Lots of guys on here talk about shooting deer to feed the family. I got curious on just how long the deer population would last if/when it gets to this. Here are a few states I picked at random, human and deer populations. Of course the majority of people wouldn't or couldn't hunt, but if even 10% of the population went out and killed a deer, in any state the deer would be extinct in months, some in weeks. There are other factors to consider, of course, like private land. However, in a crisis, private boundaries would cease to exist. You can't stop all the poachers.

North Carolina
humans: 10.7 mill
deer 1 mill

Texas
humans:30.3 mill
deer: 5.3 mill

Kentucky
humans: 4.6 mill
deer: 950 thou

Montana
humans: 1.1 mill
deer: 508 thou

Idaho
humans 1.9 mill
deer 780 thou

Arizona
humans: 7.4 mill
deer: 147 thou

Here are the links to human and deer populations for all the states so you can calculate any other state: HUMANS DEER On the deer page, scroll down a ways to get the total of whitetails and mulies.

GFY

My grandmother told us that during the Great Depression in PENN white tail were very hard to find do to night shooting

We have a lifetime supply of deer, birds, beef, etc., but there's no way to defend if chit hit the fan.



Have to band together with local folks.

No,
But pigs for quite a while. Bears, game birds, rabbits, anything else with meat on its bones. Populations may dwindle but so will the humans. Not many hunt anymore.
Plus there is a couple hundred thousand acres of almonds, grapes, walnuts ect in my area.

Why worry about deer when you’re ass deep in hogs ?

I like bacon.

I’ve said that anyone that thinks they can survive on game…..is fooling themselves! Game , livestock, and fish in many places will vanish quickly!

Those that are moving about will kill a large animal (game or stock) cut off what they can carry…..while leaving the rest to rot!

In many places the fishing laws help maintain the fish population as well as in some places millions of “fingerings” are released annually to maintain the fish population!


Simply put……anyone not prepared for the long haul in virtually all aspects of survival is doomed! memtb

in the late 1800's and early 1900's, market hunters decimated the deer and other game. Some states had less than 1000 deer left in the whole state. There are a lot more hunters today that there were market hunters then and they have better equipment. The deer wouldn't have a chance.

Plenty of dogs/cats and other things

Living on the coast is a plus.

Why is it always deer? Why is nobody killing rabbits, rock chucks, porky’s or squab in a crisis?

What a clever, well thought out reply.

My daddy said that back in the Great Depression rabbits were very scarce.

We have herds of them but I have always figured in any kind of real food crisis they would disappear pretty quick. Hogs too I bet.

Locally there is also elk, pronghorns, big horn sheep, bears, birds and lots of cattle.

Wild horses are also in the mix.

If you have no carbs in your diet you need 80% of your calories have to come from fat. Master fish, crawdad, raccoon and muskrat trapping and you will last a lot longer than the deer hunters.

I’m just matching the OP . You fugking loser

You need a salad, bro. Just sayin’

A quick search on just TX showed 1.1 million licensed hunters and an estimated 1.5 mill hogs. If each hunter tried to shoot just 2, they'd be out of hogs. Of course many of the hogs would be inedible.

You don’t quite grasp the reproduction cycle of hogs……

This. A la ‘rabbit starvation’.

Some big assumptions there on the ability of the general public to locate, kill and harvest hogs. Maybe 10% would have a clue. Maybe 3% successful.

Hoover Hogs also were fair game.

I could live off all kinds of game animals.

Yes, both here in Texas and in north Idaho.

lmao

Rule #1 in such a scenario. Be where the masses of people ain't.

I've always wanted to try wild horse meat.

They breed like flies but they can't withstand an army of hunters desperate for food. Killing 1 mature sow will eliminate a couple dozen pigs a year just from her, not to mention her future daughters.

I’m pretty sure more deer are killed by autos than rifles, at least in SD.

One year I had shot 6 whitetails and it fed our family and several foster kids for over 6 months.

They do just fine around hunters.

The only thing that can control hogs below the environment’s carrying capacity is trapping and poison.

When most of my neighbors have cattle and domestic hogs by the dozens, or possibly hundreds, why would I want to waste time chasing deer? They can share (most likely) or I can take what I need. Either way, nothing of value will be wasted. Once the neighbors and I are well fed, we can focus on repelling the starving hordes from the cities who have looted everything from the local grocery stores and fast food joints.

Assuming I can get a boat in the water, I can make it to my houseboat. Deer, rabbit, nutria, fish, alligator and the only access is by boat.

Texas has a pretty aggressive hog eradication program going on right now and hogs shot by hunters is not effective.

Trapping and heli-hunting seem the most effective but the pig population keeps growing.

I don't think a mob of people can move out of the big cities using hunting and survive very far.

I’d cream out the neighbors cows and horses first, move onto elk, hopefully I’ll be dead before I gotta eat rank Blacktail.😆

If it gets to this, theres gonna be a schittload less humans on your list to compete with.

I was trying to convince the survivalists of the futility of a bug out vehicle and deer hunting more than 25 years ago on the old usenet.
Can't be done.

But they are not all that dumb.

25 years ago the guy who owned a survivalist store, the foxhole, beat my ivy league attorney brother in law in court.
Then I met the guy at a Monroe gun show.
So I asked him, "Do you plan on a bug out vehicle and going deer hunting?"
The soft spoken guy would not answer the question.

