WildFed Podcast — Hunt Fish Forage Food

Hosted by Daniel Vitalis, The WildFed Podcast is about deepening your connection with the natural world through hunting, fishing, foraging, and, of course, food. It’s about the wild food that’s freely available on your landscape, at the edges of your town or city, and sometimes just outside your door. The podcast consists of interviews with biologists, authors, wildlife managers, foragers, hunters, anglers, chefs, friends, and plenty of educational and inspirational solo shows too. WildFed — Food Is All Around You.

Conclusions, The Final Episode with Daniel Vitalis & Grant Guiliano — WildFed Podcast #174 03/28/2023

In the Shadow of Extinction with Dan Flores — WildFed Podcast #173 03/21/2023

In the Shadow of Extinction with Dan Flores — WildFed Podcast #173 Well, it’s finally here. The last interview of the WildFed Podcast. We'll be back next week with our producer Grant to do a final wrap-up, but as far as guest appearances go, who better to take us out than Dan Flores, and on what better topic than his new book, Wild New World. The book is incredible, even, dare we say, required reading for anyone who’s been following the journey of this podcast. It’s not just a history of North America and the animals that live here now — the extant animals — and the ones that were here before — the extinct ones. It’s also the story of the human predator crossing through Beringia and being unleashed on a homonin-naive megafauna assemblage and the impacts that would have here over the proceeding 20,000 years or so. It traces its way through the Clovis and Folsom cultures, to the post-ice-age extinction events that led to the great mass of cultures we refer to as Native American, up to the point of contact with European explorers. Then, what follows, as we are all painfully aware, is the Great Dying, which led to the loss of some 80-90% of the indigenous peoples of the continent due to diseases that Europeans had developed significant immunity to but were novel to Native America. And of course, colonization and westward expansion. This then gives way to the most substantial human-induced biomass reduction in known history, the denuding of the land and the commodification of its wildlife — which comes with it several tragic, high-profile extinctions. This part of the book is both compelling and at the same time gruesome and loathsome to read about. It’s truly a blemish on the history of this country and something we are a long way from reconciling still. Eventually, this leads to the beginnings of the modern conservation movement, which carries us through to the present day, exploring both its sometimes less-than-savory origins, but also its tremendous wins, like the Endangered Species Act. The book walks us through to the very present with some speculation about the future. When Daniel last spoke to Dan, he'd only read a few chapters, and those were some feel-good pages. He didn’t really understand what was to come or how it would shake him to the core. He didn’t expect it would cause him to reevaluate many of his assumptions or make him audit his own practices and how they relate to this bigger-picture history. It’s so easy to forget that we live, not as isolated points in space and time, but rather in a continuum. Embedded in a fabric of living history. Without context for what has come before, we can inadvertently focus myopically on where we are now. Conservation is no different. While our methods for wildlife management are light-years ahead of where they were just a century ago, one thing we've learned making this show is there’s still a LONG way to go. It’s far from perfect. All that said, humans are and always have been — as long as our genus has existed — predators. Not just dietarily, but behaviorally. Those of us that hunt and fish know this in a very intimate way. The idea of giving that up is not really an option for most of us — despite the hopes of the planet’s vegan contingent who believes we can just implement a species-wide dietary experiment on the human population without any malnourishment consequences to ourselves or children. Daniel has been down that road and it leads, in his opinion, off the rails and into nutritional bankruptcy. So, it seems to us that we need to learn to balance our needs, wants, and desires as a predatory animal with our needs, wants and desires for intact fauna and healthy ecosystems. No easy task. One that’s not just centuries, but millennia, in the making. It seems to us that this decade could be characterized by a now hyper-connected and networked human race coming to terms with itself, its past, and its future. Those of us who champion a meaningful ecological trophic connection to wildlife are going to have to do the same. We hope, when the dust settles, we can still hunt, fish, and forage, since as Daniel has stated on this show dozens if not a hundred times — we think this is essentially human. Who knows where this all leads, but we're grateful to Dan for this book and the incredible work that must have gone into writing such a sweeping ecological and environmental history. We suspect this one is destined to be a classic. Dan is, no doubt, one of the most important environmental writers of our day, and it’s an honor to have him back on the show — and especially as our final interview. As we mentioned earlier, we'll be back next week for one final, more intimate episode of the show. Thank you so much for following along on this journey, for your support, and for your listenership. It has meant the world to us! Now, here’s our second interview with Dan Flores on his newest book, Wild New World! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/26293206

Uncommon Perspectives with A.J. DeRosa — WildFed Podcast #172 03/14/2023

Uncommon Perspectives with A.J. DeRosa — WildFed Podcast #172 A.J. DeRosa is the founder of Project Upland — a multi-media operation that produces, in addition to video and web-based content, a quarterly, subscription-based premium print magazine. He’s also the author of the deer hunting cult-classic, The Urban Deer Complex. An accomplished hunter, rabid conservationist, and success in the hunting industry, he is not your typical hunter. Whether it's his politics, which are woven as a through-line throughout his unique positions, or his insistence on activism as a key component of conservation, he occupies a space adjacent — and sometimes quite antithetical — to those typified by what could be seen as an often monolithic mindset amongst those that hunt or fish. Daniel is someone who’s often felt like an outsider in the world of hunting, frequently expressing views that run counter to those of his fellow outdoorsman, and A.J. is altogether more revolutionary in his approach. When we first met and heard him speak, it was a surprisingly refreshing, if not sometimes challenging, stream of consciousness we hadn’t heard expressed in hunting circles before. Being some 6% or less of the American public, those of us that hunt, understandably, have more often than not, chosen to silo ourselves and as a result, have suffered from a kind of slow progress with respect to the rest of the public at large. But A.J. is different. Different than any hunter or conservationist Daniel has sat down with yet. Don’t expect a rehashing of the same old talking points here. He’s not that guy. But, he might just be the foreshadowing of the voice of the future hunter. As a new generation inherits the 3 million-year-old tradition, they bring to it new ideas, paradigms, ways of viewing the world, ecology, our predatory presence in it, and our place in the grand scheme of ecological diversity. Change is scary, and often easier to resist than embrace. A lot of us behave like a dog on a leash. Pull back too much, and the dog feels the urge to push forward against the pressure. That’s the knee-jerk response a lot of the hunting world has taken to the changing cultural, economic, scientific, and ecological landscape we are encountering in this rapidly evolving decade and the ones preceding it. We dig in and resist change. But this is, in our opinion, the wrong approach. At least, it’s an approach that always seems to — eventually — give way to progress regardless. So, if you hear ideas expressed here today that run counter to those you hear at the range, hunting box store, or in hunting camp, know you are, most likely, hearing the voice of the future. However threatening to status quo it might be. Resistance is, after all, futile. We’ll all be assimilated. Seriously though, change is coming, it’s inevitable. And what is most important isn’t the way we have been doing it, but rather, preserving our relationship to the natural world. Let’s welcome all ideas, even the radical ones. Even the ones that scare us. Even the ones that challenge our most closely held illusions. If we don’t, the world will surely pass us by. If we can’t thread the needle of holding onto what we cherish and allowing ourselves to adapt to change, we — as hunters — might just go the way of the passenger pigeon. Change is coming. How will we adapt? View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/26222499

