#470: Steven Rinella on Hunting (And Why You Should Care), Reconnecting with Nature, Favorite Trips, and More

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No Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job always to deconstruct world class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, whatever. that you can test and apply in your own lives. My guest today I'm very excited to have on finally Steven Ranella, R-I-N-E-L A. You can find him on Instagram at Meat Eater, also at Steven Renella, Steven with a V. He is the host of the Netflix original series Meat Eater and the Meat Eater Podcast. He's also the author of seven books dealing with wildlife conservation, hunting, fishing, and wild foods, including a forthcoming book.

the Meat Eater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival coming out December first, twenty twenty. You can find all things meet eater on themeater.com. And he can also find Steven on Facebook at Steven Ranella Meet Eater Steve. So nice to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. That was a good delivery there, man. Okay.

That was A grade hosting. Well you know we We met, I was trying to do the math on it. And I'm guessing I want you to correct me if I'm wrong, but I wanna say maybe uh mid to late

Two thousand eleven. And I was trying to do a trip down memory lane. It's almost 10 years. Since we first met, which is just bonkers. And I promised that if I screwed up the intro, I would not make you suffer through twenty retakes and that I would fix any flubs later.

But it seems like lifetimes ago. That we first met in the context of the four hour chef and I thought Perhaps a trip down Memory lane.

at least as I've been doing prep for this, there's been quite a bit of that could be fun for setting the stage because There's certainly going to be some listeners of this podcast who have hunted, and there are going to be many, many who have not. And I wanted to read just a tiny little piece from The first chapter I had someone on my team poll everywhere you appeared in the four hour shaft. It was like a quarter of the book. So I only dug into a few pieces, but there's a chapter called The Anti Hunter's First Hunt. The Anti Hunter referring to me because I grew up on Long Island having very bad associations with the hunters who did a very poor job. In my

neighborhood and around my house where I grew up, but uh you are the counterpoint. So I wanted to set the stage. I'm gonna skip things a little bit, but the heading is six a.m South Carolina, and then I'll skip down Steve Renilla's tutelage in all things hunting was encyclopedic. My six a.m brain struggled to absorb a motley assortment of miscellaneous. Point. Deer are classified as crepuscular. In simple terms, they move mostly at dawn and at dusk point. Keefer Sutherland was once swindled in a cattle rustling Ponze scheme. Point. If Steve could only eat one meat for the rest of his life. Let me know if this has changed a monthly 50 pound allotment of any wild or domesticated animal, it would absolutely be elk, specifically cow elk or young bull elk. Point the original version of The Joy of Cooking had instructions for how to fatten a trapped opossum with milk and cereals for 10 days before slaughtering and cooking it.

Point, the neck of a male deer in mating mode. In other words, a ruddy buck in quotation marks can double in size, making it look like a linebacker. Point skinning a rabbit is easier than taking off your socks. Grab the scruff and peel, pulling down towards the head. Eating rabbit requires caution though, as you can die from tularemia, an infectious disease named after Tulaire County in California. Steve is as down to earth. This won't go too terribly long, so bear with me. Steve is as down to earth as you would hope any good hunter to be, but he didn't fit my stereotype. For instance, he applies physics terms to skinning and most relevant to my food quest, as he put it, quote, There are far better chefs out there than me. There are far better hunters out there too, but there aren't

Many who can combine the two like I do. He is a master of turning the wild into quote ingredients people recognize. Now I'm gonna need some French help. In 2004, he prepared a three day 45 course. So let that sink in for people, a three day 45 course banquet from Escoffier's landmark nineteen oh three classic. Is it la guide culinaire? How do you I have no idea how to say that properly. I say the culinary guide.

The Culinary Guide. All right. And then the last the last paragraph I'll read here is by prepare, I mean that he forged, killed, and otherwise procured every ingredient from the outdoors, then recreated the feast himself, which took more than a week. This experiment was chronicled in his first book. Now here's another French word. The Scavenger's Guide to Hot Cuisine, H A U T E. I've been well trained in this one. And still every time you do it you'll get corrected. Oh.

Haute. Okay. No, I'm scavengers. Out. Out. Out. Oh, I see. Without the H. All right. Scavenger's Guide to Out Cuisine. There you go. That was great that was great, man. That was better than I did. Thank you. You know, you know, I've been I've been working on my French on the side. He started trapping for income in rural Michigan when he was 10, now 38. That's of course changed. He writes for a living, and his work is as likely to be seen in the New York Times as in Field and Stream. So I wanted to set the stage because I think a lot of people in their minds, as soon as I mention Hunting or anything else. We'll have

An image pop up. And I don't think that image matches You. All that well. The at least the kind of

stereotypical image that will pop up for non hunters. When I was younger, I think it would have matched me perfectly well, man. Mm. Say more. So I grew up in Michigan, but across the lake, you know, not terribly far away.

Set state of Wisconsin. My good friend Pat Durkin in Wisconsin had once said something along the lines of You know, where he lived at If you weren't a deer hunter. You at least slept with one.

Ha ha. Yeah. There wasn't a ton of You know, there wasn't a ton of self reflection at the time. And also

raised up by a a generation that hadn't been invited into and cultivated any kind of real conservation ethic, and there was a bit of a Get what's yours while you can get it. Mentality. That I grew up on. But I I don't want to derail you, I just you know, I I just get a little bit maybe we'll touch on this later. Oh there's no railway.

I often get accused of being Um Somehow different Then Hunters.

Or different than normal hunters, or different than what you'd expect as a hunter. And man, like I feel like I'm a lot like the people that I spend a lot of time with. I'm a lot like a lot of the people that I spent a lot of time with. Let's dig into it. So for instance, in an interview that I read and prep for this. You self described as a hunter conservationist, right? Hyphenated. And

I want to talk about that and I guess by introing you the way that I did what I wanted to point out and I'll just personalize this is that You know, growing up My exposure to hunters was very limited. It was limited to Seeing wounded deer with like arrows.

Like stuck in them on my property. Um my parents property because people were A trespassing B just not doing a very good job of hunting, understanding that you're not gonna have perfect shots all the time, but they're like beer cans everywhere and it just wasn't a positive association. Sure. Now in in in contrast though, at least

If we look at I guess at the time. Thirty eight year old. Steve, who I went to South Carolina with for my first hunt. the experience and the explanation and the care and the attention to detail was something that I never would have associated.

With hunting growing up. I suppose all I'm trying to do is Largely an imaginary figure in my head based on a few bits of

exposure as a kid and then my experience with you, which were very, very, very different. And that's not to say that most hunters are what I experienced as a kid and not what you are, but Uh let's dig into it. Like why do you call yourself if you still do or identify as a hunter conservationist? Oh, I I absolutely do. Even sitting where I'm at today, so th the you know, you you're reading from when you're thirty eight, I'm forty six. Even sitting from where I am today.

When I look back at What our relationship W when I say our My family's

The people I was around. What our relationship was with Nature in the out of doors. was very much based on A deep, deep love and appreciation.

for Resources. for wild places for nature. It was almost like We would have never have put these words to it. But

It was a sacred thing. And it was almost like a sort of worship. For Animals. In a worship of wild places.

But The perspective on it. I didn't know the history. Of how things came to be the way they were. We had a lot of

National Forest. around us. We were sort of on the southern terminus of the Manistee National Forest. I think now it's the Huron Manistee National Forest. It was combined with another national forest. We were sitting at the southern terminus of that. National Forest. I couldn't have told you the first thing about

How that What sacrifices were made in our history to have the abundant wildlife that we had? I couldn't have told you how bad things had gotten. in this country in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, uh with regards to wildlife.

If there was a sign On that national forest that said close to vehicular traffic. If it wasn't physically blocked. That would that sign wouldn't really mean much to us. If it looked like somebody else drove there. We would drive there as well.

I at times When faced with like an abundant surplus of things, sold things for money. That sold wild game for money, knowing you weren't really supposed to do that with some species that we would sell. But it was a thing that

people around you did, you didn't really know that it was wrong. At the same time we would see behaviors that we recognized as Abhorrent. Things that would probably Blow away.

Any negatives that you might have seen growing up. I've probably seen worse behaviors from hunters and anglers than you have. So I always lived with a Even if from my perspective right now we had some poor behaviors, some ill thought behaviors, I always recognize the spectrum.

of bad behavior and there were things that would happen around us that my father would be incensed about And would like dissociate. with people who had extraordinarily bad behavior. And if you look at that

sense of there being a spectrum of ethics or a spectrum of a conservation ethos. throughout life with education and with like various epiphanies that come with just learning how to think. And having exposure to books and ideas. Scientists, biologists, ecologists. Philosophers, whatever.

It's become more fine tuned and I now have a very A cute Sense.

Of what it takes to have wildlife in wild places. I have a good understanding of that now. I understand our history now. And that has led me to like an extraordinary amount of Reflection. over the years about what role a hunter or an angler

should play. when it comes to environmental stewardship and hunting. So I associate as a conservationist because I try to really put My money and actions where my mouth is. on conservation, meaning Clean air, clean water, lots of animals, lots of wildlife habitat. Those are things I stand for.

And I see that that is a thing that's increasing among my kind. But It's a little tough for me to think of myself as somehow extraordinary because I see Many, many people go down the same path.

That I did. A long exposure to this. seems to lead in this direction for most people. For people who not only have no exposure to hunting themselves, but who have no real familiarity with how hunting works in the US from an economic

perspective the ecosystem, not necessarily the natural ecosystem, but sort of the fiscal ecosystem. I was reading an article. And You seem to comment on

the decline in hunting and fishing license sales is worrisome. Could you expand on that? Or speak to that. I'd love to give people an idea of the other. How funding works. Yeah. Exactly. I would love to. This is something that there's a catch twenty two almost within this. But yeah, I I'd love to talk about that. So

I know you you have a global audience. I'm gonna run down how it works in the United States. I can claim subject matter expertise in the US and I have a passing familiarity with other places, but I'm gonna focus on the US. US has fifty states, right? So All fifty states have a State.

