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Peter Attia MD#156-Jake Muise: Humanely harvesting axis deer while alleviating its impact on Hawaii’s ecosystems
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135 min read · 26,812 words- 0:00 – 0:25
intro
- PAPeter Attia
[upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. All right, Jake. Looking forward to, uh, to talking about, uh, a lot of things today here. Thanks for, uh, thanks for taking time out of work today. I know it's a, a busy time of year for you guys.
- JMJake Muise
Oh, my pleasure, man. I'm, uh, definitely looking forward to it.
- 0:25 – 11:50
Upbringing in Northern Alberta, a diet of moose meat, and learning to surf in Nova Scotia;
- PAPeter Attia
So I don't even know where to begin, man. Um, I almost feel like the easiest way to begin this is to, to sort of have people kind of get to know your story a little bit, sort of the way I've gotten to know it. Um, uh, you know, we're both Canadians. I guess we have that going for us, for better or worse.
- JMJake Muise
Yep.
- PAPeter Attia
Um-
- JMJake Muise
Yep
- PAPeter Attia
... I, I was reading my son a book yesterday about Canada that one of his Canadian cousins got him, and I was kind of trying to explain to him Canada is like the United States. It has provinces instead of states, and he wanted to know which one I was from. And-
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
... you know, I'm, like, pointing to Toronto and da, da, all this stuff, and then he's looking at the northern part and he's like, "Well, what's up there?" And I was like, "Yeah, that's the Arctic." Like-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... most people don't live up there, but of course, most people isn't Jake. So-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... you're growing up in the Arctic, right? Which is kinda not normal.
- JMJake Muise
Um, yeah. I, I... So we grew up in a small town called Rainbow Lake, and Rainbow Lake was technically in the Arctic Circle, right up on the Northern Alberta border, closer to the Northwest Territories. And who was it? I was just having a conversation yesterday with somebody about ice fishing. Like, you try and explain ice fishing to your kid, and they're just like, "Wait, what are you talking about? Like, you just sit in a box, like, in a hole that's potentially, like, four feet deep." Oh, that was the conversation we were having yesterday, was I remember my dad at six feet tall having one of the ice augers where you cut that hole in the ice, and him going all the way down, like burying it at six feet and being like, "Damn it," and like pulling it out of the hole and not getting to the water. Like, that's how cold it was. Um, and we're... It was a great conversation 'cause I can't wait to introduce my kids to that. It's such a, it's such an amazing experience, and obviously lots of resilience [laughs] comes from living in a place like that. But yeah, we started out, um... My dad was in the oil industry, and he m- we moved around a lot, but it was mostl- mostly in Northern Alberta, and we ended up in a town called Rainbow Lake that was a seven-hour drive from any other town. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
Meaning you were seven hours north of Edmonton?
- JMJake Muise
Oh, no. We were, we were 14 hours north of Edmonton.
- PAPeter Attia
So you weren't going to, like, Oilers games or anything.
- JMJake Muise
I went to one Oilers game.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
I, I got to s- I got to see... I would've been eight or nine, and we drove all the way down. It took, like, a day and a half, and I got to see Gretzky and Messier and... Like, I can still remember walking in and not under- understanding why they were so big, like, having never been to, like, a professional sports game before and, and, like, just seeing on TV. Like, you walk in and the players are huge. Like, they just look like giants. So yeah, it was... But part of that isolation was, um... My dad was a subsistence hunter, and like, I, I mean, ultimately I think where this, that's where this conversation goes. But we... Like, my dad every single year would shoot a moose, and that's what we ate all winter long. And we would go down to a place, um, closer to Calgary for the summer just to get out of the... Like, you remember you got mosquitoes, like, this big, right? [laughs] Just to get out of there. Um, and I remember my mom having to essentially pack for eight months. Like, eight to nine months she would be collecting groceries, like, all summer long, and we'd have a huge trailer that we'd take back up with us to this small town. I think it was only a couple thousand people. Um, and part of that was she wasn't bringing any steaks. Like, she ex- like, I remember telling us stories, like, we ate pheasant pablum as kids, and moose meat and... Yeah, so we were definitely, we were definitely way up there. [laughs] Um-
- PAPeter Attia
What kind of chores did you have as a kid? 'Cause I'm... Like, this morning-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... I, I asked my daughter to do the dishwasher, and then it's, like, taking the trash out. Like, these are sort of the, these are the chores you do if you live in Toronto or Austin.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
Uh-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... what, what, what are the chores of the Arctic?
- JMJake Muise
Um, well, there was always the inside chores, and I remember getting relegated to the bathroom, and with three boys, that was always a mess. But, like, I, like, I remember having to clean bathrooms, but I remember... Did you ever have to shovel the roof?
- PAPeter Attia
No, I never... I, I was the sh- snow shoveler, and I loved shoveling snow growing up-
- JMJake Muise
Oh, I did too
- PAPeter Attia
... 'cause it was such a good workout. It was amazing, but I never, I guess we never had enough snow that the roof was at structural risk.
- JMJake Muise
So one of the regular chores was you had to shovel the roof.
- 11:50 – 26:00
How volleyball brought Jake to Hawaii where he met the Molokai people;
- JMJake Muise
and then obviously, I mean, it's jumping forward, but the move to Hawaii after that, you can imagine the University of Hawaii calling and saying, "We want you to come out here." I was like- Wait, where, where do I sign? [laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
Well, so let's-
- JMJake Muise
With the recruiting
- PAPeter Attia
... yeah, let's-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... let's back up for a second. In all of this-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... business, where do you discover your passion for volleyball? 'Cause that's obviously what got you out to Hawaii.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Um, the last year we were in Northern Alberta, um, you know how it goes. You always do what your older brother does, right? You've g- you've got an older brother? Or is he younger?
- PAPeter Attia
No, no, I'm the oldest.
- JMJake Muise
You're the oldest. So whatever Josh did, I did. And, and Josh started playing volleyball, and, um, I remember just going to a couple practices. And I don't know if it's 'cause we jumped on the trampoline so much as a kid, or I did martial arts for a while, I did taekwondo. We picked it up pretty fast 'cause we were coordinated. And then we moved, and it was probably my saving grace when we moved to Nova Scotia because it was a skill set I had that let me meet a whole bunch of people, and I think my parents just doubled down on it, saying like, "We're just gonna stick him in a whole bunch of volleyball." Like, whether it was, you know, middle school or club ball, it was just, it was just such a great way to integrate us into a new community at the age of, you know, 15, 16, when it's pretty awkward. So ... And, and that was it. It, it was just a sport that... And I did, I think every other sport under the sun, like, through high school, but it was the one that stuck. And it was one of those things like, you know, driving or bow hunting for, for you. Like, you just, you, you just never ha- hesitated to do more and more and more of it. So it was something that we fall in love with, and got to do that at a really high level for, like, through the teens, including, like, Canada's Youth Olympic program, and then, like, Junior Olympic programs. And then it was actually at a Junior Olympic program that the University of Hawaii saw me play. And you know what was hilarious? Is I found out later what sealed the deal was I sent them... So Tino Reyes, who was, like, the assistant coach, I sent him pictures of us surfing with icebergs in the background. And, and I th- I guess they were on the fence about me 'cause I'm small. Like, I'm only six feet tall. And, um, he had to, like, he fought for me, saying, "If this kid can do this, whatever we're gonna get, like, the level of resiliency we're gonna get out of him is gonna be, like, it's gonna be worth it, even if we're losing a couple inches." Um, so yeah, [laughs] it helped me get there, and I mean, volleyball's taken me all over the world. It's been, it's been amazing.
- PAPeter Attia
So, um, so you arrive to this amazing Division 1 volleyball school at literally the furthest place you can go. I don't think you can stay in North America and go further than Nova Scotia to-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... Oahu. Can you? I mean, I guess you could have gone to, you know, uh, [laughs] Kauai or something.
- JMJake Muise
Maybe somewhere in Tahiti.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, yeah.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. [laughs] Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
But, but, um, okay, so you've gone as far as possible. Um, how much of a culture shock is that, and how quickly do you kind of assimilate? Uh, 'cause, 'cause there's actually kind of some similarities, I think, in the culture as well, right?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, absolutely. I, I think the initial shocks were tiny. Like, I remember... Oh, here's a good one. When I came on my recruiting trip, they were obviously really smart. They were like, "Here's the university. Here's this amazing stadium that holds 10,000 people." They got, like, the best attendance for volleyball in the country. And then they take me to the beach, and they're like, "Here's a pair of board shorts, and here's a surfboard. Go for it. We're gonna pick up, like, tomorrow." And they had dropped me off at my hotel. And you're, you'll love this as a Canadian. I go to put the board shorts on, and I'm like, "Well, where's the liner?" Like, "Where's the, where's the white stu- like, where's the liner?" And o- obviously, every pair of shorts I'm wearing, like, we didn't even... Board shorts didn't even exist in Canada in 1999. And like, I remember, like, being so confused.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And I was like, "Well, must mean I have to wear my underwear with these things," which of course [laughs] you're not supposed to do. So I put the tighty whities on underneath the board shorts, tie them up, head out to, like, Kaiser Bowls, which is, like, a straight local break. Like, it was right in front of the hotel. And then paddling out with, like, the tighty whities hanging out the back, and they're like, locals are looking at me and just shaking their head, like, "Oh, what are we..." Like, and pasty white. [laughs] So, like, there were definitely some incremental culture shocks, including realizing that your shorts didn't have to have liners in them. [laughs] Um, and, and then when I got h- when I got to the University of Hawaii, so that would, um, recruiting trip was the spring before, and then when I arrived in September, also, like, a accidental shock which turned out to be the best, probably the best thing in my life, was they, they messed up my dorm assignment, and they put me... And this is where, like, all of the folks you know come into play. They put me in the dorm for all of the local kids that didn't have good enough grades, so they were taking the summer program to get into school. And they happened to throw me in the wing with all the Molokai kids.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And I mean, A, like, I had never... On the, the recruiting trip was so short. Like, I remember seeing different things, but, like, I had never been around a Polynesian population before. And y- you're as- like, you're astounded how big these people are. And so I remember walking in the front door of Johnson Hall and opening up the door, and they're all sitting around playing music. They're playing, like, playing their ukulele, and one of the, like, the mo- the J- the biggest person I'd ever seen in my life, like 6'2", 300 pounds, had an ukulele that looked, like, this big. Like, he's playing music. And they're like "You in the right place?" And I was like, "Johnson Hall B?" They're like, "Yeah." I was like, "Room 201?" And I was like, "Yeah." And there's just, like, dead silence, and there's, like, eight of them, and they're like... The biggest one was like, [snorts] "Boy, we're gonna eat you."
