Discover the hidden dimensions of hunting with Robbie Kroger from Blood Origins as we unravel the impact of this ancient practice on conservation and community. Robbie, with his infectious enthusiasm and wealth of knowledge, dismantles the elitist stereotypes surrounding trophy hunting, revealing its true economic and educational significance. Our conversation delves into the transformation of Blood Origins into a powerful voice for the hunting narrative.
Embark on a journey through personal hunting tales and the hard-to-balance equation of work, family, and the call of the wild. Through my personal reflections on joining the hunting world later in life to Robbie's six steps of becoming a hunter, we unmask the emotional investment and heritage that fuel our pursuits. We probe into the complexities of running a non-profit like Blood Origins, and how Robbie's commitment to telling the unfiltered stories of hunters is creating a new paradigm in the hunting space.
Finally, we tackle some of the most pressing debates within the hunting community. The discussion moves from the surprising source of internal backlash to the innovative ways Blood Origins is educating people on the conservation benefits of regulated hunting. We share a thrilling account of fundraising success at the Weatherby event, setting a precedent for future conservation endeavors. So, tune in and be part of a conversation that's as much about the heart and heritage of hunting as it is about the hunt itself.
For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our Facebook, Instagram or website.
If you have a question, comment, topic, gear review suggestion or a guest that you'd like to hear on the show, shoot an email to accuratehunts@gmail.com or via our socials.
Discover the hidden dimensions of hunting with Robbie Kroger from Blood Origins as we unravel the impact of this ancient practice on conservation and community. Robbie, with his infectious enthusiasm and wealth of knowledge, dismantles the elitist stereotypes surrounding trophy hunting, revealing its true economic and educational significance. Our conversation delves into the transformation of Blood Origins into a powerful voice for the hunting narrative.
Embark on a journey through personal hunting tales and the hard-to-balance equation of work, family, and the call of the wild. Through my personal reflections on joining the hunting world later in life to Robbie's six steps of becoming a hunter, we unmask the emotional investment and heritage that fuel our pursuits. We probe into the complexities of running a non-profit like Blood Origins, and how Robbie's commitment to telling the unfiltered stories of hunters is creating a new paradigm in the hunting space.
Finally, we tackle some of the most pressing debates within the hunting community. The discussion moves from the surprising source of internal backlash to the innovative ways Blood Origins is educating people on the conservation benefits of regulated hunting. We share a thrilling account of fundraising success at the Weatherby event, setting a precedent for future conservation endeavors. So, tune in and be part of a conversation that's as much about the heart and heritage of hunting as it is about the hunt itself.
For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our Facebook, Instagram or website.
If you have a question, comment, topic, gear review suggestion or a guest that you'd like to hear on the show, shoot an email to accuratehunts@gmail.com or via our socials.
On the fifth episode Back your Hunts.
Speaker 2:And that Facebook group grew to 4,000 people very quickly and then we died in Australia. We just lost momentum. A lot of people are like oh, robbie, you must get to hunt like crazy. Now, like in 2022, I'll hunt to the day and a half. We have a lot of conversations around trophy hunting. That is the big emotional topic. It's an emotional topic, but I've come to realise that more often than not, when it comes to you know, again it's a bastardised term by the aunties to get rid of hunting. But now in the hunting community it's been picked up and you're like oh, it's an elitist kind of scenario.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of Acura Hunts, a Life Outdoors Special guest coming to us from multiple different locations background, but currently out of the United States. We've got Robbie Kroger from Blood Origins. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thanks, dodge. Much appreciate you, and given that this is dropping when it's dropping, as I said, I apologise for not drawing your name out of the raffle. The Aussie raffle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got a bad line, we're going to end this conversation.
Speaker 2:And you aren't the first to tell me. There were like a couple people and it's the classic right. Oh my God, my wife found out how much money I spent.
Speaker 1:And what did I say to you, though it wasn't a spend.
Speaker 2:Exactly. You said it was supporting Blood Origins mission in Australia, which is exactly the point.
Speaker 1:I think I said to my wife I was investing in my children's future in hunting 100% 100% and that's what.
Speaker 2:Look, all kidding aside, all kidding aside, that is what we're about, and I think that the reason why Blood Origins Australia is primed now is that there is a narrative to be said, and I think that there's some great, great, great hunting organisations in Australia, but and there's great hunting organisations in America and great hunting organisations in Europe, yet they all seem to be looking at us going what are you doing? That's different, because you're doing something different, and I think what we're doing different is that we're reaching people who really didn't quite have an understanding of hunting and now they're like oh, I understand now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I didn't quite know that. Oh, wow, there's an economic impact to duck hunters, to duck hunting in the rural landscape of Victoria, Australia, that the local bottle-o or the campsite, the RV guy or the baker they actually value people coming to duck hunt. I've never heard that before. Huh, I didn't know that that's what we do For people that don't know who are.
Speaker 1:You obviously dropping words like bottle-o, so I want to just reference the fact that you've got I've got it written here because it was a long list Born in Brazil, moved to South Africa, young, half Australian, with an Australian mother living in Mississippi, so you've got a fair bit of Living in Tennessee now 20, 20 years 20 years in Mississippi and now I'm in Tennessee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've got the. There's a dark side of my family, which is the Australian side of my family. You know we don't like to talk about that side of the family.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope they listen in and they can hear from you occasionally. But now you've got a fair grasp on all those areas and I've been following you for a little while now probably not from the beginning, like some and I suppose you popped up recently and that's what sparked me to reach out and just say, hey, let's have a quick chat. And that was from this, I want to say raffle that you're wearing, but it was more of a donation style situation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know blood origins Australia. When we, when we first converted ourselves into a 501 C3 back in 2020 at the beginning of COVID, Just out of interest, what oh so, oh so, in America to be an NPO, a non-profit organization, you register with the federal government and your registration designation in America is a is 501 C3. That's your charitable designation. There are other NPO designations like 501 C4, which means you're a political advocacy lobbying organization and you can use your money for political activities. A 501 C3 cannot touch that with a 10 foot pop, Otherwise you lose your charitable designation.
Speaker 1:That's a safe spot for you to be in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's a tax deductible organization. We don't make any profit and anyone who donates towards us can write those, those monies, off against their taxes. Nice, I'll note that. And so we. That's what we did in 2020, because we didn't have a business model before that. We had a brand, we had a like a persona, we had a message.
Speaker 2:But, just like everybody else in the world who lives in the hunting space, who works in the hunting space, that enjoys hunting there's not millions that would be an exaggeration Tens of thousands of people that say I want a hunting show. I'll be honest, I've been in a lot of those in 2017. I actually didn't know what I wanted, but that's where I was thought we wanted to go. And so we didn't have a business model to survive, because everybody who we asked for money said no, but rightfully so. We hadn't proved ourselves, and there were 10,000 other people asking for money, and so we just kept going and going, and going, and going and going. And that's my personality I'm a patiently persistent individual, and you will not find a more patiently persistent individual than me. And so, as we started building out the charity side, we finally had a model that could accept revenue, that could accept donations that then could keep us alive and allow us to grow. And so I was like, man, we need to start increasing. And we started.