Fish and game agency. And your state fish and game agencies. Are responsible for the stords Of wildlife.

in your state. There are exceptions to this because migratory birds and some migratory fishes and things. Where w an animal isn't gonna live its entire life sort of in one

in in the confines of a particular state. Then you'll have federal oversight. Over what happens in a state. Like there's sort of a some federal guidelines about how a state might handle its na its wildlife resources.

There's other exceptions too when you get an endangered species act. And and things like that. But generally you could say that The people in a state own the wildlife in that state. So if you're sitting in New York.

And you see uh uh a deer. You As a New Yorker. Own that deer. That deer is

managed for you by your state agency. So it doesn't matter what that deer is sitting in a cemetery. If it jumps a fence into a county park, if it jumps a fence onto a farm. It jumps a fence into a national forest. That deer is the states, meaning it's yours. These agencies manage

Wildlife in terms of Access to it. Oftentimes states manage like boat launches and and trailheads on state lands and things, but they also do disease work on wildlife. So they do re you know, researching diseases.

Wildlife management, enforcement of wildlife laws. So if someone's poaching, that's a state issue, and that all comes from your state fish and game agency. Some state fish and game agencies get No hard funding. When you pay your taxes in your state. In a lot of states, none of your general tax money goes to your state fishing game agency. The bulk of state fish and game agencies finances come from the sale of

Licenses, tags, and stamps. Hunting licenses, fishing licenses, permits, tags, all the stuff that goes with hunting and fishing. And another major funding source. For state fishing game agencies. Is excise taxes. Um

Firearms, ammunition, very use specific sporting goods items. Marine gas, fishing tackle, fishing line. These exes, which can be like on guns and ammo, these exe taxes. committed around, you know. Eleven or twelve percent.

So when you go down and buy even if some person that lives in New York City goes down and buy and they have a concealed carry permit, say And they go down and buy some ammo for a concealed carry permit. About eleven or twelve of the cost they pay on that ammo goes to fund wildlife.

And that's how we pay for this whole system. There are complexities to it, but that's how we pay for it. A fear about Declining hunting and angling numbers. You know, angry numbers this is.

Since COVID they're seeing a pretty strong uptick in fishing numbers. with people. Like I think people weren't able to go do what they would normally do. They like, Oh, fuck it, I'll go fishing. You know? And and we're seeing a fair bit of that. Whether or not they'll be fishing in two years is Not known.

A fear about declining hunter numbers. And i I'll tell you an interesting point. There I think uh There are about as many hunters right now. As there were in the years following World War Two. And they were low after World War Two.

Well, that was the peak in terms of per capita. All those dudes this actually plays into my uh I gotta remember where I was at, but this actually plays into my own sort of genesis, right? Is m my dad my dad had me he was old. My dad had had me when he was fifty. He fought World War Two. And When he came home from World War Two, he, like just about every other guy

that went off and fought World War Two, got into hunting and fishing. It was sort of the That era of the late forties, early nineteen fifties. That was the birth of the modern American sportsman. People had money. They were buying cars, they were traveling around.

There was this we we were fetishizing the great outdoors. And my dad was part of that generation. But I'm saying hunting participation was so high then I don't know like I guess you could look up real quick. what the US population was in nineteen forty seven, say. But or nineteen fifty.

But you know, I think we've quadrupled our population, but we had about as many hunters then as we have now. So participation rates decline in many cases. Numbers of people who hunt decline. And uh long term fear, besides whatever that might mean for like a disassociation with nature and a disassociation with wildlife.

It has funding implications. Because states, even if you hate hunters and anglers, you can't get around the fact that hunters and anglers fund Your state's wildlife apparatus. If people aren't doing those activities anymore. Those funding structures fall apart.

What are some of the components of the wildlife apparatus? Like what are for somebody let's just say someone says, Hey, I don't care about hunting. So why should I care about this? What are some components of cheeses. Exactly. I'll give you a great for instance. Anyone who hunts ducks. Anyone in this country who hunts ducks, any kind of waterfowl, migratory waterfowl. Ducks, geese, cranes, whatever. Besides buying your state

license state hunting license. You usually need like a base hunting license. You need a state waterfowl permit. You need to go buy a federal Duck stamp. And for years the federal duct stamp had been fifteen bucks. It just raised up It raised up into the twenties.

All of that money. from all of those millions of individuals buying those federal duct stamps, all of that money goes into fund. Waterfowl habitat. Meaning it goes into Wetlands work.

Anytime if you have a bear in your yard, or say you realize that you have a bear in your yard getting in your garbage. When you call a number, that's gonna be someone from your wildlife agency who's gonna show up. That wildlife agency individual Will show up. And when they show up, their salary, equipment, everything, like their agency is funded. by expenditures from hunters and anglers.

So A fear is that. If hunter numbers go down. Our ability to fund habitat work. Like habitat improvement.

Habitat expansion. Habitat acquisition. Wildlife work. Disease work. reintroducing species that were extirpated from the landscape.

That a lot of that work will lose its funding structure and will go away. Can you define extirpate for people who are not familiar with that word? Yeah. It's a great word. I I also want to get into the catch twenty two of this all. But yeah, extirpate is people are familiar with extinction, right? Extirpation is regional extinction. Meaning

Grizzly bears. Are Abundant. Grizzly bears are recovered. And

Portions of Wyoming. Okay. Wolves are recovered. In portions of Wyoming.

Wolves have been extirpated from the bulk of their range in the US. Grizzly bears were extirpated from California. They're not extinct. But they're regionally extinct. So you could say that they were extirpated like Brought to regional extinction in California. There's a ongoing bit of effort. Much of it funded by hunters, for instance.

Around Reintroducing species that were extirpated through habitat destruction and over harvest. For instance, at a time New Mexico had literally run out of elk.

They had none. Now they have Thriving populations of elk and elk hunting seasons, you know, across the bulk of the state. But still, with as many elk as we have.

As much as we associate elk hunting and seeing elk Oak are still missing from some ninety percent of their historic range. Everywhere was Elk Habitat. And they're they're they've been extirpated, they're gone from those places. Some of the work that's done by state agencies and other like

wildlife groups, many of them hunter based wildlife groups. is doing as much as we can. to put those animals back where they belong. If you think just like if you look at it in terms of the turkey. At the time of European contact.

We had wild turkeys and probably thirty nine states. There's some debate about where they were. And it wasn't static, right? Like the wildlife's dynamic, you know, it expands its range, its range shrinks. We probably had turkeys in thirty nine states. By the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds. We only had wild turkeys in

nineteen states. They vanished from ten. Only a couple of states maintained any sort of turkey season. Most states it was illegal to touch a turkey. We now have Turkey. hunting seasons in forty nine states.

So they did recovery and then some. On turkeys. And that was driven by hunters. And you could like and someone could sit and say, like Yeah, you guys did that because you like to hunt turkeys. And I would say Yeah.

A lot of truth to that. Um there's a lot of truth to that. There's an incentive to do it. But it was done. You know?

And this is the sort of work that would go down. Th that you would lose if you lost that funding mechanism. Now the catch twenty two Is that And this is this is legitimate.

The catch twenty two is that If hunter numbers go down It's great for any individual hunter who has less competition. You could live in a world where you're the only guy that went out and hunted, you'd have it. A pretty sweet situation.

As long as you had public approval and didn't lose in the legislative process and Cunning got banned everywhere. Which would probably happen pretty quickly if you were the only guy up to it. 'Cause there wouldn't be a lot of people there, like, guarding the gate.

Right. So That's the catch twenty two. Like that's the hard part of this. Some people find it deeply offensive.

Well intentioned, well reasoned people. find it deeply offensive that you would want to expand hunter numbers. Like, what are you talking about? Why would you do that? It'd be like when I was in I think when I was in eighth or ninth grade, I had a Civics teacher. Uh no, he was in high school. I had a civics teacher.

Who was supposed to help all of us kids get registered to vote. And he was like, Why would I want you people to register to vote? Why would I want to dilute my vote? Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show.

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just visit linkedin.com slash Tim, all caps T I M. Again, that's LinkedIn.com slash Tim to get fifty dollars off of your first job post. Terms and conditions apply. If we look at the Different extirpated species in portions of the United States, that whole spectrum. Are hunters

ninety nine percent or a hundred percent focused on reintroducing Basically target prey. species or are they also involved in reintroducing species. I'm not saying necessarily, but you mentioned the grizzly or or other carnivores who would compete with them for the game that they Hope to

Capture themselves. Yeah, that's where it gets pretty tricky, man. I would like to tell you. Oh. I would love to tell you.

That my uh My hunting compatriots were as supportive of Efforts to recover Non game.

Species. as they were game species. But That's not true. Yeah.

Yeah. When you look at the habitat work, you'll find that we have these terms we use like capstone, keystone species, okay. And when you look at organizations that do habitat work, They would tell you, and they're right in telling you this.

That there is a Massive trickle down effect. For instance. Let's look at the work work by Two groups like Darks Unlimited.

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. We'll do three. Ducks Unlimited. Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Wild Turkey Federation. Okay. No. You listen to those names. We'll throw a fishing one and two and say Trout Unlimited, right?

You look at those names. These are like species specific. conservation groups. And their constituencies are Hunters and anglers. I'm sure there's probably some person that belongs to National Wild Turkey I I'm like a lifetime member of National Wild Turkey Federation.

