Overhunting during a food crisis.
Posted by razorthick_@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 179 comments
Is it realistic to assume that during a crisis where there is a shortage of food that people would over hunt and over fish? Not just hunters but also regular people getting rifles, rushing to the woods and trying to get a catch before everyone else. I guess we can also call that panic hunting.
I'm talking about a scenario where a game warden saying, "hey you can't do that," and explaining why they can't isn't going to stop hordes of hungry people.
In this scenario I can see people getting into arguments about territory and who had first dibs on the kill. I can only imagine a group going around stacking herds of wildlife onto a flatbed not sitting well with others.
This also raises the question about people who have opted to live out in the woods suddenly dealing with people. I'm sure many have a shoot on sight mentality but in this scenario the desperate collective shouldn't be underestimated. If it takes burning the whole forest down then that's what they will do. Whole other topic though.
Idk maybe there's enough fish and deer for everyone.
ExternalRealistic708@reddit
Realistically, I think all of you are forgetting. Less than 10% of the Us population knows how to hunt, of that small percent, most do it for fun, and probably even less know how to fight/survive/exist in a crisis situation. The USA is very pampered, most people would likely die. Something as simple as dysentery from bad water would take many out. I don’t think it would be that much of a problem. On top of that only about 20% of the population knows how to fish. So safe to say, after everyone is weeded out from the initial fighting and killing because of lack of resources, nature would probably be much better off bringing out more wildlife and live-able areas for them. Everyone would revert back to a more old way of living in time, but most would die early on. IMO
dummy1998@reddit
Yep, I know of several places in the south where deer were basically hunted out during the great depression. The good news is that hogs survived so there’s always that.
jaejaeok@reddit
As a Texan woman, I fear the day I have to hog hunt. They’re beasts.
I recommend people hunt hogs a few times before they depend on it as part of their plan. If anything, because none of us want shtf, you can help us with the hogs for now.
anotheramethyst@reddit
Invasive species l(ike wild hogs in TX) are the most ethical meat you can eat. I wish more people would get on board with that.
ResponsibleBank1387@reddit
They are something to hunt. Problem is the where? Lots of landowners would rather have the hogs than allow free hunting.
jaejaeok@reddit
I’ve seen the opposite. I find people are actively looking for ways to reduce the population.
anotheramethyst@reddit
There's probably a lot of regional variation. I'm from an area in TX with a lot of public hunting spots but everyone prefers deer and nilgai (also non native but not very problematic yet, they tend to die off a lot in hard freezes) instead of the hogs (widely regarded as nuisance animals).
ponycorn_pet@reddit
They do. They just aren't online folk who talk about it where you can see it
Scared-Tea-8911@reddit
Yeah they are a pain! We have good night scopes though, which really helps the process.
Spitter2021@reddit
I think in the early 1800’s the Cherokee also nearly hunted the deer out, out there as well because of their need for trade goods.
Many-Health-1673@reddit
My grandpa was born in 1921, and was a teenager during the worst part of the depression.
In the 1930's, the farmers were we live used to let their hogs out each spring into the river bottoms with identifier notches cut into their ears. In the early winter the farmers would meet up in a big group with their farm dogs to round up the pigs so they could start processing them. I can imagine what a debacle that was considering how crazy it is even now when we use catch and kill dogs to hunt hogs. They would then scald the hogs, scrape the hair, guy and cut up the animal, pack the meat with molasses, honey, pepper, and brown sugar, cold smoke them, then put the meat in cheesecloth at the top of the windmill above the insect line to keep the meat all winter. They would lower down the hog to cut some of the meat off, then repack the meat with the molasses, etc, then raise it back up. Pretty interesting listening to the old guys talk about times when the farmers lived a lot better than the people in the cities.
Femveratu@reddit
Fascinating. I’ve seen/heard of something somewhat similar in parts of Appalachia
Many-Health-1673@reddit
I am on the eastern edge of the southern plains. Cross timbers region. Most of my immediate family ancestors lived in Virginia and Tennessee in the 1600, 1700, and 1800's, then moved to the edge of the plains in the late 1800's. That was a common way of keeping meat over the winter from what I have read. It used less salt than keeping meat packed in a barrel with a brine.
Femveratu@reddit
I’m glad we haven’t completely lost this knowledge base!
Many-Health-1673@reddit
Me too. There are some great videos on YouTube on the butcher hog cold smoke process with brown sugar, salt, pepper, honey, etc. It is a process that has almost been lost to progress.
NosillaWilla@reddit
That sounds delicious
Many-Health-1673@reddit
I'm sure it was. I have heard from old timers that this method of preserving ham made it delicious.
PrepperBoi@reddit
Wasting disease has been pretty rough these last few years, not to mention a lot of the hogs are eating that blue poison shit they use for population control. Population control, like that’s needed… they could trap them, keep them healthy, and slaughter them for food. Better that poison…
TheRealBobbyJones@reddit
Obviously hunting the hogs didn't work. They have tried a ton of stuff to deal with wild hogs. I'm pretty sure in many states you can literally hunt as many you want year round. It's still a problem.
PrepperBoi@reddit
Key difference is that people aren't hungry enough and it takes a lot to slaughter and process the hogs. Also cooking it to get it tender takes alot more effort than venison. A lot of people just don't like eating them for taste, they prefer venison as its usually less gamey.
If you had skilled hunters going out and hunting them, and a separate team of people processing the animals, salting/canning/preserving them, they wouldn't be around long.
Girafferage@reddit
Hogs taste great. Just throw them in a processor and make pressed jerky or let them stew. Also plenty of fat on a hog usually.
Subject-Effect4537@reddit
They make a lot of hog sausage where I live. It’s delicious.
PrepperBoi@reddit
Yeah I think sausage is the best way imo. The smoke takes so much of the game taste out. You don’t even need a bun lol
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
They built an industry around hog hunting and surprise surprise - the industry started working to prop up the hog populations.
That said, humans aren't about to travel into wilderness to find food and survive. The overwhelming majority will die looking for handouts, die trying to relocate to some other slice of civilization, or die chasing the easy food supplies like fish or gardens.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
This is likely wrong, based on what OP is proposing, and there's examples in history where people didn't act this way.
In small disasters, people do stay put and try to get by with what;s available. Then yes, they'd go after gardens and look for handouts and all the rest. That's what you sometimes see after hurricanes.
But OP is talking about situations where there are "hordes of hungry people," something the US has never seen. We're off into doomsday here.
If no food is delivered to cities, they have 3-7 days before all existing food is gone. Everyone will come flooding out of cities and many will be armed. Some will try hunting and some will try raiding. Few are going to hang around and starve.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
There are few examples in history of large-scale civilization failures in which the general population lacked self-sufficiency skills. That's a major flaw in the prepping community, expecting humans in 2025 to function the same way they were capable of functioning in 1225.
Normalcy bias will drive these people to look for food or help where they have been found before:
There won't be many that know what they are doing. The ones who do will still be in uncharted territory, as they fight for their lives against a bunch of armed starving people.
They won't leave home until they are entirely out of food (normalcy bias). That gives them about two days of reasonable function followed by a few more days of severe struggle, after which point they won't be traveling any further. This does not factor in another normalcy bias assumption that they don't need to worry about drinking water (unless they've already lost access in which case they are dead).
99% of people are going to die less than 50 miles from home. Sure, the coasts will still be overrun, but any wilderness survival plan should focus on being about 100mi from civilization because nobody else (except game) will be there.
OnTheEdgeOfFreedom@reddit
The usual touch point for a collapsed civilization was ancient Rome, and the circumstances were very different. But people didn't hang around in failed cities.
The usual metric for refugees is 10mi per day. (People in shape can do 20, but families generally can't.) Lazy Americans won't do that well to start, but you toughen rapidly when you have to. Starvation takes 30 days, more or less. Refugees from cities may be able to loot from gardens as they travel, so I like to handwave they can maintain that 10mi/day until they drop. They'll also dive surburbanites into the migration.
I've fasted. It's uncomfortable, but you don't start losing functionality for a week. The mind actually gets sharper, initially.
