Eating Wild Deer to Improve Biodiversity 🦌
Invasive Species Part 1: Maui Nui
Greetings fellow climate enthusiasts. If you follow the newsletter to get your semi-regular deep dive on climate tech, then today’s piece might seem a bit out of left field. Since the inception of Build in Climate, for the most part, I’ve been running with the pack, covering systems-level improvements such as decreasing grid interconnection queues, accelerating renewable project development with new financial instruments, and harnessing the power of the heat underneath us to generate electricity.
But I’ve also been asking myself what it even means to be in “climate” and what makes a company a “climate company”. Does making the planet better have to be measured in carbon emissions or directly ladder up to the 1.5C global warming goal? Yes, we need all the solar panels, batteries, and EVs that we can build. And we should also be cognizant of how complex and interconnected everything is, like how healthcare, LLMs, and food production are all inextricably linked with climate.
The focus on carbon emissions coordinates efforts towards a common goal, but if we fixate on this singular goal, other aspects will be neglected. When I envision a better planet, reaching net zero is of course included, but so is conserving natural resources, eliminating pollution, and balancing biodiversity.
As a reluctant omnivore, I’ve gone back and forth in my relationship with animal resources. On one hand, I know reducing livestock emissions is a major pathway towards net zero, along with the moral implications of consuming conventionally-raised livestock. On the other hand, like any other stereotypical gym bro, I eat a high protein diet, but there’s only so much tempeh, Greek yogurt, and protein powder that I can wolf down before I feel sick. If I could have it my way, I’d probably follow a similar approach as Michael Pollen or Zuck and stick to locally-grown produce and wild animals, but in reality, I’m usually at Trader Joe’s or Costco, just like everybody else.
Defining what “climate” means to me and trying to be a responsible global citizen while still maintaining gains is what ultimately led me to Maui Nui Venison. In my eyes, they are a climate company. But I’m not trying to justify my diet or discount the impact of reducing meat intake (especially beef). I’m sharing the Maui Nui story to showcase the complexity of reality and to encourage us to think about a better planet beyond solely carbon emissions.
The Origins of Maui Nui Venison
Maui Nui didn’t start out as a methodically planned business model on a spreadsheet. The creation of the company naturally emerged from founder and CEO Jake Muise’s background growing up in northern Canada and curiosity in the axis deer. To rewind a bit, the story begins with Jake’s childhood. Growing up in Rainbow Lake, technically part of the Arctic Circle, Jake’s family relied on subsistence hunting to survive. For up to ten months each year, there wouldn’t be any growing vegetation, so they resorted to ice fishing and hunting for moose, pheasant, and other wild game. The vast majority of their diet came from wild animals.
Fast forward to college and Jake is now playing volleyball at the University of Hawaii. Just like any other broke college student, he had to find creative ways to eat while on a budget. But unlike you or me stuffing ourselves at the dining hall or looking for campus events offering free pizza, Jake would go on hunting trips on the neighboring Hawaiian islands. It was during one of these trips on the small island of Moloka’i that Jake first encountered the axis deer. On this isolated land of only 40 miles long and 10 miles wide, with a population of only 7,000 humans, there were over 70,000 invasive deer running around, with hundreds dying of malnutrition. This moment is what ultimately led Jake on a multi-year endeavor, beginning with founding the non-profit Axis Deer Institute to conduct research and six years later, co-founding Maui Nui Venison with his wife Ku’ulani Muise.
The Axis Deer
By definition, every invasive species has a story of how they were introduced to their new home. Eight axis deer first arrived in Hawaii in 1867, as a gift from the then British colony Hong Kong to King Haehameha V. Jake explained on The Tim Ferris Show that a kapu (Hawaiian for forbidden) was placed for 15-20 years, banning the killing of these new critters. By 1902, sharpshooters from California had to be hired because there were already 7,000 of them roaming around.
Native to India and neighboring parts of Asia, the axis deer are used to natural predators in the form of wolves, tigers, leopards, and pythons. But in Hawaii, they have no natural predators. The axis deer are one of the only deer species that don’t lose their antlers which means their sperm is always viable, resulting in the ability to breed all year long. According to Maui Nui’s data, 94% of the female population are lactating or pregnant at any given point.
