Inside the World’s Deadliest Jungle: Snakes, Tigers & Survival | Paul Rosolie | FO500 Raj Shamani

27:45They can sense a thunderstorm how many miles away. If one elephant is over this side of the mountain, the other elephant is here, they can make rumbling seismic communications through the ground. They have technology. They have a memory that we can't conceive of. And so, they've even documented elephants in Africa using medicinal plants to induce labor. They have culture. They have technology. They have medicine. We're sitting here, we go, he's eating some grass. We're so stupid. I mean, they remember the migration routes of their ancestors that they've been taught from their mothers. Most people, they can only move their finger across their phone.

28:21They're good for nothing. So I think elephants should have a higher stake in society. You said you saw this elephant going to the woman. She was pregnant and the woman didn't know, but the elephant knew. Yes. Right. How do locals behave to this phenomenon? And at what point do they realize that she's trying to signal that this woman is pregnant? So she wasn't trying to signal it. She was interested. She was just indulging her curiosity. And she said to her sister, come see this. And then the other elephant came too. And they did this. And the poor human was like, she was like, oh, God. Oh, God.

28:59And they're touching. But I've also seen these were elephants, you know, like the forest department and the tribal groups. They have elephants that they work with. These are elephants. These aren't wild elephants, of course. But they're semi-wild. They still go off in the forest, but they also come in and get some food and the people work with them. And the way that they interact, it's just so interesting. They know so much. They're so wise to what humans do. But no, she wasn't signaling that the woman was pregnant. She was just investigating. Your book opens up with two loggers being killed. Yeah.

29:39but nobody has ever asked you about what happened in those two months when you were preparing waiting there before you got like you got attacked by these locals are like these people who are the tribe from the amazon wait wait wait hold up the two loggers in the beginning of the book that were killed were killed by the uncontacted tribes the voluntarily isolated nomadic people that the emits these are tribes that are live naked way out in the forest the loggers had gone into their land and these guys hunt with bows and arrows and they straight through so they killed the loggers what is that that that didn't happen to me no that didn't happen to you but you saw that right i did not see that okay they found the bodies afterwards and they found that they'd been shot by arrows.

30:32And so what I was doing was explaining that this is what would have happened. They would have been cutting and you hear that loud chainsaw noise. You can't hear anything. And so the indigenous people would have heard that and gone, there's something over there. They go over there and they say, who are these people cutting down our tree? They don't like it when you cut down their trees. And so they have six foot arrows that they shoot. And they go completely silently. And a lot of times when these arrows hit you, they go completely through your body. So one second you're breathing and the next second you just have a hole that goes through your body and then the next few arrows will hit you and then you go down.

31:07And so that they don't tolerate people coming into their land. These are the wild tribes. These are not people that we cannot talk to. But how do you behave in jungle when you know this is the danger? They're only in certain areas. We don't go into the areas where they live. first of all that would be suicide second of all it would be uh almost homicide on to them because if we go into their territory our we our breath our our hands we have access to outside pathogens we've built up an immune system that has dealt with civilization and we can exist holding on to the poles on the subway or the metro and And that would kill entire tribes.

31:51Entire family groups and tribes have been wiped out by outside pathogens. When the Europeans first came to North America, I know there's the stories of them giving blankets with smallpox to the Native Americans because it would just wipe out. They wouldn't need to have war with them. Then it would just wipe out people. So with these isolated sort of virgin populations, we have to be like they're epidemiologically extremely delicate. it. We can't go into their territory. We have to let them be. And they're talking about jungle keepers. If you go there, they'll make sure that you remember. And again, there's the thing about the lawlessness of the Amazon.

32:31Even though they're within the territory of Brazil or Peru, they've never heard of this country. They're in their jungle. That's it. And their rule is... So again, whether or not we agree, some people say we should go contact them and tell them about airplanes and Jesus and iPhones. And other people say, no, we should leave them like that forever. They should be stuck in the jungle and we should just protect them and they should stay. Spend another thousand years like that. They should never change. These two groups fight. Even the anthropologists, there's different groups that say different things.

33:00What do you think? When you're on the ground, it doesn't matter what you think. The reality is if you see them, you got to run for your life because they're going to shoot you. And that's not saying anything mean about them, the only reason they're still alive is because everyone's too scared to go near them. It works. What do I think? I think a little bit of both. These people exist on the land that I protect. So, in the 136 ,000 acres that Jungle Keepers is protecting, and now me and JJ, and there's other people on the team, this guy, Roy, Mos, and Stefan, there's a whole team of people that are part of this directorate.

33:36And then we have agents and rangers working for us in that huge territory of the Amazon that we protect, live these tribes. And so when I released the footage a few months ago of these tribes, I got some criticism where people said, how dare you use this footage of these poor people? It's exploitation. You're just using it to get yourself famous. No, we're using it to raise awareness because these people are being killed by the narco traffickers and their forest is being destroyed. And if we don't tell their story, nobody can because they can't come on the podcast. And so we were trying to advocate for them.

34:10And now we're protecting even more land because we've come and announced to people, these people are out there, we've gotten support. But as we protect their land, what we realize is that, you know, they're going to remain there. And we have other indigenous groups that work with us, that are part of the Jungle Keepers family. And they don't know what to do about the tribes either. So do we talk to them? Do we not talk to them? the tribe will come out and sometimes they're like, you know, we want bananas. We don't have access to farmed anything. We have to go hunt a monkey. We have to go find a turtle and eat that.

34:47And like, man, if you just learned how to plant banana crops, you'd have all of the carbs you'd need to sustain life. And so, they're pre-agriculture, pre-metal age. They don't have stones. So, they're really living a pre-stone age life. Now, some people say these tribes have splintered off of other tribes about 100 years ago. So, they're not pre-Stone Age tribes. They're actually just kind of just lost splinter facts. They're just like lost groups that got pushed into the forest. And either one is possible. I don't know what the answer is, but the life they're living right now, I don't think is one that is desirable by anybody.

35:28It's very difficult, very unforgiving. If you break your ankle, you die. You get an infection, you die. There's intertribal warfare. They steal women. God only knows what the infant mortality rate is, what wrong beliefs they have. They probably have some interesting creation myths. Yeah, sure. But they also probably don't. I mean, think in the gold rush in the US, people thought they could use lead to close a can of beans and how thousands of people died from lead poisoning. Like in human history, there's been plenty of times that we believe the wrong thing. Salem witch trials, people going, she's a witch.

36:06And then we'll go after these people and crush them with rocks. So God only knows what these people believe that just isn't true. They have no access to science. And so I think that knowledge and science and culture helps people. And I always explain to people, you know, if you're in New York City and you see a homeless person on the side of the street, there's no one to help them. And in the rain in February when it's freezing cold, they're huddled and they're on the street by themselves. And I explain to Americans the difference where like you go to the slum in India and you see that, but there is some sort of culture.

36:41And they still have dishes that they cook that have been handed down. And there's sort of a support network of other people in that situation. Whereas here you're on your own. so okay for a second let's go back at handling snakes like tell me more about them tell me how do you understand what are the snakes like non-venomous one venomous ones how do you identify like give me more understanding about snakes great question and i always want to educate people about snakes and so one of the best ways to educate people about snakes is to show them a snake because most people when they don't when they say they're scared of snakes what they really mean is that they've never met a snake.

37:19Now this is a species of boa constrictor, red-tailed boa from South America. So this is one of the species we find very, very similar to this in the Amazon. Okay. And this is still a baby. They get to be as long as this table, as thick as your leg. And so what I'm going to do, I invite you, this may be probably under a year old. Okay. So if you just put your hand out like this with the thumb out. You don't bite me, right? You got this. Look, is it biting me? No, no, but I'm pretty scared. 100%. So just take the tail. Just take the tail. Just hold the tail. Just wrap your hand around the seat. Maybe it senses that I'm scared.

37:56So you just act like a tree. Yeah, you're okay. You're okay. So you just see, and she's going to lift your hand up. Good. Now she's going to put her tail. She's going to hold on to you a little bit. This is a small baby animal, so you have to be protecting her. You don't want her to fall. Okay. You just have to be the tree. and see she's not she's just trying to feel secure i know you're gonna be you're gonna be spooked to the head but this is not an animal she wants to eat mice she wants to eat a bird and see she's just looking she's so beautiful her the scales on their heads and so again you don't want a pet they don't like it to be poked it scares them okay she says this is something that's attacking me so you just be like i'm just i'm just being the tree and so she's looking for the next branch to go on.

38:45So I give her the next branch. No, no, no. See that? She gets scared. She goes, should I defend myself? So snakes aren't aggressive. They're defensive. When people say that's an aggressive snake, there's no aggressive snake. The only snake that'll eat people is a reticulated python. They eat little Indonesian grandmothers from time to time. So aren't they venomous? Absolutely. And if this snake was venomous, we would not be handling it here like this. I wouldn't risk your life and I wouldn't risk my life. This is a very, very calm, non-venomous snake. Why don't you lean in and look at her face?

39:17She cannot come closer to you. Lean in. Look really up close at how beautiful her scales are. She's got a very pretty face, those beautiful eyes. And they have this incredible feature where when they lift their head, their eyes actually rotate. So if their head is facing down, their eye will rotate up. so they're never actually seeing sideways or anything an incredible adaptation and you see the beautiful coloration on her tail now look a snake she doesn't this i'll show you something she won't like she won't like being on here it's not very easy for her to move but she likes you please hold please hold please please please okay then but that's good she goes to you but why is she coming to me i mean maybe she feels like you're good energy or she feels secure with you no she's not she's just going in the first direction she can think of going so right now Now she's using my hand to push off, see?

40:09And the thing I tell everybody with a snake is she's going to look for the first place that she can hide. So let's see where she finds.

40:21Oh, she's going to climb the tree. It's not a tree, bro. She doesn't know that. But look how good she is at climbing it. Oh, come on, you can do this. Come on, you sit there. It's going to be so good. She's going to climb your mic. This is a priceless shot. Lean into the mic. You got this. She's not going to do anything. Come on, lean closer. Smile, smile, smile. This is an awesome shot. Hey, look at me. Look at me.

40:51Okay, hold on. See this? This is a defensive thing. Now you're that quick movement. Now she's she's going am i in danger and so she's she's turned herself into an s yes and so look she's holding on really tight so that scared her so no no no it's okay she'll she'll recover so look now if i just touched she said she don't they don't like being pet but just touch her tail like this she's going i don't really like that i'm gonna keep going and then so see how she's calmed down now she got scared and she goes right back to being calm she's just seeing if she can has to defend herself absolutely not trying to be aggressive in any way i'll take her back over to my side but what happens if she bites this this this one if she bit you you'd be okay it'd be a couple of scratches okay be a couple of scratches now that's not the case for something like an anaconda now i can't show you an anaconda today but i can show you something kind of similar.

41:52Why? Well, there's only a few snakes that get to be the size of an anaconda. There's anacondas, there's reticulated pythons that get to be even longer than anacondas, there's boa constrictors that get to be very big. But one of the most famous snakes and one of the most readily available to handle snakes that get to be that tremendous length are Burmese pythons. And you're going to love this. Watch. I could hear this. She is hissing. Yeah. I have to get her to come here. Now you get her. Yeah. All right, here we go. So this, this is a Burmese python, which you might recognize because - Please, just please pull it away from me.

42:35Yes, this is a huge python. Just going to try and get her. Let's just get her on the table. So this is the closest thing I could show you to an anaconda in a setting like this. Now again, this is such a big snake and like the littler snake, she's doing everything she can to feel safe. So she's grabbing onto the table right here. What if she attacks? She's not going to attack right now. So the fact that she's calm is a really good sign. But you get a sense of how powerful this snake is by just looking at how hard it is for me to lift it. I cannot lift this snake. How big would this be? This would be about a 14 to 15 foot snake, I believe.

43:20and how much would she weigh i don't know i would imagine probably about 180 pounds so this snake weighs the same as me and what if she attacks like what but again what would make her attack right now so if i was to hurt her in some way maybe she would defend herself but she's not going to attack but why is she sniff like why is she making this well that's how they figure things out that's how they see so she's scenting the air with her tongue and then they have something called the jacobson's organ that that's going to the roof of her mouth and she's getting information. So she's learning about us.