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And I was just like, "Oh." And true Molokai fashion, true aloha fashion, best friends, like, literally after that statement. They're like, "Well, you're here. We're gonna take care of you." And that's... Like, there's this resounding theme here that they'll always give somebody the chance up front. They will always assume you have your, like, everybody's best interest in mind, until you don't. And it was the best thing that ever happened in my life. Like, they, they took me under their wing and, I mean, everything I... Like, all of the best parts of my life have come from walking into the wrong dorm, for sure.
- PAPeter Attia
Let's, uh, hit pause for one second and give people-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... a little bit of an understanding about what is so unique about Molokai. Because for many people listening to this podcast, they'll certainly understand the Big Island Kona, and most people have... You know, if they've gone to Hawaii, they've probably been to Maui and, uh, people understand that, you know, Honolulu sits on Oahu, and that's the most populous island. So y- you know, you've sorta got these three islands that get all of the attention. Um, but then there's some other islands that are a little less understood and, and, and sort of, you know, you go into the more exotic, you go out to Kauai and, and people would maybe even go to Lanai. But Molokai is very rarely touched. Um, I feel privileged to have been there, uh, several times. It, to me, is a very special place. Um, but I don't think, uh... I, I think it's worth spending a few moments diving into what you just talked about, which is tell us about this island both from its geography and, perhaps more importantly, its culture, and why you would, you know, why that would lead you to conclude what you've concluded since.
- JMJake Muise
Sure. I mean, no part of what I'm about to say is gonna justify how special that place is, so I'll start there. Um, it's 10 miles by 30 miles. I think it's about 180,000 acres, and there are 7,000 people, and that population has, I think, stayed the same for, for a long time. And of those 7,000 people, I would guess 6,000 of them are true locals. Like, it is very much an island of, like, a local population and a loc- and certainly a, one of the higher per-density populations of Hawaiians as well. Um, it is... What makes it so special is they have fought for years and years and years to keep Molokai the exact same way it has always been. There isn't, like... There's no s- there's no stoplights. There's no major resorts. Like, I mean, there's a few that came up in the '80s. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
No, no escalators. There's actually a town ordinance that says no building can exceed the height of the tallest palm tree on the island.
- 26:00 – 29:10
Jake’s introduction to axis deer;
- JMJake Muise
uh, tossing on top of that like a student athlete schedule. I think lots of lessons learned there as well. Um, and then obviously post college, I continued that career into Europe. Um, but that entire time, like being, you know, being able to go to Molokai and learning more about that culture, learning more about axis deer, um, yeah, it was, it was, it was an amazing experience. And as an athlete, and I don't think I really realized this till like the third year, 'cause your first two years you're, you're still 19 and 20. You're probably, you're an idiot anyway. Like [chuckles] um, I remember in my third year thinking, "I feel so much better when I have deer meat in my freezer." So we were going back and hunting and bring-- like we were broke. Like I had to starve through college without axis deer. Like we were going back hunting, jumping on like the super tiny plane, like filling up coolers that were way overweight and then l- like bargaining with people on our floor for freezer space. We're like, "Hey, we'll give you a couple pounds if like you store 10 pounds in your freezer." [chuckles] Um, and I remember in my, in my third year as I like, I think I started like realizing how the benefits of building strength and lifting weights and all of those things and I remember thinking like, "Man, I feel so much better when I have axis deer here." Um, yeah, so it, they kinda all got intertwined and, and, um, college was, yeah, college was just such an amazing experience to, to combine those two things.
- PAPeter Attia
You know, obviously we're gonna talk in such depth about axis deer.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
At the time, how much did you understand? Was it frankly just like, "Oh yeah, this is kind of a local pest here and, you know, this is something that we hunt here because it's so prevalent." Or did, how much did you understand the history of how they got there and what the true significance ecologically was? Did you, did you know any of that at the time?
- JMJake Muise
I honestly didn't. It was, it was, it was entirely recreational. It was only later, it was only later when I saw like the first instance of like there's these, there's these periods where there's too many axis deer and essentially they'll lay down and die. They don't have any feed. It was only when I started seeing the impact that I started saying, "Wait a second," because that, that animal on the island of Molokai is, is, is revered. Like nobody's running around Molokai calling it an invasive species. Um, that's been a part of that culture for 100 plus years. They find extreme value in it. They, they understand the detriment that it's there and, and I think there's hope for better or, or better management options in the future. But the family, when the family introduced me to it, they didn't introduce it to me as the idea of it's an invasive pest we need to control. It was introduced as this is an amazing resource that we get to utilize and something we really enjoy recreationally. And so that, and I didn't know anything more than that. It wasn't, again, it wasn't till I experienced or saw some of those
- 29:10 – 34:58
Pro volleyball in Europe, missing the Olympic team by one spot, and his return to Hawaii;
- JMJake Muise
things that started to kinda put it together.
- PAPeter Attia
So post college you go off to Europe, you're playing professional volleyball and you, you decide you're gonna try out for the Canadian Olympic team. Obviously you don't get, you don't get to make that choice just willy-nilly. You have to be invited, you're good enough. You, you go to camp and you come up one short, right?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. And-
- PAPeter Attia
Which by anybody's standard is remarkable, right? To be the-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... to be the, the last guy that almost made it to the Olympic team and Canada's a very good, uh, uh, team in volleyball, right? Like it's not like-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... you know, it's sort of-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... I always say like-
- JMJake Muise
They're top 10 in the world.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah. It's like in swimming in the United States that poor person who finishes third at the Olympic trials 'cause the only, United States only takes two per event. That person who finishes third would easily be in the finals for most events in swimming. So it's sort of similar.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
Um, i- is, is it, how heartbreaking is this?
- JMJake Muise
I mean, I was, I was honest, I don't think I've ever talked about this with anybody. I was devastated Like I flew, I closed my contract in, um, Bali, uh, a month early, flew back to Canada to like make it to tryouts. I thought I had like an incredible tryout, and they just had this guy that it, and a guy I'd looked up to. They just had this guy there for eight years, and he was so calm and such a phenom. And ho- and Canada had one of its best teams ever, so it wasn't like this is gonna be a building year. This was like, "We're gonna try and get our best placement in the Olympics ever," and, and they did. Um, and they just, yeah, said, "You're one short." And it was amazing because that was the last goal I had. That was the last goal I had for my volleyball career after who even knows, hundreds of thousands of hours. I just remember thinking like, "Well, what now?" Like, and the first thing was [laughs] , "Well, I'm going to Molokai." [laughs] Like, i- it was, like I had zero plans. Like my plan was I was gonna stay in Canada for the in- indefinitely and train with the Olympic team. Like that was the plan. Like I hadn't thought that we had an alternative.
- PAPeter Attia
Had you thought past that? This was '04 I'm guessing?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, so this is Athens game. So was your... Did you think that, "Okay, I'm gonna make the Olympic team. We're gonna go off to Athens. I'm gonna come back, and then I'm gonna do what?" Did you think, "I'm gonna coach," or did you always think you were gonna go back to Hawaii?
- JMJake Muise
I... So I had to take a little step back because my, my capstone class in college for marketing and management, I wrote a business plan that actually won to mimic the model of New Zealand and domesticate axis deer. And s- and so near the end of college, I started to formulate these ideas of how I was gonna manage or what, what could we do that was a better option. And so the two years in Europe, I started, um, I started a nonprofit called the Axis Deer Institute. And well, you're, you're a good buddy, so I can tell you this. It was a complete, it was a complete farce because nobody would give me any of the studies out of India. So you know how you get like those little snippets when you go on Google? You can like pull up a study and you get the snippet, but you can't download the whole thing. Well, uh, like through the capstone class in college, I was trying to collect all of this like population information on axis deer or biological. Like I was trying to like, I was trying to figure it out, and nobody would give me [laughs] any information. So I started a nonprofit. It's called the Axis Deer Institute. So when I emailed somebody, I could say, "Hey, this is Jake Muise with the, I'm the executive director of the Axis Deer Institute." I'm still in college now. "We'd love to get this study to incorporate with what we're doing here in Hawaii." And all of a sudden, like I just, like all of these studies started flooding in.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
I was like, "This is amazing." So I had all of this information, and that came with me to Europe. That was like kind of my pastime in Europe was digging into all of those things. So to answer your question of what was the plan after that, it was, at that point it was, "Okay, wh- what can, what can we do?" That was like the next obsession and passion was w- what can we do to better manage axis deer? So that was already a thought, part of the thought process. So there was a little bit of a backdrop when, you know, I remember sitting in front of the two coaches and them saying, "Yeah, you're, you're not gonna make it." And like I didn't even have a return flight. I was like, "This is one way." And I called my mom and I said, "I'm going to Hawaii." And interestingly enough, I landed, went straight to Molokai, and four days later met my wife on Molokai. Um, and that started, uh, I mean, it started a whole bunch of things, but spent the summer there, played another year in Europe. And while in Europe she said, "Well, what are we doing?" Like, "Let's go home and, let's go home and do this thing. Let's make babies. Let's just do it." And that was it. Like that was the trigger to say, "Okay, like we're going home." Um, so that's how I found my back, my way back to Hawaii permanently was, I mean, through that, like through Molokai. And my wife is from Molokai. Um, and axis deer was already, like it was already there. Um, well, I didn't know,
- 34:58 – 55:45
History of axis deer in Hawaii—how a non-native species came to the islands, and the superpowers that make them so hard to hunt;
- JMJake Muise
I didn't know what I was gonna do, but it was there.
