Joe Rogan Experience #1112 - Cameron Hanes
Joe Rogan (host), Cameron Hanes (guest), Guest (unidentified friend in studio) (guest), Guest (unidentified friend in studio) (guest), Guest (unidentified brief interjection) (guest), Guest (unidentified friend in studio) (guest)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Cameron Hanes, Joe Rogan Experience #1112 - Cameron Hanes explores joe Rogan and Cameron Hanes Defend Hunting, Endurance, and Wild Places Joe Rogan and bowhunter/ultrarunner Cameron Hanes recap a recent axis deer bowhunt in Lanai, Hawaii, using it as a concrete example of why hunting can be essential for conservation and food, not just sport. They dive deeply into global wildlife management, especially African elephants, lions, and invasive species, arguing that regulated hunting funds anti‑poaching and habitat protection where idealistic bans have backfired. The conversation shifts into U.S. public lands policy, media narratives, and Hanes’ role on a federal wildlife council, contrasting activist messaging with on‑the‑ground realities for hunters and rural communities. Throughout, Hanes details his extreme training regimen (a marathon a day plus lifting and archery) and how it underpins his ethics about quick, merciful kills, while Rogan connects that discipline to mental health, parenting, and the broader culture’s discomfort with both death and hard effort.
Joe Rogan and Cameron Hanes Defend Hunting, Endurance, and Wild Places
Joe Rogan and bowhunter/ultrarunner Cameron Hanes recap a recent axis deer bowhunt in Lanai, Hawaii, using it as a concrete example of why hunting can be essential for conservation and food, not just sport. They dive deeply into global wildlife management, especially African elephants, lions, and invasive species, arguing that regulated hunting funds anti‑poaching and habitat protection where idealistic bans have backfired. The conversation shifts into U.S. public lands policy, media narratives, and Hanes’ role on a federal wildlife council, contrasting activist messaging with on‑the‑ground realities for hunters and rural communities. Throughout, Hanes details his extreme training regimen (a marathon a day plus lifting and archery) and how it underpins his ethics about quick, merciful kills, while Rogan connects that discipline to mental health, parenting, and the broader culture’s discomfort with both death and hard effort.
Key Takeaways
Overabundant species can devastate ecosystems without hunting or predators.
Lanai has roughly 20,000 axis deer and only 3,000 people; with no natural predators, deer overbrowse vegetation, trigger drought-like conditions, cause car collisions, and must be culled daily just to keep numbers in check.
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In many African regions, legal hunting directly funds wildlife protection.
Hanes cites figures of about 400 elephants legally hunted per year versus ~30,000 poached, arguing that trophy fees pay for multi‑million‑dollar anti‑poaching operations; when import bans killed hunting concessions, poachers moved in and animal slaughters increased.
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Idealistic “leave animals alone” policies often ignore third‑world realities.
Rogan and Hanes stress that poor rural Africans and Indians need protein and crop security—villagers steal meat from lions and kill crop‑raiding elephants, and Western social media outrage doesn’t feed their families or fund alternatives.
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Public-lands controversies are frequently misrepresented in activist messaging.
They dissect Patagonia’s “The President Stole Your Land” campaign around Bears Ears, arguing the land remained federal; the change was a rollback of monument boundaries and road-access restrictions, not a sale or active mining expansion.
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Ethical bowhunting demands extreme preparation for quick, humane kills.
Hanes runs roughly a marathon a day, lifts weights, and shoots daily so he can stalk in physically demanding terrain, control his heart rate, and execute precise shots; he’s haunted when kills take longer than seconds and sees fitness as a moral obligation to the animals.
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Most meat‑eaters outsource killing and then condemn hunters inconsistently.
Rogan points out ~96–97% of Americans eat meat while only a tiny minority hunts; factory-farmed meat and massive food waste coexist with online attacks on people who kill their own food and obsess over using every part of the animal.
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Pushing physical limits can reduce anxiety and unlock unused potential.