This. Folks will die off pretty fast because of a number of variables. The animal population will thrive IMO.

A lot of these scenarios assume that "everyday Dave" is a good shot and knows how to hunt and process during whatever apocalypse scenario is played out, but let's face it, do half your coworkers have the capacity to kill, gut, cook and preserve meat if SHTF? Probably not.

Yeah, the hunters in the Country would decimate the deer if the SHTF, quickly. The people living in the big cities, are fuqued.

No. They would be shoot out in short order.

Historically, when societies unravel, the first thing to disappear is fauna/wildlife.

no

I'm not arguing with you when I ask this, but what events in history have shown this?

But the fish will disappear too.

Not for long

It has happened during wars in Africa. Mozambique comes to mind. Wildlife in some areas were decimated to feed armies/rebels/civilians.

you will have to survive on long pig

It wasn't an unraveling but in the late 1800's Americans were moving west. There were no hunting limits and market hunting was legal. Wildlife took a big hit. Whitetails were on the edge of extinction and the passenger pigeon did go extinct. Goose and duck numbers plummeted from market hunting.

I’ve heard this too

Not a chance.

Most hunting societies were nomads. Moving with the game, or as it was depleted.
Our populations far surpass those. In every state.

The old folk who remembered the depression talked about just seeing deer tracks
as being a big deal. Black bear were wiped out here. Not sure why, but turkeys were
too. I remember turkeys being a big deal. All they had was small game. Rabbits are
much scarcer in the last 40 years.


Most men around here hunt, or used to. Put in survival mode, the water and land would soon be stripped. Game laws and sportsmanship don't mean squat if you
need meat. Heck, that concept is prevalent now.

I disagree about game and fish being depleted
quickly. It's relatively decent living conditions
right now ( relatively) and I know lots of people
can't go afield and reliably take game or fish.
I know as many or more that can't dress animals
or fish properly, and preserve and/or prepare
them properly. Just guessing maybe 60% that
carry their whole deer to a processor and can't
dress one. If you figure the woods will be like an
opening day weekend, figure that times 3 or 4
plus the nutjobs that have the itch to kill a man
and would love to see you slipping around looking
for a deer or a wabbit. Plus the pinheads that
hunt now and make sound shots and such
nonsense. I imagine the animals will haul a$$
for the lonesome sticks
IMO we'll have a good many types from "The Road "
that'll resort to having their fellow humans
for dinner, and I don't mean in a chair across the
table from them

Semi related- any good possum recipes ?

do you think an uyone will follow game or any other laws

In the 1950s deer were very, very, very scarce in the east Texas piney woods for a long, long time.


Grandad told me something like black leg or hoof and mouth had come through, or something, long ago. He wasn't around when it started, as he moved to that country from Georgia as a kid. It was a fifty year or something longer occurence. People hunted squirrels and ducks.

The virgin timber was open and had grass. He and his brothers hunted wolves, from horseback, with hounds.

They were scarce when I was a kid. Most the timberland was unfenced and open range that paper companies owned and people hunted at will, as well as let their livestock roam at will.

I remember once as a kid when a cousin rode his horse a couple miles from the edge of Corrigan to visit an old man, Blind Willey, who had several acres he lived on near the Neches River bottom and came back by my Grandads farm reporting he had seen a doe.

It was big news.

With a light that shined a whole 50'.

There are a bunch. The most recent and well documented was the collapse of the USSR. All large mammal populations collapsed in the wake of it.

I can look in my front yard and see four to five hundred pounds of wild game meat dressed every day, how long you think it will last

The whole "a country boy can survive" thing sounds good, but is mostly nonsense. In such a catastrophic SHTF event, everything that walks, crawls, swims, and flies would likely be EXTINCT within three months.

Yep. When I was a kid and hunted coons or opossum barefoot at night in the forests around the farm or followed the oldsters camping out in the big woods and listening to the hounds on a fox while sitting around a fire, when the dogs bayed they were treed, the big 5 cells would show only the reflection of eyes from up in the tree.

The men hated to have the hounds hit a Grey as they would soon have to leave the Campfire and go to the tree and knock it out with sling shots or climb the tree and "kick it out" (done with a stick) so the hounds could race again.

They preferred the hounds to be on a red, so they could sit by the Fire and listen to the hounds bay on it's trail throughout the night.

The hounds loved it. Their tails were always wagging.

Speaking of hogs, would you come in under 275 pounds? 250 pounds is a fat fugker if you’re not at least 5 foot five inches

Deer, turkeys, doves, quail and a plethora of fishes.

Yep

Yep.

You had 5 cells. Betting the guys in the 30s had coal oil or carbide.

Neither are shining a bright beam very far.

My question is who is going to kill "all" of these animals?

What percentage of people in the listed states are firearms owners?

Oh yeah. Have used those carbide lights a time or two in emergencies.

Grandad wouldn't hit you for shining someone in the face with it, as it wouldn't put their eyes out.

None? LMAO

THIS.

CWD and EHD has them almost killed off here already.

KYHillChick tells her friends that she has no worries; her big German Sausage Boyfriend would keep her in venison.

The truth of it is that I suspect, were the S to HTF, we'd be living off cattails, acorns and raising rats for meat after a very short time. Sure, hunting for food is cool. The deer outnumber the humans in this county. However, I'd be competing with every other guy with a deer rifle.

