him that growing up in 0:46:04.400 --> 0:46:08.480 the United States and understanding our systems in the the United 0:46:08.480 --> 0:46:14.480 States leaves you completely ill prepared to understand wildlife and 0:46:14.520 --> 0:46:18.480 wildlife management in a place like New Zealand, or or 0:46:18.640 --> 0:46:23.480 or Europe or almost the rest anywhere. Moral there's an 0:46:23.560 --> 0:46:27.560 added layer to it in Africa, where I think that 0:46:28.520 --> 0:46:32.840 we don't know those animals. We only know the fictionalized 0:46:33.000 --> 0:46:35.960 version of the animals in Africa, we don't know We 0:46:36.000 --> 0:46:39.040 don't know hippos. We know hippos as the way they've 0:46:39.080 --> 0:46:46.000 been presented to us, and this elaborate fiction fantasia and 0:46:46.000 --> 0:46:52.680 this elaborate fantasia of animation of like kids, American kids 0:46:53.680 --> 0:46:58.279 learn what a zebra is before they learn what an 0:46:58.280 --> 0:47:03.400 elk is. Yeah, it's like animals. Those animals are somehow 0:47:03.520 --> 0:47:07.680 Some of those animals are so charismatic and so otherworldly 0:47:08.000 --> 0:47:10.160 that it winds up being that your average kid would 0:47:10.200 --> 0:47:17.239 be like giraffe, elephant, zebra, lion, and he would not 0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:24.879 be able to go jaguar, mountain lion, bobcat, elk, psy 0:47:25.000 --> 0:47:29.719 a blacktail, whet. It just it's like we live with 0:47:29.760 --> 0:47:35.480 these animals in a way that that forms an impression 0:47:35.520 --> 0:47:39.399 him as being somehow other than animals. So I think 0:47:39.400 --> 0:47:42.200 that a lot of the complication around Africa would be 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:44.799 like a lot of people look and I was reading 0:47:44.840 --> 0:47:46.560 your book waiting for a hippo to come into it, 0:47:46.640 --> 0:47:48.800 because when I look at it, dude with a dead hippo, 0:47:49.560 --> 0:47:52.719 I just do not see a game animal. I don't 0:47:52.719 --> 0:47:54.800 know what I see, But I'm like, how in the world, 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:58.319 why how well you know? I mean, that's dude, get 0:47:58.360 --> 0:48:03.120 that feeling you like animals, seem you hunt animals that 0:48:03.200 --> 0:48:05.920 seem like, yeah, you an you talk about a giraffe, 0:48:05.960 --> 0:48:08.720 you jumped up and it looked like a radio tower 0:48:09.400 --> 0:48:11.680 decided to run away. And I've and i've I've had 0:48:11.760 --> 0:48:16.400 people extol the virtues of what a wonderful thing it 0:48:16.560 --> 0:48:19.839 was when they killed a giraffe. But you don't want 0:48:19.840 --> 0:48:22.399 to do it. I have absolutely no Why don't you 0:48:22.440 --> 0:48:24.719 want to shoot? Why in your book does no one 0:48:24.760 --> 0:48:29.879 really shoot at the animals that all little kids know about? Well, 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:31.399 I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, 0:48:31.800 --> 0:48:35.120 you know, giraffes and stuff. I mean, not giraffes, but zebras. 0:48:35.239 --> 0:48:38.680 Sure like hunted zebras. Yeah, I like zebras, y know. 0:48:38.880 --> 0:48:42.200 I mean they're they're tough when they're smart, and they 0:48:42.320 --> 0:48:45.200 seem and you in your time in Africa, the zebra 0:48:45.280 --> 0:48:48.160 became like a game animal and not like a thing 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:51.680 from a child's mobile. It's always been a game animal, 0:48:52.080 --> 0:48:54.480 you know. I mean, but your perception of it, yeah, yeah, no, 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:58.719 I you know, you know. And there's the other aspect 0:48:58.760 --> 0:49:01.239 of it is one thing you begin to realize that 0:49:01.280 --> 0:49:05.239 you become something of a surrogate for the Africans. You 0:49:05.280 --> 0:49:08.879 are hunting with the people you are with who are 0:49:08.960 --> 0:49:13.880 the trackers. You become the surrogate hunter for them because 0:49:13.920 --> 0:49:17.680 of the gross and fair unfairness frankly of the game laws. 0:49:18.280 --> 0:49:20.560 You know, um oh, that you're able to hunt and 0:49:20.560 --> 0:49:23.560 they're not. They they can't afford it, they can't they 0:49:23.560 --> 0:49:26.440 can't have firearms, they can't have you know, they got 0:49:26.520 --> 0:49:28.160 a line. You had a line if you talked about 0:49:28.280 --> 0:49:31.359 coaching is a word for people doing what they used 0:49:31.400 --> 0:49:33.520 to do, but now it's illegal for them to do it. Yeah, 0:49:34.000 --> 0:49:35.880 kind of. I mean, it's it's it's you know, one 0:49:35.920 --> 0:49:38.200 day you went from a guy out getting food and 0:49:38.239 --> 0:49:40.759 the next day you're a poacher. Well, it's pretty much it. 0:49:40.800 --> 0:49:43.880 I mean, you know, the whole system of the colonial 0:49:43.920 --> 0:49:46.600 park system where they would take all these people to 0:49:46.680 --> 0:49:49.040 run them off of that you read. I mean I 0:49:49.120 --> 0:49:54.960 was talking about about ionades, the you know, and this 0:49:55.000 --> 0:50:00.759 guy created one of the v monumental game reserve in 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.560 human history and what countries that in Tanzania in the Salu. 0:50:04.760 --> 0:50:10.480 But he did it in a thousand square miles of wilderness, 0:50:12.600 --> 0:50:18.680 and he did it in the most bloodthirsty way imaginable. 0:50:18.920 --> 0:50:25.160 He didn't kill anybody, but he made sure that they 0:50:25.239 --> 0:50:29.880 had to leave the past. Yeah, the pastoralists, and he 0:50:29.880 --> 0:50:32.640 had he got them out of there, you know. And 0:50:32.719 --> 0:50:35.400 now that is yeah, you were mentioned that he had 0:50:35.440 --> 0:50:41.399 spent a big part of his career killing problem elephants. Yeah, 0:50:42.040 --> 0:50:45.919 but then once he got on this idea of establishing 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:50.040 a wilderness salute that when people would move in, they 0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:53.520 would provide no assistance to those people that the lion 0:50:53.680 --> 0:50:56.160 was getting them if an elephant was getting was like 0:50:56.200 --> 0:50:58.560 tough ship, this is wilderness. And and and he wanted 0:50:58.600 --> 0:51:03.520 to create literally a sanctuary for elephants where they were 0:51:04.840 --> 0:51:09.600 safe from poachers. Um, you know that they could basically 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:16.239 in that square miles. They never had to go outside 0:51:16.400 --> 0:51:22.160 the boundaries of that area and they were protected, you know. 0:51:23.760 --> 0:51:26.280 And it was part of the problem you get into. 0:51:26.320 --> 0:51:29.000 And it's it's always a it's always a tough one. 0:51:29.080 --> 0:51:34.960 Is is we're on the scale, does the value of 0:51:34.960 --> 0:51:38.000 the animal begin to outweigh the value of the human? 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:44.080 You know there that's a humongous question in this country. Well, 0:51:44.320 --> 0:51:47.759 Norm Strung who used to live here in Bozeman. He 0:51:47.840 --> 0:51:50.719 ustry for field and stream and he would go down 0:51:50.760 --> 0:51:53.680 to Mexico every winner. He would like shut the house down. 0:51:54.880 --> 0:51:56.400 He and his wife still and they jump in the 0:51:56.719 --> 0:51:59.000 bass boat and they go down to like Obragone or 0:51:59.000 --> 0:52:03.959 someplace down and they've lived there all winter fishing. And 0:52:04.160 --> 0:52:07.799 he said, the first day he came back, he got 0:52:07.840 --> 0:52:11.279 to this village and everybody comes out, they go, how 0:52:11.280 --> 0:52:12.839 did you do? It? Goes, oh, man, we must they 0:52:12.840 --> 0:52:15.359 had a hundred and fifty fish, you know, all all 0:52:15.440 --> 0:52:18.960 large mouth bass. They where are they? They go, we 0:52:19.080 --> 0:52:21.719 threw him back, and he goes, you threw him back 0:52:22.600 --> 0:52:25.280 because and then he started looking around and he started 0:52:25.320 --> 0:52:29.279 seeing all these little kids with pelegra and you know, 0:52:30.000 --> 0:52:32.840 swollen bellies and stuff. And he's, you know, this was 0:52:32.880 --> 0:52:35.400 a long time ago down to Mexico, but these villages, 0:52:35.480 --> 0:52:40.440 these villages were poor and they were protein hungry. And 0:52:40.520 --> 0:52:43.080 he said, he said, after that, to hell with it. 0:52:43.239 --> 0:52:48.000 I never threw anything back. I brought it in and 0:52:48.080 --> 0:52:51.319 I gave it away. So I mean, you kind of 0:52:51.360 --> 0:52:54.920 get into that bind when you're there. It's like it's 0:52:54.960 --> 0:52:59.759 like because you mean, like you mean literally human life, 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:02.880 because we could look at me like we have a 0:53:02.920 --> 0:53:05.880 conflict in this country with with wilderness or wild lands 0:53:06.120 --> 0:53:09.120 where we'll be like, I'm not asking you like this 0:53:09.200 --> 0:53:12.799 wilderness is it gonna mean you die? This is gonna 0:53:12.840 --> 0:53:17.160 mean you might make a little less money otherwise might 0:53:17.200 --> 0:53:21.280 have made. We have a tremendous luxury. Yeah, and and 0:53:21.280 --> 0:53:27.960 and we have just this unsurpassed gift. You know that 0:53:27.960 --> 0:53:32.480 that Africans would look at and they would they wouldn't 0:53:32.520 --> 0:53:35.239 understand you if you try to explain to them, you 0:53:35.280 --> 0:53:38.640 know what, why why why aren't you why didn't you 0:53:38.719 --> 0:53:41.880 kill that lion? Like, well, beautiful animal, I didn't want 0:53:41.880 --> 0:53:43.319 to kill them. When we'll watch it, you know, go 0:53:43.360 --> 0:53:45.920 off into the sunset and they go, that lion just 0:53:46.000 --> 0:53:49.799 killed two of my cows. You know, it chased my 0:53:49.840 --> 0:53:53.200 brother up a tree last week. So you would never 0:53:53.280 --> 0:53:55.080 have a situation because in your book you get the 0:53:55.080 --> 0:53:57.640 sense it's a weird part of the you're out and 0:53:57.680 --> 0:54:02.399 what would be like you're out crazy ship, lions running around, baboons, 0:54:02.480 --> 0:54:05.520 crazy animals, elephants and then like dudes come rolling through 0:54:05.520 --> 0:54:07.399 camp and see if they could get like a chunk 0:54:07.400 --> 0:54:10.480 of meat, and they got a cow with him. So 0:54:10.640 --> 0:54:14.640 did you would you ever encounter would you ever encounter 0:54:14.760 --> 0:54:17.640 people out in the in the wilderness who are like, man, 0:54:17.880 --> 0:54:23.399 it's not right that you're out here shooting our animals. Well, uh, 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:27.160 I don't know if you ever read or you know 0:54:27.200 --> 0:54:30.200 who Joy Adamson was. Adam she was. She was the 0:54:30.239 --> 0:54:34.840 author who wrote Born Free, and she was a she 0:54:34.920 --> 0:54:37.280 was actually an Austrian, I think. And she was married 0:54:37.280 --> 0:54:41.680 to George Adamson, who was one of the you know, 0:54:42.280 --> 0:54:47.040 the kind of the body sock of of game rangers 0:54:47.080 --> 0:54:51.520 in Kenya. I mean he was he was such an 0:54:51.520 --> 0:54:54.880 early proponent of concert anyway, I mean he was a 0:54:55.480 --> 0:54:58.799 you know, and and she was he was an early 0:54:58.840 --> 0:55:02.960 proponent of not shooting the animals. Well he was, yeah, 0:55:03.000 --> 0:55:04.640 well he was a proponent of like like you know, 0:55:04.719 --> 0:55:09.840 he was. He was there on the ground working this stuff, 0:55:10.280 --> 0:55:12.640 you know. And then the whole story of Born Free 0:55:12.719 --> 0:55:16.920 is they found some lion they found there, Yeah, well 0:55:17.000 --> 0:55:19.560 they found a lion cub and mother was killed or 0:55:19.600 --> 0:55:23.000 something was dead. And then so they raised the lion 0:55:23.040 --> 0:55:25.560 cub and it was called Elsa. And they raised Elsa 0:55:25.640 --> 0:55:28.960 the lion, and there was this, you know, then the 0:55:29.040 --> 0:55:33.279 song Born Free. And eventually she turned the lion back 0:55:33.320 --> 0:55:35.520 loose into the wild and let it go free again, 0:55:35.560 --> 0:55:39.560 and and then it eventually started they where the movie ended. 