Speaker 2:Then, unbelievably, our global fingerprint just was massive, like we had people interacting from New Zealand, australia, spain, pakistan, south Africa, tanzania, argentina. They were just like boom boom, boom, boom, boom. I was like, okay, this is, we've done something different here. All right, so now we need to. In my brain, I was like, all right, we need to. We need to sort of establish again I didn't want to be the same same same. I didn't want to have chapters or anything. So let's build like affiliates in these different countries to like represent us. And so how do you do that?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the ways that we did it to initially was we did a private Facebook group called Blood Origins Australia, and that Facebook group grew to 4,000 people very quickly, and then we died in Australia. We just lost momentum, and the reason we lost momentum was we didn't have any money. We had just started this charity that was barely keeping itself alive, and then, in Australia, I think, a couple of things happened. We don't have money to create content and to the Australian people and communities, a very unique beast in that it's almost like you don't care about what's happening in America. You don't care what's happening around the world. What's happening in your backyard is what matters the most.
Speaker 2:And here was a guy from, born in Brazil, lived in South Africa, is now in Mississippi being the face of something that's happening in Australia. And some people like that's fine. Others are like whoa, what's going on here? And so I think we just sort of lulled. We just like, and I was like man, what do we need to get going? And all through 23 hours, like, okay, 2024 is the year we are going to take blood origins Australia to where it needs to go, or we're going to just like, sort of leave it be.
Speaker 2:And I was like well, how do I do that? And again, we had done it right. We built the relationships, we built the. We've got enough sort of brand awareness. And I said, okay, I want to do something that can raise money and get people interested.
Speaker 2:The raffle was the way to go. And I was like well, I don't want to just do a simple raffle because I want it. I want it in and out. I want people to like, be, like yes, I'm in, knock it out close, it be done, and I want people to have a really, really good chance of winning. And so we did that raffle three amazing hunts in Australia, hundred tickets, 300 tickets your chances are super high and in my brain, in my thought processes, it's now an anchor for what we do in Australia. So hearing here on the accurate hunts podcast for the first time telling everyone what I'm going to do next year for the raffle and this will make, I know you were depressed when I first told you, but now you may be a little, a little happier. We'll wait and see. Yeah, go, I want to do a preference point system for next year's raffle. So everyone who bought tickets this year regard in terms of like how many tickets you bought you will get a extra ticket if you come in next year for all the tickets that you bought this year. So what does that do? Dodge it incentivizes everyone who put in money, who didn't win, to do it again, but also maybe half of them won't, and if half of them don't, that means the people who did and that come back. Their chances go through the roof. I'm not going to do it forever. I may do it on a two year or three year cycle preference points and then wipe the slate clean and then start again. But it's a way to, as I did.
Speaker 2:As you asked how's the raffle going? We were not. I did not intend to open the raffle until Jan 2nd. When we posted that thing on Jan 1st on my time, jan 2nd, your time people were like where's the link? I was like, all right, I'll just soft launch it. In 12 hours we had sold 50% of the tickets In 40, less than 48 hours it was done. That's no soft launch. It was like poof and I think you know people were ready for it and it was a perfect timing. It got around quick enough and I think we're going to just keep doing it every single year.
Speaker 1:Did you see an increase in your closed page from it as?
Speaker 2:far as people following. No, no, no, no. There wasn't really anybody who came into the page, because it's tough, you have to invite people into the closed page, and that's something I need to think about is how do we do that? Do we open it up? It's closed because we have. We have control. We have control of who comes in. We have control of who says something. We have control of what's posted.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's a bad thing. Our local hunting club here has two pages one public one, one closed one. Some things go across both, but there's reasons for what stays closed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, um, so, yeah, we've got as I said. Now the money's going to be used to. Well, that's the next question Create great content. We're going to do what we do best in Australia.
Speaker 2:You're creating Australian content, australian content, yep. So we've actually got a film coming out at the end of January that we've partnered on already. We've got some ideas in New South Wales, in the rural places of New South Wales, to talk to the people you know about what their perceptions are around hunting again what we do. We've got the same ideas in rural Victoria for duck hunting. We're going to invest in some writing so that we can write some opinion pieces to get pushed into the press sphere in and around Australia. We're going to invest in some SEO around those articles so that when people Google, oh, duck hunting Victoria, we want our content to be like the things that hit the top of the internet search list. We're also going to invest very heavily in the food element of venison in Australia in 2024.
Speaker 1:And we're going to invest, yeah, we're talking.
Speaker 2:Now we're going to invest in content from the backyard barbecue, where someone's doing backyard barbecue style venison, inviting friends over connecting, and most All of these gatherings are going to be a hunter, inviting non-hunting friends to come and enjoy venison for the first time To ultra high-end chef in a restaurant. So we're going to have a whole setup where it's going to be. You know the fancy plating, what not? You know high-end individuals hopefully come in non-hunters and get their content around. You know what they feel about what they ate and their perceptions around hunting and then obviously get all that content and push it out. And to push it out into the right hands in the Australian market requires money, and now we have it.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I want to say I don't think most of the people that invested and bought tickets thought about any of that. They're probably just starstruck and like, oh, I wouldn't want to bend Tanghunt. That's the point. That's the point, yeah, yeah. Well, we had a double-edged advantage for them, though they get the chance to win a prize and then we get a chance to, like I said, invest in our future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it's imperative on me and what we're going to do in blood origins Australia to show where the money went, to say hey and constantly all through the year. Remember you did this, this is what came from it. Remember you did this, this is what came from it.
Speaker 1:It caused an effect. This is the result. We have you know them anyway but a lot of larger organizations in Australia that sit on a lot of money Like what for?
Speaker 2:It's our memberships. Why is?
Speaker 1:it just sitting in their account accruing interest. So it's nice to see someone putting their foot forward and actually doing something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited, dude. I'm really, really excited and, as I said, I plan to. I probably plan to overspend, like I'm going to go way over what we did bring in, because I want to make a difference, like I really, really want to make an impact this year so that when we go into 2025, people are like oh yeah, 12 hours, boom, the raffle's done, it's out of there, and then maybe we have a second raffle halfway through the year, same situation, kind of scenario.
Speaker 1:No, that's exciting. Disappointed I didn't win. I'll be in next year for the preference points. That's a very American system too, the preference points. Obviously we don't have a tag system here on well only on Hog D really.
Speaker 2:But I just want to constantly think outside the box, Like what people are, like how can we? Obviously we want to spur people's interest, to get back in so that we are raising the money, but also, again, I want to be very I want to try and be as fair as I possibly can to say to someone hey, you've got a good chance.
