Wild Origins Australia

Ep 1: Wild Origins Australia, Launching A Truth-First Conservation Voice For Australia

• Dodge Keir • Season 2 • Episode 1

Share episode

Send us a text

We launch Wild Origins Australia with a clear promise: tell the truth about sustainable use, show tangible conservation wins, and offer new perceptions that bring people together. From billboards and wetlands to wild meat and language, we chart a practical path for Australian-led change.

• why the rebrand broadens the mission beyond hunting to sustainable use
• service-first ethos and trusting new Australian voices
• funding raised in Australia staying with Australian projects
• billboard campaign outcomes and public response
• global wins in NZ, Colorado and Spain as playbook
• perception as a tool for dialogue and policy change
• food as bridge: ethics, wild protein and clean harvests
• language choices: from feral to valued introduced species
• science-led management: impact, carrying capacity, habitat
• local visits: hen houses, nest boxes, media links, wetlands
• pathways to legitimate wild game markets in Australia
• open invitation for project ideas and community leads

Stay wild, Australia

If you aren’t a supporter of Wild Origins Australia, you can go on the website, originsfoundation.org, just click the support button, click the donate button, you can set up your donation monthly, and you will be in line to win all the giveaways that we have in North America plus any that we have on offer here in Australia


For the latest information, news, giveaways and anything mentioned on the show head over to our

Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1EiNYmgJr2/),

Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/wildorigins_australia/)

Website (https://theoriginsfoundation.org/)

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 dodge@thewildorigins.org or via our socials.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, this one is a fun inaugural first episode Wild Origins Australia because although I might be new to Wild Origins Australia, these two guys are not. Uh we have Robbie Kroger coming from America, we have Mark Hall coming from Canada, and I Dodge Key coming from Sydney. So very international guest list on this one. Welcome to the show, boys.

SPEAKER_00:

Kudos to you, bud. Kudos to you, Wild Origins Australia Podcast. Boom!

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we're here. Nice. It's happening. I wouldn't be here without you guys. So man. Robbie, our feelings leader, and Mark, my uh mentor coach from the background.

SPEAKER_00:

No, look, we're super proud of what we've built in Australia. Like, you know, we were saying, Mark obviously runs Canada. Canada's our second largest market behind the US, but Australia is very close third. We have very, very big fingerprints in Australia and New Zealand, obviously. But you know, we I've been thinking and toying of this idea of having a podcast in Australia for a while and talked to a couple of people, oh, probably two, three years ago at this point. But we needed to have the brand change, like we needed to have this whole brand behind us now that it's not Blood Origins Australia anymore, it's Wild Origins Australia, it's not Blood Origins headquarters, it's the Origins Foundation, and it just brought with it like a rejuvenated sense of like, okay, purpose. This is who we are. And literally, I was at a con a conference for the last two days uh called the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, and Australia doesn't have that. And it's like this glue organization, it's this thing that like brings all the agencies together, brings everybody around the table, and says, What are you dealing with? How can we help you? How can we do this? How can we champion this? And it's almost like it's the it's the ethos of what we want to do. Mark always says, like, we have an ethos that is I am second, and it's and it's really, if you've never heard of I am second as a Christian testimonial project, go look it up. The way that it's filmed, that's how we built our filming off of. Um, but it's also how we we structure ourselves as an organization. Like we want to, like we just had a great conversation with WSAA. How can we help you, WSAA? We're not in competition with you, we have no ego to us, we just want you to do better through this through what we are really, really good at. Um, and the the other thing I've been saying a lot is is a rising tide rises all ships, and we want to be that rising tide.

SPEAKER_01:

We can all benefit from it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, exact exactly. And and it's it's it can be dangerous waters, you know, like you know what we do, because we're usually on the forefront of a lot of topics, you know, when they break, um, we're putting our lens of sustainable use, you know, on on it first. Uh I know at home here I tend to weigh in on subjects that other organizations won't because of the social and cultural sensitivities of it, but we do, and we do it with honor and integrity and respect for for all perspectives. Uh, and and that that in itself benefits other organizations that are being impacted by things like that. That's a way I find I I I help um you know rise all the ships here in Canada is to be the one that wades into the things that's pretty scary for for other organizations for whatever reasons it can be they're they're funders or be like, oh, we don't want you talking about that or whatever, but you know, so it's like well, I will.

SPEAKER_01:

