Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Cameron Hanes & Adam Greentree (2025) - Hunting, Wildlife Management and the Natural World

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Cameron Hanes & Adam Greentree (2025) - Hunting, Wildlife Management and the Natural World · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap, and before we get going, please
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  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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  our latest episodes in your feed.
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  Today we're embarking on a pretty visceral deep dive.
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  We're extracting some powerful and honestly, sometimes shocking
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  insights from a recent conversation about the raw,
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  unforgiving nature of the wild. Yeah, and these sources, they're
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  not just about hunting. They dig into the real cost of
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  conservation and, maybe more importantly, the human need for
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  intense natural struggle. It's a really remarkable stack
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  of sources. You got everything from hard
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  wildlife management data, the stuff that actually makes
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  policy, all the way to these big philosophical ideas about why
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  modern life can leave us feeling so anxious.
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  Right. So our mission today is to sort
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  of figure out what happens when that bubble of civilized society
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  gets popped by the well, the sheer brutality of nature, and
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  what can we learn from that collision?
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  OK, let's just dive right in. The best way to understand that
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  brutality is with a story that Adam Greentree shared.
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  It's about a Mountain Lion hunt in Colorado.
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  But the context, it was just horrific.
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  Yeah, this wasn't some majestic hunt in the wilderness.
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  This was a massive cat that had jumped a fence and was actively
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  eating a full grown beef cow alive.
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  And the detail that really sticks with you is that the
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  Mountain Lion was eating the cow from the rear end and the cow
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  was screaming vocally screaming in agony.
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  It's a horrible image. It was still kicking its hooves
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  but couldn't get up, and the cat, which they said was around
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  170 lbs, just kept on eating. The rancher eventually had to go
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  out and put the cow down himself.
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  That one detail, the screaming, it's so important because it
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  just shatters that peaceful, you know, Disney version of nature
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  we sometimes have. Exactly.
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  It shows you that animals don't have human compassion.
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  There's no concept of mercy, they just consume what they
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  need, even if their prey is still alive.
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  Man is the only animal that even considers ending the misery.
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  And that idea, it sets up this huge conflict that the sources
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  explored. Yeah, this tension between
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  people in cities who are insulated from this and people
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  in the country who deal with it every day.
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  And the consequences are just, they're so severe when the
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  management fails. The whole discussion was really
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  critical of policies that are driven by sentimentality instead
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  of, you know, ecological reality.
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  California was the prime example.
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  Right. Oh, absolutely.
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  It's a fascinating and frankly, a massive failure of unintended
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  consequences. So California bans all Mountain
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  Lion hunting, supposedly out of compassion.
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  But they still end up killing them.
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  Hundreds of them. They kill hundreds of lions
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  every year using what are called depredation tags.
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  And for anyone who doesn't know, that means a specialist can only
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  kill the lion after it's already killed livestock or.
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  Pets. So it's totally reactive.
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  You wait for the damage to be done and then you act.
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  It makes no sense. It's policy paralysis, and they
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  dropped this staggering statistic about what that means
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  for people in places like the Bay.
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  I remember this, it was shocking.
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  Yeah, they cited data showing that in the Bay Area, nearly 50%
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  of the mountain lions diet is domestic pets, dogs and cats.
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  50% wow. So the policy that's meant to be
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  compassionate is actually leading to more animal suffering
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  and people's pets getting eaten in their own backyards.
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  Precisely. And then you contrast that with
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  a place like Oregon, which allows a legal, regulated
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  harvest. They generate revenue that
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  actually goes back into conservation.
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  It's a sustainable system. And Utah was held up as the gold
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  standard. The most progressive model.
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  Yeah. They basically treat Cougars
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  like coyotes. A managed resource.
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  You can hunt them year round with a license, no separate tag.
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  But, and this is the key part, you have to check the animal in
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  within 48 hours. So they get real time data to
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  manage the population. Scientifically.