The absence of natural predators, viral birth rates, and physical constraints of an island have led to overpopulation and other consequences. With a limited amount of feedstock on each island, the axis deer population grows out of balance, resulting in one third of the population dying of famine every ten or so years. Even without human intervention, by Maui Nui or individual hunters, axis deer would continue to breed at unsustainable rates and go through these cyclical die-offs.
However, the impact of the axis deer in Hawaii goes beyond overpopulation. There are far-reaching ripple effects on the entire ecosystem. Herds of axis deer graze in the thousands, denuding acres of vegetation in days before moving on to terrorize other landscapes. Destroying the undergrowth of the canopy affects how condensation is formed when clouds come into contact with trees, which has led to some watersheds operating at just 50% capacity. Not only is that bad for an island that needs naturally occurring freshwater storage, it’s also harmful for coral. With less vegetation to capture rainwater, any significant storm washes away layers of topsoil, eventually flowing into the ocean and smothering coral reefs. The coral die off, impacting fish population and local fisheries that depend on them for a living. The axis deer roam freely, both on public and private land, which poses a threat for ranchers and farmers. In order to keep the axis deer out, 10 foot tall fences have to be erected which doesn’t come cheap at $45 a foot.
Without human intervention, the axis deer could swell to 240,000 in under five years, putting immense pressure on the ecosystem, both on land and in water, as well as local communities. By harvesting axis deer in a safe and responsible manner, Maui Nui is helping to manage the population of this invasive species. But beyond improving biodiversity and creating local jobs, Maui Nui may be selling the most humanely-harvested and nutritious meat beyond going hunting yourself.
Maui Nui’s operations
We get about a message a week from a vegan that says, “I’m finally able to come back to eating meat,” because they understand why the animal has to be managed and why that animal’s dying, and then they agree and connect strongly with that process. It’s truly the only stress-free harvesting or slaughter of an animal within our food system.
- Jake Muise on The Tim Ferris Show
As a reluctant omnivore, I was intrigued by Maui Nui’s operations, which although seem significantly more complex than a conventional meat factory, seem to deliver superior results with the same USDA regulations. They have a 99.9% render rate, which is better than the conventional standard, despite operations occurring in the dynamic nature of the wilderness and nighttime. By hunting at night, they’re able to achieve stress-free harvesting which is a far cry from the slow, stressful slaughtering that conventionally-raised animals must go through. The whole process is very dialed in, with a USDA agent on site every night making sure that they stay within the one hour window from when the animal is rendered to when it’s fully processed and cleaned. That’s a pretty tight timeline when you’re out in the wild and each 250 pound animal has to be carried on a crew member’s shoulders to the mobile processing facility.
From a nutrient density perspective, the results are impressive. I guess that’s what happens when you are able to harvest a truly wild animal that chooses what it eats in a stress-free manner. A study by the Van Vliet Lab out of Utah State University shows that wild axis deer meat scored multiples higher across many phytochemicals when compared to grass-fed beef. Backed by data, Maui Nui’s product has gone on to be promoted by the biggest doctors-turned-celebrities, AKA Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Peter Attia.
During my interview with Jake, I joked that this might be the first crossover between the hunting and climate communities. Given most of Jake’s prior appearances on podcasts and other publications have been focused on hunting or nutrition, I focused my questions towards biodiversity and the implications that an invasive species can have on a delicate ecosystem. We discuss the complexity of the natural world, what balance means and what it looks like, as well as the long-term vision for Maui Nui.
Note: The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
In the very beginning before Maui Nui was even a company, what were you seeing on the ground with the axis deer in Hawaii?
They were introduced to me from a multi-generational subsistence family on Moloka'i. My knowledge of them started with viewing them as a resource. We love these animals, and they're of significant value to the community. I don't think I completely understood their collective impact for several years after introduction. The initial trigger point was when I saw my first die off.
