Joe Rogan Experience #2013 - Paul Rosolie

Paul Rosolie 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Narrator 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Hey, Marsh. Come here, buddy. This is, uh-

Narrator 0:16 Good puppy.

Joe Rogan 0:16 ... one of the rare times that Marshall's been in studio during a show. Come here, Bubba. Say hi to everybody.

Paul Rosolie 0:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:24 I miss you. Here's buddy. He's the best.

Paul Rosolie 0:26 He is the best.

Joe Rogan 0:27 They're the best dogs. They're like universally sweet dogs.

Paul Rosolie 0:30 They're- they're- they're such sweethearts. I just- I love that like my dogs, I can literally take a piece of meat out of their mouth, and they'll be like-

Joe Rogan 0:37 Oh, yeah.

Paul Rosolie 0:37 ... "Is something better coming?"

Joe Rogan 0:38 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 0:38 Like they're just- they're so friendly. They're just-

Joe Rogan 0:40 Yeah, there's no like worry about protecting themselves-

Paul Rosolie 0:44 No.

Joe Rogan 0:44 ... or survival.

Paul Rosolie 0:45 No.

Joe Rogan 0:45 They're just l- my friend calls them love sponges. It's the best way to describe them.

Paul Rosolie 0:49 Yeah, they're perfect creations.

Joe Rogan 0:51 All right, hang out with us. We're gonna be in here. Um, so dude, first of all, I'm- I'm in your book right now. I just started it. It's- it's insa- how the fuck did you even get the idea to do what you did?

Paul Rosolie 1:03 Uh... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:03 How does this- take me through- take me through the first like seeds of the thoughts that had you go to the Amazon.

Paul Rosolie 1:10 Uh, wh- when I was a kid, I like- I- I remember- I remember very far back. I remember being a kid and like going to the Bronx Zoo and looking- They had- they had an exhibit, I think it was in like the House of Reptiles, where there's all these scientists, and they're holding like a giant snake, and they're- they're doing resour- research, and they're- they're protecting these places. And so I always had it in my head that like I want to see these places before they're gone. I grew up with a lot of like environmental stress. I really felt like this message of like, "We're losing the rainforests. We're losing elephants," I was like, "I just-"

Joe Rogan 1:40 But how'd you- how did you develop that feeling?

Paul Rosolie 1:43 I don't know. I mean, my- my- my parents would, you know, read me Jane Goodall's books as a kid, and again, things like the Bronx Zoo, Steve Irwin.

Joe Rogan 1:50 Mm.

Paul Rosolie 1:51 Um, you know, and I loved- I grew up, you know, and having access to like New York and New Jersey. I mean, there's such incredible forests there. Adirondacks.

Joe Rogan 1:58 It's really a- The New York-New Jersey forest thing-

Paul Rosolie 2:02 It's amazing.

Joe Rogan 2:02 ... is like people, for whatever reason, that don't live around there-

Paul Rosolie 2:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:04 ... they think New Jersey is like some vast wasteland.

Paul Rosolie 2:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 2:07 Like New Jersey's like more bears per capita than anywhere else in the country.

Paul Rosolie 2:11 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it- it-

Joe Rogan 2:12 It's wild out there.

Paul Rosolie 2:12 ...1: amazing forests there. I grew up like, you know, and then like you- by like 13 years old, I was like, you know, I had like a hunting knife, and I would do one match, and I'd bring my golden retriever into the f- into the woods. And we'd do like a- a mini solo, two nights, you know? And I- I have to make a fire with that one match. And it was like I was always doing shit like this, like-

Joe Rogan 2:29 So you always had like a call to that kind of life.

Paul Rosolie 2:32 I always just, rivers, streams, forests, tracking bears, trying to figure out where the- where the fox's hole is. Like I liked spending time with animals in nature. And then like it just drove me crazy that no matter how deep I would go, you know, in eastern forests, you always like come out the other side. And I always was just like, "I wanna find somewhere where it's like truly wild."

Joe Rogan 2:54 Hm.

Paul Rosolie 2:54 Like where there's no limit to it, like what's- what's the max? What's the highest you can turn this thing? And I was terrible in school, failed all my classes, severely dyslexic, all that. And so I try- Actually, my wonderful parents were like, "You do know that you can take a GED, skip the last two years of high school, and go straight to college." And I was like, "I did not know that." So I did that, and then as I was doing that, I just said, "You know what?" I was like, "I'm gonna go to the Amazon rainforest." I had a- a professor that showed me a piece of wood, and he made a joke like, "Oh, this is probably like teak from the Amazon." And like- I was like, "Oh, yeah." I was like, "I gotta get down there before it's too late."

Joe Rogan 3:27 That's what it was?

Paul Rosolie 3:28 That is what it was, uh-

Joe Rogan 3:28 "I gotta get down there before it's too late."

Paul Rosolie 3:31 Yeah. I mean, it's like they're telling you that there's Jurassic Park. There's literally anaconda dragons in these- in these monster swamps. And there's harpy eagles taking howler monkeys, and there's all this incredible bustling life, and it's all vanishing. I was like, "Well, I wanna see it before it's gone." You know, the greatest show on Earth, like...

Joe Rogan 3:47 And so how much of an understanding did you have about the Amazon, about how to get around, how to- I- it seems like you just kind of just dove in.

Paul Rosolie 3:57 I- I- I did dive in. I- I found the most remote research station I could find. And of course, nobody wants to take a- like a 17-year-old kid from- from Brooklyn, from New Jersey and- and put them in the rainforest. I had no qualifications. But I- I- I went with people that were doing research on macaws, and I was out there for weeks at a time. But the- the- the luck was that I met this guy named JJ, Juan Julio Duran, local Ese Aja Indian, grew up in the forest barefoot, and man, the- de- the dude has libraries of information in hi- in his brain. Medicinal plants, how to track animals, places in the forest that nobody knows about. And then he just started- he was just like, "You're funny. You- you really love this shit." He's like, "Let's go out all night. We don't come back until we find three snake-" He was terrified of snakes. He's like, "Let's go find three snakes," 'cause he was like, "Why- why- why does this gringo keep catching snakes?" He's like, "What the hell is the matter with you?"

Joe Rogan 4:47 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 4:48 And so he was teaching me everything, and then I was just like, "Look, dude, this is how you fig-" This- Like, "This is how you do snakes. This is how you figure out if they're venomous. This is how you handle a snake." I could teach him one thing. He taught me the entire Amazon rainforest.

Joe Rogan 5:00 So he didn't know- I mean, he must've known like what venomous snakes there were, right?

Paul Rosolie 5:05 N- no, because what they'll do is they'll be like, "Oh, that red one? It's venomous." They chop it in half. That's not how you iden- identify a snake. That's like saying like every, you know- Uh, it's like identifying cars by color. Like it doesn't make any sense.

Joe Rogan 5:16 Oh, okay, right. Right.

Paul Rosolie 5:17 It's- it's with snakes, you can have like, for example, like an Amazon tree boa. You can have one mother giving birth to like a rainbow of babies. There'll be like gray ones, green ones, yellow ones, like all these different morphs.

Joe Rogan 5:28 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 5:28 And so people will be like, "Oh, those- those red ones, they'll get you. Those are coral snakes." It's like, no. You know, I just- Uh, it's- it's c- a constant battle with- you know, with the locals. I'm always like, "Do you think this is venomous or not?" And they're like, "Hmm." And I'm like, "Would I be holding it if it was venomous?"

Joe Rogan 5:41 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 5:42 (laughs) And they're like, "Oh, yeah."

Joe Rogan 5:43 That's crazy that they don't know.

Paul Rosolie 5:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:45 But I guess it's like safer to assume that they're all venomous, or anything bright colored is venomous.

Paul Rosolie 5:50 Yeah, and again, the jungle is a place where there's a lot of stories. And so like you always hear stories about like who got bitten by a snake and this happened, who got, you know, da, da, da. And so like they have this snake loro machaco, which is- They know it's a green snake.... that's all that, like, the average logger or the average gold miner knows. I was just, like, literally two weeks ago, I was out in the jungle and I was out and it was raining and there was a loro machaco next to my head with flicking its tongue next to my head. And I was like, "Oh, cool." I was like, "I gotta bring this back and show them." So I very carefully caught this viper and brought it back, and they were like, "That's not it. That's the boa." And I was like, "Oh, God." I was like, "I can't help you people."

Joe Rogan 6:24 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 6:24 I was like, "I'm literally showing it to you." But the- the rule is just kill every snake. And so I've always been like this, like, ambassador for snakes, trying to get people to be like, you know, "Oh, you can have black snakes and gopher snakes and garter snakes." And you show them to kids. Snakes are wonderful. Like, I love snakes.

Joe Rogan 6:38 They're part of the whole ecosystem.

Paul Rosolie 6:40 They are.

Joe Rogan 6:40 Especially in something as complex as the Amazon.

Paul Rosolie 6:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:43 I mean, y- you know, when I, I lived in the Hollywood Hills people would always complain about coyotes.

Paul Rosolie 6:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:48 And I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but how many rats do you see?"

Paul Rosolie 6:51 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:52 You don't see a lot of rats.

Paul Rosolie 6:53 Yeah. (laughs) Rats.

Joe Rogan 6:54 (laughs) There's a reason for that. The coyotes-

Paul Rosolie 6:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:56 ... are the cleanup system.

Paul Rosolie 6:57 Um, yeah, w- Later, I gotta show you the video I took yesterday? The day before yesterday? A coyote walking through my front yard in New York, do- in the middle of the day.

Joe Rogan 7:05 Yeah, they're everywhere now.

Paul Rosolie 7:06 They're everywhere.

Joe Rogan 7:07 It's wild.

Paul Rosolie 7:07 Big one. Big one.

Joe Rogan 7:08 Have you ever read Coyote America?

Paul Rosolie 7:10 Uh, no.

Joe Rogan 7:10 It's a really good book by this guy, Dan Flores. He's been on the podcast a couple times. He was, uh, my friend Steve's professor in college and, uh, he stayed in touch with this guy, and he's a wildlife historian.

Paul Rosolie 7:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:21 And he wrote a book about coyotes and it's ... The story is insane. Like, coyotes, they were originally persecuted by the gray wolves. The gray wolves were extirpated and- and killed-

Paul Rosolie 7:33 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:33 ... off by the people that settled. And then coyotes, when they were pros- when they were persecuted, what they would do is they'd expand their range.

Paul Rosolie 7:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:40 So they're in every single city in every state now.

Paul Rosolie 7:45 That-

Joe Rogan 7:45 And that's only over the last few decades.

Paul Rosolie 7:47 I mean, the fact ... I mean, I think in a lotta places you can hunt a coyote, like, daytime, nighttime-

Joe Rogan 7:51 Anytime.

Paul Rosolie 7:52 ... anyti- anytime with, like, any method.

Joe Rogan 7:53 But the thing is it does the opposite of what it's intended to do.

Paul Rosolie 7:56 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:56 Because when you kill a coyote, then the females, when they do roll call, they realize a coyote's missing and they have more pups.