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  It's based on numbers, not a morality play.
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  Exactly. OK.
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  So if we take that idea of management a step further, what
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  happens when the hunters just aren't there anymore?
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  The global example they used was frankly terrifying.
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  The bear surge in Japan. It's a full blown crisis.
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  It shows you the immediate deadly result of the hunter
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  population just aging out. The sources pointed to a record
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  surge of brown bear attacks in 2025 / 200 injuries and at least
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  13 deaths. 13 people killed by bears in a single year, that's
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  unbelievable. It's so bad they're deploying
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  the military because the local hunters can't handle it anymore,
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  especially in places like Hokkaido.
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  And Adam shared this gruesome story from Hokkaido.
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  He was tracking in the mountains and heard later about a huge
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  brown bear that had killed 2 hunters.
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  A police officer had to shoot it and they found the bear
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  literally holding one of the hunters down in a stream, eating
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  him. God, that's the constant quiet
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  war on the planet that our modern lives try so hard to hide
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  from us. It just shows the vital role
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  hunters play in that balance. And that war brings us to the
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  next big idea, doesn't it? The philosophical part.
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  If nature is that relentless, where does that leave us in our
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  comfortable, you know, Starbucks and iPhone lives?
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  Yeah, the argument was that our society is fundamentally fake
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  and that this artificial world is directly causing so much of
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  our anxiety and depression. It makes perfect sense from an
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  evolutionary perspective. Our bodies, our minds, they're
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  all programmed for movement, for exertion, for completing tasks
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  to survive. Like hunting a Caribou or
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  building a shelter. Right, and the moment you take
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  away that need for primal physical work and replace it
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  with a desk job and convenience, the whole system just starts to
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  breakdown. So all our exercise routines,
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  going to the gym, it's just a desperate attempt to give our
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  primal self what society is starving it of.
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  We suffer because we have jobs, not tasks.
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  Exactly. And the hosts argued the goal in
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  life isn't to be happy, at least not in that modern sense of just
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  being comfortable. It's to be content and.
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  Contentment comes from purpose, which is found through hard
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  physical challenges. They talked about packing out an
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  elk, which for anyone unfamiliar, is just miserable,
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  agonizing work. Oh, it's brutal, carrying
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  hundreds of pounds of meat and gear for miles over mountains,
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  but that feeling when you're done that provides A profound
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  sense of self worth that you just can't get from sitting in a
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  cubicle. And that leads right to the core
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  concept, voluntary struggle. The argument is that avoiding
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  struggle is the actual cause of our anxiety.
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  It's a total paradox, isn't it? You try to make your life as
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  comfortable as possible and you end up suffering these constant
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  low grade doses of misery, anxiety, panic attacks, no sense
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  of purpose. But if you voluntarily choose
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  the hardship, the brutal workout, the ice bath, carrying
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  that £300 pack, you get this beautiful feeling when it's
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  over, you feel growth. That triumph only comes after
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  the difficulty they brought up that post fight speech from
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  Israel Adesanya which just nails this idea.
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  You will never feel this level of happiness if you don't go for
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  something in your own life. Fortify your mind that happiness
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  has to be earned through pain. That's real life.
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  And if you're going to embrace that struggle, you need to be
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  physically able to do it. Which brings us to how modern
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  science is changing the game. Right Part 3, the fusion of this
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  ancient pursuit with cutting edge science.
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  They're talking about hunters hitting their absolute physical
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  tribe at 58 years old. 58 with 40 years of experience.
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  I mean, think about that. And it's because of these
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  advancements they mentioned things like waste too well
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  treatments, stem cells and specific peptides like BPC 157
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  for recovery. Now we should be clear, a lot of
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  these aren't necessarily FDA approved and the medical
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  community can be skeptical. Of course, but the anecdotal
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  evidence is just undeniable. People are finding ways to
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  extend their ability to take on these voluntary struggles to
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  climb that mountain without needing a brape every 10 minutes
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  well into their 60s. And that physical ability, it's
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  the payoff for prioritizing your health.
