Blake Moynes sold his house. He liquidated his investments. He drained his savings. And now, three years into his wildlife conservation venture, the former Bachelorette star has nothing left to show for it except a mission and mounting desperation.
On Friday, June 5, during an appearance on the Bachelor Happy Hour podcast, Moynes laid bare the financial reality behind his pivot from reality TV personality to full-time conservationist. The 35-year-old didn’t mince words:“I’ve spent [everything]. I sold my house, I’ve taken all my investments that I put into it. I put everything into this, and now it’s forced me to be on the road. There’s no way out other than through it.”
It’s the kind of admission that doesn’t fit the usual Bachelor Nation narrative—the one where contestants leverage their fifteen minutes into a fitness app or an energy drink sponsorship. Moynes actually walked away from the paycheck. In 2023, he founded Save Our Species Alliance (SOSA), an organization that coordinates wildlife missions and immersive conservation experiences across Africa, Costa Rica, and Alaska. The organization has been operating in the red ever since. Moynes hasn’t drawn a single paycheck in three years, dedicating every resource to sustaining the nonprofit partners his model depends on while trying to convince people to care about animals—something, as he acknowledges, people don’t actually need to buy.
The cost has been personal, too. Best friendships have withered. He’s missed births, engagements, and the everyday updates that keep relationships alive.“I don’t get notified that my best friends are having kids in the next four months, and I’m finding out through the grapevine,”he reflected on the podcast. The isolation isn’t self-imposed—it’s structural. Between constant travel, time zone complications, and field work, there’s no bandwidth for the small talk that keeps human connections intact. He’s become the friend who disappears, the one people write off as too self-absorbed to care.
What makes this story worth watching isn’t the sob story—it’s the absence of a safety net. Moynes didn’t go into conservation work with a trust fund or a fallback plan. He burned the boats. And now, with no money left and two employees depending on him, he’s racing against the clock to make SOSA sustainable before the entire operation collapses. The question isn’t whether he’ll succeed. It’s what happens to wildlife conservation efforts when the person running them can barely afford to eat.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.