00:00:28 Speaker 1: All right, guys, we're coming at you virtually live like damn near live from Tanzania and Africa. And if you listen to the show, you heard me complain about when we have to sit on episodes for various stupid reasons that I can't explain and then release them later. These were gonna just release them as they happen. As we're in in Africa hunting with Morgan Potter from Robin Hurt Safaris, and so we're gonna do little updates, nothing major to update yet. But what we are gonna do is kind of lay the set the scene of where we're at and where we're not at, and there's a thing and when when. If you study the writing process, one of the things they'll teach you is they'll teach you to go gross too close, meaning start with a wide view and narrow in. So start us with a wide view. We're in Tanzania. What does that mean when you're looking at the African continent. 00:01:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, so Tanzania is on on the east coast, below Kenya, above Mozambique. 00:01:25 Speaker 1: The Middle East is off to the northwest. 00:01:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, north northeast, Yeah, northeast. And then yeah, so you've got Kenya to the north, Mozambique to the south, and then yeah, I mean Tanzania sh has borders with a bunch of countries Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and where else is Zambia Okay. 00:01:46 Speaker 1: And one of the things that one of the most important things that I think people should understand is it has part of the thing that every American has heard of, including me. It has part of the SERENGETI Yes, yeah, it's got all of the Serengetti, which is contiguous with the Masai Mara, which is Kenya's component, the border being the Mara River. So yeah, the serengetis, like we were talking about it to you, like quintessential. You get a postcard from Africa, there's a picture of a flat top of Kacia on there, lions sleeping underneath of it, big grassland in the background. Not where we are right now, No, not where we're at. And I keep I remarked you ten times over the last two days that having been like raised on those wildlife documentaries I and those images that are taken in that ecosystem, I'm going to get to how different this is like having been raised on that, Like that's sort of an expectation you wound up having where I sort of felt like, other than the congo, right, other than the jungle, I picture like that, that's what Africa looks like, Yeah, the flat top of cass and the open grasslands yep. And it was cool because prior to us hunting, we got to go look at some of that stuff. Yeah, and it is like like you can see forever there's like drafts hanging out, zebra's wandering by. And even when I knew we were going to come hunt, no western, I had no idea that was going to be like this. Yeah, right, Like if you showed me a picture where we're at right now, never in a million years, I guess that must be Africa. 00:03:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. And I bet even even if you looked at like regular photo tourism, the number of people that would get to experience this particular type of habitat an environment like this part of Africa would be just a vanishingly small number, like five percent or less. You know, the bulk of tourism is centered around that northern circuit, so north of Arusha, they're into the Serengeti and Goa Goa crater where we were like Natron, Trengeary, these sort of areas that, yeah, they do. They have that very quintessential like Africa, look particularly East Africa. 00:04:02 Speaker 1: And what's great about it that stuff is this really good wild they're viewing because you can see so far. 00:04:07 Speaker 2: Yep, you can see a long way and then being where it is with all that kind of volcanic activity in that part of the rift, the soil is very rich and the rainfall is quite consistent. So the game density there on those short grass plains is very high in comparison to here, where we've got comparatively porous soils, a lot sandier soil, a lot rockier soil. And yeah, it's sort of a different rainfall pattern to consistent rain here too, but it's a different kind of pattern to there, and as a consequence, the game densities are just very different and the species are very different. You know a lot of that stuff. So those desert adapted species we talked about the Geranook obviously, Grant's gazelle, Thompson's gazelle, you know, those kind of species that are very water independent and some of them can go pretty much indefinitely on metabolic water. Everything out here is a little thirstier, including the species of plants. 00:05:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is like, I don't want people to get the idea that this is monotonous. It's anything but monotonous. No, And I'll have you walk through the different little habitat types that are here. But what do you call this running now? 00:05:13 Speaker 2: So what we're in now is called meboo woodland. Yeah, it's like a woods. 