The HogFather with Jesse Griffiths — WildFed Podcast #171 03/07/2023

The HogFather with Jesse Griffiths — WildFed Podcast #171 If anyone in America is deserving of the illustrious title of HogFather, it's Jesse Griffiths. He’s a hunter, fisherman, cook and co-owner of Dai Due Butcher Shop & Supper Club and New School of Traditional Cookery in Austin Texas. He’s also the author of the Afield, A Chef's Guide To Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish, as well as his most recent publication, The Hog Book, A Chef's Guide To Hunting, Preparing, and Cooking Wild Pigs. The Hog Book is one of the best species-specific how-to-hunt-and-cook books that we've got in our library. Even if, like us, you live in a place without a feral hog population, you want to own this book. It’s incredible, and we hope, just the beginning in a long line of books to come. Jesse is a dynamic dude and gets up to a lot more than just hunting and cooking hogs, but as the leading voice on utilizing wild pigs for food — and not just a voice, he utilizes them extensively on the menu at his restaurant Dai Due — he’s quickly become the hunting world's reference for turning this otherwise deleterious non-native species into excellent table fare. When it comes to the management of these fecund mammals, Jesse is quick to point out that eating them is unlikely to ever be a total solution. They reproduce far too rapidly, are far too intelligent, and just too well integrated into the landscape to eradicate, but.. eating them does provide us with an excellent source of quality wild protein, provides hunting opportunities to those trying to find an inroad into the world of hunting, and shifts the focus from purely adversarial to something more appreciative. Or at least slightly more amicable anyway. One of the things we love about his book is that rather than just giving a set of recipes, he keys the recipes out based on the size and sex of the hog you’ve got. Big old boars eat a lot differently than pregnant sows, which are really different than younger piglets. Something we'll get into in this interview. We also wanted to mention that, as someone who — like Daniel — started hunting later in life, it's incredible to see how he has impacted hunting culture here in the US. It’s a reminder of the rapidly changing hunting demographic and that you don’t have to have grown up hunting in order to develop the skills and culinary craft to feed yourself and educate the public. In fact, we think we’ve only just begun to see the legacy that Jesse is going to leave in the American hunting community. So, it’s our pleasure to have Jesse Griffiths on the podcast — especially given that this is one of our final episodes. From the start, it was our goal to curate conversations with important players in wild food culture, and he certainly qualifies. We're proud to have him in our lineup. If you haven’t seen it already, go back to Season 2 of the WildFed TV show on MyOutdoorTV.com to see the episode we made with him in Texas. And seriously, get the Hog Book. You won’t regret it! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/26148801

Agents of Dystopia with Donnie Vincent — WildFed Podcast #170 02/28/2023

Agents of Dystopia with Donnie Vincent — WildFed Podcast #170 Well, it was bound to happen eventually. But we'll admit, we weren't expecting it to be in this interview. Our guest today is hunter, conservationist, naturalist and filmmaker Donnie Vincent. Someone Daniel was tremendously inspired by — and still is today — when he first set out to get involved in hunting and outdoor media. Donnie is an iconoclast, standing out amongst successful hunting personalities in the way he hunts, looks, speaks, and for his uniquely thoughtful and artistic approach to outdoor media. Daniel and Donnie have podcasted together a few times now, and they've always found an easy synergy in their conversations, but this time things went in a direction Daniel simply wasn’t expecting. We've never given a trigger warning on our shows before, but we feel compelled to give one today. This conversation will be the cause for celebration for some and outrage for others. If you find yourself in the latter category, we hope you’ll, out of respect for both Daniel and Donnie, give their words a fair chance. It’s far too common and easy today to disregard people you don’t agree with, without giving their arguments a fair chance. Donnie and Daniel, it seems, both see a dystopia unfolding in front of us, and its implications for the future of what we do as hunters and foragers are hard to ignore. Not to mention its impact on our personal liberties and basic freedoms. That said, it was refreshing for Daniel to be honest and forthright about topics he's danced around for years, since it’s felt rather stifling for him to remain silent. But he did because these things weren’t really part of the brand or the focus of this podcast. It’s ironic then, that as we approach the final episodes of this show, that it would come up in this way. So, in this interview, Daniel and Donnie will be talking at length about things that you’re not really supposed to talk about publicly. We suspect many of you will feel similarly, but of course, some of you will feel very differently. If you disagree, we do hope that — in the spirit of dialectic — you’ll support their inherent right to have this conversation. And understand how challenging it’s been to feel like they haven’t been able to for years. So, when Daniel promised last week that this week's guest would express some really different ideas than last week's, now you’ll see what he meant. Here goes… This is Daniel's most recent conversation with Donnie Vincent. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/26073537

Breaking Bread Together with Andrew Zimmern — WildFed Podcast #169 02/21/2023

Allergic To Hare with Tony Seichrist — WildFed Podcast #168 02/14/2023

The Right to Hunt with Ellary TuckerWilliams — WildFed Podcast #167 01/16/2023

The Right to Hunt with Ellary TuckerWilliams — WildFed Podcast #167 As someone that came to hunting late in life, someone that wasn’t raised understanding the intricacies and nuance of the North American conservation model or how our wildlife resources are allocated and ultimately utilized, Daniel was very impressed with the scope and breadth of our opportunities here in the United States as he started to take advantage of them. The more he participated, the more clearly he saw just how blessed we are here to have the ability to participate in this imperfect but extremely functional system. While it can always and should always be improved upon, when we hunt we do so with the knowledge that biological, ecological, and even social concerns have been addressed and that the system is, for the most part, sound. State and Federal wildlife management ensures that population dynamics are strong amongst game species, that there is sufficient opportunity for everyone to participate, and that science is conducted rigorously so that the hunt can be pursued in perpetuity. But what about our right to hunt and fish. Do we really have one? One that is enshrined at the constitutional level? Well, no, not really. At least, not in the way that, say, the 1st amendment protects free speech and peaceable assembly or that the 2nd amendment guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms. But can our right to hunt and fish be protected in similar ways? At least at the State Constitutional level? Our guest today is Ellary TuckerWilliams, from the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation — and they are working on that very thing. They’re at it around the clock, behind the scenes, protecting our ability to hunt and fish in ways that we’d not heard about before, but now that we have, seem indispensable. They work at the political level, not only to enshrine our rights but also to protect the heritage of hunting against what is a constant onslaught from groups that would, if they could, slowly erode our legal ability to hunt until nothing remains. For the most part, we at WildFed are simply interacting at the resource level, so we're glad to know folks like Ellary are out there — communicating with people in our Federal and State Governments, educating them on the issues that matter to those of us who utilize the resources on our landscape. We need that kind of representation in those places that most nature lovers won’t or don’t go. Namely, into the halls of government. So big thanks to Ellary and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation — many of us have benefited greatly from the work they do, likely, without ever knowing it. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/25626378