Yes, 300mi is is a worst case scenario for the rural folk, but preppers routinely prep for 0.1% chances like nuclear war, and once you decide cities have no food, mass migration for long distances is a lot more likely that that.
I think you're suffering from the rural bias that city folk are all clueless idiots who can't walk ten miles. Your neglecting all the reservists and ex-mil, weekend warriors, survivalists and environmentalists, police, joggers and fitness freaks. You're neglecting the desperation of mothers who will shoot to kill rather than let their children starve. Most of all you're neglecting they fact that urban:rural is a 4:1 population ratio. A lot of urban folk can die and you still face lousy odds.
But even if the city folk can't reach you, you still die in numbers. In a scenario this severe, with food not being shipped, medicine has also shut down. Diseases and injuries, gunshots among them, which were once survivable aren't anymore. The grid is down, so deep wells aren't working. Farm yields crash from providing an excess of food to not yielding enough to support the US population. And if even just rural folk all attempt hunting and have no other food, they will wipe out wildlife in all but the most inaccessible areas. People who read studies on available game in the US sometimes forget that wildlife in deep Alaska - where a lot of it is - doesn't help anyone in Georgia.
The only way I know for things to get this bad is a US wild long term grid failure. But if it happens, a US study estimated 65-90% of the US was dead in a year. I've read the study and they didn't (in my opinion) properly account for the fact that gun counts are about equal in rural and urban areas. (Rural folk more often own, but there are vastly more urban folk, and it roughly balances.) There would be a LOT of carnage.
Bottom line, if the US ever fell this hard (I don't think it will) I think a lot of folk have videogame versions of how it would go in their heads. Reality isn't so pretty. The US is uniquely positioned to self-destruct if things hit a certain point.
Rural folk are real hardy when they have electricity, gasoline, modern medicine, and can make the occasional supermarket run to supplement the garden and game. Take away all that and it doesn't look so good for most of them.
tl;dr: don't let your civilization crash.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
The Western diet is not healthy. People aren't about to up and move while they still have food at home, but that food is likely to leave them malnourished before they even step outside. And that still makes a glaring assumption: water access. Most people are not going to haul filtration systems, and they have minimal capacity to carry water themselves.
We don't have enough gardens to loot anymore. The amount of garden grown per acre in urban or suburban settings is abysmal, and most of those are vegetable/flower gardens that do not produce large volumes of calories.
When you aren't physically exerting yourself maybe. But hiking, defending yourself from others, trying to find water, and so on - it's suboptimal. Normalcy bias is going to drive these people towards known solutions (e.g. government, stores - further into urbanized areas), and then in desperation towards the nearest presumed drinkable water. Thinking about hundreds of miles of foot travel for a slice of wilderness is not rational at that point, if starving people were even capable of rational thinking.
It's basic psychology seen played out throughout modern history. People will sit and wait for their own supplies to run out, expecting things to get better. They won't leave until they are out of supplies (food at least, possibly water if the water gets shut off). They will already be hungry, possibly thirsty, and have either been watching news of looting or not had news and have heard/smelled the signs of chaos (gunfire, fire fire). They won't be moving to escape civilization.
The preppers will have supplies to hunker down for weeks/months before attempting to leave, since that increases the odds that everyone else is dead and looters/shooters are few and far between. People who weren't prepared will have to guess, on minimal information, about where to go. They will go in all directions, it's true, but they aren't looking or prepared to go some great long distance. The very edges of wilderness, like camp grounds, might get reached, but they will be overrun the same way gardens are and nobody is going to survive pushing further in.
The urban areas will see the most death. The reward for getting out of urban areas is death in the suburbs. Getting out of the suburbs will lead to being shot in the rural areas by a hardened combination of rural gun owners and the people who managed to survive getting out of urban/suburban areas. All that gets you to the very edge of civilization, where you know need to live entirely self-sufficiently off of land that is only the way it is now because the government manages its maintenance.
All of those people rely heavily on being supplied and supported by civilization. Fitness freaks eat 5k calories a day to function, joggers don't work with weight, cops will absolutely be looking towards government solutions that they have the power to be a part of, environmentalists know jack, survivalists don't have 1-to-1 experience, weekend warriors are going to get themselves shot, reservists and ex-mil are trained for exceedingly short-term scenarios in which the US government is fully backing them wtih gear, supplies, and support, or the rare cases where something in that plan goes wrong. All of them come from a society full of people addicted to sugar, caffiene, alcohol, prescription drugs, and guns.
This really depends on the region. A generator will run a good amount of time on a gallon of gas, most people in rural areas keep tanks topped off and will have 50+ gallons sitting in the garage/driveway, and you can pump a lot of water in that time - certainly enough to buy the time to find an alternative.
I think the right pockets of rural will do okay, for a few reasons:
Certainly there are some regions (e.g. deserts) where rural living would not save anyone. But lots of areas involve rainfall, edible weeds, wildlife, and freshwater lakes that are not safe to drink from but are certainly easy water supplies for those who can figure out filtration.
That is true, but it's also true that rural folk would have far less of the desk stacked against them than their city mice counterparts.
Girafferage@reddit
Gardens aren't easy food supplies lol. Unless you mean looking for pre-planted gardens. Which yeah, people will definitely go looking for whatever is easy and normal to them and if they see a field of corn then it is pretty simple.
Oni-oji@reddit
Hunting them isn't working. California removed limits and seasons on wild pigs and they are still a major nuisance in many areas.
Also, wild boar meat isn't something you want to eat.
Ampallang80@reddit
My favorite hog hunting story is when I went with my brother and his buddies in East Texas. Didn’t find any but did manage to get his truck stuck and hauled out by a drunk farmer and his tractor. On the way home just the biggest hog I’d ever seen in someone’s front yard
PrepperBoi@reddit
I mean you know pretty quick when you cut into the animal if something is “off” about it. Texture, look, smell, etc.
Cook the shit out of it and tenderize the hell out of it. It’s edible.
Smoking sausages takes a lot of that game taste away via heavy smoke.
I think California just doesn’t make it as fun to hunt as places like Texas does. They get in helicopters and shoot them with suppressed ar-15 and take down a whole pack.
stream_inspector@reddit
The hogs are destroying pay crops. That's why population control is being used in some places.
DeFiClark@reddit
Deer population took until the 1970s to recover to 1930 levels in much of the US
Puzzleheaded-Duck331@reddit
Say, 200 million deer, 500 million hogs, and 350 million people. You do the math. It ain’t pretty.
dallasalice88@reddit
Wild hog meat is not bad either....
geopimp1@reddit
I. Todays world honestly I think most would starve before they were successful
SufficientMilk7609@reddit
It seems that we all have this problem and anywhere in the world, that is why this guide was created, and in the event of a zoonosis-type event, or NBC event, we will not be able to go hunting or fishing. If you want to take a look at the guide, I have it in my profile. In several languages.
Infinite_Pop_2052@reddit
There are approximately 30 million deer in the USA. Meanwhile, there are nearly 350 million people. If S really does HTF, deer will be extinct in a month tops
ishouldnotbeonreddit@reddit
By 1925, the state of Missouri had a deer population of approximately 400. Today, it is over a million.
I remember reading a firsthand account of life in Houston, Missouri during the depression, and a 10-year-old boy described finding a pond full of bullfrogs and sneaking back to his house to get a gig. He was afraid someone else would discover the frog pond before he could get back to it, and then they would not have any food.
Hunting large mammals and birds to extinction is something humans have been doing for millennia. Yes, it is entirely reasonable to assume we will do it again if the social contract to conserve wildlife and habitat breaks down.
Sea_Opinion_2606@reddit
In 1925 people didn't have mass produced supermarket meat. This makes sense. People have lost the stomach of processing their own meat. I don't think many people would know what to do if they bagged one now. In 1925 this was most likely taught to a lot of people.
Lethalmouse1@reddit
That kind of makes it worse. I have done a few animals and I suck.
You ever watch people do it with those "I've done this a lot" skills?
They make half a cut and take the hide of like its breakaway mini dress in a brothel.
They do one move with their hand and get 90% of the meat perfectly off the carcass, and do two more hand movements to get the last 10% and the bones get tested by forensic scientists and are deemed to have no evidence that meat ever touched them.