And Robbie, when this started, I mean, you've been playing in Australia for about five years now, I think. Um yeah, yeah, about that, yeah. But blood origins obviously existed before that. Where where was it? Like, where did it come from? I mean, this is obviously our first episode, so there'll be people joining that don't know what Blood Origins was and now what the Origins Foundation is. So, where did it stem from?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Blood Origins stemmed from just this idea of changing the narrative around hunters. That's how it started, like showing our heart for the first time. Like we have this, you know, let's I'll I'll shape it in the Australian context. Hunters in Australia are, you know, wife beater wearing, singlet wearing, you know, hoons that are driving in the back of the truck with spotlights, shooting everything and leaving it to rot. Right? The crocodile dundee typical scenario that we all the whole world seed or have seen. Um, and so is that it was changing the perceptions of our heart and being able to sort of emotionally explain why we do what we do. And it's tough because we we kill things, right? And that's why we have such a bad rap. And you know, we're not gonna apologize for that, but we just need to be able to speak a little bit more succinctly, a little bit more articulately, a little bit more authentically, of like the reason why we do all these things. And that's how we started, but then we sort of morphed into this, like like Mark said, it we we morphed into this voice defending the truth in on topic areas that most people wouldn't touch, or most people didn't have the acumen to wade into that conversation. And we had the acumen. I have a PhD in restoration ecology, and so it was just like, hey, I'm gonna talk about it and I'm gonna be very truthful about it, I'm gonna be very authentic about it, I'm gonna talk with emotion, I'm gonna talk with passion, and I'm gonna talk with sense. And, you know, we've we positioned the organization as this sort of unbiased truth teller, and that's where we live. And we want people to, if they want to understand a topic anywhere in the world as it relates at you know, as blood origins to hunting, now the Origins Foundation as relates to sustainable use of wildlife, which 90% of it probably is hunting, but there's fisheries involved now and all those kinds of things, then we want them to come to us. We want them to go, hey, let's hear what Mark says, let's hear what Robbie says, or let's hear what Cass at Wild Origins Australia or Kai or Dodge says about a certain topic. Who's Dodge talking to about this hot thing that's happening in Australia? That's where we're gonna go and get our our our our truth, get the real information. Let's go there.

SPEAKER_01:

And Mark, come on board earlier on than Australia. Canada was one of your major earlier kickoffs, is that right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was the the first the first expansion. So the gine the guinea pig, the test case, and um yeah, it's we're going on three years now, like we're starting year three uh as an affiliate. So that's it was a no-brainer. Robbie and I did a podcast together, and and I think we'd done a couple, and then the second one, I can't remember if it was on your show or you're on mine, and then afterwards when we stopped recording, you just said, Here, I'm just gonna leave you with something to think about, but kind of watching you for a while, and you're doing exactly what we do.

SPEAKER_00:

So uh you know and it was a no-brainer because the hardest thing about us the the thing that I had to get over is our voice is so important. It's everything, our voice is everything, and so you had to be comfortable. I had to be comfortable with trusting someone to speak, and it's not my voice, and I don't have control of this individual who's saying something, but he's representing me. And so that's what Mark Mark was like, that was it, like he was he was our voice, like it was it, like he had the acumen, he had the the emotional component to it, he had the thoughtfulness component to it, and same with you guys now in Australia. You look at what how the way that Kai approaches the way that she puts things across, the way that Cass puts things across, the way that you're gonna put things across in this podcast space, it's very much it echoes the same like purposefulness, thoughtfulness, depth to our thinking. Um and you have to know how big of a step this is because I'm a control freak, right? Like I don't let things go, as all of the people who work around me know. So yeah, baby steps, but we're there, we're getting there now.

SPEAKER_03:

And yeah, yeah, it's getting it's get it's getting there. He's he's he's uh relinquishing the reins and you know on something, and and and that's important because when an organization starts to grow and expand like like the work we're doing in Australia now, it's it's um, you know, he he's gotta focus on strategic things, so operational level things. That's what you and I work on and the team works on, and and um, but yeah, he's gotta have have the trust there uh for that. So yeah, we're I mean we're getting, you know, corporately kind of organized of strategic level, operational level, you know, field level sort of thing. So that I think feeds back and forth nicely, the flow of information is nicely, and I think that is going to bode very well for the people that follow you in Australia, um, you know, to to know that there's all of these levels that are making this amazing message, an amazing voice for your issues.

SPEAKER_01:

Something for the Australian listeners, and this stemmed from uh Robbie did uh that's how we met originally. You did your auction, the raffle for the hunts, and then I had you on my podcast when that popped up. And some of those comments were oh, what's this American organization we're funding at? And Robbie is half Australian, you can't hear it in his accent, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the dark side of my family.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the bright side, that's the bright side. But uh his mother lives here in Sydney, um, and he does visit, he does have a passport, he comes and says hello. But the other thing is a lot of the funding that we're going to raise uh in Australia will be for an Australian project and we'll be staying in Australia. So this is why this Australian team is important because we're the ones bringing these guys the issues, we're the ones bringing the topics and saying, hey, what can the Origins Foundation help us with here? What can we do on this front? Um, so just know that although, yes, it's an American not-for-profit organization, this is an Australian sector that's leapfrogging off the power and the strength of this, you know, megawort that's just happening in America and growing and growing with your biggest support, and then we're seeing what we can do here in Australia. So it's important to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and the money that we raised from that raffle has come is has come back and will still continue to come back into Australia. We bought the billboards for six months. You know, that was a huge campaign, that was a huge victory, it was a huge feather in our cap. We caused such a massive stir. The fact that Georgie Yeah, the fact that Georgie took out a billboard behind us, the leader of the Animal Justice Party in Victoria, she knows us. She knows who we are. Halfway around the world. That's so cool. Then we've got we did the Clash of Values piece out of the Northern Territory. We've got a piece with John Raleigh about uh uh the game meet side of things with uh a content series called Are You Game that we're gonna run. We've got a piece coming out of Victoria with Ross O'Meara. Uh, we're building infographics that you're gonna start seeing coming out through our social media. So all of that money is pumped is pumping right straight back into Australia for the things that we do in Australia.

