Joe Rogan Experience #1122 - Donnie Vincent

1. 0:02 – 4:12

   Float tanks, silence, and learning to slow down in wild places

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:02

      Five, four, three, two, one. (rock music) Donny Vincent.

   2. DVDonnie Vincent0:08

      What's going on?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:08

      How are you, buddy?

   4. DVDonnie Vincent0:09

      Good. Really good.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:10

      I'm very excited that you didn't know about floating at all. You didn't know about float tanks even remotely until you came here.

   6. DVDonnie Vincent0:15

      Yeah. And it's wicked looking.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      It's fun, man. If you got time after the show, you could float. If you wanna do it.

   8. DVDonnie Vincent0:22

      (sighs) I might have to do it just to say that I've done it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      Yeah.

   10. DVDonnie Vincent0:25

       But yeah, I- I- I didn't know the science behind it. Um, other than obviously floating.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       Right.

   12. DVDonnie Vincent0:32

       Would be, you know-

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       Just feels good.

   14. DVDonnie Vincent0:34

       ... just to meditate-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       Yeah.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent0:35

       ... and just to sit there in a quiet like ... You know when you- when you're a little kid and you go in a swimming pool or something and you put your ears just under the water and you get that kinda (clicks tongue) ?

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Yeah.

   18. DVDonnie Vincent0:42

       When everything's just peaceful and you can just sit there and you can't hear your mother or you can't hear your girlfriend or whatever, and it's just quiet.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Right. (laughs)

   20. DVDonnie Vincent0:47

       I assume it's a lot like that.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:49

       Uh, it's very telling that you said two women.

   22. DVDonnie Vincent0:51

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       You didn't say your dad, you didn't say your grandpa. (laughs)

   24. DVDonnie Vincent0:53

       Yeah. Well, my- my dad never talked to me.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       (laughs)

   26. DVDonnie Vincent0:55

       Maybe that's a whole nother subject matter.

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       Well, that's another part of the problem probably.

   28. DVDonnie Vincent0:58

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       But, uh, yeah, I- I am trying to get floating spread across the world. I think it's the best way for people to relax. There's nothing like it. 'Cause first of all, physically you relax 'cause the- the water has so much Epsom salts in it and it's just really good for your muscles.

   30. DVDonnie Vincent1:12

       Mm-hmm.
2. 4:12 – 6:22

   Why Donnie’s long-form hunting films feel different than TV hunting shows

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:12

      Well, I- I think people for the long ... People who don't have any experience in the outdoors and certainly people who don't hunt don't understand it and their version of it they're getting either from movies, where hunters are always portrayed as villains, or they're getting it from these outdoor TV shows, which I don't think a good ... Do a good job of-

   2. DVDonnie Vincent4:31

      No.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:31

      ... representing what it actually is. Even the really good ones-

   4. DVDonnie Vincent4:33

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:33

      ... like Rinella's show-

   6. DVDonnie Vincent4:34

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:34

      ... which I think is the best show out there-

   8. DVDonnie Vincent4:36

      Sure.

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:36

      ... it's still 22 minutes with commercials. And I just don't think that you get a real sense of what it's like. What I think you did that's really interesting, and one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on, is you're doing films. Like you're doing an hour long film about a hunt and in that, you really get an understanding of the environment, you take great shots or whoever your cameraman is-

   10. DVDonnie Vincent5:01

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:01

       ... great shots of the environment.

   12. DVDonnie Vincent5:03

       Super talented.

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:04

       ... and close-ups on leaves floating down a river and you just get ... You get a- a real sense of it, which-

   14. DVDonnie Vincent5:10

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:10

       ... is missing.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent5:11

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:11

       I mean, it's- it's still ... You're still getting a blink of-

   18. DVDonnie Vincent5:14

       Oh, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:14

       ... you know, multiple weeks-

   20. DVDonnie Vincent5:15

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:16

       ... in- in the wilderness.

   22. DVDonnie Vincent5:17

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:17

       But you at least ... You get a feel like, oh, this is something very different than what's being portrayed. This is like this intense almost spiritual experience in this very bizarre environment that surrounds civilization and we think of it, you know, uh, in these weird terms but when you're out there in it, it's very difficult to capture what that's like and I think you've done an amazing job at doing that. And here's ... Jamie's put some of your stuff on- up online.

   24. DVDonnie Vincent5:45

       Oh, great.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:45

       Here where you get a chance to see it, but ...

   26. DVDonnie Vincent5:47

       And I- and I appreciate that. It's, um,-

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:49

       Plus you-

   28. DVDonnie Vincent5:49

       ... hunting, it- it drives me nuts. Go ahead.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:52

       No, no, I'm just, I'm just gonna say, I mean, whoever is doing your- your editing does a-

   30. DVDonnie Vincent5:56

       Kyle.
3. 6:22 – 9:42

   National Geographic asked: 'Why do you hunt?'—and the struggle to articulate it

   1. DVDonnie Vincent6:22

      And this was, this piece right here was specifically done for Nat Geo because they have, um, the National Geographic Society, which is the magazine, and then they have National Geographic, which is the TV show. And so they wanted to do, they hit me up for a bunch of TV shows. They wanted me to, you know, come and find Bigfoot. They wanted me to-

   2. JRJoe Rogan6:43

      (laughs) Did they-

   3. DVDonnie Vincent6:43

      Uh, I, yeah, they-

   4. JRJoe Rogan6:44

      Those motherfuckers. (laughs)

   5. DVDonnie Vincent6:45

      Sh- motherfucker, they called me for everything. They would, they would call me and say, "Uh, uh, uh, where, where, where are you right now? Where are, where's your cabin?" And I'd say, "I don't have a cabin." And they'd say, "Well, are, I'm sure you're skinning a beaver out right now."

