And that’s what the “Kill It and Grill It” celebration is about. God has blessed us with these incredible renewable resources. I use wood, but I promise you this: I am the only guy you will talk to — unless you talk to a bunch of people at Weyerhauser or a timber operation — who has planted in excess of 100,000 trees with my two hands. So for every tree that I used to keep my house warm, or to build my house, for every tree that Nugent has used, I have planted at least 10,000. I want you to call me the minute you find someone who has put back in more than they take, like I do. Cause you won’t.

The environmental squawkers at Greenpeace and Sierra Club, though there are many hardcore, well intentioned, and even very effective activists in those green organizations, I don’t think any of them can hold a candle to what I do. I balance the land. The Mitchell-Satcher butterfly is thriving on my property based on the scientific report that I kill enough deer to save the Christmas tree fern so that they can produce and breed! That’s how you do that! It’s not heh-heh, the deer’s in danger heh-heh, let’s save Bambi! Let’s live forever! Heh-heh Shut the fuck up! Have some more LSD on your Cheerios and go jam with Jerry Garcia! That’s nonsense!

If you want to do good, you will take part in a conscientious, intellectual, hands-on relationship with this lovely thing called the cycle of life and death. It’s not just one or the other.

Do you feel personally at odds with a number of green organizations with whom you should have some common ground, given that you are both engaged in environmental conservation? And if so, then who are your people?

Yes, I do feel at odds. Not overwhelmingly so, but more than is acceptable. I believe there is some great common ground, and I have dedicated the last 30 years of my life to offer and expose that common ground. If you truly want to save animals, you can’t just save Bambi. What does that mean? Are you going to go out and save every fawn individually? You can’t do it! You have to save the habitat, you have to save the population — not individual animals. What you want to save is the foundation, the basic infrastructure from which resources are produced. You can’t save Fifi and Boo-Boo and Thumper. You have to save ground. And that’s what Ted Nugent and Sportsmen of America do. That’s what the hunting community has always done. We’ve always been on the frontlines.

I can show you trillions of dollars — and that number is accurate, by the way — tens of trillions of dollars that have changed hands for environmental upgrade. And the source of the money in the vast majority of situations is a hunter, a fisherman, a birder, because we restrict it and regulate it ourselves, taxed ourselves, and demanded scientists, and the telemetry equipment and the trucks and the towers and the buildings and the insurance and the research and the laboratories — we the sportsmen did this. And that’s why there is thriving wildlife, because we are using science to manage these precious resources and the success is irrefutable.

So yes, I’m at odds with environmentalists to some degree, but the common ground is: How ’bout this: Do you like hunting? Know hunting? Hate hunting? You need quality water. The hunters, the fishers, the trappers may be the last line to provide that for us. Because from one source, will our air, soil and water quality be determined: wildlife habitat. And guess who craves that? Guess who craves the flesh of a pheasant? Guess who craves the screaming, testosterone-infested bull elk of September? Guess who craves the soaring eagle over a morning campfire of hot coffee in a deer woods? The hunters, the fisherman, the trappers. We crave it, and we tax ourselves and we pay big time to safeguard it.

And not only to safeguard it, but to rehabilitate already destroyed habitat. The Rocky Mountain Elks Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Federation of North American Wild Sheep, Pheasants Forever, Quail Unlimited, Trout Unlimited. I could show you billions of dollars, just in the waterfowl organizations, all of which are hunters, which have completely rehabilitated the prairie waterfowl breeding grounds of the Canadian provinces. We did that; the hunters did that. The anti-hunters haven’t bought one cattail! They haven’t saved a blade of grass! They have way more money than we do, and all they do is create a literature of propaganda with ugly bitches who say they’d rather be naked than wear a fur coat! I’d rather cover them with poop — whatever it takes, cover those bitches up!