0:55:39.920 --> 0:55:42.880 They didn't mention the fact that the lion kept kind 0:55:42.880 --> 0:55:46.160 of hanging around, you know, people's camps and houses and 0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:50.160 villages and somebody finally killed. It didn't get yeah, no, 0:55:50.360 --> 0:55:53.040 it never it was. It was habituated, you know, it's 0:55:53.080 --> 0:55:56.880 like it's like like, don't feed the bears. Um. But anyway, 0:55:57.000 --> 0:55:59.680 so I was in with Fletcher and Kenya. We were 0:55:59.680 --> 0:56:04.440 in and Ambassilli Park. We're changing blocks and we stayed 0:56:04.440 --> 0:56:06.840 overnight in the lodge and so we're in the restaurant 0:56:07.280 --> 0:56:09.239 and like and like I look up and I go, 0:56:09.600 --> 0:56:12.920 I see this blonde woman running around, you know, greeting 0:56:12.920 --> 0:56:16.320 and meeting everybody. And I go to fletch Rock, Is 0:56:16.360 --> 0:56:21.440 that think it's joy Adamson? And I said, really, God's sake, 0:56:21.520 --> 0:56:26.399 don't tell her we're hunting even then and even there, 0:56:26.480 --> 0:56:28.480 well even then even there and then you know, and 0:56:28.520 --> 0:56:31.360 then she was eventually murdered by one of her servants 0:56:31.360 --> 0:56:36.400 because she was just not a nice lady. Well, you 0:56:36.400 --> 0:56:38.399 could be pretty mean and still not deserved to get murder. 0:56:38.440 --> 0:56:40.280 I didn't say she deserved it, but I'm just saying 0:56:40.320 --> 0:56:42.560 that that she certainly didn't go out of her way 0:56:42.600 --> 0:56:47.200 to be nice. Do you ever see the movie Bernie Bernie? 0:56:47.360 --> 0:56:50.759 Know what's that? One just explores like how bad. You 0:56:50.840 --> 0:56:55.960 gotta be right before it's okay for someone to kill you. Yeah, 0:56:55.960 --> 0:56:58.200 I know, I'm not. I'm not advocating. No, no, I 0:56:58.200 --> 0:57:02.640 don't think you are. No. No, um, I think I've 0:57:02.680 --> 0:57:08.640 noticed in recent years, and let me interrupt that you do. 0:57:08.800 --> 0:57:10.880 You do a really good job of writing about drafts 0:57:10.960 --> 0:57:19.120 running away, right, the analogies right, construction equipment taking off 0:57:20.080 --> 0:57:24.760 or other things. But the thing I think about I 0:57:24.760 --> 0:57:26.880 want to think about Africa, especially through the lens of 0:57:26.920 --> 0:57:30.120 this way. Like I'm interested in the controversies of hunting, right, sure, 0:57:30.680 --> 0:57:38.800 everybody is, and and uh Africa, like, like the behavior 0:57:38.920 --> 0:57:44.960 of Americans in Africa generates this never ending amount of 0:57:44.960 --> 0:57:50.960 of outrage. Well, the behavior of Americans almost anywhere. You know, 0:57:51.200 --> 0:57:53.520 we we have we have a chief executive who was 0:57:53.720 --> 0:57:57.960 who was saying to the first Lady of France yesterdays, yeah, 0:57:58.000 --> 0:58:01.280 you're in really great shape. Something that's really surprised. Not 0:58:01.440 --> 0:58:03.920 that surprised me, but I was like, it's like not 0:58:04.000 --> 0:58:06.160 reading the room real well, no, it's no no filter 0:58:06.560 --> 0:58:09.680 reading the room. Well, it's it's it's basically the I 0:58:09.720 --> 0:58:13.880 figured it out. It's the billionaire subduction technique. You know, like, hey, baby, 0:58:14.200 --> 0:58:16.800 I gotta I got a billion dollars, he told her. 0:58:16.960 --> 0:58:18.720 He turned to her and says, you're in very good 0:58:18.760 --> 0:58:21.400 physical shape. It turns to the president in France, it 0:58:21.440 --> 0:58:25.440 says beautiful, very good physical shape, at which point she 0:58:25.560 --> 0:58:30.160 steps backwards. Dude, it was like, yeah, I was really 0:58:30.160 --> 0:58:33.240 surprising because um, I would go and meet the president 0:58:33.240 --> 0:58:35.120 of France and I would be thinking, I'll tell you, 0:58:35.160 --> 0:58:38.200 one thing I'm not gonna talk about is his wife. 0:58:38.440 --> 0:58:40.800 How is she over? How is she over? A muddy trap. 0:58:42.080 --> 0:58:48.560 So think I've noticed about Africa is that African outrage. Okay, 0:58:48.680 --> 0:58:50.840 So every day, like if you follow social media, every day, 0:58:50.880 --> 0:58:53.040 there's a thing that everyone's supposed to be outraged over, 0:58:53.520 --> 0:58:57.480 and we feign outrage and share our feigned outrage over 0:58:57.560 --> 0:58:59.720 social media. And one of the things one thing that 0:58:59.760 --> 0:59:03.440 people love to feinn outrage over is someone having shot 0:59:03.520 --> 0:59:07.520 something in Africa that was cute or that was a 0:59:07.600 --> 0:59:12.480 fantastical animal that we that we feel as fantastical because 0:59:12.520 --> 0:59:14.840 the way they're woven into the fabric of our culture. 0:59:14.880 --> 0:59:18.040 African megaphun But it's seemed to me that the thing 0:59:19.600 --> 0:59:27.760 that with Americans, they get more piste, the weirder, it 0:59:27.920 --> 0:59:30.520 seems that the person that shot the thing would have 0:59:30.600 --> 0:59:33.800 been their shooting stuff. So if there's a guy that 0:59:33.920 --> 0:59:38.920 made millions doing like heating and cooling from Florida, Guinniss, 0:59:39.600 --> 0:59:44.200 if he shoots something generally, generally it's different if a 0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:47.960 young gal, if a young gal, a high school gal 0:59:48.080 --> 0:59:51.280 say we're to go and shoot something in Africa, that 0:59:51.440 --> 0:59:54.360 is more offensive to Americans. And if there was a 0:59:54.360 --> 1:00:01.400 guy from the heating and cooling industry, except for seize 1:00:01.400 --> 1:00:05.160 the lion, the dentist guy, Now, if that had been 1:00:05.200 --> 1:00:08.600 a high school cheerleader, that would have been like really bad. 1:00:09.800 --> 1:00:12.680 But it was as bad as could be. Now as 1:00:12.680 --> 1:00:16.600 a guy has been going there forty years, what what's 1:00:16.600 --> 1:00:20.560 your take on all that? Well, like, who's the blame 1:00:20.640 --> 1:00:24.400 for how ridiculous that all seen? Well, the first thing 1:00:24.520 --> 1:00:30.720 is is don't post your pictures on social media as 1:00:30.800 --> 1:00:32.920 as if that's a message if I can give you, 1:00:32.960 --> 1:00:36.680 if I if I am going to be your you know, 1:00:36.800 --> 1:00:41.080 campaign advisor can not do not post the pictures on 1:00:41.720 --> 1:00:46.280 social media. But that's why people do stuff, and and 1:00:46.320 --> 1:00:48.920 that and that and that and that is exactly that's 1:00:48.920 --> 1:00:51.800 why people get out of bed. That's exactly the problem. 1:00:51.840 --> 1:00:57.520 I mean you know, it's it's I remember talking to 1:00:57.560 --> 1:00:59.000 a pH one time and he was telling me about 1:00:59.040 --> 1:01:03.040 this guy had taken this just incredible looking animal. I 1:01:03.080 --> 1:01:05.400 mean it was I think it was a Nile Leshi. 1:01:06.640 --> 1:01:09.840 Yeah right. That was not my mobile as a child, No, no, no, 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:12.760 but it was a beautiful nile. You know. It's one 1:01:12.760 --> 1:01:14.520 of those kind of things that you could just even 1:01:14.560 --> 1:01:17.160 if you've never seen a Nile Leshwie before, if you 1:01:17.200 --> 1:01:20.720 saw this one, you would go, that is the nile 1:01:20.800 --> 1:01:25.640 Lesti of Nile lest Is it a monkey? No, ok, 1:01:26.080 --> 1:01:30.520 it's a it's an anti loop. It's a picture. Oh 1:01:30.720 --> 1:01:33.880 that's good or Mrs grayslist you're black and white but 1:01:34.000 --> 1:01:38.080 big s shaped forms. Yeah that's bad mofo. Right yeah 1:01:38.200 --> 1:01:40.560 yeah yeah, I'm tracking. Okay, So that's like a game 1:01:40.600 --> 1:01:43.600 animal to me. Yeah, And it's and you know, and 1:01:43.600 --> 1:01:46.640 that's that's the other aspect. But you know, he had 1:01:46.680 --> 1:01:48.480 this guy who would like who like hunt with him, 1:01:48.480 --> 1:01:50.360 and he was showing me his picture. Oh that's great. Look, 1:01:50.560 --> 1:01:51.880 he goes, what do you you know what he did? 1:01:51.880 --> 1:01:53.320 You put in the book? I think, goes, no, he 1:01:53.360 --> 1:01:55.960 doesn't have a he has nothing. And he said, this 1:01:56.000 --> 1:02:01.120 guy has killed so many hunted. I would rather say 1:02:01.240 --> 1:02:05.440 this guy is hunted more trophy book animals in Africa 1:02:05.440 --> 1:02:07.840 than almost anybody I know. Just never put a single 1:02:07.880 --> 1:02:10.000 one in the book because he doesn't want to. He 1:02:10.080 --> 1:02:13.680 doesn't care about the recognition. Yeah, that's not why he's 1:02:13.720 --> 1:02:17.240 doing it. Well, yeah, I mean you're aware of that. 1:02:17.280 --> 1:02:20.960 I'm a Turkey Grand Slam holder, so am I I'm 1:02:21.000 --> 1:02:24.720 a super slam I'm a super Slam holder. So okay. 1:02:24.760 --> 1:02:28.280 So so the guy. So is it annoying that I'm 1:02:28.280 --> 1:02:31.000 asking about the lions? He's a one? What's your take 1:02:31.040 --> 1:02:33.920 on it? You know, because you got you I don't know, 1:02:34.000 --> 1:02:36.240 I don't know, I don't know. I mean, I am guilty. 1:02:36.320 --> 1:02:40.400 Can I ask in two parts? Part what's your take 1:02:40.440 --> 1:02:44.680 on what happened, not how it was perceived? Was that 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:47.360 business usual or was that like a funked up thing 1:02:47.400 --> 1:02:54.480 that happened. I have serious reservations about the affair, you know, 1:02:54.760 --> 1:02:58.840 the Macomber affair. This was the cecil affair. Yeah, no, 1:02:58.880 --> 1:03:04.600 I mean that's part B is gonna be what's your 1:03:04.600 --> 1:03:09.280 take on how it's part it's a park lion that 1:03:09.400 --> 1:03:11.680 they sat on the edge of the park and waited 1:03:11.680 --> 1:03:13.720 for it to walk out. You feel that they knew 1:03:14.040 --> 1:03:16.560 of course they knew of and the and the other 1:03:16.600 --> 1:03:18.680 thing about it was because it's people. People make a 1:03:18.680 --> 1:03:23.400 big deal like this guy spent fifty that's cheap. That 1:03:23.640 --> 1:03:26.440 that's cheap. But that's okay. I mean, that's a part 1:03:26.520 --> 1:03:28.400 that shouldnt met Is it better if it was free 1:03:28.520 --> 1:03:31.720 that lion? That lion should have cost seventy to a 1:03:31.800 --> 1:03:35.360 hundred thousand dollars because that's what the market is, if 1:03:35.360 --> 1:03:40.400 you're gonna go, you know, the the invisible hand of capitalism. 1:03:40.480 --> 1:03:43.400 He got that lion for about half price. And the 1:03:43.480 --> 1:03:47.840 reason he got it for half price was the guy. 1:03:49.400 --> 1:03:50.960 I have to be careful here because I'm not sure, 1:03:51.160 --> 1:03:52.680 you know, if we want we want to don't don't 1:03:52.680 --> 1:03:56.120 want to get into like areas that maybe oh un 1:03:56.440 --> 1:03:58.600 you're saying right now, Well like just saying we don't 1:03:58.600 --> 1:04:00.439 want we don't want to get into the areas where where? 1:04:00.480 --> 1:04:04.920 Because I may suggest that there was some illegal activity involved, 1:04:05.560 --> 1:04:07.400 but I don't. I'm not saying it was that. You 1:04:07.440 --> 1:04:09.960 don't know that that was I don't know that. I appreciate. 1:04:10.000 --> 1:04:11.800 I appreciate, but but what I what I what I 1:04:11.880 --> 1:04:16.840 what I suspect, and this is purely suspicious and has 1:04:16.880 --> 1:04:19.880 absolutely no basis in fact. And as far as I know, 1:04:20.040 --> 1:04:21.880 the guy who killed it's good to his mother and 1:04:21.920 --> 1:04:25.200 everything else, and the mother and the guy he hunted 1:04:25.240 --> 1:04:28.840 with the professional hunter was was also loves his mother. 1:04:28.960 --> 1:04:32.440 And the African guy who's property they shot it on, 1:04:32.520 --> 1:04:36.080 which was which abuts the park he is, he is, 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:39.800 the salt of the earth. That was private property. So 1:04:40.320 --> 1:04:43.200 that was the dude's land. Yeah, I believe, Well, it's 1:04:43.240 --> 1:04:47.520 it's up now you have me there, because I'm not 1:04:47.520 --> 1:04:50.120 really sure there was there was some question about who 1:04:50.160 --> 1:04:52.880 had who had the permit, and it's kind of it's 1:04:52.920 --> 1:04:56.040 kind of that part you're getting. You're getting to the 1:04:56.040 --> 1:05:00.720 weeds on this one. But the reason I I think, 1:05:01.360 --> 1:05:05.000 in my own opinion and without knowing if this guy 1:05:05.120 --> 1:05:10.120 get anything wrong, is that if that lion was what 1:05:10.280 --> 1:05:14.280 appears to me to be rather cheap, it was because 1:05:14.440 --> 1:05:16.080 they knew where that lion was and they didn't have 1:05:16.080 --> 1:05:18.880 to spend a lot of time hunting it. You know 1:05:19.520 --> 1:05:21.320 that that if they had to go, if you had 1:05:21.320 --> 1:05:25.880 to go to Tanzania tomorrow and hunt a and now 1:05:26.080 --> 1:05:28.800 you gotta remember in Tanzania, you have to your line. 1:05:28.840 --> 1:05:30.480 The lion has to be you have to age the 1:05:30.520 --> 1:05:33.040 line on the on the hoof, as it were. So 1:05:33.080 --> 1:05:35.240 you know, what's six years old or older. You can't 1:05:35.280 --> 1:05:38.600 take anything younger than that and anymore in Tanzania by law, 1:05:39.200 --> 1:05:44.280 you know. And if you actually went to Tanzania looking 1:05:44.360 --> 1:05:46.960 for a lion like that and in the wild and 1:05:46.960 --> 1:05:50.880 everything else like that, you could be there hunting a month. 