And your advertisement contributes to the dialogue in what way?
RiverRatRandy, there was not anything I was trying to advertise. I meant for you to look at the site that was linked to, which you show you did not do, as you were saying that it is alright to be killing animals found among the wildlife. If you had you would see my point, that wildlife is rapidly decreasing. I saw better links further for showing that point after posting, it is however not an easy thing for me to go collect them for showing here, and why should I bother if even one for it won’t be looked at? It is certain that wildlife is rapidly decreasing, and we have responsibility to live differently without contributing to it, either directly with killing off wildlife still, or indirectly but still certainly contributing to it with our market demands, definitely including any demand for what we get from animal agriculture.
It is alright to kill certain species in the wild for food. As I previously stated, and you obviously didn’t read, some species of smaller game are not only not endangered but overpopulating. At any rate, Sunbather and I were discussing the better ways of acquiring survival and bushcrafter skills in this thread. Do you have anything along those lines of discussion to contribute? Because that’s what Sunbather was asking - where and how he could acquire survival and bushcrafter skills. And a portion of those skills involves acquiring food in the wild. We weren’t debating anything. We were discussing a particular topic. I suspect a great many of the people on this site have interpreted “rewilding” as exclusively meaning rolling back urban development. It does not. It also includes relearning how to survive in the wild.
Will it really matter that some small animals are growing in numbers when all wildlife will be gone? No, all wildlife will be gone, then. It is really happening, I have the information. Nature should be left intact, natural predators are a part of the systems they come from. Humans are the ones which should perish. The world would be better without out all of them.
All humans should perish? Jeez, you need to get out of your parent’s basement more often.
I would like to see this “information”. It’s hard to believe considering so much “wildlife” is more resilient than us humans - and will likely outlive us.
Furthermore, life isn’t that simplistic. Wildlife doesn’t sit around singing hippy chants - those animals are in competition, directly & indirectly. Sure, most humans aren’t helping, but overpopulated species are detrimental to the rest of wildlife. Hunting them is actually better for nature than not doing anything.
WWF also has a pretty lackluster reputation when it comes to protecting nature AND the people who are already living sustainably.
https://shop.survivalinternational.org/products/new-pandaleaks
I’m definitely interested in this topic. Do you have a set of the minimum skills one should possess before giving it a go?
Friction fire & hunting are obviously non-negotiable. What else?
I see that wildlife on earth and in the seas is quickly disappearing, and it is humanity being in this world that is ruining it, and the most important animals in this world are disappearing because of humanity, and hardly any will change how they live to diminish contribution to that. The natural world would be best off without humanity being here, and if humanity was gone, the natural world could speedily recover. It is frustrating to me, I expect rewilders could understand the situation of the natural world and what is needed for it, but still most don’t, really.
And I am likely significantly older than you. I communicated with you by email as you invited, but you were not responsive. I won’t dignify that comment from you with further responses.
It should not matter what source I linked to when there are many sites showing this.
We, all of humanity, are the overpopulated species detrimental to wildlife.
Hi Frank,
I just want to say that I for one really appreciate your consistent, unrelenting passion for the other animals and all life on Earth, and your refusal to retreat into the anthropocentric attitude. The situation these days is so horrendous, the challenge so huge that we easily get into disagreements about the best way to respond. My own approach (in progress—not quite ready to post on that yet) differs slightly from what you have proposed at times, but I am basically on the same page as you, and continue to be inspired by just knowing that you and other people who care (most of us on this forum, despite the disagreements) are out there doing your best all the time. Thank you for that.
Amazing isn’t it how the tree-hugging Bambi crowd took over my thread? Tolerant lot, aren’t they? A man asked for information on wilderness survival and how he might go about learning the proper skills. Having spent most of my 65 years as an outdoorsman and bushcrafter I attempted to offer a little advice and point him in the right direction. But as you can see a large group of hippie dumbasses crawled out of the woodwork to hijack our thread. So I’m done with this bullshit website and the idiots that populate it. ta-ta…
Hey RiverRatRandy,
I never meant anything against what you are doing, I think it’s great. My own approach is also learning primitive survival skills, but within a city—a very barren land compared to those protected areas that have (so far) escaped the worst of the overrun of civilization. I certainly don’t have as much experience in my chosen way as you have in yours, but I am working on it every day, on my own, and learning a lot. I realize that this does not relate specifically to your original intention for this thread, sorry about that— just wanted to let you know that this hippie dumbass is not just talking. All of us here are working in the same general direction, even if in very different ways.
I am aware of the anthropocene, but not one of those sites corroborates the claim that “all wildlife will be gone”. Of interest, however, is that none of them point to hunting as a significant cause of the extinctions - 90+% is pretty clearly tied to habitat destruction:
“Previous research has shown the main culprit behind the declining wildlife numbers… is the loss and degradation of habitat.”
“The study found that heavy livestock grazing along border areas – often illegally within protected area boundaries – is depleting the forage for wild herbivores and reducing the frequency of natural fires.”
“The report shows that the biggest recorded threat to biodiversity comes from the combined impacts of habitat loss and degradation, driven by what WWF calls unsustainable human consumption.”
I’m not disagreeing with you on the crux of the problem, brother, so please read my words as if I might actually have some insight to offer. Perhaps a story would better convey what I’m trying to get across:
When the “civilized” people came to the Americas, one of the first things they did was kill off all the predators in their surrounding habitats - which today includes basically the entire east coast.