Hunting New Zealand with Philipp Spahn — WildFed Podcast #166 01/10/2023

40,000 Generations of Hunters with Dan Flores — WildFed Podcast #165 01/03/2023

All Over The Place with Tim Clemens — WildFed Podcast #164 12/20/2022

Can We Save The Seas? with Dr. Ann Cleveland — WildFed Podcast #163 12/13/2022

Can We Save The Seas? with Dr. Ann Cleveland — WildFed Podcast #163 Daniel met Dr. Ann Cleveland back on Halloween of this year, when he was invited to give a guest lecture at the Maine Maritime Academy where she’s a Marine Biology Professor. Her husband, Dr. Alan Verde, who is also a professor there, was a guest on our show back on episode #160. While they were there, Ann gave Daniel and his wife a tour of the campus, and they had the opportunity to talk a bit about her work there, and he thought it would be great to get her on the show to discuss it. We didn’t expect for them to take such a deep detour into the big picture of our precarious situation here on earth, but we're glad they did. Daniel and Ann go deep on topics of climate, fisheries, and our future here on this beautiful planet. We always imagine that those in marine biology must have a front-row seat from which to view the severity of our pollution crisis, habitat and biodiversity loss, and the rapid climate-induced ecological changes that are taking place in a way that most of us — especially if we aren’t engaged ecologically with nature — are only intellectually aware of at best or oblivious to at worst. So, in this conversation, Daniel quickly found himself parting with ichthyology and focusing more on the existential. It’s hard not to, since the more time we spend hunting, fishing, and foraging, the more concerned we grow for the planet’s ecology. Not because of hunting, fishing, or foraging themselves, but because — like we just mentioned for marine biologists — these food pursuits bring you face to face with the reality of what is happening in the “environment” that everyone loves talking about but so few really go out and experience. In particular, we wrestle with the population-wide reliance on commercial fisheries. We always cringe to say that out loud. We have several friends that make their living as fishermen. We love what they do, love to eat their harvest, and love to go out fishing with them when we have the opportunity. We deeply respect the trade, profession, and ancient lifestyle of those who work the sea. We recognize its important place in our heritage and that it's a lot more than just a job. We also feel that ending the market hunt was one of the best things we could have done for conservation and it's the reason that contemporary folks like you or me get to hunt in North America. If we had continued on, harvesting our game for the market, it’s unlikely they’d be much of anything to hunt today. Many now recovered expirations would have, no doubt, become extinctions. We'd be remiss not to mention the passenger pigeon as a perfect example of what we mean. Things in our sea are more complex. First, they are far more productive than our terrestrial ecosystems, giving the false impression that they can supply our population with protein limitlessly. Due to the water’s obfuscation, the ocean’s reserves can seem bottomless. But of course, they aren’t. With so much of the modern world still dependent on the sea for its food, we don’t think it's alarmist to be concerned about the sustainability of this approach. But unlike landmasses with sovereign borders, the seas are a shared resource. Who can regulate them? Who would we trust to regulate them? And while we here in the US have made tremendous strides towards sustainable regulation, much of the world is far too concerned with immediate subsistence to trifle with such concerns. People need to eat. We believe in wild foods — of course — it's why we make this show. In particular, we think the wild foods of the sea are critical to our health and can help foster an important relationship to planetary ecology when approached with that intention. But, like a good old case of cognitive dissonance, we simultaneously fear we are taking too much, too fast, with technologies that are too disruptive or too effective. Want to know the solution? Yea, us too. But until then, we appreciate being able to have the conversation. So a big thanks to Dr. Ann Cleveland, who came on to talk about ichthyology, and found herself in a conversation about the sustainability of the human lifeway on planet earth. Ann, we really appreciate your input and perspectives here. We hope this conversation inspires some deeper thought and inquiry into the topic. It certainly is becoming a pressing one. And we can’t help but think things are just getting started! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/25309413

Nautical Nonsense with Daniel Vitalis & Grant Guiliano — WildFed Podcast #162 12/06/2022

Too Many Deer, Too Many Earthworms with Dr. Bernd Blossey — WildFed Podcast #161 11/29/2022

Too Many Deer, Too Many Earthworms with Dr. Bernd Blossey — WildFed Podcast #161 We've got a really important episode for you today. At least, important to us, and probably to you too if you’ve been listening to this show for a while. In fact, in some ways, it feels like it helps to make sense of a couple of important themes we’ve explored again and again here over the last 160 episodes. Most notably, those of wild game conservation — who funds it and where its efforts have been focused, as well as invasive species — and in particular, how significant the threat from them is, how we could or should be dealing with them, and what feedback loops we may be creating through our attempted conservation efforts. The interview is with Dr. Bernd Blossey, who specializes in the intersection between whitetail deer and their high populations, invasive earthworms in North America, and invasive plant species and how the three of these factors intersect, overlap, and exacerbate the issues that each, individually, creates on the landscape. Basically, it's like the title says. Too many deer, too many earthworms. Specifically, too many whitetail deer on our landscape, far more than can be sustainably supported by our ecosystems. And the invasion of earthworms beneath our feet in North America, most of which are not native here, since the last glaciation pushed all the worms back to the deep Southern United States. There were, after all, 2 miles of ice covering the land that now is home to now our northern forests. When those forests regrew, they did so in the absence of earthworms, and the worms that are here now are not just exotic but extremely deleterious to those forests and many of the native plant species that live there. These two factors — over-populated whitetail deer from above and exotic earthworms from below — might be influencing the spread of invasive plant species in ways that aren’t readily apparent to the untrained observer. But Dr. Blossey — a professor who heads up the Ecology and Management of Invasive Plants Program at Cornell University — is going to pick that apart for us today, helping to make sense of the data. He’s also a hunter himself, so his view of conservation is informed from an inside perspective. The conclusion we've walked away with is that a lot of what we’ve been calling conservation in the hunting community has really been about creating sufficient deer hunting opportunities. This makes sense since it’s been hunters footing the conservation bill over the years, but high deer numbers aren’t synonymous with healthy ecology, and we may have reached, and exceeded the ecological carrying capacity for whitetail deer in much of the country. This might be a welcomed problem were it not for the devastating consequences this is having on our flora, and in particular how it might contribute to the spread of deleterious exotic species. Like a lot of us, Dr. Blossey likes to hunt and eat whitetails, so he’s sympathetic to our desire to have ample opportunities, but after listening, one can’t help thinking we need a more holistic approach to conservation in North America. And one that, and we say this a little begrudgingly, brings more than just hunter's voices to the table. After several years of actively exploring these issues, we feel that this conversation has been a missing piece of the puzzle. Certain things just weren’t adding up for us. It’s already changing the way we look at the landscape and our role as hunters. We hope you find it as eye-opening as we have. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/25158465

