How a Vegan Became Friends With a Hunter

My stubborn stand-off on a pier has a sweet ending — and offers lessons on resilience and persuasion

Even though nothing was forcing me to stay, I felt trapped. The person I was talking to — a tall, burly man with a seemingly argumentative personality — had plenty of words and little space for my own. 

I could have walked away. Indeed, that may have been the smart move. I was getting late for work, and a disagreement on a street corner is hardly the ideal space for changing hearts and minds. But something in my brain, whether an ethical commitment to speaking against injustice or or simply an impulsive draw towards conflict, narrowed my vision to this moment right here. 

I had met him only moments ago, and yet he felt the license to tell me hurtful, violent things. He said my friends didn’t belong here. He said they were pests. He said they even deserved to be killed! And so an argument with a stranger on a Friday afternoon became the most important thing in the world. 

With each interruption, it became harder to keep my cool. Yet I knew meeting fire with fire would do no good. I knew then that I had to make a choice. 

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We have all felt trapped in a futile conversation. Maybe it’s with a family member on a sensitive topic, or a stranger at a political event. Some disagreement has ensnared your focus, and the other person seems too stubborn or closed-minded to listen to what you have to say. 

That was my situation that day. The outcome, however, was a surprisingly sweet ending. And key to that were a few tricks I’ve learned on how to navigate difficult conversations with more grace and joy.

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I was walking by the Ferry Building when something to my left caught my eye. There, standing on a tourist-filled pier by downtown, was a smiling woman with a hawk perched on her arm. Standing tall and attentive, the creature was surrounded yet unfazed by a small crowd of bystanders. I joined the fray and asked the woman why she was there.

The purpose of her mission, it turns out, was pest control. The “pest” in question? The common rock dove — known simply to most as the pigeon. Companies paid her to stand there to keep pigeons away. 

As the woman described her anti-pigeon mission, a burly voice spoke up to my left. “Flying rats, I say!” 

The stocky man next to me was wearing a full black outfit topped with a leather jacket. He sported a long gray beard and spoke with a husky confidence that reminded me of someone in construction. He stood tall, somehow rising a few inches above me even as he leaned over, propping himself up on a wheelchair.

The moment the woman started explaining her mission, I felt a wave of dismay. I love pigeons. I spend my breaks at work pigeon-watching. I have even volunteered with pigeon first aid groups to “destring” pigeons, removing hair and debris from their feet that can choke blood flow and amputate their limbs. So it gave me feelings of offense and distress to hear someone describe these gentle beings I cared for as pests.

Gathering all the patience I could, my head angled as I asked them, “Why are the pigeons pests to you?”

I hold a pigeon while first aid volunteers release string from their feet

The woman offered her perspective. She explained that pigeons can cause damage in urban environments. They are a non-native species. Their droppings can corrode equipment and spread disease. The man nodded frequently, clarifying his agreement. The woman seemed to have some sympathy for the birds; her eyes drooped apologetically when she said she tried, though not always successfully, to prevent the predatory hawk from catching and eating the smaller birds. The man was less sympathetic. To him, the pigeons were an invasive pest — no more, no less.

The man’s complaints continued to a broader topic. Namely, that the world is full of uninformed people who speak up without really understanding the issues, “like those terrorists at PETA!”, he scoffed. This one hit a bit close to home. I’ve spent much of my last few years working with animal rights nonprofits, and only weeks before this interaction, I helped record a podcast with PETA’s founder, Ingrid Newkirk.

For the first time in our conversation, I verbally registered my opposition.

“I am actually involved in animal rights circles,” I said.

My face and body language, it seems, had already given me away. The man smirked, “Oh, I could tell.” 

At this point, the conversation started to seem futile. It seemed clear where the man stood. My friends were his pests. And the people I associated with were not well-intentioned advocates, but straight-up terrorists. He didn’t seem at all interested in what I had to say, and the few words I was able to get in didn’t have much impact. There didn’t seem much point in staying.

I thought then of my choices. I could storm off from the conversation. I could interrupt him and correct what I saw were his factual errors. I could stay quiet and just nod along.

But I made a different decision. 

I realized that while I had a good sense of his ideas, I didn’t understand why he held them. I extended an olive branch, inviting peace with a spot of common ground. 

I told him that he seems to have a lot of respect and compassion towards animals. I offered, “it sounds like you would never want an animal to suffer unnecessarily.”

