Kind: captions
Language: en
it was just like one of those moments
where we saw it at the same time and
we're standing by the tail
and the snake was so big that I mean
this must have been a 25 foot anaconda
dead asleep with a with a probably a 16
foot anaconda like sprawled across her
and they're laying in the Starlight and
we're floating on top of a lake standing
there in the middle of the Amazon and JJ
just I just I could feel the blood drain
out of his face
and as a however old I was you know
maybe 20 years old I just said if I if
we could somehow
show people this
will be on the front cover in National
Geographic and we can protect all the
jungle that we want
and so I tried to catch it
yeah so I jumped on the snake and the
only measurement I have of this animal
is that when I wrapped my arms around it
I couldn't touch my fingers yeah and so
I was you know my my feet were dragging
into her credit this Anaconda did not
turn around and eat me because her head
was you know this bad and and she went
and she reached the edge of the the
Grass Island and she starts plunging
into the dark and so I'm watching the
Stars vibrate as this anaconda's going
and I had to make the choice
of either going head first down into the
black which no thank you or stopping and
just keeping my hand on this thing as it
raced by me and I just felt the scales
and the muscle and the power go by and
then eventually taper down to the tail
until it's Slipped Away into the
darkness and I was laying there just
panting
the following is conversation with Paul
rosly a conservationist Explorer author
filmmaker and real life Tarzan since for
much of the past 17 years Paul has lived
deep in the Amazon rainforest protecting
endangered species and trees from
poachers loggers and foreign Nations
funding them he is the founder of jungle
Keepers which today protects over 50 000
Acres of threatened habitat and Paul is
one of the most incredible human beings
I've ever met I hope to travel with him
in the Amazon jungle one day because in
his eyes I saw a truth that can only be
discovered directly by spending time
among the immensity and power of nature
at its purest
this is the Lex Friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's Paul rosly
in 2006 at 18 years old you fled New
York and traveled to the Amazon
this started a journey that I think
lasts this day uh tell me about this
First Leap what in your heart pulled you
towards the Amazon jungle
from the time I was you know three years
old I'd say you know I was dinosaurs
wildlife documentaries fever when you
name it and like when my parents said
you know nature versus nurture they they
nurtured my nature I was always just
drawn to
streams forests I wanted to go explore
where the little little creek LED I
wanted to see the turtles and the snakes
and so I was a kid that hated school did
not get along with school I was dyslexic
and didn't know it undiagnosed I didn't
read until I was like 10 years old like
way behind and so for me the forest was
safety like I remember one time in first
grade they had you doing those you know
those multiplication sheets that was
pure hell for me and so I actually got
so upset that I couldn't do it that I
ran out the classroom ran out the door
and went to the nearest woods and I
stayed there because that was safe and
so for me like once I got to the point
where I was like high school isn't
working out I had incredibly supported
parents that were like look just get out
take your GED get out of high school
after 10th grade you got to go to
college but like start doing something
you love and so I saved up and bought a
ticket to the Amazon and met some
indigenous guys and the second I walked
in that Forest it was like it's like the
first scene in Jurassic Park when they
see the dinosaurs and they go oh this is
it yeah I walked in there and just I
looked at those giant trees I saw leaf
cutter ants in real life and I just went
oh it was like the movie just started
you know that was when that was when
like I came online
can you put in towards what is it about
that place that felt like home what was
it that Drew you what aspect of nature
the streams the water the the forest the
Jungle the animals what what Drew you
uh it's just it's always been in my
blood I mean for any Forest I mean
whether it's you know Upstate New York
or or India or Borneo but the Amazon
it's it's it's all of that turned up to
this level where everything is
superlatively diverse you know you have
more plants and animals than anywhere
else on Earth not just now but in the
entire fossil record it's the Andes
Amazon interface there's just that's
terrestrally that's that's where it is
that's the greatest library of life that
has ever existed and so you're just
you're so stimulated you're so
overwhelmed with color and diversity and
beauty and this overwhelming sense of
natural Majesty of these you know
thousand-year-old trees and half the
life is up in the canopy of those trees
we don't even have access to it there's
stuff without names walking around on
those branches and it's like it just
takes you somewhere and so going there
it was like it you know the guys I met
just opened the door and they were like
you know how far do you want to go down
the rabbit hole how how much of this do
you want to see you mentioned Steve
Irvin uh you list a bunch of Heroes yeah
have he's one of them and he said that
when you're unsure about a decision you
ask yourself uh wwsd what would Steve do
why is that such a good heuristic for
Life what would Steve do he's a human
being that like everything we saw from
Steve Irwin was positive everything was
with a smile on his face if he was
getting bitten by a reticulated python
he was smiling if he was you know
getting destroyed in the news for
feeding a crocodile with his son too
close he was trying to explain to people
why it's okay and why we have to love
these animals and everything was about
love everything was about you know
wildlife and protecting and to me a
person like that that where you only see
positive things that's that's a role
model and it's just like an endless
curiosity and hunger to explore this
this world of nature yeah and an
insatiable Madness for for wildlife I
mean the guy was just so much fun I
gotta if it's okay uh read to you a few
of your own words you opened oh boy the
book Mother of God with the passage that
I think beautifully Paints the scene
before he died Santiago Duran told me a
secret it was late at night in a palm
thatched Hut on a bank of the temple
Potter river deep in the southwestern
corner of the Amazon basin besides the
mud oven two wild boar heads sizzling
sizzled in a cradle of Embers they're
protruding tusks curling and static
Agony as they cooked
the smell of burning
sacropia wood and cinched flesh filled
air
woven basket containing monkey skulls
hung from the rafters Where Stars speak
through the gaps in the thatching a pair
of chickens huddled in the corner
conversing Softly
we sat facing each other on sturdy
benches across a table hewn from a
single cross section of some massive
tree now nearly consumed by termites the
song of a million insects and frogs
filled the night
Santiago's cigarette trembled in the H
fingers as he leaned close over the
candlelight to describe a place hidden
in the jungle that line
the songs of a million insects and frogs
filled the night for some reason hit me
um what's it like sitting there
conversing among so many living
creatures all around you every night in
the jungle you live in constant
awareness of that out there in the
Darkness
are literally millions of heartbeats
around you and so like
we exist in this in this you know
domesticated paved world most of the
time but when you go out there past the
roads and the and the telephone poles
and the hospitals and you make it out
into Earth just wild Earth and there's
no there's no there's not like this is a
national park there's no rescue
helicopter waiting to come get you you
are out there
and you're surrounded at Night by I mean
there are snakes and jaguars and frogs
and insects and all this stuff just
crawling through the swamps and through
the trees and through the branches and
we put on headlamps and go out into the
night and just absolutely fall to our
knees with Wonder of the things that we
see it's it's absolutely incredible and
most of it doesn't make sounds like the
insects do the insects do the frogs do
you have some of the night birds making
sounds but a lot of it everything has
evolved to be silent invisible
I mean everything there is in the on on
the list like like I there's another
line in Mother of God where I said like
you know like life is just like a
temporary moment of stasis and like the
churning recycling Death March that is
the Amazon like it's um it's been called
the greatest natural Battlefield on
Earth I mean if any in any square acre
there's more stuff eating other things
than anywhere else and and you go
through a swamp in the Amazon
and there's like this tarantulas
floating on the water there's frogs in
the trees there's there's
tadpoles hanging from leaves waiting to
drop into the water this fish waiting to
eat them this Birds and the trees you
literally are surrounded by so many
things that your brain can't process it
it's it's just overwhelming
life
churning Death March
some of the creatures are waiting and
some of them are being a bit more
proactive about it
what do you make of that
churning Death March that the amount of
murder that's happening all around you
at all scales what is that you know we
uh we dramatize Wars and the millions of
people that were lost in World War II uh
some of them tortured some of them dying
uh with a gun in hand some of them
civilians but it's just millions of
people hmm what about the billions and
billions and billions of organisms that
are just being murdered all around you
is that
um do you does that change your view of
nature of life here it I've always kind
of wondered like that like when you see
like a you know wildebeest taken down by
lions and and eaten from behind while
it's alive and it makes you question God
you know you go how could how could how
could they let this happen
um in the Amazon
I find personally that these natural
processes make up
almost a religion
that it reminds you how temporary we are
that you know the the bot flies that are
trying to get into your skin and the
mosquitoes that are trying to suck your
blood and the you know when that when
you sweat you see you see the you
literally can like hold out your arm and
watch the condensation come off of your
skin and rise up into the canopy and
join the clouds and Rain back down in
the afternoon and and then you drink the
river and start it all over again and
it's like it's flowing through you so
uh the Amazon reminds me that that
there's a lot that we don't understand
and so when it comes to that
overwhelming and Collective murder as
Werner Herzog put it
um it's just part of the show it's part
of the freak Show of the Amazonian night
I see you I you in certain moments able
to feel one with a mosquito that's
trying to kill you slowly and one with
the mosquito is a stretch is it always
the enemy what I mean is like you're
part of the machine there right yeah and
it's like Fair Play It's like fair play
so like we have bullet ants and like you
know you get you get nailed by a bullet
ant you just go yeah well well done well
today's today's over I'm going back to
bed and I'm taking a pile of Tylenol and
you know do you think in that sense
when you're out there are you a part of
nature or you're separate from Nature's
Man a part of nature or separate I think
that's what's so refreshing about it is
that out there you truly are
and so whether we're bringing
researchers or film Crews or or whether
we're just out there ourselves on an
expedition
um you truly are a part of Nature and so
one of the things that that my team and
I started doing when I became friends
with these guys you know this is a
family of indigenous people from the
community of infierno and they took me
in and
as we got close they started saying you
know you can come with us on our like
annual hunting trip and I went okay and
it's four guys in a boat and you don't
want to get your clothes wet so we're
all in like our boxers in a canoe with a
motor going out past the places that
have names and you're out in the middle
of the Jungle and the thing is like when
you're when your motor breaks you are so
quickly reminded of
the inerrant truths like the things that
nobody can argue with and we live in
such a human world where everything is
debatable religion and politics and
perspectives on everything and then you
get down to this point where it's like
if we don't
figure something out the river is going
to rise and take the boat that's the
truth and ain't nobody gonna like argue
with that and it's like to me there's a
beauty in that truth because then all of
us are united there and that and that
truth against like the natural facts
around us
and so to me I that's that's a state
where I I feel very very at home and the
Amazon is more efficient than most
places on Earth that swallowing you up
oh God yeah okay
so just a linger on that because you
you've spoken about Francisco de aralana
uh who's this Explorer in the in uh 1541
or 42 that still the length of the
Amazon probably one of the first and
that's just a few things
I should probably read I should probably
find a good book on him because the guy
seems like a gangster yes um some great
books on him so he sailed uh he led the
expedition that sailed all the way for
one end to the other
there's like a rebuilding of a ship
which is insanity yeah yeah so because
it speaks to the thing it's like
nobody's gonna come and rescue you no
you have to if your boat dies you gotta
have to rebuild it yeah so they came
down the Andes entered in the headwaters
of the Amazon constructed some sort of
raft boat craft something and made it
down the entire Amazon basin of course
his stories are the ones that led to the
Amazon being called the Amazon because
he reported tribes of women he reported
these large cities places where the
tribes lived on farms of river turtles
that they corralled and they lived off
of that protein and then when they came
out to the mouth of the Amazon if I
remember it correctly that just through
navigation and the Stars they were able
to calculate where the way was back to
Spain and make a boat seaworthy enough
to bring them home
hmm
incredible absolutely do people like
that inspire you your own Journey like
what gives you kind of strength that um
in these harshes of times in harshes of
conditions you can persevere yeah I mean
you look at the stories of people that
are so you know these stories of people
that have overcome incredible suffering
like that or like you know what
Shackleton did or something like that
and so like when you're you know I've
been you know your tent gets washed away
you go to sleep and the river Rises 20
feet and washes away your tent and you
crawl out and all you have is Machete
and a headlamp literally no bag no food
no nothing and you go wow the next six
days before I reach back to a town is
gonna be just pure hell I'm gonna be
sleeping on the ground covered in ants
destroyed by mosquitoes and then it
becomes you know am I in any capacity
any percentage as tough and resilient as
the people that I've read about that
have made it through things far worse
than this and and then that's the game
you play what goes through your head all
you got is the headlamp and the machete
so are you uh thinking at all
like I I've gotten a chance to interact
quite a lot with Elon Musk and he
constantly puts out fires having to run
several companies there's never a kind
of uh
whiny deliberation about issues you just
always
one one step forward how to solve right
this is the situation how do you solve
it or do you also have a kind of
self-motivating
almost egotistical like I'm a bad
motherfucker I can handle anything
almost like trying to fake it till you
make it kind of thing
there was a little bit of your machete
you know I got a sword
um
there there may have been a little bit
of that when I was like you know like 14
15 years old I'd like you know have like
a hunting knife in my dog and I'd go out
into the woods or like the Catskills and
survive for a weekend which my rule was
one match
you know you get one match and you got
to make shelter and then you know I'd
bring like a steak and like make a fire
and stuff and at that point there maybe
was some ego but in the Amazon you get
stripped down so completely that you
it's like that thing like you know watch
the atheism leave everyone's body when
they think they're about to die it's
like when you
find yourself staring up at the Amazon
at night and you go there is no hope of
getting out of here I mean I was once
lost in a swamp where it took me days to
get out of there and there was there was
moments where I just said this is you
know this is clearly it there's no
there's no ego there there's just hope
you you start you start realizing what
you believe in and
praying that you'll be okay and and then
trying to trying to summon whatever you
know about how to survive and
and that's it and so it's it's actually
again it's kind of it's kind of a
blissful state if you can walk that line
between like Adventure and tragedy and
sort of keep yourself right at that very
very fine line without going over ever
fear of death fear ever fear
um Tara no I don't want to die I wanna I
wanna you know I love the people in my
life and there's a lot of things I want
to do but every time I've been every
time I've been certain that I'm gonna
die it's been I've been very very calm
very calm and just sort of like okay
well if this is how the movie goes and
this is how it goes almost accepting
yeah
which is which is reassuring you
mentioned Herzog
just to uh Venture down this road of
death and fear and so on there's been a
few Mad Men like you in this world
uh he's documented a couple of them uh
what lessons do you draw from Grizzly
Man or into the wild those kinds of
stories I were you ever afraid that you
would be one of those stories oh yeah I
actually think that that's in Mother of
God where I said I almost until into the
wild did myself like I I went out there
and really I got so lost and so
destroyed that I said this this is this
is going to be the next one you know
this is gonna be the next story of some
idiot kid from New York who went to the
Amazon thinking he was Percy Fawcett and
then vanished because if you if you do
vanish out there your body's going to be
consumed in a matter of days like like
two you know if we see if we see an
animal dead on a trail it's you got dung
beetles and and fly larva and vultures
and there's a whole pecking order you
know you get the black vultures the
yellow vultures the king vulture they
all come in that thing is picked clean
in a couple of days what would be the
creature that eats most of you in that
situation probably the vultures probably
the vultures and the and the maggots
it's it's really quick it's really
really quick like like like you even as
far as like you can't leave food out you
know like if you have like a piece of
chicken you say oh I'll eat it in the
morning you leave it out you can't do
that it's not it's not good by morning
Grizzly Man for example like what
because that's a beautiful story it's
both comical and genius and especially
the way Herzog tells it well first of do
you like the way he told the story do
you like hers I do I love Herzog and I
love his his documentary the burden of
Dreams which is which is in the Amazon
not very far from where I work and the
the sheer Madness that you see this man
undergoing of just trying to recreate
hauling a boat over a mountain
um is is is wild and and the you know
the the extras that he hired to be to
play the natives are are the I think
they're matcha ganga tribesmen and
they're just they just look like all the
guys that I hang out with and it's like
you know they're doing all this stuff in
the jungle that months and months and
months and you can just see him
deteriorating with Madness because the
jungle you know your boat you know how
many times I've tied up a boat to the
side of the river this just happened
like a year and a half ago I tied up
through a lot through covet I pretty
much just lived in the jungle for a
while and there was nobody there and
there was no support and I tied up my
boat and the rain is just hammering like
like like the universe is trying to rip
the Earth in half the rain is just going
and the river's rising and I tied up the
boat
but then you go to sleep and you got to
wake up every two hours to go check the
boat and the boat is thrashing back and
forth and I so all night every two hours
I'd wake up barefoot in driving rain
like you know golf ball raindrops and
just go down check the boat and then by
morning I was like I fell asleep woke up
checked the boat and then I was like I'm
just gonna go make coffee I was so done
I was so like at the end of my rope
every time bailing the boat out and
stuff
and then we got 15 minutes of heavy rain
that filled the boat sanket
so now I'm stuck up River with no boat
and it's like that type of thing where
it's like no matter how hard you try the
jungle's just like listen
you ain't you're nothing you are nothing
and so it's that constant reminder and
so Herzog really threw himself into that
in that film and uh it's it's brilliant
to watch what do you think he meant by
the line that you include in your book
it's a land that God if he exists has
created in anger
said in German accent yeah overwhelming
and Collective murder
um
so that's that's
so you didn't really appreciate the
beauty of the of the murder I think he
appreciated it but to him it was very
dark you know I think he saw the
darkness in it and that's there it sure
is as soon as you do Ayahuasca you that
door opens and you see the darkness
because it brings you right into the
jungle like the the heart of it but I
think that for him it it is I think that
darkness is something that he Embraces
and that he loves there's another film
of his and I don't know if this is
accurate but my memory has it that
there's a penguin and I think it's in
Antarctica and the Penguins going in the
wrong direction away from the ocean yeah
and I feel like he goes on this
monologue about how like he's just had
enough yeah he's you know this one
penguin is just marching towards you
know yeah well he his because I remember
that clip from that uh documentary
and what Werner says is that the penguin
is deranged yes he's lost his mind and I
took offense to that yeah because maybe
that's a brave Explorer like how do you
know there's not some a lot more going
on like
it could be a love story those penguins
get super attached maybe his mate was
over there and he had to go find her
like or it's a lost mate and he last
time he saw her was going in that
direction exactly so this is like the
great Explorer they we we assume animals
are like the average of the bell curve
like every animal we interact with is
just the average but they're special
ones just like they're special humans
yeah that could be a special penguin ah
it could have been and I had the same
thought where I was like I was like he's
I I found it beautiful how he
interpreted it what I took away from
that was I found that born of herzog's
monologue there was was brilliantly dark
and also comedic
but but maybe irrelevant biologically
speaking towards penguins like you know
um which which happens a lot with
animals I find like there's so many
times where I'll find people be like do
you think that animals can show
compassion and you hear like a bunch of
people that have never left the pavement
talking about like wow this this one
animal helped another and it's like it's
like go ask Jane Goodall if animals can
show compassion go go talk to anybody
that works on a daily basis with animals
and they'll and so like to me there's a
there's always a little bit of
frustration in hearing people sort of
like pleasantly surprised that animals
aren't just you know you know these
automatons of you know just just what's
the word like um like programmed you
know nothingness first of all what have
you learned about life from Jane Goodall
because she spoke highly of your book
and eulitis is one of the mentors but
what what kind of wisdom about animals
do you draw from her
the wisdom from Jane is so diverse it's
I mean she first of all she's someone
that you know the work that she did at
the time she did it was so incredible
because I mean she she was out there at
a very young age doing that field work
she was naming her subjects which
everyone said you shouldn't do she broke
every rule she broke every rule she was
assigning and everyone said you know
you're anthropomorphizing these animals
by saying that they're doing this and
that and she she was like no they're
they're interacting they're showing love
they're showing compassion they're
showing hate they're showing fear and
and she broke straight through all of
those things
um and and it paid off in dividends for
her do you see the animals as having all
those human-like emotions of Anger of
compassion of longing of loneliness from
what you've seen with especially with
mammals yeah but with different species
out there do they have all that it
depends on the animal you know if you're
talking you know on the scale of a
cockroach to an elephant you know it's
