| The snake kept moving even after the head was cut | | | | Porcupines |
| off, the insides taken out, and the skin removed. I had | | | | These prickly, slow moving animals are one of the |
| strung it up from a branch to clean it. When it finally | | | | best survival foods out there. If you can walk and hold |
| stopped moving, I put it in a plastic bread bag and | | | | a stick, you can hunt a porcupine. They were |
| stuffed it in my knapsack. Later I would split the pound | | | | traditionally left alone by mountain men, in order to |
| of meat into two pieces. One was for a stew, and the | | | | leave a ready supply of easy food in the woods for |
| other for roasting over the fire. | | | | anyone who was lost and hungry. |
| I was fourteen years old, and I wanted to know | | | | They don't die quickly, so you'll have to club them hard |
| everything about wilderness survival. I am more | | | | and repeatedly. To clean a porcupine, roll it over with a |
| interested in backpacking now than in wilderness | | | | stick and cut it open from below. Be careful of the |
| survival trips, but the survival lessons have stayed with | | | | quills. You should be able to skin it from the underside |
| me, and they make me feel more at home in the | | | | without getting stuck. Then you can cook it over a fire |
| wilderness. It is safer to be out there if you know how | | | | (they taste good, by the way). |
| to survive. Knowing things like which berries you can | | | | Fish |
| eat also means you can go lighter when backpacking. | | | | If you can see fish in shallow water, they are probably |
| However, there is something I have noticed when | | | | easier to spear with a sharpened stick than to catch |
| talking to backpackers who have an interest in | | | | with a hook and bait. Another way to get them is to |
| wilderness survival. Very often they are interested in | | | | wait with your hand poised over a spot they swim by, |
| how to make a bow and arrows, or traps for animals, | | | | and quickly pin them to the bottom with your hand as |
| or spears and bolas. These things are interesting to | | | | they come into range. I have caught 30 small fish in an |
| me too, but it is a mistake to think that these are the | | | | hour or two in this way. |
| skills most likely to save the life of a lost hiker. | | | | Other Easy Animals |
| Wilderness Survival - Killing Animals | | | | Snakes can be caught by hand, or with the help of a |
| First of all, survival for a lost backpacker is rarely a | | | | stick (preferable in the case of venomous ones). |
| matter of food. Shelter, water, avoiding injury and | | | | Crayfish can be found under rocks and logs in lakes |
| getting found all take precedence over food. When it is | | | | and streams, and boil up just like miniature lobsters. |
| time to look for food, though, animals are the surest | | | | Quail and other birds that nest on the ground can |
| source of calories and protein, and the surest way to | | | | sometimes be killed with a well-aimed rock, and usually |
| obtain this food is to look for the easiest animals to kill | | | | circle back to give you another chance. Bird eggs don't |
| and the easiest ways to do this. | | | | run away to fast either. |
| This does not include fancy weapons that take hours | | | | Clams, insects, grubs from rotten logs, turtles - these |
| to fashion. You are not trying to live out there, | | | | are some of the other foods that can be caught by |
| remember, but only to stay alive long enough to be | | | | hand. This isn't about proving your "skills" or being the |
| found. What, then, are some of the easiest animals to | | | | mighty hunter. Look for the easy ways. When it |
| hunt and the easiest ways to kill them? They include | | | | comes to food, wilderness survival is simply about |
| the following: | | | | efficiently gathering calories. |