Paul Rosolie 8:02 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:03 It's a wild animal.

Paul Rosolie 8:04 No, it's a really-

Joe Rogan 8:05 They're so clever too.

Paul Rosolie 8:06 It's a really amazing animal, yeah. No, they're crazy. This one comes trotting across my front yard every day and it's like ... I went, I opened my front door and I went, "Whoo." And he just stopped and looked at me and I just, like, took a picture on my phone.

Joe Rogan 8:15 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 8:15 Yeah. It was crazy.

Joe Rogan 8:16 New York City.

Paul Rosolie 8:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 8:18 Coyotes. (laughs) It's an amazing animal. But so y- so when you went down there, what kind of g- gear did you bring? Like, how w- how prepared were you for this?

Paul Rosolie 8:30 Uh, completely unprepared.

Joe Rogan 8:31 Shoestring budget.

Paul Rosolie 8:32 Shoestring bu- Yeah. Student dropped outta high school, saved up money from working at, like, the YMCA. Like, I went down there wearing jeans and a T-shirt, like ...

Joe Rogan 8:40 Did you plan on trying to find some sort of a job? Like, what were you gonna do for food and ...

Paul Rosolie 8:44 No, so this was the thing. I went down there as a- as a- as a volunteer just to experience it, you know, like ... And then, and then basically as I became friends with JJ it was like, he was like, "Could you- could you come back?" He's like, "You have access to, like, gringos and- and people that travel." He's like, "Bring us tourists." He's like, "We're trying to protect this river, like, now while it's still completely pristine."

Joe Rogan 9:04 Mm.

Paul Rosolie 9:05 And at the time I was like, "Well, that s- that s- that sounds great," so I started bringing people. We started tam and do expeditions and so it was, like, small time, just bringing some tourists to the jungle, showing them around, taking them on night walks, doing stuff like that. Um, but it- it- it- it was a very much, like, there wasn't a plan. I knew what I loved. I didn't have a plan. I wasn't like, "I'm gonna be a jungle keeper." Like, I just went down there and was like, "This is amazing and I want more of it."

Joe Rogan 9:28 Mm.

Paul Rosolie 9:28 And then, you know, at that age people are like, "You know, what are you gonna do for a job?" And I was like, "I don't know but I'm going back to the jungle." Like ... And then it was as, you know, then as we saw more of the forest getting destroyed, as ... We were- we're ... The Trans-Amazon Highway cuts straight across the Amazon Rainforest. You can drive from, like, Rio all the way to Lima. And so for the first time in history they opened up a land trade route through the heart of the Amazon Rainforest and the final segment of the Trans-Amazon Highway was over the Madre de Dios R- River, which is right where we work. And so we saw the amount of cars in our region go from, like, 400 a day to, like, 800 a day to 2,000 a day and all of a sudden these off-shoot roads and all of a sudden the burning and all of a sudden places that used to be pristine and wild, all of a sudden were seeing this horrific burning. Ancient trees cut down, entire ecosystems wiped out. And so then at that point I'm going, "Okay, it's not a joke anymore. We ... Someone's gotta do something about this." And then, you know, you look and you realize you're in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. There is no one. There's no help coming. Like, these r- these ecosystems are gonna be bulldozed if nobody does anything.

Joe Rogan 10:36 Whew. So w- what regulations, if any, are in pl- Obviously, there's people that are gonna violate those.

Paul Rosolie 10:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:43 But are there regulations that are designed to protect those areas? Is there- is there, like, some sort of a process that someone has to go through before they start cutting logs? Like ...

Paul Rosolie 10:53 The- the thing is there's national parks, there's protected areas, there's indigenous reserves. I mean, we're in the country of Peru and it's like, there- there's plenty, there's a lot of protected land. Peru has done an amazing job of protecting a lot of its rainforest. They have the most crucial part of the Amazon 'cause it's the western Amazon. It's where the Andes Mountains, the cloud forests into the lowland Amazon, the most mega biodiverse terrestrial habitat that's ever existed.

Joe Rogan 11:16 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 11:17 They've done a great job of protecting it, but there's, uh, still millions of acres that are just jungle and you're at the edge of human presence on our planet. So you're talking about, like, okay, so you have a- a little city and you have the police and you have the forestry department, you have whatever else. The things around the city, they can deal with, but if you tell them that two days upriver, way out there there's somebody cutting some forest that technically shouldn't be cut, they don't care.

Joe Rogan 11:43 Hm.

Paul Rosolie 11:43 They're not gonna put resources towards going out. They're not g- they're not gonna risk getting shot. They're not gonna risk getting, you know, bitten by a bushmaster while they travel out into the jungle. They're- it's just not on anybody's radar.

Joe Rogan 11:54 So unless it's near them, unless it's in their jurisdiction, nobody does anything.

Paul Rosolie 11:58 And e- as we've, as we found out now, even when it is in their jurisdiction, half the forestry department just got arrested in Peru for actually helping the loggers. They had sorta, like, infiltrated-

Joe Rogan 12:07 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 12:08 Um, yeah, and then of course, f- d- down there you still have uncontacted tribes and you have places where there's giant anacondas and you have different territorial reserves. It's just like, it's such a weird landscape that the idea of like enforcement, like when we've had problems, when we've had issues where we have to bring law enforcement out there, we have to bring them out there. Like we have to get the boat, the gasoline, the food, provide them with ... You know, it's like we have to, like, basically take them on a tourist trip out into the jungle and then be like, "Now go do police work."

Joe Rogan 12:37 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 12:37 It's very difficult. And so like when, when you hear this stuff, you know like ... Which, like again, we, actually we have to, had to, eventually we have to tell, we have to tell the people this story, um, how we got here. How did, like what made you reach out to me when you did?

Joe Rogan 12:52 Well, um, I had seen a, a clip of yours that we talked about.

Paul Rosolie 12:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:57 What was the clip?

Paul Rosolie 12:58 So yeah, that was the, that was the 2019 clip. That was when the, the Amazon fires went mega viral.

Joe Rogan 13:04 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 13:05 And ... Excuse me. I, I threw up a video of me in the fires just like screaming and crying and being like, "This is happening every fucking day." And screaming. And it went viral.

Joe Rogan 13:16 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 13:17 It went viral, and at that time, we had created Jungle Keepers and we had tried to protect ... So we had a little bit of rainforest we were protecting. I think we had like one or two rangers. And then you shared it on your Instagram, and then it hit this level. It like went to the next level of virality. I remember, 'cause my cousin Michael called me and he was just like, "Joe Rogan just shared it." And I was like, "That's, that's not. There's no way that happened." And he's like, "No, it did." And the, the amount of attention that we got from that led to eventually people reaching out. Um, this guy Dax DaSilva reached out and he was like, "Hey listen. You guys every year with the burning forest and the loss of habitat." He's like, "I want to help. What can we do? What is, what is, what, what do you need to make this work? How do we save this rainfor-" There it is, yeah. That's the, that's the clip.

Joe Rogan 14:02 There's the clip?

Paul Rosolie 14:02 Yeah. Where I go, "Welcome to the fucking Anthropocene."

Joe Rogan 14:07 Jesus. And what, what puts those fires out? Do people actively try to put those fires out or they just wait till it rains?

Paul Rosolie 14:21 No, the people start them. That's, that's the funny thing is it, is it- Yeah, this. I'm not gonna be able to stay here long 'cause this fire is spreading, but everything behind me right now is the forest that I've been working to protect for the last 13 years. It's burning like this every day. There are literally millions of animals in this forest that cannot escape right now. And if you think our planet can survive this every day in the Amazon, you have another thing coming. We have all the resources to protect this, to stop what's happening behind me right now. And people let it happen every day. Welcome to the fucking Anthropocene.

Joe Rogan 14:51 So when they're starting these fires to make clear cuts so they can raise cattle? Like what are they doing?

Paul Rosolie 14:57 Yeah. It's, it's, it's basically their space, so we're gonna use it. And so like ideally a person, if they wanted to use that forest, you could harvest the, the ancient hardwoods there and make millions off of it. You could use that forest to do like multi-tiered agriculture where you're producing tons of, of, of produce. These are people that are coming in, they're just clear-cutting the forest. They're planting like cacao, papaya, grass for cows. Like it's, it's literally burning down your house to, to cook us a, a meal.

Joe Rogan 15:27 And who owns th- that land?

Paul Rosolie 15:29 Well, that's the thing. A lot of it is indigenous land. A lot of it is the, they call it like Brazil nut concessions where it's just like areas where like you're supposed to be harvesting Brazil nuts, but a lot of times it is private land. But people, there, there's people coming from other parts of South America and they're just coming in and they're clearing these areas and it's happening fast.

Joe Rogan 15:48 And no one is there to protect. There's just not enough resources to keep an eye on it. It's just the vastness of it all.

Paul Rosolie 15:54 There, there's a, there's a vacuum in conservation. There's a problem with conservation. No one's going to pay you to go protect, to go out into the wildest places on earth and protect these things. Like for the most part.

Joe Rogan 16:05 Right.

Paul Rosolie 16:05 It's very difficult. You can go get a job as a conservation biologist. You can go, um, study things academically. But to, to go and actively do the work of protecting a rainforest or protecting a marine area that's sensitive, that's crucial to species, it's very difficult. And so that's why the, that whole story was so important was because I was, you know, by that point I was like 14 years into doing this with no support, no funding, no backing, no nothing. It was just me and the local guys, machetes and bare feet. And then after that video went viral, after you shared it, we got contacted by Dax. And then he basically was like, "Look. I'm ..." Uh, he started a company called Lightspeed and then he transitioned into conservation. And so now he's helping the Sea Shepherd and he's helping the Nature Conservancy in Canada. And, and he's Jungle Keepers was his first project. And all of a sudden we could actually do it. And so now these local people who used to be loggers and gold miners, we were like, "Yo, do you want a job protecting this forest?"

Joe Rogan 17:02 Hmm.

Paul Rosolie 17:03 And so like guys that have been cutting wood for like the last 15 years, guys that have been like fighting the uncontacted tribes, all of a sudden we're like, "Do you wanna just like, you know, help us patrol? Just protect it, do nothing." And they're like, "Do nothing and we get paid and benefits?" And it's, and it's a huge success. Like we're protecting 50,000 acres now. Millions and millions of heartbeats in there. Like spider monkeys, troops of giant river otters, jaguars, harpy eagles. I mean, just more biodiversity than you could list. And we need to protect 300,000. I need to protect 300,000 acres in the next year because now there's like Chinese machinery coming in where they're coming in with those, those giant earth-moving things that like take out the trees.

Joe Rogan 17:42 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 17:44 And so it's just like this, this race against time 'cause we have this incredible treasure trove of biological incredible wealth. Med- medicine's running through the, every, every one of these things. I mean, there's, there's, there's ... You go out with the local people and if you have something wrong with you, there's a sap for that. They can cure an ear infection. They can cure whatever it is. If they wanna go fishing in the stream, they have barbasco. They have a root that they can crush, throw it in the stream, it'll stun the fish. You take the ones you want, you take it out, and the other fish will swim away. It's like they have a pharmacy that we don't have access to.