I'm sure there's people belonging to National Wild Turkey Federation that don't Hunt turkeys, but in the words of Pat Dirkin, I bet they sleep with someone that does. Right. Mm-hmm. What their work winds up focusing on.

Is It's not so much that you're managing The animals Though that happened at a time. At a time like wildlife work in this country was

really was focused pretty heavily on moving animals around. Okay. Putting them back in places. That's become complicated for a variety of things, including disease transmission and and other issues, just like red tape issues, bureaucratic issues, disease transmission issues that make You can't just willy nilly truck animals around the country, dumping'em out where you wish they were.

Anymore. It's tough. These organizations now mostly focus on habitat work. Oftentimes Their primary thing is simply buying and protecting habitat. When you get into something like Keystone species, let's say your duck's unlimited.

And you take money. And you buy wetlands. Okay. You're looking for pristine Impered Wetland habitats.

And buy'em. Often through like a willing seller, willing buyer. transaction, which is one of the things also one of the things Rocky Mountain Elder Foundation does and Turkey Federation. These places all often do the same playbook. They get grants, they raise money from Donors. They do fundraisers.

And a big part of their work is they identify Keystone habitats for like you know, and you hear like Keystone species. So it's a thing that they want. It's a thing they like. And by securing habitat for that animal, you're securing habitat for everything Yeah.

that that lives there. Restoring natural ecosystems. In the West, for instance. One of the more imperiled ecotypes in the West is like large riparian areas. elk winter in these large riparian areas, meaning they go down along the main rivers. Okay.

They go down into big river valleys. To get out of the elevation, get out of the snow. Get into good grasslands and eat. If you want to help, el It used to be the best way to help Elk was

Tranquilizing them, lifting them up with a helicopter and moving'em over a couple of mountain ranges and letting them back go again. Now we recognize like the way to help Elk. is to look at like where is the bottleneck in their well being. And the bottleneck and their well being is often riparian habitat areas. So we're gonna go And preserve, protect

as much riparian habitat as we can. Who else uses riparian habitat and who else likes the a lot of elk? Well Wolves like it in the winter. Wolves need a lot of elk. So by helping Elk

Through improving their habitat and protecting their habitat. You're helping everything on the landscape. From songbirds. to insects, pollinators. Raptors.

You're helping everything. People definitely recognize this. when they participate in these activities. But The motivation

is that people like elk. They like to hunt elk and they want a shitload of elk. And you can critique their motivation all you want, but then you can't really You have to then look at like what is the sum thing. The sum part of it is that. A group like Rocky Mountain Oak Foundation or National Wild Turkey Federation. Right.

They have Every year they add Two the net amount of pristine wildlife habitat That exists in this country.

And You you cannot say the same thing. About Peter. You can't say it.

When it really comes down to really Saving animals. That's saving habitat. The animals you give'em the right place, the animals for the most part take care of themselves. And that's what's being done by hunters and anglers.

I suppose that would and you know so much more about this, but that would be in some respect conditional upon letting the full spectrum of species. flourish that are supported by this Preservation. or conservation of habitat for, say, the elk.

During winter periods, right. So Yeah, I forgot I forgot that part. Yeah. There's a lot of things. There's a tremendous amount of animosity. There's a tremendous amount of animosity toward wolves among in in the hunting community. It's definitely not across the board. I know a lot of hunters Then Really like to see wolves and welcome wolves on the landscape. But yeah. I should clarify. That

When it comes to I'm speaking very generally here. Okay, I'm speaking very generally. I would say In general. Let me put it this way. Let's take a state that doesn't even have wolves.

I would say that if someone proposed Reintroducing wolves. In Missouri. They would get An enormous amount of pushback.

From De your honors. When someone decided to Do reintroduction work in portions of Missouri on turkeys.

I do not think They would have gotten any pushback. From honors. So yeah, w people like all predators I look at it a little bit like this.

You know. When a coyote runs into a red fox, he likes to kill it. When a wolf runs into a coyote. He likes to kill it. Uh

Predators tend to want to reduce their Competition. And I think that you could say that about hunters in general, though there are many, many, many exceptions. I know some very avid hunters.

Lifelong, very avid hunters. Who really welcome Wolves. as wolves expand their range every year, welcome wolves back on the landscape. And even within those people that welcome back on the landscape.

You'll find differences. There's a push right now. There's a there's like a referendum vote in Colorado. Coming right up. To sort of like mandate the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado.

A lot of people are uneasy with that. The reason they're uneasy with that is wolves are coming in naturally. drifting down from Wyoming. It's as nuanced as this. You'll have people say Why would we reintroduce'em when they're showing up at their own pace through natural migration. And that's like a pretty nuanced perspective, right? I welcome them walking in. I don't welcome them flying in.

So it's hard to draw these sort of like real hard and fast rules about people's attitudes about it. And there's a real contradiction like a like a funny part of this I like to point out to people. Alaska still has wolves and grizzlies, you know, I don't know across ninety nine or ninety five percent of their historic range in Alaska. Alaska doesn't have large They don't have large land mammals on the Endangered Species Act.

Right. They've maintained all their stuff. Uh Wolves everywhere you go. You there's a likelihood of running into wolves.

You're gonna run into Grizzlies. Yet American hunters All dream. Of going up to hunt in Alaska. And you always want to point out, like, are you sure? I y you hate wolves. That place is full of wolves. There must not be any game in Alaska. How could there be game in Alaska? They have wolves.

And you would think with some people that wolves coming back into certain areas would mean the sure death. of all ungulates that live there. And I think that's an exaggeration, but wolves don't eat granola bars either. You know? They eat seven pounds of meat a day. Seven pounds of meat a day. They're alive three hundred and sixty five days a year.

They kill a lot of shit. And to say like how hunters think about it is really tough, man, because It's The full array of thoughts. But I'll say this.

We don't like those wolves as much as we like those elk. And that's that I can promise you is true. Yeah the the wolf. conversation. I remember somebody put it to me as A wolf.

Well, wolves in general are the middle east of conservation. So if you he said if you want really, really Strong emotions. and a lot of polarity, then that is the right place to focus. There's a really good piece in the New Yorker. There's a profile. On uh

I think it's Karen Vardeman called The Persuasive Power of the Wolf Lady, which is about a go-between between these these two polar extremes. And you actually had Uh I had a uh someone named Mike Phillips. I don't know if if you know that name, who's who's in Montana, but was involved with the Yellowstone Wolf. Reintroduction. No, yeah, yeah. And You had a scientist also on your podcast. Diane Boy

That was outstanding. That was a that was a really Really, really Dense. And also entertaining. episode. So for people who want to to dig into that. I think Dave Meach, is that another am I getting that right? M E C H. I'm not not thinking I'm pronouncing that correctly. He's also somebody if people want to learn more about this, he's another person who who focuses quite heavily on the

The wolf component. Yeah, Colorado is faced with a very similar situation that is what Montana was faced with. when they did a reintroduction in you know, essentially in Wyoming, you know, in Yellowstone National Park. Is that There were animals. Coming in naturally.

There were animals coming in naturally from Canada. We would have landed eventually where In the future from today. We would have landed where we are now. without doing the reintroduction. And and some people Would say the same thing about Colorado.

They're headed that direction. There are wolves showing up. It used to be like a rumor. It was debated. It's just an absolute fact now, like there are wolves in Colorado. Uh And some people Prefer that

because the social tensions become lower. There's a thing that can happen with animals. You might call it the spotted owl effecation. of certain species where when conservation becomes so partisan and so political, oftentimes An animosity toward the animal develops.

Because the animal becomes emblematic of what some people might View as federal overreach, right? And like something being shoved down their throats. And so politically And culturally.

It seems that it's a little safer to let things happen gradually and naturally. Than it is to force your hand. By politicizing

Biology. It seems super. Super tricky, right? Because you have So many subtleties here. And like you said, whether it's face masks or

spotted owl or wolves, once things become politically associated. Whether by Just circumstance and momentum or by some kind of engineering on one side or both sides.

For voting purposes. It complicates matters a lot. And then I would also interesting that you m that you I love that The the mention of face masks. Where yeah. You're right.

We're not talking about face masks. Yeah. We're not going to be able to do it. It's like we're not actually talking about the thing on your face. We're talking about like this whole set of ideas associated with the thing, right? Yeah, that's a good point. Exactly. Exactly. And humans are motivated, right? So you you really have to take into consideration the motivations of whoever is speaking, whether they are hunters, non hunters, or Anyone with incentives in the world, right? And because there are people who would say, and we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but that wolves were so forcefully

removed. Um I don't want to apply the word artificial, but they were certainly with overwhelming sort of show of force and poison. With yeah they were removed with intent. Yeah, with intent. With like poisoning. Specific stated intent. Elk. Yeah. Not with a They were removed.

Not with specific intent. No one said out to be like, I would like to remove elk from the landscape. It just happened. Right. But yeah, wolves are like, No, there was a plan. There was a bounty, there was poison, there was a plan. And the plan worked. Too well. Yeah.

Yeah. So If anybody wants to wait into the Middle East of conservation, that's a good place to do it. Uh friendships end over wolves, man. Yeah. It is a tense conversation for a lot of folks. You mentioned Alaska. I want to talk about Alaska and I I I want to give a slice of life uh mini profile of Steve Ranella.

So this this is gonna be another flashback moment. And for those interested, we this is captured on footage. But I'm not sure all of it is captured. So You and I traveled. Up to Alaska at one point.

