Son of a Blitch
George Bowe Blitch has been a Wildlife Manager, Texas Rancher, Professional Writer, Videographer, Photographer, Editor, Speaker, Brand Developer & Designer, Cartographer, Touring Musician, Teacher, Coach, Entrepreneur, Finance Manager, and the owner of numerous businesses.
George has met some wildly interesting people in his lifetime, and this "Son of a Blitch” is sure to share some impactful stories, interviews, and messages that will be informative, educational, and highly entertaining!
"I've met some incredible people in my life, and I want to share their stories!" ~GB
Son of a Blitch
Ep. 66 - Conveying The Truth About Hunting, Conservation and Storytelling w/ Robbie Kroger (Blood Origins)
Embarking on an insightful dialogue, George Blitch welcomes Robbie Kroger, the founder of Blood Origins, into a conversation that not only traverses the terrains of Kroger's life but also delves into the intricacies of hunting and its role in conservation. Growing up in Johannesburg, Robbie did not hunt in his youth, but the influence of his grandfather and his transformative experience in the Okavango Delta ignited his passion for wildlife and the great outdoors. Aspiring to be a game ranger, he developed an appreciation for nature that would eventually lead him down the path to establishing Blood Origins, a platform dedicated to the education and awareness of hunting's role in preserving our natural world.
The journey from Robbie's early years to the creation of Blood Origins was far from linear. Before his foray into the realm of conservation, Robbie pursued professional soccer, making his mark as a goalkeeper and later serving as a goalkeeper coach at Mississippi State University. Despite his achievements in sports and academia, the call to the wild, inspired by his grandfather's written accounts of hunting and adventure, was a constant undertone in his life. It was this legacy, etched on rice paper, that sowed the seeds for Blood Origins, which sought to share authentic hunting stories and shed light on hunters as conservationists.
Blood Origins evolved from a personal project into a non-profit organization that remains fiercely independent, allowing for a powerful and genuine narrative. The initiative thrives on being nimble and quick to respond to conservation challenges, with a focus on telling compelling stories that span continents. Robbie's efforts have led to documentaries and projects, including the documentation of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation's work in New Zealand, and conservation efforts in Zambia, Tanzania and beyond. Blood Origins also examines contentious topics, such as mountain lion hunting in the United States, emphasizing the critical importance of education in these complex debates.
In this episode, Robbie Kroger's anecdotes highlight the importance of balance in the ecosystem and the need for thoughtful communication in the face of criticism. Through Blood Origins, he strives to reshape the conversation around hunting, aiming to reach an equilibrium that acknowledges hunting as an enduring tradition while promoting its integral role in conservation.
As the podcast episode unfolds, Robbie and George discuss future projects and the value of community support, inviting listeners to become a part of Blood Origins' mission. The episode culminates in a profound discussion on legacy, both professionally and personally, as Robbie expresses his desire to change perceptions of hunting globally and his commitment to being an affectionate and present family man, contrasting the more reserved nature of past generations.
This podcast episode not only offers a glimpse into the life of a man who transitioned from city life to wildlife guardianship but also serves as a testament to the power of storytelling and its potential to foster change in the conservation narrative. It is a clarion call for all who cherish the wild and are invested in its future, showcasing the indelible mark that informed and passionate individuals can leave on the world.
To learn more about Blood Origins, and to become a supporting member, visit:
BloodOrigins.org
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Son of a Blitch podcast. I'm your host, George Blitch, and I just wrapped up a wonderful conversation with Robbie Kroger. He is the founder of Blood Origins. You guys, if you aren't familiar, you definitely have to go check it out. All the links in the description below will get you to their website, to their social handles.
Speaker 1:Robbie's been doing some amazing stuff out in the hunting world, really educating people about why he hunts, why people hunt, what is the effect thereof, uh, you know, really kind of trying to push the narrative of education and awareness of our way of life and, uh, why it's so important to him and so many of us to get ahold of this and make sure that we are representing ourselves in the best way and educating those who, uh, are non-hunters, or maybe people who are curious about getting into the hunting world. What is it that we do? And our passions? How do those ripple out? As far as you know, conservation and action, and being able to make a big difference in the environment, in the habitats of these amazing wild animals that we love and hold deer so much. Well, yeah, there's deer too, right?
Speaker 1:So, hey, guys, without further ado, here is the podcast with robbie kroger and I hope you guys enjoy it and join blood origins and their website so you can be a part of these amazing projects that he's got going. Okay, y'all enjoy. Hey, robbie, thanks for joining me. How you doing today, man, uh, better than I deserve. Thank you. Yeah, you're very. Look, I know we got a lot to cover today. I want to talk about all the wonderful things you got going on with Blood Origins and about your own personal history, and I think the best place to start off is kind of at the beginning. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about where you grew up and maybe kind of you know some of those connectors of your family and your lifestyle and where you were born? That kind of made you have so much appreciation for your love the outdoors that you have today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate it. You know wasn't born in South Africa but feel like I always say like born and raised in South Africa. I was born in Brazil but moved to South Africa when I was three, so really born and raised in South Africa, grew up in the town of Johannesburg, which is a very big metroplex you know, 8 million people today. Didn't grow up in a hunting family, and when I say that my father hunted when he was, you know, a teenager, but didn't hunt during our lifetime, during when I was a kid, but in South Africa, phenomenal wildlife scene outside of the big cities, lots of good conservation, lots of good national parks, good hiking, good outdoors. I was a scout, made the equivalent of an Eagle Scout in South Africa and just, you love the outdoors, you love the bush we call it the bush in South Africa and as a young boy, as a young man, teenager, just like most American kids, you want to be lawyers and firemen and policemen and whatnot. But every kid who loves the bush in South Africa wants to be a game ranger and you want to be that guy, the Land Rover jockey that's driving American tourists around, showing them this tree, that tree, take them on walks. Hey, chew this, it's going to numb your tooth, it's good for toothaches, and so I wanted to do that and so I had opportunities to do the game ranging thing and that's where sort of the love and passion of wildlife started. It really cemented in when I was 16, my grandfather took me to probably one of the best wilderness places in the world.