Joe Rogan 18:15 Yeah, that fish thing is wild.

Paul Rosolie 18:16 Fish thing is wild.

Joe Rogan 18:17 My friend, Rinella, did that.

Paul Rosolie 18:18 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:20 Yeah. Th- w- how do you say those- the guys' names from Guyana? Yanomami?

Paul Rosolie 18:24 Yeah, the Yanomami.

Joe Rogan 18:25 Yeah. He went with them and they, they did that thing with the fish-

Paul Rosolie 18:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:28 ... where they grind up the plants and they throw it in the water and the fish just get conked out.

Paul Rosolie 18:32 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:32 It's pretty wild.

Paul Rosolie 18:33 Nice. It's like magic.

Joe Rogan 18:34 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 18:34 It's like magic, it's like a cheat code in a video game.

Joe Rogan 18:37 It... So, this is a dangerous proposition, right? Because clearly the people that are moving into these areas, they're- they wanna burn things down and grow things and... Someone who gets in the way of this, is getting in the way of their financial success.

Paul Rosolie 18:54 Yeah. In- in the case of gold mining, um, there's- there's a picture in there, Jamie, I think it just says gold mining. I went down there with, uh, Matt Gutman, and we did this thing where we got into the gold mining areas. Where that's a whole other thing, where they're- they're clear-cutting the rainforest for gold mining. That's dangerous. Like this-

Joe Rogan 19:10 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 19:11 That's the western Amazon.

Joe Rogan 19:13 Wow, so they just gutted it.

Paul Rosolie 19:15 There is a sandstorm behind me in that picture and they are... That's the Amazon rainforest! And there's a desert there now.

Joe Rogan 19:21 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 19:22 You can see it from space.

Joe Rogan 19:24 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 19:26 And so yeah, you go there, there- there's like sort of this machine gun limit where, you know, you drive towards this area and then they have guards. And inside there they have these... See, there's a- that big hose going out. They have to cut the forest, burn the forest, suck up the land, and then the gold comes in the sediment in the sand. And so they have to use mercury to bind the gold out of the sand, and then they burn that off, which then is going into the atmosphere and raining back down. I mean, this is like- this is- this is horrendous.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 19:51 And the police can't stop it because you have to go in there with like, the military. The police will just get killed if they go over there.

Joe Rogan 19:58 Oh my God.

Paul Rosolie 19:59 So yeah, we got- we got in there this one day with some Russian gold miners. It was very strange and actually, uh...

Joe Rogan 20:03 You got in there to investigate?

Paul Rosolie 20:05 We got in there to... We- we- we went in there with- with- with Matt Gutman's crew and we actually- we actually filmed in the gold mining areas, which no one does. And while we were in there, one of the Russian gold miners was like, "Hey man, listen." He goes, "You're- you're that guy with the Instagram, right?" And I was like, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Joe Rogan 20:21 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 20:21 And he goes, "You see those guys over there?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he goes, "They just said your name." And I was like-

Joe Rogan 20:27 Ooh.

Paul Rosolie 20:28 ... "Oh." And then, uh, yeah, like a week later those guys pulled up and it was annoying 'cause the guy like acted like he had a gun but he didn't show me and he was like, "Hey, no more posts about gold mining." And I was like, "The- the gold miners follow me on social media, like are you fucking serious?" Like... But no, that- that area's dangerous. Our lawyer-

Joe Rogan 20:44 That gotta be terrifying.

Paul Rosolie 20:46 Um. Yeah, I mean for a second I was like, "Is this- is this- is it happening?"

Joe Rogan 20:51 Right.

Paul Rosolie 20:52 Um, 'cause the way they pulled up, you know, I was like walking down the street and they like- they like, you know, cut me off, you know? And they were like, "Hey, Paul Rosolie." And I was like, "Oh." And, uh, our lawyer, or the guy that used to be the lawyer for Jungle Keepers, um, his father was very vocal locally about the gold miners and standing up to them, and they just whacked him.

Joe Rogan 21:11 (sighs)

Paul Rosolie 21:11 Just that easy.

Joe Rogan 21:13 No consequences?

Paul Rosolie 21:14 Nah, no consequences. A really good friend of mine on the river, um, his father had moved out deep into the jungle like 20 years ago and raised his two boys out there. And then when this Trans-Amazon Highway came through, uh, they saw the logging and the burning and th- you know, they wanted to live at the edge of the world. They wanted to be deep in the jungle, and so, uh, old man Satuko is like, "You know, we- we're gonna... We gotta figure something out. Either move deeper or move away or whatever." And like, they were trying to figure out what to do and there was this one summer I spent a lot of time with his son, his name was also Paul, and, uh, he got- he got murdered by gold miners too.

Joe Rogan 21:52 (sighs)

Paul Rosolie 21:52 And so like, it's just like a- it's just a war zone. And then- and then you have some of our- some of our guys now who are conservationists, who used to be loggers, who have shot at the uncontacted tribes and been shot at by arrows. One of my rangers has a scar on his head from a seven-foot arrow from the uncontacted tribes. There's a picture of that too, I think it says "uncontacted Ignacio."

Joe Rogan 22:14 Seven-foot arrow?

Paul Rosolie 22:16 Yeah, so they use the river cane.

Joe Rogan 22:17 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 22:18 And then they take bamboo and they get an incredible edge on the bamboo and they can... It's like they temper it over the fire.

Joe Rogan 22:25 Mmm.

Paul Rosolie 22:25 And so the river cane doesn't weigh anything, so they make these monster arrows and they can actually like nail a spider monkey out of the trees from like, you know, 40 meters.

Joe Rogan 22:33 Really?

Paul Rosolie 22:33 Yeah, so check this out. So this is one of my rangers, um, Ignacio, he's- he's local Indigenous and, uh...

Joe Rogan 22:39 And that's the scar on his head from the arrow?

Paul Rosolie 22:41 Yeah. He was trying... So the uncontacted came out and they were-

Joe Rogan 22:43 That looks pretty fresh.

Paul Rosolie 22:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:45 If you're gonna have a scar on your head, that's- that's a good spot. That looks good.

Paul Rosolie 22:48 Yeah, someone's got a picture of it when it happened but he was- he was saying they were trying to- they were trying to push bananas, 'cause these people don't know, you know? These people are out there and they're naked and they're in the jungle and they've been there for, you know, a few hundred years and he was there and he was actually working for the Ministry of Culture and he was like, "Let me try and be friendly. Let me try and like extend an olive branch." And so he was trying to push a boatload of bananas towards them and the scariest thing was they were- they didn't want anyone to understand them and so they were actually speaking in capuchin monkey- monkey calls. And he's out in the middle... He's brave, this guy, and he went out to the middle of the river and he pushed this thing and he said he saw the arrow coming straight at his eyeball and he just moved his head to the side and it just gave him that. Cut him right to the skull.

Joe Rogan 23:29 Whoa.

Paul Rosolie 23:30 Yeah, there's that one and then there should be one more where he's just looking right at us but, um, yeah, he's- he's, uh, he's lucky. He's really lucky and he's got worse stories than that too, um, one time he was- he was at a remote guard post and the- the tribes came and he'd already gotten sh- I think he'd already gotten shot and he said he went up into the roof and like hid in the rafters like and wrapped himself and he said it was the middle of the day and he was baking and he said he could hear the- the uncontacted tribes underneath him and he was like trying to make the decision of, "Do I kill myself like a dog in a car in this heat?" Like he knew he was gonna die. Or, "Do I go down and let them rip me apart?" And it was like- it was just the most terrifying story but yeah, I like that.

Joe Rogan 24:10 How did he get out of it?

Paul Rosolie 24:11 He waited it out.

Joe Rogan 24:13 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 24:13 I mean, he'd already been shot in the head so he was like, "I know what's gonna happen if I go down there."Also then, I'm also gonna get, I'm gonna get... Everyone's gonna come after me for calling them uncontacted. Apparently, that's an outdated term. Apparently, the correct parlance these days is voluntarily isolated indigenous nomadic persons.

Joe Rogan 24:30 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 24:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:31 Let's stick with uncontacted.

Paul Rosolie 24:32 Should we just call them uncontacted? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:34 Oh, fuck you, man. Fuck you for making me remember all that shit.

Paul Rosolie 24:38 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:38 So silly. Um...

Paul Rosolie 24:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:41 Uncontacted is not a pejorative.

Paul Rosolie 24:44 No. It's just... And then people are like, "Well, they technically have contact if they shot your friend." I'm like, "Yeah, well."

Joe Rogan 24:49 Sort of.

Paul Rosolie 24:50 I guess.

Joe Rogan 24:50 I guess. Peripheral.

Paul Rosolie 24:52 Sure.

Joe Rogan 24:52 It's, um, it's gotta be horrifying for them, right? I mean, if they've been there for thousands and thousands of years living like that, and then slowly but surely they see this encroachment of machines, and... How much do they understand of this Western culture that's infringing upon them?

Paul Rosolie 25:09 I don't... I- it's weird, 'cause these guys, th- they don't have, they don't have boats. And so, like, they don't have, like, the wheel. Like, all these, like, simple inventions. Like, they've just... They don't, they don't work with metal. And so I believe that the current theory says now that basically these people were living extremely isolated around the time of the Industrial Revolution. They were already very remote. And then when you had the demand for rubber, the Amazon was the only place that you could get rubber. And Henry Ford found out when he did Fordlandia, you can't make a plantation out of rubber. It'll get leaf blight and die. So the only way to get rubber was to start a full-scale genocide where they sent down these rubber barons that beat and whipped the native people and sent them out into the jungle to go collect rubber from the rubber trees for gaskets and hoses and everything that we needed. These are the people that fought. These are the people that remained unconquer- un- unconquered, stayed back further in the deepest parts of the forest. And so you think these people's grandparents' grandparents must tell them that those outsiders-

Joe Rogan 26:12 Mm.

Paul Rosolie 26:12 ... will set you on fire. They will skin you alive. If you see one of them, kill it before it kills you. So they must be just running scared.

Joe Rogan 26:20 Wow. It is really fascinating that there's still people living essentially the exact same way they were living thousands and thousands of years ago.

Paul Rosolie 26:31 Yeah. They have a couple of machetes that they stole off some friends of mine. Like, they sacked this village one time and they took pots and machetes. They killed all the animals. Um, yeah, they're, they're, they're very strange to deal with. Like, like, there was a guy who had started leaving them like bananas and then he left them like a shirt. You know, he would just very carefully... 'Cause they don't, they can't speak, they don't speak Spanish.

Joe Rogan 26:51 Right.

Paul Rosolie 26:51 They don't even speak like Piro like or anything like. Um, uh, Yiene is the, the, the dialect that we deal with on our river, and um, they murdered him too. And like he was friends with them for a few years and no one has an exple... I just spoke to a eminent anthropologist about this. I was like, "What was the reason for that?" And he's like, "No one knows."

