Blood Origins

Blood Origins is an non-profit organization bringing unique storytelling and conservation together to change not only how hunting is viewed, but also how we fund conservation programs around the world more efficiently and effectively.

Wilderness
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Episode 461 - Willem Briers Louw || A Dream Job...
South African wildlife researcher Willem Briers Louw joins the Blood Origins podcast to talk about his role in wildlife research and monitoring. One could argue that Willem has the best job in the world (or more likely the most romantic job in the world). Flying around in helicopters, helping dart elephants, collaring lions and elephants to camera traps, to a recent research program started out the 24 lions project to the 100 lions project and more. Willem is in the thick of it as the lead researcher with Zambeze Delta Safaris in the Delta of Mozambique. This podcast should inspire anyone to understand more about wildlife, more about African wildlife, and maybe inspire you to live out your dreams and be a researcher in a setting like Willem is in.
52 min
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Episode 460 - Renée Thornton || Non-Hunter to W...
Robbie is joined by Renée Thornton, the volunteer Chair of the Women Hunt Program at the Wild Sheep Foundation, one of dozens of programs out there trying to help provide educational resources to the fastest growing demographic of hunters - women. Renée was a non-hunter - from a farming family, no less! - and once beginning to consider the ethical implications of eating meat, she began to consider what becoming a hunter would mean for that choice. This podcast is a look into that journey and if you are one of those women early in your hunting career or are considering taking up hunting, this podcast is an invaluable resource for what you need to do.
39 min
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Roundup 117 || Recorded LIVE From South Africa
Robbie is joined LIVE on location along the Tugela River, in the heart of Zululand, in South Africa with the Slots Media boys and Kolby Edwards with Mutambo films to talk about their latest trip to SA. From more lost luggage to a malaria infection to tweezing nipple hairs, it’s as much wild antics from the Slots Media boys as you’ve all com to expect.
33 min
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Episode 459 - Harvard Hansen || Our First Norwe...
Harvard Hansen is a hunter out of Norway, and an absolute podcast novice. He reached out to Robbie to say that we had neglected to ever have a guest from Norway on the show, so Robbie invited him on to talk about the landscape, species available to Norwegian hunters, and the issues facing hunters in Norway. 
41 min
5
Episode 458 - Dave Carson & Kaz Dube || Ecotour...
Dave Carson and Kaz Dube are professional guides in Zimbabwe. And while they are ecotourism guides, NOT professional hunters, but still had to do everything a professional hunter would have to do during the course of their qualification - such as shooting an elephant to pass and get their rank as professional guide in Zimbabwe. Robbie discusses the potential animosities between ecotourism and professional hunting and how we can bridge that gap as conservationists for the good of the resource. 
58 min
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Episode 457 - Anonymous C || Anti Hunting 
Robbie hosts an anonymous conversation with a friend’s  anti-hunter girlfriend after dinner in South Africa, and the result is a heartfelt discussion that explains how what we do from a hunting perspective is good for wildlife and how having an open mind can lead to some incredible conversations and education on the issues!
37 min
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Episode 456 - Erik Verreynne || A Veterinary Pe...
Erik Verreynne, has been a wildlife veterinary surgeon in Botswana for the last twenty years. He is a non hunter and wildlife conservationist on the front lines of the information war around hunting because of where he lives and the work he does around elephant conservation and conservation sustainability in Botswana. This conversation is probably one of the first conversations around changing Botswana elephant populations with someone who has been in Botswana for 20 years and has seen the changes with his own eyes since he has been involved in the wildlife conservation game. 
54 min
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Episode 455 - Leo Kroger’s .416 Rigby || A Gun,...
Robbie recounts the story of finding his grandfather’s .416 Rigby - gone for thirty years - during his November trip to South Africa and interviews the man that had the gun all this time after Robbie bought the gun back from him. 
29 min
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Episode 454 - McKenna Noata || A Black Professi...
McKenna Noata is a black African professional hunter in South Africa. There are not many black PH’s in South Africa, and so Robbie delves into the ‘why’ of McKenna getting involved in wildlife conservation, starting his career as a black PH, his upbringing as it pertains to wildlife, and how he perceives the future of getting more black South Africans into being professional hunters. 
38 min
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Episode 453 - Audrey Mayes || Big Green x Audre...
We bring you this conversation recorded on-location at the Remington Ammunition factory between Robbie and Audrey Mayes, the marketing specialist of Remington Ammunition (and host of their new podcast!), as the two talk about hunting, the Big Green Brand and legacy, and so much more!
36 min
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Episode 452 - Adam Bender || ‘Hashtag Conservat...
Adam Bender, the official first employee and Development Director of the Cabela Family Foundation, joins to talk about his new role, what the Cabela Family Foundation is planning and doing, how we at Blood Origins are teaming up with them, and more!
32 min
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Episode 451 - Michael Arnette And Bob Bourland ...
Robbie is joined by traditional bowhunters Michal Arnette (who has been on the podcast before) and Bob Bourland, to have a conversation about the traditional bowhunting wing of bowhunting in direct response to the long range rifle conversation of an earlier episode with Gunwerks in 2023. 
75 min
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Episode 450 - Kendall Long || Q&A from a Non-Hu...
Kendall Long, formerly of ‘The Bachelor’ fame, came to the defense of hunting in a recent Instagram spat - and as such Robbie invited her - unbeknownst to the reason behind her social media following - to talk about hunting, the perceptions around it, and the reasons behind hunters’ pursuit of game afield. She comes on to get ALL her hunting related questions answered - from conservation to trophy hunting to book recommendations by Robbie!
73 min
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Episode 449 - Charlie And Will || Two Nonhunter...