Speaker 2:It's called the Okavango Delta. It's a river that, through tectonic forces, tectonic activity, tens of thousands of years ago, instead of it dumping into the Atlantic Ocean, tectonic forces shift the course of the river and it runs directly into a desert and deltas into a desert and you can see it from, you know, a satellite image, this sort of fingerprint, this bird's foot delta, and it's just magnificent. Magnificent wildlife, magnificent water, crystal clear water. You can see hippo footprints on the bottom of the river, 10 feet, 14 foot, under your boat. And I fell in love with swamps at that point and wetlands at that point and just started studying and got into the into into studying wetlands and swamps more and more and more. I was a game ranger on the side, you know, telling, showing people. I got my gun qualification licenses because you need those gun qualification licenses for driving someone around or walking them in dangerous game situations. But again, there was no like thought process to hunting. What hunting was? It just was never in our realm of engagement, dialogue, rhetoric, none of it was just wildlife.
Speaker 1:You know, we just loved wildlife and we loved the bush well, you kind of you had a connection there too, around your 16th birthday with was that your grandfather Cause you just mentioned going with them? But you had, you had reached out to your grandfather and he wrote you back a letter that was fairly prominent, and is that a different grandfather than he went?
Speaker 2:with no same grandfather, he just it was, and the letter was I had expressed interest in hunting and it was because of. I don't have the video here, but there's a video done by Teddy Roosevelt III and it was him hunting in Tanzania with the double that Teddy used and it was called In the Blood and that's what Blood Origins was actually originally called. It was called In the Blood and I watched that on VHS over and over and over and over again in Mozambique. And I told my grandfather I said, man, should we? We should go hunting. And I guess you know that's what he wrote the letter to me Like it sounds great. You know, hopefully you're not being swayed by my opinion, cause I'll be accused of leading you astray by your grandmother. But then the rest of the two pages you would have again. This is classic.
Speaker 2:My grandfather, you know he should have regaled me on stories of elephant hunting and hippo hunting and all that kind of stuff, but rather was two pages of gun safety after that, and so it was just like, okay, whatever, man, and that was the classic thing. That's all I got. I never got any. You know, we never got stories. Sitting at the edge of his leather seat in his big, you know this huge leather back chair that he used to sit on. You know his radio next to him and all his books that he was reading. He never, like said, hey, why don't you come sit here? I want to tell you some stories of like what it was like in old school Mozambique hunting, or what was like hunting in China or Tibet or Siberia None of it. We didn't get any of it because he was the generation that was like. Kids are to be seen, not heard. So you go do your thing. I've got adult things to do, you know Right right.
Speaker 2:Which is a pity. It's a pity, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1:Well, and you kind of had some, I guess. I guess you know a token of those times you could look back on, but maybe it wasn't direct, it was through his words, because he had a book that he put out and I know you had you got a copy that he gifted you at some point in time there too, but I think that came out like 96. But were those stories? Had you heard any of them at that point, like as as far as maybe second hand I was reading them, so you were aware.
Speaker 2:I was reading them.
Speaker 2:Like every time we went to Mozambique, I was allowed to read the stories that he was writing and he had a big fishing room that we could read those stories and we were encouraged to write our own stories of, like, what we were doing in Mozambique on the typewriter and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's what I got. I got the written word from him and I've still got them all. If I just go right here, like here is some of his written stories, right here, then I've still got on the old school. If you look at this, this is the old school. If you look at this, this is the old school, like rice paper that they used to type on. So you know, I've got all of that. And so that's what I got. I got the words and I got these cool stories and I have this idea of doing something with them one day. I just right now don't have the time to figure out what I'm going to do with them, but I've got a lot, a lot, a lot of different stories.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So there's more than just that book that he wrote, which is my last Kambaku, kambaku, kambaku. Yeah, yeah, I just ordered my copy, man, so it's Well, I'm surprised you even found it, man.
Speaker 2:That's the thing Like. To find the book today is really difficult because I've talked about it a lot, but here it is. That's my last Kambaku book. Right, the green book that you can buy, it's a thousand copies only ever printed. So which is this one? Let me see. This one is 203. Nice, yeah, and he wrote in it for me oh, awesome. So I got that one that's 203, but then he's got.
Speaker 2:he then self-published this book, okay long life and short stories and all of these stories that are not published in that book. And then he wrote a fishing one called I Caught my First Fish 82 Years Ago. And then this is all his fishing stories.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Now you got me to go back to the internet today and do some more ordering.
Speaker 2:Well, you can't find these oh okay, All right.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you should republish those right.
Speaker 2:I'll figure it out. 've got to figure it out. I've got to figure it out.
Speaker 1:It's not like you have any spare time or anything, right? No, no.
Speaker 2:And I would turn this, like, for instance I know we're already way off track, but if I turn my computer, I'm going to show you a picture that hardly anybody has ever seen, you see, but this one with the tarpon. There's a story to that picture. That is about the guy in the picture. The guy in the picture is like one of the most famous tarpon fishermen ever. It's in Costa Rica. He hadn't caught a fish all day and he's like well, why don't you pretend to catch a tarpon? I'll take a picture of you and a tarpon hit the bait just as he took that photo. And this is one of the most world-renowned tarpon fisheries in the world as well, where this picture was taken. And so there's just things like, yeah, blood Origins is hunting, but that story going back and seeing, okay, what's a tarpon fishery like today and why is it the way it is today, and whatnot, that would be a bloody cool story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, today, and what not? That would be a bloody cool story. So, yeah, yeah, we'll just put that on the list of the to do's right yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we just, you know, I love the bush, I love the outdoors, I love, I love wildlife, and that's sort of like my bend and that's where I've steered my entire life, all of my studies, all the things that I've done, and yeah, so, where I've steered my entire life, all of my studies, all the things that I've done, and uh, yeah, it's landed us to where we are today.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Well, you know, and you kind of talk about that in an interview I remember seeing well, I've definitely checked out quite a few, but one where you're talking with jack carr and mentioning in that letter too, where your grandfather talks about how you found this and it must be in your blood, and that, um, in the same token you were talking about uh, your grandmother would say, you know, you're led astray. He said that he would be, uh, it would be a failure of his if you didn't find this and thank goodness you did uh on your own. And you know you, you kind of you talked about uh, you know you went out and you studied in, in in college and then you end up getting your uh, you know, your PhD, um, at the university of Mississippi. There, like in, you know, wildlife studies and sciences.