When I butcher an animal, I spend 45 days plucking the hide off the mofo. I do 299599939 knife moves to get 60% of the meat off. And after forensic scientist analysis, they determine the carcass is whole and no one took any meat off.
What does this mean? It means that if you get a 80lb deer and it dresses down to 40lbs of meat proper, you might have 40lbs of meat.
But the modernites who have done this less than I have. Who are starting worse than I am. Will not get 40lbs of meat, more like 29lbs or something. And thats assuming that they didn't ruin it more with rupturing sacks and stuff.
This means a family that had to hunt one deer in 1925, now has to hunt two deer. This may make the hunting numbers way worse.
2020blowsdik@reddit
Couple things, first, just because people dont know what they're doing doesn't mean they won't try, especially when starving. While they may not be the most efficient harvesting a deer, they will certainly get some meat off and a dead deer cant reproduce regardless of how much meat was taken off it.
Second, youtube is a thing now and it's not hard to learn how to dress and butcher game with a step by step guide that fits in your pocket.
TheRealBobbyJones@reddit
People like to feel like they have rare or special knowledge. While less people butcher their animals than in the past it's not like it's a completely lost skill. More importantly people would teach others. Not everyone would be selfish like most in this sub plan to be.
Endmedic@reddit
It seems it already has, with threats to sell off public lands.. sad days.
myOEburner@reddit
You can hunt on public lands though. Wouldn't selling land allow owners to prohibit hunting and disallow trespassing?
Endmedic@reddit
Well, yes. They likely will also be buyers that plan to log, mine, plunder in some way. So it’s a lose lose.
No_Character_5315@reddit
Also depends on thr scenario wild salmon stocks and other fish would probably improve if commercial fishing vessels couldn't go out and catch in the millions. That is a scenario where only local fishing along coastal areas with very small boats.
huscarlaxe@reddit
My grandfather born 1911 said the deer didn't recover enough from the over harvest of the great depression to hunt till the 60's. But rabbit and squirrel where often hunted all through the worst of it.
fanwiz64@reddit
There's an insect line?!
CountySufficient2586@reddit
It will be human hunting human first..
dittybopper_05H@reddit
I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where civilization goes down and technology no longer works, but the animals and the fish are unaffected.
Nuclear war: Do you really want to be eating the animals that have ingested fallout?
Chicxulub-sized impactor: The animals will be less likely to survive than humans who can often hide underground in places like basements, cellars, subbasements, subways, tunnels, mines, etc. and even large buildings that would provide some shelter.
Gamma ray burst: Kills most of the animals along with most of us, but the survivors would have a food surplus. No need to hunt/fish for most.
Massive virulent and deadly pandemic. This would also result in a food surplus, as there would be far fewer mouths to feed. No need to hunt/fish.
Massive CME. This one is one of the scenarios where technology would fail, but it doesn't effect wildlife for the most part (though things like chemical spills and shipwrecks could cause local issues).
omnipotentqueue@reddit
No such thing if you get out far enough. I highly smuggest fishing for your protein instead - you’re also 10 likely avoid being killed by other hunters for your rifle and supplies.
Boheed@reddit
Estimates indicate the US would be virtually hunted out of wild game within months, except in very remote areas.
Hunting during a food crisis isn't really a sustainable way to feed yourself anymore unless you live next to a large stretch of wilderness. There's just not enough wild game, and the game that's left will quickly get hunted out of existence.
devadander23@reddit
35 million deer in the USA, 350 million people. Roughly 60lbs of meat on a deer, that works out to 6 pounds per person, if evenly distributed, and then that’s it. No more wild deer to hunt.
Yeah, we will overhunt our lands almost immediately and yes, there will be plenty of disagreements over who owns the meat.
sleepymoose88@reddit
In a SHTF scenario, many people will die quickly. They either have no survival skills, no survival gear, or no will to live in a situation like that.
Then you have the millions of Americans that would die shortly after their life saving medication runs out, even if they had all the gear, skills, and will.
I have an autoimmune condition. I wouldn’t die quickly but my spine will start to slowly calcify without my meds.
Quiet-Jello6349@reddit
100%. I would imagine we lose 50% of the population in 3 months.
People on life saving meds would start dying in days. Depending on the time of year and part of the country, people would die from lack of energy in their homes soon after. People fighting at the grocery stores, dying from lack of food or water would happen within weeks. Gangs would form in larger population areas and kill each other for remaining resources.
myOEburner@reddit
Disagree.
Small towns will rip themselves apart. Survivors will flee to the cities because that's where all of the rebuilding efforts will focus.
Quiet-Jello6349@reddit
People in rural areas are better suited to sustaining themselves generally speaking. They’re more likely to have gardens and can that produce, more likely to have livestock or a neighbor with livestock, more likely to have a well on or near their property, more likely to hunt and fish. Also more likely to have guns which can keep some semblance of order in the community.
People in cities generally do not stock up on basic items beyond a few days because “prepping is for wackos”. Grocery stores do not hold food beyond a few days with just-in-time inventory. Cities will become areas with lots of starving people who will become desperate and dangerous. People will be breaking into homes, shooting each other in the streets over a chance for survival. Amidst the chaos bad people will take advantage and take people as slaves or to potentially eat later. The darkest corners of humanity will emerge in the cities. It’s the last place rebuilding will start because of the lack of safety.
myOEburner@reddit
I say the following as someone who thoroughly enjoys my off-grid time and is shopping for a remote cabin in the mountains. I totally get the appeal and it's awesome. But we need to be realistic here.
I get it. The fantasy is a rugged individual who can homestead his way through though times with a community that will band together according to a super specific set of rules that are fair for everyone, and everyone will respect the rules because everyone is an upstanding model citizen who's word is their bond.
But that's not what happens.
The livestock are stolen by thieves or confiscated by an increasingly authoritarian local "government" run by terrified locals, assuming you don't butcher them first. The garden is picked clean. The trucks stop delivering fuel and paper towels and basic medicine and toothpaste and veterinary supplies and every other mundane little convenience that allows rural residents such a high standard of living compared to what rural living used to be. The tractor snaps a rod end and now it only turns left (but it ran out of gas weeks ago anyway). Stuff like that...
And all the people who don't prep start getting a little antsy. And sure, you have a gun, but they do too...and here are more of them. And they have kids to feed. Do they care that your horse is yours? No. They care that their kids' next meal is in your pen.
Your wife's tooth starts to hurt. Your joint starts to ache. What's this pain in my abdomen? The kids are hungry but food is tight and they're crying because real hunger hurts. Fuel is dangerously low. The livestock is gone. Trucks stopped coming months ago and aren't coming back any time soon. Theft is increasing. Town leadership is becoming more desperate and despotic as a result. Human nature is starting to show. So much for being a rugged individualist! Turns out we like hospitals and robust supply chains!
Now what?
Well, what's left of productive commercial enterprise certainly isn't sending stuff to random little communities in the middle of nowhere. They get robbed or, if they happen to make it, there's no payoff at the destination because the rural communities have nothing to trade (prepayment would be required anyway, and how is that going to happen?). Okay, so the trucks roll into urban areas. There are more people thus productivity is higher and there is more value to extract. Maybe there's still a functioning federal government and maybe that's where the payment comes from. Who knows. Point is, the urban areas are the focus of any aid and will return faster than some small town.
I think real life is that the rural folks will clamor back to the cities as reality sinks in unless cities are irradiated smoking craters. The notion that rural communities thrive as supply chains that deliver fuel and Tractor Supply inventory and food and Amazon and dollar store stuff and AutoZone products evaporate is absolutely silly. The standard of living will plummet as the modern conveniences that make quality of life so great for Americans even it the most isolated, rural communities disappear. The only reason remote rural communities enjoy the high standard of living that they do now is because domestic trucking can deliver anything anywhere if they're paid enough to do it. When that stops...uh oh.
The biggest problem will be how cities house and manage the influx of rural folks seeking assistance when reality sets in.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
Depends on variables. My analysis assumed United States population without government intervention in a nation-wide catastrophe on par with the entire grid going down. My numbers were 99% dead or out of the country within two months.
sleepymoose88@reddit
Yup. It would be a brutal world to live in. Not to mention the amount of people who would probably just commit suicide instead of fight to live.