Speaker 1:And it was great odds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was great odds. Yep, yep, no one in a hundred.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, 300 tickets in total. Yeah, so I don't. I suppose some people listening probably don't even know who you are at this point, but I don't really want to go into blood origins history too much, but just the choice of words and the name itself I kind of want to focus and ask you about because it's too military, I don't know. It's two interesting words and then when you join them together you know it makes a cute little business name, but why choose those two words specifically? Obviously I'm a bit of a religious person I'm not sure if you are or not, but obviously sacrifice and things is something that started right from the start. So there's a lot of blood and that is the origin of life is blood. So I'd like to know what your feelings behind those two words are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a man of faith too and actually didn't start as blood origins. It started the name actually was in the blood and when we started I got some great advice from some very high end people in the outdoor industry and they said do you own it Like Dodge? Do you own accurate hunts? Yes, I do. And so I was like huh. I said, yeah, there's somebody that has like fire in the blood as a name. And then there was another kind of.
Speaker 2:There was a kid in Wisconsin at the time that had in the blood outdoors and the persons that I was talking to said change your name right now, pivot out right now, before you have emotional heartache in three years time when someone does something and they mistake it for you and you're in a legal battle and you have to change your name then. So I really thought deep and hard about like what are we wanting to do? What are we wanting to capture? And at the time we were capturing like someone's heart, someone's why. And someone's why is typically driven by their culture, by their upbringing, by their heritage, by their parents, by their grandparents, which is essentially your origins, so where you come from. But probably more deeply ingrained biologically, genetically, your origins come from the DNA that's flowing in the side of you. You know that's in your blood, essentially, and so everybody has blood. Everyone has this thing that is made, makes up your body, that is again made up of the heritage, the lineage of people that have come behind you, and that's why blood origins is what it is.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people said, oh, you picked the wrong name. It's like, oh, blood, and you guys spill blood and you kill animals, and I was like, no, not really, it's got nothing to do with that actually. So, yeah, that's why we called it blood origins, and I think the funniest part about the name is that some people struggle to say it because they say blood orange instead of blood orange. So what are my lots of Americans? And so my greatest achievement, hopefully in 2024, is I'm going to do a beer collaboration with a beer company and it's a blood orange beer supporting blood origins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that'll confuse the issue a little bit more. Yeah, exactly so my blood and origins in the hunting area. I came later in life, 1920 or so, when I got into it and I sort of differentiate between shooting and hunting. I started off in the shooting side of things and moved into hunting.
Speaker 2:In the pistol shooting or rifle shooting bull hunting. No no, I've got one behind me, that's next to you. You mean your family?
Speaker 1:My family had no background in hunting or shooting Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:I sort of I'll explain what I just said there. In reference to Australian shooters, I would say that shooters can progress into hunters. Some people start as hunters and never miss the shooting part, but most people in Australia seem to start as shooters roo shooting, fox shooting, rabbit shooting and then move into the stalking and the hunting and pursuing in a slightly different manner. I did that progress and I sort of I'll talk about a bit later I'm doing some education course stuff and I talk about six steps of being a hunter and starting at shooting, finishing it, being able to go home without something and still being happy about it. I'm not at that stage yet, because it's still. I don't win a raffle makes me a bit cranky, but I'm enjoying the journey and I want to know where you're at on that journey. Shit man, I'm still not at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm still not at that point where you like, you're happy man because and here's why it's like I've got a small, I've got a young family, I've got my boys are 10 and 12. I also have blood origins, which is something that I'm building, it's my baby, it's my passion, and so when I go hunting I know you're not supposed to be this way, but I want, I want to take something home. That's where I'm at, you know I'm. I hunt because the reason I'm hunting is because I want to. This may be controversial, so hold on to your seeds, but because I intend to kill something and I intend to bring something home. Otherwise I'd go hiking, okay, We'll pick golf.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when that doesn't happen and I'm unsuccessful, I'm upset. And I'm upset because I'm not upset at like not being able to do that thing that I wanted to do. It's more like excuse my language, I just wasted in my brain at the time. I just wasted five days when I could have been five days with my family, or I could have been investing in blood origins for five days. I'm not. I'm. I'm still not in the in the mindset and I know I need to get better at it of like hey, robbie, that was good for you. Yeah, you, you need the balance.
Speaker 1:In hindsight, are you realizing that that was an investment in your family, because of an investment in you and some quiet time, or investment in blood origins, cause you're out there? I know you're out of phone reach and that would drive your nuts having notifications built up, but I honestly wish it was.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing. Most often I'm not out of phone reach.
Speaker 1:And so I'm not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is true, that is true, and I don't do it and I think I need to like this year again. Those are one of the things that I think through, like, okay, what are you going to do differently this year, robbie? And one of the things is I I don't a lot of people like, oh, robbie, you must get to hunt like crazy now, like in 2022, I hunted a day and a half, total 23. I did better, um, but 24, I need to.
Speaker 2:What I need to do in 2024 is I literally need to go on a hunt for three days or whatever it is, or five days, and literally do not turn my phone on for five days, completely disconnect from the world that I'm in. I actually need to do it more weekly, like on a Sunday. I need to just be like this is a no phone Sunday because it's a 24 seven job that I have right now. Like you're not yeah, we're on the same day right now because I woke up really early, but typically I wake up and Australia's asleep already, but Australia's been awake the entire time. I've been asleep and my phone is just full of Australian and New Zealand messages, and then South African you know the African continent up for six hours whilst I'm asleep, and I wake up to that, so it's constant.
Speaker 1:The world never sleeps.
Speaker 2:No, it doesn't, man, it doesn't. I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. I love it. I absolutely love the network we have, but I've got to look after, I've got to figure out I can't burn myself out and I've just got to figure out the balance.
Speaker 1:I feel like you and I probably on the same sort of level there with and I'll ask your wife's opinion and what she tells you, but mine's definitely the same as if I come home empty handed, meaning no meat or no antlers or whatever I was chasing. Then they see, she sees that as unsuccessful as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what the hell were you doing Like? Why'd you just leave me for five days?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you know there's that little pressure of the same comment you just said. I spent five days away from the kids for no real benefit and you got kids.
Speaker 2:I don't get the realization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got two on the ground and one on the way.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, I knew you were better man than me.
Speaker 1:A little bit younger than you, yeah, or make more mistakes than you, but I got to nearly five, nearly two and, yeah, due in March, so which is big rut.
Speaker 2:So I'll be listen, I actually did you a favor, not pulling your name out of the hat then, no, no, you didn't.
Speaker 1:I tried to justify it. I tried to justify it. I would have my wife's very forgiving accepting of things.
Speaker 1:But I bought two tickets into your super raffle. I bought the and you did well. You did well. Well, I didn't. I didn't win, but in my mind I said once for me and once for her, but if I ever won, it would have been my ticket that won. But yeah, I don't know what your wife thinks of that, but it is definitely a bit of pressure from mine. And again what you said there, I get the comment all the time oh, you live in the dream, you're guiding or you're always hunting or you're doing something. I'm rarely, ever pulling the trigger.
Speaker 2:I might be out in the bush, but there's always something else going on with someone or setting something up, organizing something.
Speaker 1:I love it and that's why I do it, but people don't see the hours behind. Like you said, it's 10 o'clock here, or 10 30 at night, and I've got a couple of hours with you and then a couple of hours after that getting ready for this trip.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, no, wife doesn't vocalize anything and I don't think she minds, because I think she's already. I think she's gotten to the point where I think she knows that and I haven't gotten the yet, that I need it. Like she'll even say why didn't you take one to go hunting this last week? You've been home the entire time why didn't you go hunting? And it's also I'm actually I. When you get your wife to this point, this will be a good thing. My wife sometimes is like wait, don't you have a trip coming up? Don't you need like just get out the house? She's like tired of me being around. So that's a good, that's a good position to be I look forward to getting that.