- PAPeter Attia
So let's, let's now go back and explain to folks what these axis deer are, how they got to Hawaii-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... how many of them there are, where they are. Um, because again, now it starts to kinda dovetail into my obsession, which is relatively new.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
This is an obsession for me personally that's only been going on for two years, and, uh, that coincides with when you and I met. Um, so before you give the real story, I will just say at a distance that my attraction to axis deer can only be described at a, as a love at first sight. It's, you know-
- JMJake Muise
Hmm
- PAPeter Attia
... growing up in Canada, you see whitetail all day long. Uh, I mean, I basically just saw them as things not to hit with your car. That is basically [laughs] like, you know, this is like, this is a thing you don't wanna hit, right? And, uh-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... and it w- they weren't an issue in Toronto where I grew up. But because my dad had a quarry outside of Toronto, my dad had, uh, a couple of quarries north of Toronto where we would spend some time-
- JMJake Muise
Oh, interesting
- PAPeter Attia
... that's where you would really see, you know, the whitetail. Um, but it was something very different the first time I laid eyes on an axis deer, which was, "Oh, that's a totally different animal." Like, that's regal, right? That's, that's-
- JMJake Muise
Hmm
- PAPeter Attia
... breathtaking. Um, and obviously as we get more and more into this discussion, when you start to talk about what it means to hunt that deer and what it means to harvest that deer and what it means to eat that deer- Again, it just lives in kind of its own category. But this is obviously not a species of deer that is native to Hawaii. So how did it get there, and where did it come from?
- JMJake Muise
Oh, okay. Um, 1868, King Kamehameha V hired the Matheson Trading Company to get them out of India. My, my wife, Ku'u, um, she translates Hawaiian newspapers. Odd, odd sidebar here. Only 5% of Hawaii's newspapers are translated.
- PAPeter Attia
Hmm.
- JMJake Muise
So 95% of their history is buried in there. So she helps translate newspapers. But she's found she can search them digitally by Hawaiian words. So she's found all these incredible articles, and the article explains them, like, coming down the Yangtze River on a boat called the Lachnaggar, them arriving on Oahu. There were, there were two bucks and five does, and they were on Oahu for-
- PAPeter Attia
And just for folks who maybe don't, aren't familiar with deer, the bucks are the males, the females are the does.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Um, and so they, they stay on the ship on Oahu, and [laughs] actually, on the way from Oahu to Molokai, a s- a, a baby buck was born, and they named it King Kamehameha V. [laughs] Um, and they arrive on Molokai, and so they're only placed on the island of Molokai. None were put on Oahu. Uh, and they put a kapu. They put a restriction on harvesting them for the local people there. They were, they were at that point the king's deer, and they didn't understand, like, they didn't understand this animal. I don't, I still don't know why he sought this particular animal. At that point, Hawaii was trading with, like, people all over the Pacific, and they could have done whitetail or el- I mean, who knows? Um, so it's really interesting to under- like, I don't know why he picked that particular animal. But-
- PAPeter Attia
I mean, it is beautiful
- JMJake Muise
... they get to Molokai, and they... It's, it's a... Exactly. Yeah, and maybe that's what it was. Um, but they get to this small island of Molokai, and they start to proliferate very quickly. And I think as early as, I think it was 1898, there's articles about them thinking there was, estimating there were 7,000 deer, and they were already decimating what they were, like, describing in the upland forests. And the subsequent year, there's an article about them hiring shooters. They called them sharpshooters from California, and the sharpshooters from California recorded killing 5,000 deer. And it's, it's amazing. Like, at the same time, a couple years later, there's an article in the then what would have been, like, territorial government about them arguing over the management of axis deer. And two of actually the Hawaiian reps were saying, "We have to do something about this. Like, they're gonna continue to destroy our upland forests." So as, as far back as... What is that? That's 100 years ago. As far back as 100 years ago, people were already recognizing the, the impacts axis deer were having on the communities. And then-
- PAPeter Attia
Ooh. What's their replication cycle? Uh, how, how long, uh, is their gestation cycle? How many, uh, babies and, you know, blah, blah, blah?
- JMJake Muise
Gestational period is 238 days.
- PAPeter Attia
That's very similar to humans.
- JMJake Muise
So three-
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, right.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, so three, three fawns, so three baby deer every two years. They don't do twins. Um, but what makes axis deer so prolific, and they're one of the very few deer species on the planet that are like this, is a deer every year, it's called casting their antlers. So a deer every year, their antlers fall off. Um, and during that period where the antlers fall off, their testosterone levels drop, and their sperm is not viable for reproduction. And so you'll see those long periods, and I'm sure that's evolutionary thr- so throughout the winters, et cetera, et cetera. So axis deer are a tropical species, and when they cast their antlers, their testosterone levels stay high enough to breed year-round. So their population dynamics look like 33% a year. Like, they look like those hockey stick curves once they get started. And I'm sure King Kamehameha, King Kamehameha V had no idea that was the case.
- PAPeter Attia
Right.
- JMJake Muise
Um, and you toss in extr- I, I mean, you've seen these animals. They're extraordinarily healthy. The worst... We take data on every single animal we harvest, and of the 15,000 deer we've harvested, of the f- of those does, of those females, 89% are lactating or pregnant at the time of harvest. So they are such a prolific species, and then you put them in Hawaii where there's obviously no predators, perfect feed. They can jump six to eight-foot fences and move wherever they need to to maintain their own health, and you've, you've got a pretty astounding, well, invasive species, but also resource. So-
- PAPeter Attia
Well, that's, that's part of the thing too is they... You know, I, I sort of try to... You know, the other day I posted something on Instagram, uh, something archery related, and, you know, someone asked a comment which was I don't see the sport in this. Like, I don't, you know-
- 55:45 – 1:14:30
A potential catastrophe avoided on The Big Island—The amazing story of how Jake tracked and found axis deer that were secretly brought to The Big Island;
- PAPeter Attia
Wow.
- JMJake Muise
Um, so, so yeah, that's how they get to the three main islands. Um, and then in 2000 and... I think it was 2010 or '11, um, was when that introduction by private individuals, it wasn't the state, um, they decided they were gonna trap deer on Maui, fly them to, excuse me, the Big Island via helicopter, drop them off, and-
- PAPeter Attia
How many deer did they take?
- JMJake Muise
They dropped off four.
- PAPeter Attia
Two and two?
- JMJake Muise
And, uh, three and one, three does and a buck. And nobody-- and they do it quietly, and nobody finds out about it till about a year and a half later. Um, and that's when it started like... That's when there was like, "Wait, there's a camera trap image." Actually, a rancher saw it. They called me and Mike, 'cause we were already closely tied to... I mean, both my wife's family and my Hanai family are in the conservation community, and, and so we, we found out about it right away, and everybody said, "If you got any chance of, like, finding these things, here are the two guys to ask." And we went out and looked in the area. Now, remember, it's-- ac-actually, I remember doing this. The area they dropped them off, they didn't know where they were. Somebody had just seen one in passing on the road. The area was the size of Molokai. It was 70 square miles was, like, the management area. So I remember, like, getting to the first one and being like, "We think there's deer in here." And it's like a 70 square mile area, and I just remember thinking, "How the hell are we gonna find these animals?" And we're-- and me and Mike already knew how, how extraordinary these animals were to find, even when there were-- there's thousands of them.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, I mean, it's safe to say at this point you and Mike know almost as much as any two people about their behavior. Now going back to Mike growing up on Molokai, I mean literally walking to school every day hunting, eating this animal every day. I mean, and I've hunted with Mike, which is, you know, one of the most remarkable experiences anyone can have. Um, this is basically a guy who knows everything. They-- this is the closest human to an axis deer. Like, he's, he's almost able to-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... sprout antlers of his own. That's as close as we will get in our evolution to them. He just knows where they go.
- JMJake Muise
Uh, yeah. Um, anytime you s-
- PAPeter Attia
So they reach out to you guys, but, but this is the government. This is basically the, the state is saying, "We have a problem because we've got these three potentially more deer on the Big Island, and if this thing's left unchecked, it's, it's going to be a catastrophe."
- JMJake Muise
Millions of deer.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. And the Big Island being, like, our primary ag hub, our primary food hub for... And these, obviously, axis deer eat almost anything. So it started a three-year project, and it took us three years to find those animals. And I mean, you, you know how difficult it is, like, to wake up every morning and either, like, walk quietly enough and in tune enough to, like, assume you're gonna see something or sit quietly enough, like, so you can, like... The, the level of like-- I just remember being so exhausted mentally. And we went a year and a half before we saw a deer. And you know Mike, like, so it's like, "They're not here. There's no way." Like, it was this constant mental battle. It was like we literally hunted almost every single day for a year and a half without seeing an animal.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah. What I think is amazing about that is everything you just said, which includes the idea that at some level in the back of your mind you have to be entertaining the thought they didn't survive, right?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
And we could be sitting here looking for a skeleton.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. And, [sighs] and I remember, like, sitting across-- Like, I remember me and Mike being probably the perfect partners for this, 'cause whenever I was like, "There's not a chance, man. We've walked this place eight times." B-part of it, it was so big, and it, it's these-- It was an area that has, it's h- very, very windy, so there's windblown trees over the vast majority of the area. So think about a briar grove or what are they called? Um... It, it literally was like doing yoga all day long, like you were crawling in and through all of these trees, which deer love. So it was like physically exhausting, but then it was mentally exhausting 'cause you were only covering a certain amount of acres. You're looking for like a single piece of scat- Or like deer feces. You're looking for like a single rub. You're looking for like anything that would tell you that they're there. And what we didn't know was they had found a safe spot and were encompassing... Like, it was less than 100 acres, Peter. And s- so we were looking in like... But part of, I think what's important of this story is at the point we were like, "There has to be a better way," that's when we learned and started, like, working with the military for the FLIR equipment, and the FLIR equipment was ultimately what found them for us. So FLIR equipment picks up infrared or heat signatures from bodies, and then they'll translate that into an electrical optical image for you to be able to view, and the military was involved. Like, it was such a big deal, and the military loaned us one of their binocular units. And me and Mike were like, it was that instant realization, like, "How did we ever do this without this thing?" And that ultimately, over a period of a couple months, we were able to start chunking off huge areas of land and being able to view with great detail these areas from a thermography standpoint, and that's how we found them. But-
- PAPeter Attia
Do you remember that first day-
- JMJake Muise
And then, and then that tool is-
- PAPeter Attia
... that you actually saw one?