   6. JRJoe Rogan6:57

      (laughs)

   7. DVDonnie Vincent6:58

      I'd say, "No, no, no. I live in Wisconsin just out of Minneapolis and I'm walking my Labrador down the street-"

   8. JRJoe Rogan7:03

      (laughs)

   9. DVDonnie Vincent7:03

      "... in, in shorts." And, and, um, and so they said, well, they, they really wanna do a TV show and they wanted it to, uh, encapsulate hunting to some degree. But the Society, the magazine, was against hunting. The TV show would allow it, so they wanted me to do a no bullshit, uh, sermon, if you will, download looking down the barrel of the camera and just said, "This isn't gonna go public. This is, doesn't have to be pretty. It's not gonna be edited well, but just please tell us why you hunt. W- try to explain it so that we can bring it to our producers and say, 'Man, like, this is why he hunts.'" And so I did this, had my little temper tantrum there, and, um, and in doing it, realized, like, it made me really question... You know, I'd say, "Okay, so you wanna know why I hunt?" And then it made me take a step back and say, "Man, for the love of God, I really don't even know." I don't know why I hunt, but I can explain some of the areas. It doesn't explain why I'm a hunter, it doesn't exactly why I hunt, but I can tell you I love the adventure. I can tell you I love the really clean protein that I get for me and my family. I can tell you that our ancestry unequivocally comes from 100% groups of hunters and gatherers. It's, around the world. I can tell you all of these points. I can tell you that I love seeing antlers of all sizes and, and the hides. And I can tell you I love watching grizzly bears eat blueberries and watching salmon, uh, come up a river to spawn. I can tell you all of these things, but I don't know if all of those things make me a hunter or if I'm just experiencing all those things because I am a hunter. It's just very difficult to articulate. It's very difficult to articulate how much you love something, yet you're willing to engage it in such a heavy way, such a violent way that you're willing to step in, kill it, cut it up, get your hands bloody, because really that's what it is. We love it so much that we're willing to expose ourselves to the elements, put ourselves in these places, let the arrow or the bullet go, watch an animal die which is never, never an interesting thing to wa- I say interesting, but it's just not a pleasurable thing to watch. But, uh, this is how we engage as hunters into these environments. And so I was trying to convey that to Nat Geo in a seven-minute piece. And Kyle, um, after he put it together, he's like, "I think we should release this." And I said, "Hell no. Hell no." I talk about PETA in it. I talk about being a vegetarian in it, which I'm not against vegetarianism. I'm, PETA's a joke. But, um, but he insisted, so he finally won the argument and, you know.

4. 9:42 – 12:41

   Ethics, PETA, and the shared outrage over captive orcas

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:42

      Well, PETA, you know, the idea behind ethical treatment of animals is amazing.

   2. DVDonnie Vincent9:48

      Of course.

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:49

      I mean, you, like you were saying, you have a Labrador. The idea that hunters hate animals too is also a very confusing thing. This is, hunters love animals, you know. There's a lot of hunters that have dogs and cats.

   4. DVDonnie Vincent9:59

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan9:59

      But ethical treatment of animals is, is imperative. It's very important. I mean, we, we are, if we are really the stewards of nature, if we're really the top of the food chain, and we most certainly are-

   6. DVDonnie Vincent10:10

      Mm-hmm.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:11

      ... we, and we're conscious and we have a conscience, we absolutely should be ethical in our treatment of animals and take care of them and be kind to them. Which the problem with PETA is that's not really what they're about.

   8. DVDonnie Vincent10:23

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:23

      They're the animal liberation organization. That's what, what they really are.

   10. DVDonnie Vincent10:26

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:26

       What they're about, they don't want any animals to be pets. They don't want people to have pets. Like, this is, I mean, this sounds radical, but it's absolutely true. In fact, PETA euthanizes thousands of pets a year. They kill pets and they kill them quickly. They don't keep them alive very long. And the idea being is that, for the critics, the, the, the idea has been bandied about is they don't want these animals to live and breed and stay pets. They want animals to only be wild. And that's fine, but there's thousands and thousands of years of domesticated animals. And if you wanna let those animals loose and have them wild, you have a whole, another series of problems. Unless you wanna kill all the golden retrievers and all the chihuahuas and all, they're not gonna survive in the wild. So like, you gotta-

   12. DVDonnie Vincent11:13

       Well, we've, we, yeah, we've perpetuated past that-

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:14

       Yeah.

   14. DVDonnie Vincent11:14

       ... a long time ago.

   15. JRJoe Rogan11:16

       Yeah, they're not wild animals. They're just not.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent11:18

       No.

   17. JRJoe Rogan11:18

       N- yeah. Like a, like, a little fat kid's not a wild animal either. You leave him in the woods, he's gonna die just as quickly as your fucking chihuahua. He's gonna-

   18. DVDonnie Vincent11:25

       He's gonna be food.

   19. JRJoe Rogan11:26

       Yeah, they're not gonna make it.

   20. DVDonnie Vincent11:27

       Yes.

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:27

       It's, this is not... You know, so there's a, there's a weird ideology that they're attached to that is, it's, it's d- it's not tenable. It's not-

   22. DVDonnie Vincent11:38

       No.

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:38

       You can't argue it. You know, the idea of ethical treatment of animals, I'm 100% with that.

   24. DVDonnie Vincent11:44

       Of course.

   25. JRJoe Rogan11:44

       I fucking hate the whole idea of captive orcas. That, to me, is one of the big gross.

   26. DVDonnie Vincent11:50

       Gross.

   27. JRJoe Rogan11:50

       That freaks me the fuck out that we can take these alien creatures that are essentially as smart as us, probably, and put them in swimming pools and justify it. And that the only time they've ever killed people in recorded history has been in those swimming pools.