And ended up Fair to say, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I mean, one of the most remote points. In North America got grounded for weather for a while and uh it was just an incredible adventure. And

We had at one point, actually m at more than one point, but at least at one point on camera, we had a grisly A barren ground grizzly, which you could explain, run into our camp. And The reason I bring up that Is

A That was something I'd never experienced before. And uh I and other members of the film crew were like Yeah. Steve, what do we do? Steve, what do we do? And this

Bear was Running. around this body of water straight towards camp. And I don't know how far away it was. Let's call it half mile. You can correct me, but let's just say a half mile, which is not very far. And Meanwhile

You had just gotten out of your tent. This is the part that I don't know if it's on camera or not. You just gotten out of your tent. And I don't know if you remember this. A bunch of mosquito repellent had spilled in your tent. Hundred percent deep had spilled and eaten a hole through the floor of my tent and warped my phone case and ruined my phone. So So you get up and you're like, God damn it, ate a whole three by ten.

And that's the stuff we wear on our skin. Right. So you are so you're just like stamping around furious. Cursing. Uh while this bear is is running around this body of water and uh everyone's like Steve Um Steve, what do you want to do here, Steve? Say Steve, and you're like, God damn it, motherfucker so angry. And eventually they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you like grab a shotgun and shoot in the air and wave your hands and

Spook this bear. Which It was a pretty large grizzly bear. You could speak to it at least. from my perspective, certainly a lot bigger than my dog, uh, ran like quarter mile away kind of sat down and looked at us and just kind of waited. Uh but could you could you maybe add some color to that story? Because it certainly burned

And etched. the experience indelibly into my mind. But what are what are some of the details that I'm missing here? Yeah. You're right about the D. The bottle a hundred percent D. And man, it ruin it wanna ruin a lot of my stuff'cause it had given I had given it a lot of time to fester. spilled in the corner of my tent and leaked out of like it was a mess. In terms of the bear, yeah, so

I'll point this out. We've been talking about Grizzly bears. I mean we we've touched on grizzly bears in the lower forty eight. Anytime we use the word grizzly bear, if you asked a taxonomist, like a geneticist, They would tell you that Grizzly bears in the lower forty eight.

Brown what we call brown bears. Kodiak bears. Barren ground grizzlies up on the Arctic slope where we were up in the Brooks range. It's the it's all the same species, right? So they have big differences.

physiological differences. They look different. They act different in these different places, but it's just different you know, kinda like manifestations of the same animal. And and one of the things that these barren ground grizzlies up there Uh uh you know, bears in the interior. A thing they're known for is they have these enormous home ranges. A brown bear.

Let's say a Kodiak brown bear. Everybody's heard of that, like biggest bears in the world. Biggest you know Brown bears in the world. They might have a very, very small home range. They eat a lot of salmon, they live in a resource rich environment.

They got their spot and they they stay there and and defend it against other boars. But up in these areas. Uh Y you have It's it's

I hate to say so, I don't want people to take it the wrong way. Up in the like the Arctic slope and in the Brooks range, it's a it's a resource poor area. It looks Amazing. It's gorgeous. When you're out in front of a migrating herd of caribou, it looks like the land is like crawling with animals.

But the thing is you could sit there. At times of the year, you could sit there for months and nothing will come by. And so A big animal like that. Just covers ground.

And they need to be extraordinarily opportunistic. They're gonna be eating primarily probably the bulk of that animal's diet is gonna be vegetation. Barry's Roots. But they're just on the move all the time because they're always out looking for like that big windfall.

A big hit, like a big protein hit. And so they cover ground, then they have an amazing nose on'em. I one time was carrybo hunting in a different area. East of Where you and I were. And we had gone three miles up a tributary to a river.

And Killed a caribou. And gutted it and hauled the meat back down to the main stem. That night we were sitting on the main branch of the river at the mouth of that tributary and watched a grizzly coming down. Digging up roots in the gravel bar.

And it got to the mouth of that tributary and you could see something strike its nose. To wear like a scent. And it stood up on its back legs. waved its nose in the air for a long time, spun around, did it again. And eventually ran Up that tributary.

And I didn't go check, but I I am certain, based on the wind patterns, that he smelled that gut pile from three miles away. And that's what they're out doing, man. They're covering ground. And so On that trip we were on, we had I don't at the time one or two Caribou.

on the ground. And there's no trees there. You know, it's it's a barren land, you know, a treeless environment. And the trees that are there are shrubby and doesn't do any good. Meaning You can't hang it up in a tree to keep it safe. So if you have a cache in meat, that you're trying to protect. The best thing is to put it where you can keep an eye on it. Like close to camp. If you move it away a mile, it's just gonna get, you know

consumed and you won't even know you won't be able to protect it, you won't even know that it happened. If you put it right in your camp, you're inviting stuff to come right in your camp. So you just kinda put it off where you can keep an eye on it. Seventy five yards away, hundred yards away, depending on what's going on. And this bear comes along. to claim that

Caribou. Uh he's probably done that a ton of times. He comes in And probably has in his life countless times fought off other bears to claim a dead caribou, fought off wolves to claim their caribou. Uh in that place, too, it's very likely that that animal had never had a direct experience with a human before. Sees aircraft, right? Whatever. Maybe smelled people somewhere, but probably never had direct experience. It just is knowing that it's cruising along and probably had miles away long before we knew it was there, had smelled that animal.

And was coming to get it. And then it gets there. And You present to it In a way that's

kind of like authoritatively saying This is already mine. This thing is claimed. You have no right to be here. Like that's what you're trying to

express to that animal. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. I got a lot of friends, you know, people lose stuff to those things all the time. But in that case, that little show of force, like I'm not afraid of you, uh this is my shit. It is not your shit. Worked and he It it ran off and then surprisingly didn't come back in the dark and try again. Yeah, well I remember going to bed that night.

And it was just like you know, we're in these skin thin single person tents. And uh I was saying to uh half blanket on his name, was it Nick? It was Nick who was Yeah, was Nick with us? Nick Brigdon? Yeah, Nick. Yeah, Nick was with us and I was like Well Hope you don't die tonight and he was like you too, man. Ha.

Oh yeah,'cause they can have a real attitude about Claiming stuff, man. You know, claim and a kill. And People get every year.

It's kind of amazing to think, you know, every year in the lower forty eight, you know Multiple people get killed most every year. From Grizzly bears. This is gonna sound callous, but you know

That that could happen is is like I hold that risk is kind of cool. I like it. Like I don't mind there being something Big and scary like that out there. In fact I drive a lot of emotional satisfaction from it. And this is beyond any sense that that I I don't like it when humans play God and decide to remove animals from the landscape. But just I I just I I like that. I feel more alive, better

More engaged. Happier. In places that have that full suite. Oh. Large

Predators, omnivores, you know. Out on the landscape. So I I relish those interactions. And I also am aware that, you know, at some point in time

I'm part of a Very high risk Group. around bears. And I don't think that something will happen to me, but I'm part of a high risk group. And it's like I'll feel lucky if I get out of life without having someone I'm very close to get mauled by a bear. Or killed in a small airplane crash.

You know, it's just like things I recognize as like those are re actual Those are actual real threats. Fixate on the wrong things. When they imagine danger. But

If you're spending lotta time hunting in these areas. That's not a fantasy. That you could get mixed up with a bear. It strikes me that if we're talking about, for instance, the Bear attacks.

Uh which are so visually memorable for anyone who's seen the Revenant, for instance. They're gonna they're gonna have a movie they can play in their mind of what a bear attack looks like. Where a small plane crash may just be off menu. They just don't have a a reference for it. That's great. We doubt we don't have one for hypothermia. Yeah, we don't have one hypothetical. But you know what? That's like

I'd be watching out for that. Yeah, it's not as cinematically compelling, but it it sure will kill you just as well. And are you more afraid because you you take a lot of small aircraft, I would imagine. I mean, certainly we did. We took these you know push planes. These are tiny, tiny aircraft, and you are not landing on a perfectly Manicured. Asphalt uh at all times. Right. And

Do you worry more about The aircraft or In this case bears, predators. The thing about the aircraft is like there's a sort of statistical bit of it, right? Like you can look

You go to a place like Alaska where it's like a it's a primary mode of transportation. Like in most places like having a private single engine plane is the a hobbyist, right? Or like a a flying enthusiast, you know, is oftentimes flying for the sake of flying. You're a place like Alaska and much of Canada. You know it's like That's like how you get around. Right.

Right. Um it's it's like how you do it. I remember uh was uh It was Ted Stevens in Alaska. I think it was to him. That it talked about An occupational hazard of

politics in that state was Small aircraft. Um and then died in one. But you can look at like hours, you know, like crashes per hour or whatever. So someone like me, no, I I don't have any real reason to worry about it. I have a brother who's a who's an ecologist.

In Alaska. And He spends a lot of time. in single engine aircraft. Lotta time and you know Fixed wing and

Helicopters. And yeah, man. You get to a point where All those people that that do that. They all know people.

Right. They all know people. that that's happened to. I'm to the point now where like you know, I've been in Planes. That I later knew Crashed.

Uh That's spooky. Yeah. But it's like for me it's just so minor. Like you know, I've you know some number of trips a year. But the people I know, like, especially people in the

And the fish and wildlife. Who do fish and wildlife work up there. I do worry, man. I do worry. Like my brother spends a lot of time in those things and I worry about that. But for me, if you're at least open to thinking statistically personally, I have no reason to be concerned. Well, for people who want to get a glimpse of Alaska. You could certainly read some amazing books like Coming Into the Country by John McFee. But if you want a visual

Sampler. I just pulled this up. I don't know if this is accurate because it's on IMDb. It could be. It says season three, episode one. Of Mediator. Is our episode. where uh we travel to the remotest corner of Alaska to catch the annual migration to the famed Western Arctic caribou herd. Can people find where can people find, if they can, these these older episodes.