43:53But I mean, this is such a beautiful, beautiful snake. Wow. Yeah. That's a dragon of an animal. Good girl. Good girl. Yes. You're very big. Very big and very powerful. So when we're dealing with anacondas, that anaconda that almost crushed my collarbones, this is about the size of that snake yeah see just gonna try do you have do you find these kind of snakes in india so this is very closely related to the indian rock python this is python bibitatus there i mean i've never seen that at a podcast look at this thing good girl she's just putting on a show wow you see how beautiful all these just tens of thousands of scales and snakes are not like fish that scales are part of their skin with fish scales and how old would this snake be she's about six years old so this is obviously a captive snake but she's raised well she's very healthy she's clearly loved and taken care of i've never seen i've never had a conversation in my life with this danger being this close to me no she's sweet she's not being dangerous right now see she's coming to me please she wants you no she doesn't no please yeah let go to him man go to him see she she likes you better she knows she knows see most people like me they would they would fear at this point of course at what What point did your fear go away?

45:31After handling hundreds and hundreds of snakes, but this is, she's calm, right? Because she knows people. She's been handled. So see if you can lift that. Now that her head's all the way over here, see if you can lift that side of her body. You could just put your hands underneath and try to lift. Oh my God. Yeah.

45:55Isn't that wild? Wow. Yeah.

46:01This is insane. Yeah, she is insane. The thing is, there's so much of her that's not even on the table. Aren't you? Yeah, what if... I would just take the back, Tristan, put it over her shoulder. What if she crushes me? She's not going to crush her. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Come on, stand up. Stand up. Come on, you got this. Yo, let the warrior out. Good, you're fine. Her head's nowhere near you. What if she... My question, now I want to start interviewing you. You ever been in this position on a podcast before? What's your favorite color? Let's stay calm. Let's stay calm. Where do you do that?

46:44Come back. So now we're going to let her slither over me, over you. She's going to move this way. Yeah, let her go. You feel all those muscles. What are you feeling right now? I just... I don't know man. Can you feel the muscles moving around your neck? I could feel every and how she, like she's transferring weight from here to here and now she's trying to get out of me. Yeah, you feel how strong she is. Yeah. If you just like take a big breath and like hold me, it'll be crushed. Yes, this snake could easily crush both of us. She's so strong. Don't get her face Naomi, please. I'm not, I'm not.

47:24Can I leave her? No. You can't just drop her. Okay, that face is coming near me, man. Okay, I'm so kidding. You're good, you're good, you're good. Just smile, man. It's okay. You don't want that. You can't fit through there. I don't care what anybody says. Wow. This is taking a lot of my strength. I can sense it. Okay, let's do it.

47:49No. Thank you, buddy. Thanks for being kind, man. Just go to sleep. should i leave no you're good you're good why is she so anyway what were you saying so when you think of big snakes like this first of all they're apex predators so these guys actually got introduced to the florida everglades in the u.s and while they're the perfect apex predators in their natural environment here they're invasive and so they're actually such effective predators that they're eating everything they've been found eating the alligators and so you asked me if this is the same as an Indian rock python. These Burmese pythons tend to stay more in the jungle and they may overlap into some part of eastern India at some point but as far as I know this is python vivitatis and then in India you find python merulis I believe and that I've found in southern India and they seem to like more arid sort of dry areas but But again, you can get these incredible sizes where they're eating dogs, deer, really whatever they want.

48:54And an animal like this is going to find places in the forest to rest. They'll eat once every six months, once every couple of months, whatever comes by. But absolutely amazing animals. Now, the interesting thing is that the first snake I showed you, that South American boa, they have live birth. Their babies come out of them alive. This big girl is laying eggs. That's one of the differences between the different species. some of them so they lay eggs this one will lay eggs this burmese python will legs i can't get over her color i'm really freaking out this is such a beautiful snake you know tell me see even though you have you have man try thinking yeah this even though you have come out of the fear of being around them yeah like you look to be you seem to be pretty comfortable and playing around you understand them oh she didn't want to be kissed she doesn't like that she didn't like that she didn't like that man so you've said that animals only become

49:57can we get that back in please knew when she was going for it yep she said enough yeah she's like i don't want to do podcast anymore brother that was excellent yeah that was excellent okay that was that was awesome and i do this stuff that was awesome how did you know that it's going to attack so she was telling us with her body language that she said all right look you have me on the slippery surface you're picking me up putting me down she and she said okay i could feel her sort of getting like that's enough then she's laying there because she's like all right she's a big snake she's tired and then she was holding on with her tail and then i could see her head was this way and then i i gave her that kiss and she went what was that and again that scared her so i shouldn't have done that but then she turned her head and you heard the hissing go up and that wasn't just breathing that was hissing she was going i don't like you being there and then i I went, I should get out of the way.

50:58And then she saw me move and she moved. And that's when I went, okay. And then boom, when she struck, I said, let me just get out of the way. Because I don't want to bleed on your podcast table. That was awesome. Again, that was a great experience. I'm still terrified with this because, you know, what's commendable is the ability of a human body. Like now you can just calm yourself around that, knowing that what kind of danger it was. Because you were asking me at that time, right? How do you feel? Yeah. I could feel that weight. She was so heavy. If she wanted, she would have just crushed me.

51:35Like one move here, she could crush me. And then sometimes she would move in this direction. So I could feel my weight from going from here to here. And then sometimes she would go back. And you can feel all those thousands of muscles creeping across you. But that weight is what she uses to, you know, once she grabs onto an animal, that weight they drag it down into the water or into the grass and wrap it around and then just and then they'll spend three four hours swallowing it see here here's a beauty about it right like you were not scared at all because you you knowing the kind of danger you could sense it and you were so aware in the moment that it could hit you right i mean but this is anything i mean i i say that people anybody who's a good driver you drive in traffic especially indian traffic um and you have to be so aware you have to be thinking about the dogs and the lorries and the rickshaws and the the children crossing the street and you have to be able to do all of this while winding and half the time checking your phone and everything else that people do with the snakes it's like i've put in so many hours and so that as soon as she started moving and i could notice also that she she was sort of whereas before she was she was going where can i go in the room she was looking this way and then when she turned her head just here she was looking at me she's going what that's enough and so she's going that's enough it's her only word that's enough you know it's her only move to say back up and she wasn't really trying to bite she just showed up she was just trying to back off like you just threatened you just yeah and it worked i don't want to get an arm in that mouth hell no you you've said somewhere that animals only become readable when you stop being afraid of them is that true it's partly true i mean but you can definitely be afraid of the men's tell me an exact moment you stop being afraid of the animals or like the snake like this i don't know if there's i mean again i'm not scared of this snake but i have respect for this snake i'm not scared of a wild elephant in india but i have respect for it at what moment do you stop being scared and having respect but again i don't ever have i'm not scared of animals that's i'm like since the beginning no since the beginning i think that's where i'm i don't i i live with animals you know they're my friends i've raised toucans i've rehabilitated snakes i've i've raised a baby giant anteater on my on my back and so these animals to me where people go i'm scared it's like dude i catch crocodiles all the time i swim with them in the river.

54:08And so, these aren't scary things. If you're swimming with crocodiles, they're not going to hunt you because they're in their environment. They're thinking, I want to find a bird. I want to find a fish. I want to find my prey. I mean, unless you're going up against Nile crocodiles, giants that are eating wildebeest, even an alligator. If I get in the water with an alligator, most of the time that alligator is going to run away. They don't like being pursued. They don't like feeling nervous. They want to sneak up on their prey like a bird or something and just whack and then pull it down into the thing.

54:41They don't want another big animal coming towards them. That's what people don't realize. And so if I'm in the wild and I see elephants walking by, I'll announce myself. I'll go, hello. Hey, guys. And they'll, you know, you see they'll throw a trunk in your direction. They'll put their ears out. They'll say, what are you? They want to see you. They don't like one thing. they don't like when you're crouched down like this you stand up go hey right here you know it's okay they get a good look at you ears out and then they'll go back to you know half the time they'll show you their backside if they don't like you and then if they're calm they'll start flapping their ears again start wagging the tail again they'll go back to just eating if they don't see you as but you have to every animal has a boundary and you everyone has experienced this whether it's a bird in your backyard anything you approach and then it doesn't matter you're still far away you get a little bit closer and all of a sudden they change positions and a lot of times with the bird as you get a little bit too close they'll poop butterflies do this birds do it everything because they're like okay i'm ready to run and then and that's when you know you're like all right i've crossed their boundary you can do this with geese in a field works for elephants bears tigers everything although yeah so all animals want to run away from humans yeah i mean if you see a snow leopard i mean again even a tiger for the most part does not unless she has cubs or unless the tiger's hunting you if you're in the sundervans but for the most part a healthy wild tiger would find it really strange if you walked up to them they might not be scared they might be indifferent if you get too close they might take you out but you're disrespecting them they're not gonna they're certainly not gonna run up and attack you the only time the tigers attack is you know they they wear out their teeth when they're very very old and if they can't catch on to deer and wild boar and they can no longer hunt well we're easy we're like a banana you know it's like they can just rip us open it's like why would you not eat that so was there any incident where you were afraid i'm afraid all the time um tell me one moment where you thought maybe this is it the snake crushing me the first the first big anaconda also the first time we caught uh an 18 foot anaconda just 18 and a half feet when i you know the whole team was fighting and we were in deep water so if she wraps you in deep water not only you're going to get crushed.

57:17You're also going to drown. And so, when I got her head, I had to get the head. I was the most experienced person on the team. And when I got her head, she just started thrashing. So, she's beating me around, just throwing my body. And that was terrifying. She wraps me up. And you just think about the fact that you might be dragged into the black water and never see the sky or air again, that in this moment, and you go, okay, what's worth it? You know, is it worth it to tell the world this story about this forest to show them this dragon? And the only way I can do that is by risking everything to do this.

57:54Take that last breath and just jump in. And so, that was terrified and it was worth it. But I mean, I think that that's the way the universe works. I mean, you have to risk for reward. I mean, back to tigers. every time a tiger chases after a deer or a buffalo, those hooves, those horns, they could kill them. So, they have to risk their lives every time. And then what is it? One out of 10 tries results in a meal. And so, for animals, this idea of risk and reward is fine. And again, if you look at the great warriors, like in the US, we have the Comanches. They would go riding into battle, they weren't thinking about, you know, what if we lose?

58:40They just were in it to win. And so they had no problem. They played the game like they can't lose. And that changes the way you perceive everything. If you can play the game like you can't lose, then you can play at the highest level. You're not thinking about failure. You're thinking about execution, nothing else but focus. And so that's what animals have that we don't have, where they're fully committed. So you have to learn that. And I think that there's certain situations that demand that. you were charged by an elephant in india why not yeah a 12 feet elephant right yeah and you ran zigzag yeah that one i see that was not my fault okay in my defense there was a it was a stream all right and so the banks of this stream it was like the jungle the jungle the jungle and then it went about 12 feet down stream and it went about 12 feet up and then there was like a field with beautiful trees and there's a mother elephant and some younger ones all around there.

59:35And I was like, this is beautiful. I'm going to keep my distance. And I announced myself. I said, hey, everybody, they all looked over and said, we don't care. They were like, it's a person, whatever. And they're eating over on the other side of the stream. And I had my notebook and I like to journal and sketch. And I said, all right, I'm going to just, I has a beautiful tree hanging over the stream. I'm going to go to that tree and climb up it. And I'm going to sit in this tree and just watch elephants the whole afternoon and they're just grazing here and there's nobody around so beautiful and so I'm making my way towards that tree and I keep looking across the stream like this they're there and I'm just going to be so careful I'm so respectful of these elephants and as I'm looking at them and walking this way I made the most crucial thing of not noticing my surroundings and I just heard one stick crack and I looked up and I see the the the back end of this tremendous tusker this huge elephant and i you feel the blood drain out of your body it's like the blood reverses direction in your veins and i just went i'm dead i'm 100 dead i'm going i don't see any way that i get out of this situation i'm within five feet of this elephant a wild elephant and he turned around he looked at me and you could just you see that the tusks come around and he looked at me with one eye looked at me like what the fuck are you doing so close like the disrespect on his face.

1:00:54He was like, how dare you? Turns around and then just smacks a tree with his trunk. The tree flew apart. Just starts screaming and he turns around. And the time it took him to sort of turn around, I threw down my backpack. I started running through the forest. And as he's chasing me, I wish I could play the video for people when I looked over my shoulder because you just see this elephant crashing through the jungle and all these lantana bushes and all this stuff has thorns on it. Human, if we run through that bush, we'll get tied up like it's barbed wire. Elephant, straight through. Trees going over and everything.