   28. DVDonnie Vincent12:05

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan12:06

       They don't kill people in the wild.

   30. DVDonnie Vincent12:07

       No.
5. 12:41 – 18:56

   A wild orca encounter in BC—and why orcas feel 'alien'

   1. DVDonnie Vincent12:41

      Yeah. You know, I, I had, um, one of the most ... I've had some ... I've been fortunate to have remarkable engagements with wildlife in my life. But two years ago in, in BC, I had one with a killer whale.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:53

      Whoa.

   3. DVDonnie Vincent12:53

      And it was, it was wicked. And to this day, I regret not making the decision I'm about to tell you about. But we had been, um ... I'd been bear hunting on the coast. And we were in a boat, cruising back to the harbor, and we found two pods of killer whales, uh, three big bulls and a bunch of cows out there hunting. And, uh, we kept ... As they would come up, they were chasing salmon, and as they would come up, we would just get closer just to film them or even just to see them. And then they'd go down and ... So, I don't know if it was just happenstance of where we were, but we came up and we were just kinda waiting for the whole pod to come up. And all of a sudden, just 50 feet from the boat, here comes the huge dorsal fin of this bull, comes right at our boat, bumps into our boat. I'm standing on the, uh, in, in the crow's nest, essentially. I'm on the roof of the boat, looking at this thing. He comes up, bumps into our boat, and he just glides his left side all along the boat. So, his left pectoral fin is probably under our gunwale, if you will, or under our hull. And so, he's just dragging his fin and he rotates on his side, dragging his dorsal fin along our side, exhales, covering, um, our director of photography, William's face in his spray. And as he's doing this, he goes ... He hugs the bow of our boat and he never, ever breaks eye contact with me. He's staring at me out of his left eye, literally rolling his eye over and he just cruises all the way around the boat. And, uh, I wanted to dive in and I, I just wasn't sure. Like, I didn't wanna be one of these, you know-

   4. JRJoe Rogan14:29

      The first guy to die. (laughs)

   5. DVDonnie Vincent14:30

      ... yeah, I, I didn't wanna be the first guy to die and I didn't, also didn't wanna have, like, some sort of shallow water blackout because the water was so cold. So, I didn't wanna dive in and have all of a sudden, like ... I didn't know how I, my body would react because I hadn't been in the water yet, and so ... Um, and then also, I was like, I ... You know, I'd watched Blackfish or whatever that film is where they killed a bunch of folks at, you know, in, in, uh, SeaWorld and, and in BC, and so I was just like, "Well, what if ... You know, there's gotta be a first." You know, wolves never killed anyone any- either, and then, you know, some young lady went jogging in BC and son of a bitch, we have number one.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Well, there's a long history of wolves-

   7. DVDonnie Vincent15:04

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:04

      ... kill- killing people though-

   9. DVDonnie Vincent15:05

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:05

       ... in the past.

   11. DVDonnie Vincent15:06

       Yeah. I'm, I'm just saying, you know-

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:07

       (laughs)

   13. DVDonnie Vincent15:07

       ... like, you know, in m- in recorded time. But it was still, it was, it was, uh ... And he maintained eye contact, turned and then just continued on with the hunt, but it was-

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:14

       Fuck.

   15. DVDonnie Vincent15:15

       It was-

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:15

       Did you film all this?

   17. DVDonnie Vincent15:16

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, we filmed as much as we could 'cause it happened really fast. But yeah, it was wicked. Absolutely wicked. I mean, literally his, you know, his dorsal fin's probably 10 feet tall.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       Yeah.

   19. DVDonnie Vincent15:25

       And it is just ... You know, when you drag something against another a- a- an ina- an im- object with force, you know, his fin is just ... You know, he was just, uh, very engaged-

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:36

       God.

   21. DVDonnie Vincent15:36

       ... with the boat and-

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:37

       Is the dorsal fin really that tall?

   23. DVDonnie Vincent15:39

       Yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's gotta be eight, nine, 10 feet.

   24. JRJoe Rogan15:43

       That's fucking crazy.

   25. DVDonnie Vincent15:44

       Yeah. Huge.

   26. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       I, I guess it makes sense. They're so big. Fuck, man, I've never seen one in the wild. I've seen dolphins in the wild and I've seen whales in the wild.

   27. DVDonnie Vincent15:52

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan15:52

       I've never seen an orca.

   29. DVDonnie Vincent15:53

       Yeah, they're wick- ... I mean, wicked animals.

   30. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       I always-
6. 18:56 – 27:22

   Factory farming vs. hunting: hypocrisy, ag-gag laws, and moral gray areas

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:56

      Well, I think there's a lot of people out there that are curious. I mean, 90 ... depending on who you ask, 95% or 90%, 97% of the population eats meat. And the-

   2. DVDonnie Vincent19:06

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:06

      ... the percentage that actually kill that meat themselves is i- incredibly small. It's probably like 1%.

   4. DVDonnie Vincent19:12

      Sure.

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:12

      You know? I mean, I don't know what it is.

   6. DVDonnie Vincent19:13

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:13

      It might be a little bit higher than that, but it's no more than five. And there's a lot of people that are just on the fence and they're, the- they're just sitting there going, "Well, I eat it, but I don't kill it myself. But I, I somehow ... And now they're angry that someone's doing it themselves. Like, my ... Before I ever thought about hunting, my thoughts about hunters were that they were cruel people that like to kill animals. "Why would you kill animals? It's not necessary. You can buy meat from a store." This is the very shallow thinking that I had, you know, decades ago. Then, you know, as I started getting older and really considering what I do with my body and what kind of food I put in, and then the internet was a big one. Because the internet came along and I started watching those videos that ... a lot of them that PETA puts up of factory farming.

   8. DVDonnie Vincent20:00

      Oh.

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:01

      And I go-

   10. DVDonnie Vincent20:02

       Terrible.