- JMJake Muise
Oh. [laughs] Oh. Y- it was crazy because Mike was looking through it, and it was-- We're doing all of this in the middle of the night, 'cause, uh, you can only really use FLIR effectively in the middle of the night. And I'm kinda have, like, my seat back in the Tacoma, and, and I see, like, Mike take his eyes off the binocular unit and then put his eyes on and then take his eyes off, and he turned around, and he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Uh, he, he looked so pur- like, I didn't even know what it was. Like, I thought he saw, like, a dead body or something. And he's-- we saw, and the only reason we saw it, it was a buck in velvet, and the velvet antler has so much blood in it. It's so hot, and it was s- it was, like, five miles away.
- PAPeter Attia
Wow.
- JMJake Muise
And we just saw, like, this velvet antler in this super dense cover, and Mike was like, "That's a deer. Like, I think that's a deer." And so I got on the binocular unit, and we had been training for, like, [laughs] can you think? Like, been training for this forever. And so I stayed there, and m- we, like, hooked up via radio, and basically over the next four hours, Mike went down. I guided him in, like, via binocular unit. And while he was going down there, we saw several other deer. Uh, I think it was two, three more. And yeah, Mike was able to find and get that buck. He just missed the doe that was with it. But we then knew, like, it was a brand-new realization, like, "They're here."
- PAPeter Attia
How many deer were-
- JMJake Muise
Like, "They are there"
- PAPeter Attia
... were there at the time? Was it still just four, or had they reproduced like crazy?
- JMJake Muise
[lip smacks] It was still just four, actually. It ended up being five, but at the time, we-- there were only four that we knew of. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
And it still took you another year and a half to capture them all?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, 'cause we weren't, we weren't smart enough. We bumped their home range, and they moved several miles away, and we had to go find them again. Like-
- 1:14:30 – 1:17:00
Jake’s work helping ranchers on Maui;
- PAPeter Attia
That puts that into perspective.
- JMJake Muise
Um, yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
So, so you guys go back to Maui, and is, is there something about the burden of axis deer there that has you start to focus your effort and refine your thinking about what you and Mike can be doing specifically there? Because at this point in time, it's safe to say there's no real concerted strategy around what to do, right? You have this animal that, uh... A- and by the way, in Maui, I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the relationship between the people of Maui and the axis deer is as affectionate as it might be on Molokai, right? I mean, I think the destruction is much greater.
- JMJake Muise
Oh. Yeah. Um, I mean, the first meeting I w- I went to on Maui, they were, won't mention the person, but calling them spotted rats. Like, I think they had already for sure found value within the subsistence community as that, but they were dropped off in the central area for all ranching. And so they, they obviously directly compete with cattle for feed, and they break fences and, and they started to see that, that population grow pretty quickly. And so the, excuse me, the move from The Big Island to Maui was primarily because of opportunity. What ended up happening is the ranchers on Maui, who were of course watching this closely and saying, "Don't let these things get established on The Big Island." One particular rancher on Maui said, "Wait, you guys actually got it done. Like, you guys might know what you're doing." Like, right as we closed that project, they said, "We've got tens of thousands of deer over here. We don't care what you do with them. Just come and shoot them." And I mean, we couldn't do that. Like, all of the, all of the learnings and experience and, like cultural values that we, like that came from Molokai, we're, we're still very much like a part of who we were. And, and so for a rancher to be able to say like, "Well, just shoot them all. Like, bury them. We don't care." That was like... And we had already had, like I'd already done some research on, like Europe has an extensive venison industry. New Zealand has an extensive venison industry. Um, and already had like thought, that thought process, and that, but that was the trigger to say, "Wait, there's
- 1:17:00 – 1:24:12
The detrimental impact of an imbalanced axis deer population;
- JMJake Muise
gotta be a better way." Like-
- PAPeter Attia
Because by this point, that was already happening on other, on Lanai. They were basically shooting these things out of helicopters and just letting them die on the... I mean, it, uh, it, it sort of became this issue of, look, these things are causing so much damage. And I also wanna get into some of the specifics of the damage because-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... as I would learn, and I was surprised to learn this, it wasn't just, hey, they're competing for the same resources as the cattle, which is the, you know, the business here. But it's how that would even trickle into the ecology of the ocean. That was completely new to me, and I, I simply wouldn't have understood the nitrogen balance and the change and all of that. Um, so yeah. Uh, i- it's, the, the farmers understandably are saying, "Look, I don't care what has to happen. If the government is willing to get into helicopters with AR-15s and shoot these things out of the air, I'm happy to have the carcasses laying around." And, and explain a little bit more about what the full extent of the life cycle is in terms of the disruption to the native species there from basically land to water.
- JMJake Muise
Um, yeah. So I mean, we have to take a little bit of a step back in terms of evolution in that Hawaii's the most isolated land mass on the planet. Everything here evolved, like kinda textbook adaptive radiation. Like, everything over here has evolved over millennia to, to be best suited for its environment right here, which included no large mammals apart from a bat, and certainly no grazing herbivores. So like we have mints that are mint-less. Like we are, and now we are the endangered species capital of the world. We have more endangered species per acre here than anywhere else in the world. I think we're, I think 30% of the endangered species list i- in the US is all Plants, birds from Hawaii, and that is a function of the introduction of non-native species and how they affect biodiversity. So the impact of axis deer, you know, Peter, probably the most influential impact to our, like, communities as a whole is at the very top of our mountains, and you've been to one of those places. They are... Again, as one of the most isolated land masses, water is probably... I mean, you guys had some issues with water this week. Like, water is one of the most important things for us as a community, and-
- PAPeter Attia
And you guys had snow on Haleakalā la- recently, right?
- JMJake Muise
We still do. Yeah, yeah. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
A- amazing
- JMJake Muise
... wa- water is, and the Hawaiians knew this, the word for wealth was waiwai. It was water. In, in, like, for, for native Hawaiians, our watersheds are our most important resource, and those watersheds developed, it was a, it's almost like in this permaculture fashion, where there's these three layers, and they've developed to capture all of this fog and rain, and they go directly into our aquifers. Any ungulate, deer included, ungulate being a cloven-hoofed animal, so goats, pigs, deer, et cetera, et cetera. Any ungulate in our forest, it might as well be a salad bar. Like, they, like, they literally can eat anything. There are no protections. Those plants have developed no protections for themselves. And once those animals affect the efficiency of our water feds, they affect how much water they capture at a significant rate. So their, their most profound effect is in our mountains and affecting how that ecosystem collects water. And so as we come down the hill, that's when they start interacting with our ranchers and farmers, and like we talked about, they directly compete for feed at a rate of about seven to one. Every seven deer equates to about one cow. But there's a, a lettuce farmer can lose 10 acres of lettuce overnight when a herd of 1,000 deer come in. Like, they'll absolutely decimate. And fencing is optional for deer. Like, we've seen deer hop over six-foot fences like nothing. So this downstream effect of them impacting how we capture water and then them impacting our food systems, all the time they're also degrading the un- like, the understory. And what happens when we have large rain events is all of the sediment, all of our soil, I mean, if there's anything more valuable than water, it's soil. All of the soil that have taken, I mean, tens of thousands of years to form on this tiny island, especially, like, coming from lava rock, all of the soil, all of this incredibly valuable topsoil will run off into our oceans. And it doesn't even stop there. There's, like, deer scat are extremely high in nitrogen. You kinda mentioned this. Like, the downstream effect of not only the soil depositing on our reefs, but also the impact of, like, the nitrogen from, like, thousands of deers' feces starts to bleach our reefs as well. And, and I can't say for sure there's a direct link between, like, that nitrogen and how it affects it. We know that may be the case with soil. But more than anything, thousands of pounds of sediment come down in these ev- in these events, and when you, when you fly over our islands, I fly every week, you just see these crazy plumes, like, miles and miles wide of this red dirt that is just going out and covering the reefs. And well, guess what's important about our reef systems, apart from obviously the incredible ecosystems they support? Food. Like, we've lost significant amounts of reef and the fish that then go along with them. So there's this, this m- they, they call it mauka to makai. There's this downstream effect of their impact that is... I mean, I don't even think we completely understand, um, the cumulative impact. Like, but it's... We can see it every time these events happen, and we can see it when we're in watersheds and, um, part of understand, like... Yeah. And then, so that understanding was obviously what spurred on, you know, the want to better manage them, but along with it is, like we talked about, they're a food resource. So they're not only a food resource, but they're impacting our food security. And so it's this [chuckles] like, when they're imbalanced, it's a double-edged sword in that they're being d- they're significantly detrimental, and they're impacting our food security here as the most isolated land mass on the planet. So it's just all, the vast majority of their impact is not a net positive for our communities when you're at such
- 1:24:12 – 1:35:30
The incredible evacuation of farm animals from lava-locked land due to a volcano eruption;
- JMJake Muise
imbalance in these populations.
- PAPeter Attia
And as you're coming into sort of your deeper and deeper understanding of this, you're also continuing to develop with Mike this unbelievable credibility with the community in terms of, uh, like, it just blows my mind what you guys continue to do. So now fast-forward to the volcano eruptions, and-
- JMJake Muise
Oh, man
- PAPeter Attia
... so, so, so let's talk a little bit about what happened and what, what type of a threat that was to livestock and what, you know, you guys are doing with helicopters. I mean, this, this, this is the stuff that's out of movies. Then again, I think, uh-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... I'm not asking you to tell this story from the sake of boasting about what you have done, but I think, I think it, it kind of continues to round out the story of y- you know, these are guys who, uh, first and foremost are here to protect, uh, Hawaii.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Um- We, yeah, we... I mean, with Mike as a partner, we just develop a knack to get things done, and, like, there was so much problem-solving and as we developed solutions for Axis Deer and what one of the... A couple years in, w- we had a large eruption on Kilauea on the Big Island, and we had already developed, it was the first of its kind, it was a live cattle net capture system. You gotta imagine, a cow's a really big thing. And basically what it was, if I can explain this properly, was it was, it was a large metal frame, a circular frame, with a triangle net, and there was... It was attached to the tip of the net, so the top of the cone, and it was attached to the frame of the circular structure. And what would happen is, via helicopter, we would put the cone over the animal, we would release the top of the net. The net would fall down, the animal would walk out to the end of the net, and then we would pick up the frame, and it would be sitting in this, like, perfect cradle A... Yeah, so it had like... It was a little hammock ride. Well, we had a, a... Several years ago, we had a, a very unexpected and very quick-moving lava flow. We're talking, it was about 500 yards wide moving at 50 miles an hour.
