We've got a great show for you today, but first, we think a little context is important. Please listen to Daniel's monologue in the introduction to this podcast.
As a podcaster, Daniel's always been interested in topics that flirt around the edges of the taboo. And today’s episode certainly qualifies. Hunting itself has become controversial in our modern era, which, given that this was our primary food acquisition method for something like 300,000 years — in other words, our entire existence — until just recently, seems strange. But even where the general public has accepted it as a legitimate pursuit and method of protein procurement, there are some animals that — despite the long legacy of hunting them — are just too off-limits to talk about.
Usually, these animals fall into a category we call “Charismatic Megafauna,” and you know these species well, since they’re the subject of documentaries, calendars, cartoons, and stuffed animals. Often, the public is so opposed to the hunting them that, even when management is required due to deprivation, attacks on humans, or localized carrying capacity issues, they’d rather pay state-funded shooters to kill them as part of a management program than to allow hunters to pay into the state to harvest them through lawful hunting. Because, it’s about optics. Someone enjoying the experience is just too distasteful to them.
Things get even more complex when there is an indigenous tradition of hunting these charismatic species. Beluga and Bowhead whales come to mind, or African elephants, or — as is the case with today's podcast, Polar Bears.
Today’s guest is Jen Shears. Jen is a Newfoundlander, mom, wife, adventurer, business owner, blogger, traveler, and hunter — and she has been confronting the very same issues that Daniel speaks about in this episode's intro monologue for years.
Recently she visited the arctic to hunt a polar bear herself, and Daniel was incredibly interested to talk with her about the experience, the politics, the science, and, of course, the meat, which he's been curious about for years.
Jen is, in our opinion, incredibly brave and fearless in her willingness to publicly confront the media-driven, unscientific public rhetoric and even to weather the frenzied reactions of the activists who support the anti-hunting agenda being promulgated by the pseudo-scientific wing of the environmentalist movement.
Jen, thank you for taking this issue on, being willing to due so publicly, and for talking about it here on this show. We appreciate and value what you are doing and saying.
View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/137