Both men link hard training, ultrarunning, and archery focus with mental clarity; Hanes says discovering he could complete 100‑ and 200‑mile runs reframed his sense of what’s possible and made “coasting” in life feel unacceptable.
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Notable Quotes
“You can’t have first‑world people solving third‑world problems.”
— Cameron Hanes
“People want the humans to leave the animals alone and the animals to live in this state of bliss – that’s not what’s going to happen.”
— Joe Rogan
“I don’t enjoy the kill. I enjoy getting meat that I can feed my family myself.”
— Cameron Hanes
“If you’re not getting the most out of your body, you’re not honoring your life.”
— Cameron Hanes
“Hard exercise isn’t optional for mental health; people just treat it like it is.”
— Joe Rogan
Questions Answered in This Episode
Where is the line between necessary population control and unethical trophy hunting, and who should draw it?
Joe Rogan and bowhunter/ultrarunner Cameron Hanes recap a recent axis deer bowhunt in Lanai, Hawaii, using it as a concrete example of why hunting can be essential for conservation and food, not just sport. ...
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How can conservation models evolve so that villagers and rural communities benefit without relying so heavily on foreign hunters?
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What’s the fairest way to balance public access, wilderness protection, and resource extraction on U.S. federal lands?
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If almost everyone eats meat, what moral responsibility do non‑hunters have to understand and reform industrial animal agriculture?
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How much extreme self‑improvement is admirable, and when might it start to negatively affect family life or personal well‑being?
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Transcript Preview
Boom, and we're live. B- back from Hawaii right before it fucking blows up and sinks into the ocean.
Just in time.
Whoo! We barely made it. When we-
Yeah.
... were flying above the big island, as we were flying above, it... What's the matter?
Nothing's going, go ahead.
Oh, okay. As we were flying above the big island, a 6.9 earthquake blew up.
Yeah.
That's not good.
No.
Shane Dorian fucking lives there.
We looked out the window and saw the island, like, explode and sink. Remember that?
It was sad.
That was sad.
That was sad.
But at least... I mean, we had a good hunt.
People were surfing, though.
Yeah.
They caught those waves.
Yeah.
They were worried about a tsunami. Nah, it's not gonna sink, but it's gonna get bigger. That's what it is. I mean, the whole thing's a fucking volcano. People are shocked, "Wait, the volcano's a volcano?"
Yeah. (laughs)
Yeah, you live on a goddamn volcano. (laughs)
(laughs) Oh, cra-... I wish we would've been able to fly over it, though. How- how epic would that have been?
I know. Yeah. I was looking at the, like, the map of w- the way we fly. We fly so we can't see it the entire way.
Yeah.
Which is bullshit.
Yeah.
And plus, it was cloudy-
Yeah.
... which is also bullshit.
(laughs)
That would've been cool.
I-
I- I even asked the guy, like, "Which way do we go?"
Yeah.
Like, that would be fucking awesome if we flew over that thing.
Yeah.
Ooh.
Yeah.
Fuck living on a volcano, though.
Oh, man.
Good place to visit, though.
It's beautiful.
Oh, stunning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was great.
And where we were, we were on Lanai, and, um, Lana- Lanai's an interesting place. 3,000 people, 20,000 deer.
Right. And, and so you do the math and you think, "Hey, this is gonna be gravy." There is, y- way more deer than people, but God, it was... It's tough.
It's tough.
It's tough hunting.
Yeah.
Tough bowhunting, for sure.
Well, this is one of the best examples, um, of... If you wanna make an argument for hunting, like, this... In, in certain situations, this is probably the best example. You must control the population of these animals. They don't have any predators, and they evolved around tigers. They come from India. So, these axis deer, they were a gift from, uh, Hong Kong to King Kamehameha V. And-
I saw your history lesson.
Yeah, in 1860.
Yeah.
I- I was getting in... all into it today.
(laughs)
And I wanted to make my post about it.
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