1:01:29And yes, I was zigzagging. As you're running, I would grab a tree and just pivot 90 degrees and go this way. And so, he'd have to come this way to chase me. And then I'd jump in the air, grab another tree, and then just swing around like a gibbon and then keep and accelerate in that direction. So, I got a little bit of space as we're going. He's good at trucking in this train in the same direction and finally we get to the edge of the stream and this elephant's coming full speed and so i just jumped and i rolled down the 12 feet and landed on my back into the stream and the elephant gets to the edge of this cliff at full speed and he realized it's a cliff and he stops like this and you could see him like sort of like and if that elephant found looking up at this elephant's head i'm going if he falls he's going to go face down the stream and kill us both his neck's going to break and I'm going to get crushed under an elephant.

1:02:17He got back onto his feet and he was so pissed. He picked up a stick, raised the stick up in his trunk and threw the stick at me. And the stick went right next to my head. And I couldn't believe I was alive. I was covered in blood. I had a big scratch on my head. And I was like, I'm alive. Screamed. He was so mad. And then the other elephants went running. And I was, I have no way. My backpack was gone. I was bleeding all that covered in blood oh it was amazing it was amazing seeing how powerful he was now the sad thing about that story is that in order for that elephant to be that mad he's had conflicts with humans he's had he's probably gone into a farmer's field probably had fireworks or or you know rocks thrown at him must have seen one of his members getting probably brutally beaten by humans Yeah.

1:03:09And so, again, they're so smart. They know that the humans are cutting down their forest. They know that the humans are threatening them. And so, when he sees a human that close to him, he got very scared. It wasn't just the disrespect. It was also a fear response. And he goes, I'm an elephant. They're a survival machine. I forget who said that. But he said, why would a herbivore, why would something that eats plants kill you? They don't need to kill you. But in their mind, if you're threatening me, kind of like the wasps, if you threaten me, then I'll remove the threat. I'll be peaceful if you'll be peaceful, but don't you threaten me.

1:03:41I respect that mentality. Was that fear different than the kind of fear which you felt with Anaconda?

1:03:50Yes. I'd rather be trampled to death by an elephant than crushed by an anaconda. Something about being killed by a reptile. That seems terrible. But being crushed was very sort of like the dread. Because I know what happens. I've seen the animals that a snake crushes. And a big snake, when they crush, let's say like a rabbit, they'll crush a rabbit so much that the guts will explode out of its mouth and the eyeballs pop out. and you see them hanging by strings. And so I was imagining that happening to me. The guts will explode out of your mouth and your ass. And so that's pretty rough. Now running from an anaconda, running from an elephant, you're running through the trees at full speed.

1:04:35And that's one of those moments where you hit the apex of life because you go, man, I'm running from this incredible force of nature and this fucking pieces of trees flying by me. And it's like, man, if you lose that, then fair play. Fair game. and also it was a total mistake it's not like i made a stupid risk i was just walking i had no idea he was there quiet they're so quiet people so many times i've heard people be like oh you guys are so loud you sound like a pack of elephants no pack of elephants is quiet so quiet their feet are you know they're they're basically standing on their toes and they have a big pad their whole heel is this big flat pad they're quiet but they show like you see clips when they're going wild and like the whole pack is running around yeah why why does that oh when they get scared there's a beautiful video i think it's from thailand where this guy comes around the bend on his on his motorcycle and the thing is these mothers have babies with them and they're crossing the road this is a beautiful video and he he falls off his bike because they charge him he drops the but the bike and he just stands there with his hands like this and these elephants Because he's going, I can't run.

1:05:40And he's standing there in his helmet. And he just goes, he just puts his hands up. And he's like, please don't kill me. And the elephants come right up to him like they're going to kill him. And then they stand. And they go, okay, we won't kill you. But they all surround him and they're all going, they're screaming at him. You scared us. Beautiful video. I don't know who took the video, but it's amazing. This guy falls right off his bike and then just, please don't kill me. It's awesome. It's awesome. And they don't kill him. And they understood. That's what you were saying. They're intelligent.

1:06:10Yeah, yeah. They just said, don't risk my babies. I had an elephant tell me this. I was driving on a road in Kerala and this mother elephant ran out into the road, ears out. No sound, but ears out. She stopped my car. I'm in this little red I-10 and the elephant in front of me. I'm looking up through the windshield. They're going, oh my God. If she just, you know, she'll just throw this car. But she stands there. She's like, all right. And she's waiting for something. She puts her trunk up. She kind of goes near the window a little bit. I said, what do you want? And then I tried to back up a little bit.

1:06:46No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like the snake. She went, no. Took a stand there. And I said, okay, I won't back up. And I said, I can't go around. I can't back up. So I leaned out the window. I said, what do you want? And she was like, flapped her ears. And she said, oh, I can see you now. She couldn't see me through the glass. She said, oh, I can see you. And she moved over here. And she still looked very menacing. Her ears are out. So I went, okay, shut the car. Your instinct is to run away. But I said, you know what? She's telling me something. Why'd she come out on the road? Shut the car.

1:07:14Now I'm sitting there. I lean out the window again. I said, hey, mama, what are you doing? And then she had her ears out. And then her sister came across the road with the baby. So it was her sister and the baby brought the baby across. And then as soon as the baby was off on the thing, her ears went down. She literally said, okay, thank you. Like her head shook. And then she moved off. and I turned on the car very carefully because I don't want to scare them. I turned on the car gently. She looked at me again like, yo. And I was like, I'm going, I'm going. It's okay. But it was a whole conversation.

1:07:44You know, she came out and she goes, stop. I want to bring my baby across the road. Turn off the motor. Okay, now I go. So this is why I love elephants. You got a disease also, right? When you were in India and it was the kind of infection where New York doctors actually got medical students to show you. What was that disease? Because it's that rare. Yeah, I was staying in a mud hut in the jungle. How do you pronounce it? Tularamia. Tularamia. It's so rare that, yeah, I went to an infection. It makes an infected pit on your arm. What happened? How did that happen? In India it happened, right? You get bitten by a tick, I believe.

1:08:23Okay. And then you get this illness. For some reason, this illness causes you to have an infected pit on your right elbow. Weird. Super rare. And I came back to New York with it and I had no energy and I just couldn't get out of bed and I felt sick all the time. So, I went to an infectious disease doctor, the best one in New York City. And he went, do you mind if I call my students? And I was like, no, I don't mind. He brought all these kids in and he goes, everybody? He goes, this is the only time in your life you're going to see this in real life. He said, this is tularema. He goes, look how the patient is presenting this pus on his right elbow.

1:08:58He's like, this is classic. I was like, oh, God. And they put me on a bunch of antibiotics for a couple of weeks, but it didn't work. It didn't get any better. And then they switched up the antibiotics, put me on different antibiotics for a few weeks. Still didn't work. Now I have even less energy and I'm really broken down. And then JJ called me from the Amazon. He's like, dude, something amazing happened. We were just getting a new piece of land that we're going to protect. He said, you got to come down here. So I get down to the Amazon and he looks at my arm and he sees this horrendous infection and he goes, so bad.

1:09:25He goes, come with me. takes me into the forest and he cuts into this tree and gets the sap. And then he used the sap to make it into, as it heats up, as he rubbed it, it made a seal, like a chemical seal, turned into almost rubber, sealed the infection. And then he made me drink a little bit of it. And the next morning, all the infection was gone. It had turned to a black scab. In a couple of days, it healed up. Jungle medicine. What was happening inside your body? What were you feeling? Just energy sucking up? Absolutely no energy. It was dealing with the illness, with the infection. and no modern medicine was able to help you at that point no no all the all the modern medicine didn't work they didn't like that very much when i told them that because i came back from the jungle and i said you know what cured me and they said i said do you want me to bring you like a sample of the sap and they went no they were like insulted i think why not you should have been more receptive of it right sure but actually it's it's also good that you know sometimes maybe leave the wisdom in the jungle in the jungle because sometimes what happens is they discover something in the jungle and then they take it out and other people benefit, pharmaceutical companies will benefit from it.

1:10:32And then what does the jungle get? They made billions off of the medication. It was a blood thinner called Captopril that came from the venom of a Bushmaster. It's a big venomous snake in the Amazon. The jungle didn't get any of that. The shareholders did great. But imagine if half of that or a third of that, or even 5 % of that went back to protecting the place it came from, that would make a little bit more sense. So if we do ever bring that medication out of the jungle into the world, we're going to do it in a way that benefits the jungle. Yeah. And talking again about India and the Amazon.

1:11:07Yeah. Because we were on the topic of India.

1:11:11You've tracked tigers on foot in India. Yeah. How is that different than a jaguar in Amazon? Listen. What is the difference? Listen, a jaguar is a beautiful animal. A leopard is a beautiful animal. I've seen both in the wild. When you're in the presence of a jaguar, you see a beautiful cat that you know has incredible power. When you see a leopard, you see that incredible athleticism. Those glowing yellow eyes are beautiful. But I've seen both and I feel no fear. When you see a tiger in the wild and there's no TV screen, cameraman, zoo fence, nothing, no Jeep, no humans around. I mean, their back would be here.

1:12:03They're so big and their paws are so massive. When you see that walking God in real life, And there's only what, 5 ,000 of them left on earth? There wasn't the entire planet. 5 ,000 of anything makes it one of the rarest things in the universe. And it's one of the greatest terrestrial predators we've ever had. You're talking about grizzly bear, polar bear, tiger. That's it. Those are the big ones. Any lions hunt in a pack, it's a totally different thing. They say the king of the jungle. They're talking about a tiger. The lion isn't the king of the jungle. The lions hunt in the savannah and they hunt in groups that tiger.

1:12:44There's nothing like a tiger. That's a whole different thing. Seeing a jaguar, seeing a jaguar. Tiger is the apex. There's nothing else like a tiger. How do you convince the animal right activists about, let's say, getting a snake in a studio like this and then showing that snake? I say go worry about a cow. I mean, really go worry about an animal that needs. The other thing is these animal rights activists, they're never focusing on ecosystems. Wild animals, like sure, pigs, cows, chickens, whatever. They're made up by us. They're bred by us. These are not wild animals. These are, you know, a golden retriever is great, but it's a human creation that used to be a wolf.

1:13:23So it's a made up animal that we made. Chickens, we've bred them. And so the chickens are only alive because we made them and then we decide to eat them. That's part of the deal. What I'm concerned about my life mission is about protecting wild animals in natural ecosystems. And so, you know, I think that specifically they need a voice more than anyone else. Wolves in the wild, elephants in the wild, the Amazon, the Western gods, you know, these systems, these complex ecosystems that form over millions and millions of years. these intersections between this matrix of interconnected life. And you have these birds carrying seeds and hummingbirds carrying nectar and all of this stuff is interlaced.

1:14:09And if we mess that up, we're never going to get it back again. The ancient trees and the water cycle and the mist over the... And so worrying about some farm animals is just not... Or whether or not people handle a snake on a podcast is so irrelevant that I dismiss the people that I don't care about those comments. But then they would be saying that, why do you need to show a snake? They're going to say that to me as well and you as well. Why do you need to show a snake when you can just talk about it? Why do you need to do all of that? How do you convince them that? I don't care. I don't care.

1:14:45But what's the need? Do you think showing that? If I told you about an anaconda, would you understand the power that you felt on your shoulders? No, never. So now for your viewers who may never get to experience a snake that's that size, seeing you, they're experiencing it through you. So you have the ability to share this experience with millions of people. And so what we're doing is they're all of a sudden going, wow, look at the power of that animal. And they're going to sharing with their friends. Would you see the size of that snake? And so it shares an appreciation. And we're talking about how snakes are great.

1:15:15They're really not that bad. They protect us from rodents. They're part of the ecosystem. They're misunderstood. And so there's all this information coming out. So I mean, buddy, there's always somebody complaining about something. I don't know something. I'm going to share this with personal experience. I'm terrified. I mean, you could see that on my face, right? I trusted you, so I would disclose. And then there was a little snake which is coming right here. That was cool. That was scary as hell. But here's something that changed inside me a little bit, which is I'm way more empathetic. Like now next time I'm going to see a snake, my first instinct is not going to be like kill it.