00:05:18 Speaker 1: And when I keep remarking to Morgan, is like growing up in western Michigan when you get up in the upper sandy soils and you're just out in the woods and you got like like scrubby little oaks and sassafras. It's very reminiscent of that in terms of the density of the trees, the height of the trees. But then you go over that way I think it's that way yep, and you enter this this valley of palms eight foot high grass. And I was joking earlier like from someone the just just to go to off movie references and documentary references, you feel like you're in a Vietnam movie. Yeah, yeah, it's and that stuff. And then all of a sudden you roll over the hill and you're like, dude, I'm in Michigan. Yeah, yeah, No, it's very different stuff going on. 00:06:02 Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah. The diversity here is one of the special things about this concession. It's got with the river there, it's got those kind of yeah, that river, irond habitat, those floodplains and crocodiles, crocodile hippos, and then the real special thing that you've got there is that papyrus swamp, which is this is a massive tract of intact papyrus swamp. And then you've got the East African sitatunga living in there, which is a very specially adapted antelope to be able to survive basically its whole life in papyrus swamps. 00:06:30 Speaker 1: Yeah, I think too that that is kind of cool, a little bit unexpected is in certain areas around here, it's like a little bit of a working landscape. Like there's there's commercial fishermen they'll use dog out canoes fishing someone that stuff. Yep, for a couple more weeks. There's guys out collecting wild honey, yep. That'll be out here for a couple more weeks. I mean, like very widely dispersed. But you see, it's not like just fantasy land like you see, like ways in which people use the landscape to get their living and I know that brings up a lot of complications around poaching and other things, but it's like it's inhabited in a way, very spirally, but it's inhabited. 00:07:10 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. There's no permanent settlement in here. But there are people that have permits, you know, as you saw today when we ran into the honey guys, right, we stopped and checked their permits, make sure their paperwork's all square. And we don't have a problem with that, you know. Where about these game reserves being a livelihood generator for local communities, obviously there's the benefits that they get from some revenue retention from hunting and our operations, but we don't want to keep people out of here entirely. We just it has to be controlled and it has to be managed so that fishery is very carefully controlled. Us in conjunction with Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority, we're constantly making sure that that fishing is being done the right way, you know, not illegal nets being used, other illegal methods you know, such as netting off the whole river or coming into the game waters themselves, and that's really important to make sure those fish have a sort of safe spawning ground and a bit of a reservoir so they can Then those waters that are getting fished commercially can be kind of re stopped by those game reserve waters. So it's beneficial to the fishermen to adhere to those rules too. And then yeah, the honey hunters, it's the same thing. As long as they're not interfering with our operations and as long as they're not you know, delving into other unlawful activities while they're here. We're very tolerant of that and we want to support those livelihoods and see people do well. 00:08:31 Speaker 1: There's maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like there's like sort of like three types of types of land management here, which isn't totally dissimilar to something you'd find in the US where you have national park land right that doesn't have any of those activities, aren't it right? Zero, It's just like it's just like photo tourism. We're near a national park in Rofe Harmony Acres or how many square miles of the national park that's near here. 00:08:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pretty big one. I'd say it's some in that thousand square mile kind of range. 00:09:02 Speaker 1: And Morgan mentioned me and we are here. The last year the thousand square mile national park, which is what's a colon. 00:09:10 Speaker 2: It's called Augalla National Park, had fourteen visitors. 