Steven Rinella

Commodification, and all of a sudden you just realize that this inexhaustible resource we have, we just eat it.

We just consume it from one end of the country to the other.

You've heard of Jim Bridger, like the mountain men era.

I mean, they pretty much wiped beaver out in the Rocky Mountains.

I just finished a project on the buffalo hide hunters.

The buffalo hide hunters from the end of the Civil War to 1883, they killed the last 15 million buffalo.

Jeez.

Sold them all.

$2.50 a piece.

$2.50 a piece.

And it's like, so when people, it's funny because, you know, I tend to be, in many aspects, I tend to be like right-leaning.

And then you hear like deregulation.

And I was like, yeah, you know, in some areas, sure.

But in some areas, we've caused a lot of trouble.

Like deregulation has caused a lot of trouble with American wildlife.

Yeah.

When did we start to see a turn?

Late 1800s, early 1900s.

You know, the name that comes up often, Theodore Roosevelt, was instrumental in this.

By that point, you start seeing, by that point, the first thing you start seeing is bans on selling wild meat.