1:15:54My first instinct is going to be, can we find someone who can handle it properly and get it back to the jungle? That's it. That's it. Back to the jungle. Half the time when these snakes are in a village, they live in the village. And so what the snake rescuers do is they'll catch it. So everyone sees we are removing the snake. There's no threat. And the people will be like, cool, we're all going to go home. And then you go around the block and you release a snake. It doesn't need to go back to the jungle. these snakes these cobras and rat snakes that live in the cities with us i'm talking about in india they're they're eating the rats and keeping everything healthy for otherwise there'd be more rodents so they're actually doing a service for us and actually what you just said is the greatest answer to anyone that has any sort of a complaint is that snakes need it it's not like i'm you know it's like we were sitting here with a monkey it's like snakes have a bad reputation and people kill them when they see them.

1:16:44And they don't understand that a snake is not like you were saying, is he going to attack? Nope. In fact, cobras go up and they show you their hood only to say, back up, don't mess with me. So that's not aggressive. You're saying, hey, stop. Don't do it. Don't make me make you meet God. And so they go up for that. Rattlesnake is the same thing. They send the rattles, say, hey, please don't step on me. And so that's it. And so educating people about snakes to me is way more important than worrying about the little things you know feelings people thinking wow okay snakes maybe they're not so bad and then then how many of these people listening are going to go back to their community their village their hometown talk to their parents and say you know what i just saw the coolest thing look at this and okay we can just call a snake rescue we don't have to kill this thing yeah how many snake lives did we just say like true have you seen that black snake in india which just goes in people's houses what do you call them can i show you sure because that's the most important thing here's what happens because you know that snake comes in like during the monsoon it just comes at people's house and most of the people i know they kill it if we could make even one percent people realize that when that snake comes in you call the snake rescuer and not kill it yeah because the whole community comes together and all they want to do is get like big rods and steel rods and just put it like this and then burn it so many people say that they never die you have to burn them wait yeah no hold up first of all you know also i have to mention this you know i wrote a book called the girl and the tiger and it's about it's basically a modern day jungle book set in india and instead of the tiger being the villain shere khan the tiger is the is basically the victim and it's about a little girl who takes a tiger on a journey across south india and there's an elephant character and all this other stuff, but it's like basically a modern day jungle book.

1:18:43And it's from the perspective of these animals, like what is it like for an animal that's, for an elephant that's watching their forest be destroyed and feeling that frustration of seeing their family members die. And for the tiger, what's it like being one of the last of your species and trying to survive in this place where there's all these primates eating everything and you have no more deer. And if anybody sees you, you're going to be killed. You're no longer the king of the jungle you can't just sit out in the sun and be the be the ruler no now you're you're you're a refugee and just stay in the dark and so the whole book is written from the animal perspective and from years of experience of traveling around india and and witnessing like this elephant that chased me you know stuff like that i like use moments like that to craft this story so it's fun but even the snakes it's like you see that snake i'm talking about that brown black snake it comes out in people's homes that looks like a crate that's a very dangerous snake though yeah so the people that's the other thing people see there's certain things that are deceptive people see a comedian on stage and they go he's just talking i could do that and they don't realize that this person has been crafting those jokes and going around and making you know honing this skill and seeing what works with different audiences and creating this comedy special uh and they it's deceptive because you go he could stand on stage and do that i could stand on stage and do it now you can't and it the same thing goes for the snake handling where you know it doesn't look like anything it looks like you're just handling this yeah but you have to have years and years of experience to be able to do it if you're handling something like that a crate if you get it by the tail that thing can so quickly you'll again the crate won't hurt you The crate is in your house either to get warm, to get cool, to get water, to chase a rat, something.

1:20:30And then it gets stuck under the kitchen, under the refrigerator, something. And then the people discover it. Now that crate is scared. So if somebody goes in there and goes, oh, I can be a snake rescuer too and grabs it by the tail, they're going to die. So let's emphasize that, that you cannot, you know, people that have studied this over years and years and years and years and years still die from venomous snake bites. Venomous is totally different. The snakes we handled today, the little one, if it bites you, nothing. Big one bites you, a few stitches. If a cobra bites you, you're going to die.

1:21:00If a king cobra bites you, you're going to die real quick. And crates are the same type of venom. It's really bad. So what do you do when it comes to your house? Call an expert. But the problem is people see these videos of snake rescuers and even what we just did. And they go, oh, I can touch a snake. I saw a horrible video where in India, two guys are on the stairs. They're on stairs. And there's a Russell's Viper. And the one friend says to the other friend, he's like, I got this. I got this. And he goes and he saw someone somewhere grab a snake by the head. And he tries to grab the snake. He doesn't get it right behind the head.

1:21:34Snake turns and bites him on the hand. And he goes, no, no, no. It's okay. It doesn't even hurt. He goes, it doesn't even hurt. What's so terrifying about that video is he's already dead. He died. but for for a few hours maybe an hour he or at least for a few minutes he's going no no i'm fine he goes it's just two holes he goes it doesn't even hurt that bad yeah the venom's already in him very disturbing video because he thinks he's fine so what do you do then you educate people and that's what a lot of the snake rescuers educated on something let's say i put my hand under the table somewhere and you need to you try to look at it you know it's like you got to try and i didn't it's tough first thing you're gonna get bitten by a snake the first thing you're gonna do holy shit i'm dying i want to go to the hospital right now and get saved yeah like you're not gonna be in your senses no matter how much you educate you're not going to be in senses to look at the snake and be like let me wait and watch which one is it i know it's important but it's so difficult that's the way it is you gotta people should have a basic knowledge of these things as people that live in areas where snakes are common my i had a friend good friend who was bitten by a coral snake in the Amazon.

1:22:45And when he got to the hospital five hours later, they also, it's kind of the same thing. They don't really have, it's the middle of nowhere and it's not a very good hospital. And they tried to give him the wrong antivenom. Antivenom for a viper. But this was not a viper. This was more like a cobra. It's an elapid. So, they have a neurotoxic venom, not the way a viper. So, if they had given him the wrong antivenom, then it surely would have killed him because then he would have the snake venom and the wrong anti-venom all acting in some luckily we had people on the on the on site who knew what was going on and were snake experts and they said no no no even though he can't breathe anymore he's telling you that's not the right thing and so they the one friend actually pulled the they tried to put it in they they pulled it out they said no so we're overriding the doctors on this one because we know but do you learn to sense something that probably we can't sense when you're in the jungle for very long perfect.

1:23:40I mean, look, anyone who's in the jungle for a very long time learns to sense things in a way that people from the outside cannot. When you first go to the jungle, everything is just green. You just see all this green, plants, plants, plants. But then as you're in the jungle for a longer period of time, you're like, oh, wait, that's the Wicungo palm. And you're like, that's the Kapok tree. And you're like, that's the Remo Caspi. And you're like, you're like, wait, wait, no, no, no, no. I know this. This is the one we use for the medicine. This is the one that has really good wood that they use for boats.

1:24:08And you're like, this plant has delicious fruit. And one by one by one, when you hang out with these people, you start to learn until it's no longer just green. It's this incredible forest. And you start to see, you know, the scene in the matrix where Neo looks up and all of a sudden he sees the code. You start to be able to see the code and you go, oh, okay. I understand. And you go now in those termite nests, there's a certain type of bird that makes its nest in there with the termites and that, and all of a sudden you're And you're like, this whole ecosystem works together. And I start to, you get a glimpse of how it's actually interconnected.

1:24:42And you start to go, okay, well, I'm thirsty and there's no clean water around. And it's like, I can find either bamboo or that other type of vine. And you go, I can't find where I am. I can climb that tree. I can climb these trees. I can't climb wasps. Always live in that type of plant. I shouldn't go over there. And it's like, you start to. So of course, if you take a person out of the city and throw them into the jungle, the first thing they're going to do is trip and fall and slip and walk into a wasp nest and eat the wrong fruit and die. It would be disastrous. But, you know, if you go behind someone like JJ and he can teach you little by little and say, no, no, don't touch that.

1:25:17Like, don't touch that. You know, that helps. And so, yeah, at this point, I can take you to the jungle and keep you safe in a way that you wouldn't be able to do for yourself at first. You said they must be holding a lot of wrong beliefs. Yeah. What's your guess? What would be one wrong belief they must be holding? Wrong beliefs. I mean, when I was – I kind of did a lot of anthropology in college and I remember reading about these anthropologists that got to New Guinea and they found this really remote tribe and I think they were all in the trees. And they were all really scared and they almost – they weren't interacting with each other because they all believed that witchcraft, I could put a spell on you and something bad was going to happen and the other tribes could.

1:25:54And they had so many wrong beliefs about, no matter how hard I try, look, I can't do anything to you. I'm trying right now to knock you over. It's like, what witchcraft? Let's talk about science. So that, I mean, thinking they can cure an infection by rubbing. God only knows. We are all exposed to it. Look, we're sitting here with modern technology all around us. And our lives have been, I mean, I've had my life saved by Western medicine many times. and how many people around the world have had that happen? Children born with a cleft palate, people that are blind that can see, women that would have had their babies die, get to live.

1:26:34I mean, it's just there's so many amazing things that modern science does for people, saving their lives, bettering their lives. And so, we have to balance the incredible gift of modern civilization as well as the fact that with all this population and technology comes the destruction of nature. And then people romanticize these tribes and they go, oh, but they're still living a beautiful life in the middle of nature and they're free. And it's like, no, they're not free. They're suffering and they're trying to find their next meal. And whenever it rains, you know what they do? They sit in the rain because they don't have shelter.

1:27:05It's not romantic. And to the people that think it's romantic, you would die in the first day of trying that life. Like it wouldn't work. And so, I just think it's hysterical and people go, you know, oh, they're such beautiful. No, it's nothing beautiful about it. It's brutal. you know how many tropical diseases i've had do you know how many i've had tiger bites and crocodile bites and anaconda bites and stingray stings and if you think it's fun doing what i did also you know the the thing of following your dream doesn't pay a lot of money in fact doesn't pay anything nobody's going to pay you to protect the forest and so i have a lot of kids going oh i want to do what you do i'm going to become a conservationist i go no that's a terrible idea you mentioned like you've been bitten by so many different species right in your book you've mentioned you're you're like jackson pollock painting of old flesh of wounds yeah i heal really well i heal like wolverine i wish i wish my scars showed more um they don't really i mean i have like there's like a machete cut there a big machete cut there there's a big crocodile bite right there i have a i have a there's a tooth still i think there's a tooth still stuck in there from a crocodile bite and he he smacked me so hard that the tooth went through there another tooth went through there and my watch a tooth went down the center of the watch and just cracked it but it saved my wrist from being broken that was cool um yeah no i've been bitten by just about everything there is to be bitten which because you've been bitten by crocodiles tigers snakes lots of snakes yeah when i started handing handling snakes i said you have to catch 100 snakes 100 non-venomous snakes before you're allowed to touch a venomous snake that was my deal to myself uh and how do you identify venomous and non-venomous well if you're gonna work with snakes you have to know all the snakes and for you i would say that's like most of us have a decent understanding of cars you say that's a sedan that's a pickup truck that's a lorry like you just you know all the basics these are the different types and so with snakes and that's a python that's a cobra that's a rattlesnake that's a that's a viper that's a colobrid that's that's an elapid you learn you learn all this and so you know instantaneously you don't need to even think about it you don't have time to think about it when you see them in the field you know when you're in someone's kitchen and they're going i think it's a king cobra and you go in and it's a rat snake and you're like listen man it's fine you can pick it up by the tail it doesn't matter and the whole village is coming out and they're going no it's a cobra and it's like it's a rat snake and other times people are going i'm pretty sure it's a rat snake just catch it and you go and it's a cobra and you're like all right listen you have to know the difference with snakes so so you're talking about your wounds which because you've been bitten by almost everything dangerous yes which one of the wounds taught you the most uh stingray i stepped on a stingray exactly a year ago and it taught me the most because i mean i've been stung by bullet ants and they're called bullet ants because when you get stung by a bullet ant it feels like you've been shot.