On the island of Moloka'i, they have an established population that is only going up and down with available feed each year. When I was still in college, there was a prolonged period of drought and we went to our favorite hunting area. I saw three or four hundred deer basically laying there, dying of malnutrition. They had essentially eaten all available feed. The area was basically dirt and dust with trees and they were going through this die-off period. In talking to the community and family, I learned that it was happening every 10 or 15 years. That was the way populations were being balanced. Every so often, when there's a period of drought, there'd be too many deer and 30-50% of the population would die, acting as a natural reset to what the area can actually hold.
What happened next?
I started digging into their collective impact on ecological and food systems and started to realize that when it's a dust bowl and it rains, all of that soil and sediment — which took eons to make — runs into our reef that then chokes it. It holds all that coral and then it sits and stays there so not only are we losing soil resources on the land, but we're also losing near-shore fishery resources at the same time. It’s now a known fact that any of our watersheds with axis deer established nearby, collect 50% less water.
Why is that?
They eat the vast majority of the understory and that understory interacts with the canopy to collect fog. So you can think of it as this giant fog catcher. When the understory transitions from native species that evolved over eons to collect water to invasive plants and weeds that don't collect water, there’s a substantial impact on recharge.
It's fascinating how complex all of this is. You're talking about deer and coral being interconnected and I never would’ve thought of them together. What are some of the data and trends that you’ve seen since the inception of Maui Nui?
Yeah, I wish there was more data because then the story you can share with the community is so much more clear, but there really isn't, which is so interesting. My wife translates Hawaiian newspapers and literally for the last 110 years, we've been having the exact same conversation about axis deer. “There's too many of them.” “Why can't they be food?” “Why can't hunters have more axis deer?” and “What impact are they having?”
You would think after 120 years, with such a prolific problem, state or federal agencies or local nonprofits — somebody would have stepped up to start keeping score… Nobody has.
So we have a very clear understanding of population dynamics, i.e. how much they grow, how much we take. We keep an absurd amount of data every night. Like every time we see deer stop, every bullet, etc. We understand how they grow and the impact we have on their collective growth. We also have a really good understanding of their impact on dry feed because we can equate 6.5 deer to one cow. So we can measure collective loss of dry feed. Everything else is just visual and anecdotal. So I can stand up on Haleakalā at 7,000 feet and I can look down at the area we manage and it's green and I can look down at the area we don't manage and it's red. Same thing with rain. We can look down at the areas we manage and the ocean is blue below and for the places we don't, the ocean is red.
So I think it's blatantly obvious to [the] community what the impact is, but nobody has taken the steps to measure something like the soil loss per acre with established populations. Or what does the grazing habits of access deer do to pastured or forested areas? Well, we know it — I can tell you they are fringe grazers that will transition an entire pasture to weed. So they'll take an entire pasture of native Kikuyu grass and transition it to invasive weeds that don't capture moisture and hold water.
So there's lots of this anecdotal stuff, but I'm oftentimes perplexed why an issue that's been so profound for so long doesn't have more data around it because we're just a private company trying to do what we can, but this has been a state and federal issue for a hundred years.
Hypothetically, if your primary goal was purely to improve biodiversity and not necessarily to make the most profit, what would you do? Where are the bottlenecks?
Well, on a landscape level, the most biodiverse places throughout the Hawaiian Islands are at the higher elevations. So the higher you go, the more intact the forests are, the more biodiversity there is. Those are areas that live outside of the food system, i.e. farming, ranching, et cetera. So protecting those places first has the most immediate impact on increasing biodiversity.
A plan to continue to remove deer from these critical watershed areas and turn them into food would be a giant step number one. Fortunately and unfortunately, the vast majority of those places are controlled by the state and/or federal government and we are not allowed to operate in those areas. There are private areas with landowners who are really attuned to what we do and we put the vast majority of our focus in those areas.
Step number two is increasing biodiversity in food system areas, but more importantly how they impact our near shore fisheries and reefs. That is a conversation of balance. So that is a conversation of getting populations from 70,000 back down to 40,000 so that rain and runoff aren't impacting reef systems. When I think of biodiversity, I think of everything that's supposed to be living in that place, native or otherwise. When you cover an entire reef with red dirt, I can't even guess what is lost. I like to dive and spearfish and I know that when I dive in those areas and I'm there and I don't see any fish, I understand the loss of biodiversity from a food systems and fisheries standpoint.