You can find all the older episodes. If you go to ThheMe Eater dot com and you'll uh go there and you'll find you'll you'll find your avenue to all the older episodes. Okay, great. Yeah, it it looks like the episode is called True North. Alaska North Slope Caribou. Season three, episode one. We'll we'll put that in the show notes also, guys. Yeah, those are also they're they're also available and are broadcast by

Sportsman channel. You know, uh like outdoor channel and sportsman channel. But then You can also find'em by going to the meet eater dot com. They're not available on Netflix. We're gonna be doing some things. soon around distribution with some of our older material. But that's where you can find them right now.

Perfect. Let's move from Television to books and in this case books that are not yours, we can certainly spend more time on books that are yours. But I read that you recommend And I don't know how old this interview was.

A few books very commonly. Son of the Morning Star by Evan S. Connell, Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, and Boone by Daniel Morgan. Do you still or would you still recommend those? What's special about these books? Son of the morning star. Is About The events

leading up to and including The battle. That's the little big horn. Where Custer's last stand.

It's a great story. I mean it's just like a story that just makes its own gravy. It it's just incredible the brutality. And just Just weirdness. of that campaign, the culmination of Custer's involvement in that campaign. One of the things I love most about it.

Besides just like phenomenal reporting. Is The openness with which the author approaches how different people remember things. And

Reading it. You get a A a sense of how There are at any given time Yeah, and this is just so

applicable today. There are a hundred Truths. I don't mean one hundred like one zero zero. There are

As many truths as there are people. About what went on During something. And his exploration of People's accounts of what happened.

That day and the days surrounding it. Wuster died. And who did what and who was where and who thought what and Uh what was going on. It's

Just th the question marks that loom over that stuff are unbelievable. It's a great telling. It's a great piece about just like human memory, but also a phenomenal history of the American West and a phenomenal history of the Indian Wars. To say like what led up to The battle little big horn. You can approach that in a hundred ways, man. You can take a five hundred year approach, right? You could take a uh a a decade approach. You could take a week long approach and he kind of manages to sort of like cover off on all those ways to lead up to how in the world

Did A couple hundred US soldiers. Get wiped. Our

Killed off. by Plains Indians armed with antiquated firearms and bows and arrows. In one of the Sioux participants in the battle name Gaul in the amount of time that it takes a hungry man

To eat his dinner. Uh Yeah. It's just So bizarre.

Um It's just candy. Like it's it's history candy. And he's such a great he he's just great. I feel it like a Western literature masterpiece. Artic dreams. Um

is a work of natural history. Uh Arctic Dreams is a book about the Arctic. One of the most profound parts about it for me. Is that the author. Barry Lopez is very uneasy with hunting.

I would venture to say that Barry Lopez would probably not like me too much. But what would you what would he dislike about you? He's just very uneasy with hunting. Got it. He's only you know, if you read y he's uneasy with honey.

He Spends a lot of time. With indigenous hunters in the Arctic. So he spends a lot of time with Ask them all we knew at Hunters.

And he is at peace. He he's relatively at peace with that, though he recognizes the violence. But he's at peace with that indigenous Approach to hunting. You would look at that and I find that's often quite true. People who uh would be like they don't want violence toward animals.

Right. But they're very accepting if it's done by an indigenous person. as though the animal somehow feels that pain differently. You can't really ignore that. If you're a walrus Getting shot in the head on an ice flow.

I don't know that you care. Who's pulling the trigger? Right. I really don't. Think that that's the same. is of issue to them.

But People are tend to be Much more comfortable with that. And uh he gets into it. And Arctic Dreams also just it's someone trying to comprehend an incomprehensible landscape. Tim, I don't know if you remember being out there on the In the Arctic there.

Do you remember the Tussics? Oh well I was going to you know I was gonna bring those up'cause you mentioned the lack of trees. I was going to make T shirts for everybody. Do you remember that? I love Tussox. Cause those fucking ankle breakers, man, you gotta I mean they're you sh you can describe them, but they're like Fucking dog hair. I mean.

Th they're like the most dangerous things you can think of, and it's just like s many, many hundreds of square miles of these things. Yeah, and you can't decide if you're gonna try walking between the Tossics. Or on the Tossics. And the Tossics are, you know, they might be like twelve inches, eighteen inches tall. And they flop around. I was liking it too if you filled a gym Full of six inches of water.

And then took basketballs and somehow like tethered them to the floor. Yeah. So that all the basketballs are touching. And then try to walk across the And then you'd be like, I don't know, you gotta go across there for a few miles. And then you might figure out some way to walk on those basketballs. I don't know.

Or you might find some way to get your feet wedged down between those basketballs, but either way, like I'd invite you to do this little journey. Uh but in Arctic Dreams, one of the best parts of Arctic Dreams is talking about a botanist. Who's Spends their day. Face down on a tussock.

Counting. Doing a survey. On that tussock, of the vegetation on that tussock. And the thousands of blades of You know.

Sedges and Forbes and Right. And just trying to comprehend like What's going on in this Tussock?

All these plant species. Right. Incredibly dense. And then having this feeling of like doing that and then looking up. And

Any direction you can look. As far as the eye can see. It's just more and more and more of those tusks, right? It's just like an incomprehensible landscape. And that book does a wonderful job of spelling that out. And it does a wonderful job of like challenging some things.

Um O of challenging some things and challenging some assumptions. And that book won the National Book Award. Yeah, I was uh looking it up. It's phenomenal. That's that's that's no joke. Just as a just as a side note. Uh I still want to hear about Boone, but The

I think perhaps the most nervous that I was at any point in that trip. In the uh Brooks Range was well, if I'm being honest, it was probably the the grizzly bear acutely, but nothing happened. But when I had a lot of time to meditate on the dozens of ways that I could like fracture a leg or dislocate a hip and really be fucked because You know how hard it is to get to this place and it's not like you just call someone on a cell phone and you know an Uber helicopter shows up in five minutes, like you could be stuck there for a very long time. Oh yeah, weather depending, you'd be there days.

Yeah, so when we were packing out the Meat from the caribou hunt. And so imagine you're in this this gym that you visualized earlier, right? With with the six inches of water with all the basketballs touching and tethered to the floor, and you have to walk across that. And then take a backpack with, I don't know, you tell me. I'm not I I don't recall what percentage of the body weight of a caribou would end up being harvestable meat.

But I don't know, what, sixty to a hundred pounds on each person's back, maybe Something like that. Oh yeah, you'd have it you know, you'd you'd have a total of then you know Over a couple, you know, couple hundred pounds. Potentially. That might be a bit much, but

Yeah, you'd be m with the with the bones in there, you're moving you're moving a couple of hundred pounds for sure. Plus. Yeah, so that's impact impacts ranging like at fifty pounds a backpack is substantial. It decreases your mobility. At ninety and a hundred pounds a backpack is you're like, wow, this is sort of a

you need to step carefully. Like you like y you could hurt yourself carrying this weight. Like it's not good for you to carry this weight. And I remember, you know, you commenting that if there were a sport that just involved carrying heavy weights for long distances, that you could be you know, that'd be the one sport I'd be good at. And in my case, it's like when's the last time that I walked on Half inflated. volleyball for a mile with a hundred pounds or eighty pounds on my back? And the answer is never. And I was like wow, like okay, my

like glute medius and all these stabilizers in the hip have no training for this whatsoever. So thank God there are people like uh Dan Dodi and other monsters uh behind the cameras who are like, Yeah, let me just grab that for you. I'm like, Okay. Huron pride a bit, but I'm uh less interested in fracturing both my legs. So I'll take the help. Thanks very much. Trained Tussic walkers. So Boone by Daniel Morgan. Yeah.

I've had a lifelong Fascination with Boone. And uh Any little kid that grows up Loving to hunt. And trap and fish and stuff, like you're aware of boon, right? You're aware of this pioneer boon. And

At various times in history he was remembered as You know, an Indian fighter. Right. Even though he never he didn't really have uh Big appetite for that. Mm.

If you look at what he did, he actually Went out of his way. typically went out of his way to avoid violence. But an Indian fighter, a pioneer, an explorer, hunter, trapper. And you know, and at various times in my life I've been in love with different aspects of what he did.

But And and he often in old books. You know, he was kinda presented as this Schwash buckling, you know, Davy Crockett figure, right? Whistling through the woods.

Just being a hero. But there's a lot of complexity there. around this person is sort of this idea that he Was Heavily involved.

in destroying What it was that he loved. He made his money in a variety of ways and he was a horrible had made a lot of business mistakes, a lot of land mistakes and different investments and stuff. But like for the most of his life he was a commercial Hunter.

And he was a trespasser. So He was hunting places one that had Native Americans that claimed it and lived on it and they fought amongst themselves over ownership of these hunting grounds, but there was that. Which meant, you know, next to nothing to him.

And then there was the fact that he was Trespassing on land that he wasn't supposed to come on from his own government. Um in the time of the colonies. the we we were always striking these deals. Where we would assure the tribes like Oh no, this is about it. We're not gonna go anymore west.

Uh we promise Our settlers won't go over that line. And the rest of that's yours. We'll take this and And Boone didn't Care about that stuff at all either. You just went where you wanted to go.

Um and we now like do this, we describe this as a sort of celebration of freedom, but it'd be uh if you took that attitude today, you would be called an interloper and a poacher and you'd wind up in jail. But he was pursuing his trade. He hunted deer. For leather. Not not so much meat. They hunted deer for leather. Leather workwear. Um, it was sold and tanned and they made like the equivalent of making car hearts today. He did that for a lot of the year and then he hunted bears for the oil and meat markets.