1:30:07And there's so much venom that comes out of them. It's like being stung by a whole hive of bees all at once. And so that pain that radiates out of that, it goes up your veins and it makes you feel like your throat is closing. It makes you feel like your heart is pounding. It makes you feel like you're going to pass out and be sick. And you go, something's wrong. Something's wrong. And you instantly are so worried. And that lasts for 24 hours. and that's just a bullet ant yeah so a stingray is a hundred bullet ants maybe 150 maybe a thousand it's so much worse i thought the bullet ants and all the other stuff i was tough i want to get stung by a stingray oh i was making deals with god i was going if you just please stop the pain i'll do anything i said you know i was like please please please and then i started to go no no there is no spoon i'm above the pain and i was like i'm not above the pain and i was just laying there going yeah and there's nothing i could do and i you know i think i'm tough or i thought i was tough and i was laying there going i'm not tough there's nothing i could do i couldn't stand i couldn't even put my foot couldn't even touch my foot to the ground because the pain was so bad so i had to put it on on my other leg but then even this part hurt and it's radiating up your body and it's swirling around and everyone's going do you want water do you want what can we do and you can't you just got to watch it go and so now in that situation where i'm in the most pain i've ever been in by a hundred you know by by so far i thought i knew what pain was i had no idea travel all around your body all over your body so it went in through my foot and then it goes all over the horrible headache and you feel it in your in your in everywhere everywhere the way bullet ant like makes you like you're choking what does it make you feel like stingray is like you took an electrical wire dipped it in battery acid and then shoved it into your veins and then turned on the electricity and it's just straight through you it's the worst most horrible pain it vibrates it's literally like being shocked and so you again you think wow am i going to have tissue necrosis and nerve damage and i'm going to get a huge infection and what if i go into some sort of shock from this and i could just die right now you just don't know what's going to happen.

1:32:23Everybody reacts differently. But this is 20 years after I met JJ. And now I employ his brothers and nephews and they're all guides. We have this awesome ecotourism business where we bring people to the jungle and that helps us protect it. And his brother and his nephew were with me that day, William and Elor. And they saw me get hit by the stingray. They helped me back to the research station. And then they went and they collected medicine from the forest. They got Cecropia and Namasisa and they cooked it into a poultice, into basically a cake of medicine. And then they bake that inside of a leaf and they put that over the wound and it sucks out the venom and it heals the wound.

1:33:05And so the last guy I saw get stung by a stingray, he was off his feet for two months. I was off my feet for one day because the local people, that's the indigenous knowledge. That's the other side where their grandfathers, grandfathers, grandfathers, grandfathers, and grandmothers and grandmothers all the way back have been learning from the forest. And so when this stuff happens, they go, well, we have the remedy. We have the antidote because they have that culture. Then you've also said that anaconda, they break your bones before it actually kills you, right? The grip breaks your bone. Yep.

1:33:36And you've been gripped by the anaconda. Yes. The first anaconda I ever caught, i didn't know that this is the thing jj's experience right so anaconda over there it's great we're going to catch it we're going to measure her and now today we're putting out scientific papers on the population dynamics of lowland tropical anacondas at this point we were just starting we didn't even have a research grant yet we're just doing it and i said well i got to learn how to catch these anacondas you can't study them unless you know how to catch them what are you going to do you how are you going to measure a snake that you can't restrain you know in the wild in Africa, they use the dart on the rhino and the rhino goes down, they do all the procedures and then they let it go.

1:34:15For a snake, you've got to catch it. And so for these huge anacondas, I ran in and I grabbed it by the head and then the snake wrapped around my wrists and I go, shit. How does it feel? What does it feel? Like your bones are going to break. And then also the problem is you're clamped on now. So even if you want to get rid of the snake, you can't because he's got you now. She's got you. And so I immediately went, oh shit. And then the next coil comes around your head. And then it took my, it was bringing this and this so close together. And I'm going, JJ. I couldn't, there's no, and every time you exhale to breathe again, every time you go down, that's it.

1:34:55You're never going back up. You're never going to get that breath back again. So it goes down and down and down and down. And then I just felt my collarbone's about to go. It says, you know when you take a stick and you start to go and you hear that crack, crack. I heard the bones start going. and jj came in and just pulled the tail off and then pulled the next coil off and he's like and then we unwrapped the whole thing and it was okay but i experienced it inches from death that was another one that but then uh then you learn respect and then the grandfather told you that it was a small anaconda yes small snake why how would what did you think about the moment he I said it was a small one.

1:35:38Well, I went, oh. I said, I thought we were like heroes for catching this huge snake. And then he was like, yes, his own anacondita. He's like, what is wrong with you guys? But I mean, this is a snake that's this thick. He's talking about snakes that are this thick. He's talking about huge snakes, like the biggest anacondas out in the deepest parts and the deepest swamps. And this was a guy that had been everywhere in the Amazon. So we were like, dude, it's a huge 15-foot snake. He's like, I've seen 30-foot snakes. And you're like, oh, shit. Okay. Yeah. This is about day. Let's talk about night.

1:36:11In your Jungle Keeper book, you have said that Amazon at night is a festival of sex and death. The festival of sex and death that occurs every night in the Amazon, they call the Amazon the greatest natural battlefield on earth because in every acre of these vast, tremendous trees, you have frogs and snakes, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, bats, all of it in the streams, in the branches, in the canopy. So, it's not just the ground, it's also the vertical environment. So, you're under 150 feet of canopy and leaves and vines. And so, all of this is moving. And the spiders are eating the frogs and the frogs are eating the insects and the snakes are eating the frogs.

1:36:53And the other things are eating the snakes and the ocelots are out looking for sleeping birds and the jaguars are walking around looking for deer and everything is eating everything. And then of course, you have the frogs trying to mate. And so, when you hear the frogs calling at night, the whole jungle is throbbing with this sound of the frogs calling because they're all just trying to mate, all the different species of frogs. And so, then you have the nightbirds calling and you have the bats. And so, everything is trying to eat and trying to mate. So, I say it's a festival of sex and death. It's very colorful, it's very loud, and it's very violent.

1:37:26So the jungle at night is incredible. The greatest freak show on earth. You see all kinds of things. Just a few weeks ago, I was in the jungle and we saw this frog and the frog was doing this. It was doing this weird reaching thing in a puddle and we couldn't figure out what was going on. And it was shaking like this. And then all of a sudden the frog flipped over and this big spider, the spider had been underneath the frog in the water, put its fangs into the frog and the frog was getting envenomated through its chest. And then the spider just changed the balance and the frog flipped over and the spider pumped its venom into the frog.

1:38:01And the spider venom starts digesting the frog from the inside. And then eventually the spider will carry the frog off and then drink it from the inside. And so you have spiders eating lizards, spiders eating mice. You have snakes eating tapers and deer. And it's wild. It's wild. There's a type of bat. They're these fruit bats and they fly with the seeds of the ironwood trees. And they're smart enough they don't like it when you're on their trail because you're in their way. It's like their highway. And so they take the seeds and like a World War II bomber, they drop the seed so that it hits you.

1:38:40And they'll fly right over your face and throw a seed into your face and hits you in the forehead. And you're like, bro. I mean, it's crazy. those bats flying around you and moths flying around you and mosquitoes flying around you and then same thing the wasps are very calm the wasps sit on their nest at night and the wasps say look we come in peace we will be here but if you fuck with us we'll kill you and it's like so you just have to be you just have to watch that as you're going through the jungle that you don't ever and the greatest danger is that under a leaf you might not see it that there's a wasp nest behind here and then you chop that and all of a sudden.

1:39:17He said, it's colorful. Yeah. Right? And jungle at night would be dark as hell. Walk me through 3 a.m. Yeah. As a human being. Yeah. And describe all your senses. Like in this, you're this human being in this festival of sex and death in middle of Amazon at 3 a.m. in the forest. Tell me, what do you smell? What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? Well, if you don't have a flashlight, you don't see anything. You're blind. Because under the canopy, there's no light. In the daytime in the Amazon rainforest, only 3 % of the sunlight hits the forest floor. Think about that. 3 % of the sunlight hits the ground.

1:40:01That's how dense the canopy of the Amazon is. So at night, let's just say there's no moon out. Let's say it's a night where there's no moon and there's clouds. You're in the cave. You're in the belly of a black hole. You're nowhere. And so this piece of modern technology that someone's figured out how to make a battery and this whole flashlight. I mean, who mined the metal? It's so supernatural. We're so used to civilization. If you're out in the jungle by yourself, you wouldn't even be able to make fire to make a torch. Everything's wet. And so, Pete, that's the other thing that nature reminds you of is how helpless you are by yourself.

1:40:36how much we rely on our industry and organization and the fact that we can hand down knowledge through text and interchange it and translate it. You're out in the wild. You go, wait a second. You know, I know all about accounting. I don't know anything about making fire. And so you're out in the jungle at night and you can't see. You had to sit down. You sit down in the middle of the jungle and the frogs are howling and you hear jaguars and you hear nightbirds and the whole jungle is throbbing and all of this noise is overwhelming you. It's screaming at night. The festival of sex and death is happening all around you.

1:41:11And you just had to sit there from probably 11 PM to 6 AM, just sitting in the jungle. And I woke up in the morning and I'd fallen asleep a little bit, but the amount of mosquito bites, because they all find you eventually. There's not a lot of mosquitoes in one place, but if you sit there for long enough, they'll find you. How does it touch, feel like when you're sitting in the dark? Because you're sitting there and then something will touch you in the darkness and you don't know what it is. And it might be a moth that's this big, or it could be a big millipede crawling over your foot. I was once camping.

1:41:51I was lost for days in the Amazon. This is a different night. And I was in a hammock in the darkness, in the middle of the night. Jaguar came up this close to my head because in a hammock, you just have the fabric. And that one, she was growling in the night straight at me. She just came up. She was smelling me. I was in one of those places where the animals have no idea what a human is. And so I wanted to turn on my light. She just growled. I said, no, no, you don't turn on your light. And then you could just hear her move around a little bit. that she went off into the jungle with almost no sound.

1:42:31And again, very humbling experience. She goes, man, I was not in control of that situation. I was just like a human taco floating in the air. She could eat you if she wanted. So yeah, the jungle at night is not where we belong. And the only way to go there is with this amazing piece of technology, a headlamp that lights everything up. And you only have that as long as you have your rechargeable batteries, which you recharged off of the grid. and so yeah it's almost like you know it's like the way to go into the ocean you need to have a mask and snorkel and and a dive tank it's like this is not a place that you know how does jungle smell like at night jungle at night i can tell you that as you walk you you go through many different smells there's first of all there's areas where there's flowers all over the floor places where the monkeys during the day were up in a tree and so there's flowers all over the floor there's fermenting fruit again the the parrots or the monkeys or whatever is working up in the trees has dropped thousands of fruit.

1:43:26And so, there's this incredibly fragrant smell coming up off the, and you get, you know, it's turning into alcohol as it ferments. And so, you get like drunk monkeys and animals, but beautiful smells for the most part, unless something dies and then you have the stench of death. But the jungle, as you walk every round in the trail, you start smelling something different. In fact, when I bring people to the jungle, they say that like, wow, everywhere smells different. Everything is some new smell. And there's so many hundreds of species These are fruit that you couldn't possibly name them all. So you just look at them.

1:43:58This one's purple. This one's orange. This one's... Does it smell different between day and night? Everything is different between day and night. The sounds are different. The pace of the jungle is different. In the afternoon, you walk through the jungle and the birds are happy and calling and everybody's chirping and you can walk fast. And at night, you have that totally different feeling. And you have the frogs just doing the frog thing. and you feel the mist over the jungle and it's very, very, you don't walk fast. Nothing is happening quickly. You're careful. And the jungles, you know, this is the time when the jaguars are out.

1:44:32This is the time when you can't see. You are at a disadvantage. All these animals have night vision. We don't have night vision. So they can all see. You can't. They have these deer and everything else. They have better hearing, better sight, better smell. We are at a severe disadvantage. And so if the light goes out, we're helpless. it's an interesting place to be you said there was a jaguar right here what's the first sign that tells you that something big is nearby but it's invisible well first of all i was asleep and then you wake up and i could hear she was breathing like that she was taking big sniffs because she didn't know what it is you know to an animal we smell like shampoo and bug spray and deodorant and all this crazy shit that they've never seen or heard of before.

1:45:21It smells terrible and probably has a huge scent footprint where they can smell us from hundreds of feet away. And so, she probably just came up to me in the night and started saying, okay, I'm just going to smell it. So, I woke up and I heard her breathing and I could feel the warmth of her breath on my skin. So, I knew there's only one thing that would do that. Also, the growl of a big cat. We all know what that sounds like. when you hear that straight into your ear the volume of air being moved uh you go okay that's the voice of the jungle that's that's what that is these were animals there was also a point where police intercepted messages from narco phones right that said if you see jj and paul take them out right and the cop who held view was murdered the next day there's a few different stories there yeah those are different those are different uh incidents but yes right now still the the threat is very high you know through all these years we were working out in the middle of nowhere and it was the wild and then over the last few years the narcos have come in and these are people that are trying to make cocaine they want to cut down the forest they burn the forest they make a field and they're trying to just grow cocoa plants turn it into cocaine and now that we're the jungle keepers we have rangers and the Peruvian law says you're not allowed to do that.