Speaker 1:I'm at the stage where one I hope you're not listening to this, but I would put forward three or four trips, knowing that two of them I didn't really want to do, so that she can can two of them and then, if one of them gets through, that's the one I really wanted to get over the strategic planning.
Speaker 2:So, no, she's good with it. She's good with it, man. She's just like, and you know to your point about like, yeah, you live the, the, the high life. I also, I'm always, as I said, I'm always constantly thinking about content, always, and so, and that's cause, that's my job and that's also. You know, I don't really not that I don't enjoy it, I love it. It's just I'm just constantly like, oh, if you're going to do that, oh, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this, yeah, and that's, I suppose, the two words constant, content.
Speaker 1:You know the nearly spelled the same system that's happening. Is it just you behind the business? So we got staff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm the only paid employee of blood origins and that only started last January, so we've only been on for a year, as before that I was doing a full time consulting job and blood origins at the same time. So essentially I did two full time jobs for four years and then built blood origins to the point where the board because again on the nonprofit side and South out in America, you have to have a board of directors that run the nonprofit it doesn't belong to anyone and I was on the board until the board offered me the job of the executive director and then I got kicked off the board. So it's, if we're not doing what we're doing, the board's going to be like, hey, we're going to get another executive director and I'm out. That's the situation I'm in right now. Yeah, who's the board? Though? We have four people on the board right now.
Speaker 2:The board voted to be a very small nimble board, so we only we have six people on the board at one time, and so we're not like a cruiser or a tanker ship in terms of when we need to turn or be nimble or change things. The board is pretty much like Robbie you do what you do, say what you say and if you get. If you get in trouble that's why we have lawyers We'll back you.
Speaker 1:So how are they involved in the hunting community, or are they not?
Speaker 2:They're not benefit Some of them. So Christie Plott. So the incoming chair of the board is Christie Plott. She was a non-hunter. She actually just killed her first deer a week ago. She is in the tannery business. She's in. She's in the biggest alligator tannery in America. So she understands sustainable use, she understands consumptive use, but she's not well. She wasn't a hunter until very recently. Trevor Bacon is in the marine conservation space. He's a hunter. Pato Bryan is in the roofing and guttering space. He's a big hunter. And then Denise Welker is. She's the chair right now. She's a hunter out of Texas.
Speaker 1:And these are people you met along the way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:These are people that have interacted with us and they've all. Denise was the. Denise and her family were the first people to actually, when we were on the cusp of blood origins either making it or dying which is the year before the nonprofit I sold a film to a foundation about them. That was the only way I was going to survive and in order to do that I had to sell an auction item which was telling someone's story. I source stories from them, from my dad who's out to the world of art and I work on them and this was the idea I couldn't have super far or ever. And then I finally turn after you and the welcas bought it and I got to know the welcas and I was like, oh, this is just going to be, you know me having to tell someone's story because they paid before it. But it turned out that they were just an amazing, amazing people and one night drinking wine late into the evening it was her husband, brian turned to me and was like man, I feel like I've known you for like years. I was like man, same here, and that's how it started.
Speaker 2:And then Pat O'Brien stood into my DMs about getting to know an outfitter in South Africa that was doing amazing work for rural kids in a hostel and supplying meat to a hostel that didn't couldn't get meat.
Speaker 2:We'd get a very small ration of meat from the government every every month, and so the hunting fraternity was supplying me to this orphanage, this hostel, every month. I thought it was the most amazing story and I wanted to and this was I wanted to raise money over. Covid was like our second conservation project ever, because nobody was hunting, so there's no food going to the, the orphanage. I was like, well, how can we help? They're like, well, we need to cull animals and that costs money. I was like I'll raise the money and I raised very small amount. I raised like 40% of what I needed and Pat O'Brien goes, I'll take care of the other 60%. And so we just got to know each other then and then again Trevor Bacon came in as a contact, as a relationship contact, and then Christie came way out the blue like somebody was hunting with her dad and just hey, get to know Christie, she's a cool chick. And that was that.
Speaker 1:You said it then and it was the turning point and what got you over it. But it was the creating a why. Someone else and I know you you do a lot of videos and a lot of them. It's what's our why of 2023, or just what's our why, and you've spoken about it and you see it come through in your videos of the way you interview and it's this what we're doing now, face to face. It's it's you talking to me right now, but anyone watching this on YouTube, it's you talking to them and it's you really showing us the why and it's a real hole in the hunting market and that's you said at the start with people. Everyone wanted to be show, but that's, that's the, what it's does.
Speaker 1:It's not the why, and I think that's why you've hit it and that's why it's really steamrolling now. I say it with my guys at work. I'm a fence. When they come on board, I teach them what to do initially, but then eventually I'll teach them the why. I don't need them to know the why straight away because they asked him any questions, just just know what to do and when to do it, and then you learn the why and I think you're really doing a really good job of pushing that.
Speaker 1:Especially in the Australian industry, we do a not bit of an injustice in just showing photos of dead animals and things like that with not a lot of context.
Speaker 1:And I do that on purpose, sometimes just to stir a little bit of conversation. And I did a shot of rhino when I was over in SA with the dart and and it was an amazing experience to be a part of, but I nearly did it on purpose to start a conversation. It cost me money, but that was an investment in just me stirring people. But I came over here and then I did a talk at a hunting club dinner and it was the conservation conversation and I started telling the story about the rhino and there was people. There was a flyer made for that dinner and there was people that declined their tickets because I was on the flyer with a rhino, before they even knew the why. That was the, that was the point. So I just wanted to thank you for telling the why, but I just want to let you know that, well, it's such a good. I think it's eating.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate it. It's such a good, I think it's just such a good narrative because it's full of emotion, it's vulnerable, it's authentic, it's all the things that even that non hunters can relate themselves to. You're not talking about, you know, killing an animal You're talking about, like the sense of adventure, spirit, religion, tradition, heritage, conservation, management, all these things that Spin around the why, and I think people can see someone being genuine and honest when they talk about their why. That's that's what we really, really, really are after. And then, you know, the knock on a fit from it is is almost like a peer pressure system and I think that's what blood origins is doing the best in is that you just mentioned.
Speaker 2:You see us talking about our why, you see us promoting why. You see us and we're sort of commenting in a certain way and being gentlemanly and being respectful and and that's a little, you know it's getting some legs behind it. It's sort of pervasive in terms of it's. It's knock on effects that other people are starting to do it. Or when someone jumps on and, you know, start swearing and calling people names left, right and center, I guarantee you, within 10 to 30 minutes you have someone coming in that says, hey, that's not the way that you should speak to someone Like Dan, that's good to see and that's again that's part of the hunting narrative. Like people expect hunters to just be like, oh you know, if you you know, I can say what I want, I can do what I want, you can't really anymore.