Around here, they tried to stock whitetails, putting in 20 per county. Some counties thrived and the herds grew. Other counties? They kept putting in deer, 20 at a time, and the next time they looked they were gone. The theory was wild dogs. The truth was the locals were stocking their freezers.

Back during the Depression, you couldn't even hear a songbird in these parts.

This country is less east/west or north/south than in the past.

It is urban vs rural. With suburbs being a blending zone trending urban.


Among long term residents in this area, I don't know of any that aren't armed.
Even 80 year old widows have at least 1 gun and can shoot iteven if they
aren't good with it.

Most imports come here for lifestyle, which means most of them hunt or have
guns.

I'd bet that outside cities over 30k in MO if you started searching homes you would soon find most were armed too. That trend will repeat in most states, with the exception of a few on the coasts.

That's how I see it too. We have moose , more so than deer. The dumb fu©ks around here will shoot one and then not have the mean to preserve it. Everything will disappear, and won't get better until the people disappear too.

I am way out in the country. If the S hits the Fan, the deer will all be gone in a month.

To say that 10% of the population could go out and kill a deer is being very generous.

Did anyone mention neighbors? I got a few tasty-looking ones, and a couple that would render well…..

Used to hear my grandmother talk about how a robin taste better than a dove.

In a bad enough situation the human population will plummet much faster than the wildlife will.

I guess you need to know the parameters of the 'major crisis'

- will there be well(your own or municipal) water??? Or just surface/rain water???

- electricity for preserving or 'old school'????

- gasoline/diesel for transportation or hoofing it???

a loss of each of these dramatically reduces surviving.

'Survivability' is directly related to all aspects of dependance on 'others' prior to 'S Hitting TF'.........

Otherwise.......

Have a buddy that says armadillo is pretty tasty.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/wyoming-cuts-pronghorn-deer-tags/

In that scenario, having a cast net and being able to throw it would be a great survival tool. Much better with a small rowboat, as I assume during this apocalypse we won't be obtaining any gas for outboards, thus rendering most of the boats you see these days as useless.

In a dystopian America game enforcement laws would be out the window and food distribution would be broken.

All you have to do is look to China to see what would happen. The Chinese decimate wildlife populations.

The oceans would be hoovered clean just like the south china sea. The truth is that the slightest breakdown in wildlife protection enforcement any where in the world combined with a small food shortage and world wildlife populations would fall off a cliff. In the dystopian future of earth will have very little wildlife and mass extinct.

People have no idea in what a house of cards we live in.

A quick google will tell you how many licensed hunters are in each state. That would be a place to start in estimating how many would or could shoot a deer. You might say that 60% don't know how to dress a deer but you can bet they'll figure it out in a hurry if they're hungry.
Seasons would be ignored. Shooting a doe in the spring or summer insures that the fawn won't survive so that's a double hit.

I’ve gone on the record several times on this forum stating hogs will be our manna from Heaven.

Dystopia means no or limited laws. There are a lot easier ways to kill wildlife than shooting them. Hunger is the greatest motivator.

They would become rare also. I don't think you have come to grips with how many more people there.

Self production and small communities are the only real solution to dystopian survival.

You haven’t a clue what I’ve come to grips with.

Ammo is gonna become rare too. You can’t load mags fast enough.

Once you accept the fact you are already dead, everything else is a piece of cake!

In an all-out breakdown of society 50%-70% of the US population would be dead in ~90-120 days.

1. Lack of clean water would be the number one killer
2. Everyone on daily medication would be next

Lots of people would die just because of all the dead people. Who's going to police the bodies?

After that your locale and access to resources might start to play a factor in your survival.

https://www.northernexpress.com/news/feature/article-5543-the-indians-in-winter/
"A French observer named Nicolas Perrot reported that a band of Chippewa collected 2,400 moose on Manitoulin Island using only snares in the winter of 1670-71."

I believe we are on the same page, oldHat. The deerskin trade of the 18th century decimated the whitetail populations in the south. Creek hunters from the village of Pecana at the junction oc the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers in modern Alabama were traveling as far west as the Sabine river basin to find deer by the 1750’s.

Clean water will be a big problem for sure, but I disagree with your time scale. Maybe in phoenix and Vegas but not in most cities. We can drink dirty water or rain water as long as Dysentery or Cholera does not take hold. It will inevitably but it will take some time.

Disease will take longer than 120 days. Civil war battle fields were highly polluted due to dead bodies, but disease was able to be managed. True smaller scale but dead bodies just by themselves are not a problem.

Agreed. Same problem happened in the Ohio river basin in the late 1700s. Stories are told of hunters having to travel very long distances to find any deer.

Kentucky was flush with game when Boone arrived and within a couple decades was decimated.

Given that Calif Dept of Wildlife has managed to completely decimate the herds of blacktail in a very short time...I'd say venison is not on the menu for long. I'm thinking corn, beans and taters with an occasional rodent. I have eaten a lot of crow in my lifetime...you get used to it.

No deer where I live, the squirrels and coons would thin out pretty quick. Fishing would work for awhile, but I'm 20 miles from the coast.

Why indelible?

Anyway the questions is could we? We could easily eat no beef rest of our lives.

Are there enough for the masses ? Nope. But then again our land here and up north is big enough to feed more than us so we just manage it as needed.

Hopefully if it ever got bad 2 things would happen. We could get up north where very few if any have the balls to go and survive there just fine. And lots of people would no longer exist. That would be the biggest plus for the country as its well overpopulated and worse every day.