- PAPeter Attia
Oof.
- JMJake Muise
And it, and it ended up completely destroying an entire community. Like, it's gone. There are no remnants of it. It, like, it just completely wiped the whole community out. I mean, it was this amazing community. It's, there's still... It's, it was a significant loss for the community. But in the process, two lava flows formed, and they cut off a huge portion of a ranching area, and including homes and a bunch of things in there, and the state, uh, needed a solution for... They w- they wanted to find a way for these animals not to die, and me and Mike, of course, said, "Well, we can do that." [laughs] Having zero context. "Well, w- we can go and do that." And I remember driving out the first morning. So we bring in all of the equipment, like, got it in the back of the truck, and we're driving out early in the morning, and it looked like Armageddon. Like, the entire sky in the middle of the night was red and roiling and, like, it was creating... There was so much heat, it was creating its own weather system. There was lightning. Like, it was, it was such an odd experience to be driving towards it with the idea that we were gonna fly around and pick these animals up, flying over these 50 mile an hour lava flows. But me and Mike were like, "Yeah, we can do it." And at that point, we, Uka was already a part of our team, and you've met Uka. [laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
So now we're talking the dream team here.
- JMJake Muise
And Uka's like, [laughs] and Uka's like, "Boys, we're gonna be lava cowboys."
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And you know Uka. [laughs] I'm just like, "Oh, man." Um, eh, but I think we needed that level of positivity. Like, what we were facing was, was fairly substantial, and it was, it was risky, and I was never gonna risk any of my guys' life. Ultima- it was... Ultimately, it was my responsibility. I wasn't gonna risk any of their life for a cow. Um, but long story short, we get on site, we use the FLIR really quickly to figure out how many animals are there and where they are, and then we come back and we hook the net up. And there's lots of good stories, but probably the first one is, is probably the most interesting. We go over to find the first one, and we were working with a helicopter pilot we'd only worked with a couple times before, but he was, he was amazing. And he goes and he puts the net over, and we have like restroom-
- PAPeter Attia
How, how, how long do you have? Like, what's the distance? How, how close do you need to be to the cow?
- JMJake Muise
Well, we need to be... It's a 100-foot line-
- PAPeter Attia
Oh my God
- JMJake Muise
... under the... So it's, this, this cone is hanging under the cow, and there's like... You're eye level with, like, lava flows, and there's, there was something called fissure 8. There's like, fissure 8 is blowing in front of you, like, a couple thousand yards. Like, and you're seeing, like, chunks of magma going everywhere, and, like, you're seeing the ground heat up on two sides. And so the pilot's going, and like-
- PAPeter Attia
How is that heat by itself not interfering with what the pilot's able to do in terms of stabilizing the helicopter?
- JMJake Muise
Because the cows had moved themselves into the internal area between the two flows. So we were coming over the first lava flow, and, like, the helicopter went like this, "Pink." Like, there was so much heat coming off the flow.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs] Oh my God.
- JMJake Muise
It was like, like, it was tossing the helicopter 300, 400 feet in the air, like, almost instantly. And so we get to the inside, and constantly they're like, "Are you sure we... Like, we're good?" I'm like, "If you're good, I'm good." And there's GoPro video of all of this. Um, so he makes, not the mistake, but the cow he happened to catch first was a huge bull, and it was right at the max lifting capacity of the helicopter. But once that bull, he was a 2,000-pound animal, once that bull is in the helicop- or in the net system, it's fairly difficult to get out by yourself. And the... Well, it wasn't CO2. I can't remember what the, what chemical we were most worried about or what gas we were most worried about, but we all had, like, indicators. Well, we're wearing, like, indicators and, like, I remember, like, having to get on the ground and, like, seeing blue spots. Like, the gas levels were, were fairly dangerous as well, so we didn't wanna get on the ground. We wanted to be where airflow was good. And so he says, like he goes to pick it up and he can get it off the ground and he's moving and he's like, "What do you wanna do?" And I was like, "Can you get this thing across the lava flow without me getting on the ground?" And he's like, "I think so." [laughs] And I'm just like, "You son of a bitch." Like, he's like, "W- here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna use the heat from the flow to lift us up." And I'm thinking, "Well, what if that doesn't work?" [laughs] Like, "We're gonna barbecue this cow." Like, and, and he was like, he was confident and, and I've learned along the years like you trust your pilot, like they're the one that's gonna keep you safe. And so this cow is flying under the helicopter at 100 feet, so we're only 150, you know, 250 feet above the ground, and as we get to the flow, sure enough, the helicopter just goes proop and it lifts straight up. And I look down, and it's... Like depth perception's pretty tough at that point. When I looked down and the entire cow, I thought, lit up with smoke, and I had thought, I thought whole... Like, I was like, "What did we just do?" Like, "We just burnt this cow. I cannot believe..." Like, and like state officials, Humane Society, everybody is at the corral system on the other side where we're bringing this cow in, and I'm just like... I, I didn't know what to do. Like, this is gonna sound terrible. I honestly contemplated like if it was dead, just dropping it in the lava flow. Um, and so we're flying [laughs] over this lava flow and like all I see is smoke coming from this cow, and what I didn't realize is it was steam. I had forgot that it was raining, and the cow had water all over it, and I realized as we got over the flow, all of the steam came off the cow, and the cow was fine. Like it's just sitting there in its hammock like, "Mmm."
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And, and we, we brought that cow in, so the way it works is it's, it's hanging in its cradle with the frame above it like this. And you put it down, and then you put the frame right back over it, and it just stands up and walks out. And so this cow just sta- And we have all of this on video. This cow just stands up, walks out like nothing wrong, walks over, starts grabbing some feed like that's on the side. And we had never done it before. And like Uka and Mike are looking at me like I was the first one in the helicopter, and they're like, "Is it gonna work?" I'm like, "It works." And then we spent... We had four separate missions to get out all of the cows over a period of a, like a week or two, and I think we ended up doing 40 or 50 cows and like the s- the stories are just like... Y- imagine like Uka every morning thriving on this like lava c- like he had like lava cowboys on his coolers. Like it was... But to the rancher that was potentially gonna lose it all, and to communities that were seeing all of this loss, like there was n- like there was just all of this loss from this flow. It became this really interesting rallying point for the local community. There's like, A, it was probably like fantastical to see, but B, like, it's like, "Wait, we're g- like we're not gonna lose it all. We're gonna get some of this stuff back." Um, and I, I think it j- yeah, a long line of projects and innovations that are like, "Yeah, we can, I think we can do that." And we just, we just had a knack of like figuring it out as we go, 'cause there were certainly some bumps in that road. You imagine like me, Mike, and Uka standing around with no, like with very limited math experience between the three of us, and we're looking at this huge cargo net and like these pipes and we're like... I think we argued for like three hours before we built this thing. [laughs] Like-
- PAPeter Attia
God, I just, I just-
- JMJake Muise
[laughs] It worked perfect
- PAPeter Attia
... w- I just wish I was there for that. Like that is-
- JMJake Muise
Oh
- PAPeter Attia
... 'cause I know how much fun it is to just be sitting around the campfire talking about the, that stove that we like, that the, the Schuur Stove or-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... whatever the heck it's called, and getting into the math of that. So this is, you know, talk about the stakes-
- 1:35:30 – 1:41:12
The creation of Maui Nui Venison—going above and beyond USDA requirements;
- PAPeter Attia
so how do you go from that to where you are now, which is you've-
- JMJake Muise
Oh
- PAPeter Attia
... you've created this company called Maui Nui, which is effectively an unbelievably efficient, humane way to oper- o- to operationalize the harvesting of axis deer for, for food at a USDA certification, which is, uh, it's important for people to understand, like you and I could go out and hunt axis deer, but that doesn't really mean anything because that's, even if you had 100 people hunting these things, you, you can't sell that to somebody. Like a restaurant isn't gonna do that. There's food safety issues. So, um, how, how did you get to the, the, the formation of what it is you're, you're doing now? Which is, by that point, this is about now when you and I are getting to meet each other.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Um, well, it was a little bit, little bit before, little bit before then because after we finished the project on the Big Island and we went to, we were getting those inquiries from Maui, and like the light bulb went off like, "Hey, there's gotta be a better way." So we understood population dynamics. We understood what we were dealing with like from an animal standpoint. The question was, "Look, why can't we eat these things?" And we understood the legality of it. So in, on the continent, all native game mammals are owned by the public. So, you know, somebody, a resident of Bozeman, Montana owns the elk that's on private property in, on a, on a ranch somewhere else. Like the state owns that animal and therefore you own that animal. As a non-native invasive species in Hawaii- The ownership of that animal falls to the private landowner where that animal lies essentially, and also the management of it. So you can ask, but the state isn't responsible to manage that animal on private property. The state is really only responsible to manage that animal in, on, in public spaces. So we, we are not allowed to operate on public land, so we only operate in private space. And I think it's really important to understand, um, the difference. So we knew that the landowner owned the animal, and so I remember one of the first calls to the USDA where I was like, "Hey, w- we wanna be able to manage these animals. What rules would we have to follow, and what would we have to provide in order to have this animal be USDA inspected?" And the guy... I remember the guy, he actually laughed. He just said, "Here's the Meat Inspection Act from 1930. It's the Federal Meat Inspection Act. If you can follow these rules somehow, we'll give you guys a shot." And so, like, it's this thick, and so I remember, like, reading it nonstop for several days and, like, finding the couple of spots in there that require humane handling and all of the things that come into the process of, like, um, harvesting an animal or, like, rendering an animal, and I was like, "I think we can do this." And I, I called them back and explained the process, like, "We have this amazing FLIR equipment where we can see these animals. I believe we can render these animals." So one of the most important things is we have to follow all of the rules of a brick-and-mortar facility, but in the field for wild harvesting, which the most important thing is how that animal dies, and it has to be done, it has to be... The, the terminology is rendered immediately unconscious, but it has to be shot in the head. It has to break the skull cap so it dies immediately. And they doubted whether or not we could do that, and if we couldn't do it efficien- efficiently, they essentially shut you down overnight. It's one of the most important things. And the other part of that was we needed a USDA-certified slaughter facility, and when I did the math on it all, um, it wasn't possible to use the current facilities on Maui. So there were two major hiccups to start, was, like, A, can we do this efficiently enough, and B, [laughs] will my wife let me remortgage my house to buy a slaughter facility, a mobile slaughter facility? And at the beginning, both those answers were no. I didn't, I wasn't willing to remortgage the house knowing that we might not be efficient enough to harvest these animals, 'cause we didn't know yet, right? So the way we started that venture, and it wasn't perfect. Everything we do i- isn't perfect. The way we started the understanding and moving forward to be able to ha- to help those ranchers was just through pet food. So we were able to test a lot of these theories, create... It wasn't a lot, but, like, a super tiny margin for me and Mike to operate and get to understand what that looked like. And then it was only after six to eight months of keeping data every single night on, like, I was huge on this, like, keeping data every single night on proficiency rates and miles and occurrences. Like, it wasn't till I could justify the requirements for the USDA that I called the USDA back and said, "I want you guys to come view our process, and if it's approved, I will get the USDA slaughter facility." They came out. They were blown away by our process, so a combination of FLIR equipment to view the animal, and again, this is happening
- 1:41:12 – 1:56:50
The most humane way to harvest an animal—the unmatched standards Maui Nui Venison uses to harvest axis deer;
- JMJake Muise
all at night. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, let's, let's, let's actually explain to people what this is. And, and, you know-
- JMJake Muise
Sure
- PAPeter Attia
... at the outset of this podcast, in the introduction, I explained that we're gonna get a little bit graphic here, and I, I think, you know-
- JMJake Muise
Hmm
- PAPeter Attia
... this would be one of those moments in time-
- JMJake Muise
Okay
- PAPeter Attia
... where if you're, you know, if this, if this is a subject matter that's very sensitive, please hit a little bit of forward, um, on, on the podcast. But, um, unfortunately, you know, I think if you, if you choose to eat meat, which most of us do, I think you need to be familiar with what that entails. Um, and I, and I, I-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... always feel that it's, it's, it's wrong to consume meat without having some sense of what's involved, and if you go to a grocery store and you buy a piece of steak, you can't just assume that piece of steak, you know, just showed up there without a, a lot of work. And, and, um, and I think when you contrast how that piece of steak showed up there or how that chicken breast showed up there with the work that you guys are doing in the field, you get a real sense of what the difference is and why a USDA inspector can show up and say, which I know he has said, "It-- I've never seen anything like this ever in the history of the USDA." So-
- JMJake Muise
Mm-hmm
- PAPeter Attia
... so what was your strategy? So, so how is it that you can most humanely hunt an animal?