Speaker 1:Now we're all very accountable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially in social media, man, it's just like that's again. Why, again we, we comment so much, we get tagged into you know when? Again, when I wake up in the morning to my phone, we're tagged into so many different posts all around the world and I will comment on every single one of them, especially the big ones, like the 6 million accounts, the 500,000 K accounts, because I'm not interested in changing that person's mind. Around hunting, it's a big anti hunting post. People are screaming left, right and center and I'll say something very respectfully, in a way that hopefully disarms people.
Speaker 2:Just as honest, if it's a big white, you know, fat American stand sitting behind a line and people are this is disgusting. I was like, yeah, that photo is not a great photo and I can see why people hate it. I really am disarming them like, I agree with you, but don't get me wrong, I agree with you, but let me tell you something, and I'm not trying to convince the person who posted the picture to change their minds, because that's not going to happen, but I know 100,000 people just read my comment and I guarantee you I just planted a number of seeds of doubt. You know, and I use this example, I use this all the time. I remember it was one of these crazy big posts, was like Jason Momoa or one of these big, million dollar, million countercounts and I did a big thing and one of the persons that responded was like I'm a bleeding heart vegan and even this guy makes sense to me.
Speaker 1:Doesn't get any better than that.
Speaker 2:That's it, man, and people, and people saw that right. How many people saw that and was like, wow, a vegan's agreeing with a hunter.
Speaker 1:Okay, Mission accomplished. Yeah, exactly, it regularly comes up in conversations in my life, whether it randomly, just a fencing quote. Or today we had my son, writer is nearly two, is going to a new daycare and I'm going to interview, fill out paperwork at the new family daycare and it's just a lady's house. She only has four kids a day. And she said, oh, is there anything we should know about your son? And I said, like, and we'd been there for two hours.
Speaker 1:So she didn't mean kid things, she meant little idiocy. And I said, look, I want to let you know that we're probably not your typical family that comes here and she's, you know, leaning in. What do you mean? And I said it's not uncommon for us to kill, harvest and process animals in front of our children. And he talks about it a lot. As a two year old, he most of his vocabulary is around things that we do. And she was not. She didn't worry about it, she was appreciative that we told her that because she'd actually taught our daughter. And she said she taught her last year. And she said that makes a lot of sense. She didn't know that. And my daughter would say things like you know, killed the goat or cut up the sheep, or there's always something dead on our kitchen table and you should take her.
Speaker 2:You should take her a bunch of innocent like bunch of ground innocent.
Speaker 1:I regularly feed people meat, and it's a great way to their hearts, is through their mouth. But it was just. You know that they are. You're talking to anti hunters. I just I'm a big advocate for people being articulate in what we do. Be calm about it. No, you're, why know your personal, why I know mine and I agree with you. You said it earlier I like killing stuff.
Speaker 2:I like what you don't. This is here's, here's let's, here's semantics, here's semantics. It's very, very important because I have this conversation regularly with people, because when you just said that if somebody is not in the hunting fraternity and hears you, they're like, oh you see, he's a psychopath, he really, really enjoys the death of that animal. No, you actually, in the moment, and that moment is hundreds of a second, 10,000 of a second in that moment you are actually, you have remorse. You did this. There's a little bit of sadness around that whole exercise. What you're happy about is the accomplishment of what you set out to do. She went out to to hunt, to fulfill this hunt, to take the animal and to fulfill the process of it. If you truly liked killing, hear me for what I just said If you truly liked and loved killing In Dodge, you'll be volunteering your services at the local Abattoir and you can get your rocks off all day long killing animals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is a different killing, I agree.
Speaker 2:I just it's, it's. I've had this a lot with hunters. They're like well, we have to love killing. You love hunting. You love hunting. That has a component in it which is the kill it is also has components of failure and chase and pursuit in it, which you love as well. It also has components of adventure that you love as well. It also has components of organic meat that you feed your family, stock your freeze and give it to your friends as well. You don't love killing. That's why you don't say I'm going to go, I'm going killing today. No, you're going hunting.
Speaker 1:I agree, I have to change what I say. I usually follow it up with a conversation, but no, I definitely need to record what you just said and then put it in my pocket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just again. We have these conversations a lot and I'll tell you what a lot of hunters get upset at that point. They're like no, no, no, I like killing. And I've had some big, big accounts say I like killing and I was like I don't think you do. He's like, oh, I do. I was like, okay, take a step back. And if a non-hunter just watched this interaction, what did they just take away?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, there you go. I've taken. I do these conversations on purpose. It's me learning as well, so I appreciate your outlook on that and that's something you've always championed is changing the narrative, and whether that be the narrative of what people see of hunters, but also what hunters say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think people will say and this is the other pushback, we get a lot of right is like, oh, I'm going to go and get a little bit of that, and I'm like yes and no, maybe yes, in that I recognize that there are people that watch us interact with us in this new social media environment that don't have an understanding of hunting. And can we speak to them? And I'm like yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe yes and no, maybe. And can we speak to them Like you would speak to a hunter, your buddy down the street? No, you can't. And is it inappropriate to to change how you speak to someone who has no understanding of what you're doing? No, it's not inappropriate. It's what we do as society To make them understand. And you change your language to make people understand and that's okay, it's not.
Speaker 2:You know, again you can get into the whole conversation of like a harvest versus kill. Oh, you're just saying harvest to placate someone. Maybe I am, because they just don't understand when I say we go out and enjoy killing things. They don't quite understand what I just said. No, we go out and enjoy hunting and then we, you know, like to harvest the meat. It's not wrong. We kill an animal and then we harvest the meat. Both those terms are technically right. They still apply. They still apply. I think what we do is is being, you know, snowflake ish is being, you know, coddling the non hunter. But then again, our whole mission is to talk to non hunters and so I'm going to do everything that I can and I'm going to use every piece of rhetoric and narrative that I can to have those conversations.
Speaker 1:I'm just wrapped in truth, though, just a matter of how you get it across. I'd liken it to the way that you would talk to your colleague First talking to your boss the same conversation and we're two different because you can winch to your colleague, but if you winch to your boss, bit perceived very differently. So you use different words and things to get it across.
Speaker 2:Totally agree.
Speaker 1:Do you think the majority of your backlash is from the hunting community, or do you get much backlash?
Speaker 2:We don't. We do not get much backlash. It's surprisingly so. A lot of people would think. Man geez, robbie's DM is supposed to just full of fricking people like oh you, bloody murderer, we hardly ever get it.
Speaker 1:Blood origins Australia Facebook group is closed. Do you have that set up in the other countries? So they are closed communities? Yep, we have one in.
Speaker 2:Finland, Finland, Spain, Namibia, South Africa. No, because in our Instagram is completely open. Our major Facebook page is completely open. Our major Facebook page is 165,000 people in it. No, we rarely get. The only time we get the anti hunters climbing into us on Facebook is when we do If there's a big controversial African post about you know an elephant or a lion or something like that. But I think you're right. Anytime we get any pushback on, like what we say and how we say, it typically comes out of the hunting community.