like a lot of these things and I wonder
about this stuff all the time you know
I'll I'll have a praying mantis on my
hand and just go what is going through
your mind you know yeah or you'll see it
you'll see a spider make a complex
decision and go I'm going to make my web
there you know and you go how how are
you how are you doing this how are you
because he he made a calculation there
you know it's smart I was in the jungle
not that long ago and I'm I was walking
and all of a sudden this Dove comes
flying through the jungle right up to my
face lands on a branch like right here
right next to me I look at the dove dub
looks at me and she's like hey and she's
clearly like panting and I'm like I'm
like why why are you why are you so
close this is weird she's like I know
and then and then an ornate hawk eagle
flies up 10 feet away looks at both of
us and just like scowls and like sticks
up its head feathers and then just like
flies off and the dove is like sweet
thanks and then fluff flew in the other
direction and I was like dude you just
used me to save your life yeah the dove
knew see well this is what
because there's diff you know there's
Mike Tyson and there's Albert Einstein
yeah and I sometimes I wonder when I
look at different creatures even insects
like is this Mike Tyson or is this
Einstein yeah like because one or other
kinds of person like is this a New
Yorker or is this a midwesterner or is
this like uh San Francisco Barista of
the insects like there's all kinds of
personalities you never know so you
can't like project
like if you run into a bear and it's
very angry it could be just the asshole
New Yorker yeah sure sure as opposed to
what he's saying about New Yorkers man
exactly coin well made uh So speaking
about communicating with the dove um you
uh first met the crew in the Amazon you
talk about JJ as somebody who can
communicate with animals what do you
think uh JJ is able to see and hear and
feel that others don't that he's able to
communicate with animals when I say this
is the most skilled jungle man I've ever
seen and I know so many guys in the
region
um he has libraries of information in
his Cranium that we cannot fath it's
just it's just stunning like you know I
have seen him use medicinal plants to
cure things that Western doctors
couldn't cure I've seen him navigate in
such a way that he's not using the Stars
he's not using any any discernible you
know it's like when elephants sometimes
like you'll watch a herd of elephants
and they'll be like yo let's go we're
going this way and you'll see them sort
of communicate but there's no audible
sound they'll just decide that they're
going that way they all do it JJ has
this way in the jungle of you know he'll
stop and he'll go wait and you go what
is it and he goes
does it hurt a peccary coming and I'm
like where
based on what yeah you know and he's
like just wait you'll see and he'll sit
there
um yeah it's just experience it's
incredible experience it's it's growing
up Barefoot in the Amazon and the gift
is that he can speak fluent English and
so when I bring tourists and scientists
or news reporters down there he can
communicate with them he's actually good
on camera because he doesn't care about
cameras
um and like you know for instance we
were we were we were walking up a stream
a few months ago and I went hey look
Jaguar tracks and he went oh and I was
like what Jaguar tracks and he's like no
look look harder and I was like
the the toes are deeper than the back
and he was like Aha and where are they
and I was like by the water and I was
like the Jaguar's drinking it was
leaning to drink and he was like that's
right he's like now look behind you I
look behind me and there's scat there's
a big log of Jaguar shit sitting there
it's got butterflies all over it fresh
Pretty fresh and then there's another
one that's less fresh and so he's he's
teaching me as he does he's going look
at this look at this is that one as
fresh as this one no and then he goes
now look up look up
there's three vultures above us
the kill is near us the Jaguar has been
coming multiple times to the river to
drink as it's feasting on whatever it
killed and he's going it's within 30
feet of us right now and it's like
I'm like oh look impressions in the sand
he's like I just drew 19 conclusions
from that it's like watching Sherlock
Holmes at work it's just constructing
the crime scene incredible
[Applause]
does that apply also to be able to
communicate with the actual animals like
read into their body movements directly
uh into their whatever that Dove was
saying to you you'd be able to
understand or is that all just kind of
taking in the complex structure of the
crime scene of the interactions of the
different animals of the environment and
so on like what is that that you're able
to communicate with another creature
that he was able to communicate with
another creature he knows the intention
of pose he knows the habits he knows the
perspective when when when he talks
about animals he'll talk about each
species as if it's a person so he'll say
oh oh the the Jaguar she never likes to
let you see her and so he'll come back
from the jungle and he'll go oh I was
watching monkeys in this this Jaguar was
also watching the monkeys but I was
being so quiet she didn't see me and
then when she see me she feels so
embarrassed and she'd go and he'll tell
you this story like as if he had this
interaction with like his neighbor
and you know and he'll be like oh the
pukakunga it never does that you won't
see it do that and so one time one time
he caught a fish and I I was such a big
fish it was this big beautiful
pseudoplatistoma this tiger catfish this
amazing old fish and they're all excited
to eat it and I felt so bad watching
this thing gasp on the sand and I went
you know what we don't need this this is
for fun
threw it back oh no and then I took my
hand and I went
and I made like drag marks like so I
could say oh it it snuck back in the
water and so he walks up he looks at it
and he was like I hate you and I went
what no I said I must have it must have
just
it's not what happens he goes It goes
like this when it go he knew the track
of a fish and I was like oh yeah I was
like all right JJ I'm sorry I'll catch
you another fish
uh so stepping back to that way you open
Mother of God
yeah uh who was Santiago Duran what
secret did he tell you JJ's father was
uh at some point he was a policeman at
some point when he was a teenager he was
working on the boats that before this
little gold mining city of Puerto
Maldonado uh grew the only way to get
supplies in was to take canoes up the
temple Potter River up to the next state
which is puno and and where the mules
would come down from the mountains with
supplies and then he'd pilot the boats
down but they didn't have Motors at that
time so he would be pulling the boat so
he was he became this physically
terrifying man and I met him when he was
in his 80s and he was still living out
in The Jungle by himself and I mean he's
seen an Anaconda eat a taper which is
the you know a cow-sized mammal on the
Amazon he'd seen uncontacted tribes face
to face he once killed an 11 foot
electric eel
opened the back of the thing's neck
removed the nerve that he says was the
source of the electric then he cut his
forearm placed that nerve into his
forearm wrapped it with a dead Toad and
claimed that it would give him strength
through the rest of his life and
continued to be a jungle badass until
the day he quietly leaned back at a
barbecue and ceased to be alive
the man was incredible but the secret
that he told us was that if you want to
find
big anacondas you know if you want to
see the yakomama he was like you have to
go to the boyo the place of Boaz the the
place that we came to call the floating
forest and so he sent us there and it
became like this
this pilgrimage and you know in the
Amazon the a lot of the creation myths
are based around the Anaconda coming
down from the heavens and carving the
rivers across the jungle and if you look
at the Rivers it looks like that it
looks like the path of an anaconda
crawling through the jungle it's even
the right color
and so from the reference to the tribes
of women the Amazons to the Anaconda
mother everything in the Amazon is very
feminine based even the even the trees
the largest trees in the jungle the
mother of the forest the Madre De La
Selva is the K-pop tree and it's just
this monster tree these beautiful
ancient trees and that was the beginning
of the transition that we made from me
being like I hate school I want to go on
adventures you know Jane Goodall got to
do all this amazing stuff I'm just a kid
stuck here
to to eventually becoming something that
had to do with where my identity became
the jungle where my life became the
jungle the the secret that he told us
opened that door because when we started
working with these giant snakes that
started getting attention
it started getting people to go what are
you doing
um and it started it started allowing me
to have experiences that that solidified
and nailed down the fact that this
wasn't just like a weekend retreat this
was this was something that that I was
born to do and gave you more and more
motivation to go in into these Uncharted
Territory
which uh just a step back what nations
are we talking about here is there some
some geography what are we talking about
where is this so I'm in Peru yeah we're
in Peru and so which is a South American
Nation Peru's a South American Nation
Brazil has 60 of the Amazon which is
unfortunate because anything that
happens politically in Brazil has a
massive impact impact on the Amazon
Peru
has the Western Amazon and Ecuador has a
little bit of the western Amazon and
the Western Amazon is where the Andes
Mountains
the cloud forests which is a mega
biodiverse biome falls into the Western
Amazon lowlands and so you have these
the meeting of these two incredible
biomes and that's what makes this like
superlative incredible you know glowing
moment of life on Earth so yeah we're in
Peru in the Madre de dios which is the
mother of God which I always thought was
such a beautiful
you know the jungle is the source of all
life
and uh so we were with the essay ha
people and they belong to a community
that's called infierno which is given by
the missionaries who when they tried to
go bring these people Jesus got so many
arrows shot at them they just called it
hell
um and so so Santiago Duran helped unite
these tribes that were that were sort of
scattered through the jungle and get
them status government recognized status
as indigenous people so he was sort of a
hero he was sort of a legend for a lot
of the stuff he'd done out Barefoot with
just like a rifle and a machete in the
jungle he he had died he had 19 children
and the last one the the I think the
20th child that he adopted was a refugee
from The Shining path that floated down
the river and he just took him in and
you know this is this is just a guy that
was a you know everything he did like
when he died the whole the whole the
whole region showed up it was it was he
was somebody so just the fact that I
know him gives me Street Credit like the
fact that I knew him I can go like oh I
knew Santiago and people like no
I'm like yeah yeah so you have to get
integrated to the culture to the place
that I mean in every single way which is
which is tough for you for the being
from from New York yeah
yeah it could have been tough but it was
I took to it you know the jungle they
they were very uh you know JJ's teaching
me about medicines and we were doing
bird surveys and you know taking data on
macaw populations and JJ was just like
you really want to like he goes you got
to sleep and I was like I only have a
few weeks here I don't know if I'm ever
going to come back I'm never going to
sleep so we'd be out every night looking
for all the wildlife we could I wanted
to take photos I wanted to see things
and and then you know the exchange came
with that he was like you know I'm
terrified of snakes and I said well I've
always worked with snakes I said I'll
teach you how to handle snakes and then
we just had this like little exchange
and when I left after my first time back
in 2006
you know I said I said how can I help
and and they were like look you know
we're out here trying to protect this
this little island of forest that is
going to be bulldozed and and the more
people that you can bring the more
knowledge and the more awareness that
you can bring to this it'll help and so
really at that age at 18 years old I
sort of
started dabbling with the idea of that I
could be part of helping these people to
protect this place that I loved and of
course at that time that idea seemed
like too large of a dream or too large
of a of a challenge so that I could
actually impact it
so what was the Journey of looking for
these giant snakes
of uh looking for anacondas
what are anacondas Anaconda is
the largest snake on earth so you have
reticulated pythons in Southeast Asia
they're actually longer
but anacondas are these massive boas
they give live birth and unlike a lot of
other species so an anaconda starts off
you know a little two foot anaconda just
a little thicker than your finger a
little baby and their food for
cane toads herons crocodiles you name it
they're they're pretty harmless
defenseless
but as they grow they're eating the fish
they're eating the Crocs and then they
grow a little more and they're eating
things like capybara and they're eating
larger prey and then at the end of their
life a female Anaconda you're talking
about a 25 30 foot 300 400 pound snake
with a head bigger than a football and
these things that means that they impact
the entire ecosystem which is very
unique moves up the food chain to become
basically the best Predator yeah yeah
the the apex predator of the rivers and
so that's so interesting is just eating
your way up to food eating your way up
the food chain if you can survive and
like that you know they're constantly at
war with everything else but
you know so I showed up in the Amazon I
was like so where the anaconda's at and
they were like oh no no it's not like
that they're like it's you you have to
find these things they're they're
Subterranean they're living in the
special swamps they're people kill them
and so we went to the floating Forest
after we'd come back from
an expedition we'd call like a 12-foot
anaconda and it's now it's become like
this like classic photo of me and JJ
with this Anaconda over our shoulders
and we were like we you know we 12 days
out in the jungle on a hunting trip and
we we came back and we showed his dad
and uh Santiago looked at us and he was
like that's the smallest anaconda I've
ever seen he's like you guys are
pathetic oh man 12 foot and he was like
look you go to the go he's like go he's
like I'm giving you permission go to the
boy you'll go to the floating forest and
so we went to this place and we reached
there at night and it was me JJ and one
of his brothers and his brother took one
look at it and was like I'm out and he
started walking back and me and JJ get
to the edge of this thing and and this
is our friendship it's both this two
idiots pushing each other farther and
farther and like I like put a foot on
the on the ground and it All Shook and
the stars are reflecting on the ground
and what we realize is that it's a lake
with floating grass on top of it yeah
and there's islands of grass floating on
this Lake very life of pie and the tops
of trees are coming out of the surface
of the water and so we start walking
across this and JJ's going
these are big anacondas and I'm going JJ
that's a two foot wide smooth path
snaking through the grass there's no
Anaconda that big yeah he was going shhh
they're listening I said they don't have
ears he goes they're listening and it's
like we're walking and we're walking and
then it's like maybe it's like 1am or
something
and it was just like one of those
moments where we saw it at the same time
and we're standing by the tail
and the snake was so big that I mean
this must have been a 25 foot anaconda
dead asleep with a with a probably a 16
foot anaconda like sprawled across her
and they're laying in the Starlight and
we're floating on top of a lake standing
there in the middle of the Amazon and JJ
just I just I could feel the blood drain
out of his face
and as I go however old I was you know
maybe 20 years old I just said if I if
we could somehow
show people this we'll be on the front
cover of National Geographic and we can
protect all the jungle that we want and
so
I tried to catch it
yeah so I jumped on the snake and the
only measurement I have of this animal
is that when I wrapped my arms around it
I couldn't touch my fingers yeah yeah
and so I was you know my my feet were
dragging into her credit this Anaconda
did not turn around and eat me because
her head was you know this bad and and
she went and she reached the edge of the
the Grass Island and she starts plunging
into the dark and so I'm watching the
Stars vibrate as this anaconda's going
and I had to make the choice
of either going head first down into the
black which no thank you or stopping and
just keeping my hand on this thing as it
raced by me and I just felt the scales
and the muscle and the power go by and
then eventually taper down to the tail
until it slipped away into the darkness
and I was laying there just panting
then I turned around and went JJ what
the fuck like where were you man and he
was just like completely white circuits
blown and I had to go then like kind of
like take care of him I was like are you
okay and he was like no
he you know he just couldn't and so we
came back with that and then
after that we were like okay clearly
clearly the parameters of reality that
we thought were possible are are are
just a tiny fraction of what's out there
like we we now that that sort of
recalibrated us we were like okay we're
rubbing up against things that are
bigger than we thought were ever
possible and so we were like okay now we
need to we need to concentrate on this
so how dangerous is that creature to you
to to humans to humans not at all I mean
Mike
um what are are Cooks uh father-in-law
was was eaten by an anaconda but like
you know then again like the way you say
that tell that story sometimes it
happens it happens I mean come on every
now and then somebody gets stung by a
bee and dies like you know it's it once
in a while it happens but you gotta have
a really big anaconda really hungry and
like anybody that works in the wild I
mean just you know if you you walk up to
a Crockett even a giant Nile crocodile
you walk up to the most of the time
they're gonna run into the water they
don't want confrontation they hunt in
their way on their terms sneaky you're
not going to see them and so with an
anaconda it's like yeah if you're I mean
the guy who got eaten like if you're
drunk and you go to the edge of the
water and you go for a midnight swim by
yourself in an Amazonian Lake I mean
whose fault is that but if you jump on
an account and try to uh yeah try to
hold on then you're safe
um apparently I mean I think I've I
think at this point we've you know the
research we've done I think I've handled
or caught you know over 80 anacondas in
the field and
um not one of them has bitten me they
always choose flight over fight they're
like just leave me alone let me go I'm
just gonna crawl under this thing
um they're not an aggressive animal I
mean no snake no I actually like I kind
of like the only time I get particular
was like you know the words is like
people go that's an aggressive black
mambas are aggressive no snake is
aggressive a rattlesnake is going to
Rattle to say hey back up Cobra is going
to stand up and show you its hood and
people go oh look he's being aggressive
he's not being aggressive he's going
don't step on me don't make me do this
they're actually being very peaceful
that's the way I look at it because if
there's a cobra in the corner of this
room right now he would crawl under the
curtain and we'd never see him again
yeah it's like uh Genghis Khan before
conquering The Villages he always
offered for them to join the Army
doesn't need to be like this yeah join
us nobody gets destroyed if you want to
be proud and Fight for Your Country then
uh then we're gonna watch him exactly
okay so how do you how do you catch uh
actually let's step back because there
is
in part you are a bit of a snake
Whisperer so what what is it that
that others don't understand that you do
about snakes
what's maybe a misconception
or what what is uh what have you learned
from the language you speak that snakes
understand I don't know it's just it's
an animal that has has many times in my
life I've been responsible for helping
um the you know I started catching
snakes when I was very young I'd watch
Steven wouldn't go out and catch a
garter snake or a black rat snake in New
York and
um
and then I had a rule I said I have to
catch a hundred non-venomous snakes
before I'm allowed to handle a venomous
snake if I ever need to handle a
venomous snake and then you know I was
on a trail one time I think in Harriman
State Park and some guy you know like
some big hero he tells us you know he's
like back up I'm gonna get this and he
like picks up a stick and he like goes
to like assault this poor Copperhead
that's sitting on the trail
and so like at like 16 years old I had
to go and like shoulder this guy out of
the way and I like got the thing by the
tail and used a stick to very gently
just put it off the trail
Copperhead was not going to do anything
to him but he wanted to you know beat
his chest and show his wife that he was
tough
but then in India you know I've lived in
India for five years at this point in
and out you know periodically and and
snakes are always getting into people's
kitchens
um one time we had a king cobra get into
someone's kitchen an 11 foot snake like
a monster like a god of a snake this
thing stood up you know stand up and be
able to look at you over the table
and this terrifying monster thing
um it's a giant gorilla dog thing like
we caught it with one of the local snake
catchers and we brought it out and he
goes
you know I wonder why I was in the
kitchen yeah looking for food and they
go no they eat snakes king cobra opio
figures Hannah they eat snakes
and he goes
she's thirsty so we got a bottle of
water and we got footage of this and we
she's standing up she's going don't make
me kill you don't make me kill you
you're scaring me right now I don't want
to kill you we took the bottle of the
water and we poured it on our nose and
she started she started drinking you can
see you could see her just drinking and
the snake just took this long drinks
drank a whole water bottle and then said
thank you so much and crawled off
and it's like to me the fact that people
are scared of snakes they have symbolic
hatred of snakes you know you you know
if someone's evil and sneaky we call
them a snake and like to me it's like
when I take volunteers or researchers or
students out into the jungle and we find
an emerald tree boa or an Amazon Tree
Boa or or a vine snake and it's like
this is it's one of the few animals like
you can't really catch a bird and show
it to people you're gonna scare the
birds feathers are going to come out you
might give it a heart attack snakes you
can lift up a snake you know if there's
a snake in the room right now I could
lift it up and say Lex here this is how
you hold it and we could interact calmly
with this thing and then put it back on
its branch and then it'll go and I've
seen what that does to people I've seen
how the Wonder in their eyes and so to
me snakes have always been this
incredible link to teach people about
Wildlife about nature because they have
naturally a lot of fear towards this
creature and to realize that the fear is
not justified it's not grounded or is
not as deeply grounded in reality of
course there's always was New Yorker
snakes right there's always going to be
an asshole snake here and there coming
for me man
uh well okay so back to the Anaconda how
do you catch an anaconda like what uh
how do you hand because it's such a 25
foot or even 12 foot yeah these giant
snakes how do you how do you deal with
this creature how do you interact with
them we had to learn how to do that
because one of the first ones we caught
that I would say maybe like a 16-footer
which is no joke of a snake you know
girth of a basketball let's say
um you know we're on the canoe and this
is this is the early days like you know
now we're at a whole different level but
this is back when we were Barefoot and
shirtless and just guys in the Amazon
and JJ's like you know you know I just
listened to him he'd be like get off the
boat you come from the top we're gonna
come from the bottom so okay
I just did as I was told
I came in the snake is all curled up
dead asleep she's got some butterflies
on her eyes trying to get salt and stuff
and all of a sudden I see the tongue so
I'm like she's awake and I'm like guys
guys and like they're they're paying
attention to not crashing the boat to
getting over there and we're all trying
to run snake starts going into the water
so I run ahead grab this snake get her
by the head so you got her by the head
you think okay you can't she can't get
me I got it right behind the head and
it's about this thick the neck what's
that feel like excited to interrupt like
grabbing this thing with this giant head
it's exciting it's amazing it's it's