1:46:46You're not allowed to cut down the forest. You're not allowed to grow cocaine. And these are people from another part of the country that are coming in. It's like somebody from North India coming to South India and burning their backyard. It's not allowed. And so they're not foreigners, but they're certainly not locals. And so some people have a hard time understanding this. I say, if somebody from Los Angeles came to your house in New York or Vermont and burned down your entire backyard and put up tents and started growing drugs, it would not be okay. And so this is wilderness where there's actually to the credit of the Peruvian government, they say, you can't just destroy the wilderness.

1:47:19It has to remain intact. So these people are coming and destroying the wilderness and we are trying to protect it. And so, yes, they've identified that me and JJ are usually the ones out in front flying the drones and figuring out where they are and working with the rangers. And so, yes, they said that if you see them, could you please, they sent it out to their whole network. They said, if anybody sees them, just shoot them. And then they don't have to worry about it. So, that's the way it works. Environmental activists and leaders, indigenous leaders are killed constantly in the Amazon, constantly.

1:47:51Because these loggers and miners and narcos, they understand that if you take the head off the snake, you solve your problem. And so, from Chico Mendes to Dorothy Stang to, what was his name? Who recently, really, really recently, Dom, I think his name was Dom Phillips, that all these people who are trying to find a way to save the forest and out there working with the locals, if you get in the way of the illegal trades making money, they'll just take you out. And so, they're doing this all over the Amazon. To the people that are trying to save the planet, the local indigenous people that are saying, no, I want to protect our culture.

1:48:24I want to protect our way of life, the fish and the trees and the clean air and the climate, all of this. And then there's these people, like I said, these industries that are stealing from the rest of us. And so at least the companies, like what I've seen in India, the companies come in and they're doing it legally. They'll get permission to go destroy this stuff, which is crazy to me. Out here, it's the wild west. They have guns, they have boats, and out there, there's no one to stop them from killing you. And in the jungle, you get two nights of Amazon and the maggots and everything will digest your body.

1:49:03so and what was the another story where a cop who helped you was murdered the other day yeah that happened basically they'd seen us they'd seen us fly the drone and they chased us and then we needed our the cops to help us out of that situation otherwise we would have been caught by the narcos and one of the guys who helped us was murdered later that day and so It's like this has become now serious where we have people hunting us. I have a hit out on me. JJ has a hit out on him. They know that the jungle keeper's emblem is people trying to protect the forest, which gets in the way of their business.

1:49:40We're working with the Peruvian authorities to try and dismantle this illegal activity that's happening. In the old days, it was very fun. We were doing macaw research and catching anacondas and going on expeditions. And now I travel with the security detail and it's not, that's not that much fun. How do you process this psychologically where you know that there's a price on your head, but in your heart, you're just a guy who's trying to maybe count butterflies. Yes. That's just what I was going to say. I mean, I am the most – I've literally devoted my life to protecting the butterflies and the birds and the snakes and all these little animals, these helpless endangered species that are being wiped off the face of the earth.

1:50:27And I just – it's kind of funny that you could devote yourself to doing something so pure, you know, just protecting the animals that can't protect themselves from humans. And then there's humans that want to kill you for doing that. And so that's kind of funny and kind of frustrating. And then there's also the elements of that truly living in an environment where at your own home, you are a target and thinking at any moment while you're having coffee in the morning, while you're swimming, that at any moment somebody could come by with the intention of shooting you and putting a piece of metal through your fucking skull and ending your life on purpose is terrifying.

1:51:09But here we're standing up for one of the most precious things on our planet. And so it's turning into a war. I mean, the fight to protect elephants, the fight to protect ocean fisheries, the fight to protect our world from being destroyed has become an all-out war. I just posted today on Instagram an incredible picture of a Kenyan ranger standing in front of a pile of elephant tusks. There's just 25 foot tall pile of elephant tusks. You imagine all the elephants that were killed and the ranger is guarding those tusks that are more valuable per weight than gold. Rhino horn and elephant tusk. And they're going to burn him to protect him from going on the black market.

1:51:51And he's standing there with a machine gun. And that's what it's come to. And you've spent your life protecting just like these guys, right? and you've also said that for a year after this terror thing became real you spent like a year and a half in sheer terror right knowing that somebody might kill you there's a prize on your head how how do you sleep what what does it do to your body when you're in sheer terror knowing that maybe somebody can come and like put a gun on your head and then just shoot you uh i think at first it's sheer terror and then i was at some point it boy it it sort of dissipates and you get used to it you know and actually in i was in the city and i you know i was coming from the airport and going to the jungle and i i said i want to i just want to stop and get some bananas i always have a banana and so i went into the i wanted to go to the market and then the whole security team has to get out of the car and i have six guys standing around me in a circle i You know what?

1:52:56I said, I actually might be the safest I've ever been. If anybody comes anywhere near me, they're going to shoot them. In this scenario, there are protectors who are the local guys who are probably standing with a gun in front of an elephant protecting them. And then there's this whole cartel of illegal black market. They're trying to maybe smuggle animals or do drugs, guns, whatever, that side. How do you earn the trust of local guy? that you're not one of them because you might be because they must have been fooled multiple times by someone trying to be one of theirs and then in the end just destroying them interesting i don't know a lot of the guys that that are end up being rangers like this the protecting the elephants in africa or i think first they see that you're working with other people so they see me working with rangers protecting forest unless i was putting my whole life as a giant trick just to trick them then i think they're smart enough to go okay well he's actually doing his job and they can talk to the other locals and they say yeah i mean i have a good job working with him i don't think that that's so much of earning trust i think that when you first get to the amazon and they go you're a foreigner silly white guy and they treat you like that then you have to prove yourself you go i can walk barefoot with you and a lot of people i've seen a lot of people fail where they go, I can walk barefoot and they start walking barefoot, but they haven't practiced.

1:54:23You have to let the wild turn. You know, this thing I said about being on a boat for 10 days with no roof, exposed to the sun, exposed to the rain, exposed to the wind, your skin changes. It becomes rougher and harder and more tan and protected against the sun. And you become to, you figure out how to get through the times of the rain. You start just doing pushups. You start making a lot of noise with your friends and getting excited the whole time and just keeping the energy up. And if you walk barefoot enough, over time, your feet develop callus and you become able to walk barefoot. And so, you have to physically change and nature will do that to your body.

1:55:02And so, yeah, if you just show up and you take your shoes off and you've been in an office for 16 years and you have soft little office feet, those thorns are going to go straight through your feet and it's going to hurt you just to walk on gravel. And you take people like jj or me at this point and we could walk on jagged rocks it doesn't matter but that's because we've built up that rhino skin in our feet it takes years to do that and people go you should go get a pedicure i'm like and let them take away my greatest asset my superpower no no okay we're coming back to the to the illegal market yeah like the narco guys who are trying to destroy everything What's the most disturbing illegal thing which is moving right now, which we might not be aware of?

1:55:47Well, the fact that next to guns, drugs, and women, the illegal trade and wildlife is the, I guess, the fourth largest black market on earth. And so the fact that pangolins all over the world, elephants, tigers, all of the stuff, timber, is all being illegally sourced and traded around the world. So that's terrifying. But then on top of that, you know, encased in that, you know, guns, drugs, I mean, the human trafficking we see even in the Amazon where the illegal gold miners were set up a camp. And then, you know, there's hundreds of illegal gold miners, all these men working out in the wild, and then they want prostitutes.

1:56:25And so then people go and they find girls from the communities and they bring them in. So there's a problem of human trafficking happening in these indigenous communities, for example, they've never heard of such a thing. And so when somebody comes and says, hey, your daughter is very pretty. She'd be great to work in a restaurant in the city and then she could earn money and send it back to you. These people go, I want a better life for my daughter. And they send her with these people and they're just recruiters and they never see their daughter again. And so this is happening across the Amazon.

1:56:51It sort of is a collateral effect of the gold mining and the narco trafficking. And that's incredibly dark and disturbing. So one side of the illegal trade was women and human trafficking, which you just touched upon. But the other side, you also said wildlife. There are animals which are being traded. Who are the people who are buying these animals? Well, it's a problem all over the world. I think Christopher Columbus brought back a pair of scarlet macaws to the Queen of Spain. And ever since then, I mean, since the European world found out about... But I mean, it's everyone. Even the tribes like to make headdresses out of macaw feathers.

1:57:34You have these long red feathers. There's nothing like it. That scarlet color and the blue. And so people have been killing macaws for a few centuries. And these feathers will sell wherever you bring them. And then, of course, in Asia, you have Chinese medicine that believes that pangolin scales. I mean, pangolins are these beautiful little anteaters with a long tongue. It's like a living Pokemon. It's the most beautiful animal. And they're the most trafficked animal on earth. and then you have tigers that all over the world have been destroyed because people are poisoning them killing their forests and then on top of all that you have people that believe that tiger penis wine will will will help you in some way and i don't know what this i've heard that they think that drinking tiger dick will make yours larger that's what i that's what i've understand i don't i don't know if that's true i don't know why they they want it but they want tiger dick so tigers are going extinct because because people have erectile dysfunction and they don't know about viagra um and then elephants for the ivory rhinos for the ivory but then it's also medicinal they believe that rhino horn will cut will cure certain things and which which country is buying the most china they're just buying animals left yes they also just made a huge shipping port on the coast of Peru because they specifically want to start extracting resources from the Amazon.

1:59:03And it's just because of their ancient, some story that they believe in? Well, here's an example of wrong beliefs. Rhino horn is made out of the same thing our fingernails are. If you think that rhino horn will cure you, you might as well just cut a bunch of fingernails into a cup, boil it up and drink that. For whatever you think it's going to cure, it's not going to cure it same thing goes with tiger dick doesn't matter how much tiger dick you eat it's not going to help your dick do anything differently than it's already doing and so i don't know where these ancient beliefs came from uh or shark shark fins i don't i think was just a delicacy it's not that they were supposed to be any medicinal compounds i don't know what they use pangolin scales for why they're the most trafficked animal on earth they're not eating them it's some remedy for something where it's like if you have a cough or if you have cancer it's like rubbing a rhino horn on yourself is not going to help so there's an example of wrong beliefs get it in a in a science in a in a in a laboratory get scientists to study it and you can actually find out if it is effective these are some of the tools that we have in modern society we can share them with everybody and it will save this is the thing it saves lives it improves people's lives and it saves animals.

2:00:21Knowledge is an amazing thing. I get on people for being snake racist. People go, oh, I hate snakes. I say, well, that's terrible. Snakes don't hate you. That's being snake racist. You're trying to protect this. You're trying to protect this entire ecosystem, this life, these forests, right? And for that, one of the ways that you do is you transform or turn loggers and miners into rangers first explain me what are rangers and then second give me an example of a man you have transformed like a specific person and what were they doing before what did it take you to turn them what are they doing now well a ranger is the term we broadly use for people that patrol wild areas and protect wildlife.

2:01:12So, there's rangers in Africa that are protecting elephants. There's forest department rangers in India that are protecting southern India's ecosystems and northern India's ecosystems. In the Amazon, we've created our own ranger force because there's nothing out there. So, when I first went, it was just raw wild. And you'd seen this in my book where the first few chapters, I'm just this kid in the jungle and there's nothing. And then sort of what forced us to start jungle keepers and to start protecting the forest is that the area that used to be wild, we saw the first road come. And we saw the people start coming in from outside and start taking down the forest.

2:01:50And so these loggers were coming from another part of Peru, coming in with their families. They'd get a chainsaw and they'd just start cutting down the huge trees, bigger than this room, way bigger than this room. and we just started going up to them. At one point we saw in this one area, this one piece of land, several thousand acres of land, maybe 5 ,000 acres. They cut down 80 ironwood trees in one year and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Finally, I went to JJ and said, who owns this land? I said, there has to be. We'd hear them and I'd go boom. They'd go down these huge trees, ancient trees, thousands of species living on a single tree.