Speaker 1:There's so many things that you kind of wanted to go after and I was kind of curious when you first started that journey. Um, you know, what was it that you were hoping to become with a career? Was there an idea that you had set past like to go for it? Cause you also had other things too, where you know, I want to jump in in a minute with soccer as well. But, uh, you know, was there something that you kind of had as that end? All be all like I would love to do that someday, or did you think that you could have make a living in this, uh, in in this realm?
Speaker 2:Oh man, like when I first arrived in the States, I still had a girl back home and I was going home Like there was, I was three years in, do my PhD and out we go.
Speaker 2:And, uh, yeah, I, you know it's funny, the PhD really was just a mechanism by which and I, I I made this decision very quickly before I did a PhD was I wanted to do a PhD because it wasn't going to limit me in anything I wanted to do in the future, didn't really know what I was wanting to do once I got the PhD. Obviously, academia is the logical next step when you are in the PhD world and that's the route I did take and the postdoc and professor world and then eventually into the consulting world. Um, but I didn't even then, like you know, you know, even up until again five years ago, when this idea of, of, of hunting, came really to the, to the forefront, and we started talking, I started thinking more and more and more about stories and heart and whatnot. There was no like aspirations of getting into. There was aspirations of, you know, being in the restoration ecology space, in the, in the water quality space, in the wetland space. Yes, but none of that had anything to do with hunting at all, gotcha.
Speaker 1:And well, I mean, I guess and we'll, we'll jump into this time where you were invited hunting when you're like 25, 26 years old. I want to get into that story. But I do want to touch upon the soccer aspect, because you played at a super high competitive level and then eventually ended up being a goalkeeper coach at university of Mississippi and was that something that you kind of thought about, cause you played at, played at like a pro level in South Africa, is that?
Speaker 2:correct. So when I was 17, I went I was, I did an exchange student program into Germany and that exchange student program I landed in a tiny town that happened to have a very well-established soccer team and I loved soccer and I was a goalkeeper. So I was like, oh, I told my host parents, I said I want to try out for the soccer team. They're like what? I said yeah, and they showed up at the, they took me to the soccer field. I didn't speak a lick of German and the guy was like, oh, what's Torvarts? I think Torvarts or Tor. No's Torvarts, I think Torvarts or Tor Schutter. No, torvarts is goalkeeper in Germany, in German. And he said, okay, that's where you are. Okay, go join the others.
Speaker 2:And literally it was like the hardest practice of my life. Like right away I was like, oh, and it was on sand, it was on sand pitch and I was like, oh, my gosh. But even in that first practice I even got the coach looked at me and was like, huh, pretty good. I was like, okay, and so it was just a matter of like escalating, because their training was like, I would say, 20 times what I was used to, and so we were playing for the under 17 team and I was playing for the under 17 team and I just turned 18. And sorry, I was 17 playing for the under 18s.
Speaker 2:All the other goalkeepers were actually younger than me and somehow the main goalkeeper got blood poisoning for the main team that was up in the German leagues. And they're like you're playing. I was like what? They're like yep, you're coming up and you're going to play in the big leagues. I was like okay, and they had to send a contract through to my dad. He had to sign it via fax, send it back. I walked into the changing room for the first match and there was a new set of gosh. I've even forgotten what the brand of gloves was like Ulsport, I think, was like the goalkeeper gloves of the day. It had a big U on it. Yeah, I had the same ones, yeah. And I got into the changing room there was a new set of gloves and on the wristband it said Robert Kroger on the wristband. And I was like, okay, I've made it. It was like Oliver Kahn had Ulsport ones that said Oliver Kahn on his straps.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, and we proceeded to get absolutely murdered that day, like I think it was like 5-0 my first game. I was like, oh, I give up, I absolutely give up. But then we had a couple of really good games afterwards and I remember we won one game, two to one, in our home stadium. The home stadium was this old, like old stadium, with rock steps, would be packed, like the whole town would come out and watch the game.
Speaker 2:And I very distinctly remember like in the game they came down the right-hand side and I had to obviously stay on the near post and my defenders I don't know what they were doing, but they weren't doing their jobs and he he beat one of my defenders and crossed it over. And as he crossed the ball I turned my head and there was an open forward at the back post. Just like, oh, this is going to going in, this is guy's going to score. And somehow I scrambled and just leapt. At the same time he shot and I saved it and we won 2-1. Awesome, and it was written up in the newspaper and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1:Statues are built.
Speaker 2:Yeah, statues Now today. Yeah, I go back. But yeah, I loved it and went back to South Africa after that year and played in the highest level of under 19 soccer in Johannesburg. We won the pre-cup, the cup in the league. I went for a pro trial. They told me that they had too many goalkeepers, which I took as a secret way of telling me, or a nice way of telling me, that I wasn't good enough.