00:09:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you're looking for a very quiet national park, yeah yeah, I mean yeah again, like I'll shield for a Galla National Park all day. 00:09:24 Speaker 2: People should make a visit. It'd be great, But it shows here it's so remote. Yeah, it's so remote. And again for your average tourist who's not who wants to see the big five right and a million world to beast in a day, this isn't the place to come. And I see that. You know, even us driving around today and it's been a bit of a you know, we've been pretty focused on going places where buffalo hangout today. You know, we haven't been going to a lot of areas where you'll find a big diversity of species. So that's why it's kind of been a quiet day in that sense. But I mean you can have days like this where you know, the myombo's just a bit stare all. 00:10:01 Speaker 1: Sometimes, well, a thing I should clarify, and I've told you this's like a thing that drew me to wanting that drew me to wanting to hunt Kate Buffalo is it. It's the kind of thing you like get in there and shake hands with. 00:10:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. 00:10:14 Speaker 1: I mean like you get in that thick stuff with it and they're like they're dangerous, and it's just like that was exciting to me. It's like being in there, so I don't mind the thickness. It's just it's just different than what I saw in the other part. But to get back to this land management thing, so you have a national park, which is kind of like like for Americans a picture like picture a national park in the US, very similar model, very similar model. What what is very different would be the game? Would it like a concession or wildlife refuge? Like I can't think maybe you can't. I can't think of a way to explain that with an American analogy. 00:10:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, it there's nothing in the US that would be like similar that would be Yeah, that would be a good kind of analog for this. It's it's something that it goes weya. So we're in a's and within that category there's sort of subcategories. Right, So where we were in mass Island is called a game controlled area, so that's got looser rules around land use. There can be some permanent settlement there, there can be some seasonal sort of settlement. There can be livestock grazing, there can be a few other activities that would not be acceptable here given that this is a game reserve. And then you've got a couple of below game controlled area. You've got a couple of other tiers too that are even more kind of loose as far as what's allowed in their land use wise from local people. But we're very lucky that this area has been designated a game reserve by the Tanzanian government. Uganzo yeap Luganzo Tonguare Game Reserve is the full name of it. And it's Yeah, it's a magnificent piece of ground. This is the size of Yellowstone National Part. Yeah, roughly the same size. Yeah, it's a it's a huge chunk of ground. And yeah, just having that legal protection from the government gives us the ability to really make sure that those more destructive form of land use, like livestock grazing, which isn't in of itself inherently destructive necessarily, it's just that here where there's such a big predator population that inevitably leads to conflict. That can and that can be you know, the predators can come off badly from that. You know, cutting trees is something we don't want to see here. This is a very important piece of intact woodland that's really supporting a lot of different species in the myombo and the kind of myombo edges. So we want to see that intact. 00:12:31 Speaker 1: Just a touch on that for a minute. For people who's like, here you have elephant draft zebra, I mean like here, yeah, oh yeah, if you sat here, you could watch go buy elephant draft zebra, kudu, leopards. 00:12:46 Speaker 2: Lions, lions, eland sable roane, harder, beast, topi. I mean, there's a huge variety of species in here. 00:12:55 Speaker 1: And for how big it is, you guys take so like, for how big it is, you guys kill such a small amount of animals that I feel like it's like it's like from a management perspective, it's effectively equivalent to a park. Yeah, it's like it's not like it's you know, it's like very selective. Like you're explaining me here, you guys are only allowed to kill male spatimens of anything right exactly, you know, and as we're like really small numbers like a few of these, a few of those. 00:13:22 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a handful of species and we've we've managed it that way deliberately. One of the great things about the Tanzanian system is we get a quota that's based on research. So right now we're actually working with TAWIRI, which is the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute, and some other sort of outside NGOs to do a study on predators in this area. 00:13:45 Speaker 1: Predators want including ones. 00:13:47 Speaker 2: We can't hunt right like wild dogs, for example, which are entirely protected. So we're trying to get a handle on how many predators we've got here, which can better inform our off take. And the great thing is we're only obligated to utilize four percent of the quota that we're assigned, and we seldom go over that on any given So they want you to use forty percent that were mandated to use forty as they're mandated to pay for forty percent, So we get it assigned to quota, but we have to utilize forty percent and we rarely go right. 