scary how hard is it to hold it's not
that hard to hold the scary part is the
moment of it's like if you ever done
like a cliff dive or something it's that
moment where you go do it do it the time
like do it and your body's going do not
do that yeah and then you're like I
gotta just do it and you do it yeah
because you can't just gently like flirt
with it you have to cry no and it's like
it's like crossing the street when
there's a bus coming it's like you
hesitate it's more dangerous
you know so like you just you go for it
and I got her and I was like I got her
and then a coil goes over my wrists and
all of a sudden my wrists slap together
and you feel this squeeze that can crush
the bones out of an animal bigger than
me and the next coil comes very quickly
over my neck and now I'm on my knees
with my arms tied if I wanted to let go
of the snake I couldn't and my shoulders
are coming together my collarbone is
about to break and I tried to yell for
JJ and all that came out was there's
nothing and so that's what they do to
their prey you know so I attacked as far
as the snake knows I attacked she
doesn't know that I just want to measure
her you you started as the big spoon but
then the snake became the big it very
much became the big spoon and uh I was I
would say I was 15 seconds away from
having my entire rib cage collapsed and
then JJ showed up and grabbed the tail
and just started unwrapping this thing
and then we got but now we have a system
now we know like you know I'm always
I've done I've gotten more head catches
than anybody so I'm usually Point guy
and you know you get you're the you're
the the first the the point guy okay the
the taking the big risky yes First Step
yes although it could be argued that
there's a similarly large risk for the
tail guy because the anaconda's defense
is to take a giant projectile shit and
so the person that gets the tail is
gonna smell like Anaconda for like at
least a week yes it's the least buzzing
particular you're taking the the most
dangerous one there
um they have the least Pleasant job this
is fascinating but what's really
fascinating though is that because of
the apex predator they're they're eating
the fish they're eating the birds
they're eating everything and everything
in this riparian ecosystem is absorbing
the Mercury that's coming off the gold
mining in the region and so anacondas
can be
indicative for us of how is Mercury
moving through this ecosystem and this
is a region where we've lost hundreds of
thousands of acres to artisanal gold
mining where they use mercury to bind
the gold they cut the forest burn the
forest
and then they run water through the sand
and the sand particles have bits of gold
in it not chunks but just little almost
microscopic flecks of gold and then they
use the Mercury to bind that and then
they burn off the Mercury and that Vapor
goes up into the clouds just like
everything else it's all connected down
there and then rains down into the
rivers and so the people in the region
are having birth defects from the amount
of Mercury
that's in the water and so we were
starting at at one point when we were
doing most of our Anaconda research we
were learning things like these animals
actually aren't just Ambush Predators
which is what most of the literature
will tell you is that anacondas are
Ambush predators no they actually go
hunting they'll go find clay licks and
salt deposits and they'll wait there
they'll actually pursue animals and we
were trying to take tissue samples to
find out if anacondas could be used to
study how Mercury is moving through the
ecosystem and so that was really it
became can we use these animals not only
as ambassadors for wildlife because
everybody wants to see the anacondas but
also
you know what can we learn from studying
this very very little understood apex
predator and one of the things you can
learn is how Mercury moves through
through the ecosystem which can damage
the ecosystem with all kinds of
different ways yeah it's it's brutal man
the the gold mining that's happening
down there is is it's funny because
we've been hearing a lot recently about
like the Cobalt mines in Africa and it's
like where we are in the Amazon
um we were down there with ABC News I
want to say like a year and a half ago
um with my friend Matt Gutman who's the
chief correspondent for ABC and we he
wanted to see the Amazon fires he wanted
to see some Wildlife he wanted to see
the areas that we're protecting and then
he goes I want to see
the gold mining areas and and I'd never
gotten in so deep but we we met these
Russian guy you can't go with the
proving they will kill you like our
lawyer's father was was assassinated for
standing up to the gold miners
there was two Russian guys though who
had a legal mining concession somehow
way out past the machine gun guarded
limit of the pumpus which is where they
do all this gold mining and we got in
there and
took footage of the desert that is
forming in what used to be the
headwaters of the Amazon rainforest and
it's like there's a massive global scale
ecological crime happening down there
that you can see from space from this
unregulated gold mining and the cops
can't go there because they will be
murdered it's completely Lawless what's
the machine gun limit exactly it's the
border of this area that they call the
pompous which is where the rain forest
has been cut and completely destroyed
and it looks like Mars it's just sand
and inside of this area are gold miners
and we you know we tried to get in there
to film years ago and there's just a lot
of guys with machine guns who don't let
that happen and what the Russian guys
you guys had access somehow they'd come
down with a bit of money and they had a
new system yeah and actually what was
interesting is while I was in there
they're very friendly and a really
really too friendly uh gold miners and
they uh one of them while I was there he
uh you know he kind of tapped me on the
shoulder he was like you know look at
those guys he was like those guys over
there he goes I just heard them say your
name
and he goes That's not a good thing he
goes they know exactly who you are he
goes I wouldn't keep posting to
Instagram about gold mining in the
Amazon and I was like okay thanks for
the warning and then you know uh in June
somebody pulled up beside me on a
motorcycle and I got a more Stern
warning but they pay attention to the
flow of information because they don't
want the world to yeah to find out oh
the last thing they want is to be shut
down but the gold miners are notorious
for
you know just uh whacking people and
throwing them in a in a pile of you know
gold mining leftovers it's really like
like the Peruvian government has to get
the military to go after them like the
work we've done with gold miners
converting them into conservationists
has all been like I mean I've seen the
Peruvian Navy come down and literally
blow up gold mining barges and you know
it's it's it's a war it's a war being
fought in the Amazon
so it's a it's possible to convert them
into conservationists what's that
process like we or is that like uh you
say that in jest no I say that in an
absolute sincerity we we went up River
uh up the malinowski river several years
ago and I think it was 2018 and everyone
everyone was like you are going to die
like you will be shot and killed and uh
the reason we were able to do it with
relative safety was that the Gold Miner
that we were going with
was the brother-in-law of one of my
closest friends down there our
Expedition chef and one of the directors
of jungle Keepers and they said look you
can go just keep a low profile and so I
went up with a photographer and we spent
a week there and
dead animals everywhere deforestation
everywhere I mean the things we saw were
so horrible and we're living with these
gold miners that are you know they're
they're getting their gold they're
burning off the Mercury I watched the
guy smoking a cigarette burning the
Mercury off of his gold with the with
the vapor going straight into his face
with his child right there I mean
unbelievable negligence of just sanity
just and then and then towards the end
of the week the Peruvian Navy comes down
the river and everyone starts scrambling
and I was like I'm just gonna sit here
with my hands up because you know
and they didn't even stop they they
found the gold mining barge you know
they have a floating thing in the river
that just plums the bottom of the river
just sucks all the all the sediment up
and they stopped and they strapped a
bunch of explosives to this motor and
good Lord the the sound of this
explosion and there was just hot metal
raining down all over the place and then
they just went a bunch of guys in
fatigues and they just kind of like
looked at us like peace and I sat there
with this Gold Miner and I went now what
and he went well now I gotta go get a
new motor and I went why don't you just
do something else and he goes what else
is there and I went look what we do and
I sat there with my phone and I was like
see this these are pretty tourists and
we feed them food and we show them
tarantulas and macaws and they and he
looked at this and he went wow
he goes you
he goes that looks like so much fun and
when it is so much fun so we show people
we bring students to the Jungle
he goes to you're saying if I build you
a lodge you'll bring people I said yeah
and I came back a year later and he sat
there with a with a chainsaw a hand saw
and some nails and he cut down like 17
palm trees and he built an ecotourism
Lodge
so you give them another channel of
survival of making money and that's what
we've been doing through jungle Keepers
for loggers and for all kinds of
extractors is just saying look what do
you make you make 15 a day destroying
the ancient trees of the Jungle what if
we paid you 35 a day to have a uniform
and a job and health insurance and
security and you just protect it and use
all of the Jungle knowledge you've
gained as a logger to protect this place
who are the loggers trying to to uh
destroy the Amazon
can you say a little bit more about it
is that as a threat to the the Amazon
rainforest a lot of them are really
close friends of mine they're they're
they're people that need to make a
living and they're jungle people who you
know the rainforest is a very
challenging especially the Amazon is a
very challenging environment so you have
these people who they have a chainsaw
they have a job opportunity they go out
and they cut the trees and a lot of
these guys grew up fishing they grew up
in the jungle they know how to do it and
so for them it's a way to like they also
love it so this is the thing these are
outdoorsmen these are guys that love the
jungle and so they you know in the 90s
we had the mahogany boom where they went
out after the mahogany and you almost
can't find a mahogany tree in the jungle
anymore
and and if you want to talk about like
carbon sequestration in the rainforest
the the ancient Hardwoods hold like 60
percent of the carbon of the whole
rainforest they have an outsized
disproportionate Mass from from that
ancient density of the wood
and so these these these loggers go out
and they cut the wood that's most
valuable and then they bring it back to
town and they sell it and then people
like us buy it and put it on our kitchen
floors yeah
and you know and so
the thing is is I should you know when I
got to the Amazon it was you know
loggers are the bad guys
and if you talk to you know a lot of
like the phds that I worked with down
there where you know always very at odds
with the miners at odds with the with
the loggers and then I'd be with JJ and
JJ would sit down and he'd be like hey
let's pour a drink oh they have masato
let's all sit down like we'd all be
chilling and throwing them back with a
bunch of lagers
and and then those the opportunity
through through not vilifying these
people came to be like oh these are
these are these guys are great you know
and then of course out in the wild every
now and then something will happen
you'll see somebody's boat flipped over
and you go you go help them out and then
that that creates a certain type of
kinship so they're ultimately people who
love
who love the same thing you love often
yeah even if they don't love it they're
people that aren't necessarily looking
to destroy it I've met loggers who have
looked at at trees they're about to cut
and gone ah this is a shame start it up
you know they're just like this is where
the paycheck comes from let's come back
briefly to anacondas
can you tell me uh this whole situation
with discoveries eaten alive there's
some drama and controversy around that
can you explain that whole Saga with
Discovery with
um with your whole effort maybe outside
of even the drama the the initial thing
which I now feel you're sufficiently
insane to actually do of being eaten by
Anaconda is that actually possible to
survive something like that I mean if
anaconda swallows you while you're
wearing the suit that they made maybe
but that was in hindsight whether that
was the result of look
I go to the Jungle
and you start seeing these beautiful
places these incredible species you
start developing a relationship with
these animals
and then you watch it get destroyed
every year we watch it burn every year
places that are are crucial to my soul I
have seen leveled and turned to Ash
and at some point we started going
someone has to do something about this
and you look to your right and you look
to your left and there is no one because
it's the middle of the Amazon and the
rainforests have been being destroyed
since the 70s it's a cliche
and so we started trying to do something
about it and so I started putting a
little bit more emphasis on
on publicity a little bit more emphasis
on getting the message out there and so
I started trying to see how what was
going to work you know you start firing
shots in the dark and seeing and you
know JJ's going you have to help us do
something in a moon
okay you know and so from 18 years old
now now I'm 23 years old and all of a
sudden this place isn't isn't foreign to
me anymore it's it's home
and and so when you're trying to think
of all the different ways you can bring
attention to this place that you care
about that's being destroyed yeah you're
standing next to a boulder of progress
of of Destruction and it's about to roll
onto the forest and just destroy it and
snuff out all that life and no one's
there to do anything about it and so you
go
is there any way that I could put myself
in front of this Boulder and hold it
back
and you're talking about you know the
globe the global economic reality it's
just it's just such a massive it's
systemic so what's the most dramatic
possible thing I could do exactly so
when you find yourself flown to La as a
23 year old dude and uh you're sitting
there with some guy you know who's like
spinning a pen and got his feet up on
the desk and going you know what can you
show us down there and you go I could
show you the biggest anacondas in the
world and we could talk about Mercury
and bioaccumulation and we could show
people how these animals are
misunderstood and we go on a big
Expedition and we could be the coolest
show ever and he goes yeah
not good enough okay and so those that
that that that cycled through a bunch of
times and someone at some point in one
of those meetings said you know what if
we show people that anacondas really
can't eat humans and I went how is that
a good show you want me to feed someone
to an anaconda and I said I said I mean
and I kind of joked like what if you
know I said the only way that's feasible
is if you like make a suit with a
breathing apparatus and let the snake
eat you and then come back out safely
and make sure you don't hurt the snake
and they're like kid you're on and I was
like oh shit so I should mention it's a
small tangent I think I mentioned to you
offline uh due to travel troubles so I
traveled to the totally wrong part of
the United States
um on my way to Boston uh and on my way
to Boston I did a conversation with uh
Mr Beast Jimmy and I've gotten a chance
to hang out with him for the day and one
of the things we did is have
a lengthy brainstorm session with this
team or I was I was observing it sure
sure
um but it was interesting because he's
probably way better at that conversation
that you had with the with a guy in La
yeah and the guy in La obviously because
he's made
he's revolutionizing entertainment and
he's also doing philanthropy yeah yeah
which he's trying to figure out how to
help the world with that kind of stuff
so I would love to actually I'll send
him a message to see what what his
thoughts just brainstorm he's so strong
at this yeah literally taking the
situation you're facing yeah here's the
place that I really care about is being
burned down
it's being destroyed uh
what's the sexy video Yeah well how do
you get how do you get people to watch
something that's you know we all change
the channel when they show us the kids
in Africa with the swollen stomachs
nobody wants to see it and it's like
with the rainforest that like we know we
know we know and I'm going
I could give data all day long I could
show photos of burning forest and so I
was looking for what would do it so the
eating alive thing without spending too
much time on a massive misstep was I
agreed to do it they paid me at the time
more money than I had made before which
I very much needed because nobody pays
you to be a conservationist
um so I was a very poor 23 year old that
was like yes I would love that please
and I thought you know what this is the
start of a TV career yeah
um
we got we got shafted so bad I mean they
used somehow they changed our voices
they changed the things we said they
changed the message of the film there's
one point where we had caught a 19-foot
snake and I was holding her head and I
said this is such a beautiful animal the
queen of the Amazon this is such a great
moment for me I kissed her on the head I
said she's made so many babies look at
the scars I was talking about just the
Poetry of this incredible dragon and
then the producer goes yeah yeah that's
great listen if that was to bite you
what would happen and I was like oh well
if it bit you you know you'd bleed out
because it would lacerate down to the
that's what they put in the film and so
day of they should they didn't show me
the film until the night before I went
on Matt Lauer's show and I said I am not
endorsing this film
and they had called it Expedition on the
call sheet they'd call it Expedition EA
Expedition Amazon
all of a sudden they changed it to eaten
alive and I went wait guys wait wait
wait I said you're gonna make people
think that it actually happened not that
we're attempting it
and they and I say I'm not and then they
called me and they said you better
you're going on live TV tomorrow they
said you let us know what level of
control we need to show for you right it
was very threatening phone call and uh
so I had to go out and smile for the
cameras
and endorse something that was a train
wreck and the the scientific Community
was like you're an idiot we don't want
to ever see you again I lost a lot of
opportunities Peta came which you know
Peta whatever but Peta came out people
were like you you were trying to hurt a
snake which I would never do and then
the American public was like you know
you said you were going to get eaten by
a snake and you didn't and so everyone
was pissed I basically had to Exile
myself to India for like six months and
just I mean I had death threats coming
through all my messages were furious
with me what gave you strength to that
how difficult was that psychologically
just everything you care about being
completely kind of flipped upside down
I've spent so much time on the ground
with the local people learning from the
wildlife it's such a devout and
important thing to me and it got turned
into a a sideshow it got turned into a
joke and then not just a joke it got
turned into that I'm somehow bad to
animals you know I'm I'm
um irresponsible scientifically
Jimmy Kimmel told me to have sex with a
hippo as my next stunt like it was like
it got really ugly and it misfired so
bad and when you hear these like
motivational speakers talk about you
know you just got to keep trying and
sometimes you're gonna fail hard it was
like that one I got hit in the head with
a baseball bat that one was tough
and uh at the time I was like I'm fine
and I was like I'm gonna go away for a
while you know and then and I learned a
lot though like at this point I'm still
glad I did it because man did I learn a
lot about what what a room full of
people that you don't know who could
look you in the eye and shake your hand
and say trust us
oh boy do you have on a human level of
resentment
towards Discovery towards the people
involved be able to forgive them I don't
care it literally that's what they do
you know they literally put out a
documentary saying that mermaids were
real
you know it's like wait a minute wait a
minute they're not
listen
uh I said I'm not even touching that one
it is true the document there is a there
is a documentary where they duped a
bunch of scientists who are like
oceanographers and they like showed them
ancient footage of you know Mariners
saying that seals were mermaids who
cares it's it's it's it's it's I was
young
I got brought to Hollywood and I got
spit out the other side and that's on me
that's not their fault you know you
there's that you know you don't the
there's that parable about the Frog who
gives the Scorpion a ride across the
water and then at the end he says I'll
give you a ride just don't sting me and
then get to the other side and scorpion
stings them and the Frog goes why did
you do that and the Scorpion goes I'm a
scorpion yeah that's it's not their
fault it's in my nature but uh now that
you've become much more well known and
much more successful what you do you
have a platform can you return to those
people and use it the machine to get
more and more attention is that
something you work on or do you prefer
to work completely outside
I think that most of the success that
we've had now
in protecting the rainforest and and and
it's the levels that we've reached are
so far I think back to those Barefoot
days of catching snakes with JJ in the
boat and now the massive Ecological
Reserve we have and the team of Rangers
and the converted loggers and all of
that is because of
the ability to communicate and to show
people but that's all been through
social media
and so I'm open to the fact you know if
if somebody came and gave a sort of like
bourdainian pass where they said look
you can be yourself you can swear you
can fart you can smoke you can do
whatever you want to do go out there and
show us the real thing I would love to
but now I know how those contracts need
to be I need to have a right to refusal
and they can't change them and so I'd
almost rather just do it like the way I
think like Mr Beast does stuff where
it's like you just you get a crew guys
and some seed money and go film the
episodes and put it out exactly I mean a
committee never helped real art be
better it has to come from the the the
source of inspiration so you get you I
think you know you get JJ and a crew of
people or the guys in Africa that I'm
working with right now do an elephant
conservation and like
but you gotta show real I mean look
that's why that's why I mean look that's
why Joe Rogan isn't is is important
right now that's why you're important
right now is because it's not being
filtered through
this ridiculous system of of polishing
it and dumbing it down and yeah that's
why Joe has been an inspiration you
don't need a a crew of a bunch of people
you don't need a crew period and all you
need is
oh one or two other people and that's it
in my case you don't need anybody I've
been doing this uh I by requirement I
just need to be by myself there's a few
other folks now that help with the
editing and so on but it's just they
make life more awesome as opposed to a
boss that's that tells like a creative
director yeah somebody told me actually
I was visiting
La I think it was in LA they were saying
that
um now for all intimate scenes and
Hollywood movies there's an intimacy
director so when there's a uh two people
having sex there's a third person that
ensures that uh on film so it's not real
but there's still intimacy uh that
there's a third person that ensures that
like everyone is comfortable and the
actors say that this like always ruins
the the chemistry of the scene yeah and
so
it's a very Hollywood thing I understand
there's creepy people I still understand
um thanks for every wines uh it's
usually I think comes from the director
pushing things too hard if you just
leave it to the actors they know their
boundaries they can control their own
boundaries uh so the intimacy director
is more for the like the director
pushing thing you know there's
I understand I understand the logic like
let's make sure that we don't have
anything happen here that shouldn't be
happening I get it but I yeah
but but no I think the authenticity is
is is the greatest currency and I think
that in order for me to tell the stories
that I can tell like you know what
changed the game for me was I want to
tell you this story sure so in 2019
um
that the Amazon fire started popping off
and we had just gone to to film uh like
a month earlier we'd filmed like a small
documentary and uh they'd been following
