Kyle Kingsbury Podcast

Jake was born and raised in Northern Canada. Adventurous and inquisitive, he followed his gut to Hawaiʻi for college as a D1 athlete. During his years at Mānoa, he was taken in by a Molokaʻi family which was where his relationship with Axis deer began—over holidays and summer breaks, alongside multi-generational subsistence hunters. Over the years, his fascination and respect for this animal grew and after founding a research-based non-profit, the Axis Deer Institute, he took on several projects managing Hawaiʻiʻs invasive ungulates. Maui Nui grew out of his passion to create a full-bodied solution that saw Hawaiʻiʻs deer as both a non-native species in need of active population management as well as an incredible food resource whose sustainability and viability needed to be ensured in the long term. For Jake, hunting and environmentalism in Hawaiʻi are inseparable parts of the same set of actions and concerns. Jake as always walks us through his life before now. He was a college and professional Volleyball p