Top that with unsanitary conditions and disease would ravage the population as well.
huf757@reddit
350 million people will also be culled down in the event of a country wide devastation event. Within the first month millions will be killed or die from one thing or another.
devadander23@reddit
People will be starting to death en masse, the deer will be gone before the people
Lopsided-Total-5560@reddit
I totally agree. My grandfather was born in 1909. My dad was born in 1939. By the time my dad was working in the fields (5) there were no deer left in rural NC. My dad said the first time he saw a deer track, he and all the other kids were standing bent over in a circle staring at it like it was a unicorn. He never saw an actual deer until he was almost 20. My grandfather told me he ran them with dogs on his off days and snared them over creek crossings when work was heavy until they ran out. Damn the regulations and seasons when he was feeding the older kids in the early 30’s. Long story short, it would happen again.
Daiquiri-Factory@reddit
Yeah, have you ever tried to hunt a deer? It’s not like everyone is just going to walk outside and pick up a gun and just kill a deer. That shit don’t work like that. It requires a lot more work and effort than most people are willing to do. You gotta kill it, you got to skin and clean it, you got chop up the meat, and freeze or start cooking it first thing. This is all infinitely easier with a truck or atv or something with an engine. And it’s still tedious. That’s even if you manage to find the deer and actually get a kill shot.
devadander23@reddit
But that enhances my point. Few will hoard, most will go without.
Daiquiri-Factory@reddit
I guess if anyone caring about laws and stuff went out the window people would probably be spotlighting like a motherfucker. I know people that go spotlighting even though it’s illegal as hell.
Daiquiri-Factory@reddit
Yeah. I guess the whole Covid toilet paper thing was a good example. That is a good point though.
Ambitious-Cod-8454@reddit
At least if it gets so bad hunting for sustenance becomes necessary a whole lot of people will have already kicked the bucket?
devadander23@reddit
Yes many will die. Doesn’t mean deer meat will be plentiful. If a full half of the country dies, and the existing deer are distributed across the remaining population by some imaginary government that won’t exist anymore, you’re up to 12 whole pounds. One pound of meat per month per person for one year, and then the deer are all gone. And without this imaginary government managing the deer stocks, they’ll be hunted to scarcity and hoarded by a relative few. So they have 24 lbs and you have none
2020blowsdik@reddit
As shitty as it sounds, hopefully, for those of us who can make it through the initial die off that resource with be vital.
GandalfDaGangstuh007@reddit
Even in suburbs with all the rabbits, squirrels and such. All those back yard rabbits could easily disappear when the BB guns and such start coming out lol
Adorable-Storm-3143@reddit
I’m older now, but I remember farmers talking about wild animals disappearing during depression. They were killed and eaten very quickly. Then. No more.
Fleetlog@reddit
Keep in mind we have 2 orders of magnitude more people now and half as much undeveloped land.
Food shortages in the us will end up as poorly as they do in China.
Most game and edible forage will be gone in 60 days, with people boiling bark by winter.
Anticipate 10-15% casualties in the first year.
ResolutionMaterial81@reddit
IIRC, The EMP Commission Report was stating up to 90% fatalities in US Population in the 1st year....basically 300 Million dead.
Keeping in mind, without refrigeration, transportation & processing...lots of food will rot in the fields & farms while people literally starve hundreds of miles away. And then the water-borne diseases (Fecal Coliform, Ameobic Dysentery, etc) would be the Grim Reaper. The list goes on, including man's inhumanity towards man!
Adorable-Storm-3143@reddit
I think your estimate is very low for some circumstances.
competentdogpatter@reddit
Yes, but in this scenario you are also one of the bandits. That's why we need our systems and government to stay intact.
FlashyImprovement5@reddit
The average hunter will miss 3/4 of the shots they take at deer or MORE.
My brother was almost shot by a fairly new beginner hunter blindly shooting across a field because he thought he saw a deer. He shot 8 times and luckily missed both the deer and my brother. 3 years before he actually got his first deer. And YES, my brother was wearing both an orange vest and orange hat. It is called "situational blindness".
So unless 20 people are aiming at the same deer...
And even then they are more likely to take each other out before hitting the deer.
I have had my horses shot at also--- to the point I locked all 3 into the milking stalls that season. And that was in the middle of 150 acres--- posted as no hunting allowed.
There is a saying "some people are too stupid to live" (TSTL for short)
I honestly think if everyone had guns we would have a lot less people in the world. And it would be a good thing.
And if you watch the survivor shows, many try to fish. It can be quite hilarious to watch. And if you dont watch those, check out any early morning fishing shows your local PBS broadcasts. Watch how many professional fisherman catch.
What will probably happen is we would go back to the 1800s where fish and meat are sold off the back of wagons. You pay or you starve. So the thieving happens in the city to gain money or goods to trade for food. Because the farmers and sellers would band together to protect everything. Then a few people would die before everyone realized who was the better shot and they would realize the city folk were the better option to rob.
Counterboudd@reddit
Yes and no is it a real concern I think. To be frank, I think for most people, by the time things get to this level, it will be so bad that the ones who aren’t prepared wouldn’t be capable of preparing. For example, if they have no gun or hunting equipment and don’t know where to go and no experience, odds aren’t great they are going to even try to hunt, nonetheless succeed. That said sure, I’m guessing that if things break down to where people are hungry and game wardens aren’t even a concern anymore that those who are capable of catching a lot of prey will likely try to get them before someone else does and it could cause issues with sustainable populations of wild game. I’d suspect it more like people taking up public and forestry lands as their own game reserves and policing it against others because I imagine few people who hunt don’t understand that they need to reproduce or else you won’t have any food in the future, so I see something closer to warlords or gangs effectively taking control over the “empty” land used to be and controlling the access to that environment as being a possible outcome if we had full systemic failure.
leetol-creecher@reddit
I’ve got a degree in wildlife management—most fresh waterways would be fished dry in a couple years if not for regular stocking. Game bird populations are already plummeting all over the continental US. Deer populations are doing okay, but aren’t necessarily healthy (CWD outbreaks).
My advice is to vary your wild food sources. Learn to forage edible plants. Know how to hunt and clean less common game (frogs, snapping turtles, etc.). Save seeds from native edible plants and replant them to bolster the population. Any one food source could collapse, so have multiple.
Ra_a_@reddit
How likely would it be people get shot by inexperienced hunters ?
NWYthesearelocalboys@reddit
Or shot over their kill.
It gets worse.there would be animals that just have chunks of meat cut out by people who don't know how to gut and harvest meat.
Even cattle both due to ignorance and a lack of ability to haul off all the meat.
Maleficent_Slip_8998@reddit
How likely is it that an inexperienced "hunter" can bag a deer or a turkey? It's not always easy for experienced hunters. These city boys coming in with their rifles (if they have them) would be surprised.
NWYthesearelocalboys@reddit
Initially actually pretty easy in a lot of areas.
Look at how many deer are accidentally killed by vehicles in some states.
Depending on where you are the initial harvest could be pretty effortless. Where I grew up in Ca. they "sunbathed" in people's yards in town.
Where I am now in SE AZ it would be really easy to kill a doe initially. They aren't legal game. Two years ago I was spotting a buck near dusk and I had two does pulling at my clothes. They saw my looking through my scope about 30 yards away and lazily just strolled right up to me. I was pushing them away with my hand while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on the buck.
Also walking up on a deer is difficult but driving up on one is ridiculously easy. Again you can't hunt from vehicles so they dont associate the sound of a pickup truck crunching the ground beneath it with danger.
As the pressure sets in it will be harder. But they won't necessarily go deep into the wilderness, they might just go a few neighborhoods over.
stefan40494@reddit
The story of the does walking up while you were hunting reminds me of a time my wife and I were by ourselves in the evening at an outdoor range - I was shooting steel at 200 yards and a herd of 4 or 5 deer walk up near the targets I was shooting at a couple minutes ago. I waited to see if they were going to leave and they were just hanging out. I didn't want any of them to get hit by a ricochet or anything so I put some shots at the 100 yard berm to try to scare them off and the deer didn't care lol. They wandered off eventually.