Speaker 1:It's one of our main unduings internal hunter on Hunter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't think we're ever going to change, and the way that I have thought through it is I sort of I have to take us back like 2000 years. We're all sitting around a campfire, dodge You're sitting around the campfire, I'm sitting around the campfire, and that day you were super successful. You came in, you bought a big, old, you know piece of meat into the camp because you hunted it and you drug it back to the campfire and we're all growling around the campfire. But you get your choice of women that night and you get your choice of meat that night and I'm sitting there grumbling because I don't like it. Right, I'm upset and I'm, you know, going to say things that make makes you know that I don't like you or I don't like the way that you did. The difference being is that in that society, the next day I went out and tried even harder to accomplish what I needed to do to get the accolades, when today's society is just bitching and moaning on the internet and not nobody doing anything about it.
Speaker 1:Throws throws a quick little comment in there on Facebook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I just I say that to say I think that inherently there's just competition. There's just like primal competition in the hunting fraternity that I think is born from generations of sort of tribal hunters trying to do each other.
Speaker 1:You mentioned it before as a man of faith and you just some of you said then is a conversation I regularly have with myself. I don't even know if I've said this out loud, but how excited do you think the first guys were that cooked meat?
Speaker 1:And then and then. And what was the process? Was it lightning struck? Bison got killed in the fire and they're walking over and they're like oh, actually, I will try that medium rare bit of bison that's burnt in this fire verse the raw stuff we've been eating for however many years I think that's like this. We never going to know any.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we you get pretty close. I've had lots of people's conversations on this on my podcast of like vegans becoming meat eaters. That's as close as you're going to get to it, in that they've been like six months without meat. I had this one guy who went to Australia and he became a Jehovah's Witness and he was living in that big Jehovah's Witness colony outside of Sydney Up on the North Shore, I think there's. There's one who went allowed to eat meat nothing right and he got so wasted, like not wasted, like physically wasted away. He's like he said I had brain fog and whatnot. He snuck out and he bought one of the roasted chook and he sat on the side of the road and he ate that roasted chook and he said his body just like vibrated with energy, like it was just like a like this out of body experience at his mind and brain and his whole, just like, oh man, this is so good. I mean, that's as close as you can get to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean Woolies roast chooks. They do that, that's what he's watched. Chooks are good, 10 bucks in a bag or whatever it is. They do a roast pork, which is a little bit more expensive, but I don't know how they get it so perfect every time.
Speaker 2:It's Willys baby.
Speaker 1:Woolies, yeah, they nail it On the on the education side of things. Is there any future in blood origins reaching out into that market? I mean, obviously everything you do is educating that side of things, but is there some way for hunters to be educated and do better other than just watching your?
Speaker 2:videos. I don't think we'll get into like the formal education space, like creating tutorials or doing courses like you're doing or what like Amon's doing on the with broadside hunting. I think we'll leave it to guys like you guys to do that work and if we can support them those kinds of things in the future, then maybe that's where we can we can come in. But what we are doing is, as you said, I think we're educating all the time and I'm very cognizant of trying to put information out that is constantly planting seeds in people's brains so that the next time someone has a conversation or they see something online. I'll use an example.
Speaker 2:I can't believe someone hunts elephants. They're endangered. They've heard me say in the past yes, you're right, elephants are endangered, but do you know that there are only 400 elephants in Botswana a year and there's a population of 130,000. Which means they're only killing 0.1% of the population. That has a growth rate of 7% a year. It's overpopulated and hunting has no effect on the population. I wish I hope that people are taking those pieces of information that we are constantly pushing out and getting enough confidence within themselves to say something like that at a dinner table or online or respond to a comment and say I didn't, you know, I know this, but if you want more information, go see Blood Origins. That happens a lot nowadays, which is where we want to be.
Speaker 1:Your reference point yeah, I've sent some people your way. My personal, with accurate hunts and things is mostly being around trophy hunting and that's a niche market here in Australia Some guys that do it really quietly and then not many that do it super publicly. And it's because of that infighting between hunters and just recently someone we sort of parted ways because they didn't. They said they didn't like my morals around hunting and focusing on trophies. So I sort of I really drew, was drawn to your videos where that you were focusing on the benefits of that side of it and debunking myths, I suppose yeah, and we have a lot of conversations around trophy hunting.
Speaker 2:Okay, that is the big question, it's an emotional topic. It's an emotional topic, but I've come to realize that more often than not, when it comes, you know again, it's a bastardized term by the aunties to get rid of hunting. But now in the hunting community it's been picked up and be like oh, it's an elitist kind of scenario. Okay, so the way that I tackle it within the hunting community is this now is like if let's go back to the buddy that you've just parted ways with, I assume he was not a trophy hunter. Okay, I'm going to make that assumption. So then I'm going to say, okay, if I was in front of that individual talking to him and he was like I get, I'm, I don't like your method, I think you guys are doing it the wrong way. Like, okay, you like to hunt buddy X? He says, yes, okay, would you consider yourself a meat hunter or trophy hunter? And he says I'm a meat hunter only. Fair enough, perfect.
Speaker 2:So that means every time you go hunt the very first animal you see, you kill it right and that's it You're done. More often than not, the answer is going to be no. And if the answer is no, well why? Why didn't you kill that first animal that you saw? You said you're a meat hunter. That was meat. Oh, it was too small, oh, it was too young. So you just put a value, a personal value, on an animal that you decided to either take or not take Sounds like a trophy hunter to me. It's just a value. You're just putting a value on an animal. That value is determined by the person who's hunting. The value could be big antlers. Value could be a big old fat doe or hind, or it doesn't matter. I'm actually after a very young animal because that's the tastiest meat to me. What's the difference?
Speaker 1:I've had that conversation with him specifically.
Speaker 2:What do you say?
Speaker 1:There's a bit of background. Some people might know who the person is, but there was no changing his mind. He didn't say that to my face, he said that to someone else as to why he parted ways. I've had that very similar discussion of if you're selecting for meat or that's still selecting, that's your trophy. It just doesn't hang on your wall. It's in your fridge, in your cool room.
Speaker 2:There's also a connotation that, just because you're a trophy hunter and you're selecting for a trophy from an antler perspective, that the meat stayed on the mountain. No, it didn't. It ended up in the fridge too. It hung up in the fridge too, just like any other animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a cool room at home and antlers are not a fair chunk of it and not all of it.
Speaker 1:I'm not scared to say that I don't take all of every animal sometimes and that doesn't worry me too much. It definitely worries some people over here that there's a real push at the moment through. I don't know what the reason is, and maybe it's fear of persecution from other hunters. I took everything from this animal, everything's coming home, or I took all the meat. It's not if you're backpacking in somewhere and you've already got 25 or 30 kilos on your back because you've been in there for 10 days. You're not taking out a full samba, unless you're doing multiple trips.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think sorry, in Pakistan, the guys there will say to the trophy hunters they're like you take the antlers, you take the cape. It's the thing. That's the thing that's most worthless to us. We just want to meet. We just want to meet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unfortunately we don't have workers that will work for us, follow us around for that sort of doll of a. It's the same in South Africa, you know. You're never far from a bucky and if you can't get one in close, they'll cut their way in, and that's right, and anything to get the animal out.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly, and then nothing gets wasted.