LOL

Good water might be the, "thing".

Coast of TX unless you speak of way south, is running out of fish already. Limits have been going lower etc.. IF it was a survival thing the coast would hurt really bad also. But people would learn they could eat hardheads at least I suspect.

You just take away electricity and people will start dying within a month. How many people rely on modern medicine just to survive? If it's summer people will die of heat, winter people will die of cold. It will be orders of magnitude worse than the depression. People were tough back then and already had the basic systems in place to survive off grid. Now you take away a teenager's phone and they're suicidal within days.

Alaska is an interesting case. The weather and the terrain will keep the feral mobs from your door for sure, BUT ... most modern bush Alaskans are still tethered to the modern supply chain. It takes a very hardy individual to survive in the Alaska bush with out modern tech help of some kind. Transportation to and from game alone is a major obstacle there even if you live remote. How many people paddle to and from their moose hunt.

I agree. Scale is the question.

A little off topic but this is a good documentary ...

"Death and the Civil War"

People can look at the wide open west and think that they could go out there and survive. There's a problem - water. Much of the west has only a fraction of the number of deer as the east because there isn't enough water to support large numbers of deer. Rainfall is much lower than in the east so the forage plant growth is equally much lower. Deer have to eat, too.
That's why there's so much public land in the west compared to the east. It was never homesteaded because there isn't enough water to irrigate the crops.

Again I say ... Self production and small communities are the only real solution to dystopian survival.

Machine tools and hand skills will be highly sought after. Small scale food production is *essential*. The skills our grandparents and great grandparents had and most of society has lost.

Our society values "professional" skills. In the future not so much.

During the civil war, how many people had subsisted their entire lives on water from a municipal treatment facility, nearly 0%? In the USA right now, today, it's EASILY less than 5% of the population that's strictly on their own private well and has been their entire life. Our digestive and immuno-biology is fundamentally changed from 160 years ago. And again, in a total breakdown, water-treatment and sanitation, even indoor-plumbing becomes non-existent.

Think US tourists in Mexico sans bottled water, it'll be that way EVERYWHERE. You get a stomach bug, you get the runs, you get dehydrated, your kidneys shut down and you die in under 2wks. There's no anti-biotics to bring you through and your body isn't equipped to do it for itself.

If you can't hunt um from where you live you won't hunt. During SHIF if you can't walk there you ain't going.

Exactly! Elk were virtually wiped-out in Kolorado, by hunters feeding the mining industry! memtb

Market hunting pushed the passenger pigeon to extinction. It wasn't the shooting that did it, though. The numbers easily withstood the shooting. The problem was that the hunters learned to hang out at the nesting sites waiting for huge flocks to come in from feeding. The pigeons quickly abandoned the nests and wouldn't nest elsewhere so there was no next generation. Most of the population bust occurred within a couple of years from no replacements being hatched.
If the hunters had simply avoided the nesting sites, the population would have likely supported heavy hunting indefinitely.

Corn, beans, and squash fed a whole lot of folks in rural Native America. Not sure it would work again though, given the amount of folks around today.

Rodents, well sort of, in the form of rabbits and squirrels would be an added benefit.

The odd coyote, or a domestic dog or three, would sweeten the soup pot some.

I've got ipos growing right on my property, of course I have to make sure I don't mis-identify them as there are other roots around that will kill a fella.

A couple of folks mentioned "long pig" or the fat neighbors.

What would you say to the Cannibal Question?

One of Grace Slick's finest vocal performances addresses the question quite well:

I think the prairie chicken was close to extinction also.

On the Oregon trail, the biggest killer by far was disease, usually Cholera or typhoid. They're spread by polluted water. Everyone drank from and washed in the rivers. Sick people would wash off puke and diarrhea in the rivers and spread it to everyone drinking down stream. Drinking from a home well is fine as long as you have a working pump so when the grid goes down, you need a power source of some kind. A lot of people will end up drinking from streams.

As general interest, the 2d most common cause of deaths on the Trail was gun accidents. All of the immigrants had guns but a good share of them had no experience using them. They were farmers who had never hunted. They ended up shooting themselves and others accidentally.

I fed part of my emergency food supply this morning after I fed the hens in the Gulag.

Daily there are 20-40 quail, an equal number of pinyon and scrub jays, presently redwing and Brewer's blackbirds (gone in the winter) and especially those big invasive Eurasian doves.

Crane was out back this morning too.

Neighbor ladies multitudinous cats might start disappearing into a stew pot too.

"... indelible..."?

I would shoot a feral to keep from starving.
Killing deer would not be an everyday affair.
They are too labor and time intensive to be of great value unless you're stationary enough to preserve the excess.
In a survival situation, small game is much more available. Easier to acquire and a lot less labor intensive.
Squirrels, rabbits, possums, raccoons, birds, fish, snakes, etc, etc.... even rats and mice.
Learn edible flora to enhance your diet.

Oops. But spell check said it was ok so it must be.

One of the most valuable items to own will be a brick of 22LR HP's.

Interesting Thread, Most people today don't know how to do much more than run their phone or computer, ask them to gather up the wood and start a fire, you will get a blank i don't know how?

Forget cooking over a open fire, building a shelter and a bed, very few will kill to eat till they are starving, then they don't know how to preserve the meat, or in most cases cook it. the only people that will survive are the scavengers. Rio7

Absolutely not for me. There is not a huge amount of game in this general area, and most of it is confined to pretty small chunks of acreage.