00:14:16 Speaker 1: Yeah, the land we're on just I keep trying to make analogies. 00:14:23 Speaker 2: To the US. 00:14:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, you could wind up thinking of it like like in a way, you could think of it like national forest land, meaning we're on land that's owned by the federal government in Tanzania. 00:14:34 Speaker 2: Correct. 00:14:35 Speaker 1: The federal government in Tanzania has two objectives like preserve wildlife correct, right, like create wildlife habitat, preserve wildlife, but also monetize the landscape. Absolutely, so they're able to monetize this huge chunk of ground simultaneously preserving wildlife by auctioning off these blocks. Correct to so far R Company or however you put like a like a like a hunting guide an operation. Then they come in and say, okay, you you operate within this piece of land. Our biologists will do some sort of assessment of what's there. Yep, you're allowed this level of take. And then besides that you besides that, you're paying a fee to utilize the land. They're then saying every animal that comes off the money is in our pocket's correct, and it applies like a big value to the wildlife. And there's something that you said that kind of like helps me because this is all very new to me. But there's there's a comment you made that helps me think about it is I was I was talking about, like, you guys eat a lot of game, you know, like every night we eat game from the stuff you guys clients have gotten. And I was saying, well, when you guys want something to eat, can you just go get what you want to eat? And you're saying, like, at this point it's too valuable. Yeah, like that stuff those animals are all assigned value by the gum. 00:16:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, it makes no sense for us to utilize them that way. They're they're far too valuable. So yeah, that quota we do have and that we do intend to utilize, we're saving it exclusively for you know, for our clients. 00:16:14 Speaker 1: And that and like the value the animals is that's something that's set by the government, correct, Yeah, And a place can op charge or not, but there's what they expect to see. 00:16:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah, they have their their fixed amount that they want for each one of those species, which is great because the trophy fee, you know, to really like simplify it big broad brush terms, the trophy fee pays for the conservation. And that's and the beauty of these areas is out here, you know, as you've seen driving in here. Really there's a couple of little things, like there's a bit of mining, there's a bit of forestry going on in these areas, and there's some kind of more larger scale agriculture. But in general, the big competing land use here is subsistence farming, which is so it's so marginal and so destructive. So for the government to have the foresight to say this area, if we protect it is going to be something that generates revenue not just for central government but for local communities as well, which can offset some of that need for constant subsistence farming. But aside from that, it also is something that's like infinitely renewable. You know, this doesn't aside from our efforts to preserve the area, which is all kind of baked in to our costs. You know, it's a cost of doing business putting in these roads, you know, maintaining the area so that it's accessible and we can conduct anti poaching, we can conduct our safaris efficiently. Aside from all that, the government doesn't need to invest in these areas really, I mean, they have a budget and they do do a lot to help support us in protecting the area and that's kind of something we do together. But in general it's not a high investment thing, but it's got a very good return. 00:17:56 Speaker 1: You return me to something else trying to do. I want to talk well anti poaching in our in our game war that we're hanging out with. Yeah, yeah, but I wanted I was talking about those three use types. I was saying, like national park, which would be very similar to what American would imagine a national park, would be a concession, which is different than what you'd picture. And then the third category being like sort of like an undesignated landscape that and this is gonna be very weird to Americans. It's like an undesignated landscape that has like very unregulated subsistence farming activities. Meaning it's like like if you if you go back and imagine the if you go back and imagine the American frontier of the Appalachian Region in seventeen seventy seventeen eighty, yep, it's like like like in Boone and guys like that, it's basically what they did. Yeah, Like they just kind of go into a place, chop a bunch off down, burn stuff, grow a crop, deplete the soil, bump belong grow a corn crop, and it's kind of it's still like that, like you just have like communities and I can see that if you didn't have and flying over it, you see they're gigantic. You see geometrical shapes, Yes, that are gigantic. Though it'd be like you're looking like for as far as you can see, you see a straight line and it winds up being where stuff is slash and burn agg and live stide grazing, and it comes up to like a game reserve and then it's like then it's like wilderness and then you know, ten minutes later whatever five minutes later, you fly over the other edge and it goes back to like slash and burn egg and livestock grazing. 