Charlie Dunn and Will Fortescue are non-hunters, one of Robbie’s favorite type of guest. Self-identifying as ‘not anti-hunters, but pro-conservation’ and ecotourism operators in the photography space in Kenya, that are weighing in with Robbie on a recent controversy regarding two elephants in Tanzania.
82 min
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Episode 448 - Ian Nowak || Bad Journalism is Ba...
Ian Nowak, the head game warden of Bulule Game Reserve, which is part of Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) on the West side of Kruger National Park in South Africa. Ian joined Robbie to talk about his recent elephant hunt controversy that Balule had to fight tooth and nail to have their side of the story told, and the effect bad journalism has on the lives of those living on the ground. 
56 min
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Episode 447 - Anthony Roe || From Feral to Reso...
Anthony Roe is the owner-operator of Dama Dama Free-Range, a venison distribution business in Victoria Australia. Anthony joins Robbie to discuss the amazing mechanism he has optimized through which he can share his ethically wild harvest meat with the rest of the world and how we can all use this example to better share wild game meat in Australia and beyond. Its a eye opening episode that truly showcases how a species like deer can be move from being non-native (sometimes classified as feral or invasive) to an incredible resource
53 min
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Episode 446 - David Howe || Chasing Predators W...
Anthropologist/Archaeologist David Howe was introduced to the show via Correy Hawk (@organic.archer on instagram). He specializes in ethnocynology - the study of ancient humans and their dogs. In light of Colorado’s ballot initiative banning cat hunting with dogs, David brings his perspective on the history of using dogs for hunting and answers the tough questions about where we’ve come from, where dogs have come from, and whether or not hunting with dogs is something new or should be frowned upon.
47 min
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Episode 445 - Heather Kelly ||  Backcountry and...
If you’re a hunter, you are probably acquainted with Heather’s Choice, the dehydrated food company out of Alaska. Heathers Choice CEO Heather Kelly joins Robbie on the heels of her debut on the ABC hit series Shark Tank. Heather talks about her experiences, whether or not she herself is a hunter, and the intersection between what she does, the backcountry, and the front country.
37 min
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Episode 444 - Mark Duda || Does the American Pu...
Mark Duda is the CEO of Responsive Management, a survey company based out of Virginia that has performed thousands of surveys over the last 30 years as it relates to wildlife, hunter attitude, general population responses to hunting, and more. Mark talks about the being at the forefront of the science behind these surveys and their responses, and what they can teach us about how to present hunting to the non hunter majority.
63 min
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Episode 443 - Dave Gittleson || ‘Shoot, Shovel ...
Colorado Rancher Dave Gittleson returns to the Blood Origins podcast this week to give us an update on the Colorado wolves issue. You may remember Dave as the first rancher whose calves were the subject of depredation by reintroduced Colorado wolves, and applied for a 10-J ruling to lethally remove wolf 2101 for chronic depredation issues with it. Robbie asks if Dave’s attitude has changed around wolves, and gets into the tough questions like the ‘shoot, shovel, shut up’ doctrine and more. 
45 min
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Episode 442 - Lindsay Thomas || Busting The Myt...
Lindsay Thomas, the Communications Director of the National Deer Association, joins Robbie to talk about the science - and widespread myth and misinformation - around the culling of deer to improve antler class. The two dive deep into the studies around this and explain exactly why this is a bad strategy and what you should be focused on.
48 min
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Short Truths Ep. 15 - Hunting Tourism VS Photog...
The question was posed to me: why do you Robbie differentiate between hunting and photographic tourism? Are they not the same thing - i.e., tourism? What's the difference? When you take a step back and really examine what the definition of tourism is - it's simply defined as visiting a location for a specific reason - whether that is to take a photo, take a drink, hunt an animal. It's all the same thing. There is an economic endeavor tied to that activity and at the end of the day both consumptive (i.e., hunting) and non-consumptive (i.e., photo tourism) from a wildlife perspective should have one common goal from their profits - wildlife conservation. If that's true, and they are honest to that goal, then there isn't really a difference. So here's my answer ...
5 min
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Episode 441 - Tim Gale || Exploring New Zealand...
Robbie is joined by Tim Gale, General Manager of the Game Animal Council of New Zealand, a government organization reporting to the Minister of Conservation whose mission is to set conservation policy in New Zealand. Tim and Robbie talk about the organization’s new hunter-friendly platform called Better Hunting, which was designed to create new hunters, give them all the information that they need from field skills such dressing and skinning, to safety skills such as navigation and medical train ing, to kitchen skills such as butchering and more.
43 min
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Episode 440 - Conservation Musings || Interview...
This is a little different podcast. Recorded from a land cruiser as the team was moving between Maun, Botswana and a concession called NG 41. Robbie was driving with one of the concession lease holders, Johan Calitz and a rangeland scientist out of Botswana, Christian Winterbach. The boys talk through wildlife, conservation, sustainable use and hunting, perspectives and perceptions around hunting, the science tied to wildlife conservation and more.
57 min
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Short Truths Ep. 14 - Is Trophy Hunting Conserv...
The question that was posed to me was one that we get a lot: Is Trophy Hunting Conservation? Or do people just use that terminology to make themselves feel better about killing animals? This is a great question for the Short Truths. Though the motivation of the individual may not be based in conservation, the action of the individual is conservation, though it may not be the direct motivation. What is conservation? Preservation, sustaining, not wasteful loss of a resource, that has a plan to its management in order to maximize biodiversity. That is a bastardized combination of the Oxford dictionary and the Merriam Websters dictionary; it paints the picture of what conservation actually is - which then begs the question does hunting conform with that definition? So here's my answer ... Do you have a question we can answer on the short truths? Please DM us through Instagram, leave a comment below, or email us at info@bloodorigins.com
5 min