Speaker 2:But at that point my career was taking over. I just started university and I was like, eh, and so I never thought about soccer again until I was a PhD student at Ole Miss and I joined a rec league. Actually, I didn't join the rec league, I joined as an umpire because I needed to make money. I was broke. I wasn't making any money as a PhD student. I was looking to make money and so I reffed and I reffed little kids and then they're like, oh, why don't you reff the adult rec league? I was like, okay, cool, the first game, two refs, two different teams, three fights. The other ref got pushed over. Um, I was like I'm done, I'm not doing this ever again. I didn't do anything for probably in the next five years when it came to soccer.
Speaker 2:Then I got hired at Mississippi State as a professor and somehow, via the grapevine, in my interview process, the people in my department had kids that were goalkeepers and they're like, oh, we know you're a goalkeeper, do you mind training our kids? I was like, okay, I can do that. And it turned into this bigger thing and bigger thing and bigger thing. And then the coach of Mississippi State University's girls soccer said to me he heard about me and he was a Scotsman and he reached out to me going, our goalkeeper coach just left. We know nothing about goalkeeping. Would you mind coming and training our goalkeepers? You know D1 women's soccer team? I said, yeah, sure, and I went in there and it was awesome. He got. I went through three different coaching was it three, two, two or three different coaching staffs and because I was never paid, I was the only one like that had transitioned for all the girls. Like you know, familiarity, like what's going?
Speaker 2:on, who is this? And I would get called in by the new coaches to say like, okay, what's the deal? And I was like, well, I'm not even a coach here, I'm just a volunteer. But, as I said, he said to me. He said we'll pay you in all the Adidas gear you could possibly want and you can travel around the country. And literally that was what I did for two years, two to three years with the soccer team and I loved it and I got to go out on the pitch and um, and then that immigrated. Once I left Mississippi state, that immigrated into me becoming a color commentator for Mississippi state women's soccer. So then I got back into the commentating and then it was it. Then I, then I was like I hung up the gloves and was like, all right, now I'm done, done, done.
Speaker 1:So nice man, that's it, it, it's. It's amazing how those kinds of opportunities come to you know, happen like it's not something you could have ever written up, that you'd be like, yeah, I'm doing this, and then color commentating at the end like that's really an amazing experience.
Speaker 2:man, that's cool yeah, I loved it. I loved the time of doing it. Man, it was just. Obviously it's a big passion. It's what I did and, you know, still love. And unfortunately, neither of my boys are soccer players. They're very unathletic when it comes to soccer and it kills me, like my wife. The last soccer game my littlest one played in, I was yelling at him to do things and my wife was like why are you yelling he's out there to have fun? I was like no, that's not why we play soccer. And she's like you just need to chill. You need to take like an edible or something on the side of the field, because this is like you need to chill out. And my oldest my oldest was even worse. He preferred to have a conversation with the opposition versus playing soccer on the field. So, oh, it's just.
Speaker 1:It broke my heart, but it is what it is I still, uh, do some some coaching, kind of like the assistant assistant, cause I, our schedules are so busy. I'll get out there and help when I can, and I remember I was this just a few days ago. I was coaching from the sidelines. They only allow two coaches on the main coach side and I'm on the opposite of what the parents are and I kind of jogged up and at like one of the water breaks to go over there and I hear one of the the other dads like I hope you stay over there.
Speaker 1:He's like all the coaching on the sideline. I can't help it, man. It's in my blood too. It's like I've been playing. Since I was four years old. I've coached every level. I I love it. It's, uh, still a passion for mine, you know, and I try to get out there every now and then. The ankles and the knees aren't the same as they used to be no, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I gave up playing soccer a long time ago I want to hit that like upper 90 shot from 30 yards out on the sunday league. Take the cleats off, throw them around the neck and walk off into like the sunset. You know, like that's the goal it'll probably why can't you do that?
Speaker 1:anymore like, come on, you know, yeah, I well, I I said the other day to my friend, I said, you know, I've been limiting it. I've just been thinking it's a goal that I score for my team but maybe I can hit an own goal and I could at least say that strike was awesome, and then I can be done then. So we'll see how that goes. But well, moving forward, man, so you know, you, you got this time there you're in Mississippi, and then some point in time you kind of decided that you were going to.
Speaker 1:You know, like you said, you started out with the idea of it being called in the blood, but you created blood origins, what is the, you know, kind of Genesis idea and story of this. You know, what is it that you first envisioned? And obviously it's grown, you know, tenfold from there. But let me know, talk to me about that, that first idea that you had, what was it that you wanted to uh, encompass and, and you know, put together. Because you, you know, like you said, you kind of went hunting with a buddy, a redneck pal of yours, and, like you, know, you're 25, 26 years old and then something kind of formed and was birthed from that.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that yeah, you know, the genesis of blood origins was.
Speaker 2:Genesis of Blood Origins was really about me trying to figure out why we hunt, and I was more keen on because I was learning to be a hunter. I'm still learning to become a hunter, and I needed to instruct my boys on how to be a hunter, and so I really was curious. I could biologically tell them why we were doing something, but I couldn't tell them emotionally or from my heart, like why we were doing what we were doing, and so I was searching for something like that and I couldn't really find it on on sportsman's or outdoors or any of the social media at that time. I just I couldn't find it. So I was like man, why don't we just? Why don't we see if we can execute a way by which we can communicate our heart and our why? And really that's what we started with is just telling other people's stories. And if you watch the evolution of the stories and we're still very much still story-driven by individuals We've done like 78 stories now, but you never really got to see me in the beginning. It was all just my voice, and I actually quite liked it that way, because I walk around convention floors and nobody knew who I was, except when I started talking. They're like, oh, you're that Blood Origins guy. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was never an ego thing for me. It was always like I wanted to tell someone else's story and I wanted to hear from someone else that I could pull some wisdom from around why they hunted. And that's what we started with. And I was your typical hunting industry person, I guess, in which I was looking for people to sponsor us, I was looking for people to partner with us, I was looking for people to give us money, and everyone told me no. And that was a blessing in disguise, because what it allowed me to do was be completely independent, completely autonomous, and we didn't belong to anyone. And so today, as a nonprofit, as we span that gap from not really understanding what we were to now taking the leap into the nonprofit space and going, wow, we've really got a voice. We can be a voice for awareness. We can be a voice for advocacy. We can be a voice for the sportsman. We can be a voice for the PhD that talks about issue A, b and C and dissects it down. And this is what you need to do, and this is what you need to know and this is what you need to say Just telling, still telling, stories about hunters to then exploring what are impacts, benefits and consequences of the action of hunting.