I also have some by my house that will walk within 50 feet of you, and I yell at them and shoo them away to stop crossing the road so they don't get hit. They never listen to me, though.
Deer are dumb AF.
Suitable_Many6616@reddit
Keep in mind, there would be a LOT more hunters, inexperienced or not. That would increase the numbers of lucky shots and beginners luck.
nanneryeeter@reddit
Super easy if you don't follow the laws.
Thermal equipped drones and a spotlight.
ascrof@reddit
I just plan on eating sunfish tacos everyday 🤣
Debidollz@reddit
I wouldn’t think so. There would be no refrigeration to store it, and smoking/dehydrating takes time.
PrepperBoi@reddit
The last place you want to be is in the woods with inexperienced people or experienced people with guns that are hungry and willing to contest kills and hungry to feed their family. It’s asking to be unalived.
I wouldn’t be out hunting until the masses died off. Even then, keeping cows is a better bet.
UnfetteredMind1963@reddit
I'd worry they would come for your cows!
PrepperBoi@reddit
Yeah. I’ve always wondered how you would be able to secure livestock in a situation like that, and I think the best way is probably to have a lot of people in your group to take turns. Also, have a lot more cattle than you actually need because you will lose some.
I was thinking it might be better to bale a bunch of hay for them and keep them close to your residence but that requires so much fuel I just don’t see how you could upkeep that long term. You would have to let them graze. The problem with that is higher chance to lose them to people and predators.
It would probably be easier to have lots of Chickens since you can fit alot in a small area and eat the eggs. Goats might not be bad either since they are small and harder for a human to walk up and catch.
Maybe someone with some livestock experience could chime in?
SingedPenguin13@reddit
Rabbits…. Caged or colony style. Super quiet, easy to feed. Indoors or out. Reproduce every 30 days…fur is useful too.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
Barb wire. Walk the fence daily looking for gaps. Use dogs liberally. Put cattle in the middle of a wilderness where hunters will have lots of animals to shoot at before they find your cows.
Raise super quiet rabbits.
idontreallyknowhim@reddit
“Unalived”? Do you mean “killed”?
PrepperBoi@reddit
Yeah. I said the K word a couple times and got banned on some subs so I use this instead…
idontreallyknowhim@reddit
Wtf, you’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking
PrepperBoi@reddit
Nope haha, was a 3 day ban. I appealed it too, no response... Now I am more careful about what subs I decide to participate in.
ResolutionMaterial81@reddit
https://www.themeateater.com/wired-to-hunt/whitetail-management/how-the-whitetail-nearly-went-extinct
Easy to foresee (during a major SHTF Scenario) with current human population levels combined with lack of Refrigerator-Freezers... many species could be hunted to the point of extinction.
Just watched deer on my security cameras; but if SHTF I will not be hunting them, especially as I have copious amounts of long term food storage.
lostscause@reddit
Subsonics with suppressors will be the normal way people hunt, Tons of night vision in the USA. Bears would just be added meat.
Any humans show up would likely get clapped too.
ResolutionMaterial81@reddit
In my experience & in my area (as a former 07/02 FFL/SOT), the overwhelming majority of hunters do not have any suppressed weapons & weapons mounted I²/Thermal, even fewer have subsonics, far fewer have any EFFECTIVE subsonics (such as with Maker projectiles) & very very few have a decent quantity of effective subsonics.
Nocturnal feral hog hunters tend to be among these (but normally running supersonics) & a smattering of outlaw nocturnal deer poachers.
lostscause@reddit
heh disagree
every one has PSV-14's these days Most every one I know has been coyote hunting for fun with thermal/NV. A baby nibble on a 10/22 makes an EFFECTIVE "can" Oil filters solvent traps ... all of that will come out once the rule of law is abandoned.
Most of us have basic reloading equipment these days too, Only way to afford shooting these days.
Thermal is cheap these days and every one I know that owns land and livestock have NV scopes mounted.
Hog hunters are just the tip of the ice burg.
Beebjank@reddit
The night vision community is extremely small. MUCH smaller than you think. I can count the number of people I've met with a PVS-14 besides me on one hand. And I live in West Virginia bordering NoVa where shooting sports are extremely popular and the hobby is very wealthy due to the amount of wealth in the area.
lostscause@reddit
strange , as a pvs-14 and an IR lasers are game changers when hunting coyotes/hogs down in here in Middle GA We all run em now. Large AC 120v IR led lamps running off lipo4 light up kill zone like high noon.
The poors are running digital clones. Which work almost as good, but its like there gating is delayed when firing and can mess with your vision.
I just got an ebay special equinox z just to keep in the bugout truck adding IR lights soon
NV is growing by leaps and bounds. My farm looks dark at night till you look in 85nm
The meme $4000 of optics on a $200 level 4 helmet rings true
If your a prepper and you have your food/water sorted NV should be on the top of your buy me next list, even if you have to go digital at first. Gen3 tubes are not getting any cheaper any time soon. buy them ASAP
ResolutionMaterial81@reddit
If I had to include MY friends & family...sure many have I²/Thermal Weapons Scopes & suppressed modern firearms (I steered many of them into that as an SOT), but for the population at large (at least the hunters in my area); if they have a full box of 30-06 for their hand-me-down Model 70 I would be surprised, as many would come into our gun store right before hunting season & buy "just one box". My partner mainly dealt with the Title I crowd, whereas I was Title II, thermal, I², etc.
Simply amazing the number of people that live "hand-to-mouth", including those who can easily afford to stock up.
But if SHTF; I have dozens of silencers, multiple thermal weapon scopes & multiple I², a Casting-Coating & Reloading Center + a lifetime supply of ammo...including subsonics.
So...what can be true in your area may not be in mine & vice versa. But being in the business (until recently) allowed me a better worldview of the population at large vs just my Friends & Family.
Connect-Type493@reddit
Also if there's hundreds or thousands of inexperienced panicky hunters out there with crying hungry kids at home, the odds of getting shot by accident will skyrocket. I would absolutely not venture into the woods then
hawg_fan72@reddit
If SHTF and there’s no resolution in sight, a true start-over scenario, it will become a simple game of calories for food sustenance. How can you provide 1500-2500 calories a day for everybody in your group to be fully fueled to do the hard work of hauling water, cutting wood, security, etc? A full grown deer will provide about 5-8 days worth of calories for 4 people, it’s extremely lean meat, but you could survive for a while on deer and other game if you can find it. As 75+% of the population begins to die off within a couple of months, there will be more game to go around, but you may be better off trying to trade for some livestock early on if you don’t have any to start with. The calories expended walking miles looking for deer will make that calorically cost-prohibitive. 20 chickens in a self sustaining flock could produce a substantial amount of eggs and meat by eating inedible garden scraps, bugs, grass, etc. a couple breeding pairs of hogs would produce an abundance of pigs for meat if they get enough to eat, diary cows and beef cattle turn grass and weeds into calories, goats and sheep do the same. It’s apparent when you run this mental exercise how important the family dairy cow was for people pre-1940. 1 cow producing an average amount of average milk would supply nearly 10,000 calories a day. If that’s turned into butter, yogurt, or other stable forms after some is drank for the day, a substantial amount of calories can come from one animal converting grass to milk. This is a fun math problem to solve now, but one that would be paramount to your survival if SHTF.
MaxArtyx@reddit
I have never heard of an insect line height for storing food. Do you have anymore info on it?
premar16@reddit
I think overhunting would happen. I do want to point out that we don't have to go back to being hunter/gathers again. Even when we were in that stage not EVERY single person hunted. They had people in the community designated to go out and hunt while other people used other skills. We moved from that stage into farming and agriculture. So we could go back before the industrial revolution into a more farming lifestyle. Farming animals still exist. More and more people will have to get their own chickens,cows,goats,etc. To help with that we need to start making relationships with local farmers,rancher, and gardeners.
rjromo@reddit
Before that happens people will start killing themselves to raid houses for loot
After such bloodbath, there will be few people and the hunting will be within the preservation limits
WeeklySheepherder671@reddit
Hilarious that people think they’ll just “learn” to hunt when there’s a crisis….