Corals, Cucumbers, and Jellies (Oh My) with Alan Verde PhD — WildFed Podcast #160 11/22/2022

Corals, Cucumbers, and Jellies (Oh My) with Alan Verde PhD — WildFed Podcast #160 Who doesn’t love Marine Biology? Daniel recently had the opportunity to give a talk at the celebrated Maine Maritime Academy, addressing a class of marine biology and oceanography students. While he was there he met today’s guest, Dr. Alan Verde. Alan is a biologist and diver who specializes in corals, anemones, jellyfish, sea cucumbers and octopus. Alan, along with the school where he teaches, is training the future generations of young people who will eventually contribute to the stewardship of our seas. It’s a big responsibility, given the precarious situation we now find ourselves in on planet earth. Beyond the classroom curriculum, Alan leads multi-week dive trips with his student base to spend time with the organisms they’re studying in their natural habitats. It’s so important, because it’s all too easy to study a topic from afar, or from an ivory tower, not realizing you only know the thing superficially, rather than intimately. But Alan makes sure his students are getting below sea level to interact in ways that are more meaningful than just turning the page in a textbook or turning in a paper. It’s why we promote participating in hunting, fishing, and foraging for food. We worry that without an intimate relationship, one that's up close and personal, we’ll just slowly forget the organisms we share this planet with. So whenever possible, whether it's through eating, like we promote so much here, or it's through biological work like Alan teaches, we need to get hands-on. Once you know a creature it's hard not to factor its needs into your decision matrix. That’s the kind of experiential knowledge we’ll need the policymakers of the future to have. Of course, the biology, physiology, and ecology of the particular organisms that Alan focuses on are fascinating all on their own, so there’s plenty to learn here today too. The underwater world is so physiologically alien to our own as to make it, effectively, another world. Yet we do share this planet with these creatures, as well as, ultimately, a common ancestor. So, foreign as they seem, they are our relations. And while it’s important to remember who we share the planet with, it’s also easy to forget if we have no contact with them. That’s why Alan and Daniel both, in their own ways, recommend you get out there. There’s still a whole world populated by incredible and unique organisms just waiting to be remembered and factored in by us. All we have to do is go meet them! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/25094067

The Turkey Whisperer with Dr. Mike Chamberlain — WildFed Podcast #159 11/14/2022

The Turkey Whisperer with Dr. Mike Chamberlain — WildFed Podcast #159 If you haven’t been already, we're thrilled to introduce you to Dr. Mike Chamberlain. Somehow, over our years of making this show, we weren't aware of this man or his incredible work on turkeys. Now we feel like we've been stumbling around in the dark. Ok, that’s probably an overstatement, since we’ve had some great mentors, and we’ve had several excellent and very informed turkey hunters and biologists on the show over the years. But Mike seems to possess a meta-knowledge of these birds, seamlessly combining the science of their biology and ecology with the experience of a seasoned hunter. As a relatively new hunter himself, one who grew up with little of the ecological knowledge needed to be successful in the pursuit, Daniel has relied heavily on his adult learning skills, and that's included finding mentors that can accelerate his learning curve. He started out in his mid-30s, which means he didn’t get those crucial couple of decades of watching, listening, learning, and making mistakes. At his age, being successful early on was pretty important if he was going to stick with it and feed himself off the landscape. Without that early life on-ramp to guide him through the typical hunter's journey, he's had to rely on friends, books, videos, podcasts, and of course, many mistakes in the field as his main educational inputs. It’s also meant getting occasionally waylaid by the “hunter science”. You know — those often repeated but ill-informed tropes that stick around in hunting camps, subtly leading us astray and speaking to the disconnect that often exists between the work of field biologists and the hunters that pursue the quarry. If he had known about Mike’s work several years ago he would have relied heavily on it to inform his knowledge of the species and his hunting strategies. Our goal with making the WildFed Podcast has been to curate voices from the world of hunting, fishing, foraging and wild foods cooking, in order to make the road a little easier and the education more concise for those who — like Daniel — are embarking on this journey later in life or in a non-traditional way. So, in that sense, Mike represents just the kind of guest we're looking for. Someone who can rapidly accelerate what you understand about a specific species to make up for the lack of ecological, place-based knowledge many of us suffer from as a result of being raised in a nature-divorced culture. We need Mike Chamberlains for every species — folks that can guide our learning, distilling the scientific knowledge into simple to absorb, useful lessons that help to deepen our connection to our wildlife neighbors. So if you love wild turkeys, and particularly if you love — or hope to love — hunting them, here is an authoritative voice on the topic. Just talking to him has us very excited about next spring! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/25007088

Who Hunts, Who Doesn't & The Politics of Why with Paul McCarney PhD — WildFed Podcast #158 11/08/2022

Who Hunts, Who Doesn't & The Politics of Why with Paul McCarney PhD — WildFed Podcast #158 We're talking today with Paul McCarney, PhD. Paul’s an environmental social scientist, hunter, and conservationist that lives in Canada’s remote Yukon. You could think of it as our northern neighbor’s Alaska. He’s in Whitehorse, which is north of Juneau but east of Anchorage. Most recently, Paul hosted the HuntToEat Podcast, where he covered topics that, until recently, haven’t been part of the typical hunting or conservation conversation. Like Daniel, Paul’s an adult-onset hunter. Coming to it later in life — like so many people today — has given him some unique perspectives that differ a lot from those typically held by folks raised in North American hunting culture. Now, Paul and Daniel have some very different socio-political views, which will become apparent in this interview, yet they approach this conversation as a dialectic. Neither of them are interested in playing gotcha, but rather wanted to hear from one another on issues that can be contentious, or even taboo in the world of conservation. We think this approach is needed now more than ever, since we’re allowing these cultural issues to divide us to a degree we haven’t witnessed before in our lifetime. Hopefully this conversation inspires more dialectic and a little less pointless debate. That said, Paul and Daniel are both very intrigued by the rapidly changing demographics in hunting, though Paul’s interests lie more in the intersection of race, gender, and culture. Issues that have become significant talking points in most other arenas in recent years, but that have only just started to become issues in the realms of hunting and conservation. So it’s really interesting to get his take on this. We've seen a lot of changes happening in this area recently, but of course, there's still a lot of work to be done. Like Paul, we want to see the world of hunting be a place that all people feel welcome, since we see it as a fundamentally human pursuit. Not one that belongs to specific race or gender or ideology. It’s a heritage that belongs to all the peoples of the world. So while Paul and Daniel might approach the conversation differently, Daniel doesn't see them as being on different teams, rather more like the two different wings on a plane. You need both to get where you’re going safely. It would be a very bad idea for folks on one side of a plane to try to actively dismantle the other side’s aisle and wing. But, unfortunately, that’s just become the norm in our — as Mike Judge would say — Idiocracy. So, it's in the spirit of dialectic we present this conversation with Paul McCarney. We're looking forward to your thoughts and feedback. We don’t touch on these topics often here, so we honestly don’t know where you, as a listener, stand. So please don’t hesitate to comment on the post associated with this interview on Instagram and Facebook. We'll keep an eye out for your thoughts. Until then, let’s continue the dialectic. We can all learn a lot from each other. We just have to be open and listen. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24938313