SPEAKER_01:

And billboards are not cheap for anyone asking at home. But something that came from the billboard thing was the billboard company who we're working really closely with, and we had a really good rep um rapport with our sales guy, Cody, and he said, Oh, we're getting a fair bit of hate from this. This is actually the most amount of negative emails we've had from any billboard we've ever done. And then Robbie and I were like, Well, let's change that. And I think Robbie put a post up and a call out to action to you know our supporters here, and then the next phone call was uh can you stop that, please? Uh we've never had so many emails come from a positive standpoint.

SPEAKER_00:

And Mark, next time we'll activate our howl campaign and we'll really like jump.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's then and and then the elected officials call back and ask you to turn off the howl machine. That the billboard was on on waterfowl hunting, right? Correct, yeah. It was our heritage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And then it would it went through duck season, and then it was three months of duck season uh billboard, and then the next billboard was all it was is a white canvas and it said hunting is human, full stop, big black letters, white background, couldn't miss it. Pretty darn cool.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's what it is. It's the you know, choice of words, choice of image, but it's the respectful truth of what we do. It's not about blood and guts and glory. What uh what are some of the successful programs the Origins Foundation has done so far? Not so much in Australia, but just internationally.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I think it it's funny, I I never really like take stock of the things that we've done. And as we stood up Wild Origins Australia, the team was like, hey, how do we talk about like what we've done? Like, what have you been successful at? And I was like, oh, let me hold on, let me let me just start writing things down. And we got I got to like, and here's the other thing, right? I don't there's lots of organizations in our space that will do nothing and claim that they did everything, claim the victory, like we stopped that policy. Well, you didn't send a bloody send a single email. I didn't see you talk about a topic at all, and so I'm not going to claim things that we didn't have like a very heavy hand in moving the needle on. Tomagedon was number one. Tomagedon was something happening in New Zealand in the middle of nowhere, nobody knew about it. We got involved and helped the Tal Foundation raise a quarter of a million dollars to sue the New Zealand government. It was, you know, 750,000 views of the videos we put out. Just absolutely that's the first thing that we did. Um obviously we did we helped with Colorado banning uh the potential ban of mountain lion hunting with dogs with the documentary. Uh we we played a part. I will not take the credit for that. Dan Gates and Coloradans for Responsible Wildlife Management and Howell were obviously the lead charge horses, and we were, you know, a spare horse that got rotated in when we needed to be rotated in. Um we certainly changed the game in Spain with a story called Caboneros. Caboneros was a national park that decided to quit hunting or ban hunting, and half the national park is privately owned. And so we did a documentary, created a bunch of media and press that went into the Spanish media system, and that went all the way up to the EU as a petition to get the hunting ban reversed, and the EU granted the interview and then said, Yes, we agree with you, it needs to be reversed. The courts have now reversed the decision and they are back hunting. And the and the government's paying them to hunt. So huge victories there. Um, Mark's had some incredible victories. Mark's been involved in mountain lions, um, defending the truth around mountain lines and getting newspaper retractions on lies that they've been telling. So that you know, that's four or five. There's another four or five that we've done as well. But we just we do things differently, and that's why I think people are attracted to what we do. And as we started with this, we just we're no nonsense, like here it is. I was actually listening on a I was listening to a podcast coming up here when I was coming driving home today, and the guy was talking about Mark. This you you'll really love this, he was talking about perceptions, and um it was actually uh Rogan's latest podcast with the um Daryl Davis who converts like Klu Klux Klan guys, and he's an African American. And he said, When you are engaging individuals that have a different reality than yours, you can't change their reality. You have to offer them different perceptions of their reality and let them decide what if that perception is truthful or not. And I was like, holy smokes, that's what we're doing. Like when we engage in a comment with someone, someone's like, oh, hunting's terrible. What you're putting in front of them is a new perception of this idea that they have. They've got this perception over here of what they deem as right, and you're like, Well, let me let me show you this one and and bake it with your facts and bake it with your emotion and whatnot, and create this perception here, and you say, Here, what do you think about this one? And that person, here's the other thing, that person may not even look at the perception. But I guarantee you, depending on the size of the post, a hundred thousand people looked at that perception, and you change the minds of a couple of people, be like, whoa, I like that perception. That makes complete sense to me now.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, small sense. That resonates with me. Because years ago I worked with uh with a fella, uh, he was based out of Houston, Texas, actually, and and he said one he said a thing in in uh one of our meetings one time, and and and he just said he he was like an older fellow, like kind of senior in the company, and he said, he said, uh gentlemen, one of the things you have to keep in mind is perception is reality. As much as what you might disagree with how other people perceive something, that is real, that is reality, and you need to to address that. And where what you're saying, Robbie, resonates with me is when we engage people with other perceptions, we don't discount that perception because that is reality to them, that is their world. And and I can respect that. I can respect people that disagree with hunting, taking the like like that's fine. And then Robbie says, but like here's where I'm coming from, here's my reality. And when you embed some logic, some facts, some rationality. thinking embodied with some passion emotion and and respect for the person that you're engaging with other people will be like okay you know let's let's think about what this fellow just said or you know that that that's a good point but I I think the starting base is you know doesn't matter what the topic is uh perceptions are reality and that's our starting base that's that's that's our baseline that is a reality for somebody for another organization an elected official now let's build on that reality like Robbie said with other options of our reality they've never been presented another option they've never been presented another perception so here it is here's here's what here's a here's another one what we struggle with in Australia I feel is that we're getting further removed and that perception reality is get heading a bit more away from where we are and it's it's getting harder and harder to lasso back in but I think it's the further it goes that way the more extreme it ends up being on that side it's actually easier to turn those people back because they can see the truth in what we're doing and and the food side of things we've spoken about is is the key to that for me is um you know we all need to eat but for us or for reality for those people is farmed food and when they see that we've got a different reality or our perception is that wild food wild source game is so much better and safer and cleaner then it's then you know it's the easier way to flip them over.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what I found anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah I couldn't agree more absolutely yeah I I mean that's a that's a narrative you know that we have here in Canada I think it exists in the states it's this rural urban divide right city folks they're disconnected from the wild they don't know what it's like out here they're you know all all these things right all these bad things um but actually I've found like sometimes they're they're the easiest people to engage with because people that live in metropolitan centers see and deal with so much variety and diversity in life from the cultures that are you know around them the different foods the you know the whole structure of living in a big city and what you got to do to if you know get to work and get back and you know just this this whole lifestyle the cultures the arts the different restaurants the plays those folks sometimes can be some of the most open-minded people that you can have conversations with you go way out into the rural area and you want to present some kind of a topic to to somebody like hey you should try you know this uh this lizard meat you know they're invasive species and we can hunt them and eat them and it's like nope don't like it and you're like well have you tried it nope I just know I don't like it. Yep just put some potatoes and a steak and that's all I've ever eaten it's all may that's it mine's made up right so it's a bit of a stereotype but I do find sometimes you know uh we can break down some of these um these echo chambers um some of my best conversations are with the people that are so devout on that side of the coin because we have so much in common when you really break down their why wh why are they so focused on you know being careful what they put in their body and it not being the farmed meat, not being the preserved fruits, not being And then when we sort of sit down and break down why we do what we do, there's so much you know, connective tissue there that we agree.