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:03

       It's horrif- it's not just terrible, it's, it's like, it doesn't make any sense. It's like, this is, this is like human beings at their very worst. Like, that we've treated these things as like, the, the most ... I mean, not just as a commodity, but we've ignored their feelings and their thoughts and their ... the, the fact that they have instincts and needs, and that we've stuffed them into these tiny little cages. It's a sickness. And then you see the cruel, inhumane treatment that some of the people that work there. You know, and people that work in farms will tell you like, "This is very rare and these are isolated instances and this is terrible." That's well and good, but there's also ag gag laws that prevent people from filming. Agricultural gag laws that prevent people from filming on these factory farms because they don't want people to know-

   12. DVDonnie Vincent20:52

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:53

       ... how horrific those conditions are.

   14. DVDonnie Vincent20:54

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan20:54

       So, it's ... There's some truth to it. I mean, maybe there are isolated instances, maybe it's a small percentage of the farms that do treat their animals like that.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent21:01

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:01

       But it's significant enough that they're worried about the impact on the economy to the point where they're passing laws that keep people from filming and showing people what it's like in these places.

   18. DVDonnie Vincent21:11

       But you can, you can even just show people without any abuse. Just show what's going on. Just even a still photo of how they're living.

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:18

       Yeah.

   20. DVDonnie Vincent21:18

       And you're not gonna wanna consume the food. And these, and the people that, they, they think that these animals were raised this way, right? They're, they're cows, they're bovines, they're big, dumb animals. They were bred for this. Who cares? They have no idea what's going on until that spike hits them or they get electrocuted or they get their throat slit. But if you have any wherewithal at all, if you have any being, any soul at all, and, and maybe this is the wrong idealization or the wrong picture I'm building in my head, but if you, if you make (laughs) yourself the cow just for a second. If you remove yourself just for a freaking second and just say, like, "Is, is this how I would wanna be treated? Is this how I would wanna live? Is this h- how I would wanna die?" Then you start to ask yourself some pretty big questions that are relatively easy to answer. And we have a lot of people on the earth right now, and it's going to continue until something big happens. But if you, if, if you can remove yourself from your own ego and from your own comfort and try to visualize at all what these other animals are going through, even animals you're hunting, um, it, it's gonna make you better and, and more cognizant of being ethical in, in treating everything with absolute care, even in killing it.

   21. JRJoe Rogan22:35

       Yeah. I mean (sighs) -

   22. DVDonnie Vincent22:37

       I know that's silly. I know.

   23. JRJoe Rogan22:37

       ... there's, there's a lot of contradictions there though, right? W- With hunting, because like, if you really care about the animal, why would you kill it, right?

   24. DVDonnie Vincent22:43

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan22:43

       That's the, that's the big question, if you really do care.

   26. DVDonnie Vincent22:44

       Yeah, it's the hardest thing to wrap your head around.

   27. JRJoe Rogan22:46

       Yeah.

   28. DVDonnie Vincent22:46

       Yeah, if you're not, if you're not into it.

   29. JRJoe Rogan22:47

       And our wilderness is, it's, it's, it's absolutely wild. I mean, public lands in particular. They're very w- they're ... It's absolutely wild. But it's also very weird because a lot of the funding for that wildlife comes from people that buy hunting tags and hunting equipment in order to kill those animals.

   30. DVDonnie Vincent23:07

       Mm-hmm.
7. 27:22 – 35:29

   Soil depletion, Mississippi runoff, dead zones—and the overpopulation clock

   1. DVDonnie Vincent27:22

      And even look at th- so the corridor of the Mississippi River, right, used to be solid wetlands. And our wetlands is how we recycle water. It's how we ... That stinky biomass that you smell, that's, that's clean water being made. That's, that's detritus materially being, it being processed. Mississippi River used to be completely lined with these wetlands. Farmers have went in and, and, and obviously it's not the farmers' fault. This is just ... As soon as we started agriculture, 13, 14, 15,000 years ago, m- the stopwatch was hit. We went one direction. You cannot go away. We were hunters and gatherers. We could only raise so many children. We had to move with the food. We had to move away from our excrement. We, we had to keep a small population. But the second we figured out how to grow corn and rice and stay in one place and raise more than one child, and now we're close to our excrement, literally the stopwatch to something that is going to be a fantastic event has started.

   2. JRJoe Rogan28:22

      Yep.

   3. DVDonnie Vincent28:22

      I, I don't know if I'm gonna see it. I don't know if you're gonna see it, but something wicked is coming. And, and, and, it, it, it ... There's no other way to look around. There's, th- there, there's ... Anyway, something big is-

   4. JRJoe Rogan28:33

      You mean by overpopulation-

   5. DVDonnie Vincent28:34

      Overpopulation.

   6. JRJoe Rogan28:35

      ... disease?

   7. DVDonnie Vincent28:36

      Something will happen. You know, human beings are animals. We, we have awesome thumbs, we have great brains, but we are nothing ... There's nothing amazing about us.

   8. JRJoe Rogan28:44

      Yeah.

   9. DVDonnie Vincent28:44

      We, we, we can fly to the moon, we can do all this great stuff. By the way, I loved your discussion with your flat-Earther guy.

   10. JRJoe Rogan28:52

       (laughs)

   11. DVDonnie Vincent28:52

       That was fricking amazing. And the other guy that thinks if you eat the perfect amount of food, you won't poop or pee. Yeah, so that was my-

   12. JRJoe Rogan28:57

       Oh, that guy? That silly fuck? California remains the leading US state for cash farm receipts.

   13. DVDonnie Vincent29:02

       It's the biggest state with ... For all farms.