We are often shackled by these so-called animal rights, anti-hunting organizations, many of them are unlimited financially — their propaganda feels so good and sounds so good that they get more and more money all the time. So even though we need to increase the goose-hunting season, we can’t, because politicians are being inundated with propaganda from these animal rights organizations. So our tax dollars go out to shoot surplus deer, surplus bear and surplus mountain lions. In California, they’ve killed more mountain lions since hunting was banned than they ever did during the hunting season! No one’s been saved! But they kill them after they’ve killed a hiker, after they’ve killed a kid at the bus stop, after they’ve killed livestock, after they’ve killed an entire neighborhood’s pets! So we scramble for damage control, because it’s politically correct, and it feels good, and they get to do it behind closed doors. We use our tax dollars to pay some bureaucrat to kill a mountain lion, dig a hole and bury this precious beast. No one gets to eat it, nobody gets to buy licenses, fees and taxes themselves. And that’s only after a mountain lion has killed somebody! Oh my God! And the Osbournes are still No. 1!

You refer to the “common ground” you have with some environmental organizations on the left. And yet you are affiliated with many people and organizations on the right — Rush Limbaugh, the NRA, the Republican Party — who are not perceived to have an interest in environmental preservation. How does that work?

Just today I spent an hour on the phone with an organization I’ve been a life member of for 20 years. This is the National Wildlife Foundation. They are on the frontlines of preserving air, water and soil quality. I am workin’ hand in hand with many Michigan and national conservation and environmental organizations to educate and activate Americans to the pivotal issue of air, soil and water quality.

I do not feel disconnected from the true environmentalists. Here’s what I have to say: If you turn on a light, you are mining for coal. If you have ever used a consumer product in your life — which is everybody — then you are drilling for oil. I would challenge your readers to ask them who among you has planted more than a hundred thousand trees with their own hands? Who amongst my critics has donated literally millions and millions of dollars to save critical wildlife habitat?

It all gets down to the fact that all those who criticize me are a bunch of hippies and hypocrites. And I’d like to ask them: Do you want to feel good, or do you want to do good?

I’ll never forget this time when I was on “Politically Incorrect,” and I met this Butterfly gal [Julia Butterfly Hill]. She had just come down from spending a year in a tree. I shook her hand, and I said, “Congratulations. You’ve got balls, kid. I like that.” But during the time she was sitting in that tree, my Ted Nugent Kamp for Kids charity program planted over 50,000 trees. And I’ve got to ask you: Would you rather spend 10 years sitting in one tree, or 10 years planting over 10,000,000 trees? We have the figures back, and they say that by the spring of ’99, my Kamp for Kids and other hunting, sporting and conservation groups were responsible for planting over 10 million trees. So I’d like to ask my critics: How many trees have you planted? How many acres of wildlife habitat have you restored?

So I don’t see a disconnect at all. I am the most connected person there may be. I defy you to come up with someone who has done more for the environment than I have.

Mostly, my critics are just idiots. Last week, I was being interviewed on BBC radio, and this guy comes on and says, “You are affiliated with the NRA. You tell people to hunt deer with Uzis.”

And I say, What in God’s name are you talking about? No one in the history of the world has tried to hunt deer with an Uzi. The NRA is the organization who would stop people from doing such a foolish thing.

How do you feel about the environmental record of the Bush administration and the Republican party?

George W’s record is good. He did an amazing job in Texas with improving the air, soil and water quality. Of course, there is room for improvement. But when it comes to policy, there is always the pragmatic issue of balancing environmental upgrades with the American Dream. If we really adopted all the policies proposed by Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and Ralph Nader, the American Dream would come to a screeching halt. It would look the Ukraine in 1965. It would be worse than the Dust Bowl Era in the ’30s.

We all know that pollution is a problem, but you could see a dramatic environmental upgrade without spending one increased dime if we just enforced the existing laws we have honestly and effectively. We need to demand that industry lives up to the laws we’ve already got in place. It’s not about being on the left or the right, but about confronting corruption in the industry and government. We have to get people involved. If everyone living downstream from a stinky river went to the stinky company upstream and demanded that they shut down, we would see results. I’ve seen it right here in Michigan. The Rouge River is the river in which I was first baptized into the spirit of the wild. In the ’60s, Lake Erie was so polluted it would catch on fire. Now it provides the greatest walleye fishing in the world.