- JMJake Muise
Okay. Um, we have to follow a certain set of rules. So the inspection portion of what we do in the field is called an, is called an ante mortem inspection, and in that inspection process, the inspector has to be able to view that that, that, that animal is healthy. It has to be able to view that is, is both, like, i- at rest and in motion, and typically, that is done in a corral. So if you think about what a typical bro- like, brick-and-mortar looks like, there are a whole bunch of cows that get trailered in from somewhere else. They're sitting in a corral system, and the inspector is able to go outside, look at these animals very closely, view them, determine that they're, they're safe for human consumption, they're healthy. And then that animal, unfortunately, like, this is kind of the graphic part, is that animal goes into a chute system goes into a press or sometimes it's hung up live, and then that animal is rendered immediately unconscious with a stun or a bolt gun. And that looks like, in most cases, and I know people are trying to get better at this, but that looks like in most cases an animal that is stressed and unhealthy to be... Like, it's in this press and it's moving around, and that animal... And, and an employee has to then render that animal immediately unconscious. We had to follow those rules. Our process for that same ante mortem inspection is we don't pen our animals, we don't bait our animals. Over a period of years, we knew if we cover enough miles, we'll see enough deer and have enough opportunities to harvest them.
- PAPeter Attia
So translation, the animals you harvest are 100% in their natural environment. They're not in a high fence area, let alone a pen. They're not being baited. You're not leaving food to lure them in. They're literally just out in the evening roaming about.
- JMJake Muise
Yes. Um, and I think this is probably one of the favorite parts about, about what we do is, and it's similar to hunting, we're driving around looking for animals, and if we come over a hill and that animal is, this group of animals is 50 yards away and we scare them, they hear the bike or they hear whatever else, they'll run away. That animal is not-- Like, that ano- animal is already in a stressed state, and it runs away and we're not able to harvest it. But if we come over that same hill two night later and an animal is out at 200 yards and they don't hear us or they're not stressed and they stand there, that's the indicator for us that we're able to start the ante mortem process. And what that looks like is that same FLIR binocular unit that can pick up a deer at six miles, we use that for inspection with extraordinary detail. Like, we can see abscesses, we can see old scarring, we can tell if they're pregnant. Like, the level of detail is actually better than an inspector standing looking at an animal in a corral to determine whether or not it's healthy. So the inspector is staring at this screen, all of the lights are off, and he says, "Yep, all of these are healthy. You can-- guys can go ahead." So there's a pause there. Again, that animal isn't stressed, so it's not going anywhere. And then what we learned over years and years is we, we then have to render that animal immediately unconscious, which is shoot it in the head, but that animal is in a zero-stress situation and dies immediately. And-
- PAPeter Attia
Which is important to distinguish from archery.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah.
- PAPeter Attia
In archery, you know, you think about, like you've, you've taken me on some amazing hunts where I've had what for archery would be considered a perfect shot, where you go lung, heart-
- JMJake Muise
Perfect
- PAPeter Attia
... lung. But that animal doesn't die immediately. It takes 10 seconds to die. Um, and if you're-
- JMJake Muise
Yes
- PAPeter Attia
... anything but perfect in archery, if you hit, say, one lung but not the other lung and/or not the heart and the lung, I mean, it could be much longer. But, uh, at least I've-
- JMJake Muise
Yes
- PAPeter Attia
... never had an experience in archery where an animal died in less than a millisecond. It's always a few seconds-
- JMJake Muise
No
- PAPeter Attia
... even with perfection. And that's, I think, in part because of the nature of archery. [lips smack] The type of death that an animal suffers, uh, from a, from an arrow is that of hemorrhagic, uh, shock. So they die from blood loss. Now, there's exceptions to that rule.
- JMJake Muise
Hmm.
- PAPeter Attia
You can die from a tamponade, but it's still some form of hemorrhagic shock. But this is different from the wound that you inflect, uh, inflict on the animal, because when you're putting a high-power ballistic, which is a bullet, into the head, that's a, that's a central nervous system death. So that animal is dying immediately because the brain swells. And so, so that's a brain death versus a cardiopulmonary death, and that's why it's an immediate and instantaneous death. And by definition, there is simply no more humane way to die because, as you point out, that animal has absolutely no knowledge that that is happening, um, and the moment it happens, they cease to have awareness of anything.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. And so not only are they not aware, and great explanation, um, but the animals that are with them in a herd s- like, they die... [sighs] Like, there, there isn't-- Like, they don't even jolt. They just, they literally just drop straight down. And in almost every case, the animals that are with them won't even move.
- PAPeter Attia
That's the part when you first told me, Jake, I couldn't imagine, 'cause I assumed you came up on a herd of six animals, you would shoot one, it would die, the others would scatter. That was it for the night with that group. You know, you would have to then, you know, drive for another 30 minutes to find another group. But i- I was amazed to learn that no, you could probably shoot all of them because, A, it's so dark, they don't see anything, um, and two, there's no movement by the animal other than just falling to the ground, and that must be a common enough sound to the other deer that it's not-- it doesn't alert them or frighten them.
- 1:56:50 – 2:10:00
Why meat from axis deer is nutritionally superior (and tastes better) than other meats;
- PAPeter Attia
me. I, I guess I wanna shift gears for a moment and just now talk a little bit about bringing it back to sort of my interest in this type of meat, which was, you know, like I- I'm, I'm still relatively new to hunting, but as, as you know, I've taken a real keen interest in the harvesting part of it. I'm very fascinated by the anatomy and, and just the, the, the, the differences in the meat.
