Through the Lens— The Concealed Exploitation of Wildlife with Skyler Thomas

Welcome to Essential Ingredients, I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Skyler Thomas, an independent filmmaker. Welcome Skyler.

Thank you, Justine.

I'm so pleased to have you here. For those of you that are not familiar with Skyler, Skyler is an independent filmmaker who is screening a film at the Mindful Eating film Festival that is coming up the first week in August.

That's coming up fast. I better get it done.

Is it not done?

Nope. They asked me to make it especially for the festival, so it's kind of a special situation.

Oh, that is a special situation. So how far in advance do they ask you to make this film?

It's been a month and a half. But to make a film, you can say I've been working on it because this has been an ongoing project for the last four years, the situation, and I go out there and I document, I get my own footage, and I do my own research. And I just have this massive archive of stuff that I'm like, okay, what am I going to do with this because it became overwhelming. And here came an opportunity to try and shove it into something digestible for an audience. And let's see if I'm successful.

So this didn't come out of nowhere. I mean, you've been working towards this for the last four years.

I've been working on point arrays. And it's such a complicated issue that I was kind of picturing it being maybe a five part series. But I think after this, I need to move on. So I'm trying to explain everything in this film. And it's kind of important to do. It's a local issue. I think that's another reason that we're interested in this topic. And people seem to be interested in hearing more about it. They were interested in my last film, which was also on the topic, and things have only escalated since then. So it's pretty controversial.

So before you go on, so it's called Elk Water. Am I allowed to announce that?

Yeah.

Okay. It's called Elk Water. And for those that are unfamiliar with the topic, could you talk a little bit about what you've been documenting and what this film is going to be about?

Point Reyes National Seashore is part of our national park unit system, and it's in Marin County where you are on the coast. It's very special in terms of being a biodiversity hotspot, or at least at one time it was. At the time that it was purchased by the government, the land was purchased. They didn't have enough money to get all the land at once so they entered into a lease back system that was supposed to go on for 25 years or so depending on the specific lease, which when that ended then the rest of the park. According to the plan for the park was to eventually all be restored to wild and be recreation for the people who in fact on the park. But instead, it is now controlled pretty strongly by the private businesses that have managed to stay there. It's creating a lot of conflict with the wildlife.

So you don't live in Point Reyes, so how did this come to your forefront? And why is it so important to you?

Well, like a lot of people, when you go to Point Reyes and you experience it, it's a special experience. People come from across the world to visit Point Reyes National Seashore, and to see a place that special basically gets turned into yet another feedlot is pretty upsetting. You can see that anywhere. You can see that sort of damage and exploitation pretty much anywhere. Let's not have it here, especially after we already bought the land for it not to be that.

Yeah, I can see why that would be. I love Point Reyes. It was one of the first places I visited when I came here where I was taken to.

There you go.

For us, and now as somebody that lives here, it is one of my more favorite places to visit. So now, you've been working on this documentary or on the film, and you've been documenting for the last four years. And so in this last month and a half you've been putting together, so how did you get connected with them to put together this film?

Well, I showed me (inaudible). I can't remember how she saw it, but she saw what was at the time just the passion project. I just made a film called The Shame of Point Reyes based on being both heartbroken and outraged at what I'd seen out there. And it actually kind of caught on and stirred some things up and they decided that they would like to have me back to an extent, and she's actually been vocal on the issue and has come to some of the events that try and raise awareness about the issue.

And so what was your ultimate goal when you decided to put together this film? What were you hoping to achieve with it?

Originally, I was just going to focus on the struggles of going out there and filming reality versus what was being portrayed to the public because there's a fair amount of deception going on, which is unfortunate to say. But one of the challenges of this film is you see what's happening out there, and then you hear about some of the really terrible things that are being done to the wildlife, etcetera. And people are inevitably going to say, well, how is this possible? Why on earth would they do that? And so then you have to kind of inter weave those answers which tend to be political and get a little complicated. And it also ties in ecology, because it's the ecology of the land being harder which, of course, includes wildlife like the Tule Elk who are center focus for the film. I've actually gone back to school and I've been studying ecology, which has made that much harder to witness the destruction going on out there because I have a better idea of what could be happening there. And exactly what natural processes are being halted by private extractive businesses that are not only being allowed to be there, but we, the citizens of the United States of America are subsidizing whether we know it or not.