1:05:52.040 --> 1:05:55.000 You know, you could be there and you could spend 1:05:55.000 --> 1:06:00.520 thousand dollars. So because what because of the rarity of nothing, 1:06:00.640 --> 1:06:03.800 because of the hard hunt. It's a hard hunt. You know. 1:06:04.000 --> 1:06:06.520 It's like it's like shooting a four hundred point boil 1:06:07.760 --> 1:06:10.200 in the mountains if it was about a month, because 1:06:10.200 --> 1:06:12.080 it might take ten years of a month, you know, 1:06:12.280 --> 1:06:16.160 I mean, it's it's yeah. And and from what I 1:06:16.240 --> 1:06:21.800 understand of this situation was the they didn' hunt him 1:06:21.800 --> 1:06:26.120 that long and then and then a crossbow. He shot 1:06:26.120 --> 1:06:31.360 it with a crossbow. I got nothing against crossbows, but 1:06:32.720 --> 1:06:35.520 you feel that it might have an annoyance factor. No, 1:06:35.560 --> 1:06:37.360 I don't know, No, I don't I will go that far. 1:06:37.640 --> 1:06:39.640 I think I think it was. It was it was 1:06:40.800 --> 1:06:46.400 part of the you know, the spree of the whole 1:06:46.440 --> 1:06:49.240 thing it was. I'm gonna add my own little twist 1:06:49.320 --> 1:06:52.960 to this by hunting in with a crossbow. Um, but 1:06:53.000 --> 1:06:54.480 I don't know. But I don't know that. I don't 1:06:54.480 --> 1:06:55.960 know any Can I add two things here? Because I 1:06:57.320 --> 1:06:59.880 I think about this almost I think about this bi 1:07:00.040 --> 1:07:07.680 weekly at least. No. Why moving into the perception of it, 1:07:08.760 --> 1:07:11.840 why do Americans get mad when they hear that someone 1:07:11.920 --> 1:07:16.000 paid a lot for something? And it's puzzling to me 1:07:16.040 --> 1:07:19.600 for this reason. If we look at the history of colonialism, 1:07:19.640 --> 1:07:23.200 it generally is can you go into a country and 1:07:23.320 --> 1:07:26.320 you take valuable ship and don't pay anyone for it 1:07:27.000 --> 1:07:31.000 and take it back home. So here's a system where 1:07:31.040 --> 1:07:34.280 a feller, even though as your point out, may have underpaid, 1:07:35.000 --> 1:07:38.800 he goes in and he pays an outrages some for 1:07:38.880 --> 1:07:41.000 a thing that he would like to remove from the land, 1:07:41.440 --> 1:07:44.480 and that is more offensive to Americans than had he 1:07:44.560 --> 1:07:47.600 just gone and stolen it. Well, I would think that 1:07:47.640 --> 1:07:49.600 people would be like, well, at least the son of 1:07:49.600 --> 1:07:54.440 a bitch gave him fifty dollars. But people get pissed 1:07:54.440 --> 1:07:56.800 about the money. They're like, he paid two or fifty 1:07:56.840 --> 1:08:00.880 thou dollars to kill a rhino that it's asshole. Ish 1:08:01.040 --> 1:08:05.160 A real a better guy wouldn't have paid ship maybe, 1:08:05.520 --> 1:08:08.280 I mean, but that's kind of what you're saying. Well, no, 1:08:08.440 --> 1:08:14.240 that's why I like, why is that upsetting? Well? You 1:08:14.280 --> 1:08:16.160 know what, why do we why do we get piste 1:08:16.200 --> 1:08:19.040 off when we see people you know, with with with 1:08:19.200 --> 1:08:22.960 you know, rolls Racism't blink because you're jealous, because you're 1:08:23.000 --> 1:08:26.479 jealous because you I wish i'd been born I wish 1:08:26.520 --> 1:08:29.559 I'd been born rich instead of good looking, you know. 1:08:30.000 --> 1:08:32.040 I mean. I had a friend of mine who always 1:08:32.200 --> 1:08:34.720 complained about the factors of Mississippi, and he had, you know, 1:08:36.120 --> 1:08:38.720 kind of like worked his way up in the the 1:08:38.800 --> 1:08:40.880 upper echelons. But there was a point in his life 1:08:40.960 --> 1:08:42.240 he said, you know, if I had as much money 1:08:42.240 --> 1:08:44.240 as that son of a bitch over there, I'd make 1:08:44.320 --> 1:08:49.000 him look like Ned's first Primmer. Oh, Ned's first Primmer. 1:08:49.120 --> 1:08:50.840 That's that's that's the book he used to read in 1:08:50.880 --> 1:08:53.640 the little little schoolhouse that takes you a bc S. 1:08:53.760 --> 1:08:55.640 And it was a good looking guy or not. No, no, no, no, no, 1:08:55.640 --> 1:08:57.680 that's not the whole point, if I understand the point, 1:08:59.560 --> 1:09:04.400 If me, his point was that, um, he was jealous 1:09:04.400 --> 1:09:06.720 of all these other guys who had so much money 1:09:06.760 --> 1:09:08.519 they could hut anything they wanted to in the world, 1:09:09.120 --> 1:09:11.960 you know. And his argument was, if I had that 1:09:12.040 --> 1:09:15.160 kind of money, I would make them look like Ned's 1:09:15.200 --> 1:09:18.880 first primmer, which means that he drowned him in that 1:09:19.280 --> 1:09:22.360 he would he would make them look like amateurs from 1:09:22.400 --> 1:09:25.120 the word go. Can I ask my second question, Yes, 1:09:25.840 --> 1:09:29.720 this didn't occur to me till the other day. Yesterday 1:09:30.160 --> 1:09:33.640 a guy outdoor photographer named John Haffner, who shoots a 1:09:33.680 --> 1:09:36.840 lot of wildlife photography, showed me a picture of a lion, 1:09:37.720 --> 1:09:41.519 a male lion, and he's got a big ass main. 1:09:42.479 --> 1:09:45.960 John says that line is actually a Collard lion. Where's 1:09:45.960 --> 1:09:49.960 the radio collar? You can't see the damn collar. Yeah, 1:09:50.080 --> 1:09:53.639 he's got a thick ass main. So with the cecil. 1:09:53.960 --> 1:09:55.639 And this is the last thing I then say about season. 1:09:55.960 --> 1:09:58.639 Unless you got more you want to add a big 1:09:58.720 --> 1:10:01.840 part of the story. People were piste. Oh yeah, they 1:10:02.160 --> 1:10:05.240 paid for it. And people were also pissed that it 1:10:05.320 --> 1:10:07.639 had a collar. But I don't know that that would 1:10:07.680 --> 1:10:09.439 have been known. Do you think that that would have 1:10:09.479 --> 1:10:11.920 been known or not known? Well, yeah, they had to 1:10:11.920 --> 1:10:14.519 cut it off. Because right now and my circumcised or 1:10:14.560 --> 1:10:17.320 not circumcised, I don't know. Well they I mean, I 1:10:17.320 --> 1:10:18.920 mean it was like it was like I was listening 1:10:18.960 --> 1:10:20.759 to the radio coming up here and they're talking about 1:10:20.760 --> 1:10:22.960 some guy in Kentucky. He was on the run because 1:10:22.960 --> 1:10:25.760 he cut off his ankle bracelet, you know yesterday. Yeah, 1:10:25.760 --> 1:10:27.960 they cut it off after. But is it I mean, 1:10:28.000 --> 1:10:30.880 I mean, if if they knew before they shot it, 1:10:31.800 --> 1:10:36.160 not that that would have mattered. That lion was it 1:10:36.280 --> 1:10:39.320 was cecil for God's people told. I also read a 1:10:39.360 --> 1:10:42.080 lot about this that like that name didn't quite have 1:10:42.160 --> 1:10:46.280 the kid in death. No, no, I understand, No, that's 1:10:46.360 --> 1:10:49.799 that's correct. But there's there's a lot, in my mind, 1:10:49.960 --> 1:10:53.559 at least, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that that 1:10:54.000 --> 1:11:00.280 this lion, his fate had been sealed before that the 1:11:00.360 --> 1:11:04.000 hunter ever got to Africa, like a guy's like, you 1:11:04.040 --> 1:11:08.200 know what, a fella could probably lure that island. This 1:11:08.200 --> 1:11:10.960 this there was a phone call to somebody at some 1:11:11.080 --> 1:11:16.000 point and said, I've got this lion over here. I'm 1:11:16.040 --> 1:11:19.920 pretty sure if we you know, we put a dead 1:11:19.960 --> 1:11:22.799 eland or something. And this is not what I'm saying happened. 1:11:23.040 --> 1:11:25.519 But I'm just saying that we can we can get this, 1:11:25.600 --> 1:11:28.360 we can pull this line out of the park. You know, 1:11:28.840 --> 1:11:30.840 that's gonna be the same thing when you know, if 1:11:30.880 --> 1:11:33.800 we get to where we're we can hunt grizzlies down 1:11:33.840 --> 1:11:37.200 south of here. Wherever we hunt again, there's there's gonna be, 1:11:37.240 --> 1:11:39.880 there's gonna be where do you draw the line? Do you? 1:11:40.000 --> 1:11:42.320 I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, 1:11:42.520 --> 1:11:47.479 I would drop that's a part boundary. Maybe maybe that's 1:11:47.479 --> 1:11:49.800 probably where it's gonna be drawn. But I mean, but 1:11:49.800 --> 1:11:52.040 but you know, what difference does it make if you 1:11:52.120 --> 1:11:54.760 keep pushing it out and you're there's gonna be a 1:11:54.800 --> 1:11:57.840 line somewhere, you know, and I don't. I don't know 1:11:57.880 --> 1:12:00.560 what you know? I that leaves me, you know, I 1:12:00.640 --> 1:12:02.639 probably I don't think I'm gonna be shooting a grizzly, 1:12:02.760 --> 1:12:05.120 So that's fine. I don't. I don't intend to put 1:12:05.160 --> 1:12:06.800 in for a tack. No, I don't either, you know, 1:12:06.960 --> 1:12:10.559 but I don't. I can see where it would be 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:13.920 really interesting for some people, and it could be done, 1:12:13.960 --> 1:12:17.920 and it can be done right, you know, But eventually 1:12:18.040 --> 1:12:21.000 it's gonna come down the line. You know, there's a 1:12:21.040 --> 1:12:22.519 line here, a line here, where do you you know? 1:12:22.840 --> 1:12:25.360 So I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, when that 1:12:25.520 --> 1:12:27.720 was playing out, this this is the honestly the last question. 1:12:28.760 --> 1:12:32.720 When that was playing out, let me preface it by this. 1:12:33.720 --> 1:12:39.160 A friend of mine did many tours in Iraq and 1:12:39.160 --> 1:12:45.519 Afghanistan in the navy. Okay, now he comes home, gets 1:12:45.520 --> 1:12:48.040 out of the military, and every time something is in 1:12:48.080 --> 1:12:53.519 the news about Iraq Afghanistan, I would go to him 1:12:53.560 --> 1:12:56.599 be like, hey, what do you what's your take on? 1:12:57.960 --> 1:13:01.559 And he said, Now at this point, I read the 1:13:01.560 --> 1:13:05.200 newspaper like anybody else. I don't have like my time 1:13:05.280 --> 1:13:10.800 there doesn't give me the feeling of having like insight, 1:13:11.840 --> 1:13:13.800 It doesn't give me the feeling of like that I'm 1:13:13.880 --> 1:13:18.680 following that story more carefully. Okay, So, if you're a 1:13:18.720 --> 1:13:23.719 guy who's written hundreds of pages about hunting in Africa, 1:13:24.520 --> 1:13:27.680 when a story like that happens and everyone fires up 1:13:27.720 --> 1:13:31.680 the outrage machine, do you see it as just a 1:13:31.720 --> 1:13:34.519 guy like huh or do you see it as this 1:13:34.600 --> 1:13:39.400 is my realm, my world, my professional space. I must 1:13:39.479 --> 1:13:44.920 interject and give clarity to all the people who are 1:13:44.920 --> 1:13:46.800 who are out looking now or is it just like 1:13:46.840 --> 1:13:49.439 I don't know the guy shot a line I don't know. 1:13:54.680 --> 1:13:58.280 I don't have, UM, I don't know that I feel 1:13:59.240 --> 1:14:04.439 that I can offer an opinion in that sense. You know, UM, 1:14:04.560 --> 1:14:07.760 I know how I feel about these things. I mean, 1:14:09.479 --> 1:14:11.600 I hate to say it, but I mean, but hunting is. 1:14:13.640 --> 1:14:19.240 You know, what's the line about? Um? Again? To quote himingly, 1:14:19.280 --> 1:14:21.400 I guess it is, it's what we have instead of God? 1:14:21.960 --> 1:14:26.719 You know, UM, And I you know, for me, there's 1:14:26.760 --> 1:14:31.120 there's something Hunting is in a way, at least one 1:14:31.200 --> 1:14:34.280 of my religions. If i'm if, I I want to 1:14:34.280 --> 1:14:39.800 consider myself polytheistic, you know. And the older I get, 1:14:39.880 --> 1:14:42.200 the more I get I get into it, the the 1:14:42.320 --> 1:14:46.439 less I hate seeing piss in the cathedral. That's how 1:14:46.479 --> 1:14:48.680 I feel. That's a good way. You just said that, 1:14:48.720 --> 1:14:51.080 you know. I mean, don't don't go piss in the 1:14:51.120 --> 1:14:55.920 baptismal fountain, you know, UM, all right, But I don't 1:14:55.960 --> 1:14:57.519 know how you teach that. I don't know how you 1:14:57.560 --> 1:14:59.920 instruct that. I don't know that how you I mean, 1:15:00.000 --> 1:15:01.280 I don't know. And I don't want to be one 1:15:01.280 --> 1:15:05.320 of these these these these crabs who just you know, oh, 1:15:05.439 --> 1:15:09.519 you horrible human being? What you know? You know, if 1:15:09.560 --> 1:15:13.280 you can sleep at night, that's fine. And and you know, 1:15:13.320 --> 1:15:15.720 and if you're if if if if if, if there 1:15:15.720 --> 1:15:25.679 are scientifically based, well enforced laws that make sense, then 1:15:26.240 --> 1:15:30.200 go for it. You know, I don't know that. I mean, 1:15:31.080 --> 1:15:34.719 I'm not sure