me as if I was on a as if I was on a
solo which you know we did the best we
could I let I lived on my own but we as
we were driving we passed a spot where
the Flames were 70 feet tall the forest
was being destroyed and I went out there
with my phone which overheated in like
two minutes and said you can't use it
but for a second I was out there in the
Flames picking up animals and throwing
them off to try and just get them cooled
off I was trying to get snakes out of
there everything was the birds are
flying and I fucking lost it I I was
red-eyed I was crying and I was going
this is happening every fucking day I
was screaming and it's the first time
foreign
I've seen the burning so many times and
I just lost it that day and I don't know
what made me pull out my phone because
usually in those intense moments I I say
forget the documentation this is real
life we got stuff to do and I'm doing
I'm not documenting and then a month
later I'm home and I'm in New York and
all of a sudden I see these articles
like you know the Amazon's burning worse
this year than it was last year and blah
blah blah and I was like this you know
fucking and I threw it up on Instagram
like eight o'clock at night
and I'd never like I'd never cursed on
Instagram I don't know you know why I
just never did and I my phone was on 100
and I put on top of the refrigerator and
I went to bed I woke up in the morning
and my phone was on the floor on two
percent and it was ringing off the hook
and it was like the news and they're
like are you the guy that posted that
viral video about the Amazon and I was
like what yeah and that was the start
that's where it broke and that's where
we went from Barefoot in the Amazon to
you know all of a sudden you know I was
talking head for three weeks and going
around on all these news stations and
all of a sudden I was like the
spokesperson for the Amazon and JJ's
calling me and he was like go go go go
go go like get us get us that support
and it was just
um
you know so so communicating with people
and bringing them into that reality and
whether it's you know Rhino poaching and
elephant poaching or the Amazon being
destroyed it's like to me it's like
being able to to to take people into
that is is something that I would love
to do yeah and you do it directly with
authenticity on your Instagram people
should definitely follow your Instagram
I think I think Rogan follows your
Instagram too well the end of that story
actually kind of involves him because
yeah because because I went to all these
news outlets and I was living in green
rooms and traveling around and I was all
strung out and I hadn't seen anybody I
actually know in a few weeks which was
starting to get to me and I finally got
home and I went to like a family party
and everyone's like dude you've been
it's been crazy and I was like yup and
then I left and my cousin Michael calls
me and he's screaming and I'm going what
what what what and he goes Joe Rogan
just shared it Joe Rogan you shared it
oh nice and everyone was losing their
shit and it was so amazing and it was
like
yeah that's when it really took off and
what happened as a result of all of this
is that a Canadian entrepreneur who
started light speed
um reached out and uh several months
later after covid after that boom
you know I've been in the game for maybe
13 years or something had no money no
savings no job no nothing and after that
great publicity thing
nothing happened
the waves came and everything got real
exciting everybody reached out and they
said we care so much
nothing happened though you know we can
run into battle but if we don't have our
arrows in the quiver
what can we do
and I actually I made a phone call to my
friend mohsen right at the start of
covid and I was going through divorce
and I was broke
and I said
I'm gonna get a job
I said I give up
so this is stupid I said the ecotourism
business is done jungle Keepers has
dried up
we're done and then this guy daxed a
Silva called me on the phone and said
listen I'm in what what do we got to do
and so if if the analogy was me and JJ
and a few other people trying to hold
this Boulder back from just destroying
the rainforest all of a sudden Dax comes
in like a Titan and just puts his arm
out and just goes I'm gonna help
and he gave us the funding to start
actually developing a ranger program to
start actually bringing loggers to be
Protectors of the forest to be
supporting smaller conservation things
and now we're protecting 50 000 Acres of
rainforest we're protecting entire
streams and ecosystems that I love and
we're soon going to double that and it's
like this this whole thing so
um yeah the the the the the
communication of these things is crucial
and I actually think it's incredible
that that social media has played such a
big role in it well I mean uh just just
because I I know Joe well and I love him
so much I I definitely think
um you should do his podcast but also
just be friends with him I think you
guys
um he's one you know not the meme but
he's one with nature and not much more
with the I'm one while I do appreciate
and love nature I also love
um technology I know yeah and robots and
so on so we're in that Meme type of way
we're very very different but well
either way at some point make sure you
tell the guy thank you because it
definitely really helped push us over
that that limit where you know if enough
people see it you get someone like Dax
who who who says I can help and I have
the resources to help
and that and that changed our whole
lives She's Everything
back to the Jungle
uh you had a bunch of interactions with
Jaguars how are you still alive like
what man dude Jax Jags aren't the Jags
I'll tell you this Jags are not the
danger the falling trees are the danger
uh I'll tell you some elephant stories
and then you'll then you'll then you'll
wonder why I'm still alive but
um Jags I've I've just one you know so
JJ started and Santiago his dad started
challenging me to do solos
go out alone into the wild style
you know I'd have a hammock a headlamp
three days worth of food some fish hooks
a machete that's it and so like one of
the stories that that happened early on
was I was out there and it was raining
and I was lost and
this is how we test your jungle
knowledge can you survive out there do
you know how to find food Have you
listened to the things that we taught
you and there was one night that I was
in a hammock
and a Jaguar came up and I was asleep
when it happened and she came up right
next to my head and she was and I could
hear her smelling me
and then my first instinct was to to to
turn on my headlamp and just the sound
of my arm moving against the the
material
and she just
like she just right here I could feel
her breath and I just laid there
in the dark and that's one of those
moments where you go you really learn a
lot about yourself
because I wasn't scared I I felt like I
understood the intentions of the cat if
she was hunting I'd already be dead she
was curious and I was lost and I didn't
know if I was ever going to get out of
that jungle but what she did was
energize me because it was an experience
like the giant anaconda where I said
this is so wild
that it's that it's so almost
cinematically outside the realm of what
I thought my life could be like
that it made me like wait
because the previous day I was lost
tired confused kind of devastated tail
between my legs after that
I was like man you've been waiting for
this your whole life
go get it and I like woke up and I was
like I am gonna navigate even though
I've been in this swamp for three days
I'm gonna find my way out of this swamp
and like she just like breathed fire
into me where it was like
it was like if that's possible if I
could be six inches away from a Jaguar's
face
then I got I got that energy from her so
that you're able to start to really hear
and feel the
the jungle around you yeah that was uh
that was a sign do you know what you're
doing it really felt like a sign it
really did how do you survive in a Solo
solo hike Through the Jungle what what
are the different components what are
the different dangers so you said you
had a hammock you had some food what
kind of food by the way are we talking
about uh nuts stuff that won't go bad
because you can't so you can't really
start a fire in the Amazon like I'm a
good fight I mean I camp all over the
place I'm a Wilderness guide starting a
fire in the Amazon is futile in fact a
lot of survival manuals will tell you
don't do it because if you're really
lost it'll break your spirit you're not
going to be able to do it that's dark
yeah they're like don't even try it
um but you can still get like
hypothermia from if you get wet and you
lay out in the jungle you could you know
you could still exposure can still get
you so you want fire
um I even in the beginning I used to
bring like Ramen noodles which is which
is the nutritional is irrelevant and so
I started bringing like nuts and then
supplementing that with fish which
forced me to become a very good
fisherman and
um now of course JJ knows that he can
like they can cut certain roots and they
bash it up and they put it in the Stream
and the fish just float to the top and
they take with so like he's got like
he's got all the cheat codes yeah
whereas like I'm sitting there with a
hook and he's like he'll go now find
bait and I go bait
and the most competitive ecosystem on
Earth good luck finding a worm you can't
do it what does JJ do he takes the
machete looks at his foot cuts a slug of
callous off of his heel because he's got
this thick rhino skin puts that on the
hook
catches a six-inch fish chops it in half
puts it on a bigger and in 15 minutes
he's got a four foot giant catfish that
could feed a family of 16 and he's happy
I'm sitting there and I'm like I'm gonna
try to like stick a beetle on a on a
fishing hook and like you know do you
have just a line and a hook or is there
a rod too just a line and a hook and
then you you just chop a you just chop a
rod and tie it to the you know you just
chop a little sapling so are you still
able to start a fire or no I like for
the food that I bring to not be fire
dependent sure and so if I have some
nuts I can I can shove in a few enough
calories to get me through the night or
like and leave a fishing line out and
there'll be something there in the
morning
um
but yes I can start a fire but a lot of
times what I'll do is I'll bring a flask
and not with like alcohol but with
diesel and so you have a tuna can and
you put the diesel this is what the
local guys do everything I do you know
I'm sure there's going to be someone
listening to this like how could you do
that and it's like yeah this is what we
do down there sorry uh it's a it's a
tuna can you pour a little bit of diesel
in it it burns slow you light it and you
put your sticks you make your pyramid
over that and eventually that will burn
through the moisture and finally you'll
get a very reluctant little fire enough
to burn you know to make yourself like a
cup of tea or to pour that into the
noodles something
something or you just eat a fish raw how
important is it to stay dry is it
basically impossible it's impossible to
stay dry you're wet all the time you're
wet all the time what does that mean
that means infections are more efficient
yeah
um so yeah I don't know if you saw the
picture in my book where I have the
yellow spots yeah so yeah there's a
picture
with your like entire face consumed with
yellow spots is basically I guess that's
MRSA yep
oh boy yeah uh so how did that happen
what uh what was the infection like and
um yeah and how crazy are you for
letting that infection stay in you for
for a long period of time without
treating it or you had no choice no I I
did have a choice I was 19 years old and
I was taking care of a giant anteater
that was orphaned and this is like my
dream animal yeah and she was mine and
my job was to teach her the jungle and
so when I started like noticing that I
had an infection and that I was I had I
think I had Dengue at the time too I
went back to town
probably picked up MRSA in the hospital
where I got tested
came back into the jungle and then got
progressively sicker and sicker and
weaker and weaker as I was two weeks
three weeks in the jungle and it got to
the point where my vision went black and
white and I passed out one day and and I
don't know why but at the time I had
shaved that day
and when I woke up the next morning I
couldn't open my eyes because the the
pus had come out of my eyes and out of
my the pores in my face all those little
micro cuts and the pillow was stuck to
my face and
I was stuck upriver with no help at 19
years old and also when you when you see
that picture you can imagine that I
assumed that my life was over because I
didn't know what it was and I also
didn't assume that or at the very least
I figured I'd be disfigured the rest of
my life I didn't think there was any
getting better from that
and so I remember sitting by the side of
the river praying that a boat would come
by but it was the rainy season there
aren't going to be any boats because the
river is psychotic
um and so
it was a long time before I got back to
town and I didn't want to leave the
anteater but it became like I was like I
realized I was dying
and then I finally got a boat
with some loggers a death boat just
loaded with these guys were had had gone
into the jungle and shot everything they
could and taken all the babies and they
were gonna go sell them and so it was
like baby monkeys and toucans and birds
and cages and pieces of crocodiles and
Anaconda skins and jaguar skins rolled
up and it was just like I was just
laying there with all these dead animals
in the boat with all the Flies on my
face and
got back to the hotel called my mother
said please book me a flight out like
today like today and then I sat on the
plane and somebody somebody sat next to
me on the plane and I had a hood on and
I do I do remember that in my in the
haze at this point I was having trouble
staying conscious but I do remember that
she like looked over like trying to see
what was sitting next to her and then
she got up and never came back
and when I got to to immigration in New
York you know the cop where he like
takes my passport and he goes yeah he
goes so what were you doing in Peru he's
looking down and he goes yeah and he
like holds up the passport looks at the
password looks at my face he goes Bo
buddy what the fuck and I said no that's
what I was like I'm trying to get home
to go to the hospital he goes He stamps
it he goes go go go go go God bless God
bless he's like oh shit yeah and then
they put me in the room in the hospital
with like the hazmat suits and they
didn't know what it was and I spent like
five days on IV antibiotics with like
four different things running through my
veins and the the doctors were like
Don't Let It Go that close they're like
you went real close on that one yeah
that's what that picture I mean people
should uh check out the book just to see
the picture because I imagine you just
laying there unable to see have a fever
probably so you're like half
hallucinating yep
and uh there's no there's no boat
there's no no way out there's no help
coming
um plus there is this creature who
you've become a parent of yeah that you
love yeah
boy that's a dark place to be as a 19
year old I mean most people have never
will never be in a place like that like
where did you find strength in that in
those in that place I don't know I just
remember writing like a goodbye letter
to my parents because I said if I die
out here it was really dark like it was
it was it was terrifying it really felt
like it was the end
and I was writing you know if you find
me out here I'm sorry and all that all
that type of stuff and it was you know
um I don't know about strength there was
no strength it was just like move
forward and at some point it was like if
you'll take me down river take me down
river you know and
you just got lucky with the loggers with
the death boat yeah that they found you
uh well how did the infection start by
the way I don't know I really don't know
I mean we always have some sort of
little shit but the thing is now JJ
taught me that there's like three
different trees that can cure infections
I didn't know this at the time I didn't
know the cheat codes now there's there's
if you have a small infection you can
use Sangre de Drago and it'll it'll cure
it right away like let's say you have a
bot fly and it gets a little pussy
there's a fly living in your skin you
put that on there not only will it kill
the fly but it'll heal the infection now
if you have a worse infection you can go
to oh hey which is Ficus insipida and
you can use that and that will
completely heal that will murder it's
like crocodile blood it will murder
infections so like forget Neosporin
that's a joke these are heavy chemical
compounds running through these trees
and they know all about them and so
whatever it is so now at this point
that's no longer an issue like because
we know how to handle it which at that
time if JJ had been there I would have
been fine well learn the hard way so
these are open wounds and then there's
creatures that start living in them is
basically what is it well that's
separate that's bot flies yeah there's
there's a there's a creature that
unfortunately very very very
unfortunately
um likes to make its home inside the
Flesh of mammals yeah and so the Flies
attach their eggs to mosquitoes the
mosquitoes go and seek out warm-blooded
animals the eggs microscopic eggs fall
into your skin and then begin to grow
and sooner or later you feel a twitch
and it's a worm living inside of you
that's like vertical down in you and
it's it's eating you yeah and at first
it's not a problem but when they get to
about as thick as that pen
it starts to hurt because you got a hole
in you and they have a little breathing
tube that comes up and they breathe and
they go back in and then they eat and
they come back up to breathe and you
have a you have a friend living in you
yeah
um and if you've had one of those I've
had lots of those it's tough to take
them out
they have hooks
how do you do you have to
love the junkies so how do you take it
out to come yeah 100 uh you gotta you
gotta put an irritant so like a lot of
times what we'll do down there is some
someone will
take a massive drag of a cigarette and
then you know spit the they'll they'll
powers like exhale and get some of the
some of the tar which also shows you how
much tar you get out of a cigarette and
then with a knife and you put that right
over the hole and then uh you slap some
Vaseline or something on top of it so
they can't breathe and eventually over
the course of a few hours they'll come
up enough looking for air and then you
got to grab them with a tweezer and try
not to rip them because then you're
gonna get an infection and you gotta
squeeze from the it's a whole ceremony
when people have bought flies we're all
like oh it's bot fly time let's go and
then like JJ will squeeze he's got like
pliers for thumbs yeah he can like take
a piece of your neck and you think he's
going to break your skin he'll just
squeeze until this thing comes out
and you don't uh yeah I guess there's an
open wound right there and yeah you
don't want to bathe for a day or two
after until that closes because
otherwise you're gonna have like water
sloshing around in like a little pocket
of yours is kind of gross and that water
might have other organisms in it water
in your skin tends to yeah I mean the
jungle water's clean we drink it like I
drink the water fresh out of the stream
oh that's interesting well it's just a
giant filtration system all those roots
the whole jungle is constantly purifying
everything people might be thinking
about that with the jungle there's
insects probably all over you all the
time
it's not as bad as you think like I've
been to to to to Finland Lapland in the
summer and the mosquitoes are horrendous
like devastating the Amazon in in our
area if you're sitting in a hammock
reading a book
out you know our research Stations don't
have walls or anything
um you're good for about one one
mosquito every half hour which really is
not a lot I mean it's worse in New
Jersey like
it's really not that bad tell me a
little more about the the little baby
anteater Lulu they use who you've
rescued and had to sadly leave behind
yeah I just was always fascinated with
giant anteaters or this you know German
Shepherd sized
thing with Wolverine claws and these
giant Popeye forearms and they excavate
ant and Termite mounds and they have
this long tongue
and their babies right on their back for
the first six months of their lives and
so they actually have this incredibly
intimate relationship with their young
and it just so happens that this animal
that I was wildly fascinated with
there was an orphan on the river and JJ
was like you love these things and I was
like yeah and so he went and he was like
hey my friend you should he got he got
me the the baby and we were like we're
gonna rewild her and so I spent like
weeks and weeks and weeks just like with
this thing on my back crawling through
the jungle teaching her to find Ants
giving her milk falling asleep with her
on my chest and their their tongue is
like 11 inches long at that age and so
she when she wanted me to wake up she'd
fire it up my nose and come out my mouth
and she'd and then if I tried to get her
off me quick she'd stick the claws in
and you know all my clothes I have like
I have old like you know now they're
like you know like Museum pieces with
rips in them from from Lulu's claws was
able to also communicate emotion and
feeling and all that she needed it she
needed it so if this animal didn't have
the physical touch if we didn't if I
didn't hold her all day long she throw
Tantrums she'd go shred something she'd
go pull down the curtain she'd go ruin
the woods just should start literally
having a traumatic response to not
having intimacy
which was shocking because again on the
scale of a cockroach to an elephant you
go
I didn't know that giant and theaters
had such intense emotions like
but she did and we we you know and also
taking care of her forced me to
to explore the jungle from the
perspective of an animal
so I got to like be an animal
and so there's only a few times in your
life in my life where I've gotten to do
that you know one was with her another
time was living with a herd of elephants
where I had to walk with them through
the forest and like see how they
interacted
completely natural and it's it's it's
different it's very different and you
realize like just like a person's public
Persona when they're out on the street
in Manhattan is going to be very
different than when you're on the couch
with them on a Tuesday night
and and and with wild animals it's very
much like that you know like if we see
you see a bobcat on a trail and it's
going to look at you and glare at you
and then go off and it's like yeah but
what's it like when it's in the den
that's playing with its Cubs yeah so
that when it's looking at you that's
like the Instagram post it's making and
the actual doctors yeah yeah so you've
um besides Amazon you spent a lot of
time in India uh can you uh tell me what
you learned
hanging out with a herd of elephants
yeah what should uh what do people not
understand about elephants that's that's
beautiful to you that's interesting to
you first of all I think that elephants
should have government representation as
like a subset of society like actually
they they have intelligence they are so
intelligent and and when you look at an
elephant so there's this question that
keeps coming up of you know are we are
we smart enough to know how smart
animals are can can we can we interpret
the intelligence that we're seeing
and I've I've I've I lived with a
semi-wild herd of elephants in India for
a while and
some of the things that I saw like
changed how I view reality to be honest
with you because
you know you watch a matriarch of an
elephant herd walk up to someone that
none of us knew was pregnant
and her trunk goes to her stomach
and then she calls all the other ones
over and they're interested in this
little human that that they know that
there's something in there and they're
and they're all conversing about it and
you go whoa
or that every morning we'd wake up and
the elephants didn't want the stream
water they didn't want the lake water
they want puddles they wanted the water
from our well we had like a stone well
you know like a traditional and every
morning we'd like run out of bed because
all the elephants were going to come and
they were going to rip the bucket off
and destroy everything but they wanted
that nice cold clean water
and so it was like caring for elephants
that were wild they were sometimes
getting shot at by Farmers because if
they went to try and Rob some bananas so
these are sort of like delinquent
elephants that were half wild in the
forest Department was thinking about you
know getting rid of them which whatever
that meant
and uh
I made really good friends with this one
elephant and his name was Dharma
and uh Dharma had the had the the stuff
doesn't this is It's hard to write the
book I'm writing right now because none
of it sounds real he grew up around
people because he was a tuskless male so
he couldn't hang out with the females
because he was a grown-up male and he
couldn't hang out with the males the
Bulls because he couldn't defend himself