SPEAKER_01:

We don't like factory farming. We don't like you know um highly intensified agriculture. We understand it's part of it but once they once they really get across that line and we can remove some of the emotion it's a great conversation. And I can really see into their into their psyche and how they like you said you can respect what they believe. Uh I'm yet to fully convince a vegan to come on a hunting trip. I'm working on a couple but I know Robbie's probably Robbie's interviewed a fair few of them.

SPEAKER_00:

You know they also get a bad rap, right? Just like us. The the vegans you know the extreme vegans are the ones that give them a a bad rap a bad name. The ones that are just you know the paint slinging militant militant yeah exactly great word militant side of vegans but if you find a thoughtful and you know logical vegan they'll say if if people are to eat meat they should do it the way you're doing it. Like we're on your side if you're gonna eat meat you do it the way that you do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Go and get it.

SPEAKER_00:

Go get it understand where it's lived understand how it's died do everything you can to mitigate you know as as the the the the animal welfare things around it which is the biggest feather in our cap anyway like we're the ones practicing shooting we're the ones practicing with our bows we're the ones you know spending all this money all this time because at the end of the day we want the animal that's why we hunt we want to kill that animal and we want it. But indirectly that want and desire is just you know it's buffeted by all these animal welfare concerns that you actually aren't thinking about at all but come alongside everything that you do right you're gonna make you want the cleanest kill you want the quickest kill you want to be you want to get in close you want all these things to happen because you don't want to lose the animal but also means you're thinking about its welfare you don't want it to suffer. You don't want it to have pain well that's the whole point of the whole vegan movement.

SPEAKER_03:

And you know a big part of where hunters where our heart comes from which is which this is a really big part of what you know what we do globally is is showing the impact of hunting in an area so you know for me in order for the land to yield these deer that I hunt and and and eat the deer's natural habitat's got to be there. And so outside of hunting we're doing everything we can as a hunting community to uh protect habitat enhance habitat you know we're fighting the battles uh you know on that front we're contributing to the to the research we're contributing to you know the understanding of biodiversity in an area even though we might only be interested in one of the species uh and and that's that's a win for hunting and and a win that that we're communicating is through hunting you know we're protecting and advocating for habitat that sustains the deer plus all these other species uh you know that that are out there and and when people see that or appreciate you know the efforts that the hunting community does outside of that then that helps to break down that you know you're bloodlust you're only in it for the thrill of killing and the and and you're you know you're depleting the gene pool and you're driving species to extinction and and all this sort of stuff um showcasing what hunting does outside of the harvesting of animals um goes a long way in the non-hunting community yeah I'll give you a perfect example to what Mark just said I obviously there's a big push right now well we don't we don't know how big of a push I went over exaggerated um to ban certain trophies coming into Australia okay there's 20 animals on this list and I got interviewed by an SBS journalist out of Sydney about this and she wanted content out of South Africa that we gave her and whatnot and dodgy it's gonna you know potentially take her hunting there's all you know there's potential of us getting plugged in in multiple places but in the interview process I I knew what she was going to ask me like she had the genetic argument I said yeah they've talked about genetics comes from elephants right those the two elephant papers she's like oh yeah yeah you know and I was like yep but she was also very surprised that I said things like hunting isn't the panacea for wildlife conservation hunting has its fault faults it has its failures we have bad apples makes us look bad um I said things that she was like wow I never thought a hunter would say things like that like I I almost was like look we're not perfect I think that's what she expected me to say like we're the best we're the perfect like nothing goes wrong we're the most ethical people yeah uh and that surprised her I'll say that that really surprised her it took her back and I think talking about what you were saying there Mark about you know the crossover between different habitats and then the the positive impact that it has on hunting that circles right back to the rebrand that Robbie just went through and Blood Origins was was like a hunting organisation but then you ended up and you're like well to preserve hunting and conservation I need to prefer preserve wetlands.