He would go out, kill bears. Smoke the meat. Render the fat. Sell the smoked meat. Bear bacon and sell the bear oil. And that's how this guy made his living.

The book does a great telling of all this stuff. But a thing that I love about Boone and I've come to respect about Boone. Is He exemplifies this part of

my history as a hunter. When I say my history, I don't mean the things that happen in my life, but as a continuation of a sort of discipline, as a continuation of hunting in America. He's this really pinnacle moment where You have this person that loved wilderness. Love the outdoors.

wrists his neck day to day to go to the wildest places and celebrate them. And he liked those places. He wanted to be there. Boone would sometimes Go on a hunt that would last two years. Ha ha Gone from his wife and family for two years hunting.

And lost all the hides he built up twice by having them confiscated by Native Americans who resented his trespassing. He liked it. He could have found a hundred other ways to make a living. That was what he was. He was a woodsman. But He

Was one of these guys in our own history. Who was instrumental And wiping wildlife. Off.

The face of America. And it's this part of this conundrum we're in where we look and I'm like that I w I celebrate that guy. Right? His skill set.

You can't begin to comprehend his skill set. All the shit they did, they did without flashlights. It's like You can't begin to comprehend the skill set. And admire And like if I could go back in time, my number one pick would be to go through the Cumberland Gap with Daniel Boone the first time he went through the Cumberland Gap and cross down into the hunting grounds of Kentucky.

to do that walk with him. But My God, the damage. Like the damage. No. No, was the damage his influence, or was it just the manner in which that he hunted and what he represented being done on a wider scale? What was the damage both influence by opening up those places? It would have happened anyways. Someone else would have done it. By opening up settlement.

Opening up Clearing the road. For the displacement of indigenous people. Clearing the road for people who would destroy the habitat. But also just the mechanical physical removal of all that wildlife.

He went time processed, I uh uh uh I think uh it's right around us, I think this is correct. I think one time he processed a hundred and nine black bears in a year. Oh. A lot of bears. Oh, listen. They wiped them we talked about extirpation earlier. They were wiping out stuff without even knowing they'd wiped it out. There used to be bison in Nashville. There's a guy that saw a thousand bison at a mineral lick near Nashville one time. People came into New Orleans and saw bison. They were on the beach. It seems as though people ran into near Washington, DC. These guys

shot stuff. They shot stuff so fast and so thoroughly. The The shit was gone and they didn't know it was gone. Yeah, it's incredible. We now sit around people around we sit around now like the last bear of You know, he killed the last bear in Indiana or whatever, you know. It's like a it's like a thing people used to kinda celebrate it. I mean, they were just rapacious.

But They had no compre I don't think they had any comprehension of what they were doing. There's a story I like to tell a lot about w with with bison. There's a story I like to tell a lot about the hide hunters that we're going to do. Just to establish your bona fides. So I'm looking at one of your many books and this one is

American Buffalo In Search of a Lost Icon, one thousand two hundred and thirteen reviews average five stars. So you you you've done a lot of reading and research related to this. Please continue. Oh yeah, I I knew that world real well back when I was working on that book, but there's a great story about like what The damage that hunters do without knowing they've done it. is you know, th so I'm gonna just throw some wild round numbers out. Like at the end of the Civil War, it's estimated there were maybe about fifteen million Buffalo, bison.

on the Great Plains, right? And We were Hunting them for their Tongues. Meat, but mostly we're hunting them for their hides. There was a there's a strong market for leather and hides.

And we had a lot of market hunters chasing after him. So the civil war ends, people say there's maybe about fifteen million, and we really turn our attention west, we start cutting railroads, we open up avenues of trade, meaning you can you could kill Buffalo and stick the hides on rail cars and send'em to market. We had uh we were feeding an industrial revolution. And so P there's a lot of money to be made shooting hides. And they kinda killed off the ones in the south.

From the Texas Plains, Kansas. Right. And then they started working on the northern herds. And Some people say that that by the time the Northern Pacific Railroad

made it into had crossed the western Dakotas and made it into eastern Montana. There was maybe a couple million left in the last wild herd and they shot that herd out in the winter of eighty one, eighty two, eighteen eighty one, eighteen eighty two. Gone. Right. couple years later this guy Hornaday, William T. Hornaday, goes out there to collect specimens for the Smithsonian. Like the assumption is they'll just be gone. They'll be exterminated, extinct. And he wants to collect some hides and bones and stuff. So that man in the future will be able to behold what these things looked like before they were driven to extinction. Uh and he comments when he gets out to Mile City, he comments how the people that live around Mile City, the ranchers, the merchants, were people that had been involved in that last big slaughter.

And then they were just hanging around waiting for the next herd to come through. Everybody knew there must be a bunch more. Up north or somewhere. And they waited.

And a year goes by and none came. And they waited and two years goes by and none came. And eventually they kinda got like huh? And set up various businesses and ranching operations and gradually occurred to them that like

Oh shit, we got'em all. Accidentally. Right. It's like so when you look at these people like getting back to this boon thing, which is the question. When you look at these people that were engaged in this stuff, like I don't think they They knew. They knew that something was amiss and they knew that like things were changing'cause that's why Boone had to constantly move Pennsylvania to North Carolina. He constantly marched west. By the time he died, it's rumored that he had made it all the way up into the Rockies, following the Missouri River up on a hunting trip.

He always had to move west because they killed everything, and it forced him to need to move. He was aware of this. But I don't know that they really We're like Villains. I don't know that they really

We're Acting with malicious intent. But my God, were they destructive. And also just cool. It's like

Yeah. It's a good book. It's a it's the best piece of work about Boone. Well, these are all amazing stories. Your story is pretty incredible and wanna rewind it to your first sold piece of writing. So you mentioned this in passing. We didn't get really into it, but your plan A

was to be a professional fur trapper up until something like twenty two, right? I had to give up then. Yeah, I had to give up. Uh, for a whole whole host of reasons. And You decide that plan B was to become an outdoor writer. So your your first story

Sold in two thousand to outside, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, was the first like piece I like Sold for money. What was that piece about? That

You remember? No, I do. I I I'm still mad about the title. Um You don't get to pick your own title. They called my article.

Getting jiggy. Which I'm still mad about it. Twenty years later. I love dearly. I love dearly and I'm still friends with the person who oversaw that process. I've never told her about my

My anger. But it was about So for a while, for a semester. When I was young I ever I was young in Michigan and everyone that if you hunted and fished, you you know, the where you needed to go live was what we called the U P. That was like the cool spot. And so So my closest friends, my brothers, they like

Went up to the UP to go to college. U P upper peninsula. Upper peninsula of Michigan, yeah. So and it was just like kinda like the the the promised land, you know. Or that's how we viewed it anyway. And I went up there to live for a semester. at Lake Superior State University. My brother Danny, he stayed up there and graduated from there. So I was in and out of there all the time. And there's this hydroelectric diversion canal in Lake Superior where they peel water off the St. Mary's River. And run it through a channel and run it through a hydroelectric dam.

Right. So just to turn turbines to make electricity. And uh This canal had a lot of aquatic Insects that lived in it. And so Fish.

Would gather Yeah. the outwash of this dam. So where they release the water out after passing through the turbines, they release this water back into the St. Mary's River. And it would carry with it a lot of food. And you'd go up and like we would actually Tire boats up to the dam.

And you're just fishing for white fish. Lake Superior Great Lakes Whitefish. You're fishing for white fish in the outwash of the dam. And we would sometimes my brothers had Figured this out. You could leave the bar. It was competitive to get the right tunnel, the right turbines that seemed to hold a lot of fish for whatever reason, I never understood. Certain turbines held a lot of fish. No matter how early you got up.

You know, some dude had beat ya, some old timer Beat you to the spot. So my brothers hit on this idea just to leave the bar. at one or two in the morning, whatever, and go out with a sleeping bag.

Okay. Oh sleep bar was a technical term. You mean the bar no screw getting up at five, let's just sleep there. So I would go out with my brother Danny and and uh They'd run we'd run a boat up in and we'd go in the tunnel. Like you're like you're in the bowels of the dam'cause it's warm in there.

From the turban. And there's these like little hooks in there and you could drive your boat into the tunnel and tie off. And just like sleep in a sleeping bag. And then at five in the morning when some old you know some old timer fishing fanatic shows up. Lo and behold.

You know, you're laying there hung over in a sleeping bag. Ready to fish. And I d I don't I wrote a a a piece about this. Oh, you know what? I was wrong earlier. That wasn't the one they called Getin' Jiggy. I was mistaken about that. That was called Dawn Patrol. Again, Jake was a d was another article I wrote about something very similar in Seattle. I'm sorry, I was mis I I screwed that up. Dawn Patrol.

And I sold I was still in graduate school and sold, I remember, for four thousand bucks and I couldn't imagine that amount of money. That's it was like an unfathomable amount of money. Yeah. We party for days after that. Were you always A an able writer or did you do something between

I guess 22 or whenever you began thinking about outdoor writer as an option, what enabled you to get to that point because I am not a features writer or magazine writer, so it's hard for me to I don't it's hard for me to speculate in that world, but I wouldn't imagine that most folks start off with a four thousand dollar payment for a magazine piece. They're probably doing bit Small stuff here, there. Well, I did all that small work after that.

Uh you know, it took a long time. I got encouragement. You know, it's so hard like pick out like what exact moment turned it but but Absolutely. This this goes out to all the school teachers out there.

When I was in tenth grade. I had a English teacher named Bob Heaton. Mr. Heaton. took interest in me.