when they roughhoused and everything so
Dharma would be like wandering around
the forest not knowing who to hang out
with
and so like there was one night there
was a tiger calling and we just heard
you could hear it echoing over the hills
and what does Dharma do 2 A.M we hear
Dharma show up and he's the same thing
he starts throwing a tantrum he starts
pulling shit over he says takes a chair
throws it
we had bananas in the truck Dharma walks
up to the truck it's like a Jeep he
walks up to the Jeep smells it he looks
at me and he's like you're gonna get out
of bed I'm like no I'm not gonna get out
of bed I was like Dharma you're a grown
ass elephant the tiger does his thing
again and he's like I need bananas to
feel better yeah pushes the truck up on
two two wheels oh wow looks at me
is this how you want it to be so I'm up
I'm up and I go and I'm like please
please please please please please don't
move I'm rubbing his face and he's like
he puts it down he's like all right well
then then hit me
I didn't do it so he lifts it up again
and so in the end there was no way for
me to outsmart the elephant he wins yeah
there's nothing I could do and so a lot
of my job was taking him out into the
forest and and you know spending a
little bit of time with him I have this
beautiful
one time I set up the tripod and I went
and I was just I was just journaling and
he would come and he would just like
play with my hair and he'd be like hey
what's up you know he just he wanted
someone to to interact with on an
emotional level
and you know when you think about
elephants in terms of the fact that you
know people go oh you know they they use
medication to induce labor it's like
yeah that's not that surprising they
they they hold the bones of the dead
it's like yeah they have the best smell
of pretty much any animal that's also
not surprising they probably know
exactly who that was that bone
but they can navigate to water holes and
communicate in ways that we cannot
really figure out and so when you hear
about people measuring out elephant
intelligence
you'll hear about scientists being like
oh well we gave it a you know a bucket
with a hole in it and then it had like a
key and there was a rope and you're like
bro this is all
human stuff yeah can you go walking with
them for three weeks in the wild and
watch how they deal with the problems
that they encounter in the forest
and so elephants have become especially
recently with the work that's been gone
that I've been doing in Africa with
betpaw
um I've just become so fascinated with
elephants and uh
you know
elephants the elephant the African
elephant population right now is down at
two percent of what it was a few hundred
years ago were really we're really
putting them on the brink of you know
there's there's some elephants that are
being born tuskless
because we've
poaching has taken down
the great tuskers to the point where now
it's it's actually beneficial for some
elephants to not have tusks because
anyone have humans but that's that's
like we've created deformed elephants
and so like now I'm
gotten very concerned with
issues of elephants and tusks are
fundamental to the interaction between
elephants absolutely I mean with males
compete with each other but also
elephants use their tusks you know like
they'll they'll break a branch and
they'll be like this is a good Branch
I'm going to eat the hell out of this
and they'll like hang it on their Tusk
and they'll like grab a bunch of other
stuff they'll like hold it
um you know ripping a tree up out of the
ground I just watched it two weeks ago
as as watching an elephant he got down
on his knees and stuck his his Tusk into
the ground and like leveraged up he like
Archimedes to this root out of the
ground and then was like that's a sweet
root and when he left I went and I
tasted the root and it was like sweet
Ginger and I was like I have no idea
what this is but he knew it was good did
they use Tusk for sexual selection like
to impress the ladies or no it's
certainly involved in how who who has
mating rights oh who wins who wins I
mean if you got the big tusks and there
are elephants out there like the mammoth
big tuskers that have tusks down to the
ground like huge and when you see them
it's like seeing something unique on
Earth Earth unique in history because
we're at a point where we might lose
those there are only a few of them left
and then they're so prized by hunters
yeah it's interesting because I I forget
what the actual conclusion on that is
because there's some studies of the use
of the value of Beauty in evolution like
birds yeah and peacocks and so on that
there's no actual
value to it but it
plays a role in in sexual selection
meaning value like
it's much easier to understand
competition like a Tusk helps you defeat
sure the competitive tool but I bet you
there's a component to the Tusk where
the ladies go goddamn that's a nice
like there's a visual beautiful
component maybe not I don't know but
what if what if beauty though as we're
defining it though is is is symmetry and
the the absence of yellow spots on your
face and and
healthy looking hair and so like I think
to us beauty is
sexually appealing traits that look good
to mate with and so so that that 19 year
old with Marissa everybody in the world
would swipe left on that yeah
at least it's like really desirable
object in the universe okay uh what do
you mean speaking of elephant
intelligence and something I I think and
work quite a bit on as with artificial
intelligence is what the philosophical
question that comes up is what is
intelligence what is intelligent
um humans Homo sapiens are often
thought to be highly intelligent that's
the reason they stand out
in your understanding
of different species like the elephant
what stands out to about humans or are
they just another animal
or different kinds of intelligence
well we're certainly unique because we
have altered the entire planet yeah you
know the term the anthropocene I mean
it's like we've literally created a
geological layer of us
whereas other animals don't and
going back to elephants it's like they
also engineer their environment if
you're in a forest like if you drop me
in a forest on Earth I can tell you in
two seconds if there's elephants there
because this Twisted branches and
excavated Earth and they they're
constantly gardening
um
but I mean look look at us I mean
there's we're clearly unique in nature
which which makes me not understand the
the the anti-human sentiment that that
so much of environmentalism has about
like you know like we're we're bad we're
damned we ruin everything and it's like
I've seen the worst I've seen the
burning Amazon and I'm still like
I love being able to share ideas with
you and travel to places and FaceTime my
family when I'm not around them and it's
like I I celebrate a lot of what makes
us human
and I I it's almost like reality is this
crazy video game and it's like if we
could just figure out the right Keys we
can pretty much do anything we can think
of and it's like
I mean poetry art I mean you know I'm
the biggest animal lover in the world
but we are we are
we are different
we really are yeah the ability to uh
puzzle solve create tools
I think it's the coolest invention
humans have come up with is it fire
what's the most impactful
uh
I feel like fire is fire I feel like
fire is kind of a gimme I feel like the
they didn't really invent it they
probably like the wheel
flying
I mean flying I mean think of think if
you could go back in time to someone
that never flew yeah you know assault in
a an Egyptian king
George Washington you know and be like
you can
fly I mean this just just on my way here
yeah and I fly way too much but I was
looking out the window at the clouds and
going this is
unbelievably spectacular it's just
stunning you know as a kid you you look
at a cloudy day
and you go this is the world is like
this today
and then you get in a plane and you fly
above the clouds and it's sunny up there
and you go
oh
it just it changes your perspective it's
like when people go to the moon and they
come back and they tell you the pale
blue dot you know just
I I say I say flying I think the ability
to fly I mean the fact that I could I
could get on a plane and be in India in
you know 20 22 hours is is shocking in
terms of its usefulness I would argue
that's not in the top five but in terms
of its ability to inspire yeah there's
uh somebody I forgot who uh told me this
idea that
there's something about the atmosphere
Earth's atmosphere that allows you to
look up and see the stars like if we
didn't have that human civilization
would not have happened meaning like
being able to look up and see something
out there
would fill our like this something that
allows you to look up versus just look
down to like first looking at your local
environment yeah be able to like wander
and see holy shit there's a big world
out there I don't know
anything if if you're able to look up
and see that yeah that that kind of
humility combined with the ability to
dream about exploring yeah maybe it just
inspires the exploration it's kind of an
interesting thought given how inspiring
for example the uh
the extra upgraded super cool version of
flying which is flying to other planets
I mean there's going to be hopefully
it's possible
the century
a child born no not the century maybe
the century a child born on another
planet that looks up that looks back at
Earth
and it has to be educated by his her
parents that like there's another place
there's another place where life is way
easier oh God it's so easy there's water
everywhere exactly people complain about
Earth man the Earth is really really
really really really good it's really
really good here water everywhere
anything man I wouldn't even leave given
like right now like if somebody said
like oh you could like you could go to
the Moon I'd be like no I'm good if I
died in space I'd be so pissed I love it
here yeah but you're still there's a
longing to explore for you there's a
longing to explore but I I really think
I'm I'm such a
like my longing to explore is like
Rivers streams oceans jungles like to me
like yeah I would I would watch the hell
out of the the live stream of of Elon
touching down on Mars like I'd be like
this is incredible it's amazing that I
get to be around to see this
I'm staying where I'll be right here
yeah but it's good that the human Spirit
pushes us oh it's amazing what's
possible and it does that for you what
um just a out there questions what's
what's the most dangerous animal
in the Amazon would you say
mammal let's go with mammal dangerous
mammal like dangerous in terms of you
walking around doing the solo hike I'm
gonna disappoint everybody with this but
it's it's humans it's nothing there's no
if I'm out in the Amazon there's nothing
that's going to attack me you know and
in India you might have you might have
an old leopard or a tiger that's missing
a tooth that decides your prey or you
might have an angry elephant that's in
must that just decides to just decides
to flatten you in the Amazon you're not
this real jaguars won't even let you see
them yeah and there's really nothing
else one of my friends uh brilliant
scientist friend of mine Pat got
attacked by a rabid ocelot once but
that's like a diesel house cat just
having a fit you know that's it wasn't
the worst thing in the world
it's just the assholes yeah Kingdom okay
what uh in terms of humans you said
um that the tribes some of them
uncontacted yeah can be exceptionally
dangerous what's your experience with
them what should people learn because
it's such a fascinating part
of life here on Earth that there's
tribes that don't have much or any
contact with the quote-unquote Civilized
world
most of the people that I meet don't
actually really understand how
how isolated these people are or how
weird it is that we're sitting here and
that we have iPhones and airplanes and
all this stuff and these people are
living naked in the forest at this
moment
and so
the the the thing though you know I also
was recently somebody somebody said oh
there's like Paleolithic tribes and it's
like no no just by default they're
modern tribes living now
they just happen to be living out in the
jungle and there's a huge debate about
you know do we try and contact them and
bring them in
and there's two camps of people on this
who they said it was it was it was the
trauma of the rubber boom that sent them
out that far into the forest and made
them terrified of the outside world
and so that's also what made them so
hyper violent I mean they're they're I
there's one of the guys we work with on
our team Victor was
in I think it was 2004. he's coming down
river and he had a load of mahogany wood
and he's piloting this boat
and
he sent two people a husband and wife
ahead to go start cooking breakfast on
the beach so they could put the little
kitchenette thing down and pick put the
propane he sent them ahead as the he's
going nice and slow at the barge coming
down the river they go ahead reach the
beach they get out he starts cutting
some cane to start put making a fire
tribe comes out no warning they just
start screaming they start shooting
arrows the man instantly gets an arrow
through the leg and it pins his leg so
he can't run he tells his wife go save
yourself and she does she jumps in the
water this arrow is falling around her
too and as she's floating down the river
she looks back and the last thing she
sees is these guys getting to her
husband and beginning to rip him apart
as Victor comes down the river this is a
guy we work with every day he comes down
the river and sees his friend
disemboweled opened up dissected his
parts are all over the beach the beach
is red and they only found out what
happened because they found her later on
holding on to a stick in the river and
they're like what happened and she was
like they just attacked they don't want
people on their land on the on the on
the the sort of the underground WhatsApp
chain of the Amazon they a few in August
like this was not an internationally
known
um some loggers went up and tried to
steal a few trees from where the tribes
were and then everybody sent the
pictures of what the loggers looked like
after a few days because the tribes
porcupine them with arrows they were
laying there on the ground with just
arrows sticking out of their bodies and
then eventually the authorities came out
and looked and there was just these
white
but I'll show you the pictures later
there's just these white puffy bodies
with like the skulls sticking out and it
was like you don't mess with these
tribes I wonder what are the what's the
mythology around that they construct
around who these Outsiders are
they gods are they demons are they
humans what who are they who are we to
them
well you you got to go back to the
rubber Boom the the rubber Barons went
down there and at the start of the
Industrial Revolution the only way to
get rubber
was to mine it from the trees that were
out in the forest and so the only way to
do that because you can't make a rubber
Plantation in the jungle the the rubber
when it's in Plantation form when it's a
monoculture it gets this Leaf blight and
it all dies Henry Ford tried it didn't
work and so what they did was they sent
these people down who just whipped
burned enslaved raped and pillaged the
people it's one of the worst periods in
human suffering that I've ever read
about
um one missionary said they were killing
the locals the way you or I would kill a
mosquito they just went nuts and so they
sent them out and they would come back
with rubber and this would go to fuel
the Industrial Revolution for hoses and
gaskets and tires and all this stuff
that suddenly we needed
um and it was during that time that
these these these you know gangs of
foreigners would go into the jungle to
enslave the natives
that these uncontacted tribes went back
into the jungle and said not us
and they have six foot bows and seven
foot Arrows with bamboo tips they make
the bamboo tips into razor blades
and so when those things fly actually
one of my Rangers one of the Jungle
Keepers team
um was present when the tribes had come
out onto the river and he tried to
help them because they're nomadic and
they live out there and so there's an
element of like
brother like you know they're trying to
be like you don't need to be like this
like we're friendly so they sent a canoe
across the river with bananas and so
he's up to his waist in the river and
the tribes are right across the river
and and
this shot and he sees the Arrow coming
right at his head and as he moved to the
side it hit him at the temple and sliced
him back towards the ear opening him to
the skull
he's fine
but let me tell you something when he
goes and gets a crew cut it's the most
badass the scar you've ever seen man and
so he he always keeps it real short on
that side but but even if you try to
help them that they're not necessarily
friends and tough I said tough lesson
yeah
I suppose they have a point they have a
point and and protecting them is is a
default of you know now that we're
protecting all this ecosystems and all
these other indigenous communities it's
like we all sort of live with this
knowledge that they're the Hermanos the
brothers are out there and that's the
way they want to keep it and so we just
have to be respectful of like you don't
camp on certain beaches at certain times
of the year because we know that they
might be there you really have to be
careful about that have you yourself
interacted with any my interaction with
them came on a solo where I pushed it a
little bit too far
and I I was planning to do a three week
this was like the big one and I I got
dropped off by poachers up a river and I
I went past the point where they were
like names there I said what what what
tributary are we on and they were like
tributary and I was like okay
and I said leave me here and I remember
the guy being like are you committing
suicide and he didn't understand that I
was like no I have a backpack and I have
like food and like I'm gonna like take
videos and I have a tripod and I was
like we're cool here and they looked at
me like they were like goodbye and I was
like all right and I went up this River
and
and again like you just you learn these
things like you know it was only when
I'd been alone for a week that you
realize you're you know is that saying
that like oh you're you're born alone
and you die alone it's like no you're
not you're born into a room full of
people usually at the very least your
mother's there for everybody and uh and
so you've been around people probably if
you're a normal person every single day
of your life you've seen dozens if not
hundreds of people
and all of a sudden you realize what a
social creature we are
because on day six it gets weird for me
it got weird I know there's people that
can do it longer so what is it what does
that mean like longing for contact like
are you lonely longing for contact the
Distortion of reality in the sense that
like
you know you wake up and there's no one
there and you start to
you know you're going up a river so I
would keep I kept looking back down
river and
almost thinking of my life as something
it was almost like I had already died
and I had gone to somewhere else and I
was looking back on that life as like
something that I had experienced And
Then There came this Panic of what if
it's gone or like what if World War III
broke out and I just don't know about it
my family in New York is vaporizing
something just you just you you're
you're so actually your ability to
comprehend and interpret reality kind of
requires other people it's not just that
you're lonely you need that contact to
actually just perceive the world make
sense of it all of that so you start
basically hallucinating in a certain
kind of way I started feeling very
uncomfortable
um and it doesn't help also that like
Santiago told me these stories where
he's like if you hear capuchins sounding
not quite monkeys if you hear capuchin
monkey sounding not quite like capuchins
he goes it's the tribe and they're
coming to get you
and then so um the guy who was shot
Ignacio they showed me videos where we
saw them on the beach and they're
communicating in Monkey calls they're
using it as code so that we don't
understand them even though we don't
speak their language but they're they're
using animal calls and so every night
you go to sleep and then you go did that
tinnitus sound off and you're like shit
you know and it's really hard to fall
asleep and then like one night I I
messed up and I left a fish I like
cleaned this fish I ate like this huge
fish I just ate it to my face you're
putting out like Marathon levels of of
energy every day like you know Goggins
would love solos this is awesome yeah
you eat the fish Raw uh this one I
actually cooked it but you know the
skeleton was laying there right right
outside my tent stupid yeah and in the
middle of the night I wake up and I just
could tell there was something there you
know and then like you almost don't want
to look it's like when you're a kid at
the basement door and you're like is
there a ghost it's like I like unzip the
tent and I like open it up and there's
like 27 black cayman outside of my tent
all looking at me like this and like
some of their heads are this big and
they're like there's fish there can we
have it and I'm like holy shit and like
you know I was like do I I kind of like
had to like scooch the tent back and
like move back and let them have their
fish and there's a host of crocodiles
outside of my tent yeah
um but no so then there's three how many
like 27 maybe there's a lot big ones
small ones medium sized one every type
thing we're all there and their eyes
glow in the night you know you shine a
light at animals and they have a taping
them lucidum and so their their eye
shine comes back at you if you shine a
headlamp at a at a jaguar or a frog or
almost every animal has a tape in them
Croc there's a whole lot of them yeah I
thought can we go back to the part of
the conversation where you said the
jungle is not dangerous the humans are
the most dangerous did they eat me no
why didn't they eat you they wanted the
fish is there some way of you
interacting with them that shows that
you're not social harm
I don't believe so I'm sure there's
someone out there that thinks they can
talk to Crocs but because there's a
there's a story of you grabbing a Croc
by the tail yes what did you learn from
that learn to not always listen to JJ so
JJ was testing you to uh yeah to see how
stupid it was how do you hold the
crocodile exactly you have to get him by
the head like an anaconda like this and
so so you're one of the world experts to
grabbing creatures by the head I
wouldn't say World expert but I've done
a lot of it um I also have you see how
there's like kind of a ball there that's
where a crocodile tooth went in that
side and like came out that side of my
mouth that was a really good Chomp and
the watch I was wearing at the time
saved me because that like that
um real fast just Chomp just whack like
somebody took a sledgehammer you put
your hand on the table and I just went
really hurt
um shouldn't have been doing that what
how did that come up because I caught a
Croc that was too big so usually when we
catch little Caiman in the streams and
we measure them to monitor the
populations
um you get it by the neck and then I
tuck the tail under my arm and I hold it
and you're talking about a little you
know four foot Croc nothing and I I this
one I dove into a into a swamp and I
caught like a six foot
spectacle came in and her head was big
and I had her by the neck and I realized
I couldn't get her tail under my arm
because her tail was all the way back
there and she started thrashing
and it was like probably Croc number 375
that I'd caught and I just got a little
cocky and I said ah she's you know I
just I just like grabbed her by a leg I
was like I got this and she just came
back and tagged me and I went okay gonna
go back to being safe just to linger on
it what uh
is it one of the one of the bigger
predators in the Amazon what and it's is
it going to uh are they going extinct
black caimans black caiman were I
believe they were critically endangered
for a while because for a while the
fashion industry loved their skin it's
soft and it's black
um they're bouncing back a little bit
now you know like most animals if you
leave them alone they'll be fine I mean
Crocs have been through you know how
many millions and millions of years on
Earth before us I mean that's even the
joke with with the joke but that's the
Grim reality of tiger conservation it's
there was a hundred thousand Tigers in
1900.
now this 4 000 Tigers left on Earth
it's not rocket science all you have to
do is not bulldoze their forest and
allow there to be some deer and tigers
will be fine that's it it's so simple
and that's like sometimes where I feel
like I have the dumbest job in the world
I'm like guys please stop killing the
things that Keep Us Alive
the Amazon regulates our Global Climate
produces medicine is home to indigenous
people it's beautiful
rainforests only cover three percent of
the planet's land mass like it's not
that much to ask
if you uh leave their home on touch
they'll figure out how to have sex and
multiply except for pandas apparently
because pandas you have to convince yeah
uh humpbacks humpbacks they went down to
they went from 130 000 down to I think
about 8 000.