Deer were extirpated here once, and if everyone started blasting them again it wouldn't take long to wipe them out again. There were zero deer locally for about a 50-60 year stretch, until they were reintroduced in the mid-1960s.

Or perhaps a small bore black powder rifle/smoothbore?

For when the .22 ammo runs out.

Soylent Green ,will save us

One milliliter of chlorine bleach will disinfect a gallon of water. If you have a gallon of bleach, you can disinfect 3,785 gallons of water.

Be sure you have bleach containing Sodium Hypochlorite. Some laundry bleaches are oxygen bleach. That's mainly a whitener and while it will disinfect, it doesn't kill the bugs like Chlorine.

For water, keep a bunch of clear plastic bottles on hand. You can use UV to sterilize it. Fill the bottles and leave them in full sun all day. The UV will kill the bugs. It will work on murky water, too, but will take several days. The cloudy water blocks the UV. Using the bottles in conjunction with some kind of solar reflector is even more affective, especially if it's capable of heating the water to about 150F or higher.

This method is being used by relief organizations in a number of 3d world countries where there's no electricity and polluted water is a major problem.

Right. That's why I said chlorine bleach. It's also not recommended to use bleach with scents or other chemicals.

Survival of the fittest.

Even though folks think they would die of heat they won't. Although you have to use your head about heat. I hate heat but it won't even kill me. How do you die of average cold? I mean don't folks have clothes. Blankets etc... you put insulation on.

Its weird to me that not every single house wouldn't have a wood stove or at least fireplace. Even if you never use it.

As to water, in urban places I could see the issue. Rural won't matter. And a gallon of bleach goes a long way to sterilize lots of water if you can't boil it... I would imagine most houses have a couple of gallons of bleach somewhere.The fact that almost no one I know in AK doesn't have 6 plus months of food stashed for starters. Is. a starter. There are other issues in play in AK that make you be prepared.

Yup some have to travel to hunt. We have caribou, bison, moose, etc.. through our yard..I don't know how long they would last... but they will last some since not many folks and many live off a moose a year etc... anyway.

Travel isn't that big of a deal, it just takes time. Only issue we would have is foot travel to fishable waters but I can live without fish if need be. Knowing there are horses in the area I suspect we could figure that out.

Off the top of my head supply chains are nice. But there is very little in need if it got right down to it. A large stash of salt and pepper and flour and sugar and yeast and life won't be very bad. Sourdough starter lives a long time. Doesn't hurt flour wise that we are in a barley farming area and I suppose a lot of that or enough of that would continue to grow and mill.

Would be a good time to go dig up so to speak, some of the gold in the hills too likely.

The fact you mention transportation as an issue, means it will be for everyone so that keeps us only basically worried about us

I couldn't think of a better place to live the rest of my days having no clue what the outside world is doing.

If we got stuck in TX it would be much much worse and would have to deal with a lot of people showing up for some amount of time. As long as the golden bb stays away we can live off the land we have.

I think there will be be more steer hunting than deer hunting. Hard to walk up to a deer and hit it in the head with a sledgehammer, not so much a bovine at night.

Most deer would adapt very fast and become 100% nocturnal and in places a vehicle cannot get to easily. Some remote enough even walking is a bitsch.

That and human predation (with or without consumption) on other humans (and personal defense of same) in a SHTF scenario would quickly reduce the human population and perhaps predation on wildlife.

The human race numbers/current "civilization" status is on thin ice, even as we post.

In Alaska, we are also vulnerable.. remote villages included. Would some people survive - yes. Would the majority? No. Some villages are 100% on SNAP. Even as designated "subsistence" users, with special and very generous hunting privileges and protections. BTDT, myself.

Cut off their ammunition, gas supply (and soda pop, drugs, alcohol) and things get ugly quickly! The old skills are no longer there, for the most part, in the current generation.

May not even be enough dogs to go around for 3-dog teams as transportation, at least initially.

Farmers in the tropics and temperate zones will fare the best, if they can survive other humans long enough to make and keep a crop.

one thing NOBODY has mentioned kill the predators , cougar good eating more deer alive , bear bobcat lynx birds of prey, wolf ,yote, pelicans and many more. all live on what we would need to survive on ..

Norm

According to this.

https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/...isdom/what-kills-the-most-deer-in-a-year

2 million from cars, 6 million from hunters.

Biggest issue here is finding water!

Wouldn’t it be easier to just order from Hello Fresh, or worst case scenario mug a Grub Hub driver.

We have enough water to supply the whole country, the biggest issue here is Heating

That’s what I’ve heard. Wish we could work out a trade

Eat Bugs.

Kill two birds with one stone. Eat BBQed liberals. They probably started the crisis anyway.

Gunna taste like bullschit

Maybe so but Mexicans would surely make great Tacos

And Chinks are good with rice.

Good point, I'm still pondering on the possible differences between white and dark meat.

Paul might know..

Well, I have heard, that they are all pink, on the inside !

It's called bush meat, the stuff they make covid from.

It's hard to say.

I live on wild game 99% now with no crisis... I buy bacon from time to time.

Gets that bad you will hear of ranchers and farmers losing pork, beef, and sheep wholesale. Nobody will have the gas to go far for deer.

Farmers and Ranchers will have to defend their livestock.