00:19:46 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the issues that we have is that there isn't really a buffer anymore. You know. It's that that human kind of activity is right up against our boundaries, which is is an opportunity and you know, and a sort of risk. The risk is if if those communities aren't being properly served, if they're really struggling, there's always that temptation for encroachment as far as pushing livestock in here, pushing agriculture in here, poaching activities like that. But if those communities are properly served, they could be great partners for conservation too. They can really help us out in protecting these areas, long term policing outsiders that might be coming in looking to do criminal activity, and a great source of employees and people that we can just generally cooperate with. So we see that not in such a negative light. It presents both an opportunity at risk, and we're just always trying to tweak our operations and adjust our kind of posture to where those communities are on side. They're seeing the benefits and they're working with us, rather than we're kind of like at odds, Well. 00:20:53 Speaker 1: It's such another aspect, then we're kind of we'll clause up with what our objective is going to be over the next few days. But here's another aspect. They would like blow Americans minds. Weren't a what anybody would define as a wilderness area. You guys have you call him roads. You guys have trails, Like if you didn't tend to this in two years, it's gone, it's gone here. Yeah, So you guys have a trail network, you have a camp, you have vehicles. So what the Tanzanian government's able to do is they're able to put a law enforcement officer like a game warden with you in your truck. So his responsibility is like what are you up to? But also you provide like the infrastructure and transportation for him to then patrol the wilderness. And like today we went out and ran into some dudes doing wild honey and like the guy with us carrying AK forty seven, like ask them for their honey license, but he produces out of his pocket and checks his paperwork, you know. And it's just like it'd be like if someone said, like, hey, while you're hunt in the US, or someone said, hey, why you boys are elkinne, do you mind giving our game word and a ride around so he can see what's going on, you know, just like it's like completely like yeah, yeah, it's impossible to picture, but it's like this such a different interesting system. Yeah, you make like you make it possible for wildlife law enforcement to occur in this area. Yeah, and otherwise it probably wouldn't. Yeah, absolutely well, we and that's always been a big thing for us, our relationship with TAWA, which is the agency that he comes from, is about cooperation. We want to do things together. Our goals are very much aligned. When our business works, their revenue looks good and their outcomes as far as wanting to see habitat restoration and stable or growing numbers of wildlife and intact wilderness, they're meeting their goals too. So very much everything we do here is in collaboration with them, right down to I mean, and you know, right down to the fact that, yeah, the relationship with him is not adversarial. 00:23:01 Speaker 2: I'm not like, yeah he's jumping out. He's really keen. He's really invested in our success because that's where that's where their bread's buttered. Right. And then even our anti poaching patrols behind the scenes, that's done totally in cooperation with TAWA as well. That's a joint venture between us and then to everyone's mutual benefit. So yeah, that's one of the really nice things here. These law enforcement guys to us, they're not like the fun stoppers, you know, they're sure they're there to help us. 00:23:28 Speaker 1: Another fun one that I think would be just surprising. I can think of one example in the US, some shuters more but like there's some unit, there's some black bear units in Alaska where if you hit the bear, that's your tag. 00:23:45 Speaker 2: Yep. 00:23:46 Speaker 1: Okay, you touch the bear, it that's your tag yep. Here if you wing it, yeah that's true. Yeah, it comes off your license wounded, lost, and and that's like that's that's the hunter's chance has been like, well let's go get another one. 00:24:01 Speaker 2: No, no, I mean there are things where you have multiples on license, but but you're still paying for that first one. And so that's another great reason to do your do your practice. You come, take your time, and if you don't feel good, you know, don't pull the trigger. That's a big one. I can. I can bring my clients right up to that point, but once once it comes to pressing that trigger, that's all on you. So but we won't have any issues there. 