at whaling times and then when we band
whaling since that time where I think
we're back up to over a hundred thousand
humpback whales they've bounced back
it's a success story we're not going to
lose them
okay so you're in this on the solo
with uh Crocs looking at you see this is
why you're good at this you know I I
would have lost we would have been no
that's pretty yeah with the fish that
was your mistake that was my mistake I
don't understand how you're still alive
I mean I it's really inspiring when you
come we're gonna I'm gonna show you
if there's any place I mean
um
sort of a grim joke but if there's any
way to die uh that's a good one if I'm
being honest it's a cool one it's a
pretty cool one it'll become part of the
part yeah yeah I mean there's it's I'm
not even like joking there's a there's a
Oneness to the whole thing
ever all the stories just reading your
work looking at your work I
it seems like you are part of this
machine that is nature the this this
incredible
machine like we all die
and we're all part of this big thing
that humans do have the capability to
also construct narratives and stories
and myths and tell them to each other
and share them with each other and have
more sophisticated ways therefore to
communicate love to each other but
animals do as well they communicate love
maybe more simply
maybe more honestly
anyway so you you were the Crocs and the
fish
yeah so I messed up I left the fish out
Croc showed up outside my tent but in
the end it was fine I I backed off they
had their way with the fish and then
they all started biting each other it
was fun to watch is it a general story
to interrupt is that a general rule you
want to not leave
yeah just like if you're camping in the
Northeast you don't leave like you do a
bear bag or a bear canister you don't
you don't want to invite the wild
animals I really did mess up I kind of
was just like you know whatever I do
this every now and then I get a little
too Cavalier
um and that the ocean is almost almost
taken me down for that a few times
um but yeah so the Crocs and then you
keep going for a few days and my plan
was to get to a point
where I reached the end of the tributary
and this had a very
um
you know again for me this is like a
pilgrimage
this is like this is like me going into
the heart of the the very center and
soul and essence of everything that I am
fascinated with like as close to God as
you can get because you're leaving every
type of security every human
relationship you're also pushing all
your chips in
and so it's it's
I you know the every step I took further
up River it got weirder and weirder and
more intense and every day and every
moment it changed and I would I brought
pictures at the time there's no way to
keep a phone charged I didn't have like
a power bank or anything
um you know I brought pictures from home
I brought a I brought a National
Geographic magazine
um something just to you know and um
there came a day right when I was
getting to the end like to the point
where the river was so shallow that it
was just a trickle and I was walking on
the rocks and the Andes mountains were
in front of me and I was like reaching
the the place and the music was swelling
and then
all of a sudden I saw smoke around the
next Bend
and I I like my spine is reacting right
now as I talk about it because I I knew
I knew what I was going to see because I
knew that it was impossible for loggers
to be out there there's no motor that
could take you the boat would have run
aground miles ago and so I I went
and this is the other this is the other
idiot thing it's like just turn around
yeah just do it I'm that kid though when
you see like a wet paint sign like I
walk by and I touch the wall yep and uh
so I I I went around the bend
and and I see I see a few naked people
on the beach
and they see me
and we're like a good distance apart
it's there on the other side of the
river
but you know arrow in hand bow in hand
the the intention of pose they're
looking at me they're clearly conversing
and that moment lasted for a a long
moment where I said
this is the part of the story where they
are going to
rip me apart dissect me to see what I
eat I mean every other story in the
region that we've heard
that's the ending of it if you're alone
with these people it's not going to go
well and I have nothing to defend myself
with
um and I just I turned and I ran for
like three hours and I got in the river
and I swam for a while and all my food
got wet
um I mean everything I just you know all
right just ran for dear life and and my
my get out plan the thing after I
crossed the mountains and came down into
the next tributary was I had a pack raft
that's a tiny little inflatable raft
good enough to handle Rapids and I
inflated the pack raft once the once the
river was like six inches deep I
inflated the pack raft and I went and I
went for the rest of that day into the
night I went into the point that my
headlamp died and I was just floating
floating in a raft down the Amazon and
hitting into things and I was like okay
I'm gonna I'm gonna pop this raft so it
got out of the raft to set up my tent
and I was like I need some sleep I was
freaking out I hadn't had food and now
you know hours and hours and hours
as soon as I fell asleep
my asshole brain comes up with the dream
of that I hear voices they're right
outside the tent I just you know
sleeping was worse than being awake so I
woke up got back in the tent and then at
one point it was really cool because one
of those one of the same black caiman
that had come for the the fish as I'm
going down river he came right up next
to me and the two of us were going and
he was just like motoring down river
this giant like 16 foot crocodile he
just like came up to me and like looked
at me as I was going and it was funny
because I wasn't scared of him I was
scared of them
and yeah it took me like a week to get
back to town and and again the things
you learn in these moments the the you
know the appreciation for your parents
the the the the the what a hug feels
like
you know when you when you are are faced
with
pretty much certainty that you're not
gonna get those things again
whether it's from MRSA or uncontacted
tribes or you know
um I find that that it brings it brings
it brings you this new joy for life
where you just being that close to death
yeah you go yeah you go my God this is
all a miracle
it's sad because they're human just like
you
actually how different are they like if
you were forced
to interact for a week together where
they can't they're not allowed to kill
you
like not allowed to kill me would they
are they how fundamentally different are
they do you think I don't think I think
they're different I think they're like
any other Amazonian natives um they're
they're tall they seem to have tall
genetics
um and there's places you know again
there's there's what is known and then
there's what we know down there like
there's there's one Community where I
don't know whether it was like a bad
rainstorm or something but some kid from
the uncontacted tribes did end up in a
village and so we he learned
Spanish or he learned whatever dialect
they speak in that Village and so he's
told us a little bit about what life was
like with them but like they're just
people
they're just people they have their own
culture they know about medicines that
we don't know about they definitely have
hunting practices that that we don't
understand they can hit a spider monkey
out of a 160 foot tree with a bamboo
Arrow we can't do that
I mean they are incredible hunters and
also like living naked in the jungle
with the bot flies and the mosquitoes
I don't know how they do it like
sometimes at night and again we don't
have night vision whereas almost every
other animal does
and sometimes we'll be sitting you know
on our you know at the research station
at night and we'll be just drinking and
like looking out and at the you know
we'll scare each other we'll go you know
we realize if they were out there right
now they could be looking at us and it's
like the truth is is that when it's dark
out there
they can't see
it's not easy to start a fire with
matches and a lighter and gasoline they
do it with friction
they have some some beads on Survival
that we could really learn from
um
not to mention that then you have people
that believe that they are actually the
Guardians of the extinct giant ground
sloth and what they're doing is you know
living out there because they're
protecting a secret population of
previously extinct megafauna but there's
all kinds I mean this it's like you you
go into the crypto world so quick I've
heard so many people be like
but then again you have to be humble at
how little we know about
about that world about the world of life
like you said there's so much of life in
the Amazon that we don't uh creatures
with no names
tons of them we could go out on a night
walk right now and I could show you
something that you know you I've done it
you you pick up a bug and you go
that doesn't look right
that's not right he's got three heads
yeah you know and then you send it to to
the the greatest expert on that genus of
insects and and they go look
I got no idea and you're talking to a
world expert and it's like that's it and
then 50 of the life is up in the canopy
and so like we started climbing the
trees like rock climbing like what Alex
Honnold does like well like I'll climb
up 50 feet and then I'll put a safety
like I'm basically Trad climbing and
then I'll climb up another 50 feet and
I'll have JJ belaying me from below and
then I'll be like oh look a snake I'm
like JJ
pay attention to get up there and the
the branches are as thick as this table
so you can like walk around freely oh
it's like total like Avatar when they're
in the floating islands like you can you
can go run around if that's what you
want to do
bromeliads orchids cactuses because up
there it's against the Sun so it's a
different environment oh wow yeah
interesting
um and then you start seeing lizards and
snakes and birds and things that aren't
down on the ground
and so how many scientists have actually
gotten to really spend time up there and
really inventory the life that's why
when you hear about you like it it's
like a taxonomical discussion of how
many species there are on earth they're
like between you know 10 and 30 million
and it's like well that's a big
ha it's a big swing
what about stuff on the ground so you
mentioned some insects what about bullet
ants
so supposed to be the most painful bite
in the world you've been bitten by one
seven or eight times yeah what does it
feel like okay so the first time that we
ever did bullet ants um
JJ said you know okay this is what we're
gonna do he goes you know it's bullet
ant roulette we're gonna get a bullet
ant and we get like Chopsticks you like
pick up this bullet ant and they're big
they're big and they're tough like
he goes we're gonna put our forearms
together and we're gonna drop the bullet
ant and clamp our forearms together and
just rub and whoever whoever it takes it
takes yeah of course JJ did not get
stung and I did and it hurts every bit
as much as they say it hurts it really
let me have it and then and then I was
like hitting my arm against the table to
try and like kill it or get it off but
it was holding on and just like really
injecting the Venom
and uh yeah really letting you have it
and then it it travels up and it goes
into your like lymph nodes and and into
your here and you get a headache and and
I think the the the brilliant thing
about the
the the Venom of a bullet ant is that it
makes you feel like like this this
feeling of alarm it makes you feel like
something's wrong you don't just go ow
this hurts like it's like a bee sting or
you oh this really hurts on my hand it's
like no no no your whole nervous system
is freaking out and you start sweating
and then you get cold and then you're
tired then you get a little blurry
vision and it's like that's actually
that bad I mean now after six or seven I
get bitten and I'm like kind of okay
it's a full body full mind experience
but then there's places in the Amazon
where they you know stick their hand in
a glove with like 70 of them right and I
think Stevo did that which I I would I
just don't understand how you could do
that without going into complete
anaphylactic shock and dying because one
really sucks
uh well it's just like just like we said
with animals and with humans there's
different kinds there's different kinds
definitely uh especially unique the
first of a species
um
hoof
on the point of on uncontacted tribes
it's interesting to think about
what kind of civilizations have there
been yeah this is something that you've
talked about a little bit uh Graham
Hancock has written about
ancient civilizations instead of
challenging the conventionals of the
mainstream thinking about the the
civilizations that have been there in
the Amazon can you Steel Man and
criticize the idea so the pro and the
con are the idea that there have been
ancient Advanced ancient civilizations
in the Amazon like how much do we know
what are all the possibilities of what's
in the Amazon in this past so like when
orianna went down the Amazon the reports
were that there was great civilizations
in the Amazon and then you know a few
hundred years later when people got to
actually check up on this stuff it was
all gone and so was that because of
disease that we wiped out all these
civilizations and these communities of
people potentially probably
was he just wrong probably not this is a
guy that navigated by the stars back to
Spain after building his own boat like
yeah or did he you know or was he trying
to just I don't know I don't know but
they're clearly
is a long history of complex
civilizations in the Amazon 100 there's
no one that can deny that
the thing that I reacted to was that
I've heard videos I've seen moments in
podcasts where the narrative becomes not
there's more ancient civilization
information in the Amazon than we
previously thought true statement we're
discovering with lidar and this is what
Graham Hancock is talking about that
we're discovering constantly that
there's there was more civilizations
than we thought in various places
the place where I take
offense is where
they start to say that the Amazon
there's actually articles that that are
titled this that the Amazon is a
man-made Garden
which is not true so the actual which I
think is a really different idea that
the uh the entire ecosystem everything
we've been talking about all the species
uh all the forestry and the different
just life life one of the most diverse
ecosystems on Earth is initially created
by humans
ridiculous well it's not first of all
it's unlikely but it's not ridiculous so
we can't well there's no ridiculous in
um
in science
no but the complexity of life is very
difficult to engineer as as you the more
you study about biological systems and
so on it's very difficult to create the
kind of things that nature is able to do
that said I don't know if you've heard
but the entire Earth the world has gone
through pandemic recently
and if and everybody said of course it's
natural Origins viruses mutate all the
time
and nevertheless it seems more and more
likely than this particular case it was
of an artificial origin leaked from a
lab so humans are able to create stuff
at least modern technological uh genetic
engineering made golden retrievers
come on
you can't be that nice and that good
looking
I used to be a wolf yeah but so that
bothers you because it it allows you to
think that
um we don't need to preserve the Amazon
we can always engineer it yeah exactly
then just this is just to me that's a
slippery slope like I totally I'm it's
just it's so quick from I'm a fan of
expeditions to find ecological ruins and
and to learn more about the ancient
civilizations to which I don't think is
what he's putting out is that then sort
of like news articles which I think
they're trying to bait you where they're
going was the Amazon man-made and it's
like
you know because then you get you're
going to get a Brazilian president to go
see see what they said it's man-made so
we might as well continue to engineer it
and manage it and it's like there's such
complex systems and interactions and
such a such a giant Web of Life there
that
at least in my opinion
is clearly one of the most authentically
natural things and again are there
things that we've engineered did the
uncontacted tribes sometimes they they
have banana plants that they've stolen
and we could see it from the air that
they've they have banana plants we made
banana plants that's engineered by us we
know for a fact
um so agricultural engineering
agricultural engineering and stuff like
that but suggesting that the Amazon
basin you know it's just it's just a
weird way to think about it I've just
heard people
dismiss the conservative the protection
of the Amazon based on the fact they're
like oh well if people made it and it's
such a giant leap from from from the
from zero to a hundred
um you know is there slash and burn that
the ancient civilizations did of course
are there areas that were affected by
people of course I just get worried when
we start talking about it was a man-made
thing here you loud and clear on that
and I personally think that's completely
separate from wondering about what the
ancient civilization have been able to
accomplish oh sure it's almost really
sad because if all the humans on Earth
die no how long does it take before all
signs of humans ever exist and disappear
oh for the most part
[Music]
um from an alien perspective
what timeline are we talking about I
mean like I mean there's there's a
hundred thousand years like it could be
less it could be less it could be like a
few thousand because a hundred thousand
is complete destruction 100 000 is like
nothing but but then it could be in just
a few hundred years yes it starts
becoming you're gonna the government of
the alien civilization is gonna have to
pay quite a bit of money to do the
research right because they're going to
find other life first trying to find the
Dolphins in the fish and so on they're
gonna find the trees maybe the trees are
the interesting thing sure the buildings
are not that interesting humans but
there must be examples of cities that
have been left
on unattended for a few decades and like
how quickly the
the plants push up through the street
and everything starts to get broken down
if you really look you'll be like oh
that's some interesting geometry here
for the buildings and so on but most
most of the most computer stuff yeah all
all the stuff of the past 100 years the
airplanes all that all the Technologies
all the paperwork that all the hard
drives that store all the information I
want to I want to actually know how long
it takes like a 747 to like biodegrade
like how like if you just leave it there
sitting on the runway Society stops yeah
how long does it take for that thing to
disappear like that's completely versus
uh to a point where it's on a definable
it might be different but sure I mean
the point I'm trying to say here is as
you've brilliantly put the the Amazon
churns yeah oh yeah and the fact that I
wonder throughout its history
what are the peaks of the awesomeness
well how many banana how many
agricultural Einsteins of bananas yeah
were there they're creating different
kinds of ideas different kinds of
geometries different kinds of tools but
yeah look what the Incas did I mean the
Incas you know Machu Picchu I mean when
they found when Hiram Bigham found Machu
Picchu was covered in Jungle you could
hardly see it and I mean the the stone
work they did much like what the
Egyptians did with the pyramids a lot of
it we don't really understand how they
did it if you come to the Jungle you got
to go to Machu Picchu because it's not
far from there and I usually like I'm
I'm the person like I I won't I don't
usually go see like the you know like
I've never been to see the Taj Mahal
after living in India for five years
like I'm just not but when you look up
and you see Machu Picchu you go
either they were communicating with the
gods there or these people were so smart
that they knew that anybody they brought
they were going to impress
they
they've built something there that when
you look up at that mountain you go whoa
with those giant Stones the beauty of it
you know it's just it's just stunning to
imagine that there was this culture of
people that that could achieve this and
so through the Amazon I mean that's sort
of up in the Andes but
there's all kinds of stuff in the Amazon
there are places where they say there's
can um pyramids beneath the canopy
that we just don't know about
um I mean there's it's endless if you
had uh billions of dollars trillions of
dollars well what would be the efforts
in the Amazon
for the for both conservation and for
exploration all right well first let's
get tied together yeah exactly first
arrest the the deforestation so we don't
have an ecological crisis on our hands
we don't want to keep losing species
losing indigenous cultures losing the
climate stabilizing services that the
Amazon provides as a whole stop that
that's my first mission next then we can
play
and then it's like let's go find I mean
you I've flown over the Amazon and
assessment it's like you see things
where you go we have to go see what that
is you know weird lakes or shapes in the
jungle that don't make sense that are
that are that are strange and like so
even at that level you can see weirdness
you can see different oh yeah like signs
of possible awesomeness oh the jungle is
so weird and here's the other thing is
that most
so like the region I've been working in
you see
where the researchers go the certain
biological stations the certain places
where like oh like this university has a
relationship with this this for
Universal is this so everybody goes to
the same few study sites and then they
walk on the same trails and they have
the same guides when you fly in a Cessna
and you fly
few hours away from all that and you see
a tiny little tributary and then you fly
for 40 minutes over unbroken green just
wild before you reach another tributary
even if somebody could survive going up
that tributary had the expeditionary
expertise and the ability to survive
getting shot at by arrows if they could
get up that tributary
now
cut perpendicular into the jungle which
I don't do on the solos you can't you
can never don't ever leave the river
but you tell me that in that span of 70
miles between tiny tributaries at the
edge of the world no one's been there
none of us have been there you know
maybe somebody 10 000 years ago was
there but we don't know what populations
of things are there we don't know what
ruins are there
and so there's so much undiscovered
stuff in the Amazon that is
just waiting just waiting
what what is the process of exploring
that so how does money get converted
towards exploration
is there
is there safe ways of doing that there's
places where you know we found out about
things that have to be explored but
where you come up with well how do we do
this without getting shot and all and
not only without getting shot but also
without endangering them too
because how stupid are we if we if we go
in there to people that are living in
the jungle not bothering us and we go
insert ourselves into there because
we're curious about some rocks
as that doesn't seem fair for the loss
of life and So like
um but yeah that's that's something that
we're working on and like one thing of
course is like lidar and stuff but
eventually eventually at the end of
everything it comes down to boots on the
ground yeah as somebody who has to ask
that very question about how to deal
with uncontacted tribes they're they're
going to kill you
but you also don't want to disturb their
environment if you were an intelligent
alien civilization oh boy
and you came about Earth
how how would you interact with it can
you put yourself in the mind of an
aliens civilization because there seems
to be some parallels here
it is actually right it's like a
microcosm of we're very aggressive human
civilization is very aggressive so if we
were easily we get threatened easily
yeah
for stupid reasons because we start like
American Military probably thinks it's
like the Chinese or the Russians
if we see any kind of flying objects it
gets very on edge I don't know I mean
because you know part of it is like you
just want to ask like that's the thing I
just want to ask questions yeah but you
know but you don't know the same
language yeah you're going to get first
of all you send a photo bananas you send
a butter bananas you get shot
um I mean picture if aliens landed in
New York how long would it take for one
of them to get shot three minutes if
you're a matter of minutes yeah that's
because it's New York and everywhere
else look where we are right now that's
true it'd be even worse here yeah uh
makes me really makes me wonder what is
the right way to interact with
uh intelligent life that's not like our
own I hope I I dream of In Our Lifetime
we would interact with
possibly Life on Mars or on one of the
moons of Jupiter or Saturn and like how
do you interact with that thing
well this is very technical biological
and chemical processes but also if
there's any kind of intelligence how do
you try to communicate with that
intelligence yeah so we're not talking
about like a cockroach we're talking
about like some something that's clearly
like doing things making things well
cockroach possibly how do you know the
difference between a Cocker like how do
you know we were just talking just like
Australians yeah we don't know we don't
know we have just like a race of like
philosopher cockroaches right chilling
on the Rocks well here on Earth we kind
of there seems to be a strong
correlation between size and
intelligence like yes it seems like the
bigger things have bigger nervous
systems and brains and so they're
usually smarter but that doesn't I think
it's brain it's the ratio brain to body
sure because you have like crows yeah
that are up among the most intelligent
it's like the size of the brain to the
size of the body but there also could be
kinds of intelligence completely no idea
we're not appreciating maybe cockroaches
it's survived the longest they're
talking shit about us right now it's
dumb humans like dude
these rocks are so great a couple of
hundred years exactly
um did you ever ever hear that Kurt
Vonnegut where the two space Travelers
get lost this this this really impacted
me as a kid because my dad was an
English teacher so he's always quoting
Dostoyevsky and uh and Kurt Vonnegut and
there's this there's two space Travelers
get like crash landed in a cave
and on the walls of the cave are the
harmoniums and these kite-shaped animals
and they feed off the vibrations of the
cave and that's all they do they don't
hurt each other they just do that and so
for like two years these Travelers are
stuck and they're trying to fix their
ship and one of them starts playing
music for the harmoniums and the
harmoniums love him for the music and
they all come around him and and he
plays this music for him and finally
they they fix the ship
and then the one guy is like all right
let's let's get out of here and the
other guy's like you know what I'm
staying
he goes I I found a place where I can do
good I'm not hurting anybody and they
love me yeah I'm staying right here
yeah this whole ambition thing we've got
going on always trying to build the
bigger boat bigger thing that might not
be the the ultimate um
conclusion of a of a happy existence as
a civilization that's probably that's
one of the possibilities why we haven't
met the aliens yet at scale it's because
they're once you get good enough at
technology you realize that happiness
lies in a peaceful coexistence as
possible
so where do you stand on like aliens now
like there's a lot coming out about the
the pilots and the
the things people have been seeing and
again like I kind of come in and out of
this stuff like I'll be in the jungle
for three months I miss I miss a lot so
like update me like or or are we are we
being contacted right now like of course
nobody knows but I tend to believe my
intuition says there's aliens everywhere