Urban Foraging with Lisa Rose — WildFed Podcast #157 11/01/2022

Urban Foraging with Lisa Rose — WildFed Podcast #157 Our guest today is Lisa Rose, author of the new book: Urban Foraging, Find, Gather, and Cook 50 Wild Plants, as well as a few other titles on foraging and food. Though urban foraging doesn’t come up much on this show, it's always been important to Daniel. It was how he first started foraging, finding plants that grew in his backyard, snacks that grew up through the cracks in his sidewalk, or most importantly, harvesting fruits from neighborhood trees and abandoned lots around town. So we were glad to see that Lisa took this topic on, as it's a great way to introduce someone new to foraging, without having to simultaneously immerse them in wild places that might otherwise add to the complexity of what they’re experiencing or learning. Of course, urban foraging poses some unique challenges outside of just land use issues, and that has to do with contamination by pollution. But then again, we face similar threats at the supermarket, where much of the food has also been contaminated by dangerous and pervasive chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. We say that, just to point out that, in 2022 we have to be thoughtful about anything and everything we eat, no matter the source. Daniel's conversation with Lisa also gets pretty philosophical, because foraging, though intensely practical, is today, something we usually do for reasons beyond the pragmatic. We take it on because it holds meaning to us. At least, that — in addition to foods we can’t get anywhere else — is what keeps us going out there to encounter species that live on the margins of our nearly ubiquitous human settlements. Though we, as a species, are swimming in excess calories today, relegating foraging to something of an anachronism, we would argue that it’s more important now than ever before. Not because we need to do it for food, but because food is the primary way we interact with other species. Because that's what food is after all. Other species. And when we interact only with each other and the suite of domesticated species that we typically live amongst or eat, it becomes easy to forget we share this planet with other creatures. Creatures much older than us or our way of life, creatures that have been here all along. Food is our doorway to ecological literacy. And without that, our planet, we fear, is doomed to be simplified into — eventually — one giant dystopian factory farm, with humans as much the farmer as the farmed. So, while much of the world sees foraging as a throwback to a time long passed, we see it as a doorway to a better, more integrated, and more ecologically diverse future. That makes Urban Foraging a significant act. More than a hobby. It’s an investment in a better world. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24863958

Wild Turkeys and Black Swans with Fred Bird — WildFed Podcast #156 10/25/2022

Wild Turkeys and Black Swans with Fred Bird — WildFed Podcast #156 As eaters of wild turkey meat, maybe we're a little biased, but we're huge believers in the National Wild Turkey Federation’s mission. Turkeys were Daniel's gateway into hunting itself, and he has initiated several other new hunters by bringing them out for their first birds too. We're of the opinion that stewarding turkeys and turkey habitat is, in a way, caring for lots of other species too. Turkey habitat is, after all, deer and bear habitat. They share the woods with lots of other game and nongame species that we all love and celebrate. And, we hunters aren’t the only ones who like eating turkey. They’re also an important prey species for a lot of the predators on our landscapes. Daniel's been a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation for years, and we've hosted their New England Regional Director, Carter Heath on the show a few times now too. So we were eager to meet Fred Bird — yes, you read that right, his last name is “Bird” — their Social Media Manager and host of the NWTF’s Turkey Call All Access podcast. Daniel and Fred really hit it off, as they see eye to eye on a lot of issues and both represent what they see as hunting's rapidly changing demographic. They have a fun and lively conversation, and we expect it will lead to many more. The fall turkey season is open in a lot of states right now, so we hope you’ve got time to get out there and get after them this year! It's easy for us to take them for granted, with such high populations around the country. It’s also easy to forget that just a few decades ago, they were nearly extirpated from the landscape. Thanks to the efforts of conservationists, hunters, and of course, the National Wild Turkey Federation, populations are strong and the turkey is here to stay. And with Thanksgiving quickly approaching, now's the time to take advantage of the many opportunities we have across the US — in 49 states — to eat what almost became America’s national bird! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24790566

Foraging Microbes with Pascal Baudar — WildFed Podcast #155 10/18/2022

Human Dietary Variability with Kristen Gremillion PhD — WildFed Podcast #154 10/10/2022

Human Dietary Variability with Kristen Gremillion PhD — WildFed Podcast #154 Our interview today is with Kristen Gremillion, PhD — Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Ohio State University. She wrote a book in 2011 called Ancestral Appetites, looking at the archeological evidence and ethnographic knowledge we have about human diet throughout our species' history. We love interviewing folks like Kristen because deep historical context sets the stage for clearer thought and makes it abundantly obvious just how profoundly confused we’ve become about what we should or could be eating. Kristen’s perspective is refreshing because she isn’t taking a dogmatic approach — for instance, she doesn’t believe that there’s some pure, pre-agricultural or traditional diet we should be adhering to. In fact, she’s quick to point out, both in her book and here, that humans have successfully added novel foods into our diet throughout our species' timeline. In some cases, like lactase persistence, our bodies physically change in response to novel foods, a testament to the success of these novel dietary changes. Lactase persistence is the adaptation to dairy consumption that has led some populations to continue the production of lactase into adulthood — that’s the enzyme that breaks down the sugars in milk — rather than ceasing production after weaning. We often say someone is lactose intolerant, as if this was a disease or aberration. However, lactose intolerance in adults is the human biological norm. Lactase persistence is a mutation that allows some of us to easily digest milk products as adults — those of us that can digest dairy… are the mutants. In other words, sometimes our bodies respond favorably to new foods. So, we shouldn’t be quick to dismiss novel ingredients. We’ve been discovering them for millennia. But, Kristen is also wary of a Soylent Green type of dystopian future diet, the kind of thing that some folks see on the nutritional horizon. Her longtime study of human diet seems to lead to a preference for foods that are recognizable as foods. Daniel and Kristen discuss a bit of that in this interview today. Not just where human diets were and are, but where they are headed too. It’s an interesting conversation in a continuing dialogue with those who’ve made this field of inquiry their profession. We're of the opinion that the more we understand about our history, the clearer the path forward will be. And this will become ever more important as we, a rather unique but also very confused, species of ape, grapple with an incredibly uncertain future. In the last few decades, food wasn’t something many people had to think a lot about, at least in the more opulent nations of the world. But that is changing, and it’s poised to change a whole lot more in the coming decade. One way or another, humanity is gearing up to come face to face with our food and food supply. There’s no way around it. And knowing where we’ve been might just be incredibly important… as we move forward… into this brave new world. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24644871