We the people did that. Not by pissing and moaning. We did it by being activists with intelligent, practical, yet intensely demanded upgrade. But I hate to see the federal government pushed and shoved by so-called environmental protection regulations. There are farmers who see their farms confiscated because a little patch of cat tails starts growing on their land. One season a muskrat shits a cattail seed and suddenly their farms are classified as a wetland! Give me a break! That’s not a wetland! It’s a puddle! These are the kind of atrocities promoted by groups like Greenpeace, but it has nothing to do with environmental protection. It’s just people jacking off so they can feel good.

Do you know how they test to see if fish are edible? They take the whole, live fish and throw it in a blender. Then you are testing the brains, the eyeballs, the spine, the guts, the backbone. But I don’t eat any of those parts! I only eat the meat. If you want to test to see if a fish is fit for human consumption, you should test only the parts that humans consume. The purity of the fish in the Great Lakes has increased dramatically since the 1950s. But then we hear all these scare stories about mercury levels in fish eyeballs. Who gives a shit? I don’t eat fish eyeballs! I’m not the extremist here, I am the moderate. I say to all the environmentalists, if you test your shit, you will probably find mercury levels in there too. Why? Because your body throws out the toxins. And unless you are planning to eat your own shit, you have nothing to worry about.

Decades ago, the environmentalists adopted a bird as their symbol — the condor. The hunters got a bird too — the wild turkey. When the environmentalists adopted the condor, there were a couple dozen left in existence. And today, there are still a couple dozen. When the hunters adopted the wild turkey, there were a couple thousand. Now there are more than 20 million wild turkeys in North America. Today, we kill more wild turkey each year in Michigan alone during the legal hunting season than there were in existence in the 20s and 30s. And that’s with regulations to harvest just the surplus!

Look at Africa. After they banned the hunting of elephant and lions, the Africans started using their habitat to grow mangos and peaches and dates. It happens everywhere: Once you ban hunting, a species loses its value. People would just as soon use the land to grow cotton, because cotton has more value than the wildlife.

Just last week, Rush Limbaugh and I celebrated a truth on the radio: If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed — like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese.

I know you run a hunting camp for children. How do you feel about kids and hunting?

The kids love my attitude, they love my energy, they love my passion. I have brought the truth to these kids. They crave stimuli. Don’t we all? Isn’t that the American dream? To be stimulated emotionally, physically, spiritually? We want stimuli, we want adventure, we want challenge. Every kid wants the extreme of all of the above. There is nothing more extreme than penetrating the almost impenetrable defense mechanism of the game animal, and making that mystical flight of the arrow go where you want it to. That is your ultimate stimuli, ultimate extreme, ultimate challenge, ultimate joy, ultimate frustration, ultimate gratification, because you are bringing home the purest of flesh when the arrow pierces.

If you want to be environmentally responsible and progressive, you’ve got to be hands-on, or at least vote for hands-on policies. The kids are looking for this, they are looking for independence and individuality. Every human’s instinct is to be independent and self-sufficient. There’s nothing in us that really wants to be wimps and bloodsuckers and dependent. Regardless of what Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and — what’s his name? — Reverend Al — yeah, he’s a fucking reverend, and I’m the Dalai Lama — say. These people have created an entire culture celebrating dependency. And Jesse Jackson will make sure that those who follow him remain dependent so he can keep his Armani.

But no one wants to be dependent; we all want to be independent. And independence is incredibly attractive to children. Our Ted Nugent Kamp for Kidz was started in 1989, right after Fred Bear died. Fred Bear was my hero and my mentor and one of the greatest conservationists ever, and a wonderful man, and an amazing, stealthy predator. He hunted with a bow and arrow and taught an entire generation to get back to nature as a healer. And what Fred Bear taught me was to promote hunting, not defend it. We don’t have anything to defend! I promote it to the young people via my rock ‘n’ roll energy and attitude.