Vegetable-Prune-8363@reddit
I hate to be that guy..... But any crisis that impacts food is going to be mad max lvl violence.
Seriously.... Anyone having food is going to have to actively hide the smell of food as they cook. Most neighbors on any given weekend you can tell what neighbors are having a cook out. Apartments are even worse.
After days even the smell of burning wood for a campfire will draw people in. To make matters worse will be the smell of rotten foods going to waste. Most people are going to lose most of the frozen food in 48-72 hours.
Even if someone has a generator or solar panels to keep a freezer frozen the sound of the generator makes you a target. The unprepared will always remember who is better prepared.
Most homes have less than 7 days of shelf stable foods. Less than 10% have the ability to cook without power.
Within weeks..... Every single tree near any dense population will be cut down for firewood. Faster if the climate is colder/freezing. Fires will become a HUGE problem as people resort to desperate measures. Most built in fireplaces in modern homes are not designed to be cooked on or have "less than perfect firewood".
The only good news is that in any shtf situation most people in larger cities won't have access to water. 99% of common people don't have water filters required. Boiling water long enough to kill bacteria or viruses takes a lot of energy. Within 2 weeks most people will be way more concerned with water..
Hell most people probably don't have a secure way to transfer water short of reusing water bottles. Seriously ask yourself right now.... If you had to get 3 gallons of water from the closest pond,lake,steam near you. How would you carry it while on foot? How many people would you pass?
razorthick_@reddit (OP)
The other thing is that if you do hunt and catch some game, others don't have to hunt if they can just set up a roadside ambush or a roadblock. Mad Max like you said. Imagine prepping and doing a good job surviving only to end up getting snuck up on by 30 guys. Worse if you have your family it's negotiate or go out guns blazing.
I forgot about the smoke from cooking also. Soon as that hits the air it's basically a beacon to all kinds of hungry people.
Me personally I live by a creek BUT it's in between farm fields. I have no clue what kind of cow, pig, horse shit and pesticides are in that water on top of bacteria and viruses. I'd be out of luck there BUT just because I wouldn't doesn't mean others won't and that would mean them intruding into my neighborhood.
Lots to consider but not sure how likely this scenario would be. Some insane weather event, agriculture industry collapse, horrific incurable disease, economic collapse?
Suitable_Many6616@reddit
This is such a realistic comment. Truth is, any disaster bad enough to cause severe food shortage would most likely cause shortages of medicine, transportation fuel, heating fuel and therefore affect the power grid, hospitals, nursing homes, emergency services and everything else.
Within a few short weeks, all hell would have already broken loose. In a few months, there would already be fewer people left to feed.
javacat@reddit
Raise guinea pigs for meat.
It's more common in South America to raise and eat guinea pigs. They are considered a delicacy by some, and a means of survival by people who are poor because they are easy to raise and breed like rabbits...without as much a danger of 'rabbit starvation'. It's higher in fat than rabbit and if prepared with it's skin on/fried with oil, that would add to the fat content.
I'm not sure where you can acquire a mating pair of Peruvian guinea pigs, but they grow to be a bit larger than they ones you see at the grocery store.
One Peruvian guinea pig has enough meat on it for one adult meal (thanks to Chat GPT for that answer), and would make for a filling meal paired with potatoes, rice, corn (as I'd had it when in Peru) or other veggies.
If you're curious, the taste of Cuy/guinea pig reminded me of chicken...and the website below says it tastes like a cross between pork and chicken.
Per ChatGPT:
The amount of edible meat you get from a processed guinea pig (cuy) is relatively small due to its size and bone-to-meat ratio.
🔍 On average:
You can click here for more information on 'Who eats guinea pig meat?'
susanrez@reddit
Hunting is a skill. A lot of people who call themselves hunters these days are really baiters. They leave feed out all year to attract deer and other game. Then during hunting season they sit in a tree and wait for the deer to come to the feed station. In a collapse these baiters will not be able to buy or grow enough feed to attract the game. Real hunting involves knowing animals habits and habitats. It involves stalking the prey. You must be very stealthy. It takes a long time to learn these skills.
Knowing how to butcher an animal is another skill that most people don’t have. An improperly butchered animal can easily result in tainted meat.
Most people in a collapse will not be able to rely on hunting for food.
Just the a camera out in the woods and try to get a picture of a deer. A picture where the deer’s heart is in the dead center of the frame. You’ll find it’s nearly impossible without a lot of practice.
kkinnison@reddit
There is not enough biomass to support 9 Billion people without dedicated agriculture, preservation and transport.
IF you have to rely on wild flora and fauna to survive expect over 90% of the human population to starve.
there is a reason civilization started when humans decided farming was better than wandering around in small groups for food.
zailah@reddit
Just wait until screwworm comes back and there is nothing to hunt.
Substantial_Studio_8@reddit
We have a Soylent Green factory down the road, so we are good.
preppervet@reddit
I had a chance to talk to my grand parents that live through the great depression. During the great depression in the adirondacks, deer became more or less non-existent. For nearly fifty years if someone saw a deer track it would make the news paper.
If you really think about it, if it was a problem back then, and we have a lot more people to feed now, I'd have to guess that when push came to shove, it would be a problem anywhere in the continental u.s. with the exception of some very rural areas.
ODaysForDays@reddit
Well the hog overpopulation will certainly help things out a lot. Even with a bounty we couldn't make a dent in their numbers.
ReplacementReady394@reddit
Where I grew up, some people shoot warning shots at you if you’re around their lobster traps. I honestly believe people will shoot others in the woods if they’re hungry enough.
HappyCamperDancer@reddit
Didn't take long for Bison to be hunted to near extinction.
1850= 50 to 75 million bison. From Mexico to the Yukon And Oregon to Pennsylvania.
1880= 100 individuals.
30 years. Population of the U.S.? 1850 = 25 million 1880 = 50 million
WompWompIt@reddit
Weren't the majority of them killed to starve the native Americans, though? Also hunted from rail cars and what not, if I remember correctly.
HappyCamperDancer@reddit
It was a combination of things and yes, genocide was part of the ecocide.
Fluffy_Job7367@reddit
I think everything would get wiped out including dogs. But fishing and trapping squirrels and rabbits would be on my list first before hunting deer. Snares are more passive.
NotAnotherRedditAcc2@reddit
Oh not even close.
ZGadgetInspector@reddit
Opportunistic hunters with no means to preserve meat will ravage the populations.
Femveratu@reddit
Yes absolutely. Depending on the area almost all game will be gone within first 12 months w no replenishment.
And not just from the hungry hordes. The pro poachers and TRAPPERS will be going nuts and SELLING the meat to hungry families.
With illegal hunting and fishing going on 24/7 w thermals, drag nets, traps traps traps, it just won’t last long.
I’d prepare more for an almost urban scenario where pigeon and rat were def on the menu in many past historical sieges and even in Lebanon in the 80s and in the baltics in the 90s as documented in many accounts.
And I 100% agree about potential gun battles over territory.
Even today things get spicy on lobster boats and sometimes fishing boats off the coast of New England and pretty much every tract of land is accounted for private AND public.
If rule of law truly did break down, the woods teeming w desperate armed “hunters” is not where you will want to be.
So many “accidents” …
NorthernPrepz@reddit
I second this view. Hungry hordes would be pretty useless unless they’ve hunted before. The experienced hunters who turn this into a cash cow is what will drive depletion. Agree with you on the “accidents” too.
ResponsibleBank1387@reddit
There will be a drastic problems. Urban wildlife will go. First the dairy herds, and cafo. Deer and other wildlife near people will take a hit. Also many wildlife populations grew over number because of agriculture.
Wildlife out a ways will be safe enough.
Virtual-Feature-9747@reddit
During a crisis with a food shortage I can't imagine anything more dangerous than being out in the woods with a bunch of other armed, starving and desperate people. Do you think when anyone hears a gunshot they will rush over to congratulate you on your kill?