Dreams, Archetypes & Becoming A Predator with Philippe Grenade-Willis — WildFed Podcast #153 10/04/2022

Dreams, Archetypes & Becoming A Predator with Philippe Grenade-Willis — WildFed Podcast #153 Our interview today is with Philippe Grenade-Willis, someone Daniel's been working with for a few years now on various art projects for both WildFed and Surthrival. Philippe is an incredible illustrator with a passion for the outdoors and the creatures that live there. In a nod to Daniel's former podcast, ReWild Yourself, today’s episode is a bit more esoteric than most of the content we curate here, but it’s also a LOT of fun. Daniel and Philippe talk about art, dreams and archetypes. About the metaverse, transhumanism, and how quickly we are headed into artificial worlds at the expense of the natural one. And they discuss the journey that those of us who didn’t grow up as hunters must embark on to embrace our new roles as ecological predators. It's a fascinating conversation that we didn’t want to end. Philippe is currently working on the art for the packaging on a new and very exciting Surthrival product and just finished up a t-shirt design that we are launching today — our Antidote to the Metaverse shirt. We highly recommend you check out his art on his instagram page — @OurNuminousNature. It’ll give you some insight into the things we talk about in this episode. As we discuss here today, our world is changing fast. Soon, it just might be unrecognizable from the one you were born into. But nature is a compass that is true, one you can trust to keep you grounded in reality. It’s something more complex and beautiful than anything humans can create themselves, and as captured as we may be by the glitz and bright lights of our technology, it doesn’t take much more than a walk in the woods to prove it. We suspect you already know and believe that, and that’s why you listen to a show like this one. Nature truly is an antidote to the metaverse. One, we suspect, we’re all going to desperately need in the years ahead. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24580053

Shifting Baseline & Genetic Pollution with Dylan Tomine — WildFed Podcast #152 09/27/2022

Shifting Baseline & Genetic Pollution with Dylan Tomine — WildFed Podcast #152 What a fun and thoughtful conversation today with Dylan Tomine. In addition to working at Patagonia as a Fly Fishing Ambassador, and recently releasing a book under Patagonia's publishing house called “Headwaters,” Dylan Tomine has traveled the world fly fishing and writing about it. His writing is engrossing and almost lyrical, each short chapter feeling almost like a dream you’ve had about some distant adventure on the water. He really captures the feelings of being there, somehow communicating, though subtly, the “why” behind adventures like these. But adventures aside, our conversation today takes us into other territory. In particular, that pesky little concept known as “shifting baseline syndrome” wherein anglers tend to think of their childhood fishing experiences as the time when “things were good” and then become dismayed as they watch fisheries decline as they grow older. But the concept really comes to life when you think of it generationally. Our parents saw their childhoods as “the good old days,” not realizing that it was considerably better for their parents, and so on and so on. In other words, without context, we tend to notice degradation in our own time but fail to see where we are in the big picture of history. If we could see the truly good old days we’d realize the real extent of the habitat loss, drawdown on species density, and the loss of biodiversity. Our relatively short lifespans give us a very limited window through which to view our place in the planet's ecological history. Bottom line, while thankfully, here in the US at least, our waters are still fishable, we can scarcely claim the incredible fish populations that we could a few centuries back. Daniel and Dylan also discuss the very controversial, though currently still active fish stocking programs that are meant to offset declining fish populations. Declining, in most cases, not because of recreational fishing, but because of dams, pollution, general habitat loss, industrialization, and other insults to our waters and the fish that live in them. As Dylan points out here in the episode, and in a great chapter of Headwaters called “The Myth Of Hatcheries,” the hatchery programs today seem to be leading us down a path of extinction for the very sub-populations of the species they are meant to save. All this to say, it’s complicated. Those of us who fish, love to fish. And we also love the fish we fish for. We're not sure there are simple solutions, but these difficult conversations have to happen. We're honored to get to have that conversation with one of the great fly fishing authors of our time… Dylan Tomine. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24505170

A Range of Edibility with Daniel Vitalis & Grant Guiliano — WildFed Podcast #151 09/20/2022

Pawpaw, An American Treasure with Michael Judd — WildFed Podcast #150 09/13/2022

Pawpaw, An American Treasure with Michael Judd — WildFed Podcast #150 The pawpaw is a North American native, growing wild in 26 States! But you wouldn’t know it by seeing or tasting it. About the size of a small to medium-sized mango, with a custardy flesh that ranges from creamy white to pumpkin pie orange, you’d swear it's a tropical fruit. But, you’d be wrong, since it is, in fact, a temperate species. Despite its more mild climatic preference, it still boasts quintessential tropical flavor notes. Mango and papaya, pineapple and banana, caramel and some aroma we can only describe as a combination of nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove. Unlike so many fruits, it isn’t acidic, rather just creamy like a pie filling, or flan. Which is why the tropical fruit family it belongs to is known as the custard apples, or Annonaceae. Up until recently, Daniel had only tried a few pawpaws, specimens mailed to us by listeners to the show. To taste more, our next step was obvious. We needed to head south. All the way to Frederick, Maryland to meet up with Michael Judd. Michael wrote an excellent little book on raising North America’s largest fruit, called For The Love Of Pawpaws, and this month, the month of September, is prime pawpaw season! From the moment we arrived there, we were eating pawpaws constantly, as Michael kept a steady stream of them headed directly towards our mouths. Mango-like, orange-fleshed Susquehannas. Vanilla-custardy Shenandoahs, and the hopefully-able-to-grow-here-in-Maine PA Golden, which is a nice, mild, balance of the other two. Michael is a character like no other. A fun-loving, zany plant person, whose eclectic personality is rivaled only by his hat collection and perhaps by the fruit for which he is a fervent ambassador. He resides in a beautiful, round, straw-bail-construction home with his lovely family, beside a productive food forest with a distinguished pawpaw patch. He served us more than just raw pawpaws, we had pawpaw ice cream, pawpaw cornbread, and pawpaw pudding too. And not just our bellies, he satiated our minds too, with plenty of pawpaw facts and legends, and we came home with pockets full of pawpaw seeds and a couple of flats of very ripe fruits, whose aromatic bouquet kept us alert through the 10-hour drive north. Now that Daniel is home, and has fed his wife and friends some pawpaws too, he's wishing we had patches of them here in Maine. But, at least he has a couple dozen in the freezer, which he's been pulling out, peeling, and pulping for my morning smoothie. That’ll have to do until he grows some plants of his own and figures out how to get them to fruit here in zone 5A! Michael is a blast to be around. If you ever get the chance to work with him or manage to secure a ticket to his quick-to-sell-out pawpaw festival, we highly recommend you do so. If a pawpaw was ever transfigured into flesh, it might just resemble Michael Judd. Oh, one last thing, our visit with Michael will be featured in an episode of Season 3 of the WildFed TV show on Outdoor Channel so stay tuned for that! We’ll start airing around the beginning of 2023. In the meantime, if you are hearing this in September and you’re in pawpaw country, make it a point to track some down. Either wild, by foraging your local creek and river banks, or by finding a cultivator near you. Also, you can get on the pre-order list on Foraged.Market — they’ll start shipping as soon as Ohio’s commercial harvest begins. Don’t wait because it's a limited supply! They’ve got a great landing page for all things pawpaw at . You owe it to yourself to taste this American Treasure! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24356874