where ethics there are ethics. And that's 1:15:34.800 --> 1:15:36.559 and then and we we do as suite, we do 1:15:36.640 --> 1:15:38.720 as hunters, we do bring our we we do have 1:15:38.760 --> 1:15:43.040 an ethical structure that we believe in. You know, just 1:15:43.080 --> 1:15:46.280 because something is legal doesn't mean it's right, you know, 1:15:46.720 --> 1:15:52.680 or moral or ethical. Um. But the elder Leopold, yeah, 1:15:52.840 --> 1:15:55.040 everyd like's the part of the quote where he says, like, 1:15:55.120 --> 1:15:59.240 ethics is what you do when no one's watching. But 1:15:59.320 --> 1:16:04.680 he goes on say even when it's legal. Yeah, you know, 1:16:05.000 --> 1:16:08.080 and and that's but but that is, you know, when 1:16:08.080 --> 1:16:13.880 it's what as a society, we can only enforce the law. 1:16:15.160 --> 1:16:17.320 Now we can we can try to we can try 1:16:17.320 --> 1:16:22.640 to shape ethics, but that is more of a a 1:16:22.760 --> 1:16:26.880 cultural definition we're putting on things. That's well, Ethics and 1:16:26.960 --> 1:16:33.120 law walk through life hand in hand in many ways, maybe, 1:16:33.520 --> 1:16:35.639 you know. I mean, I I think I think there's 1:16:35.680 --> 1:16:39.720 there's you know, it's yeah, but I don't know, I 1:16:39.880 --> 1:16:42.479 don't I don't know who's who's the handmaiden and who 1:16:42.560 --> 1:16:46.720 is the not you know, I don't understand. I might 1:16:47.000 --> 1:16:49.519 you know who I think. I think that ethics is 1:16:49.520 --> 1:16:54.719 the mother holding the hand the child's hand of law. Yeah, 1:16:54.760 --> 1:16:59.960 except except except except except the law in this case 1:17:00.400 --> 1:17:04.600 is now he's like he's like seven ft three in 1:17:04.680 --> 1:17:09.120 ways four hundred pounds and has a big mallet. You know, 1:17:10.479 --> 1:17:13.280 you know, I mean we we we can talk about 1:17:13.400 --> 1:17:16.679 what the law is capable of doing to people's lives 1:17:16.800 --> 1:17:21.000 if you you know, um which ethics are not you know, ethics, 1:17:21.040 --> 1:17:24.400 I mean you can you can, you can. I mean ethics, 1:17:25.439 --> 1:17:27.479 ethics shouldn't be able to take away your liberty or 1:17:27.479 --> 1:17:30.960 your freedom. Laws can take away your liberty and your freedom. 1:17:31.040 --> 1:17:35.000 You know, ethics can shame you. Law can execute you. 1:17:35.160 --> 1:17:37.240 But that's the funny thing because I find that when 1:17:37.320 --> 1:17:40.519 hunters get in trouble. Yeah, when hunters getting trouble, they 1:17:40.640 --> 1:17:42.840 like to and read. Especially in the last couple of years, 1:17:43.360 --> 1:17:47.400 hunters get in trouble and they like to go. Uh, 1:17:47.560 --> 1:17:51.599 they like to go. But it was legal, and they're 1:17:51.640 --> 1:17:53.880 kind of like people are thinking about one thing and 1:17:53.880 --> 1:17:57.160 they're talking about another thing because they don't do like, 1:17:57.280 --> 1:17:59.120 let's like, hey, I have a wife and kids, Okay, 1:17:59.240 --> 1:18:03.559 so let's say it. He merged that, uh, at night, 1:18:03.800 --> 1:18:07.760 I would sneak out and just go have sex with 1:18:07.880 --> 1:18:12.040 women in bars that I met in bars. Later, someone's like, dude, 1:18:12.880 --> 1:18:18.960 did you hear can you believe his wife at home 1:18:19.120 --> 1:18:23.120 taking care of those kids? And he's out like is 1:18:23.120 --> 1:18:28.040 there room for me to go? But it's legal? Yeah, 1:18:28.160 --> 1:18:30.479 yeah it is. No one no one doubted the no 1:18:30.520 --> 1:18:32.559 one cares that it was legal, and and and and 1:18:32.560 --> 1:18:35.439 no one's like, oh yeah, my bad. Cool. But that's 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:37.840 but that again, I mean, there there isn't There isn't 1:18:37.880 --> 1:18:43.200 any way of that I know of, uh, you know, 1:18:43.320 --> 1:18:48.360 of persuading a sociopath that or a narcissist, because what 1:18:48.439 --> 1:18:52.280 you're talking about his narcissism and and and and you know, 1:18:52.560 --> 1:18:57.240 social sociopathology. It's not criminal, but it sure makes life 1:18:57.240 --> 1:19:02.640 hell for everybody around you know what I mean? You know, 1:19:02.760 --> 1:19:04.320 I mean it's like it's like it's like, you know, 1:19:04.400 --> 1:19:07.000 if if if a guy's cheating on his wife, he's 1:19:07.040 --> 1:19:09.439 making it hell for her. He's not breaking the law. Though. 1:19:10.240 --> 1:19:14.000 That's where community comes in, and so and social and culture. 1:19:14.320 --> 1:19:17.479 So it's and it's but it's you know, but even 1:19:18.560 --> 1:19:21.519 you would think that it would be something internalized in 1:19:21.920 --> 1:19:25.200 the human being that he would it would come to 1:19:25.320 --> 1:19:27.880 him at some point in going. You know, I am 1:19:27.960 --> 1:19:30.639 a dog. I am a two dick dog who should 1:19:30.680 --> 1:19:33.040 be shot. Well for taking it back to the example 1:19:33.080 --> 1:19:36.800 of like of hunting, I see like that can be 1:19:36.840 --> 1:19:41.799 like hyper like local and like it's across the country. 1:19:41.840 --> 1:19:45.519 Imagine like there's different social norms in like Alabama than 1:19:45.520 --> 1:19:48.559 there are in Idaho. Right, So I think it comes 1:19:48.600 --> 1:19:54.640 back to ethics and your community almost holding you accountable. 1:19:55.320 --> 1:19:57.040 And I'm a big proponent of that. And I love 1:19:57.080 --> 1:19:59.919 thinking about the ethics of hunting because it's so interchange. 1:20:00.760 --> 1:20:03.320 Um it's it's I mean, I mean, what are what 1:20:03.360 --> 1:20:07.240 are the ethics of hunting raccoons with hounds in California 1:20:07.360 --> 1:20:10.600 versus the ethics of hunting raccoons with hounds and Tennessee? 1:20:11.080 --> 1:20:17.479 You know, all right? Uh, you know, I I blew 1:20:17.520 --> 1:20:19.839 this because earlier I used this, I mentioned this quote, 1:20:20.360 --> 1:20:23.800 Uh that you quote. I can't remember who's the true No, Yeah, 1:20:23.800 --> 1:20:26.400 the Hemingway quote where someone's like where he says, you know, 1:20:26.720 --> 1:20:28.320 we should go hunting Africa, and he's like, I got 1:20:28.320 --> 1:20:29.960 no desires. It's just because you haven't read a book 1:20:29.960 --> 1:20:34.880 about it. Reading the book, I've decided I'm real interested 1:20:34.960 --> 1:20:41.320 in Uh. I've adopted your favorite animal as my favorite 1:20:41.360 --> 1:20:44.400 animal to hunt. Can you talk about the wet like 1:20:44.640 --> 1:20:48.880 Kate buffalo? How it is that that in your mind 1:20:50.280 --> 1:20:55.360 is like that in your mind is like the animal? 1:20:55.720 --> 1:20:59.519 And earlier you were gonna I think you started to 1:20:59.520 --> 1:21:02.400 say something and got distracted. You canna say that when 1:21:02.439 --> 1:21:05.880 you hunt, you're a surrogate right for the people you're with. 1:21:06.040 --> 1:21:07.880 And I thought that at that point you were going 1:21:07.920 --> 1:21:11.960 to point out that you you get excitement from what 1:21:12.080 --> 1:21:15.439 excites them. Well, yeah, that's in fact, Well okay, that's 1:21:16.520 --> 1:21:20.439 so talk about. I mean, I mean you can you 1:21:20.479 --> 1:21:24.840 can get a sense where you know certain animals, you know, 1:21:25.000 --> 1:21:27.840 if if if you take it i Paula, if you 1:21:27.920 --> 1:21:30.240 hunt it in Paula, and then and you make a 1:21:30.640 --> 1:21:34.760 you know, reputable, you know, good shot, it's clean kill, 1:21:34.840 --> 1:21:37.160 and they have meat for camp. You know they're gonna 1:21:37.160 --> 1:21:42.320 come up and they're gonna go congratulations. The difference between 1:21:42.360 --> 1:21:45.559 that and if you have to if you bring down 1:21:45.600 --> 1:21:49.720 a buffalo with one shot the the the effusiveness of 1:21:49.800 --> 1:21:52.920 their response is going to be for one thing, They're 1:21:52.960 --> 1:21:55.880 not gonna have to follow a wounded buffalo into the bush, 1:21:56.080 --> 1:21:57.920 you know, which they do not want to do, which 1:21:57.960 --> 1:22:01.200 nobody is right mind wants to do. There are some 1:22:01.240 --> 1:22:05.280 people in their wrong minds who do. But so, yeah, no, 1:22:05.360 --> 1:22:10.040 there is that. I mean, you know they I can 1:22:10.040 --> 1:22:13.160 look at an ant well, I Africans never get bored 1:22:13.240 --> 1:22:17.519 hunting a buffalo. They never get blase about hunting a 1:22:17.560 --> 1:22:21.080 buffalo because of the risk, because of lots of reasons, 1:22:21.280 --> 1:22:23.719 you know, they have. They have this sort of ultimate 1:22:23.800 --> 1:22:29.720 respect for a buffalo. You know. They there's again it 1:22:29.720 --> 1:22:33.200 it it becomes very difficult to you know, what is it. 1:22:33.560 --> 1:22:36.240 I'm not sure. You know. It's like it's like it's 1:22:36.280 --> 1:22:39.559 like it's like pornography. I know it when I see it. 1:22:39.640 --> 1:22:42.920 You know, it's it's who wasn't that said that Justice 1:22:42.960 --> 1:22:51.519 Potter Stewart um They that there is something about, you know, 1:22:51.520 --> 1:22:53.719 when you're hunting a buffalo, that this is an animal 1:22:54.479 --> 1:22:56.960 and I I it's you know, you have them, you 1:22:57.000 --> 1:23:00.599 have the advantage what they weigh about fifty hundred pounds 1:23:00.560 --> 1:23:09.320 six pounds, you know, and they can run pretty good clip. 1:23:10.320 --> 1:23:11.880 The other part of it is is I've gotten older, 1:23:11.880 --> 1:23:13.439 and you know, I think more in terms of the 1:23:13.479 --> 1:23:19.040 fact that there's so much meat. That's how people get 1:23:19.040 --> 1:23:21.519 excited about him too. That's that's part of it, you know, 1:23:21.680 --> 1:23:24.320 it's it's it's there, there is, there is the reward 1:23:25.160 --> 1:23:28.599 of hunting buffalo well is in and of itself hunting 1:23:28.640 --> 1:23:32.200 buffalo well that that you know, you didn't mess it up. 1:23:32.680 --> 1:23:35.640 You didn't you didn't cause a scene, you didn't there 1:23:35.680 --> 1:23:37.599 was there was no you didn't cause a traffic accident 1:23:37.600 --> 1:23:40.080 in the middle of wherever you were, you know. And 1:23:40.120 --> 1:23:42.960 then when meaning wooning one and meaning wounding and then 1:23:43.000 --> 1:23:45.680 nothing and everything goes to and it's and it just 1:23:45.760 --> 1:23:48.200 worse comes to worse and it just gets worse. But 1:23:49.880 --> 1:23:55.840 you experienced that, yeah, sure, you know, and never had 1:23:55.840 --> 1:23:59.720 anything where it was I was ever really threatened, but I, 1:24:00.280 --> 1:24:02.839 you know, spend a lot of time trailing a wounded 1:24:02.880 --> 1:24:07.400 animal that I really didn't feel very good about having caused. 1:24:08.240 --> 1:24:09.960 You know. One of the things you say you like 1:24:10.120 --> 1:24:13.639 so much about it is that you have to follow 1:24:13.680 --> 1:24:16.760 him into the thick ship. Yeah, And it's like a 1:24:17.040 --> 1:24:21.920 very it's you're not choosing to have it be close. 1:24:22.000 --> 1:24:24.960 It just has the wind up being closed. Yeah, I 1:24:24.960 --> 1:24:27.439 mean you you you you basically you want to be 1:24:27.520 --> 1:24:29.680 as close as you can get. You know, what's what's 1:24:29.680 --> 1:24:31.439 the what's the there's the old there's the old saying, 1:24:31.439 --> 1:24:33.960 the old adage. And you get absolutely as close as 1:24:33.960 --> 1:24:37.160 you can and get a hundred yards closer. Yeah, and 1:24:37.160 --> 1:24:39.720 and you know, and you you could be you know 1:24:39.760 --> 1:24:41.760 when you want you don't want to be. That's an 1:24:41.840 --> 1:24:45.400 adage for hunting, Kate buffalo, Yeah, any dangerous game. I 1:24:45.400 --> 1:24:47.439 remember it was its point there where you had someone 1:24:47.479 --> 1:24:51.400 at two d yards You're like, uh yeah, it's not 1:24:51.479 --> 1:24:55.200 that's that's that's shooting and nut hunting if you know 1:24:55.200 --> 1:24:56.400 what I mean. I mean you can you can kill 1:24:56.439 --> 1:24:58.799 a buffalo two hundred yards. You cat buffo three hundred yards, 1:24:59.080 --> 1:25:05.960 you know, and and and why but what what makes 1:25:05.960 --> 1:25:11.559 it then hunting at well, I mean it's like it's 1:25:11.560 --> 1:25:14.120 like yeah, yeah, well it's like anything else. You're you're 1:25:14.160 --> 1:25:17.360 giving him you know, you're not you're not throwing away 1:25:17.360 --> 1:25:20.759 your advantage, but you're giving him more play for his senses. 