Pinto Beans, turnip greens and corn bread. A chicken now and then. Raise a hog. My mom was so poor they ate potatoes and onions until they ran out of potatoes. Onions two or three times a day. No deer. No gun. No shoes. No car. No mama. No problem.

We have a lot of BLM land around here with lots of cattle grazing. They'd disappear faster than the deer since its so easy to get within range. Many of the ranchers are experienced shooters, though, and hiding a body out there would be very easy.

And them ranchers better have plenty of sharp eyed , armed sons and daughters for 24/7/365 guarding of that livestock. At that point in time living close to town will not be an asset. Mb

It is my understanding that hogs were also kept in check in East Texas back in the depression. With regards to deer I’m pretty sure even they got shot out most places back East even while muzzleloaders were still in common use.

Deers turkeys squirrels rabbits groundhogs and rogue cows I see daily I’ll be fine

I have been feeding my family on venison since the 1980s. One thing about the OP's post that needs to be pointed out is that the vast majority of the populations in the states he highlights will live in the big cities and when the SHTF many of those people will die very quickly due to panic and stupidity and dead people don't eat deer.

I would love that get in in this rant again, but I am drunk in Ft. Davis at this time ordering yet another gin & tonic.


Goodnight [bleep]!

And yes i bought on round for the bar!!!

A small bar I hope?

By the way, ever see a drunk skunk?

Consider that deer, elk, and turkeys (not to mention buffalo) were almost completely wiped out east of Appalachia before 1800, and nearly wiped out east of the Mississippi by 1850.

The population then was NOWHERE NEAR what it is now, imagine the destruction that could be wrought on wildlife by the population today.

And people aren't taking into consideration that ''everybody'' will be a hunter. And they're not going by any rules, spotlighting +++, they'll do anything everything they can to get something. They'll light thick woods ablase and shoot or run over anything that comes out. There won't be a day go by that anywhere meat might be -they'll be after it.
Where are hogs going to go to escape dozens of people roaming the countryside -nowhere that's where. No one will give a ratzass about someones property lines - if the sounder of hogs went that-ah-way they stay after them. An empty belly and starving children will create a very dangerous world to survive in.
It takes a lot of calories to spend the day chasing something to eat compared to sitting around at work.
Talking about canning meat and such is a fairy tale in a full on collapse of society.
People who think they can protect their chickens/goats/cows/black lab better think again, they better be well armed and willing to kill someone on the spot.

GONE in two weeks....

I’d have to stay home and guard the freezer! If the power goes out I’ll be canning a bunch and having one heck of a cookout!

I for one will Pray it doesn't happen.

In 1970 I accompanied my mother on a trip from N.KY to Lake Charles, LA to visit her brother and his family. Somewhere between here and there we went through some type of estate that had a connection to Audubon. In one of the rooms was a drawing of a Robin. The annotation under the drawing was that Robin was Audubon’s favorite bird meat.

Gone in a week,

Goodnight Kaywoodie

I should try eating robin....pound for pound compared to the number cherries and apricots they ruin. I wouldn't mind if they just ate their fill. However, they go down a limb and peck every cherry once, ruining them all and eating almost nothing.

You can eat robins and black birds but how many to put on the table

Four and twenty, if baked in a pie. 😉

We have a 5 gallon bucket of powdered Calcium Hypochlorite …..if my math is correct, enough to treat 5000,000 gallons of water, or make a lot of bleach! memtb

As a kid I killed a lot of Robins, about a dozen make for a good Gumbo! memtb

The initial population reduction will make it doable. But you would want a very diverse source of calories. Any type of red meat would be a rare meal.

Indigenous people lived just fine in North America. Life expectancy won’t be the same but the human race will go on.

The answer to the OPs question is yes, but not for very long at all. It would be brutal world. Doubt most would last long.

Not being funny, but I swear the deer population where I hunt has been down since covid. The local butcher said he had never given away more fat scraps than during that period. A ton of people were killing deer out of season to put in the freezer.

It will not take long to get to the 'solo, mountain man style of survival' IMHO.

Most (the population) have not given a single thought to the dependance we have on others.... they think 'it works, always has worked, and always will work'

Gas, electricity, medicine, peanut butter and jelly( I know of several families that eat little to none 'real food' and live off junk food), WATER - how many people in those supply chains??? All you need to do is lose ONE of them and it gets tough.... shut down just one and it accelerates the shut down of another.

For the northern climes how long do you suppose it will be before you can't find a single stick, or pine cone laying on the ground, to heat you water, food, body???? And now you're cutting wood by hand, no Steel or Husqvarna..........

People depend on people. If and when it starts 'to go', it will soon decline like falling off a cliff.......

Coyotes, rats and bugs will fare very well........ it will not take long for the wildlife to ponder ' damn, it sure is quiet'..........

Personally, I don't want to see it..........

For heating in the norther climates, as with any type of prepping…….prepare before it happens. The following suggestions are for those staying put…….not nomads!


A semi load or two of wood will last a while. In my area a few truck loads of coal, once very cheap, will last for decades ……without fear of rot. Though, with coal I would recommend separating into smaller lots and bury it. Sometimes coal had been known to spontaneously combust……best to lose only one stock pile. Also when buried, it will slow the breakdown into a powder. It also removes your heat/cooking supply from prying eyes!