As a writer. You know I later went to I did a you know Master of Fine Arts, right. I did all I studied with phenomenal writers. I've had many mentors I've had people pull strings for me. I've had great advantages. Right.

expert technical training, all this stuff. It it's really hard to talk about how you got somewhere where you are. But I feel as though if Mr Heaton th if this tenth grade English teacher Hadn't spotted something there and and made me aware of it that I probably wouldn't have done what I did.

I think that's pretty fair to say. He This is kinda interesting around this I don't know if you're How much you'd pay attention to So

you know, like the education system today, but there's this thing where like we're more and more into like grooming kids for the sphere that we're more and more into grooming kids for standardized testing and like I guess at that time He Mr Heaton didn't really give a he didn't give a shit. About He didn't give a shit about whether you like you're like doing the assignments. I mean, if you were a slacker or weren't trying, he wanted you to do the assignments.

You know. But this guy gave a lot of room if he saw something you liked, he just gave you a lot of room. to like focus in and explore this sounds like a lot for tenth grade English, and it's like you go there for an hour a day and half the time you're not paying attention. But in that time. And a couple classes I took with him after

In that time he like He he took the time to develop things in kids. And and maybe took the time to develop things in kids. Who otherwise didn't have a lot of prospects. And that's what led me.

Onto the path. No, go on and I want to be a writer and and and kinda backed into doing Television and

backed into doing Yeah. A podcast and now Helping to run a a A an outdoor media company.

But yeah, man, maybe it boils down to that. And the trapping thing is I started I've set my first trap with my brothers in nineteen eighty four. And there had been these insanely high fur prices in nineteen seventy eight. At nineteen eighty two. And people were making a bunch of money trapping.

Moskrats and stuff. I came in at the tail end of that and fur prices just went down, down, down. But in the beginning of that I thought that I would that's what I would do for a living. Now you've you've expanded quite a lot, as you mentioned, beyond The writing.

Uh before we leave the world of writing. If you are teaching a class, and for all I know, maybe you have, but if if you are teaching a class, Not an English class, but a writing class. Specifically. Could be to 10th graders, could be to freshmen in college. It doesn't really matter, but I would say could be MFA, but by that point people have already kind of decided and honed some of their skills. So probably

Let's just call it tenth grade through to end of college. You could pick the age. What would you do? What would your approach look like? Are there any core books or practices or anything that you would you would use in your class? Yeah. I'm not gonna do the tenth grade one, but I'll do the college one, grad school one. I I just don't have the expertise to uh uh it's hard for me to understand tenth graders, even though I you know, once upon a time was one. I I understand Kyle. Like I I'm more aware of where I was just more cognizant by then.

If I was gonna like just writers in general, like writing in general. If I was gonna give advice to someone that's gonna s I don't know if anyone else gives this advice this way. I would read everything. you can get your hands on. I would pay a lot of attention to the things that you read that really speak to you that make you feel jealous.

That you wish you would have wrote it. I see kinda jealous of the writing itself. My God, if I could do that. Right. Pay attention to the things that make you feel like Like you want to

Die. It's so good. And you're so jealous. Find that handful of writers that that make you feel that way. Try to understand what they're doing.

And then don't try to mimic one of them. But create a way in which you're trying to mimic Or you're trying to capture The thing that you envy. About three or four different writers.

Because They're too smart. To be emulated. You can't copy them. They're geniuses. In trying to copy them.

You will If you're lucky and you're good. you will come up with something new. Because you will never succeed in copying them. That would be my advice to writers.

Dig it. That's what I did. Outside of the books that we already talked about, is there a particular writer who inspires that Jesus, if I could just do that. Oh for me?

And you, yeah. Yeah, Joan Didian. This is I'm dating myself'cause these are the books that were cool when I was in graduate school. Joan Diddy and Ian Frazier. John McFee.

And David Foster Wallace. Hm that's a good thing. Those are the people that were like If I could do that. I would be happy.

Like those are the magicians. Black magic shit, man. Yeah, black magic. Yeah, there's like I don't know how they do what they do. Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely those experiences. I've been having those experiences in fiction quite a bit, even though I'm not a fiction writer, but

Yeah, it's funny when I talk to I don't I don't know if I I don't know if you've written fiction. I have not. Uh and I've I've spoken to some very competent fiction writers who've been like, Oh, nonfiction's too hard. And I'm like, Are you fucking kidding me? Like I don't like non good nonfiction is hard. Don't get me wrong. Like to do anything really well Takes dedication and some degree of of talent, I suppose. But when I read really good fiction, I'm like, Yeah, nope, I can't do that. Yeah, it's that that's art. There's that like that's art. It leans in the direction of art and I think nonfiction

leans in the direction of craft. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. We were talking about season three, episode one. You Have season nine. of Meteor that just launched and you've have all these different projects, but if we're looking at

Mediator, the television show. You've more than a hundred episodes now. Are there any particular episodes that really stick out for you? Any particular trips that are favorites? Could be to film or experience, and maybe that's a lazy question, but I'll throw it out there anyway. No, if they're they're different. W what we do isn't or isn't overly produced, and so there's a huge amount of a lot of it you just can't produce because you can't be like The animal shows up now, you know. They're not overly produced, which means that

There's like an actual trip happening. There's an actual journey happening with a question mark around it. Since it's not scripted. It's like So there can be the actual journey. you know the the trip you the the phys you go on.

And then there's this like this product that comes out of it. This this piece of work, this this craft that comes out of it, which is the show. You could have a trip that isn't like hugely impactful. But The thing you make from it, the piece of entertainment that you make from it. Is like

Memorable. You love it. You know, you're like, Man I I wanna have that.

If in the future tombstones have like something playing on tombstones instead of Just inscriptions. I would like I'd like my tombstone to play that episode over and over again. Right. But it doesn't mean that the trip was great. I I think of the the the things I've done, the trips I've been on that were like phenomenal trips and in my view great episodes. were the handful of times, a a a couple of times when we've been able to go

Travel on rivers. And hunting fish. with Amer Indians. in South America. Particularly in Guyana.

In Bolivia. hunting with people who our ancestral hunters and gatherers. Who are On landscape.

Hunting and fishing on a landscape. That from their view Is that they've been hunting and fishing in perpetuity. Probably for thousands of years.

Father, grandfather on down the line. And the level of intimacy they have. With The land and water. Where they have been raised.

And where they Hunting fish. Two hundred, two hundred and fifty days a year. To see that. Is

A very eye opening It's an eye opening experience'cause it really invites you to imagine what Was lost Here where we live. In terms of

This continuity That there's still places there where Indigenous People's Even though there's technologies emerging and stuff happening all the time and

And people can have email addresses. Where there's like a continuity of like The same people, the same culture. doing the same practices In the same place.

For hundreds or thousands of years. a level of awareness and like fine tuned thinking comes out of that. Which is like Stunning to witness. And then just the cool shit like just the how they cook and

in in uh hunting practices, fishing practices. That's been things that have really impacted my worldview episodes that doing them impacted my worldview. And then also the delivery of the product. the thing that people go watch when they're sitting on their living room couch at night.

is in my mind like good work. Like we did good work and we did those shows. You mentioned the awareness. Are there any particular sensitivities or types of awareness, any examples that you could give where you just thought to yourself Oh wow. That's something I haven't seen before. That's something I haven't felt before. Do any snapshots?

come to mind. Yeah spending time with these people. Tracking. Okay. Detecting sign. On the ground.

Footprints. Broken blades of grass. Bent things, just like animals passing through and knowing that they pass through. An awareness of bird sound? In a place where

It just feels like a cacophony. I've you ever watched that movie about the making of Herzog's Fitzgerald movie, but you know that is so strange that you're bringing this up. The burden of dreams. Yeah I just started watching it last night. That's bizarre. That's super bizarre. And that's not I mean, this is not a movie that you hear No it's not widely spread. No one knows about I literally just started watching it less than twelve hours ago. You get to a point where he is very sick of the jungle. And he's explaining that. Birds don't sing.

They scream in agony. What It's just Incredible cacophony sometimes of just noise. And the that they could like sit there and Dissect that.

You know, it's this bug, it's this, it's this, it's this, there's that bird, there's that bird, there's that bird. That was impressive. hunting w being able to hunt with bows and arrows made entirely from native materials except for A piece of wire cut from a fence.

That was then hammered into the shape of a projectile point. Finding a plant called Arrowplant. Which you get your arrows. Shooting a black Curacao. To get

His feathers for fletching. Taking a yucca type plant. And pulverizing it. braiding it into a string, waxing that string with rubber from a rubber plant. lashing the fletching onto the shaft.

Making a glue from native materials with which to put the things together. Cutting a tree, making a bowstring. And then wading out into a river and seeing a fish that I can't see and shooting it with an arrow. Yeah. It's good stuff.

Yeah, that does sound like it's a good thing. And you're also watching it you're watching things change. A thing I come back to again and again about that is There's an individual I love quite a bit down there. Who he was explaining to me one time about the white lip peckeries.

That they haven't been seeing a lot of white liped peckeries. And there's a fear in his village. that the shaman From a neighboring village. Has grown jealous

Of his village. So this neighboring shaman is mad. At my friend's village. 'Cause they're so prosperous. And pecker is like a pig a pig like animal. Yep. It's a it's a yeah. It would at a passing glance a javelina is a collared pectory, people in the southwest, like in Arizona and

Western Texas are familiar with Havelinas. Um Yeah, that th that's a collared peckery, then there's a a slightly bigger, more gregarious version called a white lip peckery. And he said that the he was concerned. That this shaman in a neighboring village had grown jealous of his village.

And had locked up all of their packeries. In a mountain. And they had their own shaman trying to to develop the necessary skill set. to release their herd their peckeries.

