Joe Rogan Experience #2013 - Paul Rosolie

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. PRPaul Rosolie0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

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

   4. NANarrator0:16

      Good puppy.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

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

   6. PRPaul Rosolie0:22

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      I miss you. Here's buddy. He's the best.

   8. PRPaul Rosolie0:26

      He is the best.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:27

      They're the best dogs. They're like universally sweet dogs.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie0:30

       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-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       Oh, yeah.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie0:37

       ... "Is something better coming?"

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:38

       Yeah.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie0:38

       Like they're just- they're so friendly. They're just-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       Yeah, there's no like worry about protecting themselves-

   16. PRPaul Rosolie0:44

       No.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       ... or survival.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie0:45

       No.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:45

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

   20. PRPaul Rosolie0:49

       Yeah, they're perfect creations.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:51

       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?

   22. PRPaul Rosolie1:03

       Uh... (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:03

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

   24. PRPaul Rosolie1:10

       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-"

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:40

       But how'd you- how did you develop that feeling?

   26. PRPaul Rosolie1:43

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       Mm.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie1:51

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:58

       It's really a- The New York-New Jersey forest thing-

   30. PRPaul Rosolie2:02

       It's amazing.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   And who owns th-…

   1. PRPaul Rosolie15:00

      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.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:27

      And who owns th- that land?

   3. PRPaul Rosolie15:29

      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.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:48

      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.

   5. PRPaul Rosolie15:54

      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.

   6. JRJoe Rogan16:05

      Right.

   7. PRPaul Rosolie16:05

      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?"

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:02

      Hmm.

   9. PRPaul Rosolie17:03

      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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:42

       Yeah.

   11. PRPaul Rosolie17:44

       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.

   12. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       Yeah, that fish thing is wild.

   13. PRPaul Rosolie18:16

       Fish thing is wild.

   14. JRJoe Rogan18:17

       My friend, Rinella, did that.

   15. PRPaul Rosolie18:18

       Yeah. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan18:20

       Yeah. Th- w- how do you say those- the guys' names from Guyana? Yanomami?

   17. PRPaul Rosolie18:24

       Yeah, the Yanomami.

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:25

       Yeah. He went with them and they, they did that thing with the fish-

   19. PRPaul Rosolie18:28

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:28

       ... where they grind up the plants and they throw it in the water and the fish just get conked out.

   21. PRPaul Rosolie18:32

       Yeah. Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:32

       It's pretty wild.

   23. PRPaul Rosolie18:33

       Nice. It's like magic.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       Yeah.

   25. PRPaul Rosolie18:34

       It's like magic, it's like a cheat code in a video game.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:37

       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.

   27. PRPaul Rosolie18:54

       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-

   28. JRJoe Rogan19:10

       Mm-hmm.

   29. PRPaul Rosolie19:11

       That's the western Amazon.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:13

       Wow, so they just gutted it.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah, yeah, yeah. I-…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      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.

   2. PRPaul Rosolie30:07

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      (exhales)

   4. PRPaul Rosolie31:00

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan31:12

      (exhales)

   6. PRPaul Rosolie31:12

      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.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:18

      Wow. Jesus Christ.

   8. PRPaul Rosolie31:24

      (laughs) Uh-

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:24

      I would argue that that's crazier than the moon.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie31:26

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:27

       You know, like you say, going to the moon-

   12. PRPaul Rosolie31:28

       (sighs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:28

       ... or going to Mars and running around.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie31:30

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:30

       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-

   16. PRPaul Rosolie31:36

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:36

       ... but there's no people ever.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie31:38

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:38

       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.

   20. PRPaul Rosolie31:46

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:46

       You know, it's nature and it's a part of the earth that we live on-

   22. PRPaul Rosolie31:50

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:50

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

   24. PRPaul Rosolie31:53

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       That's why it's so fascinating and unique about the rainforest.

   26. PRPaul Rosolie31:57

       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?

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:12

       Yeah.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie32:14

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:49

       (laughs)

   30. PRPaul Rosolie32:49

       The first anaconda I ever caught... (laughs)
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   The thing is they…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      she was?

   2. PRPaul Rosolie45:01

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:24

      Whoa.

   4. PRPaul Rosolie45:24

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:54

      The harpy eagle's amazing. What a wild-looking creature.

   6. PRPaul Rosolie45:58

      Oh. Their, their talons.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:59

      They're so big too. Is that, is that the biggest eagle?

   8. PRPaul Rosolie46:02

      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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan46:13

      And they eat a lot of monkeys.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie46:14

       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.

   11. JRJoe Rogan46:31

       Wow.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie46:31

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:58

       Wow.

   14. PRPaul Rosolie46:59

       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-

   15. JRJoe Rogan47:57

       What a cool little tree house.

   16. PRPaul Rosolie47:58

       Little (laughs) . It takes like 10 minutes to walk up there.

   17. JRJoe Rogan48:01

       That's badass.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie48:02

       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.

   19. JRJoe Rogan48:08

       So how many feet up is it?

   20. PRPaul Rosolie48:09

       I think it's about... I think the floor is about 110 feet up.

   21. JRJoe Rogan48:12

       And how long did it take to build this thing?

   22. PRPaul Rosolie48:15

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

   23. JRJoe Rogan48:20

       That's insane.

   24. PRPaul Rosolie48:21

       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?

   25. JRJoe Rogan48:30

       It's amazing. You guys did an-

   26. PRPaul Rosolie48:31

       It's insane.

   27. JRJoe Rogan48:31

       ... amazing job. I love it.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie48:33

       Yeah. God it's-

   29. JRJoe Rogan48:34

       God, I wanna go.

   30. PRPaul Rosolie48:35

       That's beautiful.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:05:59

   Well, you have the...…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      fairly small in, in that family, right?

   2. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:02

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:14

      Really?

   4. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:15

      No, black caiman's a real... Black caiman's a real thing.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      Really?

   6. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:18

      Oh, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      18 feet long?

   8. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:20

      Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, like a black caiman's skull is like-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      Oh my God.

   10. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:23

       No, they're huge.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:23

       Let me see what that looks like.

   12. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:24

       Oh, they're huge.

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       I always thought-

   14. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:25

       Um...

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       I was under the impression that caimans were the smaller ones. I didn't know they got that big.

   16. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:29

       Yeah, no, black-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:30

       Oh my God, that's huge.

   18. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:30

       Black caiman looks like an alligator. Like it's, it's... They're monsters.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:34

       A big alligator. They get 18 feet long. Holy shit, man. So, you encountered those?

   20. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:43

       (laughs) Yeah, I've encountered those. I was, um-

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

       What the fuck, dude?

   22. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:47

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:48

       Dinosaurs.

   24. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:49

       Oh, they're huge.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

       Holy shit.

   26. PRPaul Rosolie1:00:51

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:42

       Wow.

   28. PRPaul Rosolie1:01:43

       And so we just were, like, checking out his refrigerator, like they were just there for later.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:47

       (laughs)

   30. PRPaul Rosolie1:01:47

       They were just, like, floating there.

Episode duration: 2:42:58