WompWompIt@reddit
That was my first thought.
chrs_89@reddit
I was told when I was young that in a collapse hunters will starve, and trappers will eat. I don’t know how accurate that is but I can see how more people on average would be geared towards bigger game and smaller game might be the better option after all the larger game gets hunted out. That and you can put down multiple snares while you are out hunting and it’ll increase your odds of coming back with something when having anything to eat is a step up in the world. I know I definitely plan not being picky in a shtf situation, and turning down squirrel or rabbit just because I want a deer seems foolish.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
Areas that would get hunted or trapped would be overrun with people. Trapping works when you can circle through an area multiple times, but that's not going to work if everything is overhunted. You need to constantly migrate to hunt OR trap game.
Better to store a year of food, let everyone die, and figure out how to eat the rodents and roaches that are left to overpopulate the Earth.
buckduey@reddit
Trapping conserves more energy. There are many that can hunt without a gun as well. If you don't have much equipment/supplies, trapping would be more efficient. i could be bias as i'm someone who prefers trapping.
ArtImpossible4309@reddit
I see where this advice was coming from but you can hunt small game easily with a BB gun or slingshot and you can trap larger game (or about anything else, for that matter). If you’re trying to rely on outdoor survival skills in a shtf situation why not plan on using all of them?
My concern with trapping for most of us would be gear disappearing while you were away if people were desperate. If you’re just using snares for small game this would be manageable I guess.
Takara38@reddit
People already over hunt. Just look at the Amish. They thumb their noses at any hunting regulations, and kill anything they can get close enough to. Look at poachers that use illegal methods to kill bucks and just leave the carcasses to rot after taking the rack.
Bobby_Marks3@reddit
Not only will animals be overhunted, but lots and lots of people will attempt to do it so loudly and poorly that they drive animals away from hunting grounds entirely. But keep in mind that hunters will only travel so far, as will animals that can manage to survive relocation. So if you go far enough into wilderness, there will most likely be plenty to eat if you know what you are doing.
That said, it's a lot easier to grow food (even secretly in the wild) or raise rabbits than it is to hunt. Even successful hunters will end up dying for lack of fiber and carbohydrates.
lostscause@reddit
everyone talks about deer and hogs ... rabbit, squirrels, possums and trash pandas will be the main sources of "bush meat"
birds! if it flies it dies .. crow pie is a real dish ..
Game wardens will not be at work .. "arguments" Territory will be defended like their lives count on it .. cause it does. Will be lots of KOS in the woods. only 10% of us survive
1-8 months after the Just in Time shipping stops will be a wild ride.
06210311200805012006@reddit
My grandfather and great-aunt (his sister) were born in 1905 and grew up in a very rural area of North Dakota. During the course of their lives they saw WW1, The Great Depression, and WW2.
Both of them had anecdotal stories of the great depression, which always fascinated me. My great aunt had kept a journal and shared it with me before her passing. There was an entry in there about how "Clayton (my gramps) couldn't find so much as a rabbit to skin." during the great depression. They were quite clear that the townsfolk had killed and eaten literally anything that ran, crawled, flew, or swam.
Both of them remained staunch off-gridders and preppers right up to the end. Great Auntie's root cellar was a gardener and canner's dream. Rows and rows of colorful jars neatly organized and labeled. Her garden was larger than the entire property I own now and she made good use of it.
Mala_Suerte1@reddit
I've read a few books about the depression and people were hunting any animal that they could. Pigeon populations dropped drastically, as did squirrel and coon, etc. Some books mention people eating rats, which doesn't seem like a good idea, but it's understandable if you're starving.
TheSensiblePrepper@reddit
My opinion has a Hunter.
Some areas have more than enough Game to support more hunters. Other areas don't. The area where I hunt has an overabundance of Deer. Last year I got six tags for the Deer season while other areas got two at best.
I, personally, feel that a lot of people that don't hunt are going to try when they are desperate. Many of those people are going to fail and starve to death. Even combat soldiers don't realize that Deer react very differently than people and are much faster.
The average person during the Great Depression knew how to hunt. The average person today has no clue. Their AR-15 with a scope and Forced Rest Trigger is not a guarantee like they think.
IlliniWarrior6@reddit
it's going to be a SMALL game scenario during a severe SHTF - and - stealthy hunting a necessity >>> you go out hunting conventionally and you'll be lucky not to be murdered for your weapon/ammo and the boots on your feet .....
already mentioned the regs & rules will be gone >>> so you bait & entrap game - spread corn and drop a net on the game birds drawn in - fish using a gill net or baited hook line - battery of selfwinder reels mounted on the shoreline - traps & traps & more traps .....
not going to be time for conventional hunting - not mentioning the bodily energy - adults will be needed elsewhere - gamegathering will be for the kids & capable elderly .....
prep accordingly >>>
suzaii@reddit
To be fair, some of us would never hunt, even in an apocalyptic scenario. I might fish, but I currently live in Phoenix, so that's not even possible. Perhaps the city folk might over hunt the pigeons. But they would loot every store first beforehand. Most would not even make it out of the city.
ToughPillToSwallow@reddit
Oh yeah, game and freshwater fish will disappear almost immediately. Saltwater fish will last much longer. But in the long term, farming is the way to go.
BobbyPeele88@reddit
It would be a tragedy of the commons situation.
SetNo8186@reddit
The metro emptying into the wilderness to live off the land will just leave that much more in their unoccupied apartments to loot, and all those city rubes wandering on private lands will be rounded up by deputized owners on horses and ATV's to send back to the city where food is being given away. Why would they do that? Because after three weeks of drinking unsafe water and a few fish, they will try to raid farmhouses and it's already passed down thru the generations to protect your root cellar and home canned goods for the family first. Shoot the livestock means being hunted down for it. They are the long term survival plan for people who avoid people.
Yes, we have a very different view of TEOWAKI out here in Smallville vs The Metro who largely doesn't have a clue what the difference is between a tick or chigger. It was clearly shown during Covid when small groups did try to do exactly that - live off the land - and in multiple cases all they did was slowly starve until they froze to death. If you don't live out in the wilderness already, it's a death sentence to attempt it at a time when all the resources are still in the Metros anyway. It's where all the need will be.
wookape@reddit
I own a farm where it’s not uncommon to see 100 whitetail, 20 turkey and piles of smaller mammals & birds on a grain food source in one evening. It would only take a few weeks to clean it out.
DaoScience@reddit
Partly because I expect overhunting I think that staying close to the see is important. Then you can fish, pick mussels and scallops and snails and certain forms of seaweed. You can also very easily grow things like mussels by throwing out rope or plastic that they can easily grow on.
DaoScience@reddit
I think overhunting will happen fast. I think having a .22 caliber rifle to shoot birds we normally don't hunt such as crows and seagulls and animals such as squirrels is a good idea. That kind og game will be available for longer than things like deer.
Sea_Opinion_2606@reddit
The hope is that commercial fishing vessels wouldn't be operating. So you'd be probably taking less than they do. The hunting, on the other hand depends where you are. If you're rural and from anywhere near Appalachia I think you'll be fine with deer as you can get pest licenses outside of hunting season. Just don't shoot anything pregnant or young. There are plenty of geese where I'm from and the local golf courses actually ask people to come and bag em.
The big thing to consider is if the people hunting/fishing are going to use the maximum amount of edible things off of said animal/preserve properly so they don't have to go out again and shoot another only because they like backstreet (for example). I smoke meats for a living and I think more people should learn this skill. Or at l3ast salt curing/biltong making. Preservation of a 30# deer should be able to feed 2 people for at least 15 days. 30-45 days if they know how to forage or have other items to cook up and add. (Rice, pasta, flour for bread,l or similar items, canned foods, etc.)
Learn how to preserve things then you won't have to hunt or fish nearly as much. I would suggest everyone keep a big bag of salt and nitrates/nitrites in order to preserve meat if need be.
thevernabean@reddit
Unless there are mass casualties, you can expect people to have depleted all resources in less than a week. They will probably be eating each other in two. There are just too many people.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fmov8yv6pyaq91.png%3Fwidth%3D600%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D71e6e082ecf1dd431794e16e1758dd2d05ca88d4
Virginia_Hall@reddit
Also this:
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
(Note that carrying capacity is less than 2 billion.)
Alternative-Copy7027@reddit
I would imagine all the deer etc would run far, far away if hordes of hungry, unexperienced hunters descended on the woods.