Speaker 1:We ran over a porcupine on the way into camp and I pulled the quills out and they threw the body on the back.
Speaker 2:That's tasty critter.
Speaker 1:Protein doesn't get wasted over there. Where's Blood Origin's heading? If we've talked about the origins, what's the blood future? I don't, you know, we can't crystal ball this, but where do you want it to head?
Speaker 2:Honestly, I want us to be the Like. I think we're the spirit tip now for hunting issues around the world. If something hits around the world, the majority of the hunting community Not the majority the hunting community looks to us and goes, huh, what's he gonna say about it? Or what are they saying about it, what did they put out about it? I want to be even more of that spirit tip. So I want and to be able to do that, we have to be super nimble. We have to be super on the ball everywhere around the world.
Speaker 2:So if something happens in Australia and people are looking for information on Thing X, we're the first things that are popping up. We've already got articles out there, we've really talked about it, we've really We've got podcasts about it, we've got videos about it. We're just we're there. And so the news that needs that's going to surround that issue is going to be full of information from us, because that's where they're going to gather the information from, and that information is going to be truthful and authentic and shape a different narrative for hunting in those big medium forums, which is the ultimate.
Speaker 1:Do you do much TV stuff Like I can picture Listening to what you're saying there I can picture that's one of the worst news channels here, but we've got the project on most nights of the week and they'll cross to a specialist on knee surgeries or whatever and is that the sort of 100% Like. If there's a duck conversation, let's cross to Robbie from Blood Oceans to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and ideally we have someone in Australia that's our point person who is Like they know how we speak, they know how to speak, and they're like, hey, we have a hunting topic and we want to bring an expert in for To have a debate around hunting. Whether it's me coming on or someone else coming on, we want to be that person.
Speaker 1:I think yeah, and that's when you said you're lulled in your Facebook page. I think the struggle would be the accent and the background and not being in Australia.
Speaker 2:So Agreed, totally agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you probably tell me off here or not, but have you found someone in Australia that's like that? Not yet. Why aren't they doing it already? Was my next question.
Speaker 2:It's just, I think it's a matter you know for me. I look at myself. You just need to you get to that point in your life where you're like, hey, that's what I want to do and I'm super passionate about it, and I just need to find that person who's at that point in their career. That's like we want. I want that, I like that idea and I'm willing to sacrifice a couple of years. Now, double down, I've got a good job, but know that you know, in the future, blood Origins Australia will be a nonprofit organization in Australia raising enough money in Australia to fund someone's salary in Australia. And there'll be me in Australia but someone else running it and raising money and doing what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:Do you do trade shows and things now?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Two. Well, it's a show season now. Yeah, starts Wednesday. I've got 45 days literally on the road starting in two days time All the shows in America, and then there's no, dear expo.
Speaker 2:No, we just walk the show floor because I don't know. At this. We're not at a point yet that I wrestle in my brain Like what do I? What would I get out of putting a booth up? Brand awareness, of course, people stopping in and going, oh, I've seen these guys, you know. So that would be one. And two would be raising money. I could we have like this, like dear expo.
Speaker 2:Last year, I wanted to have a booth at dear expo. I wanted to have a blood origins booth, australia booth. I don't think we were ready for it. We will be. If they're not having it this year, so we're not. We don't need to be ready for this year, but if they have it in 2025, we're certainly going to be ready. And then raise money like have a, have a good raffle, like have a gun or have something cool that sounds like, hey, sign up to be a supporter or buy this raffle ticket right now and by the end of the weekend, someone's winning this gun. So no, right now we just walk the floors. It's a lot of business development, making sure, again, we're still introducing ourselves to people, still getting people brand aware.
Speaker 1:I think that I've done trade shows and I think I've done them both ways booth and no booth, both beneficial for different reasons. But looking from the outside, you probably get more benefit just walking, because the people you're talking to are the other booth holders and you've got a lot of freedom. When you're on a booth, you're talking to punters who are just stuck in front of your three by three that are cruising past and it's a. You get a more in depth conversation but you don't get to spread that across. Maybe the people that would actually help blood origins in the future and that's the other booth holders Correct, if they know about it, that they're telling the people in front of their booths and it's actually spreading the seed a little bit further.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they you know those, those other booths are potential conservation club members. They're companies that want to become a conservation club member. They're outfitters that would be interested in donating a hunt to us. They're outfitters that we want to talk about their impact on people, on wildlife, on communities, the things that they're doing. That will showcase hunting in the greatest light possible. So that's where we're at right now and I love it. I absolutely love it, and the next 45 days are going to be rough, but they're all rough on my voice and rough on my liver, but they'll be good.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I got you now, before that started. I'm jealous I'd. Yeah, the show season over there is not not one I've been to. Usually when I was guiding over there, I'd come home in December, late December, do Christmas over here and then head back over in in the fall. But Dallas.
Speaker 2:Safari Club is the first one in two days, and the first event of the year is the weatherby, which is a big black tie event on Wednesday night and it's like you just cannot shake enough hands because everyone's super excited to see everyone. You haven't seen each other in a year. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some big money flowing around those rooms.
Speaker 2:Oh, that weatherby room, jeez, is it in? Quite only no, you can buy a ticket to the weatherby because they raising money for their own internal foundation and they have a big auction. I know the auctioneer very well, who does the weatherby auction every year, and he says it's the hardest auction that he has to do every year because he has a. He has a time period between the end of dinner and the award of the weatherby, which is like an hour and a half window, and he has to sell 25 things in an hour and a half and everyone isn't really paying attention because everyone's still visiting, you know, wanting to catch up and whatnot. It's the toughest and it's also the richest crowd in the world that have done every single hunt under the sun, and so he's trying to sell a buffalo hunt to some, to a crowd that has hunted buffalo 10 times over.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, selling ice to Eskimos. Yep Is. Can you explain what the weatherby award is? Just?
Speaker 2:It's a. It's an award. The weatherby award is an award for someone who has killed the most animals in the world. Yeah, every year.
Speaker 1:No, period yeah, each year they award it, though.
Speaker 2:Each year they award it. But the guy who's winning it today is killing I think it's it's right at like 380 to 400 different animals in the world and it's probably costing him six to eight mil to hit that number. It's no, no, no period for the entire 380 400. So the to get like 280 animals is pretty simple Dare I say pretty simple, but to get from 280 to like over 350, the last 70 to 100 animals are very rare animals and very pricey.
Speaker 2:Yeah so fun room to hang around Fun room. But you know it's, it's your typical. You know old white guys that have been around for a long time, that have a lot of money, that have literally been. You know these weatherby guys hunt 300 days a year, 310 days a year.
Speaker 1:It's a full time job.
Speaker 2:Full time job to win the weatherby, dedicated like five, six years of hunting like that.
Speaker 1:It's a good room for you to be in. I mean, imagine if just one of those guys come on board and dropped a fraction of that into the.