So this year, we're already on track to balance populations. We already have all of the systems; we already have the infrastructure, staff, equipment, and customers. And I think we're gonna achieve balance this year. Now, we only work on a third of Maui, so we'll be able to balance populations within the places we manage, but ultimately, populations are going to continue to grow in other areas. Getting access to and getting to those other places early is probably one of the best ways we can avoid more biodiversity loss.
What does balance mean to you?
When I think of balance I think of all of the systems in our community being healthy. So, our food system right now is pretty healthy because we've been able to introduce hundreds of thousands of pounds of some of the best protein on the planet. But deer are still impacting other parts of the food system i.e. cattle, farming.
Having our food system be balanced is one step to balance. We also need to have our economic system be in balance. We are one of the bigger employers on Maui now, and we have amazing people working for us. Lastly, our ecological system is probably the most important thing.
When I think of balance, I think of all of our systems being healthy and trying to figure out what the balance between those looks like. It would be completely out of balance to let axis deer populations grow out of control so that we have a strong economic system, but at the cost of ecological systems. That doesn't make any sense, right? That's not balance. So it's having all the different systems within our community balanced as it relates to axis deer.
From a tactical standpoint, we do some of the most advanced mammal surveys by utilizing forward-looking infrared (FLIR). Practically speaking, to physically balance populations, we say to the land steward, “This is how many deer you have. How many do you want?” That density varies for each one of them. They each find different levels of value in different densities. We ultimately don't decide what that final number is, but we know based on anecdotal stories, the tipping point to where it becomes too much for the community is around 30,000 to 40,000 deer for the current areas we manage, about 140,000 acres.
This problem solving is going to be constant and forever. So we’ll get it to a good place and all of a sudden, we’ll get two years of drought and that number would come down. A great example is after the Maui fires, our community was in drastic need of short-term protein resources, so we utilized the resource to feed the community, which ultimately accelerated the number of deer we were harvesting.
Balance is a very, very loaded word. But we ultimately know it's something that we constantly look to achieve.
Your entire company rests on a very natural thing and all of the natural systems that go along. What I'm hearing you say about balance suggests you might not want to extract profits and grow as much as possible.
We absolutely need to be profitable to grow and scale, and then potentially take this solution to other places… But if you are truly solving a problem, shouldn't you get smaller as a solution?
It doesn't matter the scale, if you are truly solving a problem, shouldn't there then be a period of time where the curve should start moving the other way? It's not a small problem, but we view this as a project. If we solve the problem, we are absolutely gonna make less. Hopefully the line continues to move up and to the right, but that's not the line we're looking at. We're looking at the line that flattens the curve of population growth. It's my job as CEO to make sure that we are profitable and can move that solution forward and continue to learn. We know what we look like when we solve the problem. A lot of other people may have never even thought that far.
How did you go about building the company with community in mind from day one?
Even though this is an “invasive species”, it is also a community resource. If we were planning to utilize or manage a community resource, we have the community in mind to start. For example, we built our operating agreement to kinda do whatever we want. We fought really hard to make sure the governing portions of that document allowed us to involve the community as we see fit (donate, etc.) The investors that got on board had to be okay with that. They knew from day one that we were going to take care of and involve the community. It's like a part of the founding document. But we also knew without the community's support, we would never solve the problem.
Making sure our investors understood the importance of community was really important. To their credit, I think the operating agreement was only signed, maybe a year or so before COVID hit. Then COVID hit and all of the food banks were empty. And we were like, “Okay, everybody, we're pivoting 30% of supply to donation.” Everybody had already signed up for that level of community support and interaction, so I didn't have to deal with, “Well, what about the bottom line?” It was a part of how we were going to operate. I think if the problem you're trying to solve is going to involve the community at any point, you better plan for it from the first day of operating.
Resources
Mahalo to Jake for taking the time to chat! If you’re interested in learning more, check out these resources:
The Struggle to Contain, and Eat, the Invasive Deer Taking over Hawaii
Maui Nui’s own mini-documentary “From invasive species to food source”
Buy “the healthiest red meat on the planet” at https://mauinuivenison.com/