that
um there are even our galaxy
sure that's a biggerly but I believe our
galaxy has
probably billions
hundreds of millions of planets with
life on it like bacteria type of life
sure and I believe there is
I don't know thousands of alien civil
intelligent aliens civilizations that
exist or have existed the problem is
there's a lot of time and it's very
difficult to contact each other
so to achieve
a kind of civilization that's able to
actually send out enough signal or
um radiate enough energy where we would
notice I think that's really tough
that said statistically speaking it
seems like that should have been
possible inside our galaxy or maybe
nearby and so
I suspect that
um
once an alien civilization is just many
orders of magnitude smarter than us
humans the way you would contact us
is going to be very difficult for us
humans to understand we're very
egocentric we want the message to be
sent as like a
in English
versus you know I think Consciousness
itself yeah emotion
um
thoughts
could be like fingertips
um could be words in the story that the
aliens are telling us
or
things that are just like a low
dimensional projection of a much higher
dimensional message that's being said by
aliens and it may be our striving to
create technology is to create the kind
of sensor that's actually able to hear
some of the message maybe that's what AI
is trying to do so I I think that
bridging that barrier of communication
between us and cockroaches
I think that's the biggest challenge
interesting like the messages are all
around us they're here
I I suspect that the the alien messages
are here the aliens are here we're just
too dumb to see it
so
first of all the imagining planets where
there are
like just picturing like a site like a
not a silent Planet but just like a
planet of
alternate life forms you know maybe it's
not something that's that we can
communicate and have a conversation with
but just like a planet of like
butterflies and centipedes and and weird
you know unfortunately bacteria for
billions of years it was uh bacteria as
a single cell prokaryotes and eukaryotes
but they're not they're boring but yeah
but animal animals of some sort in an
environment of some sort imagine that
would just be such an interesting
beautiful amazing thing and I'm sure
they're out on that I'm yeah the kind of
viruses they got going on
it's uh but they could also not be
biologically based they could be
different chemistry so you have to be
humble to that too sure
but then you know depends on the day
like I think you caught me on that day
today an optimistic one sometimes I I
think that we're all we
this is all there is because you start
you ask that question the family Paradox
like why aren't they here
you can't imagine an advanced sales
civilization that would not be explorers
because we're explorers why is that
depressing to you that the idea that
that let's just say you found out right
now that there isn't anything else let's
just say that for for example sake that
the Earth is the earth and the universe
is the universe and it's sort of like
the backdrop of a video game
and it's just what's out there
would that be tremendously depressing to
you I think it's exciting for an
engineer it's probably exciting for an
Explorer but I would equate that to your
going out hiking for three days with one
match
it kind of terrifies me that we only got
one match really
yeah really yeah one all you got is one
match
this no no hold on a second hold on a
second wait Paul wait wait a minute
you're going out
there's no more matches but this this is
the only match extinguish the planet
like there's not as far as we know
there's no there's no meteor coming I'm
saying like do you live in a so I'm
saying is that is is your worry then
that we need to have a backup plan yeah
really well there has so like what if we
do what if we do mess it up so bad
well there's different ways to mess it
up there's there's ways to mess it up to
make life really difficult uh
some of the Mad Max type of thing but
there's nuclear war yes with the further
and further advancement of technology
that can destroy destroy all of Earth it
just feels like that's going to be
exponentially growing yes it's going to
get worse and that I I it's uh
listen I'm I'm very optimistic
but it's a it's a heck of a Russian rut
we're playing okay so but I'm still
curious about your your intention though
or like where you're where your your
passion for this comes from are you
is your or maybe it's both but is it is
it is it the need to have a backup plan
for humans which are which is which is
admirable for your intense love of
humanity and our Consciousness and love
and art and everything or is it also
just that the the raw fascination of
imagining what's out there
um because I just the way you said that
about like oh you caught me on a
positive day where I think it's
there was some there was something in
there that made me think that that you
need there to be uh yeah yeah there's
foreign
I think I'm the kind of person that sees
Beauty in everything but to me a
universe full of diverse life
is more beautiful than one word it's
just humans it's just the Earth life
interesting there's more Beauty I mean
uh I'm not egotistical about the
awesomeness of humans I like
if humans are not the smartest
in uh in our galaxy
are not even close to being the smartest
and that to me is
I don't know that that to me is exciting
about the possibility of what's or the
universe can create
yes I'm with you on that that it's
wildly exciting to to like if we found
even if it was just a distant
inkling that we found out that there is
there is a planet that has life there's
no there's no communication coming from
but we know for a fact there's stuff
going on there we'll just change how we
think about our entire reality we know
now
and it could be to me I guess the little
inkling of a thing that is depressing if
all there is is Earth
and humans destroy it
then we're the coolest thing that the
Universe has ever created
it's over I'm interested to have this
conversation I'm really I'm really I'm
saying like I would be interested to
bring you to the Jungle yeah
um and and this I like now I'm also
wondering I'm wondering like what what
your Wilderness experience is because I
feel like for me
I'm so earth-centric to the to the point
where I'm like
we differ in that for me this is like
it's a curiosity I feel wonder and I
feel it's fun to talk about like what's
at the edge of space like you know
there's the conundrums of of space-time
and but but I'm so to me I'm like what
if what if the aliens are watching us or
what if the aliens aren't watching us
but what if the challenge here is we've
been put on on Earth as as the most
intellectually complex of these
creatures and and and we're being
observed to see how we manage it and
it's like yeah we haven't made a good
job of managing each other
you know before
um orianna went down the the Amazon I
mean they showed up and just sacked the
Incas I mean we do our history and we
don't have to tell you you've just got
back but it's um
I just sometimes I wonder
you know what what the is is there a
grand narrative with with what we're
doing to Wildlife because it's like we
have all these other species and we're
we're struggling even here in this
conversation to sort of quantify like
you know
I I think that most people don't think
outside of the human framework
you know what I mean like just driving
around for me living outside of the
Jungle even just for a few weeks I get
you don't you don't you don't even think
about the fact that there's other
species around us we really don't day to
day you look at TV and you look at when
you listen to the radio and it doesn't
it's not very consequential to the
average person living in a city that
there are these
you know Islands covered in walruses and
that there's rainforests filled with
birds and and frogs and all these things
happening and that you know the salmon
are contributing to our fresh water and
and that that life is literally given to
us and made possible by these ecological
systems to me
that's where like the whole you know
essence of my existence comes from and
so like
yeah thank you for that reminder because
you're basically saying like the alien
civilizations you dream about are here
on Earth
those those those worlds are here
for me yeah yeah no I agree with you I
think I I agree with you and I think
that's actually the way I uh think most
of the time the you know I I think I'm
on mushrooms all the time
genetically somehow because when I go
out in nature it's just the the beauty
even of nothing you talk about the
Amazon man just basics of nature yeah
fill you fill me with awe and the other
thing that fills me with all
is our own mind like the the biology of
these things firing basically are not
our own mind but biology yeah of any
living organisms
because it's like an ecosystem they've
came these cells came together they
somehow functional they delegate they
mostly operate in a local way but they
uh
first of all it's just like you said
with the anacondas you start out as a
tiny snake and you become giant when
you're a tiny snake you're you're
praying for everything when you're giant
snake you're a predator or you're afraid
to no one yeah and like just that whole
process same starting with a single
embryo single cell is a human and
through the embryogenic process
constructing this giant human that's
able to have
limbs move about the world think about
things write books and so on just so
that that is incredibly beautiful and
all of that is here on Earth yes
um and so actually I was being sort of
poetic about aliens and so on I think I
can spend 99.99 in terms of uh filling
my mind with awe and Beauty just looking
down here on Earth for sure I agree with
you yeah and I'm and they shouldn't
cancel out like I think it's beautiful
that there's that there's people that
are fascinated and obsessed with looking
out into space and that will travel
there
um I mean just to me the the idea of I
mean I have a little piece of meteorite
at home that I hold and it does amazing
things to my mind because I'm like
everything I've ever touched is from
this Earth
and I'm holding this thing that's been
places that we can't even think about
and it blows my mind and I love it but
but when it comes to like intelligence
I think it's like
I'm I'm so concerned with the fact that
we're at this moment in history
and it's interesting to me that you know
we had the internet and now that with
the emergence of AI and more and more I
feel like we are starting to resemble
like an ant colony where there's more
and more connection and there's more and
more interaction globally between
everybody in the next 10 years we're
gonna have to decide are we gonna let
our ocean ecosystems just collapse are
we going to just take that three percent
of rainforest and just let them log the
shit out of it until it's gone and it's
like we're gonna be in a very different
reality then then it's going to be very
dystopian future or
can we keep the good things about Earth
transcend that realize that we have
these incredible alien species around us
that are animals that we grew up with
that we wouldn't be here without that we
owe something to
and I feel like at that stage then
the the the outward look becomes
something else it's almost like we've
we've proven that if aliens came up to
us that's when I'd feel good
aliens would come up to us and they said
you know that Louis has the thing where
he goes God comes back and he goes what
did you do he goes to polar bears are
brown he's like I left food for you it's
like if the aliens came and were like
you know and they interviewed the
elephants and they said how are you
feeling and the elephants would be like
listen fuck these little primates yeah
you know what they've done to us and
it's like I mean you know I've seen
people break an elephant I've seen I've
seen I've seen it all with that stuff
and it's like if if anybody was to ask
them
they'd be screaming
and and so like to me
it's just you know I I have trouble
trouble looking out into space I have
trouble looking out into normal life as
a human because I'm so concerned with
trying to make sure that they're okay
because not enough people are doing that
oh the interesting thing about all the
development with AI and just that we're
living more and more of our life online
I think we're actually learning
what's missing when it's online
like
I think people realize that online
interaction is shallow but we're just
learning that that that's a reality yeah
that we need that human connection and I
think there's going to be the swing back
to like sadly AI systems of the future
might be able to live fulfilling lives
online but us humans have have to have a
deep connection with Earth and like with
with each other physical connection I
think there's going to be a phase
somewhere in the century where we go
back to deep physical connection and
there will be a digital world sure that
we visit that it would be separate and
that's the you have
a discussion with that with Twitter with
Instagram with all these social networks
that they they don't they seem to be
dividing us they seem to not be bringing
happiness and you have to try to figure
out like Okay so
how do we use them
in a way that does connect us does
educate us grow a knowledge base but
also keeps us uh keeps Our Lives
fulfilling in a deep human way that
we're for good and for bad genetically
designed we could they can't overcome so
we can't escape these meet Vehicles yeah
but that's to me that's so reassuring
yeah it's like when like I have you know
we all have those friends that are like
you know we gotta live forever and it's
like I don't know man do you yeah I
don't know is it that bad that this is
how it works like that we don't
understand it
um yeah the that's it's often from the
tech sector the discussions about
immortality and so on yeah I think
that's somehow trying to escape the the
beauty of this Earth for sure that that
there's something you've right to look
at like yeah and I I I perhaps like you
I'm worried about
the uh unintended negative consequences
of trying to escape the way things are
on this Earth because this is an
incredible mechanism how many times in
the past has new technology come out
that people have hailed as you know
blasphemy or it's not going to work or
it's it goes against nature and and now
well heart transplants are pretty cool
you know and and you could say what you
want about like television and like oh
it's you know it rots your brain it's
like yeah but also how many times have
you sat in a room full of people being
entertained and all laughing and
interacting and eating popcorn because
of the television's there it's not it's
not one or the other and so I feel like
with AI we'll we'll
learn we'll learn our way through it you
know there's a like with the legged uh
robots especially and humanoid also so
anything on legs four legs or two legs
I remember like the first time I
interact interacted with a legged robot
I saw a magic there
like
that this too can have Consciousness
this too can have
this life like
quality
that a human being loves about other
human beings about other living
creatures now while I'm still I grew up
in a place with no internet in a time
with no internet so I still like
biological dogs better
and I noticed the Magic in robotic dogs
yeah and it makes me wonder the way same
way we're just talking about aliens
looking up it makes you wonder about
other alien civilizations now the deep
love is for dogs for other humans yeah
but there's still this The Wander ah I
struggle with that like you said the the
whatever's going on in here the idea and
there's so much talk about the fact like
at what point does an artificially
intelligent robot become something that
has and it's like I get I get very
uncomfortable with that it makes me
uh I don't know how to how to handle the
things because I don't know enough about
it probably but it's like I don't know
how to handle like I don't know how to
handle either nobody knows anything
about it because the it's really
everything is terrifying here because it
could be as simple as Consciousness is
easy to fake
so what if we live in a world 10 to 20
years from now where
your toaster there's a bunch of robots
in your room
that are faking consciousness
and then you fall in love with them and
you have a deep connection with them and
then you actually have a deeper
connection with your toaster than you do
with any uh romantic human partner
you've ever had and you start to I was I
was upset about the dogs
you just took it way worse yeah yeah and
then you know and then they they start
to uh I don't know if you've seen AI
porn but it gets pretty intense like
fully AI porn like they're they're fake
people thank you
take people that can uh things I've
missed in the jungle things
boy do I have a lot to try or not I
can't wait for you not show you let me
uh ask you about a touchy topic
uh climate change oh boy
what's the effect of climate change on
the uh on the Amazon maybe species
diversity what what what is something
that people should should think about
because there's different views on um
I think most people believe that climate
change is human caused and it's
happening but there is different
perspectives on the degree
of damage that it's going to do over the
next several decades and what our
response should be as a society and so
it would be amazing to hear your
perspective on it in in small slices of
your experience are enlarged
to me there's no denying the fact that
we are experiencing changes I think
anybody that that doesn't agree with
that hasn't been outside in the last 20
years or has an interviewed
Old Farmers will tell you that it
changed or you know it's it that I think
a lot of us can agree with that where I
deviate is that I am not a climate
scientist
I am I'm not qualified and so I just
like everybody else am listening
and what happens to me is I see that the
someone like Santiago Duran JJ's father
will will tell me it's totally different
than it was when I was a kid the seasons
have changed and moved and like in New
York when I was a kid like we used to
get like white Christmas like we used to
get snow we don't I was in shorts like I
came off the plane right before coming
here and I was in like shorts for a
second like I was like this is a
different reality but my ability could
my or my my interpretation of climate
change you know I feel like is just as
dumb as those people that go like you
know
it's really cold I thought they said it
was getting warmer it's like it's it's a
very rudimentary thing and so as a as a
someone that's fighting for the
preservation of biodiversity
I I I don't feel like I'm any more
qualified than the average person to I
can only provide anecdotal anecdotal
evidence of the stuff I've seen what I
what I do do though and I always I
always make a strong delineation here is
that
I can speak to the fact that I've been
places where the ocean fisheries have
been depleted and the local fishermen
can tell you and the scientists can tell
you there's no more fish here
I've been to the places where the
rainforest line is being pushed back in
Borneo and it's getting smaller and
smaller and smaller and I've been in the
Amazon and I've walked through the
Killing Fields and through the fires and
I've burnt my lungs on it and
and I'm a big believer personally
and in instead of trying to take on all
of it
I have tried very hard in my life to
pick one thing
and to me that one thing is protecting
as many wild heartbeats as I can because
they're under constant fire and so
climate change you know there's so much
arguing over it and and like you said
the the degree to which we we affect it
and and
and and how do you you know what I mean
like I like to have provable data points
like you know I can show you tropical
deforestation I can show you the decline
in Tigers over the last hundred years
I can't prove I you know what I mean
like I can't answer that question I
don't think probably you can better than
I can no I I think one of the criticism
I'd love to get your opinion on is uh
one of the criticisms that somebody like
Jordan Peterson provides yeah is that
the climate
is such a complex system there's so many
variables that
making conclusive statements about
what's going to happen with the
quote-unquote climate in the next 10 20
50 years yeah is nearly impossible
task
therefore as he would say
as people like Bjorn Lombard would say
the kind of fear-mongering that is done
saying we should spend
humongous amounts of money to change the
trajectory of everything we're doing in
terms of energy
um
in terms of infrastructure and so on in
terms of how we allocate money is not
justified because predicting is very
difficult and instead it's better
exactly what you're saying which is
focusing on local problem local saying
uh we need to protect the Amazon
what are the what are the things
attacking the Amazon this year in the
next five years how can we stop the
deforestation how can we stop different
things and then and then and humans are
exceptionally good and
um at coming up with solutions for that
especially when you put money behind it
you put attention to it and that's the
way we solve all the different problems
that are are going to that are projected
for the climate change in its worst case
scenarios uh to be realized on this
Earth so that that's kind of the the
case he would make and I should also
mention that one of the reasons
I was fortunate enough to discover your
work is um first a friend mentioned that
I should definitely talk to you and I
googled you and I saw that somebody
recommended that Jordan Peterson
absolutely must talk to you on this
podcast wow
um I think there's like a Reddit post
right thank you for Reddit poster that's
that's great I was like oh interesting
and then I looked and Jordan hasn't yet
I thought
my goal is for you to talk to to Rogan
and to Jordan Peterson for for different
reasons but for the same reason they get
connected to uh the human being that
deeply cares about this Earth and I
think that's probably the right lens
through which to look at the effects of
climate change
in terms of focusing on the different
things that are threatening threatening
the diversity of species
in this most magical place on Earth
which is the Amazon but also as you'll
talk about with elephants and tigers in
India
and focusing on how to solve those
problems I don't know if there's any
comment you want to make on folks like
Jordan Peterson who are sort of raising
questions about how much do we really
understand about the climate
yeah first of all I'm such a Jordan
Peterson fan and I think the guy is
heroic for a number of reasons and I I
find his his use of language and his use
of Theology and and the message that he
puts out wonderful
um I cringe a little bit when he says I
I feel like and I I might not even be
accurate on this but I cringe a little
bit when I feel like he just he
dismisses that there is an ecological
emergency happening right now now I'm
not saying I'm not talking about climate
change specifically but I've heard him
say you know environmentalists upset me
and he goes well what do you mean by the
environment everything and it sort of
seems to outrage him and it's and I I
kind of agree with him there because so
are you telling me that we need to Halt
our Global process and and and and and
progress and economies and everything I
don't know I don't know and so so to me
um I I don't that doesn't bother me
because he's exploring what the hell are
these people talking about when you say
you have I have I personally have
friends and students and people filling
my inboxes I have young kids telling me
that they're they've become vegan and
they ride a bicycle and sometimes they
don't watch TV because it uses
electricity and I mean they're just
becoming so so terrified of that they're
killing the Earth and so it's this
doomsday anti-human sentimentist thing
that we're that we're evil it's like
it's almost like a new religion about
you're evil and so to me
I it almost makes me in a totally
different camp where like climate change
and the right left politics and you know
I I considered a family I considered
Thanksgiving dinner and listen to listen
to the the climate thing go back and
forth yeah and I'm like I'm not even I'm
not even here and that might actually
annoy some people
in the environmental field that might
feel betrayed by me saying that but I
don't care
my job and it's not just the Amazon and
and that's one note I wanted to make is
that
my career has has taken place largely in
the Amazon and also in India and now a
lot in Africa but it's it's not even
just these exotic places either it's
it's it's people realizing that you know
the salmon runs in Canada and the the
butterfly gardens in our backyards that
there's biodiversity everywhere and it's
and I I strongly feel like you know the
idea of
jungle Keepers the idea of of of
stewards of Nature and so for me my my
job my one thing
and I I try to tell this to these kids
that message me and that my my inboxes
are full of this where they go you know
the climate is burning and elephants are
in Decline and tigers and and this and
I'm like Oh my guys look first of all
calm down first of all like go outside
go get laid do something Have Fun
next pick something that you can affect
and it doesn't have to be with the
environment do something good on Earth
go help somebody that needs food go help
your elderly neighbor whatever it is
practice practice with being effective
at one thing at a time and so for me
like I said from those early days of
sitting there with JJ on the side of a
river and going someone has to protect
this
um my concern is that we've lost 70
percent of the wildlife on this planet
in the last 50 years that's a huge
problem Wildlife maintain the ecosystems
and so I have a very clear-cut very
definable very measurable and provable
thing that I'm fighting against and it's
a very to me it's a very like small ask
don't cut down the three percent of the
world that has 50 of the biodiversity in
it maybe let's keep some wild tigers for
future generations and because tigers
have their own inherent right to exist
here that's my thing in terms of when we
get to you know I get attacked for you
know
you should be a vegan
okay
you show you you have me roll into a
village in the Amazon when they offer me
spider monkey and you tell me that I
should be a vegan and you you see how
much they respect you and you tell them
that you're a vegan
like
um but no so for someone like Peterson I
think it's actually good that he's first
of all telling everyone to make their
damn beds and uh and and exploring it
through a different lens you know he's
he's coming at it from a totally
different thing and saying you know are
we just being alarmist here are we what
I mean again imagine if you know that
imagine if they're
there isn't a problem and they're then
they're making one out of it and all the
implications that that could have for
Progress it's like so I think what he's
doing is is perfectly reasonable
um there is a podcast though where he's
he's
it was a great one though where he's
he's discussing animal intelligence and
and I could really see that that you
know the human psyche and Theology and
and religion is so much his world that
that the the really the the idea of
animals being intelligent was novel and
it was and it was fascinating yeah
that's why I would love the two years to
talk just I don't know and hopefully I'm
not out of line here but he is so
focused on the human mind
that I think he forgets
that there's other
life out there there's this whole
machine of intelligence of a kind of
intelligence out there
this entire trillions of species tiny
and big just calling just moving and
everywhere everywhere and we're actually
part of it so like to look at a human
psychologist distinct from that is
missing at least some of the picture
some of the picture I do believe though
I would agree with him on that humans
are unique human psychology is unique we
just are but but I also you know it's
he's in such an interesting
place because usually you have
you know environmentalists who are like