Joe Rogan 27:09 So he had made some sort of contact with them and was giving them things and-

Paul Rosolie 27:12 He had regular contact. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:14 Was he in contact physically with them?

Paul Rosolie 27:16 Uh, I think like he, he would be in the same space. Like he could have spoken to them if he could speak to them. But I think it was sort of like a, like, "I leave you this and then I back up." And then they would come forward and then you know it would be like this very, very careful exchange.

Joe Rogan 27:30 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 27:30 And that went on for a few years. And then everyone was like, "Oh, there's this guy and he's been able to develop this." It was like, it was special. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't, um, it wasn't in- in any way... It wasn't like a bravado thing. It was like he was actually trying to be like, "Can we make friends with these people? Can, can we, can we make a relationship here? Maybe bring them in. Maybe do they wanna come in? Are they scared? Do they need help? Maybe we could just help them with some stuff." Um, and then they found him with seven-foot arrows in him.

Joe Rogan 27:59 Hmm.

Paul Rosolie 28:00 So, yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:01 No explanation. No one knows what happened.

Paul Rosolie 28:02 No explanation. So yeah, the, the one time that I saw them, I ran for three days. I like ran downriver. I jumped in my boat. I went all night. I just, I absolutely... I realized I'd gone... I'd made a wrong turn and ended up somewhere I shouldn't have been and I was completely alone 'cause then that was... After the, the, the learning days and the Jungle Keepers days came the days where the locals were like, "Okay, so you know the jungle. Like, start going out on your own. See if, see if you could really do it. Go survive." And I, and I personally wanted to see if I could experience living. I wanted to know... It's like, it's like being told you can go to Mars and walk around all by yourself.

Joe Rogan 28:37 Whoa.

Paul Rosolie 28:38 You're out in the Amazon for a week by yourself and you're camping on a beach and you wake up and you walk upriver and you camp on a beach and you wake up. To me, it was almost like the world melted away. It was like, uh, that Will Smith movie where you're the last person on Earth. It's like you, you, you are in this jungle paradise where there's macaws and there's jaguars and the animals up there don't know what a human is. It's like the Galapagos. You are in a place where animals are unfamiliar with the shape of a human so they don't mind. And there's giant anacondas. Like it's different. It's different out there. There are still places where from century to century nobody goes and the animals have no idea. When you're out there, it gets, it gets really freaky. Like I noticed my brain losing touch with like, like I would start to get worried like, like it... Was this just my reality now? Could I go back? You know you're so far out there. And the Amazon's friendly. The Amazon's not... The, the jungle itself, there's nothing that's gonna eat you. A jag's not gonna eat you and unless you go swimming in a lake at night, a black caiman or an anaconda is not gonna mess with you and it's like piranha taste good. They actually... You know that's like how you survive. So it's like it's pretty chill as a wilderness experience until something goes wrong. Until you get a big thunderstorm and the river rises 20 feet and there's entire trees as- as thick as school buses flying downriver in the rapids. Then, then you're in trouble.

Joe Rogan 29:59 That was one of the scary things about your book. The way you described that when trees fall that they're so intertwined that acres of land might fall.

Paul Rosolie 30:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I- e- ev- everyone is going, "What's the most dangerous thing in the Amazon? Is it the snakes? Is it the jaguars?" It's like, "Dude, jag... You don't even see a jaguar." When you hear a pop like that big cannon shot pop, where like an old tree pops and the... You run.... you run. Because when that comes down, it's laced into the canopy with the other trees, and so it's gonna pull down other things. I was with loggers one time and they were cutting a tree, and it was gonna go that way, so we were standing behind it. And, uh, and, um, I'm always like, "Okay, I gotta document this. I gotta document this." And so this tree is gonna fall away from us, and this tree is probably about as thick as this room. And this tree... You know, I'm talking about 160-foot tree, and this tree starts falling over. And it grabs another tree, and we all realized it at the same time, but the other tree broke and snapped in our direction. And there's like a 30-foot shard of timber, like a fucking oak tree, flying at us.

Joe Rogan 31:00 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 31:00 And we all just scattered. And then all... Like, it was just like the world ended. There was, there was vines and giant things coming down. Entire, entire trees falling out of the sky and flying in splinters. It was cataclysmic.

Joe Rogan 31:12 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 31:12 Like it was, it was out of control. I would never, ever, ever stand that close to a tree falling in the Amazon again. I put a GoPro on it and run away.

Joe Rogan 31:18 Wow. Jesus Christ.

Paul Rosolie 31:24 (laughs) Uh-

Joe Rogan 31:24 I would argue that that's crazier than the moon.

Paul Rosolie 31:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:27 You know, like you say, going to the moon-

Paul Rosolie 31:28 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 31:28 ... or going to Mars and running around.

Paul Rosolie 31:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:30 There's nothing on Mars. You're just gonna see a bunch of dirt. It's gonna be sad. It's gonna be like going to the, to Death Valley-

Paul Rosolie 31:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:36 ... but there's no people ever.

Paul Rosolie 31:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:38 It's just nothing. What you're seeing is almost more crazy, 'cause there's so much life and it's so alien to you.

Paul Rosolie 31:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:46 You know, it's nature and it's a part of the earth that we live on-

Paul Rosolie 31:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:50 ... but it's not a part of the earth that we live on where humans are. So it's-

Paul Rosolie 31:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:53 That's why it's so fascinating and unique about the rainforest.

Paul Rosolie 31:57 It, it's so wild. And so like that's where like our thing with, you know... Even with the anacondas, it was like, you know, it started with the snakes. And they'd be like, you know, "Teach us about the snakes, snakes." And then after a while I was like, "Guys, where are the anacondas?" You know, like this is supposed to be the Amazon. Where the hell are they?

Joe Rogan 32:12 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 32:14 And so they're like, "Well, once a year we go on these like hunting expeditions upriver." So they're like, "Come with us." And there's this family of brothers. JJ has like 17 brothers and they're like, "Come with us." And it's literally just a dugout, a canoe, like a little, you know, 16-horsepower motor, and you just... You go up for 10 days, 12 days to places where you go, "Where are we?" And they're like, "No, no, no, it doesn't have a name. We're just on river. You're just out." And so, you know, we're hunting and fishing and we're just like surviving off the land, going up the thing, and then we started catching the anacondas basking on the sides of the river. And so we just started jumping on these snakes, grabbing them by the neck. The first one I did I fucked up though.

Joe Rogan 32:49 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 32:49 The first anaconda I ever caught... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:53 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 32:53 The first anaconda I ever caught I really fucked up because I was like, "Okay, I know how to catch snakes. I've handled big snakes. I know what I'm doing," you know? They were gonna come in from the bottom, I was gonna come in from the top. I ran in and I grabbed the snake by the head, and she went whoosh and wrapped my hands, and my wrists are together. And I was like, "Oh, shit."

Joe Rogan 33:09 Oh, no.

Paul Rosolie 33:10 I was like, "Now I can't get out of this if I wanted to." And the next coil came over my shoulders.

Joe Rogan 33:14 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 33:15 And it's a 200-pound snake-

Joe Rogan 33:17 Oh, shit.

Paul Rosolie 33:17 ... so I'm, so I'm on my knees. And so, um, I go- I went to scream, "JJ," and all I got... I got nothing out. And so I'm sitting there wrapped in an anaconda with my clavicle like turning into a V. My shoulders were almost touching, and I could feel my ribs just about to go.

Joe Rogan 33:31 Oh, boy.

Paul Rosolie 33:32 And three of my friends jumped on. They started untying it from the tail and everything like that. But I came that close. Like, that was-

Joe Rogan 33:37 Oh, boy.

Paul Rosolie 33:38 I really fucked up.

Joe Rogan 33:40 Oh, boy. Look at the size of that thing.

Paul Rosolie 33:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:42 Is that the one?

Paul Rosolie 33:43 That is not the one. That is-

Joe Rogan 33:45 Oh, look at the size of that thing.

Paul Rosolie 33:47 And that's not even, that's not even as big as they get.

Joe Rogan 33:50 How big is that one?

Paul Rosolie 33:51 That one is 18 feet 6 inches.

Joe Rogan 33:54 (laughs) That's so big.

Paul Rosolie 33:57 This is... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:57 That's so big.

Paul Rosolie 33:57 This one, this is the largest, uh, scientifically wild-caught verified anaconda that we have-

Joe Rogan 34:02 Oh, wow.

Paul Rosolie 34:03 ... in scientific literature. I mean, there's people who have records of bigger ones. I've seen bigger ones. Um, this is... We named her Eleanor after my grandmother.

Joe Rogan 34:10 That's the 18-foot one?

Paul Rosolie 34:11 This is the 18 feet 6 inches. She was 220 pounds, but she was hungry. She was-

Joe Rogan 34:15 (exhales) Look at the size of that thing.

Paul Rosolie 34:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:18 My God.

Paul Rosolie 34:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:20 So if, if that one that got ahold of you-

Paul Rosolie 34:23 (inhales) .

Joe Rogan 34:23 That's not this one, it's a different one?

Paul Rosolie 34:24 No, that... The one that got ahold of me was, you know, five feet shorter than this one. This, this, this, this thing is a dragon.

Joe Rogan 34:29 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 34:29 This thing is like the kraken. There's no way.

Joe Rogan 34:31 No, what... How big do they get?

Paul Rosolie 34:32 That's JJ, by the way, I keep talking about. Um, okay, so here's my measurement. Um, and actually somebody recently sent me a, a video of you and, uh, Forrest Galante-

Joe Rogan 34:42 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 34:42 ... talking about this, about how big can an anaconda get. Me and JJ were out on this place called the Floating Forest one night, and, uh, you know, I was trying to like... I was thinking about like getting on the cover of National Geographic. I was thinking about like, you know-

Joe Rogan 34:55 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 34:55 ... getting attention at that time.

Joe Rogan 34:56 Right.

Paul Rosolie 34:57 And, uh, but we, we, we had gone deeper down the Amazon rabbit hole than like anyone had ever gone. We found this place, the Floating Forest, where you're walking on, on rafts of floating grass. And you're walking past treetops. So there's a forest underneath the lake, but you're walking on the surface of it. And the anacondas love it.

Joe Rogan 35:16 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 35:17 Because they can sit on these, on these grassy islands, and if anything comes, the whole thing is like a giant tympanic membrane. As soon as something takes a step, they're like, "Threat." And they go down. And just like any big fish, just like any ancient giant crocodile, those shrewd old motherfuckers that have been there for a century, they... That's where they live. And so we were out there at like 2:00 in the morning, and we're walking on these grassy rafts. And JJ is going, "This is anaconda." And I went, "That is not anaconda." 'Cause the re- the grass was pushed down but it was like... It was this big. And I was like, "This, this can't be anaconda." He's going, "This is." He goes, "If it was a crocodile," he goes, "you'd see the, you know, the feet." And I was like, "I... It just can't be." And then at like middle of the night, the stars are shining in the, in the, the black water and everything. And we're just by the tops, we're in the canopy of a forest, on top of a lake, and we see two anacondas. One of them is so big that I would say it was probably 24, 25 feet.