I keep in touch with these kids. Some of them are young adults now, raising kids on their own now. And they keep us posted on how they are channeling their own children’s energies into an environmentally healthy lifestyle — hunting, fishing, shooting, marksmanship, archery, planting trees.

How old were your own children when they started hunting?

I have four children: Star is 31, Sasha is 28, Toby, my oldest boy, is 25, and Rocco will be 12 this summer. All my children started the marksmanship discipline when they were 4 and 5 years old, with BB guns and pellet guns. They began archery shortly thereafter, around 5 or 6. Discipline is the next step: the next BB, the bullet, the next arrow, the next shot, can you make it more controlled than the previous one? That discipline went deep into their souls, to utilize that same focus on other endeavors, whether academic or love, or passions, or diet. My children are healthy and giving and upbeat and independent. And they all started killing deer when they were 5 or 6 years old.

Many parents are pretty afraid of introducing their children to toy guns, much less teaching them how to shoot real ones.

Here’s the thing with that: In “God, Guns, and Rock n’ Roll” I devote several chapters to the inescapable truism that everybody is fascinated with guns. There is not a human being in the world who isn’t interested from one angle or another in guns. Every child will want and every child will end up getting their hands on a gun. With that reality in mind, now what? Of course, I’ll tell you what: You supervise their handling of fire, and gasoline and power tools and lawnmowers, and baseball bats, and vehicles, and guns. You supervise and train them and — here we go again — discipline them with a conscientious, safety approach towards all things that could be dangerous.

There are hundreds of millions of gun owners in this country, and not one of them will have an accident today. The only misuse of guns comes in environments where there are drugs, alcohol, bad parents, and undisciplined children. Period. Let’s make a note of this, shall we? You can refer to this over the course of your wonderful journalist career: Here it is, Monday the 20th of May, 2002, 1:06 Eastern time: Though I pray for Ozzy and Sharon and the children, the success of their show is the manifestation of our cultural deprivation. I pray for their safety, I pray for their happiness, I pray that they get off the drugs and the alcohol and the tobacco.

But you mark my words: It is very likely that you will have chills and goosebumps on your arms when the time comes — I pray that it does not come — that there will be a tragedy, perhaps even a death, in the Osbourne family, because of their out-of-control, irresponsible lifestyle. Last night, we saw Jack, the boy, dressed up as an Army man — which is cool, all my kids do that. But he was taking a large bayonet, and violently stabbing it into a box. Now hopefully, it was just a scripted, goofy moment. And I’m sure there are a lot of children who do similar things, mine included — today we will do farm chores, we will use knives, we will use wheat-whips, we will use a lawnmower, we will go out and train with our guns — but I see a gross lack of supervision in many households.

Again, I reference the Osbournes. People think it’s cute! People think aberrant, dangerous behavior is cute! It’s not cute! Let’s hope it doesn’t happen. But you know, I think at some point, you and I, Amy, are going to say, “Oh my God. Ted said this would happen.” They are going to get in a car wreck, they are going to drink and drive, they are going to be hanging around with some dope dealer, and they are going to get shot. They’re going to snap, because they have no discipline, they have no good will that guides their lifestyle. I’m sure that Ozzy and Sharon all love each other, and that’s wonderful. But there is no discipline. And when you have no discipline, tragedy is waiting to happen.

You’re in San Francisco, so you owe those people out there to enlighten them to these things that they have tried to distance themselves from. And they are paying for it: in the crime rate, in the AIDS rate, in the molestation rate, in the allowing-dog-to-kill-people rate. A dog couldn’t possibly kill someone while I’m around. Wanna know why? Because I have a Glock in my belt and if I saw a dog endangering some person, I’d shoot the motherfucker. There you go. Case closed, drive safely. Dogs nothing, people 1.

Give my best to Salon.com, and tell Salon.commers to come to Ted Nugent.com and they’ll get a dose of reality that they will either love and make them celebrate the truth, or it will make them shit blood. Both reactions which I love, by the way.