Speaker 2:How do we do that? Can we do it through infographics? Can we do it through podcasts? Can we do it through infographics? Can we do it through podcasts, can we do it through film documentaries? And the answer was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so that's where we are today and it's just now this, like we're on this exponential rocket ship right now of blood origins and what we're involved with and how we are involved and where we go and who we speak with. That's, it's just. You know, we're on, we're just on, we're out for the ride right now and figuring out, like, what's next? Like, oh you know, are we growing to beyond hunting? Are we going to who knows?
Speaker 1:I don't know well, you I know that you kind of you had a call out recently for a global policy. Uh, within, so you're getting out to this next level of hiring people in to another degree. Why don't you talk to me about that kind of growth? How many people are involved? I mean, obviously you're at the center of it all, but what is your vision of this growing right now? Do you have something, or is it just kind of, you know, evolving as it does and it's taking its own shape?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm the only employee of Blood Origins.
Speaker 2:And one of the things our board is small. Our board is six people, that's it. It'll never grow more than six, and what we have decided and we will always be this way is for Blood Origins not to fulfill its mission. It cannot not be nimble. So we have to be nimble, we have to be non-bureaucratic and we need to be able to act very, very quickly, and so what that means is maybe a core staff of three to five people that operate in the world that we live in, which is you've got faces, you've got voices, you've got someone who can raise money and you've got a bunch of people that can help with understanding and educating and translating, and really, that's all we need. That's all we need is. We don't need anything beyond that, and so it's a. You know, as we grow, as we raise more money, I think what we need, what we will do, is, instead of investing, as a lot of people do, in people, we'd rather invest in bigger projects. We'd rather invest in bigger conservation projects or bigger documentaries or anything like that.
Speaker 1:So that's really. Can you talk about some of those projects that you kind of been doing recently, because there's some amazing things I've seen. You know things you get funded and how does that? Maybe you can talk to listeners about how does their you know contributions, how do they make their contributions and how does that go into some of these projects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the contributions of people that support us on a daily basis is, you know, and that's really our supporters program, somebody donates the cost of a cup of coffee to us a month. That's it, that's all we ask. Five bucks a month, it's less than what you would pay at Starbucks and all of that helps with the mission. It helps with really delivering what you see us deliver every single day and nobody can argue that they don't see the money in action, because they see it every single day. They see it in action. Then what that money does is it also allows us to find good projects and good stories all over the world. That really showcases hunting in the light that we want to showcase it in. So New Zealand, you know, we Zealand we're helping the Fjord and Wapiti Foundation push back against Forrest and Bird, an anti-use organization, and timing-wise it's perfect. We were there in June of last year. We did a big documentary on them. That documentary is now ready, it'll go out in June and it'll push back against Forrest and Bird to say, look, we were there, look, here's the beautiful piece of film footage that just came out of the most inhospitable place in the world on the conservation efforts that they're doing, and really that's the way that we operate, and so for that we did a documentary. But we also invested $35,000 into the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation to put traps on the ground to protect native, iconic bird species in New Zealand and then showcase it and really storytell the investment into conservation by hunting and by hunters, and so really that is the model, and so all we now need to do is just expand the model and continue to do the work. We've got a documentary coming out of Zambia looking at a gradient of islands that go from hunted to not hunted. We're going into Tanzania to really look at objectively as objectively as we possibly can, even though we are pro-hunting this big elephant debacle that's happening between Tanzania and Kenya in terms of shooting big elephants. We're going into France and Belgium in 20 days to look at a project called Saving Bambi the whole.
Speaker 2:You know, if you had to rewind the clock, like the first piece of rhetoric against hunting, is Bambi right, all right, bambi was actually built off of either a fallow or a roe deer in Europe a fallow or a roe deer in Europe. And what happens right now in May, end of May, early June, is roe deer does, are laying fawns on the ground and those fawns don't move. They go into camouflage when disturbed, and typically they're camouflaged in big hayfields. Well, farmers are cutting hayfields right now and so what happens is typically Bambi gets chopped up by a farmer's implement. But hunting organizations have bought a bunch of thermal drones and they go out every morning onto a farmer's field that a farmer has called and said hey, I'm cutting this field. Today, hunting Federation goes out. They drone the whole field. They find the baby, the fawn. They go out with a big laundry basket. They pick up the fawn, put it in the laundry basket, take it off the field. Farmer cuts the field and the fawn gets put back in place.
Speaker 2:Absolutely incredible, incredible conservation success story of hunters saving Bambi. Nobody else is doing it. There's no anti-hunting organization doing it, it's hunting organizations doing it. So those are the kinds of things we do. There's lots of things coming. We've got a sea turtle project in Georgia where hunting has saved sea turtles. We've got the Colorado Lionhounds documentary right now. That's probably our biggest piece that we've ever done and pushing that out into the public space and following the lead of Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and what they are doing in Colorado and how we can jump on that, help them with their efforts.
Speaker 2:And August the 29th if everybody's got a calendar, mark it down on your calendars. And August the 29th if everybody's got a calendar, mark it down on your calendars. August the 29th premiering of Lionheart in Denver, colorado, at the Paramount Theater, 1,000 seats. We're going to have a Western black tie event and we will know at that stage if the ballot initiative was defeated, and so it will be a big party to say okay, okay, what's next, or we will be in the fight of our lives. So august 29th will you tell?