Joe Rogan 36:11 (gasps)

Paul Rosolie 36:12 Gigantic. That was an 18-footer. Then there was like another, like a 16-footer on it. And my first response was, "We have to catch this snake." And so I jumped on it.

Joe Rogan 36:21 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 36:21 I just didn't think about it. I just jumped on the snake. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:25 (laughs) Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 36:27 And- and so the snake ... And, you know, I always say like, you know, "Pixar, it didn't happen." But thi- this was the middle of the night. I jumped on the snake and as I'm holding it, the one measurement I have is that I was holding onto the snake and my fingers couldn't touch.

Joe Rogan 36:40 What?

Paul Rosolie 36:40 That's how, that's how big this thing was. And so it drag-

Joe Rogan 36:43 What?

Paul Rosolie 36:43 It dragged me to the edge of the grass.

Joe Rogan 36:45 What?

Paul Rosolie 36:46 That big.

Joe Rogan 36:47 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 36:49 That big.

Joe Rogan 36:49 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 36:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:50 Your fingers couldn't touch?

Paul Rosolie 36:52 Yeah. So like I was-

Joe Rogan 36:53 Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 36:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:57 Dude, that's so big.

Paul Rosolie 36:58 It's so fucking big. And people said, "Oh, did it eat something?" And I was like, "No, that was, that was the, that was how big the snake was." And I know because when she got to the edge, to the edge of the grass, I dipped in head first. And this snake coulda turned around and just eaten me. She didn't. Her head was like bigger than a Rottweiler. It's bigger than Marshall's.

Joe Rogan 37:13 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 37:14 Um, but she dove into the water. Her idea is just escape, you know, stay alive. So she goes down and I, my face poked into the water and I was like, "Fuck that." You know, you start, you, you look straight down into hell down there. And I was sitting there holding onto the grass with this giant anaconda rushing by me, you know, 25 feet of anaconda slithering past me. And I put my hand on her and as she went by, my hand eventually went and then her tail slipped by me and I was just (panting) , just alone in the dark in the Amazon and I'd just seen this dragon.

Joe Rogan 37:45 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 37:45 And then I turned around and went, "What the fuck happened to JJ?" And JJ's just standing there and he turned completely white and he was just, his circuits were blown. He was like ... And I was like, "You coulda helped."

Joe Rogan 37:56 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 37:56 (laughs) I was like, "You coulda helped, man."

Joe Rogan 37:59 So can you, uh, uh, just help me out here?

Paul Rosolie 38:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:01 So they're, the, the tree tops, essentially there's water-

Paul Rosolie 38:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:04 ... under the tree tops, so you're walking on the tree tops.

Paul Rosolie 38:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:07 So how deep is the water below you?

Paul Rosolie 38:09 Like 30, 40 feet, y-

Joe Rogan 38:11 So you're-

Paul Rosolie 38:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:12 You're essentially walking on j-

Paul Rosolie 38:14 Grassy islands, floating vegetation.

Joe Rogan 38:17 Is it, is it like the, in this video?

Paul Rosolie 38:18 So yes.

Joe Rogan 38:18 Is it the same, similar terrain?

Paul Rosolie 38:19 So yes, and, and thank you for not playing the sound on this 'cause ... But yeah, it's basically exactly like this. It's ... See those islands over there?

Joe Rogan 38:27 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 38:27 There's floating grass. And so this is actually how we caught the big one. Um, you know, every- everyone starts ... JC's, do you see JJ? JJ's, JJ on, has unlocked everything. JJ's like, "There's an anaconda. There's an anaconda." Nobody else saw it. And then I'm the only person that's willing to fuck with the head. And so they, they get the boats. This is literally how we caught the biggest anaconda that's ever been caught. And so th- we had a camera guy who was like, "Get the fuck outta here." And I just remember in this moment being like, "Do I really wanna do this? Do I really, like did I, do I really wanna do what I signed up to do?"

Joe Rogan 38:59 Wait, do you see it in the grass?

Paul Rosolie 39:01 I can see it here. I can see it here and I'm, I'm just going, "Please, I wish ... Can I, can I, can I turn back?"

Joe Rogan 39:09 And so for the people just listening, you're standing on the edge of the boat. You jump off into the grass and you run. And now you've got your GoPro-

Paul Rosolie 39:17 And thankfully I have a good, yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:18 ... your GoPro on.

Paul Rosolie 39:19 Yup, and then you see, there's my team. Boom, boom, boom, everybody jumping in. So we had all these people that have all handled big snakes before coming in. And see, I don't have the head. We didn't have the head. JJ had the tail. JJ got the tail. This guy Jonas had the tail, Mosen had the tail, Lee had the tail. Everybody's holding onto the snake, we're using the boat to keep ourselves up and then I got the head.

Joe Rogan 39:41 Whoa.

Paul Rosolie 39:41 And then as soon as I get the head-

Joe Rogan 39:44 It's just wrapped around.

Paul Rosolie 39:44 ... I know I'm gonna get wrapped again.

Joe Rogan 39:46 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 39:47 I mean, this is like, look at it. This is like ...

Joe Rogan 39:51 And that- and this is the 18-footer?

Paul Rosolie 39:53 Yeah, this was the 18-footer, so ...

Joe Rogan 39:54 Oh, look at the size of this thing.

Paul Rosolie 39:56 Yeah, so when people are like, "Why didn't you catch the 25-footer?" I'm like, "Well, look- look at this."

Joe Rogan 40:00 The difference in just like I'm seeing how big this is, it's unbelievably big. And the idea that something was almost 10 foot bigger than this.

Paul Rosolie 40:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:07 And much thicker around.

Paul Rosolie 40:09 Much, much thicker around. This girl was skinny.

Joe Rogan 40:11 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 40:12 Um, yeah, in a second, in a second they'll show us walking with her.

Joe Rogan 40:16 That is so wild.

Paul Rosolie 40:18 Um, and you get a sense of really how big she is, but ...

Joe Rogan 40:21 And you gotta keep ahold of that. That bitch can swallow your head.

Paul Rosolie 40:24 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:24 (laughs) Look at it. Look at ... What is that feeling like where you're holding onto the head of that thing?

Paul Rosolie 40:31 Yeah, no, it was completely, completely wild. And it was just, I honestly, in that moment, it was like you want your best friends there.

Joe Rogan 40:39 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 40:39 'Cause man, that was, that was scary. That was very scary.

Joe Rogan 40:42 And so what is the plan? What do you do with this once you capture it? Do you measure it and then let it go?

Paul Rosolie 40:46 Yeah, so for this one, um ... Here, look, there's a shot.

Joe Rogan 40:50 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 40:50 There's a shot coming up where we, like we kinda have her stretched out for a second, but-

Joe Rogan 40:54 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 40:54 With this one we put a radio transmitter down her throat and we were able to track her movements to learn about the home ranges of female anacondas.

Joe Rogan 41:00 So she swallows it?

Paul Rosolie 41:01 Yeah. It's just like a, like a big pill.

Joe Rogan 41:03 Oh, wow. How big?

Paul Rosolie 41:06 Like that.

Joe Rogan 41:06 Like a Zippo lighter?

Paul Rosolie 41:08 Sure, yeah. Look at that. Look at that head.

Joe Rogan 41:10 Oh, my God. Look at the teeth.

Paul Rosolie 41:13 Yeah. They were like, "That's the queen of the Amazon." Um, but yeah, she was old. She had so many scars. And so we measured her at 18'6" and then, uh, the friendly people at Discovery Channel changed it to 19'6" on the show, which was always interesting.

Joe Rogan 41:27 How dare they?

Paul Rosolie 41:27 How dare they? Um-

Joe Rogan 41:28 That sounds like Hollywood.

Paul Rosolie 41:30 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:30 You just gotta juice it up just a little bit.

Paul Rosolie 41:31 Just a, just a little bit, just turn it up.

Joe Rogan 41:33 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 41:34 Um-

Joe Rogan 41:34 It's impressive enough, you fucks. (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 41:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:37 Look at that thing. Look at that thing. It's so im- immense. I just can't believe there was one that much bigger than that.

Paul Rosolie 41:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:43 What is, what is the folklore? Like what do they say when they say, "What's the biggest one?"

Paul Rosolie 41:47 Uh, I mean, I have people that told me that they found a 60-foot anaconda.

Joe Rogan 41:52 (gasps)

Paul Rosolie 41:52 They're, they're ... That guy's a drunk. Um, that, I think-

Joe Rogan 41:57 Yeah, but maybe he's telling the truth.

Paul Rosolie 41:58 Nah. Pixar, it didn't happen.

Joe Rogan 42:01 Remember the movie with Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube?

Paul Rosolie 42:04 (laughs) I remember that there was one.

Joe Rogan 42:07 (laughs) Jon Voight, Jon Voight had like the worst Brazilian accent ever. Didn't even sound Brazilian. It was so strange.

Paul Rosolie 42:11 I gotta actually watch that movie.

Joe Rogan 42:13 It was ...

Paul Rosolie 42:13 I really feel like I should.

Joe Rogan 42:14 It's a terrible movie.

Paul Rosolie 42:15 Is it? Is it?

Joe Rogan 42:15 Oh, it's terrible. But it's great.

Paul Rosolie 42:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:17 It's like one of those ... I think it was like ...

Paul Rosolie 42:19 Nothing wrong with a good bad movie.

Joe Rogan 42:20 I wanna say it was like '90s, right?

Paul Rosolie 42:22 Oh, shit.

Joe Rogan 42:23 What year was that? It's a dumb ... (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 42:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:28 But the actual big anaconda, look at the size of it, the one that's coming behind Ice Cube.... the actual big anaconda was, like, thinking it was-

Paul Rosolie 42:35 Ah. That. I've seen that image before. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:37 John Wood (laughs) .

Paul Rosolie 42:38 (laughs) Geez.

Joe Rogan 42:42 You should hear his Brazilian accent too.

Paul Rosolie 42:44 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 42:44 It's, it's crazy. It doesn't s- it doesn't even make sense.

Paul Rosolie 42:47 Wait. Does he eat two people at once?

Narrator 42:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:49 Yeah, bro.

Paul Rosolie 42:50 Oh, shit.

Joe Rogan 42:50 It's a movie.

Paul Rosolie 42:51 Wow.

Joe Rogan 42:51 One person is not scary enough.

Paul Rosolie 42:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:53 Gotta be tied together somehow.

Paul Rosolie 42:54 Gotta eat you and your family.

Joe Rogan 42:56 (laughs) Tied together somehow.

Paul Rosolie 42:57 Oh, shit.

Joe Rogan 42:57 The snake wraps... So they, they say they've seen a 60-foot one.

Paul Rosolie 43:02 Sure.

Joe Rogan 43:03 But do, do they have an age limit? Like, do they... It seems like when they get to a certain size, nothing's hunting them.

Paul Rosolie 43:09 No. They're an apex predator.

Joe Rogan 43:10 So it's just disease or old age?