1:25:21.560 --> 1:25:24.400 You're getting him more of a chance of of of 1:25:24.400 --> 1:25:27.200 of what do They English call it twigging to you, 1:25:27.200 --> 1:25:30.280 you know, discovering that you're they're smelling you, so you're 1:25:30.280 --> 1:25:32.360 not trailed them into the brush because that's how you 1:25:32.400 --> 1:25:34.559 gotta find them. You're doing it because it's an act 1:25:34.560 --> 1:25:37.800 of respect to the animal. No, you're you're you're going in. 1:25:37.880 --> 1:25:39.880 I mean, that's where they are, that's where they that's 1:25:39.960 --> 1:25:42.559 that's their turf, you know, that's their beach, their wave, 1:25:42.760 --> 1:25:46.439 that's where they live. You know. The you can find 1:25:46.520 --> 1:25:52.320 herds out in the middle of a big open planes um, 1:25:52.360 --> 1:25:57.320 passing through, passing through, but you know you'll at some 1:25:57.360 --> 1:26:00.240 point you'll end up having to go into the into 1:26:00.240 --> 1:26:06.559 the trees and look for him. And that's unnerving, you 1:26:06.600 --> 1:26:10.639 know it. It starts out that way and then I mean, 1:26:10.680 --> 1:26:13.599 this sounds then you use that up, you use that up, 1:26:13.600 --> 1:26:15.719 and then it becomes like, I want to do this again, 1:26:16.760 --> 1:26:18.960 you know, I mean, I you know, I mean when 1:26:19.000 --> 1:26:21.120 I first started on Buffalo, they scared the crap out 1:26:21.120 --> 1:26:23.519 of me, you know, because we couldn't see them. They 1:26:23.520 --> 1:26:27.920 were just in this you know, You're just crawling in 1:26:28.000 --> 1:26:30.080 after him, and then they would all of a sudden 1:26:30.080 --> 1:26:33.680 you'd hear this, like just this massive explosion of animals, 1:26:34.040 --> 1:26:35.680 and you'd hear the you know, you hear there they 1:26:35.760 --> 1:26:38.120 got those big bosses on their horns at big horn 1:26:38.240 --> 1:26:40.800 cap and you hear them smacking into the trees and 1:26:40.880 --> 1:26:43.240 coming through there, you know, and which which way are 1:26:43.280 --> 1:26:45.400 they going? You know? Are they coming at me? Are 1:26:45.439 --> 1:26:51.360 they going away? And uh? But just they're they're they're, 1:26:51.520 --> 1:26:54.519 they're just they're they're just going. Yeah, they've dropped their 1:26:54.520 --> 1:26:57.040 heads and they're going. But I mean, just out of 1:26:57.040 --> 1:27:00.680 the blue. They're feeding one. They've they've they've caught your 1:27:00.680 --> 1:27:03.799 wind or they've heard they've heard you snap a twig, 1:27:04.520 --> 1:27:07.040 and you know you've got and you've got like twenty 1:27:07.160 --> 1:27:09.679 or thirty of them all together. So you've got twenty 1:27:09.720 --> 1:27:11.880 or thirty sets of eyes, and twenty or thirty sets 1:27:11.880 --> 1:27:14.840 of years, and twenty or thirty sets of noses. So 1:27:14.880 --> 1:27:16.599 it's like, you know, you ever watched you every nose 1:27:16.640 --> 1:27:19.559 like a white tail and and uh and and turkeys 1:27:19.800 --> 1:27:22.599 are always together. And I figured that out was because 1:27:22.600 --> 1:27:25.880 turkeys can't smell, and white tail can't see as well 1:27:25.880 --> 1:27:29.200 as turkeys can't, but they know how to trigger off 1:27:29.200 --> 1:27:32.040 with each other. Anyway, leave that there, because you talked 1:27:32.000 --> 1:27:35.080 about that bird all the time it lifts up. Yeah, yeah, 1:27:35.120 --> 1:27:37.120 the tick bird. You see that tick bird. You know 1:27:37.200 --> 1:27:39.519 that there's some and you also thought about that. You 1:27:39.520 --> 1:27:42.760 could creep in there and get thirty yards away and 1:27:42.760 --> 1:27:45.479 there's a pound animal on its feet looking at you, 1:27:45.520 --> 1:27:49.639 and you might not catch it. Yeah, yeah, you might 1:27:49.680 --> 1:27:52.719 not detect it. The guy I was telling you about, 1:27:52.760 --> 1:27:55.400 the old guy who taught me how to who I 1:27:55.439 --> 1:27:58.679 got my inherited my love of Africa from I guess, 1:27:59.040 --> 1:28:02.439 but I mean the first elephant he ever took was 1:28:02.479 --> 1:28:07.439 in French Equatorial Africa ninety six or something, and he 1:28:07.560 --> 1:28:10.679 and the tracker because the professional hunter gotten sick, got malaria, 1:28:10.880 --> 1:28:12.679 so he went with the tracker, just team the tracker 1:28:13.000 --> 1:28:16.160 and they're hunting elephants. And he said he'd never seen 1:28:16.160 --> 1:28:18.479 an elephant in the wild at all. And they were 1:28:18.479 --> 1:28:21.639 crawling in through the forest, I mean crawling hands and knees, 1:28:21.920 --> 1:28:24.479 and and the tracker like you know, grabbed him and 1:28:24.479 --> 1:28:26.640 he said there, you know there, And he's looking and 1:28:26.680 --> 1:28:29.679 looking and looking. He can't see anything, and he's looking 1:28:29.680 --> 1:28:32.080 back and forth and the guys keep keeps pointing, and 1:28:32.160 --> 1:28:35.759 suddenly he sees thirty feet in front of him four legs, 1:28:36.800 --> 1:28:39.679 you know, and they look like they look like big 1:28:39.720 --> 1:28:42.559 tree trunks. And he then he keeps looking up and 1:28:42.640 --> 1:28:44.760 up and up, and there's this there's his head, you know, 1:28:44.920 --> 1:28:47.719 kind of like just in there, you know, pulling stuff 1:28:47.760 --> 1:28:50.360 off the branches. And he said that was his first 1:28:50.400 --> 1:28:53.800 elephant he'd ever seen anywhere in the wild. But that's 1:28:53.840 --> 1:28:59.519 kind of what happens with buffalo. You can't find him 1:29:00.280 --> 1:29:03.439 like any untrained game. I yeah, well, I mean that's 1:29:03.439 --> 1:29:05.439 and that's the thing about you know, that's you know, 1:29:05.520 --> 1:29:08.400 that's like I say that you know, these trackers are 1:29:08.600 --> 1:29:13.280 you know, like there and you're going like where you know, 1:29:13.400 --> 1:29:16.559 when they go there, and and they just you know, 1:29:17.560 --> 1:29:21.919 they just know where it is they And that's that's inborn. 1:29:22.000 --> 1:29:24.640 That's innate. I don't know, it's it's it's it's a 1:29:24.640 --> 1:29:29.320 wonderful mystery. How do you how do you? I want 1:29:29.320 --> 1:29:31.080 to see how you cope with something or how you 1:29:31.120 --> 1:29:37.400 perceive something when you when you hunt. There a lot uh, 1:29:37.439 --> 1:29:39.160 this could be true for anyone who does like a 1:29:39.160 --> 1:29:44.400 lot of guided honey, Okay, where like like I look 1:29:44.439 --> 1:29:46.240 at hunting as being a thing where you sort of 1:29:46.520 --> 1:29:50.960 um quite like it's just it's just never ending thing 1:29:51.040 --> 1:29:54.759 of like the act with like acquiring skills, okay, developing 1:29:54.760 --> 1:30:00.240 a skill set, and no one knows the end of it. Right, 1:30:00.400 --> 1:30:03.479 There's no there's no cap there's no arrival moment. Right. 1:30:04.120 --> 1:30:09.160 In fact, the more you climb, the more you become 1:30:09.160 --> 1:30:10.920 aware of the lack of a ceiling. There's no ceiling. 1:30:11.200 --> 1:30:13.160 I think early on you could feel that it was there, 1:30:13.720 --> 1:30:16.920 but it's not there. And I find that if you're 1:30:16.920 --> 1:30:22.280 not brought up doing it um, it creates a separate 1:30:23.400 --> 1:30:25.320 it creates a cap to like it's hard to come 1:30:25.320 --> 1:30:30.560 in late and climb very high. Yeah, but in Africa, 1:30:31.200 --> 1:30:38.839 I feel that that open that that that unachievable ceiling 1:30:39.120 --> 1:30:42.720 probably doesn't really seem to be there because you have 1:30:42.840 --> 1:30:46.920 so much infrastructure around you that's invested in you getting it, 1:30:47.120 --> 1:30:48.960 and it would almost be that you would one would 1:30:48.960 --> 1:30:52.400 feel if if you were a hunter, you would feel like, 1:30:53.600 --> 1:30:58.120 I'm not bringing anything to this. In fact, I'm slowing 1:30:58.200 --> 1:31:01.480 this whole thing down like you are. You are the impediment. 1:31:01.680 --> 1:31:07.479 They would get this done faster and more efficiently were 1:31:07.479 --> 1:31:10.960 it not for my presence. Hand them the gun, let them. 1:31:11.000 --> 1:31:15.360 So how do you cope with that? Well, you know 1:31:16.080 --> 1:31:20.559 it's it's it's an imperfect world. Um, you know. I 1:31:20.560 --> 1:31:23.719 mean if if in a different time, at a different age, 1:31:23.800 --> 1:31:26.040 you were born in Africa. You know, a lot of 1:31:26.040 --> 1:31:30.080 these professional hunters were born growing up in the bush, 1:31:30.400 --> 1:31:33.920 you know, and they hunted for their families and for themselves, 1:31:34.320 --> 1:31:38.320 so they learned it that way. I guess, I guess 1:31:38.360 --> 1:31:40.920 I could look at it in that regard and say, well, 1:31:44.200 --> 1:31:48.120 I'm not bringing everything to the game. I am, But 1:31:48.240 --> 1:31:50.840 does that mean I don't want to do something that 1:31:50.880 --> 1:31:55.519 I have come to love? So I don't know. I mean, 1:31:55.560 --> 1:32:02.360 it's it's the you know, I mean, you know, the 1:32:02.400 --> 1:32:05.640 satisfaction of like hutting something on your own and you know, 1:32:06.240 --> 1:32:09.000 I go in there, you've got you. I know both statisfacts. 1:32:09.040 --> 1:32:11.360 I know that statisfaction, and I know the satisfaction of 1:32:12.320 --> 1:32:16.320 making a friend who does something really well and then 1:32:16.560 --> 1:32:19.040 your friend takes you out and lets you be along 1:32:19.120 --> 1:32:24.639 with him and the thrill of that's, you know, if 1:32:24.680 --> 1:32:29.960 you can get to that stage with Africans, And that 1:32:30.080 --> 1:32:31.559 to me is I don't know a better way of 1:32:31.560 --> 1:32:33.880 doing that. I've I've never found a better way. Maybe 1:32:33.880 --> 1:32:36.000 there is one that I don't know about at least 1:32:36.040 --> 1:32:39.360 that I've experienced. I mean, when you get to the 1:32:39.360 --> 1:32:41.400 point where when you know, when you have done something 1:32:41.439 --> 1:32:46.519 that a bunch of African hunters trackers look at you 1:32:46.560 --> 1:32:51.120 and go, you know, give your thumbs up, it's you know, 1:32:51.240 --> 1:32:54.479 it's golden because you know when it's Jameson. I don't 1:32:54.479 --> 1:32:56.360 want you to think that I'm saying that I don't know. No, 1:32:56.600 --> 1:32:58.560 I don't go. I do go into those situations. No, 1:32:58.600 --> 1:33:00.679 but I'm just I'm just saying. I'm just saying it's 1:33:00.840 --> 1:33:04.000 and you know the difference when it's genuine when it's 1:33:05.080 --> 1:33:09.320 perfunctory or performed performer. You know, I'm the tractor, I'm 1:33:09.320 --> 1:33:13.080 supposed to tell this guy, you know, good job, wanna 1:33:13.439 --> 1:33:16.120 But when when they sincerely do it and honestly do it, 1:33:16.200 --> 1:33:19.880 you know you've earned that from them. That's like, you know, 1:33:19.920 --> 1:33:23.000 it's a great sensation, it's a great feeling. And I 1:33:23.000 --> 1:33:25.439 think I think that's I think some people would think 1:33:25.479 --> 1:33:27.519 that needing that that that not I don't want to 1:33:27.560 --> 1:33:31.559 say needing. I think that some people would think that 1:33:33.320 --> 1:33:37.920 basking in that approval it's childish, but I do not 1:33:38.120 --> 1:33:41.640 because I do like that. Well, there are ways there 1:33:41.680 --> 1:33:45.000 are always like there are always there like calibrate one's 1:33:45.040 --> 1:33:48.240 performance and and to have and to do things and 1:33:48.280 --> 1:33:52.880 be in a atmosphere of other people and to get 1:33:52.920 --> 1:33:55.960 to a point where other people are like, job well done. 1:33:56.120 --> 1:33:57.840 You know. Yeah, No, I mean it's it's when you're 1:33:57.840 --> 1:34:04.320 when you're when you move one tenth as quietly as 1:34:04.360 --> 1:34:09.000 an African and stay up with them, you know, going 1:34:09.040 --> 1:34:13.240 through the bush, that that comes back to you. You You 1:34:13.320 --> 1:34:16.559 get there's a there's a feedback loop in that where 1:34:16.560 --> 1:34:19.000 you you get that energy and your feed on it. 1:34:19.400 --> 1:34:23.120 Did you feel like over the years that did you 1:34:23.120 --> 1:34:25.960 feel like you learned a lot? Yeah? Or just it 1:34:26.040 --> 1:34:29.439 was it like mostly having experiences or was it learning too? 1:34:30.240 --> 1:34:35.000 It's always learning. I mean I always have learned. I've 1:34:35.040 --> 1:34:37.120 tried to learn no matter where I was. You know, 1:34:37.560 --> 1:34:39.160 I want to I want to talk to the people. 