   14. JRJoe Rogan29:04

       Oh, yeah. That's ... Yeah, but that's outside of LA. If you go outside of LA-

   15. DVDonnie Vincent29:07

       (laughs) Oh, yeah. I'm in LA. Yeah, we're just talking about LA. California has a lot of farms. In fact, if you drive from, uh, LA and you go to Fresno, like when we were working in Fresno, there's fucking nothing but farms. Like, all the way up to San Francisco, nothing but farms. Yes.

   16. JRJoe Rogan29:20

       It's, you know, it's a lot of almond farming, a lot of-

   17. DVDonnie Vincent29:22

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan29:22

       ... tomatoes, avocados.

   19. DVDonnie Vincent29:24

       But you look at ... So, so we've gotten rid of our wetlands and now we're ... Our, our soils are sawdust. There's nothing in them anymore.

   20. JRJoe Rogan29:30

       Right.

   21. DVDonnie Vincent29:31

       So, we pump in the nitrogen, we pump in the phosphorus, the rains come-

   22. JRJoe Rogan29:33

       Well, explain that too, because a lot of people don't understand that you ... When you use ... When you grow vegetables on a plot of land over and over and over again, you deplete the soil of all the minerals.

   23. DVDonnie Vincent29:43

       Yeah, yeah. Because you're not letting anything die there, right? You are s- pulling from the earth, you're harvesting the plant. Nothing is dying, nothing is returning back to the earth. And so, you're gro- ... So, then the next year, you don't have that detritus material creating, uh, all the goodies in the soils. The bugs, the, the microbes. You don't have these, uh, funguses. You don't have these symbiotic relationships that are working with all these-

   24. JRJoe Rogan30:07

       Right.

   25. DVDonnie Vincent30:07

       ... insects and microbes that are ... So that, that create your soil to be a living system.... we've ... As, as we push all that into the plant, then we harvest it and we just keep doing that repeatedly, well, there's less and less of this biomass in the soil, so we have to then go in and fertilize with nitrogen and phosphorus to give our plants nitrogen fixation, things like this, to grow these plants.

   26. JRJoe Rogan30:27

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DVDonnie Vincent30:28

       Then we harvest them, then rains come, there's erosion, all of these soils. So, we lose some of our top soils, which brings us down to even more other, uh, different levels of soils that need even more chemicals brought into them so they can actually grow something. But all these soils that are heavily laden with, with nitrogen and phosphorus pour into the Mississippi River. And people know about this. I'm not saying anything that isn't ... um, hasn't been extremely well-documented, and then pushes down to the Gulf of Mexico. The sunlight hits it, all of this, uh, alg- algal blooms happen, all this algae hits this nitrogen and phosphorus, it grows it just like it grows a cornstalk. The, the sunlight hits it, it, it have these huge blooms that needs oxygen to function, so it creates these huge hypoxic zones, right? You've heard these things called dead zones. Fish can't live in them. And so, anyone that's ... hangs their hat on being a vegetarian or ... and I know there's reasons for being a vegetarian. I know there's people that, um, refuse to ... they, they don't wanna kill the animal themselves, um, and, and, um, and they're not gonna buy it from a factory farm. I probably have more in common with vegetarian people tha- that don't wanna kill their own animals and, and, um, aren't willing to eat factory-grown food tha- than I have with some of my, uh, hunters tha- w- with other hunters.

   28. JRJoe Rogan31:47

       I know what you're saying.

   29. DVDonnie Vincent31:48

       It seems.

   30. JRJoe Rogan31:49

       Yeah.
8. 35:29 – 38:36

   Lab-grown meat: promise, hidden costs, and unintended consequences

   1. JRJoe Rogan35:29

      It's a gigantic problem and it's, it's a problem that's caused in large part by larg- large-scale agriculture, as you said. I think that one of these problems is gonna be solved by, um, factory-created meat. The problem is how many other problems are gonna be created by that? I don't know-

   2. DVDonnie Vincent35:46

      You mean gen- like-

   3. JRJoe Rogan35:47

      Yeah, that-

   4. DVDonnie Vincent35:48

      ... like made meat?

   5. JRJoe Rogan35:48

      Mm-hmm.

   6. DVDonnie Vincent35:49

      Like out of soy? Or out of-

   7. JRJoe Rogan35:51

      No, no. No, no, no. No. They're, they're making meat in laboratories.

   8. DVDonnie Vincent35:54

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan35:55

      Laboratory-created meat.

   10. DVDonnie Vincent35:57

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan35:57

       And they're ... what they're ... I don't know exactly what the process is-

   12. DVDonnie Vincent36:00

       What's the-

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:00

       ... but it's flesh.

   14. DVDonnie Vincent36:01

       So, what's the cellular base? Like, what's the first thing that they put in the Petri dish?

   15. JRJoe Rogan36:05

       They're cloning it essentially. They're cloning beef and all these different things and the idea is that they're gonna be able to do this without anything dying.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent36:13

       ... it... (laughs) So if you think, if you think our population... Uh, if you think our human growth is exponential now-

   17. JRJoe Rogan36:19

       Mm-hmm. Imagine.

   18. DVDonnie Vincent36:20

       ... now we can, now we can get rid of the land. Now we don't need the land. Now there's no value for wild places and there's no value even for farms. Now we can get rid of all of that. And billionaires, you know what billionaires love? They love money.

   19. JRJoe Rogan36:33

       Mm-hmm.

   20. DVDonnie Vincent36:33

       And so billionaires will buy up all this land because they already have all the money to buy the land. They'll buy the land, they'll get the farms, and they'll get all the wild places out, and they'll build even more houses because you can eat some beige-colored gruel or laboratory-designed meat, and we can get even more people.

   21. JRJoe Rogan36:50

       Well, I don't think they're thinking about it that way. Uh, but-

   22. DVDonnie Vincent36:53

       So I just invented something?