2:02:29And I went, who owns the land? Like, is it the government's land? He said, no, no, no. The government leases it out to these individual people. And I said, well, who is it? He said, well, it's these guys and they've turned into loggers now. So we just went and talked to the loggers. And JJ walked into the logging camp barefoot. I'm local, you're local. Let's all sit down and talk about it. So he's like, look, how much do you get paid a day? They said about, you know,$15, you know, 45, 50, 50, 60 soles. I said, okay. He said, who do you work for? I said, we don't really work for anybody. We're just cutting the trees because we have access to this land because like, oh, my grandfather got it leased.

2:03:09And JJ was like, okay. He said, but how much you're going to make that much a day for how many more years are you going to cut all these trees? And he said, oh, maybe over the next five years. Great. Okay. What if we just bought the land for a much bigger price right now and took that off your hands? And then for your daily rate, make three times that and we'll give you a cool t-shirt. You get to be part of our team and you just patrol this same forest. You can live in it, but you'd stop cutting down the trees. And they went, really? They said, that sounds... So lots of money now and then more money moving forward.

2:03:41And we don't have to do any work. We said, no, you just have to drive around and make sure nobody else is cutting down the trees. And they went, yes. They were like, yes, of course. And so that was like the first deal that we made. And then we just kept repeating that. We just kept doing it again and again and again and again. And then we even a few years ago, we had this piece of land called the ancient forest where we realized no one's ever been. It's just an untouched ecosystem. And there's ways that we can tell that there's no sign of human activity. There's absolutely no sign. And so we discovered that this was like 10 ,000 acres, completely untouched.

2:04:19But now there's a new road going in. They built a log bridge over this stream with a road and they were bringing heavy machinery over to start cutting these trees. And so the same thing. We said, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who's got the rights to this land? We found out somebody that lived in another part of the Amazon technically had the rights to this big piece of chunk of land, 10 ,000 acres that the government had just drawn at some point. You guys can work on there. wait a second but this but the line that somebody drew in an office on the ground is this incredible wonderland of ancient forest so okay so now we have jungle keepers i sent my directors to go talk to this landowner we spoke to him found out how we could protect the land we did a huge fundraiser online and that's why this stuff is so important because people see this and then they help So people all over the world have been helping us sending$5,$10, whatever.

2:05:14And so we said, hey, we have this ancient forest. We have to raise money. We raised so much money in 48 hours. We were able to protect the 10 ,000 acres. We told the guy we signed a contract and he said, you know what? A week later, the land was handed over to jungle keepers. Great. That's on paper. Now we need to get in the boat, drive to the land, take the car for three hours to get to the top, hike in. And then we show up in the middle of the jungle. and there's all these loggers and they're sitting there with their cigarettes and their chainsaws and there's a couple of dogs and a shack and they have like a pot with plantains in it.

2:05:47And we said, hey, the owner of the land sold it to us. So you guys are out of business. And they went, no. Yeah, we showed them the paper. And they went, what does that mean for us? They said that we have no more work. We said, actually, we brought you these t-shirts. We want you guys to give us your spark plugs to the chainsaws. and we'll just, you know, you guys can, we're going to bring you with us to meet our other rangers. They'll train you. And then you come back. They said, can we keep working here though? We love this forest. We said, wait, wait, wait, you're the loggers and you love the forest?

2:06:22They said, yes, we love this forest. They said, it's so full of animals and we love to eat the piranha. And it's just so wild. We love being out here. And we said, okay, great, but then don't destroy it. And they said, yeah, it's really sad. Everybody's destroying the forest. We're like, you were destroying the forest and they went yeah but we don't have any other way to make money that's a huge lesson you've also done a solo expedition documentary ish yes dark green yes what what didn't make it into that documentary what didn't make it into that documentary um i don't remember dark green was a long time ago now i do remember it Oh, I'll tell you what didn't make it into Dark Green is that, you know, we had to have camera people with us, obviously, right?

2:07:10So it couldn't be a full solo, a real solo out by myself for days or weeks. And for this, we had to have the filmmakers come with us. And so they said I had to act like I was on a solo, not act, but do a solo. But there was going to be people filming me like I was a wild animal. We went and we did this. And then when we were done filming, we stopped by this indigenous community way, way out days, like five days from the nearest town. And there's all these local people and they had some spider monkey they were eating. And now, again, people go, how could you eat spider monkey? And it's like, dude, you're in a local person's house and they eat spider monkey.

2:07:51The only way to have a rapport with them and to trust picture a foreigner coming to India and being like, no, I'm not going to eat chana masala. Like, no, chat is disgusting. I'm not going to eat it. I protest. You'd all be like, fucking foreigner. Get out of here. And so, it's the same in the Amazon. If you go sit in someone's house and they're like, we've made turtle. You're like, okay, let me try some, you know. And then they go, okay, you're not just a foreigner, you know. You understand the local ways. You do that for a few years. And all of a sudden, they're like, well, Paul's not like the rest of them, you know, with his science pad and his big rubber boots.

2:08:29and staying out of the water, they're like, no, no, no, no. They're like, he's more local than we are. They always say piel de gringo, corazón de nativo. They say a foreigner's skin and a heart of the native. And they're like, it's just, you know, but that's how you build that trust. After spending like months in jungle and these experiences and all of that, once you come back to the city, what's the most human thing you want to do? Freezing cold drinks. because in the jungle you're always drinking warm-ish water even if you were to bring a beer out into the jungle or a coke zero or something it's just going to be warm all the time it's never cold and so after weeks on an expedition it's like that first time you get really like i love ice water freezing cold coca-cola like that's that's something i miss that's the only thing i miss everything else i'm like i'll take the jungle i mean one thing that i hate is going coming back to a shower.

2:09:24I mean, every day it's like you sweat and you work and then you jump into the river and you dive into the river and you're swimming and your whole body is covered in water and you pick your head up and there's birds and butterflies and crocodiles and so much fun. And then you're standing in a cold room with some crappy little water dripping out of the ceiling. This is not as much fun. Do you enjoy hot water anymore? Like the hot water? Nah, I don't care. I mean, it's nice. It's nice. But, you know, there's a lot of things that are nice that we don't need. Hot water is fun if it's cold. Everyone enjoys a hot water.

2:09:57It feels good. Hot water is nice. But we boil if it's really cold. Sometimes it gets cold in the jungle. We boil a pot of water. And then you take a cup shower. It's pretty much just as enjoyable. You've made an argument that if you remove humans, nothing will change. But if you remove ants, the whole ecological system will collapse. Yeah, I think that was originally E.O. Wilson, Edward Wilson, who was a famous entomologist who described, I think, some incredible number of ant species. But he was saying ants are so fundamental to any ecosystem, like leafcutter ants in the Amazon digest 17 % of the total biomass of the jungle.

2:10:40I mean, that's so much stuff and they do almost a fifth of it. That's incredible. So they're engineering the whole system. They're recycling all of that debris and detritus. And so around the world, ants make the world go round. They're the staple of all these ecosystems. And so if you removed ants, all of our ecosystems would crash. If you removed humans, they're almost overnight. I mean, during COVID in the national parks, they said the bears were walking on the roads. Everybody was having fun. All these things got cleaner. There was dolphins swimming around Venice. It was like the animals were like dope.

2:11:14They thought it was great. And so if you removed humans, the forests would sing and the rivers would flow and everything would be fine. However, I don't like one thing and that is that there's a lot of anti-human sentiment in environmentalism and it's wrong. This idea though is dangerous. Yes, if there was less people, yes, if we were more respectful of wilderness areas, these systems would flourish and our lives would be better. But a lot of environmentalists, they take a wrong turn into feeling like humans are bad. we are dirty and it's like sort of this it's an almost religious guilt where you're like self-flagellating if under the environmentalism of saying like humans are the reason that everything is dying yeah well humans are also the reason that everything is flourishing and whatever you believe in whatever religion you are there's you know humans the human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe and we are matter witnessing itself and whatever spiritual orientation you come from.

2:12:12If you don't like humans, then you're missing out on the joy of life. All the art and science and beauty and so much that we've created is only valuable because we're here to protect it. And if you go to the Bible, it says you have dominion over the earth and its creatures. And God is saying, you are the protectors. You are the highest form of life. And it's even someone like Jane Goodall didn't, you know, people say, well, don't think, you know think of yourself as part of the ecosystem we're not better than any one animal it's like listen you can say that you're not as like you're not as valuable as a hedgehog but like i'm pretty sure you think you are if i put a gun against your head who do i kill you are the hedgehog please don't kill me kill the fucking rodent but i think this thing of you know when i grew up there's a lot of environmental guilt where people are like you know humans are making gorillas extinct humans are doing this you know we're sucking the life out of it yeah sure but we're also the only thing that we have to observe the universe.

2:13:10We are, the human experience is the whole thing. And so, we are now an integral part of this planet. And so, anyone that tells you like we should just make ourselves extinct, that person needs help. Watch them carefully. What we do need to do is become more intelligent. Are we just a clever primate or do we have the ability to truly transcend to become an intelligent life form that realizes that all humans are the same, that we should treat everyone like our brothers and sisters. While this spaceship is going around the dark side of the moon, the first thing they said is, man, looking back at the earth, one guy was just saying it.

2:13:46He goes, we are on a spaceship. He goes, you're on this little rock floating through space. We have none of us have any idea why. Again, there's a bunch, there's so many different belief systems, but the fact is we're all, we all just woke up here and we have to deal with this living system. And we are all united in the fact that we live on the only place in the universe with his life. So expanding that compassion, finding a way to live together, this is the challenge. And if you fail that challenge, then you start seeing crime. Then you start seeing desperate people that will do things to try and survive, like the human trafficking, like the logging, like all this stuff.

2:14:20But at the same time, if we all pass on the good deeds, the education, the help to others, it can change the whole world. And so we're at this very crucial moment in time where it's like, do we lose ecosystems and turn into a post-apocalyptic nightmare where everything is falling apart and humans are desperate and killing each other and eating each other like a zombie movie? Or can we continue to be stewards of this beautiful planet that has giraffes and birds and a blue sky and we can still drink some of the water in some places? And like, there's lessons that we can learn from the animals that have rebounded and the humans that have done made incredible discoveries in science.

2:14:58We have to choose right now which path we're going down as a species. And for the first time, we're united as a global society. And so, for me, I've chosen to protect the Amazon. That's my mission. And I think that if we see more of that where people choose a specific mission, instead of being outraged and overwhelmed by everything happening on earth, you know, we have this little window into everywhere, not healthy. Think about your family, your community, what you can do to make that better. There's wildlife in everyone's backyard. It's not just, you know, for the American listeners, they're thinking, wow, India sounds amazing.

2:15:34Cobras and elephants and tigers. And then when I have done talks in India, everyone's like, dude, I want to go see the Amazon. It sounds so wild. And I'm like, dude, when I grew up, I wanted to go to India because I want to, and Indians themselves are sitting there going, no, I want to go somewhere else. And so everyone's thinking the other place is so cool. and in my own backyard. You know how many songbirds are in my, you know, my parents live in the Hudson Valley. I've spent most of my time in the Amazon, but how many songbirds, coyotes, foxes, deer, we have humpbacks right in the Hudson Bay, bald eagles, ospreys, like there's just so much life here.

2:16:08There's American eels, there's giant sturgeons in the Hudson River, amazing wildlife. And so, everywhere, you know, everyone has some sort of wildlife in their backyard. Even in the city, you have, you know, falcons coming in now and hawks coming in and owls making. Animals are learning how to coexist with humans in a way. There's one more threat to this wildlife, this ecosystem, and you have spent months tracking that illegal trade. You've been undercover trying to figure out them. What's one thing that is happening right now in the world of illegal trade that normal people like me or the public doesn't know about.

2:16:47Well, I think that the level to which law enforcement has learned, you know, back in the day, last 30, 40 years, you know, if you were trying to traffic cocaine in through an airport or through a shipping port, they're going to get you, you know, they've been working towards understanding how to, you know, they would pack it into the walls of shipping containers, into submarines, into everything. But for the most part, wildlife, you could traffic. You hear about people coming into the US, especially through Florida with boxes and boxes of endangered species and bags of endangered snakes and birds.

2:17:25And now that law enforcement is becoming more savvy to the fact that these species are going extinct, people, again, people care more now because they've become more educated. They understand that if we don't stop this, it's going to be gone. And that by doing this job of enforcing, stopping the trade in illegal wildlife, you're saving the world. You know, it's like you're saving these species entire future. And that's what I was saying about the heritage thing that, you know, if you just take a deer or when I'm in the Amazon, there's these big fish called Paco. It's a vegetarian piranha, basically.

