Photo Gallery: Wild Hunger
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Wrangling for Anti-Venom
Henry with the Irula tribe holding a rat snake the found while out snake hunting for venomous snakes to milk. The venom is used to create anti-venom to help people who are bitten.
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Wild Rats For Dinner
Wild field rats are cooked over a fire by the Irula tribe in Chennai, India. "I thought the Irula were really cool. They were living off the land and not destroying it." - Henry Rollins, on hunting rats with the Irula tribe.
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Tastes Like Squirrel
Ashville, North Carolina, USA: Henry Rollins digs into some grilled squirrel meat. "Tastes like chewy meat," as Rollins put it.
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Storing Snakes
Jars behind a restaurant in Le Mat village where snakes are stored.
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Spectacled Cobra
Henry Rollins holds the Spectacled Cobra, known as the Naja naja at the Irula Co-op in Chennai, India.
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Snake Wine
Snake wine with an egg in the Cobra's mouth inside the jar.
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Snake Stare Down
A Cobra is seen staring down Henry Rollins.
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Snake Heart
A raw snake heart on is served in a bowl in Hanoi, Vietnam.
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Snake Handling
Henry Rollins handles a snake destined for dinner. This is where local restaurant owners in Le Mat Village, Vietnam, breed and keep the snakes they serve in their restaurants.
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Snake Cuisine
Le Mat Village, Hanoi, Vietnam: Chefs hard at work at a restaurant specializing in snake cuisine in Le Mat Village, Vietnam.
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Snake Blood and Bile
"What one person considers sacred or terrifying is obviously someone else’s dinner. I think the drinking of the snake blood and bile was a bit much but I checked it out." - Henry Rollins
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Snake Bile Shot
Snake bile is seen close-up in a shot glass.
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Skinning a Racoon
Photograph by NGT / Abigail Rodriguez
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Sipping Snake Bile
Henry Rollins smelling snake bile before drinking in Hanoi, Vietnam.
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Selecting Road Kill
Rob is explaining the finer points of how to identify take-home-worthy road kill: blood still red and liquid, limbs not too stiff, fur still soft. Cory Oberlin, Robert Beckwith, and Henry Rollins hit the road kill jackpot after cruising the streets of Asheville. They don't actually eat raccoons, but skin them and use the skins.
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Richard Cuoto
Richard Cuoto, who goes by Kudo, is a Miami South Beach real-estate broker by day, but then transforms into self-styled Rambo in his free time. He's on a solo crusade to shut down illegal slaughter farms.
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Rescue Bear
Tam Dao National Park, Vietnam: Henry is allowed to observe one of the rescue center staff doing a check-up on one of the bears in the park that was rescued from an illegal bear bile farm.
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Rat Snake
Henry with the Irula tribe in India holding a rat snake they found while out snake hunting for venomous snakes to milk. The venom is used to create anti-venom to help people who are bitten.
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Racoon Snack
Corey Oberlin works on skinning a raccoon in Ashville, North Carolina.
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Moon Bear Rescue
This is a rescued "moon bear", or Asian black bear, that now lives at the Bear Rescue Centre in Tam Dao National Park in Vietnam. These bears are kept in tiny cages at illegal slaughter farms across Vietnam and China. Bear bile, digestive juice from the bear's gallbladder, is extracted from the captive bears in process that is painful for the bears.
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Jar of Critters
Hanoi, Vietnam: A snake and scorpion are seen inside a glass jar. (Photo Credit: NGT)
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Illegal Slaughter Farm
"Henry being introduced to his first illegal slaughter farm in Miami. His expression speaks volumes. I've been a fan of Henry's for some time, and to get a reaction such as this from a person of his makeup even surprised me (which is a hard thing to do)." -Kudo, founder of "ARM"
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Home for the Homeless
Henry waits alone on a dirt road deep in the heart of C9 basin, an eerily quiet stretch of land zoned for agriculture. In reality, it became the home to almost 10,000 people—many illegal squatters who set up homes, businesses, and slaughterhouses here. In January of 2010, Kudo mobilized law enforcement to shut down over 80 illegal slaughter farms in the C9 basin.
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Henry Rollins Eating a Rat
"I didn’t think much about eating the rat. Ultimately, it’s just flesh. In this case, free range, grain fed and free of chemicals. They tasted pretty good. Eating rats isn’t the kind of thing that freaks me out. Not to say that there’s nothing that gets to me, it’s just not eating rats." - Henry Rollins
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Grilled Squirrel
Henry Rollins looks a bit reluctant to bite into some of the grilled squirrel that Rob just prepared.
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Freedom's Flight
Miami, FL, USA: This is Freedom's Flight, a thoroughbred racehorse descended from Secretariat. After a broken leg rendered him useless on the racetrack, he ended up at an illegal slaughterhouse, doomed to become part of the illegal black market slaughter and sale of horsemeat in Miami. Enter Richard Cuoto, a/k/a Kudo, a volunteer with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who rescued Freedom's Flight at the eleventh hour. Neither Kudo, nor Freedom's Flight, would ever be the same.
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Fighting the Good Fight
Henry Rollins listens to Richard Cuoto talk. "When I first saw Kudo, he was coming out of his SUV, and I could see the interior of it looked like it belonged to a cop. He was physically intense, like he was in character of a SWAT Team or something. Talking to him confirmed that he was completely intense - but on the good side of things, fighting the good fight and doing it on his own. He’s an interesting guy." - Henry Rollins
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Fang Shot
India: A close-up of a snake's fangs while a man exposes them using a stick. (Photo Credit: NGT)
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Eating a Rat
Henry Rollins bites into a wild field rat after cooking it over a fire with the Irula tribe of Chennai, India. "I thought the Irula were really cool. They were living off the land and not destroying it." - Henry Rollins, on hunting rats with the Irula tribe.
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Dumpster Diving
Cory Oberlin, Henry Rollins, and Cassandra Woodson checking out a local Asheville dumpster to see if there's anything edible. There wasn't. Contrary to what the words "dumpster diving" brings to mind, these guys don't ever pick through or eat rotten food. Instead, they take advantage of the fact that many local grocery stores and farmer's markets can't sell off their inventory fast enough, and so they put perfectly good unsold food out in the dumpsters.
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Descendent of Secretariat
This is Freedom's Flight, a thoroughbred racehorse descended from Secretariat. After a broken leg rendered him useless on the racetrack, he ended up at an illegal slaughterhouse, doomed to become part of the illegal black market slaughter and sale of horsemeat in Miami. Enter Richard Cuoto, aka Kudo, a volunteer with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who rescued Freedom's Flight at the eleventh hour. Neither Kudo, nor Freedom's Flight, would ever be the same.
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Cooking Rats
Henry and members of the Irula tribe, eating just-caught rats the traditional way.
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Cassandra Woodson
Cassandra Woodson in the kitchen of a communal house in North Carolina whose residents get most of their food from dumpster diving and road kill. They want to challenge others to think differently about waste and food.
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Breeding Snakes
This is where local restaurant owners in Le Mat Village, Vietnam, breed and keep the snakes they serve in their restaurants.
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Lethal Obsession
Hunger aside, why might a snow leopard come to prefer eating domestic goat to such natural prey as bharal, a wild sheep? That’s the question Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi, working high in the Himalaya, is hoping to answer as the increasing conflict between snow leopards and pastoralists threatens the survival of this beautiful but endangered carnivore.