   23. JRJoe Rogan36:54

       ... this is, I'm, I'm sure. I mean, it's like, it's like the idea of they. Like, they're going to do this. And, well, they're us. And there's-

   24. DVDonnie Vincent37:01

       Yeah. Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:01

       ... you know, wildlife and wild lands are protected. There's federal land, and you can't really build factory farmed meat houses on those places, but-

   26. DVDonnie Vincent37:11

       No.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:11

       ... I see what you're saying. But there's also the real problem of, like, what, what... There's no, th- th- th- there's no free ride. Like, what happens when you make that meat? Like, what, uh, what's the nuggets?

   28. DVDonnie Vincent37:21

       That's what I'm asking you. What's the first thing in the Petri dish, right? What's the cost of doing this?

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:25

       Also, is there some sort of a side effect to eating that meat? Is it... Does it have negative health effects? Does it have a negative environmental effect?

   30. DVDonnie Vincent37:33

       Yeah.
9. 38:36 – 50:13

   Predator hunting backlash, bear biology, and why bear meat is underrated

   1. JRJoe Rogan38:36

      have a real hard time with people eating predators or people hunting predators.

   2. DVDonnie Vincent38:41

      Oh. Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan38:41

      Like bear hunting-

   4. DVDonnie Vincent38:42

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan38:42

      ... is one of the number one, uh, w- most surefire ways to get people angry at you online.

   6. DVDonnie Vincent38:49

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan38:50

      And it's... There's a lot of ignorance attached to it, particularly with black bears, wh- which are responsible for literally killing 50% of all the moose calves and all-

   8. DVDonnie Vincent38:58

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan38:59

      ... the, the deer fawns and elk calves. 50% of them get whacked by, by black bears.

   10. DVDonnie Vincent39:03

       They're very successful at calving season. Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan39:05

       Yeah, they, they have a... How strong is their nose? It's some ins- Like, a bloodhound is thousands of times stronger scent of-

   12. DVDonnie Vincent39:13

       Than a deer.

   13. JRJoe Rogan39:14

       ... than a... Well, than a deer or than us. And then a black bear-

   14. DVDonnie Vincent39:18

       Measurably above them.

   15. JRJoe Rogan39:19

       ... measurably above us, so they can smell... Like, the, the way I try to explain it to people is, like, do you know how you smell a skunk? Like, if you're driving in your car, you're like, "Ew, you smell that skunk?" You can smell that fucking skunk for blocks.

   16. DVDonnie Vincent39:30

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan39:30

       Now, a black bear can do that with your foot odor.

   18. DVDonnie Vincent39:34

       Yes.

   19. JRJoe Rogan39:34

       Yeah.

   20. DVDonnie Vincent39:35

       Literally-

   21. JRJoe Rogan39:35

       It can smell... Can smell the mustard on a hamburger and pick it out from the beef and the pickles.

   22. DVDonnie Vincent39:41

       It's, it's even better than that th- 'cause some biologists are surmising that they actually can tell time with their nose. So when they walk in... You know, like, you and I are driving on the road and we go, "Oh my God, d- did you smell that skunk?" Well, he's sitting there as he strolls through the neighborhood, he's going, "Oh my God, a skunk was hit by a car this morning. But yesterday, a little fat kid threw a cheeseburger out of the window here. And two days ago, a woman with really strong perfume walked down the sidewalk with a poodle." So they're literally... There's so many layers to what they're taking in and everything has its, you know, essentially, like, different strengths because of how long it's been present in that area, that they can almost kind of read a book as they're strolling through their environment. And so it's-

   23. JRJoe Rogan40:22

       How do they know that? How do they know that they can do that?

   24. DVDonnie Vincent40:23

       Uh, uh, I think they're just making, uh, summations off of, like, how powerful their noses are and that they're picking up so much information, that they're picking up old information, current information, brand new information. And they're... And, and... I mean, if you think about that, all of that information coming in their head in an instant, every instant, every time they breathe in. So the... I think scientists are probably making a summation that these bears have to process this information as they're going through, because otherwise, they'd run scared all, all day, right?

   25. JRJoe Rogan40:51

       It's incredible. They're incredible animals. And, but it's interesting how nature-

   26. DVDonnie Vincent40:54

       And they're delicious.

   27. JRJoe Rogan40:55

       They are. They do taste good.

   28. DVDonnie Vincent40:56

       Oh my word, are they delicious.

   29. JRJoe Rogan40:57

       People don't want to hear that, though. "You eat bears?"

   30. DVDonnie Vincent41:00

       Yup.
10. 50:13 – 1:00:57

    Mountain lions with hounds: confronting bias, management, and surprising meat quality

    1. DVDonnie Vincent50:13

       And so if you have a successful grizzly, and he's preying on moose in a particular valley, um, he could really do some damage. And where I was, I, and I just hunted mountain lion for the first time in BC this winter, and I was talking to the biologist there, 'cause I had great, um, contention about doing it. And he, he, they showed-

    2. JRJoe Rogan50:30

       Why is that?

    3. DVDonnie Vincent50:31

       Um, I didn't wanna run them with dogs. I didn't wanna shoot it out of a bait in a tree. Um, I just... It had never interested me. And so a buddy of mine, um, just got his first hunting concession in BC. He's been a guide his whole life, but he now has his own concession. He has black bears and mule deers, the guy that I was also just bear hunting with. But he said, "Hey, um, will you come up and do a lion hunt?" And I said, "No, man. It's not for me." And he's like, "Well, you know, you're kind of being a hypocrite right now." And I said, "Well, what do you mean?" He's like, "Well, you're always preaching that people should ask themselves big questions and people should kind of dive into, you know, this tornado or this storm and, and experience things and ask themselves and, like, actually challenge their thought process. So who better to come up and go on a lion hunt? And if you have prejudice about it, why don't you come up and do it? And so you can see if your prejudice are real or, or not." And so I did it, and it was very eye-opening. It was an incredible experience.