2:17:58Huge fish. They get to be almost a meter long. And, you know, we catch them. And again, to catch this fish, you need a big 10-foot pole, a big thick piece of fishing line, and a hook about this big, about the size of my hand. And you whack that into the water and, you know, hours and hours or days of, and you have to wait till the river's low. You can't do it when the river's high. And so catching this fish is incredibly difficult. Making fire in the Amazon is very difficult. But when you finally have the luck and skill and right place sort of fortune to get a paco out of the river, and then, you know, we prepare it properly and we eat it, you are incorporating into your physical system, the energy of an animal that has for millions of years lived in this ecosystem, survived all these elements, evaded predators.

2:18:54And again, only the strong ones are surviving. And so, it's become stronger and stronger and stronger. And this genetic lineage is the species. It's so incredibly powerful that we get to interact with these species. And whether it's something that you eat or it's something that's flying by you in the sky these species are irreplaceable they're not you know these these are the species we grew up these pieces were all most of these were all here before you know we grew up around elephants we grew up running from lions and george if you're a maasai warrior chasing lions and it's like we grew up with the ecosystems they made elephants garden their ecosystem all these animals have a have a part in this and so now it's our turn to give back and save them creation is ours us to protect so this illegal trade that you were talking about do they do they have the same root as drugs are they the same people who are trading a lot of times yeah and while a lot of times uh terror i mean in africa you have like terrorist cells funding themselves from you have middle eastern terrorists funding funding themselves through rhino horn and elephant tusk because it's worth so much i mean i think rhino horn is still by weight more valuable than gold wild because it's so rare it's so rare it's so stupid what's one animal which is at the words of extension just because of this illegal trade well pangolins i mean if you if anybody listening doesn't know what a pangolin looks like search a pangolin they're the most beautiful they have these giant scales all over them and it's kind of like an anteater they have a long tongue and there's you know they get some of them get pretty big others of them are small but they're all across africa and asia southeast asia um they're in india and they're just such beautiful animals and they're being so trafficked and they're just being murdered and pulled out of ecosystems to the point that we might lose pangolins and it's like we don't just none of this needs to be happening what's amazing is if you tell desperate people if you just bring us this we'll give you a little bit of money and it's like it just shows you how much desperation there is on the earth because no one's you know no one with a good business plan is going out hunting pangolins yeah it's i was doing some math and looking at the figures it's the the export just from amazon and like african jungles is about 23 billion dollars a year yeah it's insane illegal it's huge you said that's just what you say africa and amazon yeah just africa's monstrous and there's so many animals to exploit i think the amazon is protected a little bit by the size of the amazon for these people to go into the amazon is harder at least in africa you can drive up to a national park and almost everything has fences around you can duck under a fence you know there's very few places in africa that are truly wild really really wild um it was the amazon is bananas and so that the size and the the scope of the jungle i think helps to keep it pretty wild So here are the last two questions.

2:22:01And one of them is you love talking about looking at nature, animals, and then bringing those lessons to the human world, right? You love that. So being very specific, when you look at this nature and animals, what do you bring back in the human life from the point of view of dominance, submission, protection, motherhood? These are like four really incredible emotions which you would be seeing on an everyday basis. So do you look at that in animals and see it in humans as well from the same lens or do you change your lens? Well, no, we're not separate from nature. Just tell me again, dominance.

2:22:45Dominance and submission. That's almost like your sex and death lens. And then there's protection and motherhood, which is like exact same in humans. and at least the primary instinct is same in humans and animals at the same time. I mean, look, nature is a balance between all those things. Motherhood, I think, is something that's really cool because it goes across all species. Like for snakes and, you know, certain things have nothing to do with their offspring. Certain crocodilians will lay their eggs and they're gone. A lot of smaller snake species will just lay their eggs and they're gone.

2:23:21And they don't care. What's that they don't care? That's just how they work. They don't think like that. That's how they do it. You know, these larger ones like that python that we just handled, she will lay eggs and she will hug them and sit there with them until they hatch. Birds take good care of their eggs. Elephants raise their children for years. Their children, their calves. And as far as the dominance thing, again, it's the economy. I actually heard a clip where you were saying like, no one cares about you. No one's going to come help you. Like you have to. And so, you know, in the world right now, it's getting a little bit.

2:23:56I feel like it's a little bit crowded right now in the sense that it's very difficult to distinguish yourself, whether it's in academics or sports or science or whatever it is. You really have to find a way of blazing your own trail because either you're going to follow your own dream or work, be working for someone else's. And if everyone's following their own dream, nothing's ever going to happen. So yeah, some people have to be happy to help a project go forward, whether that's in a big company or whether that's in somebody else's startup. But that thing of differentiating yourself and finding a way, I have so many kids messaging me now saying, how do I do what you do?

2:24:30And I'm like, I don't want you to do what I do. I'm protecting the Amazon. Go out and find a way to help me. And again, go find a master or go find someone, go find a scientist who's protecting snow leopards or go find someone who's protecting things in your backyard. Help them. There's almost always somebody rehabilitating animals in your community. Find them. They're probably crazy, old and awesome and have a big heart and no funding because they spend all their time rescuing animals. And it's like, okay, maybe that's not your thing. Somebody told me he wanted to protect great whites in South Africa.

2:25:00I said, go there, hang out on the docks with the science because he'd gone to school for marine biology because I still can't get a job protecting, great whites. I said, go, you're still, you're in your early twenties. Go sit on the docks, find out who is protecting great whites and studying great whites. Help them carry their gear. Help them take cool pictures of their work that'll help them communicate their work, but put in the time. And just like, you know, the young philosopher that goes up the mountain and finds the great master sitting, meditating and goes, may I study with you master? No, go back down the mountain.

2:25:33Yeah, that's going to happen to everybody. That's part of it. you're going to be told no and then you have to find a way of working past that go sit down next to them what's your end game now well end game end game is when we realized end game happened about a year ago where we realized that with the narcos coming in from the north with the logging not stopping with a new road that was planning we said wait realize that if we don't protect this corridor now, then it's going to be destroyed. And so Endgame is the realization that in the next few years, we're either going to save the wildest place on earth, or it's going to be destroyed and it's going to become a memory.

2:26:14And the work that I'm doing with this book and with all these films and with all this stuff that we're doing with Jungle Keepers, it's going to be something that no longer exists. And so Endgame is the final push. What we're doing at Jungle Keepers is not a forever project. It's not like we're trying to save the environment. or the oceans. No, it's very specific. We're trying to save this river at this moment in time with these animals and these tribes, and we're protecting it from complete destruction. And we have a couple of years to do that. Otherwise, we can only hold back the destruction so long on our own.

2:26:50And so, we do this because people all over the world go to junglekeepers.org. They give us $5,$10,$100 a month, whatever their means are. And to me, it doesn't matter how much it is. The fact that people give means they care and they're helping. And so, some people write in and they go, hey, look, I can only afford to give you$5 a month. Great. That's to me the same as the billionaire who comes in and goes, I'll give you a few hundred thousand dollars, whatever. It's the same. You help based on what you're able to do. And because there's thousands of people all over the world helping us with these rangers, helping us to protect this land, helping us to bring this message all over the world, we're actually winning.

2:27:31We're actually slowly winning. We're at that point, it's like you get to a great battle and it doesn't look like you can win. And then all of a sudden you go, wait, there might be a chance. And we're at that point where we're going, wait, wait, wait, this might just be possible. And we have the Peruvian government now saying, if you can secure all the land, we will sign it over into National Park and it'll be forever protected. But we're not interested in doing all that. We don't have the funding to doing all that. So we have to rely on things like this, where we're talking to massive amounts of people, get that message out.

2:28:02People are reading the book about what it takes to make a national park, to protect the thing, to find your dream and actually save a piece of the wilderness that still exists. And so end game is that final push. We're either going to make it or we're not. And like I said, you got to, you got to push in all the chips and sort of just say, look, like a tiger chasing a deer, go either we're going to live or we won't. Maybe we'll get our skulls split. Maybe we'll starve to death. Maybe I'll get killed by narcos, but we're going to find out what's possible. And if we succeed, we will save tens of millions of wild heartbeats.

2:28:35And if we fail, the entire worlds will burn. It's like Avatar in real life. Have you made any progress in this? Just in the last few weeks with the book coming out and then doing a lot of big podcasts are really influential for people learning this and coming onto the Jungle Keepers. You know, when I was growing up, there was no way to help. You see, you hear how elephants are going to be extinct in our lifetime. You know, tigers are being persecuted. The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed. And I go, well, what can I do? And now I get messages from parents all over the world that are like, hey, my kids heard you talking about this.

2:29:08They've always been worried about these animals they love. And now they have a way to protect them through your organization. And we're so proud that we, you know, we give a small amount every$5. Starbucks coffee is$5 once a month. and now a lot of those in these little raindrops of care of funding a lot of raindrops make a flood and now we've in the last few weeks we've started negotiating to protect a new 20 ,000 acres on top of the 136 ,000 acres that we're already protecting there's another 20 that we're about to try and protect where the tribes live where there's all this wildlife and if we keep getting this type of momentum we have to protect 300 ,000 acres we're at 136 this will put us right up around halfway.

2:29:51If you can do it halfway, you can do it the whole way. And so we're really starting to feel that momentum. I think it's becoming a global movement. And this one is going to be where, you know, this is done by the people. This is people all over the world are just going, I care. And so we're linking people in every country all over the world that care about the Amazon rainforest. And I think it's going to become the crown jewel of protected nature on earth. Again, I want to start thinking like a global society, not like, oh, we're over here and you're over there. It's like, no, no, no. We all need, when it comes to the environment, we all need to be thinking on a global scale.

2:30:26So just to follow up on this is, why should somebody sitting in Asia or someone sitting in India or UK or Europe should care about this, should care about Amazon forest? Why should they be paying for this cause? Well, not everyone should care. It might seem like a weird answer to that, but not everyone should care. And the reason for that is this, there's all kinds of things going on in the world. I just met someone who's sending pads to help young girls menstruating in Africa. That's what she cares about, helping young women in impoverished areas. Great. Focus on that. But then don't also be worrying about the wars that are going on all over the world and the animals and just your head is going to explode.

2:31:14Focus on one thing, the change that you can affect. and then take dedicated action towards that. And so, I love to see this. And so, to the people all over the world, some people aren't going to care about what's happening in the Amazon. But back to what I originally said, whether or not you believe in it, the Amazon rainforest is regulating our global climate, stabilizing our weather, producing resources, and is a home to the other beings that we share this earth with. So, in some way, you spiritually and chemically physically rely on the Amazon rainforest for the reality we live in. So, it doesn't matter if you care about it because even if it's one out of every hundred people that gets the message and hears about that there's a chance to save this part of the Amazon, those people care about it.

2:32:01True. And hopefully, the other 99 care about something else. I don't know if there's people that don't care about anything, but people are going to be on different things. And hopefully, everyone's doing something in their life. Everyone that has enough to think of what else needs help is doing something valuable that's not just self-centered around themselves. Interesting. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. This was a very interesting conversation. I'm dying to get back to India. And man, I've never seen such a big snake in a room before. That was incredible, man. Thank you so much. That snake.

2:32:37I'm still, I don't know how to process that. I just want to look at the pictures. It's so cool. it's so so cool thank you so much for doing this this was one of the best conversations and very different than what I usually do very very different I know it's very good thank you so much I watched some of your stuff

2:32:57you understand Hindi or no? nah I know that one thing I speak some Kannada I think what we should do is we layer out on the table we don't want to we don't want us to have our faces near her face so we want to like put her face over there and we have the body I think coming over here and then we can literally just sit here and talk calmly about her. She should just chill on the table. These guys all who keep snakes, they're like yeah, yeah, yeah, she's friendly, she's friendly. I don't believe anything they say. Why? Because I work with snakes and they can be unpredictable. The other thing is if you get scared or if she pinches herself she might jump and just, you know, they go oh shit and then they bite.

2:33:36Not their fault but But, you know, again, the bite from her would cut you to the bone. So, you just have to be careful. It's like a little bit of a dance. Yeah. Thank you so much for watching this episode till the end. Now you have to do three things. Number one, subscribe to this channel right now. The more you subscribe, the better the guests we will be able to get for you. Number two, please comment and let us know what did we do wrong and what did we do right. because the more you give us feedback, the better we will be able to make episodes for you. And number three, please share this episode with at least one person because one conversation can change someone's entire life.

2:34:21I'll see you next time. Until then, keep figuring out.

2:34:37you