you know nature nature nature and then
you and that's very anti-human
and then you have the other side and
it's like he's he's he's on this path
where he's he's starting to explore what
those like diverse intelligences mean
and that that to me is really amazing
because I love hearing what he'll do
with that and I think also on top of
that
I think if you're aware of nature
deeply aware of nature it gives you
another perspective on their
evolutionary history of humans
it's one thing to be an evolutionary
biologist and kind of study it from a
like philosophical perspective and it's
the other to really I think experience
it and deeply know it to see I don't
know
the fact that we came from fish should
really be cognizant of that that's
something else that's like
I don't know uh to realize that we're
part of a Computing machine that created
intelligence report well part of the
thing that started bacteria and is now
creating AI
and yeah and uh
uh I don't know Dunkin Donuts I don't
know what else is impressive the other
great human achievement he's the other
great view I was thinking well what's
interesting about Boston but I feel like
we keep we keep scratching up against
this thing in this conversation that
that that it's so easy 50 I think
something like 50 or more percent of the
humans on this planet live in cities
and I think it's so easy for people to
forget that we share this planet with so
many other things and and
and I think that that sort of that we're
we're in a little in a way we're almost
like ecological orphans and that we've
left the the things that actually make
us feel at home and that's a bit of a
stretch because I don't know if
everybody feels that way but for me I
mean professionally as an expedition
guide when I take people into nature I
see what happens to them
and they leave going I mean it doesn't
have to be the Amazon it could be you
know Upstate New York but it's like if
you do it the right way if you if you
remove the fear of you know breaking an
ankle seeing a snake being bitten by a
mosquito all that stuff if you can get
people to a peaceful moment
and you're fly fishing
a lot of times they'll take that moment
they'll talk about it the rest of their
life if they don't if they don't live in
that you know then there's those of us
who spend our lives doing that but for a
reason
because it's the only place we feel sane
and you were kind enough to suggest that
we might travel together for a time at
some point if uh if we do that if we
journey together where would you
recommend we should go
so what I would want to show you is
is sort of I'd want to take you to
church I'd want to take you to take you
to take you to see the giant trees take
you to meet the old the old gods really
um there's places when you walk in off
the river
that are so deep in the forest you know
and again this is now we we do this we
have the boats we have the Rangers we we
protect this ecological Corridor now
um and so it would be taking you to meet
some of those loggers that that we
converted it'd be taking you we'd have
to go to the floating Forest
um meet some of the trees that I love
the most go piranha fishing and like
really just spend
my ideal trip for you would be would be
to spend
five days of you know airplane mode
phone
completely living out comfortable I'm
not saying I don't want to you know I
don't want to torture you I'm saying go
and live comfortably on an expedition in
the Amazon and that means a few days at
this research station maybe go up River
three days and Camp up here just on the
edge of where the uncontacteds are and
then come back and then see the jungle
keeper station but along the way seeing
all the special sacred places it would
be almost like saying like let's go see
you know all the treasures of Italy it's
like this is one of the most beautiful
things on earth and and I've had the
incredible almost unbelievable Fortune
to be responsible for protecting it and
and uh I don't
you know I think it's I think it's a
privilege to be able to share that with
people to be able to witness
what this Earth has created just and
it's it's you know it's been just a gift
just even to follow your Instagram
the window you the window you create on
the on this part of the world
is just really beautiful I I do want to
ask on that
foreign
maybe it's like uh behind the scenes a
little bit but how do you keep the
equipment dry like how do you
like how hard
is bringing equipment to the cameras
you're an incredible filmmaker and
photographer so how do you make it work
I don't know it's not that hard we we
really it's not that bad what it is wet
the new iPhones are waterproof and if
they don't get I'm telling you dude it's
been such a weapon it's been awesome
um if you drop it in the river my one
thing is you gotta have a tether because
I drop it all the time and so I'll be
hanging off a boat I'll be trying to
take a video and I'll be like here we
are in the Amazon you can see the login
Funk yeah that's the biggest thing but
the the we shoot on canons and uh
I don't know it's worked out it's not
that bad oh really so you can keep the
equipment dry I keep the equipment dry
and I actually don't a lot of people put
their shit in silica at night and like
keep it dry and then they take it out
and I find that when you do that the
temperature chain change creates
moisture inside the camera so what I do
is I never do that I just keep my
cameras in my backpack with a zipper so
they're more or less exposed to the
elements yeah and so it sort of always
has a little bit of equilibrium
and that's it I mean I shoot on some
pretty fancy equipment sometimes and and
it's great but I mean the awesome thing
though now is that like with with with a
cell phone I mean like I like I like put
my phone down on the ground a few weeks
ago and like let this rhino like walk up
to it and stuff and it's like you can
get video footage that you can literally
put on Netflix like it's just like it's
it's getting really exciting and that's
where like
um right where I deviate from the the
nature people that are like we need to
go back and live in cabins I'm like dude
this is awesome and I love taking
slow-mos like like no way it makes you
reappreciated but just by yourself just
reappreciate over and over and over and
then you can also share it with the
world well that's the thing is sharing
it with people there's nothing better
than like
teaching a kid to catch a fish you know
and like and like in in a way Instagram
has allowed us to do that where it's
like I can have this crazy ass moment
that that is so unique and then and then
put it up for people to see you know or
I mean I remember one of the most recent
things that got people you never know
what's going to get people excited
um I literally just like there was like
you know 3 000 butterflies on the beach
and they were like black red and blue
beautiful butterflies and I just like
panned the phone across it and then like
jumped in the river and swam away and
like threw that up on Instagram and
people went berserk they're like this is
the most amazing thing like four
different accounts reached out to try
and share it and I was like butterflies
they're everywhere there's four thousand
species of butterfly in the Amazon like
but but sharing that with people is is
beautiful how do you find the thing to
shoot how do you how do you come up with
the butterflies how do you notice the
thing that's beautiful and say I'm gonna
wait a minute like pause this is
beautiful let me take a let me let me
take a picture of this because like
sometimes you might get used to yeah the
beauty right yeah
yeah or like sometimes simple crazy
things like like leaf cutter ants yeah
they're just walking by they become it
becomes pedestrian it's like well I mean
just like when you're you know you're
living at the elephant camp and it's
like the elephant comes out and he
starts like trashing the water bucket
we're all like would just stop yeah
we're trying to watch peaky blinders
here so yeah just leave us alone it
becomes normal after a while yeah um
uh but no in the in the jungle I don't I
don't that's never a struggle for me
because as a photographer it's like
whenever my eye hits on something I went
I've never seen that many of those
butterflies all the same species
together and like this oh yeah I'm
trying to get this one thing that the
butterflies do is in the dry season the
salt deposits you'll get like
three or four maybe five thousand
butterflies
all coming onto this one area of sand
because there'll be like some leaching
there'll be some some salt deposit there
or something
and they'll all be Wings flat against
the ground with their with their
proboscises on the sand and if you go
walk near them they will Vortex up and
you have a rainbow Vortex of butterflies
and you can like go run through that
and it's surreal and I want to what I
want to do is get the shot where I I
guess leave the phone recording in
slow-mo facing up
and leave it there for an hour let the
butterflies come in and settle and then
disturb them so I get the bottom of the
vortex of the bug I'm like these are the
ways I think where I'm like how can I
show people the absolute mind-blowing
you know with an eye Perfection it's
amazing I mean that's what I have you
know I'm sure that somebody else could
do it with you know a red and and nail
it but it's like that's what I have in
the jungle because I have to travel
light and I you know yeah I think that
that that really that works I have the
same thing when I was traveling in
Ukraine
you can go to Warzone it doesn't matter
it doesn't like uh it has to do with the
you're talking about like with the like
protecting your camera or not it feels
like the more you protect stuff the more
it's gonna get it damaged yeah like so
like see like my cameras they're all
missing this is like this is amazing to
me so all my cameras are missing the
they're all how you can see the metal
through the paint nice so all this and
so like they're all because I'm
constantly like I'll like slide in and
like take a picture and like they're
banged up but these they're good they're
good machines I think they get tough
over time if you put them through it's
like the immune system like it's like
muscles it's like David Goggins cameras
if you gotta you gotta make them suffer
every day
yeah uh what's your view on Hunting
um so you really hate poachers I really
hate poachers how do they operate who
are they what are they up to what do
they do
poachers to me are the people that are
going in and annihilating Wildlife for
profit without any
you know the people that are going in
and and machine gunning an elephant to
take its tusks yeah the people that are
sneaking into protected areas in Africa
and shooting rhinos
so they can cut off their horns before
the animal's even dead while its baby is
beside it
so and and there's a difference between
a poacher and a hunter
I'm a Hunter
JJ's a hunter I I work with an
organization called vetpaw in Africa and
they use United States veterans who have
come back Post 9 11 Veterans who have
come back from the war and have these
skills
and they've been using these guys to
protect the last Black Rhinos white
rhinos elephants and so we've I've
gotten to see this play out on a private
reserve in Africa where
these incredible people have decided to
protect zebras wildebeests all types of
Impala giraffes several herds of
elephants white rhinos Black Rhinos all
of this stuff is protected
and what's interesting is
it's a Hunting Preserve
and so
it's been very interesting and
challenging sharing my work there with
the public because for instance I went
to a very high profile photographer
recently and I said you have to get over
here and see this it's it's amazing what
these people have done it's this Reserve
called buffalo kloof and they've you
know this this rescued families of
elephants and they have you can see a
black rhino every day if you want to
this is so they're critically endangered
and it's because of the work that vetpod
does
protecting these animals from poachers
but what people don't understand is that
hunting happens all the time on the
reserve not for the elephants and the
Rhinos those are those are special and
they will never be hunted there but
things like an Impala things like an
inyala a wildebeest a zebra
there aren't as many predators as there
used to be so if you leave those animals
unhunted you know without the wolf to
chase the herd to thin off the ones that
are old and dying or sick
well then you just have animals that are
old and dying and sick walking around
suffering and so on reserves like this
they hunt
and they take the old ones and they use
the funding from hunting no one's going
to pay you thirty thousand dollars to
take a picture of a buffalo but they'll
pay you thirty thousand dollars to hunt
a buffalo
and so these reserves responsibly and
ethically on foot
can go hunting and manage and again if
they if they were hunting rhinos or if
they're hunting elephants I'd be out in
a second the hunting non-endanger
species they're hunting non-endangered
species a hunting game species and the
the difference is that a poacher is
gonna and so those are responsible
Hunters that are ecologists and
conservationists whereas a poacher is
someone that will come in and kill
recklessly
and murder an animal for no reason for a
part to sell
I would love to travel together actually
um so um let's let's we'll talk offline
I would love to make that happen if you
allow me I'm I'm 100 serious man I've
tremendous respect for your work and
I've been watching you since the
beginning I would love to do that
together
um
I've been
I've talked to Joe quite a bit about it
and I really
love the idea of eating the meat that
I've hunted it's mostly what I eat is
meat not for dietary I don't have any
weird constraints on my diet and so on I
just really enjoy eating meat
uh that's really good and uh there is a
part of me that's bothered by factory
farming yes sure that uh it's very
easily accessible to me but there's
something deeply wrong with it
um part of the reason I love fishing and
eating the the the fish that I catch it
just seems to be um
more ethical but also
a more intimate deep connection honest
connection with uh with nature you get
to see the killing of the food that
you're consuming versus
removing that from the picture not even
thinking about it not thinking about
that this came from the me and
um
yeah I love the idea that you kill I
kill one animal and I eat that animal
basically for the whole year yeah an
ethically slaughtered animal whether
it's a fish or a deer or whatever else
to me that's oh God how I'm gonna I'm
gonna use the wrong religious term here
but there's a there's a I feel like I
want to use the word like Sacrament but
it's like there's a there's a there's a
deeply
profound ritual
and and honestly honestly if you if you
teach a kid to grow a vegetable you show
a kid how to grow a carrot and the the
miracle of like wait I put a this thing
just grew in there it just appeared
because there was sunlight and it's like
yeah
the the
to me yes you that when you feel that
fish tug on the line to me it it does
something that that awakens a deep
Primal something this satisfaction and
then when you eat that you feel you feel
good and and so I think the other thing
like sort of functionally speaking is
that aside from the fact that I think
it's one of the original
we were so disconnected like we should
be hunting we should be Gathering
walking more I mean look at like what
what we discussed now like people are
like oh you got to get your steps in for
the day and it's like that never used to
be a problem
um
you know people like well should should
we be eating animals and it's like what
do you think we do here on Earth like
I'm not sure how you got so confused
but Walmart did it to you like I don't
know like what I it living where I've
lived and I mean from 18 to 35 I feel
like I've grown up I've lived more
outside than I have inside and I've
it's just to me like showing people
these things I can see this miraculous
Wonder in their eyes when they when they
realize that they can reach out into the
world and interact with something and
and so when I hear these like frantic
people talking about you know whether or
not it's right it's like no of course it
is then again factory farming is is
awful but but I try to stay I try and
walk the line I'm worried about wild
animals I'm worried about wild
ecosystems
the other thing that's sort of
important about hunting is that if if
People's livelihoods depend on
salmon and elk and and ocean fisheries
well then they'll fight to protect it
naturally because it's part of their
life and it's if everybody's going to
Burger King and everybody's getting
chicken wrapped in plastic they forget
that the fish are there because they're
too busy watching sitcoms and so then
when the inter when the conglomerate
comes in and builds a dam
nobody really cares and then you just
end up with a few hippies and signs
standing next to the river and it
becomes silly
we forget the meaning
you mentioned that
Ayahuasca reveals for oh boy oh no the
the darkness that's there in the in the
jungle
there's Beauty but there's Darkness so
what is what is it that I Oscar reveals
what is the Heart of Darkness fuck it
opens the Heart of Darkness right up
um um I'm gonna show you a picture of
him of our Shaman and then I'm going to
ask you if you want to do Ayahuasca here
not here in that sense it can only be
done in the jungle anybody that tells
you I've heard people be like oh I did
Ayahuasca in Brooklyn last week and I'm
like no you didn't
I actually told that to my native
friends I went hey guess what I said a
bunch of Gringos keep thinking they're
doing Ayahuasca in Brooklyn and they
were like howling laughing they're like
you can't do it outside the jungle and I
was like exactly I've never done
Ayahuasca I would love to have uh I've
done or eaten whatever mushrooms sure
it's it's a wonderful experience I think
it's wonderful um but ayahuasca
oh man yeah see I'd done mushrooms I
thought I was like okay and I I I yeah I
was like I got this I had my notebook I
was like I'm gonna Journal a little bit
yeah you know and then but but you
quickly yeah I quickly quickly realized
how out of my depth I was and how
unprepared I was for what was happening
because you sit in a circle with these
native guys and there's one you know
he's got the feathers and he's old and
he's got a face like the map of the
world and he's he's smoking this fat old
tobacco thing and
he calls you forward and you kneel
before him and you're going
is it too late to back up and everyone's
you know there's one candle and he blows
smoke over the over the cup and he hands
it to you and you're like again it's
these it's these it's these
like these things that you can't argue
with it's these facts like as soon as
this goes down I'm gone I know it and
this is a moment in my life that I I
have to either embarrass myself in front
of everybody or I'm going forward with
this and dish
and then I went and sat
you're sitting in the dark and it's
again so we're on a platform with a with
palm thatched roof and the jungle is all
around you so all those Millions tens of
millions of frogs and insects are and
I'm like all right cool and I remember I
like you know like I tried to like light
a cigarette or something and I went
oh that's not gonna happen you know and
then I and I I put my hands on the floor
and like my experience I mean like we've
done mushrooms you know it's like it's
it's interesting it's introspective
no this this was like somebody unzipped
the Universe I I you know I spent a lot
of without you boring people with it I
spent a lot of time in in in like
unconstructed dream space like floating
between nebulas like there was a long
period where there was no physical shape
where I lived without a name and like so
it's like it's like you get brought so
deep down so elementally lost in the
universe where like I truly felt like I
was experiencing moving through places
like like that like that uh like that
um asteroid that I have like it's it's
like a piece of your pure piece is
something detached from the earth and so
I I got back from it and uh
I had a interesting new appreciation for
Life uh I strongly suggest that people
just do mushrooms like a normal person
unless you unless you're ready so it was
really intense it was really intense but
to be fair the shaman who did it was
like the old school guy yeah and he was
he was getting up there in years and he
had forgotten and over boiled The Brew
yeah and so we came back and I was like
four in the morning and I had you know
all this crazy shit I'd been on Journeys
and years down there and so when I came
back and I had like hands I started
crying I started absolutely weeping
gratitude gratitude that I was alive I
was gonna get to see my people again I
was like I have to see my parents again
yeah I'm gonna get to talk I thought you
might have be gone I was gone I was gone
I was I was a I was a dimly conscious
something floating in dark space and
it's been what felt like years down
there and so when I I really did feel
like being reborn which I was like Cheap
Trick like yeah you
um but no the the the the way it moves
You Through the Jungle the way the
jungle moves through your skin
there are moments of absolute majesty
and incredible discovery that happened
along the way
um and on the way up the jungle brings
you up and and the shaman brings you up
and and you and you get to move through
the forest in a way that
it's almost like you're inhabiting the
consciousness of animals very very very
like I didn't think that hallucinogenics
could do this to it to a brain you know
mushrooms you're like oh I can I feel
like I can feel music like really cool
you know you guys want to watch the
Penguins
this is transformative like what yeah
did that did that change you I don't
know I think it definitely it definitely
I I almost feel like it showed me the
thing that I was scared the most of and
it's that it was like that it's all just
cold dark nothing it like brought me to
like the basement of the universe and I
felt like the point of that was to to
come back to this place where there's
all this life and light and love and and
all this amazing stuff that we
experience on a day-to-day basis and
don't take for granted and so just like
almost dying this was like fully dying
like they're you know
but the great part is is that usually
it's not that intense this guy had over
boiled The Brew he had also I saw the
vine afterwards most Ayahuasca Vines are
like as thick as your arm this one was
like as thick as a garbage can it was
like the oldest Ayahuasca Vine you can
imagine
and at like four in the morning I like
crawled over to my friend Chris who's a
tough New York City firefighter we were
like holding each other just like
weeping just like thank God we're back
and uh
then we had to go looking for the shaman
where the hell is this guy he's gone
yeah we found him in the morning and he
was laying in the Stream naked like E.T
at the you know at the end when he's
like laying like in the yeah he he
kicked his own ass with that brew and he
retired after that oh shit so we really
got like we somebody turned the dial all
the way up on us and so we got we got
blasted so it's not supposed to be that
bad but I think you're somebody who's
Fearless in sort of diving into those
kinds of places I think I also retire
from Ayahuasca I could be Fearless with
other things but I think I'm good
it sounds kind of uh to me personally
kind of exciting
why I think I think that you have a
severely Fearless aspect to you I mean
you're
when you come up with something that
intrigues you like if somebody told you
right now that you could go
physically into deep space I feel like
you would do it yeah I did yeah if go to
Mars yeah right and some of it is
I don't even know if you have that
some of that is more Goggins like I want
to see where my mind breaks by pushing
it to
tough places
there's a curiosity of exploring the
mind the limits of the mind I feel like
you're not a cold plunge that's like
you're not coming back right
right and that's that's okay
ah see no I have I I do I have
I I'm with you on that I love seeing my
limits I absolutely love seeing my
limits I love getting my ass kicked I
love being shown how insignificant I am
but when it comes to something like that
where you got to push your chips in it's
got to be something for me it's got to
be a hill that I believe in before I die
on it and it's like
like to me the the promise of exploring
space isn't enough but
like even just the way I mean you said
you're like I'm going to Ukraine here I
go
you know there's a certain
um
dedication to to curiosity
at any expense
and I think that that is something that
maybe we share in very in in different
directions
something tells me without with those
with those crocodiles outside I would
have gotten eaten something tells me
there's some something trying to
preserve you in this world I'm not sure
exactly what that is
somehow you keep surviving what do you
think is the meaning of this whole thing
why are we here
like if you ever ask yourself for that
question I feel like that's every day I
feel like I'm someone that lives with
that a lot
and I think that I think that it
actually takes me away from the human
world a little bit I feel like I've
always been a little bit apart
because
I think that other people do
you know
mushrooms and they go wow that really
made me think about how amazing it is
here
and I feel like on a daily basis
I find myself where I'm like I can't
believe that any of this is possible you
know I I and that and that goes that
goes from how delicious something tastes
to being able to talk to to to to
someone in your family or or have a
phone it's times where I'm in the Amazon
and I I miss home and I even just face
timing with someone I go this is
possible yeah like people are rubbing
sticks together to try and survive
saber-toothed tigers not that long ago
and I'm over there like yo mom look at
this
it's wild like I'm in a constant state
of awe and so
um
I actually hope
that this is
that this is a testing ground
and whether it's aliens or God or
whatever it is that this is all that
this is that this is that this is
something crucially important that would
be nice
because it feels like it is
yeah I hope that too that the Universe
almost created us to see
what's possible
and that I'd like to believe that beauty
and good is possible
and and those are the things that make
me say that it's not it's impossible for
it to just mean nothing
and I'm very and just like you said
there could be life forms that that we
can't even understand that could there
there are there are I'm very open to the
idea that there's meanings that we have
no idea about
the few things I know are the things
that I love and some of the things that
I love
you know are being pushed to Extinction
so I try to protect them but that's
that's
that's that's that's my mission but I'm
saying like in terms of what are we
doing here I'm
I'm just
um
always always amazed at the at the
simplest things I mean the you know that
we can sit here doing this it's changing
yeah
using our imagination to fill in the
gaps exchanging feelings experiences
images
yeah it fills you with all and every
once in a while you get a little glimpse
of something like a deeper meaning that
might be there you know you don't you
don't really know what it is but you get
a glimpse every now and then you keep
searching
and then it's over before you know it
Paul uh hopefully for you you got many
more years it was dark man you're an
important important and a beautiful man
Paul thank you so much for talking today
thank you for being who you are for
everything you're doing
um I hope to see you again soon many
times and maybe one day soon in the
jungle I hope that happens thank you Lex
thanks for listening to this
conversation with Paul rosly to support
this podcast please check out our
sponsors in the description and now let
me leave you with some words from Jane
Goodall
if we kill off the wild
then we're killing off a part of our
souls
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time