EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,083 words- 0:00 – 0:51
Marshall in the studio & dogs as “love sponges”
- PRPaul Rosolie
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- NANarrator
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Hey, Marsh. Come here, buddy. This is, uh-
- NANarrator
Good puppy.
- JRJoe Rogan
... one of the rare times that Marshall's been in studio during a show. Come here, Bubba. Say hi to everybody.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
I miss you. Here's buddy. He's the best.
- PRPaul Rosolie
He is the best.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're the best dogs. They're like universally sweet dogs.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- PRPaul Rosolie
... "Is something better coming?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Like they're just- they're so friendly. They're just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, there's no like worry about protecting themselves-
- PRPaul Rosolie
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... or survival.
- PRPaul Rosolie
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're just l- my friend calls them love sponges. It's the best way to describe them.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah, they're perfect creations.
- 0:51 – 2:54
Seeds of an Amazon obsession: zoos, Goodall, and wanting “true wild”
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Uh... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
How does this- take me through- take me through the first like seeds of the thoughts that had you go to the Amazon.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-"
- JRJoe Rogan
But how'd you- how did you develop that feeling?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really a- The New York-New Jersey forest thing-
- PRPaul Rosolie
It's amazing.
- JRJoe Rogan
... is like people, for whatever reason, that don't live around there-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... they think New Jersey is like some vast wasteland.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Like New Jersey's like more bears per capita than anywhere else in the country.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it- it-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's wild out there.
- PRPaul Rosolie
...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-
- JRJoe Rogan
So you always had like a call to that kind of life.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- 2:54 – 3:57
Dropping out, GED, and diving in unprepared at 17
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what it was?
- PRPaul Rosolie
That is what it was, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
"I gotta get down there before it's too late."
- PRPaul Rosolie
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...
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- 3:57 – 6:43
Meeting JJ: local expertise, snake catching, and “kill every snake” culture
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
So he didn't know- I mean, he must've known like what venomous snakes there were, right?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay, right. Right.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs) And they're like, "Oh, yeah."
- JRJoe Rogan
That's crazy that they don't know.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But I guess it's like safer to assume that they're all venomous, or anything bright colored is venomous.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're part of the whole ecosystem.
- PRPaul Rosolie
They are.
- JRJoe Rogan
Especially in something as complex as the Amazon.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- 6:43 – 8:18
Coyotes as an ecological lesson: adaptation and unintended consequences
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, y- you know, when I, I lived in the Hollywood Hills people would always complain about coyotes.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I'd say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but how many rats do you see?"
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't see a lot of rats.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. (laughs) Rats.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) There's a reason for that. The coyotes-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... are the cleanup system.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they're everywhere now.
- PRPaul Rosolie
They're everywhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's wild.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Big one. Big one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you ever read Coyote America?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Uh, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... 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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they're in every single city in every state now.
- PRPaul Rosolie
That-
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's only over the last few decades.
- PRPaul Rosolie
I mean, the fact ... I mean, I think in a lotta places you can hunt a coyote, like, daytime, nighttime-
- JRJoe Rogan
Anytime.
- PRPaul Rosolie
... anyti- anytime with, like, any method.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the thing is it does the opposite of what it's intended to do.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. Yeah.
- 8:18 – 12:58
From guiding tourists to witnessing destruction: the Trans-Amazon Highway effect
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Uh, completely unprepared.
- JRJoe Rogan
Shoestring budget.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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 ...
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you plan on trying to find some sort of a job? Like, what were you gonna do for food and ...
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whew. So w- what regulations, if any, are in pl- Obviously, there's people that are gonna violate those.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
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 ...
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
So unless it's near them, unless it's in their jurisdiction, nobody does anything.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, um, I had seen a, a clip of yours that we talked about.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What was the clip?
- 12:58 – 18:37
Amazon fires go viral: the clip, the message, and Jungle Keepers scaling up
- PRPaul Rosolie
So yeah, that was the, that was the 2019 clip. That was when the, the Amazon fires went mega viral.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's the clip?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. Where I go, "Welcome to the fucking Anthropocene."
- JRJoe Rogan
Jesus. And what, what puts those fires out? Do people actively try to put those fires out or they just wait till it rains?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
So when they're starting these fires to make clear cuts so they can raise cattle? Like what are they doing?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
And who owns th- that land?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, that fish thing is wild.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Fish thing is wild.
- JRJoe Rogan
My friend, Rinella, did that.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Th- w- how do you say those- the guys' names from Guyana? Yanomami?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah, the Yanomami.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. He went with them and they, they did that thing with the fish-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where they grind up the plants and they throw it in the water and the fish just get conked out.
