killing animals, and that helping conservation, it s been so counterintuitive, does it work? it works sometimes. you know, coming into this i thought it d never work. how could that even be a possibility? i think when you get to africa, you re starting to look at these animals and you understand that they re not looking at it the way we re looking at it. we to them lions and elephants are dangerous game to live with. we have to give them reasons to do so. one of the big reasons is economic reason. so tourism is is a great one, but it works for certain areas. a lot of people won t travel to places we went like zimbabwe. so we have to try and think of uncomfortable. it s not my cup of tea. if it helps, i want people to try to think about it because this it issue is so emotional we tend to scream before we listen. is and we all agree e we want to
it. the buffalo, you ll say, of course, but there will be a time when you have to let go. joining us now are the directors of the film. thank you for being here. idea you decide to make this film? you know, initially this started in our kitchen, and he came across a number of photos online of a hunter standing over a trophy he just hunted and he was quite outraged. i grew up in northern minnesota where hunting is a practice. i m not a hunter myself. i think that really started the conversation, and we first went to international where we saw this huge industry just open up to us. and i think we were quite shocked at first. we didn t realize the economics behind it, but the idea to explore what does it mean when you put economic value on animals and can that be a tool for conservation? and when you talk about
unfortunate desperation and again that s why when you ll see trophy you ll see a man who is looking to legalize, believe it or not, as a solution. rhino horn can get trimmed and grow back. it s a spiurprising topic. stay open mienlded. i m intrigued. i have my own thoughts about this issue. but i really want to see and i m staying open minded. in exploring this issue, is there anything that does need to change in terms of the approach to hunting and conservation? i think it s such a divisive issue. what really needs to change is people need to be open minded. they need to look at this tr their own preconceived notions but realize their idea of what works isn t the only solution. to me, that s the biggest thing. we have been failing because there s such a divisiveness.
save these species and we re running out of time. so we tried to look at creative solutions and make people from both sides kind of think it over. what is is the one thing that maybe surprised you the most? i think it was my own reaction to a lot of things. there was an incident where we were witness iing the number of hunts. it was quite challenging. it pulls at your heart strings. after the hunt, all of the villagers come and harvest the meat and take away the elephant. it was really shocking to understand that my relationship to these animals is very different than their relationship to these animals. if we continue to look at conservation from only the western set of eyes, it s going to be very hard if we can t empathize with what s happening on the ground in the local areas. people have a lot of preconceived notions when they think about hunting. especially when it comes to big game hunts. i have covered stories about the illegal ivory trade and how there s been a movement t