Virginia_Hall@reddit
Sadly there's not much "away" left in the US.
renny7@reddit
They absolutely will, and from what I’ve seen it wouldn’t take much. I work in IT and a previous job we had a real nice web filter with a separate reporting appliance. All of the top “questionable” searches, as in most hits, were people looking up “how to live off the land” “how to skin a deer”, stuff like that.
In a shtf, food shortage situation it seems like you’d be more likely to end up in a bad situation than bringing home dinner.
Not saying those are bad skills to have, definitely worthwhile knowledge, but just giving an anecdote of people’s thought process when faced with uncertainty. The woods will be packed with armed, scared, hungry people that have no idea what they’re doing.
Far-Respond-9283@reddit
I think people overestimate how many animals and edible plants are in the woods.
Mule_Wagon_777@reddit
In the devastation of WWII many Europeans ate their pets. I remember a quote, "Sad little meals by candlelight." There was nothing left.
due_contact1511@reddit
Oh 100% , hell we'd have even more of a wasteland now if there werent certain limiting factors in play.
But take those away, and squirrels might be the biggest game you can get, and minnows the only fish
Angylisis@reddit
Yes. And that's why it's important to make sure you have other sources of protein you can have access to.
I have chickens I raise in my backyard, I grow edamame, lentils, and a variety of dried on the bush beans. I grow peas.
Our country actually eats way more meat that we need to survive, but we still would over hunt/fish if shtf.
HamRadio_73@reddit
Most people outside the south or rural Midwest couldn't hunt for a package of hamburger at the store. Take care of your personal supplies and anything else is a bonus.
Busy-Dream-4853@reddit
Reading all the comments , I still think there is wrong thinking. Modern man cannot be compared to someone 100 years ago. A lot of knowledge has been lost and that doesn't just come back. The number of people who think that you don't need to kill an animal because you can buy meat in the supermarket is increasing every day. And if they already go into the woods with a gun, the game has already heard and smelled them before they come in sight. And even then........ cattle ranches and hog pens are a much simpler target than free-roaming game. the same goes for fish, for most you still need a boat and a rod from the pier is not enough. So some people become very rich because of the hunger of others but for eradicating a species you still need more.
iwannaddr2afi@reddit
There's not enough fish and deer for everyone. And I hope that wouldn't happen, but I'm fairly certain it would.
That has been discussed pretty regularly on this sub, if you feel like reading more replies you could search for overhunting or deer population.
wncexplorer@reddit
Just like that, the entire North American grey squirrel population disappeared 🤮
SunLillyFairy@reddit
To add, folks who think they can live off hunting without experience will be in for a rude awakening. I have experience and I can tell you that as a middle-aged woman with kids that need supervision it would NOT work well for me to hike to a good spot, take down a deer and try to process it and haul it back. Nor would traps or snares work well when there is food competition. And in that scenario you're describing... I'm not keen to go into the woods by myself, even armed, with other armed folks trying to get food. I'd risk my life and spend more calories trying to get the food than it would give me. I'd seriously benefit more from harvesting earthworms and algae in my yard.
Many-Health-1673@reddit
Larger animals like whitetails, elk, and mule deer would be decimated quickly during such a scenario. Regardless of what the game warden would say, there are just not game wardens to enforce the law against the masses.
After the first week the game animals would get wise quickly as there would be many people hunting for the first time in the woods and crossing peoples property lines would inevitably lead to confrontation.
During a decade long event like the Great Depression, people would be hurting so bad financially they will eat anything they can find. Racoons, turkeys, feral hogs, possums, dove, birds, frogs - would all be on the menu if you could trap, snare, or shoot them. Feral hogs would probably fare okay just because they are so smart.
The domesticated livestock on farms would need to be kept penned up close to the house or watched at night because the temptation would too great for some people that are already on the verge of lawlessness or people who are worse off. A 600 lb steer would feed your family for a long time if you had a pressure canner and some lids/jars, but the issue would be keeping possession of the animal before someone stole it. People are not the same as they were back then. There are a lot of people who have never heard the word No, and have never been punched in the face or shot for doing stupid shit to other people or stealing property.
NewLawGuy24@reddit
it takes some skill to hunt deer.
The estimates are that 36 million deer exist in the US.
given how the average person behaves, overhunting is probably a certainty but how bad would society have to be if say 30 million are killed
Kitso_258@reddit
I would 100% expect the wildlife population to be killed off. And I'd expect seasoned hunters/land owners to aggressively protect what they have, an emergency is NOT the time to become a hunter.
I'd also be concerned about raids on cattle farms, etc. There's a reason that beef production in the US skyrocketed when we had both electricity and dense cities - a cow can feed a lot of people, but the meat will spoil quickly.
If we're truly at that point, my goal is to barter for some young chicks and try to raise chickens locally. But, that's a pipe dream as I have zero experience actually keeping fluffy things alive.
Tinman5278@reddit
In much of the U.S. of A. the only reason many freshwater fish species can be caught at all is because they are stocked by the various states. Many waterways have few, if any, fish in them for much of the year. They get stocked in the spring and are fished out by mid-June. Also keep in mind that for many of the mammals that are commonly hunted, they are only hunted during a few short seasons of the year. If people are hunting them EVERY day, the whole concept of balanced game management goes out the window. It's easy to just say that the deer will go elsewhere but that doesn't do much for them when there are more people with gun elsewhere too.
If we got into a serious food crisis people would be foraging for anything they can find to eat. Every patch of woods is going to get combed over on a recurring basis. Anything in urban or suburban areas would be picked through daily. Those people are going to stumble across deer, bear, turkeys, wild boar, squirrels, etc... and a lot of them are just going to shoot whatever they see.
I'd give it 30 days.
certifiedintelligent@reddit
The majority of people in the US have no idea how to hunt or fish or prep their catch.
If you’re in a hunting community already, then sure, else, I bet people will be robbing and killing each other.
Thriftstoreninja@reddit
Without a doubt wildlife would be decimated. Someone posted on here that in the 50’s it made the local newspaper when a deer was spotted. Many animals were nearly hunted to extinction in Europe. And that was without modern hunting technology. It is theorized that humans hunted the mammoth to extinction with stones, spears and atlatls. I would guess that after 3 months in populated areas it would be very hard to find any game animals. I am an avid hunter in the mountain west of the US. There are hunting districts near me that have been nearly hunted out and that was with active management.
LargeMobOfMurderers@reddit
A thing to remember is just because people can't hunt or fish, doesn't mean they won't exhaust those resources trying. Someone hungry enough is still going to run into the woods with their rifle, shooting at anything that moves.
Even if they don't harvest the meat right, they'll still kill the deer. Even if they don't kill the deer, they'll still wound the deer. Even if they don't wound the deer, they'll still have driven it off. Either way, your plan to live off hunting is out one more deer.
silasmoeckel@reddit
It's estimated that we have 20 millions tons of wild mammal biomass 390 of humans in the US so roughly 10 days worth with no other inputs. To give you an idea we have 20x that in just cattle. We have more domestic dogs to eat that wild mammals.
Hunting is not viable in a starvation event. Those that have livestock will need to protect them from starving masses and can not rely on it if the government starts seizing for the greater good (so politicians can eat). Make sure your local community can block access from urban centers via choke points.
We saw urban people stealing during covid when food supply became erratic they were clearing out farm stands in rural settings.
StarlightLifter@reddit
Collapse will be a horrible timer to be a deer
Bad_Corsair@reddit
Here in the south wild pigs would supplement a lot of protein to individuals that hunt them but if everybody is shooting during a stalk in would definitely scare the game away making it more difficult to get big game like deer and elk. This would be particularly more difficult around big cities too
Secret-Tackle8040@reddit
If there were a situation that lead to that kind of food desperation the population would be so drastically reduced this would be a non-issue. Large urban centers aren't suddenly getting back to the land and lots of people already LARPing in the woods would likely also be dead. If anything species like deer would experience a massive population boom.
Vegetable-Bobcat-992@reddit
If we're talking a little further out, you forgot to factor in extensive enforcement by aircraft.
That doesn't make it better, just makes it a lil different.