Speaker 2:people about the ballot initiative and what's going to be taking place there, because I'm familiar but a lot of listeners may not know what's going on with that yeah, so right now in colorado they are in the signature gathering process, by which they want to essentially ban hunting of mountain lions and bobcats in the state of Colorado. And the Colorado law states that if you get a certain percentage of signatures based on how many people voted the last time at this time around about 128,000 signatures and you get them all validated, they all have to be Colorado residents signatures and you get them all validated, they all have to be colorado residents then the question gets put onto the ballot in november, which is a big presidential election, and the question will be asked at the ballot do you agree with it? And it's all worded. It's all in the wording, right. Do you agree with banning of trophy hunting or something stupid where you get confused? Right with banning of trophy hunting or something stupid where you get confused? Right, and we will, only we will.
Speaker 2:July 3rd is the last day that they can collect signatures, so they've only got two months left. We are hopeful that they do not get meet the threshold, but we never know. And so July 3rd is the last day. By August 29th we will know if it's moving on to the ballot or not wow.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, we got some things coming up here.
Speaker 1:I'm sure I think you made a post about it, about the mountain lions here in texas and how you know, for the longest time there was uh, there wasn't as much of limitation on when you had to check your trap line, and now they're trying to.
Speaker 1:You know, it's just kind of like right now in comment phases, but it is stirring up a lot around here because people believe that maybe that may lead to eventually the banning of mountain lion hunting, when I think it's more or less about trying to be responsible, about checking your trap lines in a certain period of time and not having these caged hunts where they've taken the animal and open up the cage and someone goes out and shoot.
Speaker 1:It's like there's certain aspects about I think you know our morality and our ethics as hunters that you know we need to be able to as you've done so well is laid everything out for people to make sure you're seeing both sides of the coin so you can understand, and you know you've talked about a lot of issues in the hunting culture that you see that you feel like we need to address and I'd love for you to maybe kind of talk about a little bit of those and then we'll show the other coin about, obviously, all the things that hunters are doing for conservation.
Speaker 1:I know it seems you know for some people when they hear that you know how are hunters the most mindful? You know conservational folks out there but aside from just our taxes that go to the conservational awareness programs and those kind of things that are facilitated and such, I think that there's so much we can kind of dive into and I want to take a minute into that. But if we can kind of talk about some of the things that you see are some of the issues in the hunting community that you address with blood origins, man, where do I start?
Speaker 2:You know the mountain lion is a good one in Texas. There's a lot of talk on both sides of the coin. Obviously, a lot of people are wary of anti-hunting interests pushing an agenda that may lead to the banning of mountain lion hunting in the state of Texas. Are there good opportunities to improve mountain lion hunting in the state of Texas? Are they good opportunities to improve mountain lion hunting? Yes, would it be a good thing to make them a big game animal? I think yes, there's just lots of different things, but it's also a very slippery slope and that's where things just sort of get a little tenuous and that little you know, little things that make complete sense at face value. When you step back and you sort of tease them apart a little bit, you're like, oh wow, that could do this or that could do that, and at the end of the day it's all about compromise and I think compromise, if both sides are hurting a little bit, it means you've found the right position and you found the right tenor, you found the right action or solution and really I think that's what I could sum up Blood Origins being is that we look at a lot of issues that are in the hunting space. People push back against hunting and we can sit there and we can logically work our way through the argument. We can also sort of explain both sides of the coin and sometimes that somebody make their decision based on what we've said and hopefully they're making a more informed decision based on the information that we've given them.
Speaker 2:You know a lot of the time we don't often, you know, maybe the root of it is you know how hunters are perceived on social media and that's really maybe some of the root causes of a lot of our issues. We're not going to get away from it today. It's already out there. The can has been sprung. The terrible images are out there. The terrible videos are out there. We're never getting them back. Ever Doesn't matter how many times you're trying to delete something, it's gone, it's already on the internet. It doesn't matter how many times you try and delete something, it's gone, it's already on the internet. So I think you know a lot of our work beyond, like pushing on specific issues or doing conservation projects or documentaries, is really informing and educating.
Speaker 2:Here's what hunting is doing, but here's also how we speak when we engage someone who calls us all names under the sun, or when a bad post goes out about hunting by either a person in our hunting community or somebody that's anti-hunting, how, how do you respond to that? What do you say? How do you say it? What's the tenor of that response? So, so we do that a lot all day long and I'm witnessing, because we've been doing it for three years now.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing the shift in people now I'm seeing the shift in how they respond, how they tag us, and then even, like you know, there's a big social media campaign that we've been fighting for literally two and a half years, three years in which these guys push these terrible pictures of trophy hunting. They sell T-shirts. On it, the address is based in the UK, but the IP address is based in India. They're not selling T-shirts anymore, but they're doing jewelry, bracelets, bracelets and in the beginning, when I was tagged into those things, it's a 24 hour ad, so you've got to get in there and you put your comments in and then it's gone 24 hours later, because that's what they're paying these big nature accounts for, which is also just a an eyeopening experience that you don't realize that all of these huge, big nature-based accounts of 6 million 4 million, are actually paid advertising accounts for 24 hour paid ads.
Speaker 2:And anyway, in the beginning, when I started attacking these guys, there was not a single positive pro hunting comment on those pages, none Today, when I get tagged into them, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of pro hunting comments on there and none of them follow Blood Origins. So I don't know. Know, I'll take all the credit, don't get me wrong. I'll take it all because we've been you know, we've been working at this for three and a half years and really the only people in that space doing it, uh, but we're seeing definite change in that in that space.
Speaker 2:But I know that was a long-winded answer to your question, but we do a lot and, at the end of the day, I think what we're trying to do to people is change the way that they think, which is thinking about what you post, how you post it, what you say, how you respond, all those things that require you just to be a little bit more thoughtful, especially in the social media world where you can't really understand someone's tenor. Are they coming at me angry? Are they frustrated? Are they mad? Are they ambivalent? You don't know. It's very difficult to assess that, and so how do you speak to, to someone that's, you know, attacking you kind of scenario.