1:34:39.200 --> 1:34:40.559 I want to know what they're doing. I want to 1:34:40.600 --> 1:34:44.559 know you know whatever. I don't know where I if 1:34:44.600 --> 1:34:45.760 it's I don't think it's in the book. By was 1:34:45.800 --> 1:34:48.479 just writing something the other day about you know, going 1:34:48.560 --> 1:34:54.280 to places, going to how you go? Why would I 1:34:54.360 --> 1:34:58.280 hunt in Africa instead of going on a photos so far? 1:34:58.720 --> 1:35:01.920 Okay um and there's nothing wrong with going on the 1:35:01.920 --> 1:35:05.639 photos sopharsis. But but I suddenly realized that the people 1:35:05.680 --> 1:35:10.160 I am dealing with in a in a you know, 1:35:10.200 --> 1:35:14.680 a photo lodge situation, these are people who are in 1:35:14.720 --> 1:35:17.880 the service industry. Now, you could argue that trackers are 1:35:17.880 --> 1:35:20.000 not in the service and are are also in the 1:35:20.040 --> 1:35:22.800 service industry. That's not a very good argument. But I'm 1:35:22.840 --> 1:35:25.639 just saying, but I'm just saying, you know that there 1:35:25.800 --> 1:35:31.960 is that it's a different relationship from where I am. 1:35:32.160 --> 1:35:34.120 You know, when a guy's hovering around me one and off, 1:35:34.160 --> 1:35:36.080 if I can he can you know, if he can, 1:35:36.160 --> 1:35:37.760 if he can pour me some more wine and get 1:35:37.760 --> 1:35:42.240 a bigger tip. Yeah, And and whereas if I'm dealing 1:35:42.320 --> 1:35:44.960 with a tracker, you know where where he'll he'll stop 1:35:44.960 --> 1:35:46.320 and he'll point to the track of will and we'll 1:35:46.800 --> 1:35:48.800 we'll try to we'll try to figure it out. You know, 1:35:49.240 --> 1:35:51.120 what are we you know, what are we looking for here? 1:35:51.520 --> 1:35:54.679 You know? And and it's all there's a bad there's 1:35:54.920 --> 1:35:57.719 it's it, there's there is there is a language barrier 1:35:57.800 --> 1:36:01.720 that just disappears. Yeah, that doesn't you know, And he 1:36:01.720 --> 1:36:06.080 doesn't speak English, I don't speak Swanna or or or 1:36:06.200 --> 1:36:11.640 or cuckoo you or something else. But we communicate, we 1:36:11.720 --> 1:36:15.080 understand each other, and that's like just yeah, I mean 1:36:15.200 --> 1:36:17.600 just I don't know, I'm certain to get you know. 1:36:18.680 --> 1:36:23.559 It's it's it's hard not to get nostalgic about it. 1:36:24.400 --> 1:36:28.360 What about that nostalgy because I guess that like even 1:36:28.360 --> 1:36:30.519 the name I feel like the name of your book, 1:36:30.640 --> 1:36:36.600 like having the Autumn's right, there's a kind there's a 1:36:36.520 --> 1:36:42.280 a does a well do you feel like like is 1:36:42.280 --> 1:36:44.680 it done? You? Like if I like I could, I 1:36:44.680 --> 1:36:48.160 could rattle loss and stuff. No, I mean, it's it's 1:36:48.479 --> 1:36:52.320 it's like it's I'm going back in January. I'm gonna 1:36:52.320 --> 1:36:55.519 go to Burkina Fossa. And and the reason I'm going 1:36:55.560 --> 1:36:59.920 to Burkina Fossil is there's a there's a relatively small 1:37:00.080 --> 1:37:06.719 area like two hundred fifty hectars or something that's really 1:37:06.760 --> 1:37:10.240 wild country. There's elephants and lions there walking around, there's 1:37:10.280 --> 1:37:13.839 no fences, and there's a different buffalo, there's the savannah buffalo. 1:37:13.920 --> 1:37:15.320 So I'm I want to go back. I want to 1:37:15.360 --> 1:37:19.439 hunt two animals. That's it. I want to hunt the 1:37:19.640 --> 1:37:23.800 savannah buffalo in the western room and the western rhone 1:37:23.920 --> 1:37:25.519 is like, I mean, it's it's you know, it's it's 1:37:25.560 --> 1:37:28.240 it's kind of like it's like a really mean white tail. 1:37:29.840 --> 1:37:33.280 It's a really it's a disgruntled white tail because they're 1:37:33.360 --> 1:37:36.480 very smart and they love to and they're just beautiful animals, 1:37:36.680 --> 1:37:40.800 wonderful eating. I I don't know. Again, I'm gonna people 1:37:40.840 --> 1:37:43.400 don't really pay much attention to it. I mean, but 1:37:43.520 --> 1:37:48.880 the game meets great. Does anything in the Africa have antlers? Ah? 1:37:49.040 --> 1:37:52.800 You know, you know, actually the giraffes are pedicels, which 1:37:52.840 --> 1:37:58.400 are not they're kind of proto h antlers. And there 1:37:58.400 --> 1:38:03.880 are red deer in nor southern Africa. You know, the 1:38:04.160 --> 1:38:07.760 Barbary red deer is native native. You don't surprise me. 1:38:09.000 --> 1:38:13.120 You talk about hunting SEUs scraf yep, you talk about 1:38:13.160 --> 1:38:16.120 hunting wild pigs in Africa. I didn't know in the 1:38:15.840 --> 1:38:19.800 in the in northern Africa they have straight up wild hog. 1:38:19.920 --> 1:38:27.400 Yeah it sounds like a shipload up. Yeah blocks in Tunisia. Yeah, 1:38:27.720 --> 1:38:32.080 it's there, and they're they're all over the place. But 1:38:33.200 --> 1:38:35.799 I point out to people about like autumns in Africa, 1:38:35.960 --> 1:38:43.800 like August and Africa. Oh, I said, Autumn's earlier August Arica. Uh, 1:38:44.120 --> 1:38:46.800 but you go a lot of other months. Yeah, but 1:38:46.840 --> 1:38:49.360 that's it's it's not it's it's it's a it's a 1:38:49.600 --> 1:38:56.120 it's a figurative time, you know. It's it's when I 1:38:56.240 --> 1:38:58.880 first in fact, the first time went that guys went there, 1:38:58.920 --> 1:39:01.120 the first time I was it was a member. But 1:39:01.400 --> 1:39:03.519 there is a there's a you know, there's an August 1:39:03.560 --> 1:39:07.320 feel to it. You know, it's it's especially growing up 1:39:07.320 --> 1:39:09.800 in like southern California, you know, you get that kind 1:39:09.840 --> 1:39:14.479 of late August weather in the climate, and that's kind 1:39:14.479 --> 1:39:16.800 of what you're running into in in Africa when you're 1:39:16.840 --> 1:39:20.479 there sometimes, you know, it can feel like that, and uh, 1:39:21.000 --> 1:39:24.280 it's it's it's more a metaphorical time than it is 1:39:24.400 --> 1:39:30.799 an actual calendar date. Yea conjures a bit of romance 1:39:30.840 --> 1:39:33.000 and nostalgia. Like well, there's a quote on the cover 1:39:33.160 --> 1:39:35.559 by from Robert Rourke, which is you know that that 1:39:35.560 --> 1:39:37.360 that's when they burn the they burn the grass and 1:39:37.479 --> 1:39:39.799 July and the good hunt, the decent hunting starts in August, 1:39:40.240 --> 1:39:42.320 which in the one little part of Africa he hunted. 1:39:42.720 --> 1:39:44.759 You know, that's something about Hanyway to I mean, Hennyway 1:39:44.920 --> 1:39:47.519 didn't really never he never got to East Africa, Worke 1:39:47.640 --> 1:39:50.400 never got out of East Africa pretty much never got 1:39:50.400 --> 1:39:58.880 out of now. So how much have like, okay, take 1:39:58.920 --> 1:40:05.679 it for granted, that is it's a gradual decline like that, 1:40:05.600 --> 1:40:08.559 there's a gradual decline of wild places in the world. 1:40:08.560 --> 1:40:11.439 That's just like a way to explain world history, Okay, 1:40:11.520 --> 1:40:14.960 the peopling of the world. So taken outside of just 1:40:15.040 --> 1:40:20.760 that general gradual thing that happens, how much are how 1:40:20.840 --> 1:40:26.400 much are the good old days here or not here? 1:40:26.479 --> 1:40:29.080 Because I oftentimes find myself when I'm talking about hunting 1:40:29.080 --> 1:40:35.280 in America, I try to remind people that, um, depending 1:40:35.280 --> 1:40:38.280 on how like how your how wide your net is 1:40:39.320 --> 1:40:42.479 that there's a pretty good argument to be made that 1:40:42.520 --> 1:40:44.880 we're in the good old days right now. Well, sure, yeah, 1:40:45.120 --> 1:40:48.639 and you and you have a different you know again, 1:40:48.720 --> 1:40:51.240 we we have we have the luxury or the or 1:40:51.280 --> 1:40:55.759 the benefit of you know, the greatest conservation system wild 1:40:55.840 --> 1:41:00.200 conservation system in the world. You know, if you look 1:41:00.200 --> 1:41:02.040 at if you look at other places you're talking about 1:41:02.040 --> 1:41:05.479 New Zealand and Europe and and you know South Africa, 1:41:05.960 --> 1:41:11.080 we're we're you know, this is this is this is 1:41:11.120 --> 1:41:14.920 animal husbandry that's going on in those places South African 1:41:14.960 --> 1:41:18.320 New Zealand. Well, I mean, yeah, it's animal husbandry on 1:41:18.400 --> 1:41:20.919 a you know, on a on a with wild animals, 1:41:21.960 --> 1:41:27.840 whereas we actually still have you know, truly wild populations. 1:41:28.760 --> 1:41:31.280 And yeah, I mean you know, there's there's more game 1:41:31.360 --> 1:41:34.479 here than then there was and that and that's a 1:41:34.479 --> 1:41:36.120 loaded word as well, game, you know what I mean. 1:41:36.120 --> 1:41:38.400 That's people probably give you a hard time about that word. Yeah, 1:41:38.400 --> 1:41:42.479 I don't care about Okay, tell me what you really 1:41:42.479 --> 1:41:52.439 think anyway. Um, but they I don't know what you 1:41:52.479 --> 1:41:57.120 can say about Africa except that it does continue to decline. 1:41:58.160 --> 1:42:01.360 And that's I don't know what the solution is. You 1:42:01.400 --> 1:42:05.000 don't feel that it's a factor of hunting, No, it's 1:42:05.000 --> 1:42:08.400 a factor of it's a it's a it's it's factors inconvenient, 1:42:08.479 --> 1:42:12.280 like wildlife is inconvenient, inconvenient and and and taste good. 1:42:12.400 --> 1:42:16.360 And let's put it this way, that that that you could, 1:42:16.360 --> 1:42:20.599 you could, you could ban all hunting in Africa tonight, 1:42:22.240 --> 1:42:28.200 absolutely ban at all legal license hunting, and the populations 1:42:28.200 --> 1:42:31.400 would probably decline even faster just because it would de 1:42:31.479 --> 1:42:34.599 incentivize There'd be nothing, there'ld be no reason to keep 1:42:34.640 --> 1:42:39.080 anything around and and it's hard to because no one's 1:42:39.160 --> 1:42:42.839 making money off its existence. And it's and it's it's 1:42:42.960 --> 1:42:52.920 you're asking you're asking Africans to support wildlife when they 1:42:52.920 --> 1:42:58.400 can't in many cases support themselves. Yeah. We we think, 1:42:58.400 --> 1:43:01.639 we think you should let these las run through your whatever, 1:43:02.640 --> 1:43:06.880 and they're gonna go why you know, it's like it's like, 1:43:06.920 --> 1:43:08.320 I mean, if you woke up in the morning and 1:43:08.360 --> 1:43:10.360 there was and there was and there was a bison 1:43:10.880 --> 1:43:14.880 smashing your super route of shreds, you know, you would 1:43:14.920 --> 1:43:19.320 probably go, oh shooting, yeah, and then somebody, no, you 1:43:19.360 --> 1:43:22.400 can't do that, don't do that, you can't do that, Okay. 1:43:24.080 --> 1:43:25.760 You'd be like, then someone's gonna have to give you 1:43:25.760 --> 1:43:28.840 a lot of money. Yeah, wells, but nobody's gonna give 1:43:28.840 --> 1:43:31.559 you any money in Africa. You know, if you if 1:43:31.600 --> 1:43:34.160 you come back and you know someone's destroyed you know, 1:43:34.200 --> 1:43:38.479 the elephants have destroyed your crops trying to get them. Actually, 1:43:38.479 --> 1:43:40.160 I think one of the big things that's it's making 1:43:40.200 --> 1:43:43.639 a difference. I mean, the mass Shire are are using 1:43:44.040 --> 1:43:46.160 they can use cell phones and then call each other 1:43:46.200 --> 1:43:49.240 and they you know, then go elephants are in there 1:43:49.320 --> 1:43:51.519 in the in the maze tonight, you know, and they'll 1:43:51.600 --> 1:43:53.640 run in there and try to chase them out. But 1:43:53.760 --> 1:43:56.679 that's maybe that's an advantage. But of course the cell 1:43:56.720 --> 1:44:00.880 phone also helps the poachers. So you know, why is 1:44:00.920 --> 1:44:06.920 it now? Why does it cost two dollars to kill 1:44:06.920 --> 1:44:10.080 a rhino? Why does it cost two hundred and fifty 1:44:10.400 --> 1:44:13.559 dollars to get a governor's permit for a you know, 1:44:13.960 --> 1:44:17.519 small fur for a sheep small pool? Yeah, you know 1:44:17.800 --> 1:44:19.720 that there's there is And what are the ones that 1:44:19.760 --> 1:44:22.880 do get killed? The ones that do get like, what 1:44:22.960 --> 1:44:28.040 are the situations where there what are the situations where 1:44:28.280 --> 1:44:30.519 like how many how many rhinos are hunted every year? 1:44:31.280 --> 1:44:36.280 Are they? Are they identified? Well, there's there's there's you know, okay, 1:44:36.320 --> 1:44:38.439 there's two kinds. There's white rhino in the black rhino. 1:44:39.040 --> 1:44:42.920 Now the white rhino is actually the more popular it 1:44:43.000 --> 1:44:45.280 is now. It didn't used to be, but it's now 1:44:45.320 --> 1:44:49.559 the more populous species did not used to be. Oh no, no, 1:44:49.640 --> 1:44:53.559 they were almost gone, you know, the and there's a 1:44:53.600 --> 1:44:55.960 long history of that. But if you you can go 1:44:56.040 --> 1:45:00.280 back to um the South Africans back in the these 1:45:00.280 --> 1:45:01.920 are sixties, they wanted to kill them all off because 1:45:01.960 --> 1:45:06.280 they wanted more land for grazing and cattle. And there 1:45:06.360 --> 1:45:10.080 was like there was one little herd of white rhino 1:45:10.200 --> 1:45:14.080 on this park, three animals maybe, and they were getting 1:45:14.080 --> 1:45:18.040 all in bread and it was just total disaster. And 1:45:18.080 --> 1:45:20.439 then a guy named Ian Player, who was the golfer 1:45:20.479 --> 1:45:24.280 Gary Player's brother, came in and just started capturing these 1:45:24.280 --> 1:45:28.400 things and spreading them out, you know, spreading into different areas. 