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
And there's something that's very different about axis deer. Um-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... and it, in some ways it sort of spoils you with respect to other types of meat. Um-
- JMJake Muise
Hmm
- PAPeter Attia
... it seems infinitely cleaner, healthier. The animal itself seems to be, you know, very clean. There seems to be something about its meat that's unique. Now, as I've gotten to learn over time, a big part of that has to do with the intramuscular fat content. Um, you know, most people who have tried venison say, "Oh, you know, it's okay, but it's a little bit gamey." Um, you know, certainly black tail more than white tail and, you know, probably, um, but, but, but, but axis deer sort of exists in its own camp, which is not particularly gamey at all. Um, and I suspect this, you know, it's basically 0.4% intramuscular fat. I mean, it's a very unique animal in that regard. Um, how, how much have you been able to learn about their eating habits and how that contributes to-
- JMJake Muise
Oh
- PAPeter Attia
... what you're seeing in terms of the meat quality beyond what you just said? So everything you just said speaks to why they don't have these high levels of cortisol and lactate at harvest, which, which definitely contribute to the, to the sort of s- some of the taste that you can have in wild animal. You've basically eliminated the lactate cortisol response completely. But now we're talking about something that's much more long-term, uh, uh, you know, p- plays a much longer term role in the development of the muscle.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Um, yeah, and, and, and to your point there, the, that conversion of glycogen stores as that animal goes through rigor mortis and what, and you can walk me through this, but what I assume is, like, that muscle trying to continue to do something, so pulling on ATP and that AT- like a function of that process being lactate. Uh, that lactate is so important as that, as that animal gra- that rigor mortis process gradually takes place over 16 to 24 hours, and the pH level of that meat. The pH level of that meat in, like it completely changes color and texture in animals that are stressed and don't have that gradual process to go through. So it, yeah, it's amazing there. But to, to the point of what they eat, man, um-
- PAPeter Attia
Didn't you guys have a camera on, on a deer once?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, so-
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah
- JMJake Muise
... there's so many. I'm just trying [laughs] to figure out where to start. Um, so we, so we've done two what are called satellite telemetry video collars. The company called w- the company was Lotek. It was the first, some of the first, like, iridium satellite collars. And what that allowed us to do was, A, understand home range and, and, like, how often they're drinking and when and where they're resting. But there was a tiny little camera that sat right under the bottom of the collar, and we got in 10-second increments 48 hours of footage of what they were eating. And what was astonishing, and we already knew this based on s- like studies in India, they are primarily grass eaters, which is not the case for most deer species, which are primarily browsers. Um, browsers being they're looking for legumes and shrubs and trees. Uh, uh, they're, they're constantly pulling on different plant species. Axis deer are primarily grass eaters, and I think when you talk about what, like little intramuscular fat they do have, it's interesting to see, and we're only learning this now, like there's high omega-3s in there because they're eating so much leafy greens, and I think that's attributed to them primarily being grass eaters. But what's, what's crazy, and we've seen this via the collar, and we've seen this, like, anecdotally, is how, how intelligent ... It's awesome. I never get to have these conversations. It's how intelligent of an eater they are, and I think that comes down to, like, these crazy acute senses. So for example, we've seen, me and you together have seen after walking three miles down a hill with dew all over our boots, we walk through an axis deer trail, which for all intents and purposes, there should be no scent on our boot. Our boots are soaked. And I'm wearing boots, and you're wearing socks. Like, that's another story. [laughs] Um, and an animal, not even in interacting with that specific spot, but five yards away, that deer is picking up the scent from that boot mark which was three hours earlier. And we see this in, like, the both the satellite... They are so picky in what they're eating, not, and not even between different plant species, but within the same species. So they're going up to one of their favorite little legumes is called glycine. They're going up to a patch of glycine, and they have unlimited feed, so they're not eating, like, voraciously like a cow or something. They're going up to a particular, like, group of glycine, and they're saying, like... They're smelling, smelling, smelling, saying, "Oh, I'm gonna eat this small patch right here." And I think what we don't understand is in an animal that is that intelligent in what it eats, how that impacts its nutritional value. And we're starting to kinda see that with some of the results we're seeing. But I think that plays into how extraordinarily healthy they are. The vast majority of other animals look at like a... You've seen a pig now in a field, or it seems like some goat. A pig plowing through a field, it's not stopping to plow in particular areas. It's getting started, and it's just gonna bulldoze its way through the entire thing. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, I, I think this, th-this is, this was a really transformational thing for me. So, uh, I think I've talked about this on the podcast with, with John Dudley once. But I took up archery because I wanted to do archery. That was all I wanted to do.
- JMJake Muise
Mm.
- PAPeter Attia
Like, I just wanted to shoot a bow, and it struck me as the type of thing that, you know, you could spend a lifetime never coming close to perfection, and it was, you know, just it, it, it scratched every itch for my obsession. Um, it was only two years after I took up archery, and all I was doing was plowing target after target after target after target that I, you know, got invited on a hunting trip, which I'd been invited many times prior to and was like, "Why would I go waste four days to go and take two shots when I can take 150 shots a day in my backyard?" Didn't seem like a good idea.
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
Um, but I got talked into it, and JR, as you know, close friend of mine, was like, "No, no, this would be good for you, so let's do it." So we go and we do this thing, and as you know, it just sort of changed everything for me in many ways. But among them is it really changed how I thought about food because I got to see on that one first hunting trip, you know, I'm shooting pigs, goats, sheep, axis deer. I mean, I got to see everything from the lowest to the highest and eat it all and realize it's hard to be healthier than the animal you're eating, and it's hard for the animal-
- JMJake Muise
Mm
- PAPeter Attia
... to be healthier than what it's eating. Like, you know, th-this is not an accidental process. And it's never been the same since. And I was, uh, talking about this with my wife the other day. My appetite for store-bought meat has never been the same since that trip, and I think that's true for a lot of people that experience really good wild game, be it axis deer or elk, which would be for me personally my two favorite. I, I think axis deer and elk live in a different category from every other type of wild game. But like even chickens, right? Like, we had chickens-
- JMJake Muise
Mm
- PAPeter Attia
... back in San Diego. They couldn't have lived a better existence. I mean, you know, the, the, the amount of space that they had, the amount of care we took of them. They're eating some organic, ridiculously expensive, overpriced feed, plus our leftover fruits and vegetables. Like, they're living large. They're making us these beautiful eggs. I had zero desire to eat one of them because they lived in filth. I mean, all they did was eat their poop all day, right? It just didn't appeal to me. Um-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... even going to the store and having a steak, it's like, yeah, it's not that I don't eat those things anymore, but, like, the idea of the... I, my appetite for the 32-ounce rib eye has pivoted a little more towards the eight-ounce filet. Whereas if I can eat elk and if I can eat axis deer, that, that to me is far better. And I think part of it is the taste acquires once you kind of start to understand what's going into it. But I also think a part of it is just y-you can't disconnect from what the process was like to produce that food that winds up on your table. And I just realize even if I'm buying the most organic, grass-fed, beautiful steak, it didn't have the same stress-free existence that that axis deer had or that elk had. But again, with elk, it's a different situation. You have to go out and hunt it yourself. You don't have the luxury of-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... you know, doing the USDA-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... certification. So I mean, did you experience that, or was that, is that so far in your rear view mirror that what I'm saying doesn't make sense?
- JMJake Muise
No, um, definitely. And, and anecdotally, I think it was my third year of college, and I kind of... I, I think I mentioned this before. When I stopped pouring [laughs] in Hawaii, it's... Axis deer for most folks is just teriyaki. So, like, you pour a whole bunch of sugar, and you pour a whole bunch of shoyu. When I stopped doing that and I started eating it, like, just straight steaks every night, and it admittedly it was because I had ran out of money. Um-
- 2:10:00 – 2:18:55
Why axis deer meat is the best option for those reluctant to eat meat: True nose-to-tail nutrition and ethical harvesting;
- JMJake Muise
of this workout and, I think, the use of this ingredient. Um-
- PAPeter Attia
Well, that's interesting because very recently, like, meaning in the last four or five months, you sent me, um, the nutritional information from the company that has been looking at the bone broth 'cause, uh, uh, you know, one of the things that you've done with this company that I think is so amazing is you've taken this notion of nose-to-tail to a whole new level, right? So it's like, okay, there's a 200-pound axis deer that yields what? How many pounds of meat for the human?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. I mean, the bucks are on the big side. A typical axis deer is about 60 pounds whole carcass and will yield about 50 pounds for a typical human, but there's also hides and hooves and offal and all kinds of other things you can do.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've got the pet food. You've got the dog chews. And then I, I, I remember saying, like, "Where's the bone broth?" And then all of a sudden-
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
... uh, you know, you start making this bone broth. And what, what did they say? What, how did they evaluate that bone broth? Which by the way-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, um
- PAPeter Attia
... I can't stop, I can't stop drinking it.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. I, I've never been a bone broth... Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. So we have to send all things into the USDA labs for testing, and they evaluate that, and then they'll, they'll put that on your nutritional panel. And we sent in the first batch of bones, and they called us, and, and they didn't call it outright. They had thought we adulterated the bones. They had thought we had done something because they tested so high in protein per ounce. And, and it was statistically, like, an anomaly, and so we didn't know what was going on, so we sent them, I think we sent them a second batch, or they, they retested it. And in the end, it tested 33% higher in protein per ounce than the best regenerative beef bones on the market. And I s- And I say regenerative because there, there is something to a regenerative agricultural process with cattle where there's additional soil health, and I believe that soil health translates into your food. But that animal is still given the grass it's going to eat. It doesn't have a choice. So we got the results back, and we were, and, like, we, we didn't have an explanation for it. And I mean, that's a statistical anomaly. I think the, like, between what we'd call, like, conventional beef and regenerative beef is about 3%, usually they'll see a difference.
- PAPeter Attia
Wow.
- JMJake Muise
But 33% is... And so essentially at, like, you know, 25 grams of prot- protein per, I think it's 100 ounce, 100 ounces or something-
- PAPeter Attia
No, I think it's less
- JMJake Muise
... like, you're in, like-
- PAPeter Attia
No, no, no, I think it's less volume.
- JMJake Muise
Oh.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much less volume than that.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's... Yeah. It would be s-
- PAPeter Attia
16 ounces or something.
- JMJake Muise
20... 16 ounces.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, yeah.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, yeah. You're in, like, you're in protein powder care- category as a function of protein per calorie. Um, so we're, I think we're just – and I'm not a nutritionist. Like, I'm not a biologist. I only know what I've seen over, like, thousands and thousands of hours of, like, interacting with this animal. Coming back to the, the previous conversation is I think their level of intelligence in what they eat is translating to their nutritional value, and we're just starting to see that. Like, y- me and you were emailing back the other day, like, I don't even know where to start to better understand their fatty acid levels and how... I know there's important ratios of, like, omega-6s to omega-3s. I don't know enough about it, but I am already seeing indicators that We might have something special there as well. And why when we're eating it, I don't feel like I need to go get like a slab of salmon even though like I'll have one every once in a while. Like, I feel like I'm getting a complete nutritional profile from that animal when we're eating it. And my wife, my wife laughs. She calls us weganes now.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
So if it's not wild and it's not vegetables, we're not eating it.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
And s- [laughs] so, um-
- PAPeter Attia
Uh, that, that's, that's actually funny because I'll tell you o- one of the, one of the great joys I have is introducing people to this, and people fit into different categories, right?
- JMJake Muise
Awesome guests.
- PAPeter Attia
So you, so you've got, you know, just your friends who are over for dinner, and they'll eat anything and whatever, and then that's great. And in that category, it's usually, "Hey, we're having venison," and they're like, "Oh, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know. I don't love that. It's a little gamey." And I'm like, "You know, that's cool. Just tell me what you think." And then they're always like, "No, that's totally different than anything I've ever had." Um, but truthfully, one of the more enjoyable experiences that I had was during our quarantine when, um, you know, our nanny was staying with us. This is at the early part of the quarantine when for two months we all just-
- JMJake Muise
Oh
- PAPeter Attia
... sort of hunkered down. And, um, you know, our, our nanny is a vegan. And so, you know, luckily we've got an infinite supply of vegetables and, you know, non- non, um, animal matter and stuff like that. But we would, you know, sort of she'd have her dinner, we'd have ours, and we were... At the time, I had 500 pounds of axis deer in our freezer, so we were basically eating this every single day. Um, 'cause we had just come back from that huge trip like in December.