Now, the extirpation of wolves, coyotes, & mountain lions is a sad fact, but even worse than their deaths is the void that remains in the ecosystem without them. Other animals have no natural pressure limiting them from breeding to excess.
Deer are especially destructive, as they graze the forest bottoms down to bare earth, further degrading their own habitat & leaving very little food & shelter for other species or even new trees to replenish the forest.
The deer population has even gotten too high for their own good, and Chronic Wasting Disease (which is always fatal) continues to spread among them & into more & more areas.
I wish we could bring wolves back, & trade our cities for forests, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon. Meanwhile, the deer population needs to be kept in check, for the health of countless other species & for their own good. Why not get people connected to the land & the web of life around them (and disconnected from the thoughtless consumerism that has them eating farmed meat) by taking over the wolves’ role?
After all, since we are the ones who drove off the wolves, isn’t it our responsibility to take over their role, at least until they return? Do you think their is a better and PRACTICAL way to protect “nature” in this regard?
I also realize the actual number of deer would quickly vanish if “everyone” was hunting, but in my own state at least, the number of hunters continues to decline - even as the total population continues to grow. Hunting isn’t the problem, the disconnect from our ecosystems is.
Thank you, Eileen, for that response. I would look forward to communication with you through this.
I do try to be understanding, and I see what you say here. But there are things I hope will be heard in regard to these things, that I don’t see hunters give consideration to. We are still part of a greater whole. The natural environments of this world are suffering, and being diminished too, from humanity here, and we are a part of that. I don’t think all wildlife will necessarily disappear, but for wildlife to not disappear requires that humanity as a whole will live very differently. The human population increasing needs to stop, very soon. There are too many humans for this world. Animal agriculture is most detrimental to natural environments of this world. None of us, you or me, should be part of the demand for animal agriculture anymore. We are not wolves, or top predators, either. The top predators were always few and would never become so many, as humans have, and are doing so more. What is sustainable for us to do? What is sustainable is what would be best in this world with all people doing. What could this world handle with stability all humans doing? They should really reproduce less, that human population does not continue growing but gradually decreases from the excessive number. Animal agriculture should no longer be used. Can they all hunt? Is that what the world can handle with stability? If what we would do is not what the natural world can handle all humans in the world doing, what that is would not really be sustainable. We are not wolves, and any of us hunting do not ever hunt in the way wolves, or any natural predator, will hunt. They should be in place for that. And if humans are living in a sustainable way, which isn’t with civilization, and predators are let back, they will return to where the grazers are. It is for them, not humans, to hunt, and humans should live in the sustainable way, while the population of humans comes down.
But am I so sure, or even optimistic, that humans will change soon enough? No, I rather doubt it. Civilization would necessarily collapse, but will it collapse before all the damage it could do to wildlife has been done?
I agree with a lot of what you say - particularly the importance of reversing the current trends concerning animal agriculture & population growth. But I find some of your ideas a little contradictory.
You acknowledge that humans have a role in the ecosystem (that we are “part of a greater whole”) - but the rest of your philosophy seems to be filled with the Us versus Nature divide that pervades “civilized” thought. And rather than say what our role is (or should be), you simply say what it isn’t (again, solely from the perspective of a civilized person). Obviously we are not wolves, but like it or not we are essentially the “top predators”; if not, what stands above us in the food chain to keep us in check? (Whatever it is, it’s doing a pretty poor job).
There is no sustainable way to support 7+ billion people. Fossil fuel does that currently (if you consider overfeeding 1/3 of the world & underfeeding the rest sufficient to call it that). Our population will need to decline, but until that happens we will have to preserve the world around us - and that means taking responsibility for our mistakes. Taking on the role of the wolves is just an example of this.
Perhaps you disagree. If so, what do you think humanity’s role in the ecosystem is? Or rather, should be.
Feel free to private message me too. We’ve definitely hijacked this thread 
Hey, thanks for your post. Pls don’t leave the forum just because of some disagreement 
There will always be some crazy vegans promoting abolition of humanity, you gotta deal with it. I too think that the aquirement of wilderness skills and the discussion about the future of human society are not really connected and I understood this thread as merely talking about an individual approach.
I will try to do some “wild” camping maybe next week. The biggest problem though is the cold, it’s not allowed to make a wild fire here and I don’t want to get fined. Are there ways to make non-smoking fires or does anyone have any ideas in general how to overcome the cold?
@sunbather This probably sounds super obvious, but one of the best ways to stay warm is simply to dress in layers. Wear an undershirt, short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweater, jacket, & a coat over your trunk.
Wear sweat pants under your pants & insulated overalls over them. Wear hats, gloves, extra socks, & whatever you can put over your face. Substitute animal skins/furs if you’ve achieved total paleo self-sufficiency.
Working outside last winter I was toasty down to 7 degrees F w/out counting windchill dressed like this. As for sleeping, find or make a place out of the wind & rain (I was using the bed of my truck, but a depression in the earth could be made to work) & insulate yourself from the ground with leaves a couple feet thick. Place your sleeping bag (two - one inside the other - would be much better) on the pile of leaves to keep the earth from sucking out your body heat.
Fires are dangerous & energy intensive, use up resources, & can give away your location. Don’t use them unless absolutely necessary, such as for hot morning tea 