Speaker 2:No, they do, dude, and this is like last. Three years ago I approached the weatherby and I said I've got an idea I wanted, I want to raise money. I don't want to auction anything off, I want to raise money for a video series called the proof. And they're like ah, we don't know, why don't you just do a little pamphlet? We'll put it on everyone's table. They can fill in their credit card information. And I was like man, I don't think that's going to work. Okay, no problems.
Speaker 2:Well, within like two days, the weatherby they're like oh, by the way, we're going to put your item as the last auction item. It's not even going to be printed, they'll just say it after the last auction item as a just an FYI. I was like okay, cool, so I'm in, so I've got a video. I made a video, put it in. And again, I know the auctioneer very well and he knows me, he knows blood origins, and so he finished the last auction item and then he stopped everyone and said hey, I just want to let you know we've got a special auction item now, right now, and I want you to watch this video. And so we have this really crazy cool video that everyone was just like what is this?
Speaker 2:And then John Bay said look, we're going to raise money for this documentary series. It's not an auction item, it's a paddle race. Who wants to give $10,000? Dodge? Like six people's hands went up and then 5,000. And then someone in the front said I'll give you 25,000 dodge. We raised a hundred and $10,000. And everyone in the room was like what just happened? Cause it, it, it was. It was the highest item of the night times three.
Speaker 1:Wow. Were you in the room, obviously.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I was in the front of the room. It was unbelievable. I was just because I was nervous as get out all day, like I was. Like we're going to raise nothing, okay, we'll raise 20 or something. Yeah, we raised that and that's what's allowed us to do the Zim documentary, the Zambia documentary, and now we have got a big elephant documentary coming out of Botswana and we did a Spanish documentary. So it just allowed us to do some really cool pieces that nobody's ever done before.
Speaker 1:So hope to go back next year. Yeah, do you get the opportunity to present something at this option to say this is where the money went?
Speaker 2:They don't like like highlighting people, which is weird. But next year I'm going to approach them for next year and say I want to do it again, and here's a video. We'll create a video that shows hey, three years ago we came to you and we asked for your generosity and this is what it did. Um, can we do it again? You see?
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to get a ticket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, come on, it's a brilliant show. You should, you should totally try and get to Dallas. It's a brilliant show 950 vendors, all hunts from all across the world and the best part is the guns at the show is unbelievable. You know, from any gun you want to the, you know $150,000 shotguns that you can pick up and touch and look at them.
Speaker 1:That's. That's just teasing. The problem is my bank account would be empty before I left.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you have to buy a raffle ticket next year, so you can't really come again.
Speaker 1:Well, I need to just get my preference points.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, rob, thanks for coming on is norm with Acura at hunts. Podcasts go in your multiple directions, and that's that's how I like it. We've covered a lot of different topics. It's a good fun one, so I appreciate your advice too. You've been, you know, talking a lot longer than I have in doing these things, so you've helped me be able to word my feelings a little bit better in the future. But I look forward to catching up with you, be online or in person, or if you are coming over to visit your family. And thank you for being on board. Yeah, 100% Australia too.
Speaker 2:No, thank you, man, and congrats on the podcast. Coming back and smashing number one in the wilderness category, that's huge Well done.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I appreciate that, no worries. Well, thanks for being and everyone. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, till next time. Cheers For those of you watching and maybe those listening. You might notice things have changed. We're back again. I've grabbed Robbie for a quick little morning chin wave because some things have come about. Since we recorded the first time We've been chatting a lot and come up with some really fun things and, robbie, you pitched something to me the other day and I was too good to not record. So tell us what you've got.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate it, man.
Speaker 2:You know it's something we started in South Africa last year and it worked really really well, and so we wanted to implement it in the Australian landscape and it's called the conservation levy program and really it's a very simplistic idea in that a lot of people hunt. They come to Australia and hunt. Locals pay to hunt and could we add a small, small conservation levy on the animals that are hunted in Australia? It's going to depend on the person and the outfit and the type of animal you're chasing, and we'll work with every outfitter to determine like what conservation levy they want to apply to the animals and to the hunt. But it's essentially like the Putman Robertson Act here in the United States in that that small percentage, that levy, will funnel right back into Australia and allow us to do the things that we do or we're going to do, and you're going to see that very, very shortly it's going to come to fruition. Within a couple of months You're going to start seeing some things that will go holy smokes. They weren't joking, they're doing things.
Speaker 1:I'm excited for that because I kind of have an inkling of what some of those things might be. But just from an accurate hunts point of view, I had some clients the other week and in between our first recording and now I mentioned to them and they said what a great idea is some of our money going towards it? And I said, yes, accurate hunts is in Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2:And that's the thing, it's just seed money, right, that's the way that we're looking at it. It's just small little seeds and if we can get a number of outfitters around Australia to say, yes, we're in with small seeds, at the end of the day it really doesn't cost the outfit or anything. It's a, it's a levy on the client. Some clients are going to be obstinate and go oh, I don't want to do that. But up until now and you just experienced it we have yet to find someone that says no, yeah.
Speaker 1:And framed in the right conversation. I can't see any negatives behind it. So, definitely something accurate hunts is keen to get on board with, and we'll continue to do it so.
Speaker 2:Well, we appreciate you. And if anybody else is listening out there that has an outfit in Australia that sells hunts, yeah let us know. We'd love to, we'd love to enroll you guys in the conservation levy program in Australia. That will, the money will stay in Australia to do the good work that we want to do in Australia.
Speaker 1:Something we didn't touch on in the last one was you have a subscription based or a donation based monthly for those that let's say a lot of hunting in Australia is done free, like free. Let's say so. No, no outfit is involved, so how can those people chip in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've got two models. We have the general Joe blow public model, which is a supporters program, which is we call it the cost of a cup of coffee a month. Go down to the local cafe and you want to order your beautiful flat whites in Australia, you're probably costing you six bucks seven bucks, right for that coffee. Instead of you having 20 coffees a month, just have 19 and send $7 to us and all of that money adds up again at the end of the day. And then the other thing that I'm super keen on is we've got a corporate conservation club. We've got a couple of Australian companies that support us. It ranges from 20 and this is all in US dollars, but $25 a month, all the way up to a crazy amount a month.
Speaker 2:And we just want good companies involved in what we do, whether that be in the outdoor space. We have I don't think we have anybody in Australia that is not in the outdoor space, but I'm keen to bring somebody on like that. But I've got an engineering company in New Zealand that supports us. I really am truly interested in having just like Regular companies join the conservation club. I've got an insurance company in Arkansas, a stone mason in Kansas Oil pipeline company in Texas. Those are the kinds of companies that you know, people, they hunt their own companies and they're like, oh yeah, we can, we can stick away 50 bucks a month or a hundred bucks a month or something like that. Like you said, it's all seeds and seeds planted together, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, any, any which way, and then if you don't feel like that you can donate monetarily, then there's other ways, like certain outfitters, you know. If they've got a hunt that they want to donate to us, we can raffle off a hunt, raise money that way. Lots of other things that we can. You know we're always open to ideas. Well, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1:Speaking of ideas and thanks for jumping back on and throwing that bit there there and again for everyone listening and watching. Thanks for being here.