From that mountain. And I'll point out that you can email this individual. If you have a problem with what he's saying. So they are at a real crossroads. Oh and and to and it's been a long crossroads, but to intersect

To intersect them at this place at this moment was fascinating. Yeah, what a time to capture. The experience on film. Mm-hmm. And I'll uh I'll get the specific episode information from you afterwards and we can put those in the show notes as well. That would be great.

Yeah. Well Last question for for this conversation. Actually maybe second to last. For people who want to reconnect.

Attempt to reconnect. with nature, whether by themselves or with their families. I've also spent quite a bit of time in South America and other jungle based communities and you you do see this What they sort of take for granted. It's almost you mentioned David Foster Wallace. It's like the old fish that swim by the two young fish and says, How's the water boys? and they Kind of nod and go by and they go, What's water? Right. So to them

Them referring to the communities. in places like you mentioned, the idea of being separated from nature is just inconceivable. Yeah, they wouldn't dis they wouldn't describe that problem. Yeah, it's just the problem itself would be hard to Explain. So for people who are listening to this and want to

reconnect feel. engagement, kinship with nature. What would you suggest? It's interesting you ask'cause we're working on a book right now about kids Kids in nature.

Kids and nature, but you could also say kids in nature. And I've been thinking about this a fair bit because that there's a r there's a risk of making We're talking about these extreme forms of nature, right? The jungles of South America. Arctic Alaska. We're talking all these extremes. And you can create this problem where people think that engagement with nature needs to be a radical

Version. I think that As I've pondered this a lot lately, I think that there's some things that that I find myself trying to do with my kids that aren't For kids only. And I think you need to start trying to

Develop the mindset of what it is to be like Native. I no I'm not trying to take away I don't I don't mean native in terms of that you'd be native American say, or native Alaskan, or Amor Indian. I don't mean that. I mean native like the the of trying to belong to the a place. We associate ourselves

Belonging to a fan base, belonging to a social media community. Belonging to a municipality. Belonging to a political persuasion. But if you want to start thinking about yourself as belonging to nature Start a list of

All of the First define what your yard is. It could be the grounds on an apartment building where you live. Could be your yard. Whatever it is. Start a list of every bird. Get a good bird book. Get the sibly get sibly's guide to

Birds of North America, if you live in North America. How do you suppose Sibyl? Sibylly. I believe he's yeah, he's a he's a illustrator and ornithologist. S I B L E Y About it. Get that book and start a list of every bird That

You see. From your property. From your place where you live. from your balcony or whatever it is, a list of everything you see and be and allow yourself to count things that you see way off. So if you're in an apartment in New York and you can see out over the Hudson and you catch a seagull, count that.

And allow yourself to count every bird that you hear. And then Do a couple other things. Uh acknowledge. The

Solstices. And the the equinoxes On those days acknowledge what is happening. That today The day is as long as the night.

Or Today is the longest day. The sun will shine for the longest time tonight. Or This will be the shortest day. The sun will shine the shortest amount today. And tomorrow the sun will start marching back in another direction. Ask yourself

When you turn on your faucet and water comes out. Where did that water come from? Did it fall as snow, rain, where was it collected? Is it from an aquifer? What feeds the aquifer? And then ask yourself When it goes down the drain

What is its path? To where It hits the ocean. And make a mental map. Of if you were to take a piss in your yard.

Make a mental map, it would flow into this ditch and that ditch flows into that stream and that stream flows into that river. And that river flow into that estuary and that estuary drains into that part of the ocean and make a mental map and look at that map. These are some of the things you can do sitting in your at your desk. And I think that as you do these things and think about them, you'll start to realize that you're A

participant in something and you'll start to realize That there are things that are extremely reliable. The solstices like the solstice. Equinox, there's things that are so Unbelievably reliable.

And there's things that are so chaotic. Like you're passing the coming and going of birds. As you do those things, you'll find yourself Feeling A part of something

That's Way cooler. Outside of being a part of your community and family. That's way cooler than being Part of a fan base.

You're part of a social media network. Do that and then go down to South America. But starting. Start at home, man.

Like you're never gonna understand if you can't like just understand like where you're sitting and how it fits. Like get some awareness. You're like, you're in nature, man. You're in nature. It's just we're we're trained to not notice it. No, it makes me think of The thousands of tussocks that I walked over.

Never actually getting down on my stomach and looking at one. Yeah. Plant your face in one of those things. Yeah. Like but like Barry Lop like Barry Lopez describes. Yeah. Those are great recommendations. Uh I think I will actually

Look at the water. investigation later this afternoon. It's fascinating. Yeah. I haven't gone so far as to make my kids memorize it, but I I try to talk about it a lot. Well Steve, we're gonna hopefully do a round two of this. That's the plan. I would love to.

Yeah. And is there anything else it you would like to mention any closing comments, any ask or requests of the audience. Of course people can find A lot of what you do at the meet eater dot com. And we'll include all the social at Meeder at Steven Renella on Instagram at Steven Renella Meat Eater on Facebook. Is there anything else you'd like to say before we I could be so yeah, if I if you if you allow it and I could be so uh audacious as to yeah, just

Ask people to go to The meat eater dot com you'll find Not only stuff from me and about books I've done, but from You know, all of my o

Great colleagues and uh our podcast network and Daily stream of written material and other things. So yeah, please go there and check it out. And for everyone listening, as mentioned, I'll also include links in the show notes, which you can find at Tim.blog forward slash podcast.

to The website. Meaning Steven's website, the podcast, specific episodes of the TV show books and many other things that have been mentioned in this conversation, so people can find those as well in one place. And

Steve, what a pleasure to Catch up. It's been a little while. Yeah. Thanks for taking the time, man. It was fun to talk to you, as usual. You do a great job. Thanks, man. And we'll uh we'll figure out scheduling for a round two very soon and to everybody

Tuning in. Until next time, thanks so much for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered, it could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

This episode is brought to you by All Four. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you've probably heard me talk about Helix sleep. and their mattresses, which I've been using since 2017. I have two of them upstairs from where I'm sitting at this moment. And now Helix has gone beyond the bedroom and started making sofas. They just launched a new company called All Form, A-L-L-F-O-R, and they're making premium customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. So I'm sitting in my living room right now and it's entirely all form furniture. I've got two chairs, I've got an Ottoman, and I have an L-sectional couch. And I'll come back to that. You can pick your fabric, they're all spill stain and scratch resistant, the sofa color, the color of the legs, the sofa size, the shape to make sure it's perfect for you in your home. Also, all form arrives in just three to seven days and you can assemble it all yourself in a few minutes. No tools needed. I was quite astonished by how modular and easy these things fit together, kind of like Lego pieces. They've got armchairs, love seats, all the way up to an eight seat sectional, so there's something for everyone. You can also start small and kind of build on top of it if you wanted to get a smaller couch and then

build out on it, which is actually in a way what I did because I can turn my L sectional couch into a normal straight couch and then with a separate Ottoman in a matter of about 60 seconds. It's pretty rad. So I mentioned I have all these different things in this room. I use the natural leg finish, which is their lightest color, and I dig it. And I've been using these things hours and hours and hours every single day. So I am using what I am sharing with you guys. And if getting a sofa without trying it in store sounds risky, you don't need to worry, all form sofas are delivered directly to your home with fast free shipping, and you get 100 days to decide if you want to keep it. That's more than three months, and if you don't love it, they'll pick it up for free and give you a full refund. Your sofa frame also has a forever warranty, that's literally forever. So check it out, take a look. They've got all sorts of cool stuff to choose from. I was skeptical.

And it actually worked. It worked much better than I could have imagined. And I'm very, very happy. So to find your perfect sofa, check out allform.com slash Tim. That's A-L-L-F-O-R-M.com slash Tim. All form is offering 20% off all orders to you, my dear listeners, at allform.com slash Tim. Make sure you to use the code Tim at checkout. That's all forum.com slash Tim and use code Tim at checkout. This episode is brought to you by Fresh Books. Thousands of listeners and a lot of the contractors I use and my readers use FreshBooks. If you've been thinking about turning your part-time side business into a full-time small business, or big business for that matter, you may be feeling some extra uncertainty these days, and uh That's obviously completely natural. There are a lot of questions that can come up. How do you create a professional appearance and experience? Who can help you with support? How do you manage the billing and all of that, but still focus on the primary work? of your business and on growing your business. Fresh Books is an all in one invoicing and accounting solution. It does a lot more than that. That helps you take your business from part time to full time and it only takes minutes to set up. They have one of the best sign up flows in the business I've seen. Very few better.

They have been helping people turn their passions into small businesses for 15 years, and they can help you too. I've met the founders, I've looked at this product very closely. With automated invoicing, buildable time, and expense tracking, and an intuitive dashboard that ties it all together, it's like having a full-time financial assistant with you every step of the way. You can create, customized and send branded and professional looking invoices in about 30 seconds. You get paid up twice as fast with fees as low as 1% using ACH payments on FreshBooks. It's a fast, easy, and secure way for clients to pay you for your work and pay you more quickly. One of the many things that sets FreshBooks apart is their award winning Toronto based customer service. A real person picks up fast and will help you until you are completely satisfied and have your questions answered. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, but your ability to build a business that you're passionate about, that you're proud of, doesn't have to be one of those things. Business owners all over the world rate FreshBooks as the easiest accounting software to use. Try it out. Check it out for free for 30 days at freshbooks.com slash Tim. Just enter Tim Ferris in the How Did You Hear About Us section. Again, that's freshbooks.com slash Tim to check it out and try it for free for 30 days. One more time, freshbooks.com slash Tim.

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