SPEAKER_01:

And Robbie and I just had a good chat when you were over here we'll get into that soon about uh Deer Expo and you're talking about a fish in a wetland and if we can find some funding to increase the wetland size to bring the fish back well then guess what else comes back? The ducks. So you know if you can take a few steps back from our lens of the hunting world and look at it through a wider fish eye view and say well what other factors are gonna eventually end up in our positive area of more hunting access or more animals or better control of the animals we have but from a wider view that the community can understand.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah yeah yeah I mean a great example of that is you know we have you know the team in India Fear and Pre um Wild Origins India uh there is no hunting in India but they're still championing the cause of sustainable use of wildlife um they are culling um wild boar and and nil guy in India and the government is and they're burying it or or burning animals um all this protein in a protein deprived nation so they're slowly trying to you know embed the idea of you know herd management and communities can benefit from the protein rather than it being a cost to government and government colors there's these people that are willing to come from other parts of the world and pay yeah you know to do this and we can put the money back you know back in and and then and then sort of the con the wildlife conflict piece you know the uh uh the the the whole struggle of rural people and animals and crops and life protection and that sort of thing so it's a very very different scenario for them because they've got to have these conversations but hunting is a isn't an accepted part of it yet so um that's that's an exciting thing it it's making me rethink some of our highest level aspects of our mission uh when you take hunting out of it how do we still continue to have these conversations about sustainable use so that hunting isn't a crutch. You know it's like we can set it aside and still have these same conversations in other parts of the world.

SPEAKER_01:

It sounds like a wild origins community hunt that we need to go on uh in in in India.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah well we have to work our way around we gotta get we gotta get it legal there first because otherwise we'll be an episode of Locked Up Abroad or whatever that one used to be on National Geographic you know the hundred percent speaking of there's this guy from Canada and Australia and the United States got it sounds like the start of a jail in India because they tried hunting so Canadian American and Aussie walk into a bar uh talking about locked up abroad Robbie you were just here in Australia you came over for you know 10 days or so and and did a bit of a tour how did uh how did that fare for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah it was amazing because I again we've been in the Australian landscape for five years I haven't met you know I met you for the first time face to face um I hadn't met very many people that I had engaged we had engaged on Facebook on Instagram through social media I never met them and I didn't meet the originals like the guys that like like sparked Blood Origins Australia way back in the day. And so I was I was bound and determined to do a road trip to visit people and so and it's funny a Kai said something to me she was like you know you you went to all this effort to meet people face to face halfway around the world and the effort didn't go unnoticed um which is quite amazing um but yeah I flew down to Adelaide and saw the OG Craig Merton shout out to Craig Merton Craig Merton was the original guy who like sung Blood Origins Australia praises he still sings Blood Origins Australia praises but now he's retired he's not a fishmonger anymore he rides a uh it's not a Harley he he's gonna kill me for saying he doesn't ride a Harley he's like a a chief I'm not a I'm not a motorbiker an Indian correct thank you I knew it was something to do with that um and he loves it but he still bleeds you know Blood Origins Australia he's got a wild origins Australia sticker on his helmet now that he rides through the South Australian Outback. So I met him I then drove up to Mildura and spent a couple of days with the Finnis family Shanna Finnis was actually the original OG. She was the one who reached out to me on Facebook Messenger and said I just want to introduce myself I love your message you need to bring this message to Australia and we went through like she went through a couple of political ups and downs um but she was the original and I met her unfortunately she was sick but I met her family had a great time stayed in trailers it was freezing it was bloody hot here in America I got there it was four degrees C at night um then I just kept going like I I there were just things that struck out to me like I thought I was going to see bush a a lot of bush in in in Victoria it was all agriculture and like the bush remnants that were there are old wetlands old swamps and how changes in agriculture and changes in water use have like removed the swamps and like you said like how can we help like bring the swamps back on it from a different perspective like go after the Murray hardhead as a fish species an endangered fish species that has very few pieces of places where it can exist well they can exist in these wetlands and if you can get environmental flows back into these wetlands flood them out for endangered species that everybody wants and oh the byproduct is now you've got water for ducts it's an amazing win-win-win situation and so Field in game Australia is obviously one of our our partners that we've worked with tremendously in Victoria um I went up and saw I came through Rushworth Victoria if anybody's been to Rushworth not many people have been to Rushworth probably thousand people has a good pie shop pies were the first pie I had that morning the satay chicken was terrible but the Aussie mince pie at lunch was very good. I had a number of pie reviews on the way through my journey in Australia um but saw them and their program like you talk about India Mark Rushworth doesn't have much wetland habitat around them they only have wetland habitat around them when it when it rains and there's water and it only rains every third or fourth year so how does a duck hunting branch do conservation and show it and they've figured out the media part I've I was supposedly in two newspapers because of my visit. So they've got the connections into the newspapers but they've got sugar glider boxes they've got parrot boxes they've got um they've got all these these nest boxes that had a you know a ring tailed possum was in one of them that I was there and so it's like oh this is a hunting organization and you're putting up nest boxes for all these like things and you're doing predator trapping for Brogers which is a super endangered um crane species it was awesome to see it was just awesome to see um and then uh spent time with the field game Australia crew in Geelong um saw the hen houses uh you know really challenged them to say like you know they've got so many hen houses that they haven't put into their app like get the get them into the app like how do we get a thousand they've got supposedly 2000 nest boxes out but there's only 790 in the app they they're probably generating more ducks with their nest their nest box program than killing ducks in Victoria which is a huge statement you know I could see that on a billboard 2024 statistics 300 ducks killed you know 3800 ducks fledged and born something like that or just take the killing off and just say born probably the only way to get a past Gork at this stage but yeah it was great it was great and then Wild Deer Expo obviously so I met you I met all the team um and just incredibly incredibly humbling man I think the best if I had to pick out like one example it was I was standing outside of Robert Herbert's booth RM blades talking to Robert Robert's built knives for us and the owner one of the owners I think of Carnival Collective came by with a big you know dolly full of gear that somebody had bought and he said to me oh hey Robbie how's it going and I was like oh hey I don't know who you are but awesome thank you and the guy who bought all the equipment stopped who was a patron and said hey I just want to say thank you for what you're doing for the hunting community so it was the owner of the actual product and then the guy who bought it knew us and knew what we did and halfway around the world people are tapping us on the shoulder and saying thank you for what you're doing for us and there couldn't be a bigger motivator than that.

