Name: The People Protecting Wildlife the Most Are... Hunters?
Uploaded: 2025-09-19T15:00:43.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The People Protecting Wildlife the Most Are... Hunters?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'The People Protecting Wildlife the Most Are... Hunters?' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-09-19. Transcript available.

Well, let's talk about a topic that some people think is kind of controversial.
Like, you see a lot of people who will post photos with, like, big game, right?
They go and kill, like, a woolly, not a woolly mammoth or whatever, but, like,
a...
A deer.
A big, huge deer.
Big old turkey.
Yeah, huge turkey.
Rope dragon, limb hanger.
Yes, rope dragon, limb hanger.
You know, one that's just singing, you know, one in an Allen Iverson jersey.
You know what I'm saying?
Like a real fucking boss out there.
I'm following.
I'm following.
I'm getting excited.
But then Iverson.
And they put a picture of it up.
Right.
Or some of these...
Let's say it's a deer.
Something with eyelashes.
Okay, okay, okay.
Because that's what...
Or lions and stuff like that.
Yeah, it's got an eyelash.
It's going to...
It's emotional for people.
Okay, so that's fair.
So, yeah, I think I just want to know about some of that.
But then also you hear that people put up these, like, that some of these
animals, they're going to die in the places that they're in.
And so for conservation that they kind of sell off kind of tags or lottery for...
So anyway, take me into some of that world kind of, if you don't mind.
Well, I thought you were going to get into the ethics of you posing with a dead
animal in a picture.
But you're talking about, like, the sort of the conservation...
Like, the kind of...
There's a perceived conflict or, like, an incongruity around the notion that
how can you help a species...
Yeah.
...by hunting it, right?
How do you help a species by hunting it?
Wouldn't that be, like, that would appear to people to be quite illogical,
right?
How does killing it help it?
Right.
Is that...
Yeah.
I think that's fair.
That really kind of boils it down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a phenomenal question.
I can see why it puzzles people.
But you can point to case after case after case of ways in which it has worked.
We began our conversation around turkeys.
Okay.
There's a saying that I like quite a bit.
It's not mine.
But it's, uh, success has many fathers.
But failure is a bastard's child.
Okay.
The success in restoring the wild turkey, many people claim parentage of that
success.
And there was many people that attributed efforts to that success.
All these different...
Like, whoever state you live in, your state has a fish and game agency, okay?
I'll point out that your state's fish and game agency gets the bulk of its
funding from people
buying hunting and fishing licenses.
That's how we fund the agencies that take care of wildlife in the states.
So does that.
But when they were restoring the wild turkey from nearly being wiped off the
continent, okay?
The main player, the main player that was involved in that nationally is an
organization that happens
to have their annual convention in Nashville called the National Wild Turkey
Federation, okay?
The National Wild Turkey Federation was kind of a through line of the efforts
to restore turkeys
to North America, to recover the wild turkey, to put the wild turkey back on
the ground in
all the places where it had been wiped out.
The National Wild Turkey Federation is a hunting organization, okay?
So if you went and looked and you said,
here's these guys that put enormous amounts of expertise, scientific expertise,
enormous amounts of funding, enormous amounts of physical effort into restoring
the wild turkey
to where they exceed historic levels, is it fair to go like, you just did that
so you could
hunt turkeys?
You'd be like, guilty as charged, right?
Guilty as charged.
Right.
There are other, because turkeys are so widely available now.
But is that a bad thing?
It's not a bad thing.
No, that's what I'm saying.
It's not, but it's not always even that way.
Because, for instance, if you look at, there's an organization called the Wild
Sheep Foundation.
It's an American-based conservation organization that works to restore, recover,
protect wild
sheep species, okay?
Desert bighorns, Rocky Mountain bighorns, doll sheep, stone sheep, okay?
They work on behalf of wild sheep.
I have been hunting my whole life.
I apply every year to get a bighorn sheep tag in a half dozen states every year.
I have never drawn a bighorn sheep tag.
I have never hunted bighorn sheep.
It is likely, it is likely that I will die, okay?
Right.
There's a likelihood I will die and have never had the opportunity to hunt a bighorn
sheep.
Yet, on occasion, I do things to support the Wild Sheep Foundation.
So, what am I guilty of?
Like, I aspire to hunt a bighorn sheep.
Yeah.
I recognize them as, like, an integral part of the Western landscape.
I want to see more of them around.
I'm a hunter.
I would hunt one if I could.
I probably can't.
But I want to see them back in their place.
There are many, many conservation organizations.
The most impactful, like, wildlife conservation organizations that do real work
on the ground.
I'm not talking about lobbying bullshit, okay?
I'm not talking about, like, you know, I'm talking about, like, the kind of
work where you're, like, putting effort on the ground.
You're putting animals on the ground.
You're proving habitat on the ground, right?
You're helping migratory animals.
Right.
Whatever.
That shit comes from hunters.
That shit comes from hunting-based organizations.
So, you're saying that most-
In this country.
Most of the wildlife and the preservation of wildlife here comes from hunters.
That's, like, we fund it.
We do the groundwork.
People that come out of that world of hunting move into conservation.
There are, like, environmental orgs.
There are lobbying orgs.
There are orgs that work in all these different ways that aren't.
But, like, the really effective on-the-ground stuff comes from hunters and anglers.
Wow.
It's just, like, this isn't, like, this is, like, this is settled science.
I mean, this isn't me giving you some spin.
I'm not giving you, like, a novel way to look at something.
It's just, like, it's just the reality.
Well, yeah, I mean, you don't-
But your fish and game agency, what state do you rep-
It doesn't matter what the hell you answer me.
You're a resident of Tennessee.
Your fish and game agency gets the bulk of its funding.
So your fish and game agency handles, like, disease work, access work,
enforcement of game laws.
They get their money from hunting and fishing licenses, the bulk of it.
Or they get money from excise taxes on sporting goods, equipment, guns, ammo,
whatever.
It's just, like, we pay for it.
You know, there's guys that are-
There's people that want to deny that reality.
But, like I said, it's, like, it's settled science.
You can't debate the nuts and bolts of it.
So this plays out in other ways that draw a lot of attention.
Like, something like, let's talk about Tanzania for a minute.
Totally different system than what we have in America.
But in Tanzania, the most effective way that they're able to-
The most effective way that they're able to protect large tracts of wilderness
habitat
is drawing revenue from them by allowing hunting to occur on those places.
It's, like, productive for them.
It's either that or it's slash and burn agriculture.
So it's, like, you're able to go into an area, and by having people, like,
Westerners, Europeans, Americans, whatever,
come there to have an experience of going there and hunting and paying a big
amount of money to hunt there,
warrants them being able to set aside large chunks of ground, the government,
and monetize it, and monitor it, and then pay for anti-poaching efforts and
other things that protect it.
You might look at it and hate it.
You might look at it and be like, I don't think that humans have a right to
harm animals.
And, like, I'm not going to argue that perspective.
So you might look at it and be like, it sucks that that has to be true.
And I'll be like, okay, it's fine.
Maybe, in your opinion, it sucks that that has to be true.
But what I can't debate with you is, does it have to be true?
It's just true.
Yeah.
Yeah.