The deer sharpshooters of Maui

Nate Hegyi (0:00)

From NHPR, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide. I'm Nate Hegyi.

Keahi Camara (0:06)

So this is where all of our crew have their personal belongings, their uniforms, our wet lockers that have all of our rain gear, our bags that we use for the night.

Nate Hegyi (0:17)

I am standing in a bunkhouse on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

There's a crew of guys getting ready for work. They're wearing gray athletic hoodies, hiking boots, and camouflage pants.

Very paramilitary vibes.

Keahi Camara (0:30)

We'll come in for like a week, stay here, sleep here, work all week, go home for a few days, come back for another week, and then we're off for two weeks.

Nate Hegyi (0:42)

I'm one of a couple of reporters here, and our guide is Keahi Camara.

Keahi is in his late 30s, he's native Hawaiian, and he has the lean sinewy body of a rock climber. There is a major bro energy in this place.

Jay Marcoullier (0:56)

Oh no, I've already seen ass slapping.

SPEAKER_4 (0:58)

Romance, there's so much romance going on.

SPEAKER_5 (1:00)

I saw a nipple change.

Keahi Camara (1:02)

And we've never seen each other for 12 days.

SPEAKER_6 (1:04)

For 12 days.

SPEAKER_7 (1:05)

That's a long time.

Keahi Camara (1:06)

We have separation issues.

Nate Hegyi (1:09)

They've even got a commander of sorts who gives them the kind of pep talk that you would hear in a football locker room.

Jake Muise (1:15)

We don't do it when it's convenient. We don't do it when it feels good.

SPEAKER_9 (1:20)

We don't do it, certainly don't f***ing do it when it looks good.

Jake Muise (1:25)

We just keep showing up.

Nate Hegyi (1:33)

But this isn't a football team.

These guys are an elite squad of professional hunters. They work for Maui Nui Venison, one of only two companies in America that hunt deer at scale and then sell the meat commercially. And tonight, they're going to go out and kill more than 100 wild animals.

SPEAKER_4 (1:53)

Is there a specific brand of gun that you use, a rifle that you use?

Keahi Camara (1:57)

For our main shooting guns, we use these things called Accuracy International AI. And that's what the British Army uses for their snipers.

Nate Hegyi (2:06)

But first, they gather together for a little ritual. It's called a kahoa.

Keahi Camara (2:10)

It's kind of like a team chant that just gets our brains switched over to like, okay, now we got to perform.

Jake Muise (2:20)

He mea ha ka hana. He mea ha ka maha.

He mea ha ka hana i ka naka.

Nate Hegyi (2:36)

Maui's got a problem. Too many deer, not enough hunters. So I spent the night with a crew of Maui Nui Venison to find out what commercial scale hunting actually looks like.

Can you bring the efficiency of the slaughterhouse to the natural world?

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

All clear. We got three. Mission rule off.

Nate Hegyi (2:54)

And is commercial hunting a solution for America's overabundance of deer?

Jake Muise (2:59)

We for sure have the best protein on the market from a nutritional standpoint.

Nate Hegyi (3:03)

Stick around.

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