SPEAKER_01:

I know the two people it was uh Geordie was the guy the bigger guy and he doesn't own Carnival Collective but he works for them. He's an amazing chef in his own right but but uses all this stuff but Reagan big Reagan Johnson um I spoke to him after the show because you told me this story and I just knew it was him because you said it was a big Kiwi fella with tattoos. Yeah yeah and uh and I reached out and and said that you know it meant a lot to you that he said that and he's like man there's no one doing what he does. So they'll both be listening to this when it comes out. Yeah that's awesome. Well out Reagan shout out Geordie that's all I saw when I was walking around following you and you know meeting people it was just you know you would say hi and I'm Robbie and they're like we know who you are.

SPEAKER_00:

We know who you are. And it I think that blew away field in game was I think we were sitting in their booth and they couldn't believe that this was our community. Like it we we we knew everyone. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

I you know, one of the things that I've seen or over the years, uh, and and this is kind of putting two pieces together. When I first started working with all of you in Australia, uh, you know, like there's the advisory team and then the the the strategy team folks, there was a tremendous amount of, you know, this is wrong, this is wrong, we're losing this, this is not good, uh, you know, all of these kind of, you know, issues. And there was this feeling, like this vibe coming off of that, that this was only happening in Australia. This is just happening to us. Everything is great out in the rest of the world. And I'm looking at all of those going, nope, the exact same thing's happening here. They'd want to eradicate, you know, introduce deer off this island. Everybody's upset about it. Oh, the gun control, yep, we're that's happening here too. This, this, this, that. And I'm like, no, folks, I know exactly where you're coming from because that's the exact same thing here. It's the exact same thing in you know, the United States. I'm trying to, they want to eradicate mule deer off Catalina Island, you know, like like all of these things uh are common globally. So people that have been following Robbie and Robbie's story will see them in South Africa, they'll see them in New Zealand, they'll see them in Spain, and they'll see those commonalities going, hey, that's almost the same thing in Spain that we're seeing here or wherever. And then they see the message, they see how he's breaking it down, they see how he's building bridges, how he's making progress, how he's changing minds, changing policy. And that resonates with people all over the world because you don't feel alone, you don't feel like hopelessness, and and that connects you, that connects you with somebody like him, like Robbie, even though you're in Australia, um, because you're seeing these successes globally and and now we're positioned to start seeing more of them happen, happen in Australia. But uh yeah, it's just it's just an observation I've I've had that it's we're all fighting this same things. There's a common thread through a whole bunch of things, and and um people appreciate successes even if they're not in their own country or their own backyard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I can definitely see that. One one thing that we don't have in common though, and is a little bit unique to us, is the animals that we hunt are non-native. They were bought here at some capacity by humans for some reason.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, so that's very controversial.

SPEAKER_01:

We talk about uh, you know, in the past I've had lots of conversations about oh, we really like the North American model. And but it just it's a very different context because they're native animals uh to both your countries. Uh the animals we're talking about here were, you know, a wild introduced animal at some point for different reasons across different species. So that's uh that's an interesting topic that we John, it's a huge one, right?

SPEAKER_00:

It's the like the it's the thing. And it's the thing that's driven, you know, it constantly drives debate, it constantly drives considerations of rhetoric.