    4. JRJoe Rogan51:23

       What was eye-opening about it?

    5. DVDonnie Vincent51:25

       Um, just the animals themselves. You know, it was, it was, um, the enthusiasm around the hounds. Like, I kind of pictured this. You know, I had this, you know, fox and a hound scenario built up in my head, you know, that... I fell for the same, same stereotypes that non-hunters and anti-hunters were falling for, where I was like, "Oh, these huntsmen are kind of redneck and, you know, they're, they're, they treat their dogs like crap and they're, and they're sending their dogs into this lion fight and it's, it's gonna get rough and these dogs are gonna get beat up and scarred up." And then finally, you tree this lion and, and the hunter comes waltzing in with no, no barrier of entry whatsoever. No physical, um, suffering whatsoever. No mental suffering whatsoever. Comes waltzing in and shoots this thing out of a tree and takes some photos and then skins it out, leaves the flesh, and moves on with their life. And so I go up there, I meet the huntsman. And, and first of all, my friend, his name is Ben Storick, and, um, he's a v- very gracious hunter. He's very aware. He's very kind to animals. He's... has tremendous wherewithal, which is why we continue to hunt together. But he... Uh, so I go up there, I meet his huntsman, great guy. His hounds are part of the family. Sleep in the cabin with him. Um, great dog food. Great medical care every single night when we get home. Um, and the scenario in which I killed a lion was also very rewarding for me as a person. We tracked him. I'll use kilometers, 'cause that's what we were doing there. But, um, we tracked him for like 21, 22 kilometers just by his track. And it was really cool because this lion had tore his back right track, so it was kind of like a movie. We'd see his tracks in the snow and there's always a dime-sized spot of blood in his track. And it was pretty cool 'cause we went and spoke with some ranchers along this river and they were like, "Yeah, he's, he's sport killing deer," which I didn't believe, but I just wanted to hear the ranchers', uh, kind of summation on it. And they didn't want him. The ranchers were... I was really surprised, but the ranchers were like, "You know, we want you to kill this cat because, um, he's sport killing these deer. But, um, we want Ben to be very measured in how he takes cats," 'cause they really love cats in this area and they just want Ben to be cognizant of the animals he removes, which he is anyway, but-

    6. JRJoe Rogan53:38

       They love cats just because th- they just love the, the idea of them being there, the wildlife?

    7. DVDonnie Vincent53:42

       S- s- yeah. The symbolism of the wild. And then all these ranchers, they raise cattle and they watch the wolves, um, harass their cattle, but they watch... The cats will literally walk right through a calf pen and the calves won't spend any... They don't even look at the lion. The cows aren't looking at the lion, but the lion will just stroll right through the pen and just, um, carry on about his day because he wants to kill deer and sheep. That's, that's what he-

    8. JRJoe Rogan54:06

       Mm-hmm.

    9. DVDonnie Vincent54:06

       ... wants to fixate on. He doesn't wanna deal probably with mama cow. But-

    10. JRJoe Rogan54:09

        Right.

    11. DVDonnie Vincent54:10

        Um, so we tracked this thing for 22 kilometers. We actually got down on it, um, on top of a mule deer kill that it had made the night before. Um, bumped it, and it ran way up into the mountains in these, in these hills, and we tracked it all the way up there. We tracked it another four or five kilometers, um, and then that's when we released the hounds. And it was wicked to see the enthusiasm in the hounds. Like, I just pictured something that was gonna be bloodthirsty and like, you know...... they, they wanted to rip this cat apart, but these hounds, the, the look on their faces, and I'm making, you know, I'm, I'm making judgments here, but the look on their faces were just pure enthusiasm, like, "This is a game." Like, "Our job is to, is to chase this cat down." And-

    12. JRJoe Rogan54:51

        Well, that's how they've been trained, right?

    13. DVDonnie Vincent54:53

        Yeah. And, and to get it in a tree. Like, they're not sitting there going, "We are gonna catch and kill this cat." They're like, "Our job is to, like, kinda get it in the tree." You know?

    14. JRJoe Rogan55:00

        Right.

    15. DVDonnie Vincent55:01

        And it was just really cool to be around the dogs and watch their energy and so they went and treed the lion. We snuck in on the lion and he, he, uh, he didn't like it. See, he jumped off and, and the dogs ensued, pursued again and then we treed him again and I killed him. And killing him was, um, neither here nor there. It wasn't, um... it was just an act. It was just, uh, a light switch for me. It was, um, Ben needs... uh, Ben had spoke with the biologist. They wanted a certain amount of cats removed from this area because they were really having, um, predatory impact on the sheep and the, and the deer. And I kinda found out why afterwards when I spoke to the biologist, but, um, we got him in treed and Ben's just like, "Hey, he's a big tom and he's an old tom and, um, so we're gonna kill him anyway, so if you wanna kill him, kill him. If not, we're gonna kill him." You know? And they had tags too. Everything was legal. And I said, "No, I'll, I'll kill him." Um, I wanted to take the process all the way through so I killed him. He died very quickly. Um, and I had always heard that their meat was really good and, um, I'd also heard people say that it's unedible. So, of course, um, I don't kill anything unless I'm gonna eat it. So, uh, we ate it and it was arguably the finest meat I'd ever had in my life.

    16. JRJoe Rogan56:13

        That's another thing Rinella told me. He said it tastes like-

    17. DVDonnie Vincent56:15

        Frickin' amazing.

    18. JRJoe Rogan56:15

        ... the best pork you've ever had.

    19. DVDonnie Vincent56:16

        Yeah. Well, I'm not even a big fan of pork. Like, I like pork, but it was, you know, pork is okay. Mountain lion is, like, succulent, flavorful, deep, rich pork. It's just absolutely unbelievable. Um-

    20. JRJoe Rogan56:27

        Their fat is supposed to be really good as well.