Speaker 1:So those are important things I mean we need. You know I see a lot of people who sometimes they have that urge to react versus respond, and you know you get something negative about your way of life or your culture, your friends, your family, and you know there's a knee jerk reaction at times. But how? You no-transcript something that it's not been there before. And I think that we have to continue to educate people on this way of life because it's something that you know, it's been a way of our life for, you know, millennia and beyond. Right, it's how we've gotten to be evolved to where we are here today. And it's only you know a hundred something years that we've gone to the store to get our food. You know it's like we've created, uh, this, this new way of life to where we can go ahead and just order anything off of you know a menu. And you know, very rarely do people actually know how those animals come to hit their plate. And if they really looked at you know, I think it's even like they said, 80% of chicken inspectors don't eat chicken. I mean, if you look at the way that a lot of our food is brought to our table, if you really traced it all back? It's, it's not. You wouldn't probably eat that food.
Speaker 1:All the things that are injected into the meats to produce more food, uh, the the horrible conditions that a lot of the cattle and I mean pork and I mean the industries it's absolutely horrible. I work with a lot of different people who, you know, shine a light on that and trying to have better practices, for you know, if they're going to be working with meat, I know Olympia provisions so you may or may not be aware of up in Oregon, like the type of pork they get and how they're very, very, you know, focused in on making sure that they're getting the best produced meat for their quality and their products. And there is a consciousness for a lot of different companies, but a lot of them it's profit over. You know people they don't care about what's being put in their food, they just want to sell, sell, sell where you know, as hunters, we know generally where our animals are coming from.
Speaker 1:It's not, you know, it's a different way of life and I think that it's very important for us to uh place that, uh image and uh that education in people's minds. They can really understand and you know that's something that obviously you've talked about a lot and minds they can really understand. And you know that's something that obviously you've talked about a lot and you know you've interviewed so many amazing people throughout your time. You know, and I I can, you know, just kind of hearing about, like your very first time you were showing Will Primos. You know the video that you had done which was kind of the one of your first three primers, and then you're sitting around with Jim Shockey later on that evening, uh, talking to these people and you've had the opportunity to meet with them. Is there anybody on that list that you still haven't interviewed, that you'd love to sit down and chat with? And maybe why, if you have a particular person in mind, does that person come to your mind?
Speaker 2:Man. You know I'm I'm more, I'm more interested in the mainstream community. Now I know that there are a ton of people that hunt out there that nobody knows they actually hunt. We talked about Jack Carr. Jack Carr's best mate, chris Pratt, is a big hunter. I'd love to sit down with Chris Pratt. That would be ultimate. Ronda Rousey she hunts. Sit down with her. Max Hollow you know Max Holloway that just had that spectacular fight. He wants to hunt.
Speaker 2:Um, those kinds of people in those kinds of you know, we just finished a episode with Rich Fronin, who's Mr CrossFit. So it's those kinds of people that I'm super, super interested in. And if I had my druthers one day, the ultimate would be because, again, we like to be in the middle. Not that I would probably interview them at all right now, but if I had, maybe you get a hard-leaning right person like a donald trump jr and then a hard-leaning left person who is blue as they come, but they both love to hunt. That would be badass, that would be fun. Say I was just like come on people, you know, yeah, where would you take them? Oh, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. You know, turkey hunting, pig hunting, um, those are just easy entry hunts and social hunts. You know that's what you want. Um, yeah, something like that nice.
Speaker 1:Did you get a chance to do any turkey hunting yourself this spring?
Speaker 2:I went turkey hunting last week. I was lucky enough to do a little bit of R&R and I had one mistake that I'm paying for today, which is I went and crawled up into a burn pile of a bunch of logs and sat there and tried to call a bunch of turkeys in and I'm covered in the worst chigger bites I have ever had in my life. They're so bad they're waking me up at night that I have to go like douse myself in chigger eggs and then go back to bed oh, do you have a nice turkey to hang up?
Speaker 1:as a oh for sure, yeah, it was an epic day of turkey hunting.
Speaker 2:It was an epic day of turkey hunting. It was everything you wanted it to be. Everything the gobbling and doing what they're supposed to do in the morning, sneaking up on you and you're like, oh my god, there's a turkey right there to a late afternoon hunt where we played hard to get and it absolutely worked perfectly oh, that's awesome, man, that is awesome.
Speaker 1:so how, that is awesome. So how are you going to cook them? What's your favorite go-to recipes there?
Speaker 2:I don't know, man, I like to do the thighs in a very slow cooker, like, make it like a barbecue pork, like a pulled barbecue pork. I've never really done the whole turkey nuggets thing, so I may try that. I've smoked the turkey breast before, um, that's about it. Oh, and I've also done like a super, super thin, like veal schnitzel, uh, breaded turkey with, with lemon, which has been, which is bloody good, nice, uh, it sounds phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I've I've got a couple turkeys that I am just can't wait to get up and cook. I got the. I don't know if you've heard of the turkey book by Jesse Griffiths. Yeah it is phenomenal man I'm going to be. Just every single like recipe is a dish that I would create for my family, so I'm trying to, you know, figure out which one to go in order with, and there's going to be a lifetime of turkey recipes recipes I'm sure from that that I'll be utilizing 100.
Speaker 1:Well, what other, uh, what other kind of game you got in your freezer right now? Man, I love to ask you about everything yeah, I got everything I can imagine what I mean?
Speaker 2:because no guy, I've still got. No guy meats I've still got. I've got nilgai, cow, elk, turkey, deer um, I got the odd packet of bear meat still um, got a bunch of. When I was in texas doing some um, some documentary work, one of the ranches I was with was like oh, just come here, just open your, open your cooler, and it was like zebra and blessed buck and you and all sorts of exotic meats been thrown into the cooler. So I probably got probably one of the most diverse freezers, got some quail. I had a very diverse freezer.