Boat to Table, Know Your Fisherman with Molly Lutcavage, PhD — WildFed Podcast #149 09/06/2022

Boat to Table, Know Your Fisherman with Molly Lutcavage, PhD — WildFed Podcast #149 We’re back today with our good friend Molly Lutcavage, Oceanographer, Bluefin Tuna and Sea Turtle Physiologist, and the Director of Large Pelagics Research at the University of Massachusetts. Her last appearance on the show was back on episode 16 of this podcast, The Truth About Bluefin Tuna, making her one of our earliest podcast guests! She was also featured in Season 2 of the WildFed TV show on Outdoor Channel, in our Atlantic Bluefin Tuna episode. Her ground-breaking work on Atlantic Bluefins has revealed that, contrary to what most folks have been led to believe, the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna population is strong, and the fishery has been rebuilt. That work led Daniel to harvest his first bluefin last year, and to feel really good about eating locally sourced bluefin from here in the Gulf Of Maine — a fish that he had avoided because he believed the fishery was being over-exploited. We're glad we learned otherwise because participating in that fishery was an incredible experience. And, Daniel's still eating the tuna he caught last year. In fact, he served some last weekend as poké to some guests he had in town. Bluefin as a food — even when it's been in the freezer for almost a year, like Daniel's — is one of the most incredible delicacies available to us from the wild world. But Molly doesn’t just work in the Gloucester fishery here in New England, she winters on the island of Kauai, in Hawaii where she’s involved in marine research efforts there too. She recently returned home to the North East for the summer, and we had been in Hawaii recently too, so we thought it would be great to get back together and discuss, not just bluefin and sea turtles, but also talk about her work in Hawaii and about closing the loop between fisherman and the consumer. You probably already know, but Americans are exporting far more of our fish than we are eating and up until recently it’s been a lot harder for the public to access fresh fish from the fleet than it has been for us to connect with our local farmers. Of course, we can get local fish, but it’s often passed through several middlemen first. But Molly and others are developing models that help to close that loop and bring the consumer and the fisherman closer together. She also believes in utilizing more of our catch and continues to combat the myth of methyl-mercury toxicity from large pelagic like tuna. All in all, Molly is a living legend, specializing where the worlds of marine biology and fisheries intersect. She’s had an incredible career at sea and her insights are invaluable to us and many others, so it's always a pleasure to sit down with her for another great conversation. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24287385

The Fad-Free Diet: Oxalates, Superfoods & Common Sense with Dr. Bill Schindler — WildFed Podcast #148 08/30/2022

The Fad-Free Diet: Oxalates, Superfoods & Common Sense with Dr. Bill Schindler — WildFed Podcast #148 We’re back today with internationally-known archaeologist, primitive technologist, and chef, Bill Schindler. Bill’s been on the show once before to discuss his book, Eat Like A Human, and he’s back today to talk about the human diet, through the lens of his professional focus of ancestral human foods, food acquisition, and the traditional processing techniques we once used to make our food edible or more nutritious. After our recent episode with Sally Norton, which was episode #142 “Are Oxalates Destroying Your Health” — where we discuss oxalic acid and other oxalates in our food supply — Daniel wanted to get another opinion. We didn’t tell Bill beforehand that we wanted to discuss this, as we wanted his honest and unbiased take on the subject. But, as it turns out he’s been keenly interested in this topic for some time and has been actively cutting oxalates out of his own diet — with some pretty profound results. So, while Bill and Daniel discuss fad diets in general today, they really take their time exploring the issue of dietary oxalates, since — if they are as deleterious to our health as some allege — the ramifications are significant and affect most of us. So this is a continuation of a conversation we began with Sally Norton, and it’s something Daniel would like to continue exploring over time, at least until he feels like he's gotten a pretty good handle on it. For now, he remains undecided. Not a total skeptic, but he's not drinking the kool-aid either. That said, he's been experimenting with his own diet a bit, by gently but consistently removing some of the highest oxalate foods he's been eating, which you’ll also hear him discuss here today. He's not going all in, since he still has some doubts, and because he's grown progressively more allergic to dietary restrictions as he's matured, but he has noticed some anecdotal improvements in his own subjective experience. So for now, he'll keep pursuing it. In closing, Daniel got interested in wild foods — and in particular — hunting, fishing, and foraging — because he's interested in human diet and nutrition. Sometimes in the world of wild foods we get more focused on what we can eat rather than what we should eat. We don't mean that ideologically, but rather nutritionally. So, from time to time, we think conversations like this are helpful, because they remind us of why and how we got here: wanting to be our best and healthiest selves. We want that for you too, so we hope this interview helps you in that pursuit! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24207603

Herbicide, Habitat & Edibility with Sam Thayer — WildFed Podcast #147 08/23/2022

Herbicide, Habitat & Edibility with Sam Thayer — WildFed Podcast #147 Our guest today is none other than Sam Thayer. If you’re serious about wild foods, you’ve probably read Sam’s incredible books — The Forager's Harvest, Nature's Garden, and Incredible Wild Edibles. They’ve become the gold standard in plant foraging by setting a new benchmark for what readers should expect from authors on the topic. Sam set the record straight on several plants but also chose to only write about plants with which he had lots of real world experience. These aren’t simple, one-paragraph entries saying such-and-such plant is edible, rather, these were in-depth monograph-type chapters that gave foragers tools for finding, identifying, and really eating these species. Up until then, most foraging literature was more about trail nibbling or novelty than it was about making these foods a serious part of your diet. We were recently in Sam’s home state of Wisconsin filming with him for an episode of Season 3 of the WildFed TV show, and we got to sit down and talk about our time together, about wild foods and foraging, but also, about another academic interest of his: the shocking origins of anthropology and why something he calls agrocentrism was perhaps the most important underlying belief that allowed for the marginalization of hunter-gatherer peoples by the agents of colonialism. This is essentially the belief that farming is what makes us human, and that foraging peoples — hunter-gatherers — were a primitive form of human or even subhuman. Now, of course, this sounds pretty repugnant today, and biologically untrue, but it was a well-accepted belief amongst the European intellectual elite at the time when anthropology was first becoming a credible field of science. It not only permeated the field but is recorded, as will be shown in a forthcoming book that Sam is working on, in the writings of many of the foundational thinkers of that time. While these ideas seem outmoded today, one doesn’t have to look far to see that the shadow of these ideas is still very present in our world, as folks interested in wild foods well know. After all, it's no mystery that the general public thinks of hunting and gathering as something from the past, for the poorest peoples of the world, or something you do in a survival situation. Certainly, it’s not a viable way to live anymore. Agrocentrism is an implicit bias, and those that hold it aren’t usually aware of it, rather, it's something that they just assume to be true without any conscious thought. But, rethinking what we believe about human food acquisition could be critical to finding truly ecologically-sound, sustainable, and human-healthy food systems in the future. Sam has presented the idea of ecoculture as an alternative approach to agriculture, and there’s a great essay about that in his book, Incredible Wild Edibles. We highly recommend reading that if you haven’t already. Lastly, we'll just say that Sam is a man of many talents, and this goes beyond mere plant identification, writing, teaching, and philosophizing on the origins of agriculture. It turns out, he also has a knack for song — as anyone who has spent an evening around the campfire with him already knows. It took some convincing, but he performed a great piece for us, rather impromptu, at the end of the interview, so stick around cuz you won’t want to miss that! View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24138852