00:24:29 Speaker 1: Don't play on on it. 00:24:31 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:24:31 Speaker 1: So explain where hard this is going to play out over the next few days as we try to get a buffalo. 00:24:37 Speaker 2: Yeah. So yeah, we're early season here. The cover is still really thick, a lot of thick vegetation, a lot of tall grass. So that's kind of got a double edged quality to it. Where we we're gonna it's gonna make it easier for us to sneak up on them, but it's going to make it harder for us to find them. So we're really focusing on finding tracks, and that means getting up early, well before dawn, transiting through those less productive areas, and getting to kind of buffalo hotspots, which at the moment is these little valleys that kind of feed down to the Ugulla River and those valleys hold buffalo and in there we have roads that kind of transsect them. A lot of those roads, unfortunately right now are still pretty wet, so that's why we've done a lot of walking today, just trying to kind of find those tracks on foot. But in an ideal world, we'd cut those tracks where they've crossed one of our roads or where they've come from water, or we'll find them on foot if need be, and once we find a good viable track. You know, this morning we had a bit of an issue with there was tracks mixed in with other tracks, and the buffalo had been feeding and a herd had crossed over the bulls, and then the bulls had crossed back over the herd, and it was just extremely difficult to sort out to where it didn't seem like a good use of time. But eventually, if we keep at it, we're going to find a set of tracks where there'll be some feeding. But then we'll see where they've lined out to go look for shade and look for a place to lay down and ruminate during the day, and we're going to get on those tracks and follow them till we find those buffalo. 00:26:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's parts excites me. 00:26:02 Speaker 2: Man. 00:26:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be it's so hard to picture. 00:26:04 Speaker 2: Oh, and it's a different feeling. I mean, it's been cool today to look for tracks, old tracks and different tracks. But when you're on a track that's really got some substance to it, like you've got something to really chew on, and you see the guys are on it and they're following it and they're engaged, that's a different feeling and I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to feeling that vibe. 00:26:22 Speaker 1: It's hard take a stab out here. How many miles might you cover today? It really depends on what you're doing. 00:26:29 Speaker 2: But I bet in some of these days we'll do one hundred, one hundred and twenty miles in the car and then you know, prop all on trails and then anywhere from four to twenty on foot, just depending on how where we end up and how close we can get the car to come pick us up. We were kind of lucky today. We did a few miles and we were able to get the cars in front of us to where we didn't have to walk back to the rigs. So that was really helpful. But it's not a guarantee it was a good trail run. Yeah, it was a good dry run. Yeah, I wish we'd picked up some fresher tracks in there. But if we keep out this, it's gonna work. 00:27:02 Speaker 1: And the final last thing we're looking for, like, we're looking for bulls, yeah, that are like at the end of their life. 00:27:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and they're in a non breeding phase. So we're looking for bachelor solitary bulls or bulls that are in the company of a couple of other bulls outside of the herd, so they're in a non breeding phase, and. 00:27:19 Speaker 1: They might be how old. 00:27:21 Speaker 2: I'm anywhere from eight to twelve. Twelve would be the extreme upper end, and then sort of an eight nine year old to'd be right in that sweet spot that we want. 00:27:30 Speaker 1: You know, that's very similar to is is like doll sheet. 00:27:33 Speaker 2: Oh really yeah. Oh interesting, So that's kind of when they're coming to the end of a. 00:27:37 Speaker 1: Lot of dolls sheet Like twelve is like really old yeah. Ten is kind of the sweet spot. 00:27:42 Speaker 2: Nice for a big round, Yeah for sure. Yeah, and nice old bulls what we're looking for and we're going to find him. He's out here, all right. 00:27:50 Speaker 1: We'll keep colming, we'll keep dropping more things, and we'll cover all kinds different aspects. We're gonna talk to trackers who are the stars of the show, absolute hundred trackers. I won't talk to any camera guys. It's been proposed. I don't think we're gonna do that. We'll think of all kinds of interesting things to talk about. Stay tuned.