- 18:37 – 21:52
Gold mining: mercury, armed control, and threats against activists
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
That's the western Amazon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow, so they just gutted it.
- PRPaul Rosolie
There is a sandstorm behind me in that picture and they are... That's the Amazon rainforest! And there's a desert there now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
You can see it from space.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh my God.
- PRPaul Rosolie
So yeah, we got- we got in there this one day with some Russian gold miners. It was very strange and actually, uh...
- JRJoe Rogan
You got in there to investigate?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?"
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ooh.
- PRPaul Rosolie
... "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-
- JRJoe Rogan
That gotta be terrifying.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Um. Yeah, I mean for a second I was like, "Is this- is this- is it happening?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
Just that easy.
- JRJoe Rogan
No consequences?
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- 21:52 – 28:02
Uncontacted (voluntarily isolated) peoples: arrows, fear, and uneasy contact
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Seven-foot arrow?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah, so they use the river cane.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mmm.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah, so check this out. So this is one of my rangers, um, Ignacio, he's- he's local Indigenous and, uh...
- JRJoe Rogan
And that's the scar on his head from the arrow?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. He was trying... So the uncontacted came out and they were-
- JRJoe Rogan
That looks pretty fresh.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
If you're gonna have a scar on your head, that's- that's a good spot. That looks good.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did he get out of it?
- PRPaul Rosolie
He waited it out.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's stick with uncontacted.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Should we just call them uncontacted? (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, fuck you, man. Fuck you for making me remember all that shit.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
So silly. Um...
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uncontacted is not a pejorative.
- 28:02 – 31:57
Solo travel in deep Amazon wilderness: getting lost and the real dangers
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Jesus Christ.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs) Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
I would argue that that's crazier than the moon.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, like you say, going to the moon-
- PRPaul Rosolie
(sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... or going to Mars and running around.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
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-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but there's no people ever.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know, it's nature and it's a part of the earth that we live on-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... but it's not a part of the earth that we live on where humans are. So it's-
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's why it's so fascinating and unique about the rainforest.
- 31:57 – 40:42
Anaconda obsession: captures, near-death wrap, and the “Floating Forest” giants
- PRPaul Rosolie
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?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
The first anaconda I ever caught... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
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."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, no.
- PRPaul Rosolie
I was like, "Now I can't get out of this if I wanted to." And the next coil came over my shoulders.
- JRJoe Rogan
(exhales)
- PRPaul Rosolie
And it's a 200-pound snake-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, shit.
- PRPaul Rosolie
... 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.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy.
- PRPaul Rosolie
I really fucked up.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, boy. Look at the size of that thing.
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that the one?
- PRPaul Rosolie
That is not the one. That is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, look at the size of that thing.
- PRPaul Rosolie
And that's not even, that's not even as big as they get.
- JRJoe Rogan
How big is that one?
- PRPaul Rosolie
That one is 18 feet 6 inches.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) That's so big.
- PRPaul Rosolie
This is... (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
That's so big.
- PRPaul Rosolie
This one, this is the largest, uh, scientifically wild-caught verified anaconda that we have-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow.
- 40:42 – 1:08:23
Researching apex predators: tracking anacondas, caiman sizes, and feeding ecology
- JRJoe Rogan
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?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah, so for this one, um ... Here, look, there's a shot.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- PRPaul Rosolie
There's a shot coming up where we, like we kinda have her stretched out for a second, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
So she swallows it?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. It's just like a, like a big pill.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, wow. How big?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Like that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like a Zippo lighter?
- PRPaul Rosolie
Sure, yeah. Look at that. Look at that head.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, my God. Look at the teeth.
- PRPaul Rosolie
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.
- JRJoe Rogan
How dare they?
- PRPaul Rosolie
How dare they? Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
That sounds like Hollywood.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You just gotta juice it up just a little bit.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Just a, just a little bit, just turn it up.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's impressive enough, you fucks. (laughs)
- PRPaul Rosolie
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
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.
- PRPaul Rosolie
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is, what is the folklore? Like what do they say when they say, "What's the biggest one?"
- PRPaul Rosolie
Uh, I mean, I have people that told me that they found a 60-foot anaconda.
- JRJoe Rogan
(gasps)
- PRPaul Rosolie
They're, they're ... That guy's a drunk. Um, that, I think-
Episode duration: 2:42:58
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Transcript of episode I0UShlEjxys