1:45:29.120 --> 1:45:31.720 And in that amount of time they went from like 1:45:31.800 --> 1:45:35.160 three hundreds, I don't know, twenty five thousand or something 1:45:35.840 --> 1:45:39.320 in South Africa. So what's well black rhino or the 1:45:39.320 --> 1:45:41.559 opposite they were like when they were when the white 1:45:41.640 --> 1:45:43.840 rhino was down to like like three d there was 1:45:43.840 --> 1:45:49.800 probably a hundred thousand black rhino. Unfortunately, black rhino have horns, 1:45:49.920 --> 1:45:53.559 and the horn is is mistakenly thought of as an 1:45:53.560 --> 1:46:00.000 afrodisiac or of of medicinal as it is a popular 1:46:00.200 --> 1:46:04.240 ingredient Asian medicine because and here's this animal, the big 1:46:04.280 --> 1:46:07.080 fallast growing out of his forehead. Well it's mad, it's 1:46:07.160 --> 1:46:09.559 madd at hair, but it's also the same. The other 1:46:09.560 --> 1:46:13.439 part of it is also is many Chics wanted the 1:46:13.520 --> 1:46:17.959 horn for there you know, they're they're decorative dagger handles 1:46:18.200 --> 1:46:21.400 because you know, it's just beautiful material when it's worked, 1:46:21.400 --> 1:46:24.960 and they would so that. So, so here's the thing. 1:46:25.320 --> 1:46:27.719 If you want to shoot a black rhino, to poach 1:46:27.760 --> 1:46:32.840 it almost that is that? What like? Is it the 1:46:32.960 --> 1:46:39.280 mechanical removal of black rhinos killing them for their horns, 1:46:39.920 --> 1:46:44.639 not habitat loss? Well, it's it's there's probably so few. 1:46:46.080 --> 1:46:49.160 There's a lot of habitat there's there's there's a lot 1:46:49.160 --> 1:46:52.559 of parks they could have rhinos on it, but they 1:46:52.560 --> 1:46:55.519 get they get killed pretty fast, and and it's it's 1:46:55.560 --> 1:46:59.519 a continuing it's a running it's a running firefight. You see, 1:46:59.560 --> 1:47:01.519 someone went to a French zoo and shot of rhino. 1:47:02.120 --> 1:47:08.439 But but h yeah, well people, people people in Africa 1:47:08.640 --> 1:47:12.360 had who had mounted rhino heads in there have come 1:47:12.400 --> 1:47:14.200 home and the house have been broken into and some 1:47:14.320 --> 1:47:19.400 horns chopped off, the horn off of Because from a 1:47:19.400 --> 1:47:22.559 pragmatic stand from a you know, pragmatic standpoint, Okay, so 1:47:23.520 --> 1:47:26.960 I want to get a permit to hunt a black rhino. Now, 1:47:27.080 --> 1:47:30.280 the US Fish and Wildlife Service says, if you can 1:47:30.280 --> 1:47:32.920 prove to me that you can prove to us that 1:47:32.960 --> 1:47:35.719 by hunting this rhino you're actually which is an endangered species. 1:47:35.880 --> 1:47:37.320 If you can prove to us that by hunting this 1:47:37.360 --> 1:47:40.920 you're actually going to improve the species the you know, 1:47:41.000 --> 1:47:44.960 improve the survival for the species by by pumping a 1:47:45.000 --> 1:47:50.680 lot of money into conservation, then have at it. So 1:47:51.320 --> 1:47:54.880 the way that so the government's and like Namibia in 1:47:54.920 --> 1:47:58.920 places like that that have viable populations of black rhino. 1:47:59.680 --> 1:48:01.760 And also part of the problem is is they want 1:48:01.760 --> 1:48:04.840 to get rid of the old bulls because they are 1:48:04.720 --> 1:48:07.960 a drug on the market. As they say, they they 1:48:08.000 --> 1:48:10.439 don't breed probably you know they've done breeding. They just 1:48:10.880 --> 1:48:13.760 they take over territory and they want to move them out. 1:48:13.960 --> 1:48:16.639 That that if you kill one, you're gonna actually end 1:48:16.680 --> 1:48:20.000 up with net more rhinos because you're pulling this one 1:48:20.040 --> 1:48:23.719 out of the out of the herd. So a guy 1:48:23.840 --> 1:48:26.880 comes over to Namibia, he pays the Nimbian government two 1:48:26.920 --> 1:48:31.040 hundred fifty dollars three fifty thousand dollars. That money then 1:48:31.080 --> 1:48:35.559 ostensibly is earmarked for various conservation projects related to the 1:48:35.600 --> 1:48:39.720 black rhino. He then can import, which is important to him. 1:48:39.720 --> 1:48:43.519 He can import that rhino head into the United States. 1:48:44.439 --> 1:48:48.040 Now the alternative, the alternative is a poacher comes out 1:48:48.040 --> 1:48:50.080 in the middle of the night, jack lights, it shoots, 1:48:50.080 --> 1:48:56.720 it sells the horn for twenty dollars. It was, you know, 1:48:56.720 --> 1:48:59.360 and these things are going up and down. The big 1:48:59.360 --> 1:49:01.519 deal right now is like if you can believe that 1:49:01.640 --> 1:49:04.840 China is actually gonna stop the trade. And they said 1:49:04.880 --> 1:49:07.879 they finally got around to saying, yeah, we're no more ivory, 1:49:07.920 --> 1:49:11.599 no more, We're done. And if they do that, it's 1:49:11.600 --> 1:49:14.240 gonna dry everything up and there's gonna be no incentive 1:49:14.320 --> 1:49:16.960 to start poaching these things things. So it might help. Well, 1:49:17.320 --> 1:49:31.400 it can't hurt, you know, Wow, Johnny Dude, I like, yeah, like, uh, 1:49:33.360 --> 1:49:35.080 your book really made me think about a ton of 1:49:35.080 --> 1:49:39.920 ship I hadn't thought about before. We could I could 1:49:39.960 --> 1:49:42.840 I read a small piece out of it? Please? Okay? 1:49:45.439 --> 1:49:48.519 It's interesting to me is that not a single topic 1:49:49.000 --> 1:49:55.080 of the last hour and a half has been without controversy. No, 1:49:55.200 --> 1:49:57.400 but that was my approach to the book. I didn't 1:49:57.400 --> 1:50:01.080 approach the book. I didn't approach the bo just wanting 1:50:01.080 --> 1:50:04.559 to hear cool hunting stories. I approached the book because 1:50:04.680 --> 1:50:10.479 I'm like a guy, uh who is like just interest, like, okay, 1:50:10.560 --> 1:50:12.720 a lot of like I have an inner struggle, like 1:50:12.920 --> 1:50:15.080 do I want to go. Is it a thing that 1:50:15.160 --> 1:50:17.519 in my life needs to happen as a person who's 1:50:17.640 --> 1:50:22.000 pursuing hunting as a discipline and as a mechanism for exploration, 1:50:22.439 --> 1:50:26.120 Like is that or is that not? I came out 1:50:26.120 --> 1:50:29.840 of that book thinking that that I would like to 1:50:29.880 --> 1:50:39.479 go to a wilderness type area and travel with people 1:50:39.479 --> 1:50:43.439 who were who grew up in that environment, and travel 1:50:43.479 --> 1:50:45.519 with him and crawl through that thick ass brush looking 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:49.759 for kate buffalo? Are are there? You know? The other possible? 1:50:49.800 --> 1:50:53.719 I mean, if you really want to get um there 1:50:53.760 --> 1:50:59.320 you there's the um Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 1:50:59.360 --> 1:51:02.839 there you hunt the forest dwarf. And don't be mistaken 1:51:02.880 --> 1:51:05.400 by the fact I called dwarf forest buffalo, because they're 1:51:05.400 --> 1:51:07.760 actually more dangerous than the cape buffalo because of the 1:51:07.800 --> 1:51:10.879 habitat they live in. And that is where you actually 1:51:11.760 --> 1:51:16.040 that is I haven't done it, but that is way wicked. 1:51:16.080 --> 1:51:17.920 I mean that is you are hunting a lot of 1:51:17.920 --> 1:51:20.840 the times, you're hunting with pigmies and and you know, 1:51:21.080 --> 1:51:23.720 and and you can imagine what that must be like, 1:51:23.760 --> 1:51:26.880 the trip that must be going into these Yeah, we've 1:51:26.880 --> 1:51:30.519 talked with our body about doing that. Yeah, yeah, man, 1:51:30.640 --> 1:51:33.439 I don't mean, do you do you feel you know, 1:51:33.439 --> 1:51:36.920 it's like the customer satisfaction surveys. Do you feel that 1:51:37.000 --> 1:51:40.800 in our conversation, um, that I've focused on ship that 1:51:40.840 --> 1:51:44.400 you wish I hadn't focused on No? No, I mean 1:51:44.439 --> 1:51:48.800 I I appreciate you know, like one to ten. How 1:51:48.920 --> 1:51:54.280 likely would you be to recommend this to friend? To 1:51:54.320 --> 1:51:56.840 recommend this to a friend? Well, I don't want to. 1:51:56.840 --> 1:51:59.000 I mean, you know you haven't. You haven't put this 1:51:59.080 --> 1:52:01.439 on the area, So I depends how how politic I 1:52:01.479 --> 1:52:07.160 want to be. Uh, The point being that, yeah, this 1:52:07.200 --> 1:52:10.680 has been This has been a refreshing, refreshingly intelligent conversation 1:52:11.680 --> 1:52:17.040 for me. Because you know, you're not an African hand 1:52:17.120 --> 1:52:19.280 let's put it that way. What does that mean, Well, 1:52:19.320 --> 1:52:20.920 you don't have any you don't have any African you 1:52:20.920 --> 1:52:23.360 don't you don't have any on the ground experience in Africa. 1:52:23.920 --> 1:52:27.200 That's a fair assumption. But you're a hunter, and you 1:52:27.200 --> 1:52:32.240 can understand the motivations of why people would go some 1:52:33.520 --> 1:52:36.719 crazy ass places like Africa and why once they went 1:52:36.760 --> 1:52:39.760 there they kept going back when they really had no 1:52:39.880 --> 1:52:44.400 business financially or economically, or you know, trying to put 1:52:44.439 --> 1:52:46.519 a kid through college and a wife, you know, to 1:52:46.600 --> 1:52:49.040 keep her fed at least once a week. You know 1:52:49.720 --> 1:52:52.160 she's already going like, you're not going back, all right? 1:52:52.360 --> 1:52:57.720 And I'd go like, um, no I might, God no no, 1:52:58.479 --> 1:53:02.000 so um yeah, I mean, I mean I give it 1:53:02.080 --> 1:53:04.479 a solid night and a half. How is that? Okay? 1:53:05.040 --> 1:53:07.559 I wasn't even worried about it? So you just said 1:53:07.600 --> 1:53:12.080 that No, Uh, I was insane. He always he always 1:53:12.080 --> 1:53:13.920 struck me as a troublemaker. Well, we're not gonna sit 1:53:13.960 --> 1:53:16.400 down and swap old hunting stories about Africas. I haven't 1:53:16.400 --> 1:53:19.320 gone there. Yeah no, no, But I just say that 1:53:19.320 --> 1:53:22.120 that's sort of there is. There is there is no 1:53:22.160 --> 1:53:26.160 way in this day and age that you cannot talk 1:53:26.280 --> 1:53:31.479 about Africa without creating controversy. And I think even with 1:53:31.560 --> 1:53:36.880 two completely like minded people to hardcore African hunters, they'd 1:53:36.880 --> 1:53:41.160 probably find some controversies. And it's it just seems like 1:53:41.920 --> 1:53:44.639 it's inherent almost. I mean, there's there's, there's, there's there's 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:48.040 let's put it. Hunting in Africa gives you the potential 1:53:48.040 --> 1:53:50.559 of being the worst person you ever were in your 1:53:50.680 --> 1:53:55.120 entire life, or maybe not the best person, but a 1:53:55.160 --> 1:54:01.160 pretty damn good person. Um. You know, there's there's there's that, 1:54:01.680 --> 1:54:05.360 there's that choice, there is that you know, there is 1:54:05.400 --> 1:54:10.040 that option available. Yeah, you talk about some time you 1:54:10.160 --> 1:54:14.120 spent on a trip with a person who embarrassed you 1:54:14.200 --> 1:54:20.160 a great deal. Yeah, yeah, he was. He was their 1:54:20.240 --> 1:54:25.280 views on the culture, their views on racial issues. He was, 1:54:25.520 --> 1:54:28.160 he was. He was a piece of work. I mean 1:54:28.240 --> 1:54:30.400 it was really that's a good story because you really 1:54:30.400 --> 1:54:32.640 go to have such a visceral hatred for that guy, 1:54:33.400 --> 1:54:35.240 you know, and it's and it was it was it 1:54:35.320 --> 1:54:39.440 was like it was because he it was mutual. But 1:54:39.440 --> 1:54:41.760 but but it came to a point where you like 1:54:42.000 --> 1:54:44.640 came to a point where the author Tom here Is said, 1:54:45.120 --> 1:54:50.080 why did you come to Africa except to shoot? Except 1:54:50.080 --> 1:54:53.320 to shoot stuff? Except to shoot stuff? You know? And 1:54:53.520 --> 1:54:57.040 it's like, when I was twenty, I could understand that 1:54:57.080 --> 1:54:59.720 because you know, you're twenty, you want to you have 1:54:59.800 --> 1:55:03.200 that you know, you know you want to you want 1:55:03.240 --> 1:55:07.760 to you want to hunt everything. But now, I mean, 1:55:09.320 --> 1:55:11.360 you know, I'm happy to go back and like I mean, 1:55:11.400 --> 1:55:15.480 I I think I envy somebody like Craig Boddington because 1:55:15.520 --> 1:55:19.280 he's like over in like barrier hunting, these like antelope there, 1:55:19.320 --> 1:55:22.680 the size of this water glass. You know, it's like 1:55:23.480 --> 1:55:26.440 and it was, and it's you know, the whole the 1:55:26.480 --> 1:55:29.360 whole fact that he is dealing with