For those with a supply of timber……now is the time to invest in battery powered chain saws, ect. and use the solar (which you already have) to maintain your batteries. For longterm use…..having several quality 2 man crosscut saws and a few quality one man crosscut or bow saws should be available!


Also, you will being trying to grow food……use your food plot for another use as well. It will attract a variety of small animals wanting to eat your garden…….purchase about a half dozen good leg traps. Small, inexpensive, functional…….use them to protect your garden as well as a source of “red meat” while never having to go out and hunt, further exposing yourself to nomads moving through! memtb

Hmmmm....I would have to go kiss an Army Special Forces friends ass and become part of his community. Those guys are trained to excel in these conditions. They do it all the time. They create groups from the savages and set up infrastructure to sustain a population. It pains me to admit this but it is what I would do.

Otherwise, I would probably reduce the population in my immediate area by removing anyone who tried to possess what was mine? I don't know, I am a selfish [bleep] that thinks the world could do better with a lot less people.

Not for long

What percentage of the humans in each state are hunters?

In the early 1900' s robins and blackbirds made up a whole lot of the market gunners profits

It would require far too much gasoline to travel to where the deer are to make subsistence hunting viable here. And, due to a 40+ year drought cycle and mining's impact on the area, all animal populations are way down.

Really, ask your army special forces friends how long you'd last

I'll play. After everything is decimated in the 1st 3 months (I'm being generous). You'll have to deal with roving bands of brigand gangs, as well as, invading countries such as China who will follow up with killing more and subjugating the rest.

This doom and gloom stuff is so fun, I'm beginning to understand it's popularity!

No, not even in Tassie.

When I was working in the sheds for Pitcher around Broken Hill in the early 80's there was a miners strike going full swing. Each weekend when we came in to the Hill the mob of cattle that was on a block just out of town got smaller and smaller...pretty much non existent at the close of the strike.

This thread popped into my head at work yesterday.



Not a F'ing chance.


I know that, it's been demonstrated.

1980s, the our first firearms deer season was bucks only, daylight to about 9 there were constant shots. It often sounded like scattered battles. From noon on, shots every few minutes. Walking, driving, standing...you couldn't help but see 10-20 deer a day, minimum.
Often groups of 5-10.

We had the gamut of seasons, but 1 tag for the year.

Early 90's they started including a doe tag with the license.
That allowed 2 deer,
and provided the opportunity to kill a deer and keep hunting. With the used, unmarked
tag hidden. Tags would be used over and over. By some.

In a couple years there was a noticeable decrease in deer.


Early 2000s PGC got on the quality bandwagon, and I'll leave the rest out of this.
Now guys can buy unlimited tags through a controlled system.

They can kill 4 maybe 5 deer without even breaking the law.

Where I could have easily killed 4 deer on most days in the 80s, you can now
hunt all day and not see a deer. The first day used to sound like a Trap Shoot.
Now, it's a few scattered shots per hour. Despite now being able to shoot any
deer except spikes and forkhorns(brow tines count), some first days I'll hear under
20 shots. There used to be more than that just from the public land within earshot.


Based on that.

With most deer killing coming in season, legally, regulated, and only by people
hunting as a past time,
as opposed to desperate, unregulated slaughter by
anyone with a chance to kill a deer.


Anyplace without enormous blocks of unpopulated land would soon eliminate
the animals.

I read the title and thought " we already do!" Not realizing the apocalyptic nature of the question. My immediate family eats 2 1/2-3 deer a year. Generally don't buy beef. I remember grandad telling me about the great depression up here in Wisconsin, and how they had a game warden in their small community. When a shot rang out, he would try to track down the perpetrator, only because he wanted to help distribute meat for those who had none. Refrigeration was non existent. Hard times, yes. But I would argue better times. But yeah, the deer would run out when the yahoos dispersed.

Considering how with a whole lot less people the deer, elk, buffalo etc. etc. etc. were decimated from sea to sea relatively early in our history. I wouldn't see that being a option for long, but ya I could for a while at least.

A body can survive on grain.

My boss had that cartoon on his cubicle wall in 1984.
He was from Montana where he hunted with a rifle, but now hunts WA with a bow.

1 family member who hunts would be hunting to feed several families and possibly the neighbors, too. He'd be shooting as many deer as possible.
There'd be a run on 22 shorts for suburban hunting. People would hear a pop at 2am and think nothing of it. If their windows were shut, they night not even hear it.

I have no answer for China or other invading nations…..but, the roving bands can be somewhat address.

You simply move into an area of very low population, many miles to large towns/cities, many miles to interstates (main arteries for travel and connects to large cities), and an area that is very inhospitable!

If you’ve are well established and are properly prepared you along with your friends/neighbors could hope to weather the storm! memtb

I've never eaten rock chucks but you can bet that the population would take a hit for the stew pots. There are lots of them around her now but there would also be a lot of hunters after them. I shot 15 from my back step last summer.

We live partially on deer meat now. I figure they would be shot out quickly if people could get fuel to drive.

I am still eating 2021 venison.

You would have to eat EVERY bite of EVERY internal organ AND the contents of the stomach and small intestines and even then nutrition would be iffy.

if they anything like a West Virginia groundhog (and they look simuler) they good eating ,in a crockpot or rolled in flour and fried ,how my granma fixed them

During the Depression they called armadillos "Hoover Hogs" in honor of the President.