SPEAKER_01:

The choice of wording around, you know, in the documents in Parliament when they're, you know, naming these animals as a class of introduced feral pest, just the choice of terminology, you know, we all know it's a it's a tricky choice. If you choose the wrong word I won't use those words because they're emotive enough, but if someone one of my mates says, Oh, there's deers over there, I'm like, ah it's not plural. It's not an S on that. Choose the right word. Plural of deer is deer. And you know, it's the same if someone says feral when they're referring to a certain species or a game species or a pest species. Really gotta nut down our terminology in this country because the way we articulate and name the animals we're hunting immediately puts a value on them, positive or negative, to the person we're talking to. I'm reluctant to say the word feral because immediately you think, you know, redneck feral um needs to be controlled, but that's not the case.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh yeah, and the the debate, you know, one thing we actually haven't ever talked about in our group. You know, we I really like what they do in New Zealand. They call it a valued introduced species. That's what it is, a valued, introduced species. And you can go down the chain, right? A cat is not a valued introduced species. A uh, you know, a fox right now isn't a valued introduced species. Um, but deer certainly are, and pigs certainly are, and goats certainly are, and all those things certainly are. Um but there is a huge can of worms that can, you know, hopefully you'll explore it on your podcast, which is and and get with, you know, I don't know who these people are, like ethnologists, I think is probably the the the term of art, but when does an introduced species not become an introduced species any longer?

SPEAKER_01:

And when is it local?

SPEAKER_00:

When is it noted? And that's what that clash of values was. I asked the Aboriginals up there, is a banting an introduced species to you? They're like, no, it's it's native. Like it was here when I was born. It's not uh so I'm it's like I've grown up with it. Like, why is it not native if it's been around for for a hundred years?

SPEAKER_03:

In North America, the pheasant, the ring-necked pheasant, it it's considered a naturalized species. It came it came from Southeast Asia and China, and and it's the only North American upland game bird. Doesn't have feathers on its feet, you know, for for the colder climate over here. Um, but it's considered a naturalized species. It's no longer talked about as non-native or or introduced or feral or like whatever the terms are. I mean, there's a pheasants forever organization that's you know working on conserving habitat for pheasants forever.

SPEAKER_00:

There is a, I don't even know what their annual budget is, but let's call it 10, 20, 30 million dollar non-profit organization that purely exists to protect in its classic form an introduced non-native. It's a naturalized species because of the value that it brings.

SPEAKER_03:

And and also the wild turkey in North America was this, you know, the same thing. So there's you know, five subspecies. They had their distinct geographic areas that they evolved um, you know, to be adapted to the eastern hardwood forests, you know, those sorts of things. And then in the restoration efforts of you know, the the early 1900s, they were moved into surrogate areas going, well, this subspecies was you know adapted to this habitat, but we see it way up there in northern part of the United States. Let's go put it up there. Hey, wow, it did amazing. And we have these battles going, they're not native to this state. You know, they're not native to our province. They're they're an invasive species. And it's like, no, they're native to the continent of North America, and they have a particular habitat niche. So you stick them into a new area, they adapt to that habitat niche that nothing else occupies. So it's not displacing other species, it's not competing, it, you know, it's not truly causing an impact like an invasive species does. And so it becomes accepted as a valuable species. And we all want to, you know, hunt and eat it and manage it properly. And and this is an area that's actually super exciting for me to see you get involved in down there because there is a lot of science and uh, you know, around non-native species. Uh, hopefully we'll get you connected with um, you know, Dr. Eric Lundgren uh out of our host university that did a big meta study on non-native species all over the world. And it's not so much the nativeness um that causes the impacts, it's their feeding strategies. They're either big bulk feeders or they're small picky feeders and managing numbers on the landscape commensurate with the carrying capacity. And I I really honestly see that's the conversation that you'll be able to drive in Australia is like, let's just put this whole feral and non-native and you know thing to rest, and let's look at ecologically what are the animals doing and where do they need to fit into the ecosystem? How many of them? What's the comp and and then allow folks to eat the good tasting ones, right? And and just accept them and and pop sometime beyond our lifetime, people be just like, oh yeah, deer and Victoria, that they're naturalized, they've been here forever.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

On the values side of it, and I'm gonna keep talking about this topic 'cause why I love food, but Joe Barrett, you introduced me to her at Deer Expo, Robbie. Amazing chef, amazing cook. You rave about her sausage rolls and her dim sims, and I can guarantee it's definitely worthwhile. But she said something on stage, my wife and I were taking a moment to listen and it was about wild caught food.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh yeah, yeah. That was amazing. You said that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. She said that wild caught uh seafood at the shops is prized. It's cost more uh it's you know at the premium product. But when we're buying red meat from the shop, the premium product is the most intensively farmed. We're talking, you know, wagyu, um scrap grained grain fed beef, lamb, and things like that, which are you know extensively farmed, intensively farmed, expensive to farm. Whereas a wild caught venison, wild caught game meat, is devalued. So we're we're paying premium for seafood and devaluing the red meat that's so readily available in this country. Victoria's only just sort of starting to get their head around wild game butchers. Um spoke earlier with Robbie about that guy up in Queensland who, you know, he's obviously doing it as well, and I'd like to reach out to him, but I live in New South Wales and we haven't got it nutted out here. The use sustainable use of this protein source we have. And it's not only the deer, I mean uh kangaroo as a native animal, um, changing the narrative around that and just you know, trying to get that across more dinner plates. We shoot it every night of the week. That thing, kangaroos and deer are shot for chillers, chillers. Deer are not shot at the moment because there's no market for them, which is a waste. But for dog food, purely for dog meat. Shooting thousands and thousands of kangaroos for dog meat. They need to be shot, there's too many of them. That's a whole topic in itself. But what's their end purpose, their end product? Canned meat. What a waste.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we definitely if there was a you know as we grow, you certainly can see us potentially championing like a wild, I don't know, you wouldn't it wouldn't be you wouldn't have you you couldn't use wild shot meat.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wild origins meat?