Paul Rosolie 43:13 No. Yeah. So in the Amazon, the cool thing with the Amazon is it's the greatest natural batis- battlefield on earth.

Joe Rogan 43:18 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 43:18 It's literally just this t- churning death march. I... Like, life is like a momentary stasis in this, like, recycling of death. And it's like you fight for it. And so... And a snake that's getting big, like that one that we just caught, like Eleanor, it's like so we learned that she moves around the swamp and has a home range. And then eventually, after a few months, you know, she passes the transmitter. She'll poop out the transmitter. Um, but one of the guys on the team, Pat, is actually working through Acadia University. We've, we've been continuing this and we've learned that there are so many more anacondas than we thought. And everyone said, the traditional literature said that they're ambush predators, that they only wait. And it's like, no. They're going to places where there's mineral licks in the Amazon, and they stake out the... Like, they're more strategic than we thought.

Joe Rogan 44:02 Oh. So they wait for the animals to lick the minerals.

Paul Rosolie 44:05 Yeah. So there's places where there's, like, a salt deposit, and so you'll-

Joe Rogan 44:07 Right.

Paul Rosolie 44:07 ... get all the herbivores coming there for the salt. And so... But the anacondas will go upstreams and strategically target those places.

Joe Rogan 44:15 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 44:15 And so I've s-... At one time, we saw an anaconda eating a peccary, which is, for everybody that doesn't know, is a wild boar.

Joe Rogan 44:20 Like a javelina.

Paul Rosolie 44:21 Yeah. And like I, I was at a stream trying to take a picture of a butterfly, and I heard this c- (imitates snapping sound) . And I look down there's like a 16-foot anaconda and it just bent this peccary in half. And it was just looking at me, and it was like ... And then it split. And so once a snake leaves its meal, it's very unfortunate, but once a snake leaves its meal, it's not gonna come back to it. So the snake left, 'cause we had gotten... Unknowingly, we got too close. So we, we had wild boar that night.

Joe Rogan 44:44 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 44:44 We just threw it on the barbecue.

Joe Rogan 44:48 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 44:49 Oh, speaking of eating things, Jamey, could you... There's a... I think it's just called Monkey Head. I've been dying to show you this. I've, I feel like-

Joe Rogan 44:55 Can I ask you a question, though?

Paul Rosolie 44:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:56 How old do they get? Like the one that you got that was 18 feet, how old do you think she was?

Paul Rosolie 45:01 The thing is they have indeterminate growth. So you take a baby anaconda. They're live born, by the way, not in eggs. And so you get, you get a brand new slimy little anaconda, and they come out. Um, and they're food for, like, the jabiru storks, for other caiman, for even fish. Um, the fish are brutal, man. I just... I caught a baby caiman the other day. Um, he had no toes 'cause the piranhas were eating his toes off.

Joe Rogan 45:24 Whoa.

Paul Rosolie 45:24 Um, but the anaconda's interesting because it's, it has this outsized impact on the whole ecosystem 'cause they start off basically as prey. They're just, you know, these little two-foot worms. But then as they grow, then all of a sudden they can eat bigger things. Then they can eat the caiman back. Then he c- they can start eating the birds. And then all of a sudden they're eating capybara. And then you get to the big mamas where they're at the top of the ecosystem. They're the top of the food chain. And so you have like black caiman, anaconda, jaguar, harpy eagle, giant river otters. And like those are your, like, you know, top contenders for apex predator in the Amazon.

Joe Rogan 45:54 The harpy eagle's amazing. What a wild-looking creature.

Paul Rosolie 45:58 Oh. Their, their talons.

Joe Rogan 45:59 They're so big too. Is that, is that the biggest eagle?

Paul Rosolie 46:02 I don't, I don't think it's the... I think the, I think the Philippine eagle or, or the Steller's sea eagle. But the harpy is just unreasonably large. Like, when you see them, you go that, that's, that's what that is.

Joe Rogan 46:13 And they eat a lot of monkeys.

Paul Rosolie 46:14 They eat a lot of monkeys. And so one of the ways to tell when there's a harpy eagle around, like, we'll be walking through the jungle and you just find a pile of bones. Because up in that nest, 150 feet up, they're just dropping monkeys and sloths, and the babies are ripping 'em apart, and then they just chuck the bones out. So you'll see like a little boneyard in the jungle.

Joe Rogan 46:31 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 46:31 Yeah. It doesn't last too long 'cause nothing lasts long and it just keeps recycling everything. But, um, when I was a kid, you know, in the rainforest books they'd say, "50% of the life in a rainforest is up in the canopy." And it's like... You know what I say? Like, "Yeah, bullshit." It is. There's more stuff up there than there is down there. So when you're walking in the Amazon, you're under 150 feet of green. 3% of the sunlight is hitting the ground. Most of the action is happening above you.

Joe Rogan 46:58 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 46:59 The birds, the monkeys, the bats, the snakes, the frogs. Everything is moving up there. There's cactuses and bromeliads and vines, and it's all interconnected. And there's this whole network. The Amazon canopy keeps changing the, the... Like, when you say, "How many species are on earth?" And it's like, they're like, "We really don't know," because nobody, nobody can spend time up in the Amazon canopy. There's people that have used hot air balloons. There's people that have used giant nets. Um, you can climb up with a rope, but then, like, you're kinda limited to one tree. Um, I just, we just spent the last two months building the tallest tree house in the world. It's like above... See... Can you... Yeah, can you do tree house? It's, it's, it's insane. I slept up there for one night. Look at this, look at this, coming out of the mist. I just slept up there for one night, and in the morning I couldn't believe what I saw. We woke up and it was like what they tell you in the rainforest books. It was like, there was like three species of monkeys, like 15 different type, species of birds. There was things just moving all over the place. There's leaf cutter ants-

Joe Rogan 47:57 What a cool little tree house.

Paul Rosolie 47:58 Little (laughs) . It takes like 10 minutes to walk up there.

Joe Rogan 48:01 That's badass.

Paul Rosolie 48:02 Yeah. Apparently it's the tallest tree house in the world. It's in the middle of the Amazon now. And we got solar panels up on there.

Joe Rogan 48:08 So how many feet up is it?

Paul Rosolie 48:09 I think it's about... I think the floor is about 110 feet up.

Joe Rogan 48:12 And how long did it take to build this thing?

Paul Rosolie 48:15 Couple of months. Took like three months actually. We brought in some expert tree house builders, these guys, the Tree House Community, and they-

Joe Rogan 48:20 That's insane.

Paul Rosolie 48:21 They build tree houses all over the world. But this one, it was like we had to figure out, like, how do you even build a stair- The staircase was half the project. How do you build a staircase to get up to the top of this tree?

Joe Rogan 48:30 It's amazing. You guys did an-

Paul Rosolie 48:31 It's insane.

Joe Rogan 48:31 ... amazing job. I love it.

Paul Rosolie 48:33 Yeah. God it's-

Joe Rogan 48:34 God, I wanna go.

Paul Rosolie 48:35 That's beautiful.

Joe Rogan 48:36 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 48:36 Yeah, yeah. There it is.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Look at the solar panels.

Paul Rosolie 48:37 Look at that.

Joe Rogan 48:38 That's incredible. So you get-

Paul Rosolie 48:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:39 ... electricity up there? That's fucking badass.

Paul Rosolie 48:42 Yeah.Yeah. No, it's- it's really cool.

Joe Rogan 48:44 And that's still there right now?

Paul Rosolie 48:45 Still there? No. It j- like, it just got there. You see how fresh that wood is?

Joe Rogan 48:48 Mm.

Paul Rosolie 48:48 It's like it's not even done. Like, um, I- I-

Joe Rogan 48:51 And so, do you-

Paul Rosolie 48:52 ... left there to come here. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 48:53 ... you sleep there when you're there? That's your spot?

Paul Rosolie 48:56 Yeah. Me and my girlfriend just slept up there.

Joe Rogan 48:58 Oh my God.

Paul Rosolie 48:58 And we woke up in the-

Joe Rogan 48:59 Did you talk to the girl into going up there?

Paul Rosolie 49:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:02 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 49:02 She must be an angel.

Joe Rogan 49:04 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 49:04 Crazy. Um, dude, if you- if- if you're gonna hang out with me, there's a lot of snakes-

Joe Rogan 49:08 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 49:08 ... a lot of climbing. Like, you- you gotta go to the tree house.

Joe Rogan 49:11 Oh, I can imagine.

Paul Rosolie 49:12 (laughs) Um, but no, ..........................

Joe Rogan 49:12 Um, so when you wake up in the morning and look out from there, it's gotta be insanity.

Paul Rosolie 49:15 Yeah. I mean, first of all, you- the sun coming up in the east, and you have like red apocalypse beautiful like mist coming off the jungle. And you have spider monkeys like excited, because that's a fi- that's a ficus. And so, everyone's excited to eat. So, all the animals are coming to the tree house. And so you have like howler monkeys, spider monkeys, capuchins, squirrel monkeys. Uh, I can't even name all the birds for you. It'd just take too long. But there's just- it's like cacophonous. Like, I couldn't talk to you, 'cause we wouldn't be able to hear each other.

Joe Rogan 49:42 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 49:42 You have to scream. And there's like fruit falling on you, and animals are shitting all over the place. And there's like, leaf-cutter ants are starting up their day, and then there's like bullet ants fucking around being like, "Who can I- who can I take down today?" Like, it is wild.

Joe Rogan 49:54 (sighs)

Paul Rosolie 49:54 But it's like- but that's why we were like, "Okay, we gotta..." 'Cause otherwise you climb up on a rope and you're like holding onto a branch, and you look around and you go down. This is like now you- now for- you can go up there and like take it in. And it's a whole other world. It's wild. And we put it like right in the middle of the 50,000 acres. And so, it's just mega remote wilderness and you're actually comfortable.

Joe Rogan 50:14 And so, you have solar panels. So, do you have batteries up there? Do you have like... How are you running that?

Paul Rosolie 50:21 Well, one of the guys on my team, Stefan, is a complete psychopath and an intense problem-solver. He put solar panels, um, hot water, a- a- a bathroom. So, this is now- this isn't just a tree house. This is like a luxury tree house.

Joe Rogan 50:35 A bathroom? Like running water?

Paul Rosolie 50:36 Yeah. No. A sh- a shower.

Joe Rogan 50:38 Whoa. So, you have pipes that go down the side of the...

Paul Rosolie 50:42 Yeah. Yeah. So, there's pipes. The idea is that like you can't bring a high volume of tourists into a pristine rainforest. And like tourism is a major help for- for helping us protect this place. So, it's like we went with like the African model. Like, the guys I work with in Africa at VETPAW, they were like, you know, they work on a- on a hunting reserve. And the owner of the reserve explained it to me like this. He was like, "Look, no one's gonna pay $30,000 to take a picture of a buffalo. But they might pay $30,000 to shoot a buffalo." And that like stuck in my head, and it was like, how do we- how do we get less tourists at more value? And it's like, build the- the tallest, most remote, comfortable luxury tree house in the world. And it's like, so now...

