Hunter takes aim at biggame opportunities

JAMES PETER MANAGING EDITOR

She was supposed to be an accountant, or maybe a lawyer.

Instead, she became a professional big-game hunter and the host of her own outdoor adventure TV show.

But Sarasota’s Larysa Switlyk didn’t discover her calling until she was 23 years old — and even then it took a combination of luck and nerve.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to get outdoors. I made one,” said Switlyk.

As the nation celebrates its freedoms on July 4, Switlyk is a prime of example of having the opportunity to choose a course in life. Does America offer the opportunity to pursue dreams that might be considered unusual or odd to many? Switlyk’s story is proof that it, indeed, does.

Growing up in Albany, New York, and the daughter of two doctors, Switlyk said she had limited opportunities for interscholastic sports and extracurriculars.

Courtesy photo

Where To Watch

“Unleashed Global Adventures” starts in September on the Pursuit Channel (Dish & Direct TV) and Wild TV; Watch Roku on Women’s Outdoor Network

The family rarely fished, even after moving to Longboat Key in 1995. Switlyk’s exposure to outdoor pursuits was limited to a fishing rod purchased at the Longboat Key Publix and the lucky catch of a flounder on a hand line when she was 11 years old.

Switlyk finished high school at Sarasota High and then attended the University of Florida where she earned bachelors and masters degrees in accounting. She dreamed of working in Manhattan.

She worked as a tax intern the summer of 2006 in New York City.

“It was too much work, stress, too much drinking. It was working 12 hours a day. I watched my manager there miss (making) partner. (He said) ‘I put my life and soul into this,’”

Switlyk explained. “I realized I could waste 10 years of my life (there).”

LUCK AND NERVE

Switlyk was back in Florida, considering law school and hearing excuses from friends why they couldn’t go on a backpacking trip.

“I’m not going to wait around for anyone,” she said.

She went solo. At 23, she spent six months living out of her bag. First Australia, then New Zealand.

“I pushed myself to see what I could try. Bungee jumping, I camped for the first time, skydiving,” she said. “I wanted to learn how to fly fish.”

She was on South Island, New Zealand in 2007. When Switlyk showed up at the outfitter, the guides told her that fly fishing season was over. Did she want to go on a hunt?

“I didn’t know anything. I’d never shot a rifle before. I showed up with hiking boots and a backpack,” she said.

Before the guide, Shane Johnson, would take her out, he wanted to make sure Switlyk could shoot properly. After hitting a target 100 yards away twice, Johnson took her on a deer hunt, where she bagged a deer on her first try.

When Switlyk returned to the U.S. she wanted to share her newfound passion with her family, but her parents and brothers were confused.

“Why are you killing animals?” they asked.

“They thought something was wrong with me,” Switlyk said. “Because they didn’t understand it, they didn’t like it.”

She thought she might be able to change people’s perceptions on hunters and educate people about how hunters care about nature and healthy animal populations and how hunting contributes to conservation and the defense of public land access. But first, Switlyk needed to find a way to fund her passion.

GETTING WILD

She found an unconventional way to fund her passion. She obtained her real estate license and sold houses on Longboat Key.

She’d use the money to hunt any chance she had.

It was around this time she saw a show on ESPN called “Get Wild.”

The outdoor program hosted by Cindy Garrison took viewers on hunting adventures around the world. She gave herself five years to make a TV show.

It took her three.

From the outside looking in, “Larysa Unleashed,” seems like a dream job for a hunter or angler. Switlyk is quick to point out that it is. But the finished product, a halfhour show about a hunting or fishing adventure, is the result of scripting, storyboarding and painstaking planning. Expeditions are expensive propositions.

“There’s so much more office work behind the scenes. It’s the most work I’ve ever had,” Switlyk said.

Education Unleashed

“People confuse hunting with poaching,” Switlyk said. “Hunting is very regulated. Hunters are the first line of defense in conservation. They protect habitats, they manage populations. Their dollars support it.”

Since she began her show, she has hunted 100 species on trips in 60 countries and has seen up close the positive impact of hunters, she said.

“If not for hunters, all the (game) animals in Africa would be poached,” Switlyk said. “If there’s no value to the animal, there’s no reason to keep the animal around. Hunters add value to the animal. Societies will save these animals because they’re lucrative.”

In hopes of educating more people, she formed a nonprofit, Unleashed Outdoor Education and Wildlife Conservation, in 2022 with a twopronged mission — to educate people about hunting and conservation and to give more people the opportunity to get outdoors, whether it’s as hunters, anglers or hikers.