Fire Ecology, Why We Need More Fire with James Agee, PhD — WildFed Podcast #146 08/16/2022

Fire Ecology, Why We Need More Fire with James Agee, PhD — WildFed Podcast #146 Dr. James Agee knows fire and is one of the nation's leading minds, voices, and advocates for its ecological use on the landscape. He’s an emeritus professor of forest ecology at the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington, Seattle. Before that, he was a forest ecologist and research biologist for the National Park Service in Seattle and San Francisco. Agee received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1973. He is the author of more than 100 technical reports and professional papers in forest and fire ecology, and he’s got extensive experience with fire research and management in the Pacific Coast states. Today Dr. Agee makes a cogent argument for why — despite the incredible wildfires we’ve experienced in recent years — we are actually suffering from an under-sufficiency of fire on the North American landscape. Though these wildfires have taken many lives and caused unprecedented damage to people's homes, work, and health, they’re caused, in part, by many decades of intentional fire suppression. While fire suppression, at first glance, seems like an obvious choice, counter-intuitively, it's actually out of synch with North American ecology, which developed in tandem with both wildfire and intentionally set and managed fires used by the continent’s indigenous population for everything from warfare, to forest management to improving harvest and hunting grounds. The evidence is written into the life history of fire-adapted plants native to North America, and the evidence of these managed fires is a part of our ethnographic and archeological record. But, the Eurocentric mind, set loose upon this continent had other designs, and wild or intentionally set fire wasn’t part of that. So, for decades, fires were suppressed even as fuel, once routinely burned off in large-scale fires, or gathered for use in campfires, has been allowed to accumulate. The result has been changes to the landscape that have diminished ecological productivity while at the same time becoming a recipe for disaster-level fires once they exceed our ability to suppress them. Experts like James Agee see fire as integral to a healthy, well-managed landscape, though — unfortunately — the public, policymakers, and the circumstances created by our modern culture of land ownership and use are slow to accept or allow this time-proven method. When we think about what really makes human beings different from other animals, we inevitably arrive at the domestication of fire. Ironic then, that we are destroying our own ecosystems, in part, by depriving them of it. Yet, this is the very situation we find ourselves in. And it’s a topic we'd like to continue exploring here on this podcast. And who better to lead us into this conversation than Dr. James Agee. Someone who’s spent their career studying fire ecology. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24066207

Let Molokai Change You, Hunting Axis in Hawaii with Ku Keanini — WildFed Podcast #145 08/09/2022

Let Molokai Change You, Hunting Axis in Hawaii with Ku Keanini — WildFed Podcast #145 10 days on Molokai, hunting, gathering, and connecting with local people to learn a bit about their culture and life there. We couldn’t be more grateful to have had this kind of experience! Unlike Waikiki Beach in Oahu’s Honolulu, Molokai isn't cluttered with high-rise hotels and high-end shopping centers. You have the distinct impression you're on people's home turf. The infrastructure that’s there is for the people who live there. The island is small, just 10x38 miles, and it’s been through its share of hardships. Bombed by the US military for ordinance testing, exploited for cash crops by the pineapple industry, overgrazed by the cattle industry, and currently, a test site for GMO crops, this island and its people have a reason not to want the steady stream of outsiders that have turned some of the other Hawaiian islands into popular tourist destinations. That said, it's still something of a paradise, protected as it is on three sides by its sister islands, and by the world's highest sea cliffs that stand sentinel on its Northern shores — there’s a reason it's considered the piko, or navel, of the Hawaiian Archipelago. With its incredible lush Eastern half, complete with enormous cascading tropical waterfalls, its beautiful beaches, abundant and productive ocean, and of course the spirit of Aloha which infuses everything as a kind of constant ambiance that sets the tone for a more relaxed and chilled out way of living than mainlanders like ourselves are used to. But, Molokai has a serious exotic animal issue, and at a level like nothing we've ever witnessed before. We've heard, many times during our hunting years, about animal populations that exceed carrying capacity and require intensive management, specifically where hunting is the primary tool for doing so. But wow, we just weren't prepared for the level of axis deer overpopulation that we witnessed there. On any given day of hunting, our team would find dozens of shed antlers, and several deadheads too, the skeletal remains of animals that have died due to drought and competition for the limited nutritional resources they need to survive. Now, it’s important to mention, that many of the residents there we met subsist on Axis deer, which most agree is amongst the finest venison in the world, so as far as problems go, there’s at least this incredible culinary opportunity. But, despite the significant hunting pressure the locals exert, and the mortality induced by the drought, the animal numbers remain staggeringly high. So, outfitters like Ku, our guest today, guide visiting clients on incredible hunts. As you can imagine, hunting there — especially for does and ewes — feels like a valuable conservation effort. And, as far as hunts go, we're not sure it gets better! Just imagine glassing for, and spot and stalking animals — western big game style — while looking out over the Pacific Ocean on three sides of you, with Oahu, Lanai and Maui in the distance, rising up out of the turquoise and jelly-blue inter-island channels that separate these tropical land masses. And while the island and its inhabitants might be initially skeptical of visitors from away — particularly from the mainland — they are also incredibly generous and warm once you’ve demonstrated a willingness to tread lightly, listen, and not interfere with the vibes of a place that has had enough meddling by outsiders. While our experience there was unique, we quickly felt welcomed and looked after. We'll never forget the hospitality we experienced there. So despite being from away, we were lucky enough to be let in on some incredible opportunities, like foraging fruit near some majestic ancient ruins, harvesting abundant pools of dried sea salt from the rocky coast, crabbing with grandma at a new moon low tide, or eating fresh, raw limpets and urchins from the tidal pools overlooking the islands western coast. If you're listening to this, thinking you’d like to do some hunting on Molokai too, reach out to Ku. He’s definitely your guy. Just be cool, and leave the intensity of the Mainland life at home. Trust us, you’ll be glad you did. View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: /episode/index/show/wildfedpodcast/id/24000114

WildFed Podcast — Hunt Fish Forage Food

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