Joe Rogan 51:19 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 51:19 So now, we can invite people up there and be like, "You can like literally live stream, like wifi." We got- we got Starlink up there.

Joe Rogan 51:23 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 51:24 We carried some Starlink up there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:26 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 51:26 So, when you messaged me-

Joe Rogan 51:28 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 51:28 ... I was out there. That's how I got it. I got it on Starlink. I was out in the jungle and I was like, "Oh, shit."

Joe Rogan 51:31 Holy shit.

Paul Rosolie 51:31 I was like, "Oh, shit, guys." (laughs) It's like, "I gotta go back to the US for a minute." Like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:35 Wow. So, you could have like the ultimate experience going to the... You could make a bunch of those.

Paul Rosolie 51:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:44 And-

Paul Rosolie 51:45 Join them with bridges.

Joe Rogan 51:45 ... people would pay an insane amount of money to go there.

Paul Rosolie 51:48 Yeah. I mean, that's the idea. So, we're just gonna see if it works. Um, because the- since the beginning, like when I started with JJ, it was like, "We bring people to the jungle and you camp out with us. You live in the tent with us." And it was like, the market for that is like really small.

Joe Rogan 52:01 Right.

Paul Rosolie 52:02 There's like six people that wanna do that.

Joe Rogan 52:03 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 52:03 Like, nobody wants to do that in like... And the people that do wanna do it, ask them in the morning if they still wanna do it.

Joe Rogan 52:08 Right.

Paul Rosolie 52:09 They don't. Um, and so- so making it so that people can actually come and see the Amazon rainforest in a way that's- that's like safe and bug-free and air conditioned and everything else. And it's like you can just wake up and look at it all.

Joe Rogan 52:21 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 52:21 And it's like... So, it's that- it's- it's a- it's a- it's an amazing thing. I can't believe that I got to sleep up there. So it's like, it's- it's pretty cool.

Joe Rogan 52:29 That's insane.

Paul Rosolie 52:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:32 So, back to the anacondas.

Paul Rosolie 52:34 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 52:34 I'm trying to figure out-

Paul Rosolie 52:35 Oh, yes.

Joe Rogan 52:36 ... how old they get.

Paul Rosolie 52:38 Th- uh, they get old, man. I think- I think like, I'm- um, I would say 70.

Joe Rogan 52:42 So-

Paul Rosolie 52:42 'Cause when you have like a ball python-

Joe Rogan 52:43 Do they-

Paul Rosolie 52:43 ... you're talking like 30 years or something like that, I think.

Joe Rogan 52:45 But do they know that they have a lifespan? Do they know that they die of old age? D- is that a thing that happens with them? Or they just keep going?

Paul Rosolie 52:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:52 Like, there's some animals that live on Earth. Like, I think there's a shark that's older than the United States that's still alive. It's like a type... What is it? A Greenland shark?

Paul Rosolie 53:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:04 There's- there's a type of shark that's literally from like the 1700s-

Paul Rosolie 53:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:08 ... that's still living.

Paul Rosolie 53:10 They also pulled a spearhead out of a- I wanna say a right whale, where the same thing. And they- they dated that spearhead back to like the 1830s or something crazy.

Joe Rogan 53:18 How long do Greenland sharks live? Like, science says-

Paul Rosolie 53:20 250 years.

Joe Rogan 53:21 ... a Greenland shark lives at least 250 years. They may live over 500 years.

Paul Rosolie 53:25 Whoa. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:26 And that thing is just down in the black abyss, just moving, just moving.

Paul Rosolie 53:29 Ooh, blind.

Joe Rogan 53:30 Just swimming around.

Paul Rosolie 53:31 When our grandparents were alive-

Joe Rogan 53:33 Whoa.

Paul Rosolie 53:33 ... it was- it was just doing that.

Joe Rogan 53:34 Yeah. People were riding horses, that thing's just swimming around. The internet comes around, it's still swimming. ChatGPT, still swimming.

Paul Rosolie 53:42 Holy shit.

Joe Rogan 53:43 Yeah. I- I just wonder how old anacondas get. And so, the- the folklore about them, the 60-foot ones, like I wonder if that's real. I wonder if they just keep growing.

Paul Rosolie 53:53 I- I think... I wouldn't be surprised if they're well into their 30s. If you told me that somebody found a 35-foot anaconda, I'd be like, "Absolutely."

Joe Rogan 53:59 Well, what is the world record that they've ever discovered?

Paul Rosolie 54:01 I don't know. Again, we have the scientifically verified. 18-

Joe Rogan 54:05 Captured.

Paul Rosolie 54:06 18:6 is not that big, though.

Joe Rogan 54:08 But it's not- not as big.

Paul Rosolie 54:08 No. I've seen bigger. I know other people that have seen... Like people I trust that have seen bigger. Um, there's bigger anacondas out there, for sure.

Joe Rogan 54:16 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 54:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:16 And there's no way to know. I mean, there's so-

Paul Rosolie 54:18 Yeah, there's no way to know.

Joe Rogan 54:18 You're talking about so much territory.

Paul Rosolie 54:20 Yeah, there's so much territory. 'Cause in between those rivers is just eons of unbroken forest. Like we have-

Joe Rogan 54:28 (exhales)

Paul Rosolie 54:28 Yeah, we have to worry about the Amazon. It's being cut down. But there are still places...

Narrator 54:31 Is that- is that one real?

Paul Rosolie 54:33 That's a dick pic.

Narrator 54:34 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 54:36 That's- that-

Narrator 54:36 This is the one that keeps popping up. There's only a few pictures online, the largest ones is like 33 feet.

Paul Rosolie 54:40 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:40 So, is that a perspective thing? Like when-

Paul Rosolie 54:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:41 ... someone holds a fish in front of them like this, then it looks much bigger?

Paul Rosolie 54:43 That's it. Yeah. And that- and that's why- that's why I said that. 'Cause like they're holding that so much closer to the- to the camera. And that's a retic.

Joe Rogan 54:51 Mm-hmm.

Paul Rosolie 54:51 So that's Indonesia. That's a- that's somewhere in Southeast Asia, but-

Joe Rogan 54:54 Still big.

Paul Rosolie 54:54 It's still big, but it- it could be like 11 feet, which is-

Joe Rogan 54:58 Oh, interesting.

Paul Rosolie 54:58 ... kind of a puppy still.

Joe Rogan 55:00 So, there's other ones where it shows, like, an anaconda wrapped around a giant tractor. Are those fake?

Paul Rosolie 55:05 I think those are fake. There's one, though, where they're cutting an Indonesian farm worker out of a reticulated python.

Joe Rogan 55:10 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 55:10 That's real.

Joe Rogan 55:11 (sighs)

Paul Rosolie 55:11 100%. I mean, people do get eaten by snakes. I mean, that's not, you know...

Joe Rogan 55:15 Oh, that's rough.

Paul Rosolie 55:16 Like that... Like, I remember, 'cause like when I was like... I'd say even up until like five years ago, it'd always be like, "Are these videos real?" And then like two years ago or so, they are like, "Watch this." And like you see the guy fall out of the snake. And you're like, "Okay, that one's real."

Joe Rogan 55:28 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 55:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:29 It does happen.

Paul Rosolie 55:30 It does happen.

Joe Rogan 55:31 How often does it happen? Is it something that they worry about, or is it just like a very rare occurrence of someone will be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Paul Rosolie 55:38 You gotta be pretty s- I mean, as a human, you gotta be pretty stupid to get eaten by an anaconda. You gotta be doing something really stupid.

Joe Rogan 55:43 Really?

Paul Rosolie 55:43 Yeah. I mean, 'cause like you're walking through the jungle, like, you know, you know not to go up to your chest in certain swamps. I mean...

Joe Rogan 55:52 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 55:52 Dude, I was (laughs) I was-

Joe Rogan 55:54 I'm just feeling walking around-

Paul Rosolie 55:56 Yo.

Joe Rogan 55:56 ... knowing there's giant snakes around.

Paul Rosolie 55:57 Yo.

Joe Rogan 55:57 Being up to your chest in water. Get the fuck out of here.

Paul Rosolie 56:00 Forget the giant snakes. When you fall into that nightmare soup at 2:00 in the morning and you're, and you get that black water on you, and there's, there's things going up your pants. There are insects in the water. There are tarantulas walking on the water, eating the frogs. It's like you are in a festival of sex and death-

Joe Rogan 56:18 Dude.

Paul Rosolie 56:18 ... when you're in the Amazon night. Like, it is... Falling into that water, like when we go in there to do research, we're like looking at frogs and shit, and it's like we put our socks over our pants to like make sure, 'cause otherwise shit gets up there.

Joe Rogan 56:30 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 56:30 One girl got bitten like 16 times by this giant aquatic water spider thing that like-

Joe Rogan 56:34 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 56:34 ... went up her leg, just going like Morse coding her, just like gack, gack, gack, gack, gack, gack, gack, gack. Just like pumping venom into her.

Joe Rogan 56:39 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 56:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:41 How bad did she get fucked up?

Paul Rosolie 56:43 I, emotionally, I think it was worse than the pain, 'cause the pain, they gave her some Benadryl and she like slept it off. But like, she was just like, "God, it was so horrible." She was like, "I was like slapping my leg trying to get this thing to stop biting me." And it was just getting more scared, so it was biting her more.

Joe Rogan 56:56 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 56:56 And it's like, you don't even know what it is.

Joe Rogan 56:58 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 56:58 It could be a new species.

Joe Rogan 57:01 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 57:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:03 You don't even know what it is. That's what wilds me.

Paul Rosolie 57:05 No, we find stuff.

Joe Rogan 57:06 They don't have a real accounting-

Paul Rosolie 57:07 No.

Joe Rogan 57:07 ... of all the different species.

Paul Rosolie 57:09 No. No, no, they don't. And so like people say, "Oh, like a bullet ant is the most painful insect bite." And it's like, dude, I've been bitten by, stung by bullet ants like eight times. They hurt, they suck. But I found a, uh, a caterpillar that was like, you know, I don't know, again, maybe like two Zippos. And, uh, I had it on a leaf and I was trying to put it in a terrarium, and the leaf like bent under the thing's we- It was like yellow. It kinda looked like Trump's hair. And it like fell on my hand, and I was plunged into immediate like electroshock like pain waves. Way worse than a bullet ant. Way worse. Whatever this caterpillar did to me fucked me up for days.

Joe Rogan 57:45 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 57:45 It was horrible.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Some kind of venom.

Paul Rosolie 57:49 Yeah, I mean under, under then, then I like, I really got scared, 'cause then I was like, "Okay, do I have to get out of the forest?" Um, so like we went in with like forceps and like moved the hair, and like underneath the hair it has like these like Christmas tree barbs, and the hair is covering those barbs. Yeah, something, something like that.

Joe Rogan 58:04 What the fuck, man?

Paul Rosolie 58:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:05 Look at that thing.