- 2:18:55 – 2:26:20
What a truly balanced population of axis deer on Hawaii would look like;
- JMJake Muise
is our mission is to balance populations. Our mission isn't to get rid of these animals. Like we find them. It is an incredible resource for our communities when balanced, and the only way we do that is people need to eat them.
- PAPeter Attia
So what does balance look like, Jake? Y- you know, Lānaʻi is in balance at about 20,000 animals. Uh, you know, Molokai, you said it's about 60,000. It's out of balance right now it seems. That's, that seems to be past capacity-
- JMJake Muise
Well-
- PAPeter Attia
... because my recollection-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... from talking with you and Mikey and others is there's basically axis deer dying on the side of the roads in Molokai. So it's, it's past that capacity. Um, and then-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... Maui, I think you said was one... It was 60 on the way to 210. Was that right?
- JMJake Muise
Yep.
- PAPeter Attia
So-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... what does sustainability look like?
- JMJake Muise
So s- it's a super nuanced subject because we don't We don't have the capacity to manage deer on all lands. So like we talked about, we're not, we're-- it's, it's illegal for us to operate on public land, and honestly, I support that. We don't ever want to affect resource availability for a subsistence hunter. And anecdotally, we see on public lands on Maui, it's pretty hard to find a deer. Like, I think there are, like, I think there's a scenario where subsistent hunters play a huge role in what balance look like. And but we also don't dictate balance on a private landowner's property either. They own that animal. What we're able to do is say, "Here's how many animals you have." You, uh-- look, we understand how they, what they're doing as a liability, as a function of dry feed or watersheds or fencing or, like, our roadways. Oh, what a mess. We say, "This is how many animals you have. How many do you want?" And then they say to us, "Well, let's, let's try and bring this from six thousand to two thousand and see what it looks like." And because we're able to manage them with such precision via these aerial surveys, we're able to toggle that balance based on, like, we're going through a pronounced drought right now. We're bringing down numbers in the areas we're working in. But one of my favorite things we talk about, like, you know, apart from, like, these, this vegan conversation, one of my absolute favorite things is we walk into a meeting with a rancher that is calling an animal a spotted rat, and it only presents liability to them, right? Like, of course, their cowboys enjoy harvesting. Like, of- there's, there's, of course, value in, in them as a, as something being able to hunt. By the time we leave that room, that animal has value 'cause our harvesting process, we pay... It's not a lot, but we pay them a small amount per pound for that animal so that they find, so that they find value in that animal. And we didn't have to do that.
- PAPeter Attia
In other words, it's more valuable for them to let you harvest it humanely than for them to just, you know, shoot it and leave it, you know, leave it sitting there.
- JMJake Muise
Exactly. So at balance, so in, in varying this balance each year with rainfall and ingress and all of the different things that happen, at balance, the rancher is happy 'cause more importantly, he has optimal soil health and no runoff, and he's not losing feed, but he's also making, like, he's, he's seeing a small amount of additional value from this animal. And that combination, when we talk about, like, what balance looks like on a large scale, we have several ranchers that are saying like, "Come help us. We just-- we're not there yet. We need to grow." So, A, we need to, like, grow our harvesting capacity, and we have the system to do that now. But B, we need more people to eat these animals with us and bring them into their homes. And in, in that scenario, we're, we'll be able to achieve balance by both growing and then working with all these private landowners. And each one, that's the best part, each one's gonna make their own choice. That's not up to me to decide what balance looks like for that family or individual or board or whatever it is. That's up to the private landowner. What we do know is if we're able to grow large enough and we are able to operate on most of the private lands, between all of them, we can find a population level that is also best suited for our community because, I mean, Molokai is a great example. I mean, Maui as well right now too, but the lights, like, sun goes down, everybody [chuckles] on that place is doing 10 miles an hour. There are so many deer on the road, like, the, the, the risk to, like, hitting a deer is, like, at those densities we discussed, is profound, and, you know, on, on Maui, you can do 55, 65 miles an hour. So as a function of, like, our watershed health and sediment, like, the net present value of this species at balance makes sense. It, it doesn't make sense to eradicate them. We talked about food security. I understand this is, like, a hard conversation too because we're also the endangered species capital of the world, so there's, there's a very real conversation. If I was a conservationist, I would say, "Get rid of all of these invasive species and let's work to bring back or rehabilitate the endangered species in these same spaces."
- PAPeter Attia
Is it even technically feasible, Jake, if, if the Hawaiian government decided tomorrow, "We don't want a single axis deer here by 2030," could that be done technically?
- JMJake Muise
N- no way. They're, they're, they're just, they're too smart. I mean, we were able to accomplish that 'cause they were in such low numbers, um, on, on the Big Island. There's no... I, I don't believe there's a way to do that. So there's no choice but to find balance, and s- and balance looks like I support the idea that there shouldn't be deer in our watersheds. There's nothing more value as an isolated land mass and a community trying to be self-suspicion, especially through COVID. Like, there-- we've donated 50,000 pounds of venison, like, over 100,000 meals through COVID because food banks were empty. Like, like, Hawaii's economy teeters on absolute disaster 'cause we're so dependent on tourism, and when COVID hit and we shut the door, the n- like, the vast majority of our community was in trouble. So there, there's, there's this nuance between, yes, like, there's ecosystems and ecology we have to respect, and every native species has a right to exist in its own place, but there's also economics and food security. So it's, it's finding a balance for where these animals should be in the long run, and that's where we produce food. It's not in our mountain where we depend on water. Um, and that's just my opinion. But yeah, so the conversation of balance isn't just like what's the deer density in this particular place. The conversation of balance is like how do you interact with all of these things across your communities and ecosystems and all of these other things?
- 2:26:20 – 2:33:48
Maui Nui Venison’s charitable work during the COVID crisis; and
- PAPeter Attia
And I think that story about, you know, the, the amount of food that was donated during COVID, um, is kind of another example of this... I think it's part of why Maui Nui has, uh, been in such high favor with, with local people because, you know, that's a big step back for a business that's trying to grow to basically give away m- you know, a s- an enormous chunk of its product. Uh, you know, it's one thing if you're Nike and you're, you know, 50 years into your existence and you're gonna give away 5% of your shoes for free or something. This is totally different. Um, but at the same time, it was sort of a no-brainer, um-
- JMJake Muise
Yeah
- PAPeter Attia
... because it, you know, it, it, it basically just meant, "Look, we're gonna delay the growth of the business by a year and a half, but, um, we're doing the same thing." Um, and it's, it still serves the same mission, which is you're feeding people and you're managing a population.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. A- and you're right. Like, the... There wasn't even, like, a choice. And to everybody's credit on the team, 'cause, 'cause people have to... Like, we're, we're... We need to grow at a profitable, healthy margin so we can scale and achieve that mission of balance. But it, it was like an overnight... Like, wasn't... It was like an instant decision because a hunter can't... In Hawaii, a hunter can't go harvest an animal and take it into the food bank for a donation. It's, like, the s- the, the food safety requirements are far too stringent, and so probably one of the things we are most proud of is we had created this system and tool that in a time of need, as a function of food security, we could call on it instantly.
- PAPeter Attia
Yeah, that's the point.
- JMJake Muise
Because we have an abundant-
- PAPeter Attia
'Cause if you didn't have that USDA certification already set up, you wouldn't have been able to have... You could have all the deer in the world. You couldn't do anything with them.
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. And that's not to say subsistence hunters didn't rally to harvest more animals themselves and get them into the community, but doing so in a, at a, at a recreational or subsistence level versus a commercial level is... Like, 50,000 pounds of food in eight months is... Like, that's a lot of, [laughs] that's a lot of meat, and that's not possible in, without, like, systems for food safety and slaughtering and all the other things that go into it. So as we look to our communities 20 years from now and either weather st- instability or governmental inst- all of the different things that are happening in our world economy, especially, like, the conversation of domestic production, like, having it at home in Hawaii and a resource we can always call on, it's important. And when we look at the total value of axis deer for our communities, that's important. Um, and that all interacts with this idea of balance. Like, a- and again, there's no perfect answer one way or the other, but man, were we happy, like, rolling two full pallets of venison into the food bank with an empty freezer. We were just like... The boys, you've met the boys. Like, you imagine the smile on, like, Big Eddie's face, who's been, like, a community member for, you know, 40 years, and him being able to, like, have this impact at, like, a time of need. It's, it's awesome. Like, you feel amazing.
- PAPeter Attia
Jake, this has been, um... It's ma- it's been amazing for me to sort of be a, a, a minuscule part of this journey alongside for, you know, a couple years in getting to know you, and, um, you know, h- you know, having you share this story, uh, has been, has been great. Um, 'cause I've never heard it in one piece, and there are even pieces of this that I hadn't heard before. So I know folks are gonna, um, you know, have their curiosity piqued by this and, and, and maybe some belief systems challenged, but that's... If you're not doing that, then what are you doing?
- JMJake Muise
Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think you under... I think you underestimate the impact you've had. Um, you know, it took us seven years to figure out a harvesting system, but being able to take that next step in understanding how you move this into somebody's home and what e-commerce looks like and all of these other things, like the resource you've helped us find, we would not be here without your help and the rest of the group. And, um, we can't thank you enough for that. And, and we're... I mean, we're just excited to see what the next couple years look like and how we can move that mission forward and, and, and what continued good we can do within our communities. And, yeah, we can't thank you enough, but I really appreciate it.
- PAPeter Attia
Well, I need more bone broth because, like, my wife has pretty much-
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
... consumed all the bone broth you sent. She doesn't even let me have it anymore. It's sort of like her little secret drink, so.
- JMJake Muise
[laughs]
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs]
- JMJake Muise
Yeah. Well, we can, we can make that happen for sure.
- PAPeter Attia
[laughs] Thanks, brother.
- JMJake Muise
Ah, thank you, Peter.
- PAPeter Attia
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Episode duration: 2:33:49
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Transcript of episode Fy1dMjULbXo