Speaker 1:Well and you just moved up to Tennessee. Have you found some hunting grounds up there, Because you're in Memphis? You've been in Mississippi for a while. What's that looking like for you and your new situation and your surroundings there?
Speaker 2:Well, the beautiful thing about where I live now is it's an hour from when I started hunting, so I've got places in Oxford that's an hour away that I can go hunt. But no, I just you know, ever since we've come to Memphis I've been full, full tilt with Blood Origins and so it's been tough to like find places and whatnot. But as we bring someone on board to help me, and hopefully, you know, I dare I say slow down, but it's probably never going to happen. I just need to structure some balance in my life that allows me to go explore, go find some friends who have some access and some places and go hunt. Essentially, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, indeed, friends who have some, some access and some places and go hunt, essentially, you know, yeah, indeed. Well, you know, why don't you talk to me a little bit about more about what's coming down the pike here, uh, with blood origins and some of the projects? I mean, you've mentioned a few here. Is there anything else that you'd like to highlight that is kind of coming up here within? You know, the rest of this year, maybe the calendar year?
Speaker 2:well, obviously we've gotheart Lionheart's going to be publicly available. Everyone's going to be like where is it? Can I watch it? You can't watch it yet. It's not publicly available. Denver, colorado, 29th of August, and then the first two weeks of September is probably when we're going to publicly release it through all streaming platforms that you can think of, obviously, all social media platforms.
Speaker 2:We've got a big elephant documentary that's coming out of Botswana. That is going to be probably one of the hardest pieces, hardest hitting pieces, we've done and we're hoping to have a big launch, a premier launch in Botswana towards the end of this year. We've got a bunch of New Zealand content coming that we filmed last year. We're going into Belgium and France to film content that'll come out next year. We've got Tanzania content. We've got some Australia content coming out. So, yeah, we're just like putting more and more fingerprints down on the landscape constantly and then just, you know, picking up the fights where we need to pick up the fights. So, yeah, just stay tuned and stay connected and keep supporting us is really all I can say.
Speaker 1:That's great, Well, before we tell people where they can go and, you know, have a contribution towards this. I'd love to kind of hear your take on your idea of legacy, kind of in a professional and a personal setting. How do you view, uh, you know, what you would hope to be remembered by and for through these actions and all these things that you're being a part of, you know, and all this journey? So what is it that you kind of? How do you view your legacy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want someone you know. And again, I've asked legacy. I've asked a bunch of people about legacy and it's tough to answer because legacy only comes when you date Right. It's tough to answer because legacy only comes when you did Right. And so you know I would say that once that occurs I want people to say, man, they changed how hunting is looked at around the world for everyone and set sort of a bar, set a model, set an example for how we should be communicating about hunting. So that's, you know, that's professionally, the legacy.
Speaker 2:Personally, and you know, I come from an old school kind of family, like you, probably your dad or your grandfather, my grandfather kids were to be seen, never heard, like you heard me say earlier. But my dad was not the loving I love you, kiss you son, hug you son, cuddle on the couch, son, kind of scenario. And there's nothing wrong with it. You know, maybe it's how I I am the way I am today, but I'm making sure that with my family that you know, I'm talking and and and hugging them and kissing them and cuddling them and, you know, spending time on the couch with them watching a film or stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So Ah, it's brilliant, man. I, I, I definitely agree with how you know. It's that that generation two ago man, our grandparents, it wasn't. It was so different, you know, and I think about when you talk about that leather armchair. You know, I still have the footstool that the kids would sit on and hear some of those stories, but it was very limited and, and you know, I really wish I could go back and hear those stories, but it it's a different way of life, man.
Speaker 1:And, uh, it's important that I think we show we never let our kids second guess or or wonder, you know how we feel, and that we impart all these amazing stories and wisdoms and things that we've picked up from other people along the way and that we're sharing that and that you know they're seen and heard and a part of that conversation, especially about something like this. It's a big part of our lives and our hunting heritage around the world. So, um, I appreciate all the things that you've been sharing, all the work that you, you know, put out there. Man, it, it. I take my hat off to you and thank you. I love all the things you're doing with Blood Origins and for those who want to be a part of this. You know, check this out, maybe for the first time. Where can they go and follow you? And then, how is it that they can go ahead and become a you know contributor for you know one time, or even an annual membership with Blood Origins?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can find us. Just type in Blood Origins into anything you search on or use, you'll find us. And then supporting us is easy. Just go to the website. Or you can find in our bios just our supporters program, which is the donation of a recurring amount of money, at least five bucks a month. That really, you know, helps us do what we do, but it also allows you to win things monthly. We've given away South African Hunt. We've given away a $950 gift card to Spartan Precision. We've got great giveaways coming this year, probably a gun or two that you can win for five bucks a month. So that's individually.
Speaker 2:But if you have a company and you want a tax-deductible write-off or tax-deductible donation against your company, you can sign up for our conservation club. That starts at $25 a month and goes all the way up to whatever amount you want to give. Again, that's just supporting us doing what we do, fulfilling the mission going to the horizon. It's a very different model in that you're doing it and you're supporting us because of who we are and what we do, not because you're going to get your gun featured on Blood Origins or your bino featured or we're going to wear your clothing. That's not how it works with us. And if that's what you're after, then we don't want your money. So that's it. Two meccas support us through the supporters program. Then we don't want your money, so that's it. Two mechanisms Support us through the supporters program and if you've got a company, support us through the conservation club. We'd love to have you.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. I encourage everyone to go check it out. And once again, man, thank you, robbie, for joining me today and sharing a little bit of your story, and I can't wait to continue to see all the wonderful things you got going on. Man, thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, bud Humble to do it.
Speaker 1:Cheers. Well, we'll be in touch again. Man, you take care Sounds great, Cheers.