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  It is. Fatigue makes cowards of us all
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  right? Good health lets you make better
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  decisions when it really matters.
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  And the mental shift that has to happen first, that's perfectly
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  captured by the story of the musician Jelly Roll.
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  What a transformation. His journey is incredible, going
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  from over 540 lbs, a former addict and inmate to running 10K
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  races and VO hunting. It's so inspiring because it
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  shows how hard that first step is.
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  You have to break the inertia of all those bad habits.
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  But once he started. The momentum just took over and
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  now he's showing millions of people that it's possible.
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  So let's talk about the tech. There was a really good debate
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  in the source material about where the ethical line is.
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  Sumtech is clearly good, right? Yeah, things that enhance
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  ethical hunting. Laser range finders site tapes
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  for accuracy on X maps so you don't get lost.
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  These things help make cleaner kills and keep people safe.
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  They reduce suffering. But then it gets murky.
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  What about the Garmin range finding bow sight?
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  See, that's where the debate starts.
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  It gives you the exact yardage at full draw, so it takes all
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  the guesswork out of it. Hold on, if it makes the shot
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  cleaner and more effective, doesn't that make it more
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  ethical? Why would a state like Utah
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  outlaw it? Because it crosses a line.
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  The argument is that it threatens the primitive
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  integrity of the sport. The art of archery is supposed
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  to be about developing that skill, managing the variables
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  yourself if the tech does all the thinking for you.
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  The challenge is gone, and the challenge is the whole point.
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  Exactly, and there was one piece of tech the host, where adamant
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  should be banned for big game hunting.
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  No question. Thermal optics.
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  Yeah, they were very strong on this.
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  Explain why. Because it completely eliminates
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  the art of glassing. Glassing is when you sit for
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  hours, patiently using binoculars or a scope to pick
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  apart a hillside, looking for just the tip of an antler or the
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  twitch of an ear. It takes immense skill and
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  patience. And with a thermal scope.
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  You can scan that same hillside in 5 minutes and see every
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  single warm body. It's over, you found.
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  Them it removes the entire challenge of locating an elusive
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  bedded down animal. So in their view it's just not
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  ethical for big game. It takes away the hunt part of
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  hunting. Right now for nuisance animals
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  like feral hogs in Texas, that's a different story, but for elk
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  or deer, it diminishes the experience.
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  It always comes back to keeping it difficult.
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  Even with all the tech, archery is still incredibly hard.
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  You're still dealing with wind. The arc of your arrow branches
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  in the way. Totally.
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  They even mentioned a high end range Finder, the loophole that
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  has a feature just to calculate the peak arc of your arrow so
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  you don't hit a branch. The fact that tech like that
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  even exists shows you how many variables you're juggling.
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  It takes constant ractice. O after this whole Dee dive,
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  what's the take away? It seems like the real lesson
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  wasn't about lions or bears, but about finding a purpose.
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  Yeah, it's about finding your thing, whatever it is, and
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  dedicating yourself to mastering it.
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  For the hosts, their purpose now comes from sharing that
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  knowledge, finding success in the success of others.
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  My biggest take away, though, is the health piece.
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  You have to find the time for your physical and mental
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  well-being because the payoff in just your quality of life, your
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  ability to engage with these challenges, it's invaluable.
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  That's how you escape the fake world.
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  The whole conversation really shifted from man versus animal
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  to man versus itself. It did.
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  We learned that the real life we're all looking for isn't in
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  comfort. It's found in the hard things we
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  choose to face. So if voluntary struggle is the
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  key to all of this, what voluntary struggle are you
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  putting off? We encourage you to go find that
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  moment of difficulty that leads to that feeling of triumph.
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  Is real design you talked about, or just the quiet contentment of
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  a job well done? Take that first step.
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  The momentum is so much easier than that initial push.
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  Thank you for diving deep with us.