    21. DVDonnie Vincent56:29

        Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And, and, uh, so it was just a really rewarding experience for me and, like, then I got to hang out with the dogs afterwards and then when I went and spoke with the biologist, that was eye-opening as well because, um, the houndsman we were with, he kinda guessed the cat to be, like, five or six years old, which would be very old. It turned out to be three and which is amazing that they go from a kitten to this thing was, like, 175, 180 pounds, um, in-

    22. JRJoe Rogan56:54

        That big?

    23. DVDonnie Vincent56:55

        That big in just three years and, and the biologist even told me... he had one come in earlier that year that was over 200. It was, like, 202, 203, which is about as big as they get and it was radio collared and he's like, "Oh, this is gonna be wicked 'cause we have the radio collar. I'm gonna be able to call the biologist. That radio collar, this thing, it's 200 pounds. This thing has gotta be, like, five or six, seven years old." He called the guy and the thing was, um, just had barely... like, he was, like, just over two years old and he was already 200 pounds.

    24. JRJoe Rogan57:24

        Two years old?

    25. DVDonnie Vincent57:25

        Yes. And they're just so... and, and with, um, you know, like, sometimes aging deer, aging bears, it's kind of a tricky prospect. You're looking at the molar wear and you're looking at their lateral incisors and their, um, um, medial, uh, incisors and you're looking at wear and everything. With the lions, it's very easy to see. Like, they have... their age classes have distinct dental changes that happen. Like, it's, it's... there's, there's kind of no middle ground and so, you know, and, of course, with the radio collar, they knew, but they're just so terribly successful and just looking at the amount of biomass they put on their bodies, just their, their size and how they carry it-

    26. JRJoe Rogan58:02

        Their fucking forearms freak me out.

    27. DVDonnie Vincent58:04

        Oh, my-

    28. JRJoe Rogan58:04

        Their forearms-

    29. DVDonnie Vincent58:04

        That's what-

    30. JRJoe Rogan58:04

        ... are like a human thigh.
11. 1:00:57 – 1:31:49

    Trophy hunting optics: Cecil the lion, concessions, and BC grizzly hunting shutdown

    1. DVDonnie Vincent1:00:57

       It's like, you know, you just... It, it leads to really good discussions about people get upset when you kill predators.

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:01:02

       They get very upset with... It's really strange, because they don't, they don't have any problem with the predator killing deer, and they have less problem with people killing deer. But they have a real problem with people killing predators, and I believe it's the same problem they have with, like, Cecil the lion and shit like that. They think that you're just doing it to be an asshole and you just want this thing on your wall.

    3. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:21

       Well, I-

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:01:21

       You want a head on your wall.

    5. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:23

       I do have some contention, and you tell me, in like, like for instance, like the grizzly bear issue being shut down in BC, right?

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:01:29

       Yeah.

    7. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:30

       Grizzly bear-

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:01:31

       Grizzly bear hunting. Maybe you can explain that for people-

    9. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:33

       Yeah.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:01:33

        ... who don't understand what's going on with that.

    11. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:35

        Yeah. So, so the government, the British Columbia government shut down British Columb- British Columbia grizzly bear hunting because they equated it, and I guess they're probably correct, with trophy hunting.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:01:46

        Mm-hmm.

    13. DVDonnie Vincent1:01:46

        Right? To where hunters were killing these animals and just taking the skulls and hides and leaving the flesh behind. And, um, and I don't know, I've never, uh... Have I? I grizzly bear hunted in BC once, but I was actually more on a sheep hunt. But, um, yeah, just this notion of, like, like the gentleman that killed Cecil the lion. Like, if you're really going to kill an animal and, uh, just take its hide, uh, then I've a pretty significant issue with that. And so, like, I, I just hope these hunters, the, the guys that were hunting the grizzly bears, I just, I wonder if this was more of a hunter-instilled issue than, than, um, people are even bringing light into it. 'Cause if, if people were killing grizzly bears in British Columbia, taking their hides, taking their skulls, and taking all of the flesh, I feel like we'd still be grizzly bear hunting in British Columbia.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:02:40

        (inhales deeply) I don't know. I mean, maybe. Maybe. But grizzly bears are another notch up, even above black bears, in terms of, like-

    15. DVDonnie Vincent1:02:49

        Correct, yep.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:02:49

        ... what Rinella calls charismatic megafauna. People love those things-

    17. DVDonnie Vincent1:02:54

        Charismatic megafauna.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:02:54

        ... 'cause they like to see them.

    19. DVDonnie Vincent1:02:55

        Yep.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:02:55

        Like... And if you don't have to deal with them, if you're not like that, uh, guy in Ennis, Colorado last year that got his head cut open by one. If you don't have to deal with them, you know, they, they are amazing to look at and we all want them around. I mean, they're-

    21. DVDonnie Vincent1:03:06

        Of course.

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:03:07

        They're an incredible animal.

    23. DVDonnie Vincent1:03:08

        Yep.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:03:08

        But it's this thing of trophy hunting. You know, these, w- you think of some fat, lazy asshole with a rifle that stands on top of a lion, you know? And there's-

    25. DVDonnie Vincent1:03:18

        Yes.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:03:18

        ... there's this image that I found online and, uh, I was looking and I was like, "That is... That's why people have a problem with trophy hunting personified."

    27. DVDonnie Vincent1:03:26

        Exactly correct.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:03:26

        This fat fuck, who should never in a million years without that rifle ha- have ever-

    29. DVDonnie Vincent1:03:33

        Or The Help.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:33

        Yeah, or The Help. Ev- uh, e- especially The Help, right?

Episode duration: 2:36:08