Paul Rosolie 58:06 Yeah. No. That, that was... I, I, I, I was not laughing. Like when we get bit by a bullet ant, we're like, "Oh, shit." Like, your day is over. It's funny. That's, that's not funny, though. It's like-

Joe Rogan 58:15 Is this about your work? Is this, this from you?

Paul Rosolie 58:19 No.

Joe Rogan 58:20 This, this image? This is another one?

Narrator 58:21 It's just something random off the internet.

Paul Rosolie 58:21 I- this is in Florida?

Narrator 58:23 It says it's a puss caterpillar.

Paul Rosolie 58:25 Ugh.

Joe Rogan 58:26 Oh my God.

Paul Rosolie 58:27 Jesus.

Joe Rogan 58:27 In Florida?

Narrator 58:28 I've never heard of it.

Joe Rogan 58:29 So, is that an invasive species? 'Cause so many of those in Florida.

Paul Rosolie 58:33 Mm-hmm.

Narrator 58:33 Most venomous caterpillars in the US.

Joe Rogan 58:35 So, what does it say? What'd you say?

Narrator 58:37 It's right over here. It says most venomous caterpillar in the US.

Joe Rogan 58:40 Oh, wow.

Narrator 58:41 It says it's like a bee sting though, but I just, I was just testing you.

Joe Rogan 58:43 Feel like a bee sting, only worse. Pain immediately rapidly gets worse from being stung. It can even make your bones hurt. So, does that exactly what got you, or something similar?

Paul Rosolie 58:52 No. Some- so, it's something in that family. Something related to that.

Joe Rogan 58:56 Oh.

Paul Rosolie 58:56 But dude, I was, I, I was... I hate that feeling. I hate even thinking about that feeling. It's horrible.

Joe Rogan 59:01 And so that's the worst one you've experienced?

Paul Rosolie 59:03 That's the worst insect bite, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:06 What about other bites?

Paul Rosolie 59:07 Well, I mean, like crocodiles hurt. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:09 You got bit by a crocodile?

Paul Rosolie 59:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:10 Really?

Paul Rosolie 59:11 Yeah. I just, uh, I... One time I got... I was, I was catching a caiman at night, um, and it was like a... You know, usually you catch a caiman and they're not that big. I caught one that's a little bit too big, and she like... I couldn't get an arm over her. I had her by the neck, and I couldn't get an arm over her tail, 'cause her tail was like over here. And she thrashed out, and I... Stupid, stupid, stupid. I like grabbed one of her hind... You just let her go, you know. There's no reason for this. I just, I grabbed like a hind leg, and I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna re-" She just came around and went whack, and just nailed me and snapped my watch in half. Like, she just like put a nail through the watch I had, which was great 'cause it saved me, and then I still have this, uh, like a, something in my arm, in my hand. Just like a, a bone knot. But like then her other tooth went in there and came out there, and it's like, uh, it was just stupid. Now I'm more careful when I catch crocs.

Joe Rogan 59:57 How big is that caiman?

Paul Rosolie 59:58 Um, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 59:59 They're fairly small in, in that family, right?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:02 Well, you have the... We have four species where we are. We have the smooth-fronted, we have the dwarf, which are both like, you know, like three feet, five feet. And then you have spectacled, which can get up to like, you know, eight, nine feet. And then you have black caiman that can be 18 feet long.

Joe Rogan 1:00:14 Really?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:15 No, black caiman's a real... Black caiman's a real thing.

Joe Rogan 1:00:17 Really?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:18 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 18 feet long?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:20 Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, like a black caiman's skull is like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:22 Oh my God.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:23 No, they're huge.

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 Let me see what that looks like.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:24 Oh, they're huge.

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 I always thought-

Paul Rosolie 1:00:25 Um...

Joe Rogan 1:00:25 I was under the impression that caimans were the smaller ones. I didn't know they got that big.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:29 Yeah, no, black-

Joe Rogan 1:00:30 Oh my God, that's huge.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:30 Black caiman looks like an alligator. Like it's, it's... They're monsters.

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 A big alligator. They get 18 feet long. Holy shit, man. So, you encountered those?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:43 (laughs) Yeah, I've encountered those. I was, um-

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 What the fuck, dude?

Paul Rosolie 1:00:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 Dinosaurs.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:49 Oh, they're huge.

Joe Rogan 1:00:50 Holy shit.

Paul Rosolie 1:00:51 Dude, there is one spot that we were, we were exploring w- This is again one of those places where you're way past like the edge of civilization, and we were, we, we found this like swamp. And a- you know, again, it's always JJ that finds everything. He goes, "Oh, no."... and I went, "What?" And he goes, "Look at this." And there's, like, a drag mark, huge black caiman, like, monstrous, like a two-foot thick stomach. And then these monster hands on either side, you know, the feet as it's walking. And we're, like, following this thing and it comes to the water, and floating in the water is the bodies of all these dead peccary, all these dead wild boar floating in the water. And I'm like, "What am I looking at here?" And we got a stick and we brought him in, and we realized a whole herd of pigs had tried to swim across this water and this monster ass Godzilla black caiman had just gone and just gush, gush, gush, just took down, like, 10 of them.

Joe Rogan 1:01:42 Wow.

Paul Rosolie 1:01:43 And so we just were, like, checking out his refrigerator, like they were just there for later.

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 1:01:47 They were just, like, floating there.

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 So he's in the area.

Paul Rosolie 1:01:50 He was in, he was in the area. And we were, like, up to our knees and I was like...

Joe Rogan 1:01:52 Oh. (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 1:01:53 I was like, "We, we should probably, we should probably go, dude. Let's go."

Joe Rogan 1:01:58 Oh, my God.

Paul Rosolie 1:01:59 Yeah. No, like, they're scary big. Like, they're scary, scary, scary, scary big.

Joe Rogan 1:02:03 Are those similar to the ones they have in, like, Costa Rica?

Paul Rosolie 1:02:07 Costa Rica, I, I believe, this is outside of my expertise, but I think you have American crocodiles and I think you have spectacled caimans there. I don't think you have black caiman in Costa Rica.

Joe Rogan 1:02:15 We saw some big crocodiles in Costa Rica.

Paul Rosolie 1:02:18 Yeah?

Joe Rogan 1:02:18 Really?

Paul Rosolie 1:02:18 Yeah, man. I mean, big for me.

Joe Rogan 1:02:20 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 1:02:21 I, I don't know how big they... I didn't measure them, but they were... We were on a boat trip and we were going down this river, and you see them sliding into the water.

Joe Rogan 1:02:28 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 1:02:28 So there's ones that were sunning on the side, and then you see them just slide into the water. It was very creepy.

Joe Rogan 1:02:34 Yeah. I mean, 'cause the-

Paul Rosolie 1:02:34 Because the water's brown and you can't see shit and you know they're there. They don't bother you, though.

Joe Rogan 1:02:41 What the fuck?

Paul Rosolie 1:02:41 Like, I just stepped on a caiman the other... Like, a small one. I stepped on a caiman the other day and it was like, you know, he freaked out.

Joe Rogan 1:02:46 Okay. Costa Rica crocodiles, they weigh between-

Paul Rosolie 1:02:48 American.

Joe Rogan 1:02:49 ... 800, 1200 pounds. They get between 13 and 16 feet long. Yeah, those are the ones that we saw. So that's a different ki-... American crocodile.

Paul Rosolie 1:02:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:57 So it's the same as the ones that they have in, like, Florida. Is that, that true?

Paul Rosolie 1:03:01 I don't know. That... No, American crocodile-

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 Florida has really-

Paul Rosolie 1:03:03 ... and then Costa Rican crocodile is something different.

Joe Rogan 1:03:06 Yeah. Can get very big indeed. So-

Paul Rosolie 1:03:07 Jeez.

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 So I think they're saying it's the same thing. Is that what they're saying? 'Cause I know the, um, American crocodiles, they're smaller than the alligators, but much more aggressive. You know, they spotted Nile crocodiles in the, in the Everglades.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:24 No.

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:25 No.

Joe Rogan 1:03:25 Th- They've got a kill on sight order for Nile crocodiles.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:29 Oh, no.

Joe Rogan 1:03:29 They've at least spotted one. Yeah, they don't know if it's breeding. They don't know if there's more than one.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:33 Oh, God. That's so much worse than Burmese pythons.

Joe Rogan 1:03:36 It's... The Florida thing is so goddamn crazy. It's so wild. It's so wild what's happened down there, that there's literally 99% of all the mammals are missing from the Everglades. 99%.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:51 99%?

Joe Rogan 1:03:51 Yeah. It... Google that.

Narrator 1:03:53 They found f- they found four since the '90s, I guess.

Paul Rosolie 1:03:56 Jeez.

Joe Rogan 1:03:56 Okay, so they found four over there.

Narrator 1:03:58 (laughs)

Paul Rosolie 1:03:58 But they're... So that's even worse, 'cause they're out there.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 So you know they're in there. You know they're in there. They found Nile crocodiles. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I guarantee you it's some asshole with a pet.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:11 Let them go and now they're breeding.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:14 Oh, but that's so much scarier. I mean, the, the, the-

Joe Rogan 1:04:15 That's so scary.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:16 The smash power that they have, like to take down a wildebeest, to rip the head off a zebra, like...

Joe Rogan 1:04:20 I played a video on my Instagram that I found of one snapping a pig in half.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 It just has the big... Yeah, it just snap.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:28 And just chucks down the leg. Yeah. But it... See if you can find that statistic on the Everglades, that there's 99% of the mammals are missing.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:37 It can't be.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 'Cause they... I think it's true. It can't be. I think it's true. I think it's 99% of all the raccoons, 99% of all the deer, everything.

Paul Rosolie 1:04:44 Yeah, 'cause the fucking crocodiles ate them all.

Joe Rogan 1:04:46 Well, it's everything.

Narrator 1:04:47 I thought this says because of pythons, but could be a few other-

Joe Rogan 1:04:50 99. Look at that. A study published Mon- Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found the sightings of medium-sized mammal, mammals are down drastically as much as 99%, in some cases in areas where pythons and other large invasive... Uh, large non-native constrictors snakes are known to be lurking. Wow. So the, the people that I know that have been there say it's... Over the last few decades, it's drastic.

Paul Rosolie 1:05:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:16 You don't see anything anymore. You, you just see the snakes and you see alligators.

Paul Rosolie 1:05:20 Well, it's like Guam. Guam had that problem with the snakes where they, like-

Joe Rogan 1:05:23 Yeah.

Paul Rosolie 1:05:23 They... Yeah, there was... On the island of Guam they had a monstrous snake problem, but there... That's the funny thing with the jungle is, like, it's everything is so... There's so many... There's so many predators. Everything is eating each other. So it's like you don't have any one thing... The balance is incredible.

Joe Rogan 1:05:38 In Amazon. Yeah, the balance.

Paul Rosolie 1:05:39 In the Amazon, in the Amazon.

Joe Rogan 1:05:40 That's the thing about the invasive species that get introduced into a- a-

Paul Rosolie 1:05:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:44 ... an ecosystem that They... You know,