SPEAKER_00:

Something like that. That it was just like to as a as a marketing strategy, you get with, you know, we just heard we've got discovered wild foods, which is Joe Barrett and another guy, you've got Australian uh meats that we just heard about in Adelaide, uh, you've also got macro meats. Yes, and you just you again be the glue, right? Go to these three big venison companies that are entrepreneurs in business and say, why don't we create like a marketing strategy that is gonna help you, but it's also gonna help us from a narrative perspective. Like, this is value, man. This is the stuff that you want to be doing. Like, we want you to, you should want to do this. You should want to hunt, you should want to get your shooter's license, which increases the percentage of people that are now members of double SAA, which then has a bigger political voice in Australia.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, some of the same species, you know, bread stags, fallow deer, wild boar. You go to their home home countries in Europe, and their herds that are all managed in the excess crop all goes into the local communities into meat markets, and it's bought and sold. It's one of the one of the things, as I understand it, why hunting has a higher level of public acceptance because people go to their little butcher shops that have been there for hundreds of years, and it's like it's always got more. It's always got deer in it that have come off the land, and people understand because they know the the hunters are the ones that are that are putting it in into the meat shops and and um New Zealand's connecting those dots.

SPEAKER_01:

New Zealand's farm farmed venison, you drive all through that tourist area, and there's farm venison. All of the main restaurants over there champion it. One of their main dishes is usually a venison dish. And then you've got one of the main misconceptions is with Africa, the hunted animals for trophy, the meat is sold. It's a whole nother, it's a never wasted. It has a value in itself. So that just goes off in a whole nother direction. But you're right, once you're seeing these things on the shelves, we can get venison on the shelf now, it's extremely expensive. I did the maths. A fallow deer ranges from$800 to$1,200 in retail value for a you know, post butcher, which is incredible considering a lamb is three or four hundred. Um and we have these things wild grown on properties and people are culling them and digging ditches to burn them because they're trying to grow grass for their cheaper sheep. So it's just about changing that perception.

SPEAKER_00:

We're excited, lots of lots of good things to to come in Australia. Lots of good things. There is. We've got this podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Got the support from you guys, and with the backing of this team we've we've built and that we're you know continually building, I'm excited to see where it goes. But for those listening too, we want to hear from you guys. We want to hear of success stories, um, bad stories, like progress stories, what are some projects that we could help with? We we can't hear about them all, we only hear about what comes across our desks. So if uh if you want to know more, or you've got a project you need some help with or some advice on, or you've got a community group that you think might be interested in what we, you know, talk about the stories we tell and the truth we share, get in touch. Um all the you know, the three of our details will be in the show notes from this. No one's hiding behind anything. We've all got you can contact us directly. So like I was saying right early on, any funding that is raised here in Australia is based around Australian projects. We're trying to yeah, we're trying to do the right thing here. We're trying to make this accessible for years to come for all of our children.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. I'll leave you with one last story. I was walking around the Wild Deer Expo and I would I stopped in a couple of booths that I was just like, I don't know who these people are. But I'll just stop and introduce myself. So the first booth I stopped in was the Victorian Dog Hunters Association, and I said, Hey, I just want to introduce who I am, and it was the response, like you said, they're like, Oh yeah, we know who you are, Robbie. And it was just like it was so cool to see that there was and it was again just so complicated, like the dog, like the rules associated with breeds, and the it was just a fascinating conversation. Hound hunting, hound hunting, yeah, yeah. And which breeds like Mark, they had to get specific breeds approved by the legislature to be added to their hound pack, and their hound pack has to be six dogs, three of which have to be adult, two of which have to be like sub-adult. It's the rules are it's look, this is Australia, so it's a nanny state, right? We love a state. We love a role. But last thing I'll say is then I stopped by uh Gun Dog Gear and our friend Louie, I think that's how I say your name. I apologize if I'm messing it up. Him and his kid were in there, and I introduced myself. They're like, Yeah, we know who you are. Can we get a photo? He gave me this hat. His son chased me down and said, Oh, yeah, here's the hat. Here's a hat for you. So I wanted to wear his hat on this inaugural podcast and say big shout out to Gun Dog Gear. And they've given us a big swag pack, actually, uh, to give away to some of our Wild Origins Australia supporters. So if you aren't a supporter of Wild Origins Australia, you can go on the website, originsfoundation.org, just click the support button, click the donate button, you can set up your donation monthly, and you will be in line to win all the giveaways that we have in North America. Your your your name is thrown into the pot, but we will also start building specific Australia-only supporter giveaways uh with gear from Australia and other things.

SPEAKER_02:

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

And if there's people out there that want to get on board and and help us with this and donations and and support from that side of things that we can then use and spread and and to re you know, finance these more billboards, these more conservation projects, these more bird boxes, possum boxes, you know. This money's got to come from somewhere. So if there's anyone listening, please send us an email. Jump online, say hello, and for everyone out there, stay wild, Australia. I like it.

SPEAKER_03:

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01:

Stay wild, baby. Right uh, have a good night, boys. Talk to you soon. Cheers. Bye.