Before I could finish the sentence, he began nodding vigorously. “Absolutely,” he said.

That’s when he opened up to me about his story.

He grew up in the forested German countryside where his family practiced falconry and managed a plot of land. They did not own the land; on this point he was very clear. Instead, they agreed to stewardship with the owner. They could live there, living off the woods and training their predatory birds to hunt. But they were never to take more from the woods than they naturally restore. They were to be of the ecosystem, not to exploit it.

This did not immediately strike me as inspiring. Growing up, I loved animals, yet would recoil in horror at nature documentaries. There never seemed to be victory when a terrified seal escaped a starving mother polar bear. Balance matters, absolutely. But the circle of life seems of little consolation to the gazelle being eaten alive, or the field mouse rotting from disease. 

For this reason, many ethicists and biologists are calling on us to take wild animal suffering seriously. There are growing efforts in the fledgling field of welfare biology to protect the interests of animals. This includes by protecting habitats, curing diseases, and reducing starvation. It also includes, heart-warmingly to me, research on contraception for pigeons. Far from a world of immovable torment, an ideal world to me is one where we treat the suffering of animals not as an inevitable fact of life but rather one that we have the care and determination to contain.

What I did resonate with, however, was the reverence with which he spoke of his woodland duties. His upbringing brought him closer to animals, and where we could agree was that the natural world was not simply a resource for us to use — it was a community to protect.

These shared values softened my heart, and I asked more about his story with a renewed sense of curiosity. He described his career in the French Foreign Legion, an elite fighting unit known for special forces operations. It was through there that he met his wife from my own home country, the Philippines. 

This last fact perked me up. “I’m Filipino!”, I blurted out. Turns out, we shared a surprising connection — his wife may have known the woman who introduced my grandparents. They were from the same city in the same circle of friends. The connection wasn’t certain, but for a chance sidewalk encounter, the odds were surprising enough.

After this point, we didn’t talk much more about animals. We marveled at the smallness of the world and the improbability of our connection. The burly man enthusiastically told me about his frequent visits with his wife to my mother’s hometown. His stories endeared me, and we bonded over shared appreciation of the island nation’s tropical beauty and cantankerous politics.

Suspecting I was becoming late for work, I began to part from the conversation. I began to turn away, and he stopped me. “People like you and me, who share our values, we have to keep speaking up.”

Even though the conversation took positive turns, I was stunned. Moments earlier, he grouped me into a category of terrorists. And here he was, saying we were on the same team. He called me “brother” and told me to be well. He left me with a quote from Steve Jobs, commending my energy and urged me to stay hungry. 

Left feeling warm from the connection, I turned to my bike and we parted ways.

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For much of my life, I fixated on petty disagreements. I was on the debate team in college, and I often turned casual encounters into bickering debates. My friends joked that Dean is a guy who can “win” an argument and “lose” a conversation. 

I’ve learned a lot since then. And that’s come with a few helpful tricks. 

First, if you’re in a tough conversation, get clear on your goal. Do you want them to adopt a specific political view? Or simply soften to where you’re coming from? Maybe it’s something else entirely, and you’d rather build or strengthen a relationship. There’s only so much anyone can change their mind in a single conversation, and clarifying our goals can take the pressure off and lead to more open conversations.

Second, focus on trust. Research shows that minds change most over time with repeated interactions with people they trust. Sometimes the first step towards changing a mind is winning a heart. You can start that by finding more commonality than disagreement and asking genuine questions to build trust.

Third, replace your anxiety with curiosity. The same part of the brain that makes us anxious is also responsible for excitement. If you feel strained, ask how you might turn that tension into curiosity. Why does this person think the way they do? What in their background may have shaped their beliefs? Think of the other person less as an agent of a harmful perspective and more as a curious mystery to solve. 

My conversation with my burly friend that day did not transform a hunter into a vegan. And it did not transform the struggles of my pigeon friends. But if nothing else, I’ll take that my afternoon stroll helped a stranger find that a young man on a pier wasn’t so much of a terrorist after all. 

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This blog is inspired by The Sanctuary Initiative, a new organization I am co-founding with my friend Wayne Hsiung who is going to trial next month on felony charges for rescuing sick baby piglets from factory farms.

We combine storytelling and community building to change the world for people and animals. Read his blog here.