So you're going back to school for college, it just begs the question. I'm just curious. You're documenting what's going on? You're seeing all these things, and I can tell you're really impacted on what you saw. Is there additional work you're hoping to do to have an impact on what you've seen there?

I think it's gonna keep carrying forward for sure. I was a filmmaker before this, but I was focused on sharks, marine stuff, and this opened my eyes to some terrestrial issues that are closer to home. And just getting into the ecology of it, and the interactions between the animals, and the plants, and the coevolution of what happened there for thousands of years, how that worked together, put that next to what came in and how that doesn't work. I find it fascinating. YWhen you're studying ecology, you can just keep going, and going, and going. Find out how one organism affects this organism, which affects this organism, which affects this organism which is really cool. And then you bring in agriculture, and it just wipes it all out.

So what if we talked about the next couple of years and you're studying ecology, you're doing your documentaries, what can we potentially see from you do you think?

After this, I want to go back to sharks for a while. I need a break. I've got a film that I stopped on, and I'd like to finish that. I'd like to get the ocean for a while and then I'll come back. God, who knows, I've got about 30 ideas in my head. So hopefully, hopefully, hopefully situations where people say, hey, we would like to see this created will help direct me kind of like in the situation.

Right. That's the best kind of opportunity, I think. So let's go back to the film festival for a moment. So you're going to be screening the film there once it's done shortly.

The people there will literally be the first ones ever seen.

So that's gonna come out in about a week and a half. So soon, right? And so what are you hoping for the audience to get out of it?

I'm hoping that it answers questions while emotionally rocking them. It'd be very easy for them to leave confused, like I said, because it's hard to wrap your head around how such atrocities are taking place. And the other goal for me as I hope that people will not easily succumb to what seems to be a tendency for me to just be given an excuse and be like, oh, well, okay. It's all too often. Well, it says on this piece of paper that we have to be horrible and terrible. So therefore, it's okay. So remind people that there is still a choice. We need to strive to be better, instead of finding excuses to not be.

I think that's a really important message. So with all the other things that are going on at the film festival, you're familiar with what else is going on at the film festival? Have you checked out all the other films and--

I know Smoke Money is a big one on Saturday. Game Changers is being shown again, I think that's pretty popular on Netflix. There's a special panel to answer some of the more complicated questions about Point Reyes that is separate from my film, they're having a one hour panel in a separate location. I'm gonna listen.

Questions.

I hope I know the answers by now, but there's always something more to learn. I might get called on if I'm a fly on the wall to answer something, but they have a pretty good panel. They have a good panel, a diverse panel of pretty educated people. So that'll be really beneficial to anyone who wants to learn more about the situation above and beyond what my film tells them.

What the film tells you. So what else are you most excited about seeing at the film festival?

Myself.

I'm very excited about seeing your film. I think we're all excited about seeing your film once it's done.

Yeah, I haven't had much time to sit back, relax and get excited about seeing something else right now. I'm just afraid that it's, hoping it won't explode on the screen.

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's gonna be great. And I think that it's going to be very eye opening. And I think with a community of people that are really interested and interesting, so I think that that's a really good combination, and people that are like minded and curious. And if they do get confused, they're gonna have the panel to be able to ask more questions. I'm not sure what the schedule is like, which one comes first? But if it's in the right order, that should help.

Hopefully, that's who the audience is. Otherwise, I might be getting lynched.

Well, I think this was great. I'm so pleased that you were able to join us and I got to learn a little bit about you and about the film. And for those folks that want to learn more about you and your projects, what's the best way for them to look you up?

shameofpointreyes.org is the website for the first film, and I've just kept adding content to that one until I have something official for Elk Water.

Awesome, that sounds great. Thank you so much, Skyler, for joining me here. I look forward to meeting you at the film festival, and watch it.

Thank you. Thanks for having me on, and I look forward to meeting you too.

Thanks so much. And thanks so much for tuning into Essential Ingredients as always. We'll see you here again soon.