native trackers and 1:55:29.360 --> 1:55:33.360 they're calling them in and it's you know, it's impenetrable 1:55:33.480 --> 1:55:39.080 jungle in this and this whole adventure, I guess, I mean, 1:55:39.320 --> 1:55:41.800 you know, it's it's maybe it sounds cliche, but how 1:55:41.840 --> 1:55:46.600 many adventures are there left. I'm sure there there's plenty 1:55:46.600 --> 1:55:48.080 of them, but I but I mean, also, it kind 1:55:48.120 --> 1:55:49.400 of seems to be that more and more people are 1:55:49.480 --> 1:55:53.000 kind of like adventure is becoming more and more kind 1:55:53.000 --> 1:55:57.240 of a stunt, you know what I mean, And that 1:55:57.240 --> 1:56:00.200 that when I went to I came at the very 1:56:00.280 --> 1:56:03.720 very very very end of when going to Africa was 1:56:03.760 --> 1:56:09.400 an adventure because it was Africa and and you didn't 1:56:09.440 --> 1:56:11.800 have to be It wasn't a stunt to find adventure 1:56:11.840 --> 1:56:14.880 in Africa. You it was there, you know, just by 1:56:14.920 --> 1:56:18.720 the fact of being there. And it's interesting you mentioned 1:56:18.760 --> 1:56:24.160 the that story about that guy, that hunter. We took 1:56:24.160 --> 1:56:28.440 a mutual disliking to um so this meaning that you 1:56:28.520 --> 1:56:30.280 and me took a mutual this left no he and 1:56:30.320 --> 1:56:32.720 I took a mutual dislike to each other. You got 1:56:32.760 --> 1:56:39.240 any final thoughts, Yes, got a lot of final questions. Sure, 1:56:39.440 --> 1:56:41.960 we don't have to probably a time for it, but um, 1:56:42.280 --> 1:56:45.080 pick one, pick one, pick your best one, take your 1:56:45.120 --> 1:56:49.120 best shot. Attention must be paid. I'm not it's all 1:56:49.160 --> 1:56:50.720 the classic. I just want to be like, I just 1:56:50.720 --> 1:56:56.720 want to start talking calibersing bullet weights. That's that's yeah, 1:56:56.760 --> 1:57:00.960 because that's like like, I mean, I like the bigger 1:57:01.000 --> 1:57:05.480 ideas for you. But Tom and I five Nitro Express 1:57:07.440 --> 1:57:10.600 for seventies four seventies offully nice. Tom and I could 1:57:10.600 --> 1:57:14.120 probably sit around now after That's what you wanted. You 1:57:14.120 --> 1:57:19.080 guys left Yanni's podcast in which yeah, I'm meant to 1:57:19.160 --> 1:57:23.160 ask what his favorite caliber over forty years and now 1:57:23.200 --> 1:57:26.600 that changed. You should have told me earlier three seventy five. 1:57:26.760 --> 1:57:28.560 You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong in Africa 1:57:28.560 --> 1:57:30.320 with a three seventy five. I'll tell you the name, 1:57:30.560 --> 1:57:32.600 I'll tell you, just let you know that I'm adapt 1:57:33.160 --> 1:57:37.280 the Queens of the Planes Rifles. Is that something like that? Queen? 1:57:37.320 --> 1:57:42.480 You have the planes, right, the queen? Yeah? Three? Al right, 1:57:42.520 --> 1:57:46.720 So Yann is bummed out that we didn't, not at all. 1:57:46.760 --> 1:57:51.040 I'm just saying that, like you know, Um, as we're 1:57:51.080 --> 1:57:54.080 discussing all these controversial ideas, I'm thinking, Okay, when you're 1:57:54.080 --> 1:57:57.200 getting ready to wonder if he handladed most of his 1:57:58.760 --> 1:58:00.680 ready to go getting ready to a matter of fact, 1:58:00.680 --> 1:58:02.400 I did. But that's besides when you're getting ready to go, 1:58:02.480 --> 1:58:06.520 text Tom and ask him what Yeah, and and and 1:58:07.160 --> 1:58:09.760 the solids by the way, Yeah, So I know these 1:58:09.840 --> 1:58:12.440 landscapes are like when I think of fence tons. All 1:58:12.480 --> 1:58:16.640 I know of is our recent discussion with um you know, 1:58:17.000 --> 1:58:20.120 talking about CWD, right, um And I know the landscape 1:58:20.160 --> 1:58:22.840 is on such a greater scale over in Africa, But 1:58:23.000 --> 1:58:26.160 in these fenced areas, is there any problem with disease transmission? Well, 1:58:26.240 --> 1:58:29.840 that's a good question, um. And and it's you know 1:58:29.920 --> 1:58:32.960 that the there's I think in the afterward to the book, 1:58:32.960 --> 1:58:38.440 I kind of look into the fact of that. You know, 1:58:38.480 --> 1:58:41.320 you have this this you have one school of thought 1:58:41.400 --> 1:58:45.080 that says, by getting value out of the wildlife, we're 1:58:45.080 --> 1:58:48.520 actually helping to preserve it by these ranches down there. 1:58:48.560 --> 1:58:52.200 But at the same time, they're also doing these bizarre 1:58:53.760 --> 1:58:58.440 breeding programs so they can come up with gold golden 1:58:58.560 --> 1:59:03.720 willed beast or or or you know, or black impoos 1:59:04.320 --> 1:59:07.320 and which they have now found out that they're all sterile, 1:59:07.560 --> 1:59:09.320 you know, I mean it's it's it's like it's so 1:59:09.400 --> 1:59:12.520 it's like it's it's like a management paradox. Really, like 1:59:13.240 --> 1:59:16.920 dozens of species of big game isn't enough. Yeah, well 1:59:16.960 --> 1:59:19.320 that's exactly it. I mean, they want to they want 1:59:19.320 --> 1:59:21.160 to be able to you know, oh, well you don't 1:59:21.200 --> 1:59:22.640 have one of these, you know, they want to be 1:59:22.680 --> 1:59:24.440 able to to buttonhold a guy at a at a 1:59:24.520 --> 1:59:27.320 hunting convention that you don't have one of these in 1:59:27.360 --> 1:59:31.440 your wall. Yeah. No, no, it's it's it's crazy. It's crazy. 1:59:31.480 --> 1:59:34.160 I mean, it's just and then you know, there's a 1:59:34.200 --> 1:59:36.720 whole argument about that. But as I point out that 1:59:36.720 --> 1:59:39.920 that that essay, you know, it's the same thing that 1:59:39.960 --> 1:59:42.800 happened in Spain when Spain went you know, we went 1:59:42.840 --> 1:59:45.920 crazy with all this money. Everybody wanted to to have 1:59:46.080 --> 1:59:49.960 Andalusian horses. Then they all went broke and then the 1:59:49.960 --> 1:59:53.000 horses they just left to starve. You know, they had 1:59:53.040 --> 1:59:55.720 no money to to run the hostantias anymore, and they 1:59:55.720 --> 1:59:58.080 just took off and lift. So right right now they're saying, well, 1:59:58.080 --> 1:59:59.320 look at all the money we can make out of 1:59:59.320 --> 2:00:03.360 these animals, we can it's a bubble. It's a bubble, 2:00:03.520 --> 2:00:09.520 and it's gonna and then what happens I don't know. Yeah, 2:00:09.720 --> 2:00:15.040 and disease maybe one of those factors or animals there, 2:00:15.560 --> 2:00:19.480 like in this book you refer to and I don't 2:00:19.480 --> 2:00:23.640 know over the wholer thing, but risk of wild like 2:00:23.760 --> 2:00:26.080 well the same thing with Bruce Lowis. And and they 2:00:26.080 --> 2:00:31.160 don't want like shooting animals prevent disease transmission to livestock. Yeah, 2:00:31.160 --> 2:00:35.240 they they've actually, I mean that's what they've again found out, 2:00:35.320 --> 2:00:39.360 is that they're you were talking about the map of 2:00:39.480 --> 2:00:42.760 how much non supplemental feeding of cattle and how much 2:00:42.880 --> 2:00:45.400 land there is. Well it's even worse than South Africa. 2:00:45.480 --> 2:00:48.400 I mean there's most of the land is really pretty 2:00:48.400 --> 2:00:51.840 poor agricultural land. So there is that argument that at 2:00:51.920 --> 2:00:55.160 least the wildlife is adapted to the land and we 2:00:55.200 --> 2:00:56.720 can make some money off of that, and then we 2:00:56.720 --> 2:00:58.640 can we don't have I don't know what else should 2:00:58.680 --> 2:01:01.280 do with the land over there, but you know, you 2:01:01.400 --> 2:01:06.960 can you know it it just becomes you're chasing your 2:01:06.960 --> 2:01:09.240 own to your dog chasing its tail. I don't know, 2:01:09.880 --> 2:01:14.720 I mean, I I you know it these public I mean, 2:01:15.640 --> 2:01:17.120 you know the fact that these guys are going to 2:01:17.360 --> 2:01:22.320 auctions and spending two million dollars for a buffalo to 2:01:22.320 --> 2:01:28.160 to put into their breeding stock because I think the 2:01:28.240 --> 2:01:30.200 genes are gonna be there's no guarantee the genes are 2:01:30.200 --> 2:01:34.600 gonna do anything. Yeah, you have a real concluding thoughts 2:01:34.720 --> 2:01:38.640 every hunting small games over there for years. Yeah. Yeah, 2:01:38.680 --> 2:01:43.600 Franklin Franklin grouse. Um, that's like kind of like that's 2:01:43.640 --> 2:01:46.880 like the quintessential small game. Right, everybody goes like almost 2:01:46.880 --> 2:01:50.160 everybody's like hunting Franklin, right, or sand grouse, sand grouser, 2:01:50.680 --> 2:01:54.360 sand grouser. Tough. Band grounds are tough there, I mean 2:01:54.360 --> 2:01:57.080 they are. They just the Usually they usually wait until 2:01:57.120 --> 2:02:00.520 like about ten minutes after sunset to come to the 2:02:00.520 --> 2:02:03.840 water hole, you know, and they're just streaking in there. 2:02:05.080 --> 2:02:06.960 And that's you know, they're just harder hell to kill. 2:02:07.320 --> 2:02:09.680 Throwing another one, Yohnie. That's why as you get all 2:02:09.720 --> 2:02:11.240 this out of asistance, they feel like you weren't waste 2:02:11.240 --> 2:02:15.800 your time here. Oh I don't handle you're shooting handloads. 2:02:16.320 --> 2:02:22.680 He likes three squirrels. Yeah, I wounded squirrels, but not 2:02:22.720 --> 2:02:26.920 in Africa. He likes to about squirrels. I like I 2:02:26.960 --> 2:02:28.240 like it. I like it when you put the they 2:02:28.240 --> 2:02:30.040 put the they put the stick up in the tree 2:02:30.040 --> 2:02:35.240 and they twisted, twisting, twisting, the twisting the squail out 2:02:35.240 --> 2:02:39.560 of the tree. Yeah, a wounded one. Yeah, all those 2:02:39.560 --> 2:02:43.320 are the worst coum You're good. No, No, I can 2:02:43.440 --> 2:02:45.720 come up with plenty. So you never were in a 2:02:45.800 --> 2:02:49.320 dangerous position with a kate buffalo? How about any other animal? 2:02:49.640 --> 2:02:54.400 Did you ever? We ever? Were you ever actually thinking? Yeah, 2:02:54.480 --> 2:02:57.240 wild boar? While yeah, it was that was the the 2:02:57.280 --> 2:02:59.280 only I think out and out charge I ever saw 2:02:59.320 --> 2:03:00.560 it. It It kind of very it off for me and 2:03:00.600 --> 2:03:03.440 went towards this other guy was actually a wild boar, 2:03:03.560 --> 2:03:07.240 which is the least you know all that crazy ship 2:03:07.360 --> 2:03:09.520 that's a wild boar. Yeah, well that you never know. 2:03:09.800 --> 2:03:11.640 That's the one that you know. You never hear the 2:03:11.680 --> 2:03:14.760 bullet that kills you right well, you know, Capstick said, 2:03:14.880 --> 2:03:17.480 what was it? A dangerous thing he ever encountered? Was 2:03:17.560 --> 2:03:23.480 the woman on the malaria drugs? Right? Pet my friend Pete? 2:03:23.960 --> 2:03:25.720 Is that the name of the story. No, no, no, 2:03:25.720 --> 2:03:28.920 I can't. Pete was a friend of one and and 2:03:28.920 --> 2:03:31.760 and and God love him. He was a wonderful rock 2:03:31.840 --> 2:03:38.560 on tour. Yeah, you talk about malarious pills too. Yeah. Yeah, 2:03:38.600 --> 2:03:40.640 but there's a well, oh no, that's a hilarium I 2:03:40.680 --> 2:03:43.560 think is the It's a great psychedelic drug to take 2:03:43.680 --> 2:03:46.240 when you're sleeping because you get these like just full 2:03:46.280 --> 2:03:49.080 blown dreams. Dude, I just screak. I could see take 2:03:49.160 --> 2:03:50.600 I could see when I'm on that, I could see 2:03:50.640 --> 2:03:52.760 waking up and like realizing that you're sucking on the 2:03:52.800 --> 2:03:55.920 end of a pistol. It's that it's that bad for 2:03:56.000 --> 2:03:59.800 my brain. You've had you've had larium problems, yeah, yeah, 2:04:00.160 --> 2:04:03.720 Like yeah, well, I'm like, I'll take the malaria. Yeah, 2:04:03.760 --> 2:04:06.200 I know, I have to choose between that drug and 2:04:06.240 --> 2:04:09.280 that disease. I'll take the disease, you know. And yeah, 2:04:09.280 --> 2:04:11.800 I know it's it's it's it's bad stuff for some people, 2:04:11.960 --> 2:04:15.680 really bad stuff for some people. But yeah, all right, man, 2:04:16.240 --> 2:04:21.200 all right, August and Africa, thank you so much. I'm 2:04:21.240 --> 2:04:23.760 I'm guessing people can buy this book on Amazon. The 2:04:23.800 --> 2:04:27.520 other book, Mother my novella, is The snow Leopards Tail 2:04:28.320 --> 2:04:34.080 that's also available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all all 2:04:34.160 --> 2:04:41.560 your finer uh you know, online outlets. Yeah, if you're 2:04:41.640 --> 2:04:46.520 curious you hate African hunting, if you love it, if 2:04:46.520 --> 2:04:50.720 you might want to go, it'll it'll inform your perspectives 2:04:51.400 --> 2:04:55.200 in a non manipulative way. Um, thanks for joining us MAN. 2:04:55.200 --> 2:04:57.080 I appreciate it. Thank you so much. I appreciate the 2:04:57.160 --> 2:04:57.720 opportunity