Joe Rogan Experience #1060 - Remi Warren
Joe Rogan (host), Remi Warren (guest), Guest (guest), Narrator, Narrator
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Remi Warren, Joe Rogan Experience #1060 - Remi Warren explores facing monsters, loving struggle: Remi Warren’s wild hunting reality Joe Rogan and Remi Warren spend most of the conversation unpacking a recent near-fatal brown bear charge on Afognak Island, Alaska, and using it as a springboard to talk about risk, wilderness, and human fragility. Warren describes in granular detail how a massive 11.5-foot bear attacked his hunting party, why they survived without injury, and what they did wrong. From there they explore predator–prey dynamics, grizzlies, wolves, and conservation politics, contrasting public perceptions of hunting with the harsh realities of wildlife management. Woven throughout are deeper themes: why humans need struggle, how modern life hides us from real danger, and why physically and mentally demanding hunts are central to Warren’s identity and philosophy.
Facing monsters, loving struggle: Remi Warren’s wild hunting reality
Joe Rogan and Remi Warren spend most of the conversation unpacking a recent near-fatal brown bear charge on Afognak Island, Alaska, and using it as a springboard to talk about risk, wilderness, and human fragility. Warren describes in granular detail how a massive 11.5-foot bear attacked his hunting party, why they survived without injury, and what they did wrong. From there they explore predator–prey dynamics, grizzlies, wolves, and conservation politics, contrasting public perceptions of hunting with the harsh realities of wildlife management. Woven throughout are deeper themes: why humans need struggle, how modern life hides us from real danger, and why physically and mentally demanding hunts are central to Warren’s identity and philosophy.
Key Takeaways
Group size and chaotic movement can sometimes confuse a charging predator.
Warren believes the only reason no one was mauled in the bear attack was that six people suddenly scattered in different directions, overwhelming the bear’s ability to single out a target—similar to how herd animals confuse lions.
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Complacency around risk builds slowly when you don’t see threats every day.
Because they had seen no bears for days, the group relaxed basic safety habits—like keeping pistols on their person—which Warren now views as a critical mistake that nearly cost them their lives.
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True wilderness hunts are as much about enduring misery as about success.
Warren admits he deliberately chooses brutal, low-odds, physically punishing hunts because the suffering, difficulty, and long odds are what make the experience meaningful in hindsight.
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Predator management is inseparable from modern conservation, whether people like hunting or not.
They argue that human development, habitat loss, invasive plants, and altered prey ranges mean apex predators like bears and wolves can’t self-regulate populations without devastating ungulates, forcing humans to actively manage both predator and prey.
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Killing and eating an animal you hunted yourself fundamentally changes your relationship to food.
Warren and Rogan describe how field-to-table experiences—tracking, killing, butchering, and cooking a specific animal—create a deep emotional connection and respect for meat that supermarket shoppers never feel.
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Humans are physically weak compared to wild animals; our ‘superpower’ is tools and brains.
Stories of bears swatting down moose, wolves dismantling elk, and even baby chimps’ strength highlight how outclassed we are physically and why our survival has always depended on tools, cooperation, and strategy.
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Instincts only really surface when you’re pushed into real, uncontrolled situations.
Warren describes juking a charging bear, grabbing guns under pressure, or sensing when to sit and ambush as things that can’t be fully taught in a book; they emerge from experience, failure, and repeated exposure to risk.
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Notable Quotes
““In the moment I thought, ‘This is it. This is how I die.’””
— Remi Warren
““Monsters are real. It’s not their fault that they’re monsters, but they’re fucking monsters.””
— Joe Rogan
““If that never happens again, I’ll be okay.””
— Remi Warren, on surviving the bear attack
““It’s amazing how our brains and the development of our intellect and our ability to use tools and houses have protected us from all these animals.””
— Joe Rogan
““If I have two options, I’m going to choose the really hard one… I like to struggle; I like to hurt for it.””
— Remi Warren
Questions Answered in This Episode
How does experiencing a real predator attack change your view of risk, safety, and everyday life afterward?
Joe Rogan and Remi Warren spend most of the conversation unpacking a recent near-fatal brown bear charge on Afognak Island, Alaska, and using it as a springboard to talk about risk, wilderness, and human fragility. ...
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Where should the ethical line be drawn between protecting apex predators and safeguarding human communities and prey populations?
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If more people had to personally kill and process the animals they eat, how would that change public attitudes toward meat and hunting?
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Are humans missing something essential—psychologically or spiritually—by living lives almost entirely insulated from real physical danger and hardship?
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What would a smarter, more honest public conversation about hunting and conservation look like, beyond the usual pro- and anti-hunting stereotypes?
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Transcript Preview
Five, four, three, two... Boom! And we're live. Remy Warren, international man of adventure.
How's it going?
Good. (laughs)
(laughs)
Good to see you, man.
Good to see you.
I, I purposely didn't ask you or talk to you about the grizzly bear attack, 'cause I wanted to save it.
You wanted, you wanted-
What is it like-
(sighs)
... to have survived, literally being, what are ya, two feet away from-
Yeah.
... an attacking grizzly bear?
Pretty close. Yeah.
Like, you coulda grabbed it.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Easily.
Easily. Oh, it was ... That was just nuts. It was one of those things ... Okay, I've, I've thought about it a million times.
I'm sure. How long ago was this?
This was ... So that would've been early October, or mid-October.
So you've had three months.
Three months to kind of think about it.
Somewhere around.
Yep. And, uh ... Yeah, man, it's just one of those things that I've thought about it so many times in my head, and I've always been ... I, I think Steve was the same way, like, "Oh, it'd be pretty cool to, uh, survive a bear attack, get scratched up a little bit."
(laughs)
After that (laughs) experience, I thought to myself, "If that never happens again, (laughs) I'll be okay."
(laughs) Yeah. Steve used to always say, Steve Rinella we're talking about, from the MeatEater Podcast, and he has a two-part series on this p- particular bear attack. But he used to always say he wanted to get clawed across the chest and have like ... Not a tattoo, but, like, a big claw from a-
Yes.
I'm like, "What?"
A little bit of marking.
Like, wh- what are the odds that that happens? (laughs)
Yeah. I think that in order to get that, you have to go through a really, really horrible experience.
Yeah.
And there's guys that have had those attacks, or there's guys that have had those attacks a lot, but-
Yeah.
... I mean, there ... I've been around a lot of wild animals and seen a lot of things, and been charged by bears and this was just different. It was that kind of attack where while it's happening you're going, "This is not gonna pan out well. Somebody's gonna die. Something ... " I've, uh ... You're just looking at this bear, and it's coming in hot and it ... Just everything ... It's a weird experience. You don't ... Your memory is a little foggy of it. Everything happened so fast, but it felt like it was so long.
So the adrenaline just-
Yeah.
... must overwhelm your brain.
I think so. Yeah, and it ... You don't even think about ... I just remember ... It was, it was a weird situation. So I'll ... Maybe I'll just kinda recap the story.
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