Merchandise and Food Shortages in a National Crisis

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

You present a nice personal story that does relate to the thread. The natural balance of nature is most stable when humans stop interfering. The environment settles into a rhythm, something the deer hunters call a pattern. That natural pattern changes when firearm deer season comes around. The deer change their habits to avoid the hunters that invade the woods that time of year.

Now expand that concept to entire populations of game animals after hungry people are over hunting an area. A read an interesting article in a hunting magazine that talked about the disappearance of white tailed deer in some mid western states during the depression in the 1930s. Poor game management with little enforcement of the laws drove surviving animals into a perpetual state of altered patterns. It wasn't until the 1970s or later before the deer came back and could be hunted again. Not all animals get hunted out under that type of pressure, but they change habits to the point you will have a huge problem trying to hunt them. I believe the same thing can happen to wild edible plants as well, except on a different time scale. If people eat up most of the edible weeds in their area, common weeds will become hard to find after awhile.

Valid points. When I was younger, you really had to HUNT to find a deer both here and in West Virginia. sure, they were still there, but they didn't make it easy to find them, and had the space per animal to accomplish that. Now the place is eat up with them. in 2010, I went for a visit in WV, and saw a herd of 20-25 deer, in broad daylight, grazing in a river bottom beside the road. On a 3 mile ride between one house and another, I saw 9 deer in the woods. Here, I have seen a doe, twice, down by my bridge, in full view of the house in broad daylight, and a small herd of 5 deer makes a regular pilgrimage through the area between my house and the neighboring house between 7:30 and 8:00 am every morning. last week, I saw a small yearling doe not 20 feet off of my back deck, grazing under a big old white pine without a care in the world.

At my last house in the next county over, whenever I got ready for work in the morning I would fix a cup of coffee and go outside to watch the deer grazing in my yard. And this was an every morning thing. So, at the moment, there are plenty of deer here, but the coming crunch will likely thin them out considerably, and the human population hunting them will be considerably larger than the Depression population.

It's not just deer - bears and other wildlife have made a stunning comeback over the past few years. When i was younger, I saw exactly two bears (plus one skeleton of a bear) in the entire time I was growing up here. Now they are all over the place. A momma bear with two cubs was seen at my bridge the day I moved in here, and the crows tell on them as they move through the woods.  Grace saw a momma bear with one single, nearly grown, cub up close and personal during a half mile walk from our former house and back. The bears were on one side of the road, and she passed them on the other. The bears just stood there and stared, like they couldn't believe what they were seeing. There are so many bears here now that it's a requirement to bear-proof trash can pickup points.

What I worry most for is the elk herd. Elk were extinct here for nearly 200 years, and only recently made a come back with a few migrating over from Kentucky and re-establishing themselves here. Last I heard, there were about 500 Elk in the herd which gathers up in summer and then disperses into smaller groups to forage in the winter. That may sound like a lot, but 500 Elk would go pretty quick if everyone is hunting them.

If I were going to rely on hunting, I'd probably concentrate on small game, like rabbits, squirrels, and groundhogs. They're smaller, and so will keep you busier hunting them, but they are also more numerous and easier to find, as well as repopulating a lot quicker with multiple births as opposed to the single or double births of larger game, and they reach maturity quicker. another plus is that I won't be in competition with all the Nimrods out there hunting the bigger stuff to fill their larders faster. Their way may produce more meat in the short term, but my way is more sustainable over time.

Regarding wild plant forage, this area has reverted more to the wild since I was younger, meaning a lot more forageable plants. On the other side of the scales, there are fewer people left here who still know what you can eat vs. what will kill you, so they will likely get thinned out somewhat, too, when they start trying to forage.

Here is a photo I took recently on a ride back down the the area I was raised in, showing a doe grazing in someone's yard in broad daylight, in the afternoon. When I stopped the car and got out for the picture, she paid no attention to me at all:



Back when I was younger, the deer would hide in the woods all day, and only come out to graze in open fields after sundown. You could often find them hiding in the edge of the woodline waiting on dark to fall. Now, broad daylight grazing in wide open spaces is a regular thing.

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I grew up near the water. Fish, clams, and crabs, were plentiful, but we had strict rules about what you could take and when.

Even as children we were taught you never took a female crab, and you never took a fish or a crab under a certain size.

You did not hunt certain animals out of season, and we did not need any officials watching over you.

We did what was right, because our lives depended on it.

Respect for life will be the first thing to go.

Your life, mine, and any other living thing will be forfeit.