It's hard to imagine being as poor as my parents were. Poor people the world over eat beans and rice and survive just fine. My grandad kept a pipe wrench under the wagon seat and would drive closer and closer toward a sitting rabbit. He was good with a rock too they said. Couldn't afford bullets. Sold the Ballard rifle. Pop once sent me some money when Jimmy Carter was in. Said we might have to eat possum. I said, well I do have a .22. After a minute he said, ooh ..... you won't have to eat possum. Gave me hope it did.

My wife's grandad was an illiterate immigrant in Pennsy. He was a shameless poacher. With his Model 12 20 gauge he killed everything from ground hog to deer and told the game warden he should forget the rumors he was hearing, for his own sake.

There are many more deer here now than ever in my lifetime and prior. I've counted 40+ several times from my house in late winter, all does. Hogs showed up here about 20 years ago but on my property they are still feast or famine.

My dad tells the story of an old timer neighbor that used to shoot deer in the guts with a .22 to keep them out of his watermelon patch.

In a survival situation, I would not want a black powder firearm.Though they are simplistic in design, but black powder is a "corrosive master"!
A simple single shot rifle, pistol, shotgun or other non repeating arm should work great.

Just my opinion.

Normally ......yes


out the back door

Hmmmm......?

The question is; "Can you live on deer in case the SHTF?"

Well, yeah. I "can" live on venison.....but can I find/kill enough deer to maintain the people I want to support?
I dunno? Sure hope I don't have to find out! 🤷‍♂️
One season here in OK, I took and processed six (6) deer.
We also had a 16 year old nephew living with us.
About mid-May, the wife says, "I want hamburgers for dinner."
I HAD TO GO BUY GROUND MEAT!!!!!!
The "boy" (6'3" - 210# - NOT fat!) could eat like a refugee!!! 😳

Here again, ground grain, gruel.

Yeah...NO!

Only if I had to.

I told my wife that in a major crisis, we'd be eating rock chucks. Then she sent me a video on how to make 'coffee' from dandelion roots. Things will be getting serious when we have to resort to that. But, it just might come to that. No coffee is grown in the US. We're totally dependent on imports for the Joe and for tea.

I’m very glad to see folks like yourself that take this seriously!

Being prepared kinda makes me think of the expression used during the Bush administration during the early days of the terrorist’s attacks …..”they only have to be successful once”!

Much the same with some form of collapse, if you’re not prepared….. it only has to happen once! The End! 😉 memtb

Theres lots of wild edibles out there besides deer. Thanks to over protection we have an abundance of eagles, hawks, owls, crows and waterfowl. There are also lots of edible plants. Cattails, milk weed, plantain, nettles, dandelion greens, ramps, black berries, wintergreen and rose hips being but a few that grow here on my land. It might be a good idea to learn what wild edibles grow in your area.

We have a lot of Mormons around here. Their church wants everyone to have a minimum of 6 months of food on hand at all times, 2 years is better. The problem is that everyone else knows it. The Mormons say they all have guns and will fight to defend themselves again food raids, but no homeowner can hold off a gang alone for very long. They depend on their church friends to help them but while those friends are helping, their unguarded homes are being raided.

I remember a Cajun friend waxing enthusiastic about his grandma's Robin pie....ingredients harvested with a BB gun.

No, and no, how fragile are the growing and storage of them ? We burned so many tons of rice fifty years ago .

I hope that our 200 or so pounds of rice doesn’t meet the same fate! Stored in sealed Mylar bags with moisture and O2 packets, in sealed 5 gallon buckets. I’m hoping they have a long shelf/storage life!

I’m thinking that a good, well seasoned Rock Chuck Gumbo over rice would be pretty darn good! 😉 memtb

You may not like that Rock Chuck started this thread memtb, but, cannibalism? c'mon memtb.

I started grinding my deer last year, three so far, and it's all we use when ground beef it called for, I do add some pork so it's not official "deer" but it would not be much of a sacrifice to give up on beef/pork if I had to.

😂😂😂 I hadn’t thought of that when I made my comment! 🙀 I was only thinking of the cute, little furry kind of Rock Chucks! 😉😂 memtb

My Dad grew up in the depression in Northern Minnesota ........venison is about all that they ate for years.

Who’s to say Rock Chuck is t cute and furry?

The point of the OP is how long the deer/hog/rodent population will last before being depleted beyond use. Rodents - indefinitely. Hogs - quite a while. Deer - weeks.

I fed my family deer meat for thirty years, probably only ate 15 percent of other meat’s, we are overrun with deer on ranch, problem would be saving them for us, city people would be everywhere if things went south.

That’s a very good point! I guess that I pictured him as old, tuff, with lots of gristle! 😂 memtb

I figured that any and all large animals would soon be gone…..and we don’t have “Chucks”!

But, we have plenty of raccoons! I’ll bait them with the garden….. will catch them trespassing! memtb

If it got that apocalyptic, no way. This it is semi-rural country with very limited whitetail habitat or cover. Much before the deer, the well known, ubiquitous livestock confinements would be targeted, but even as numerous as they are, I doubt that source of protein would last very long.

It would seem people would even drive from other areas to raid and steal cattle and other livestock. Outside of that, could the owners even provide feed and care for them?

If it came to wild game here, the pickin’s and competent pickers would be slim. I could be way off, but lack of utilities and medicines here would become more critical for many before food as most have stocked pantries and full freezers.

Nah, I wouldn't survive more than a few months at best, probably not that long.

The carrying capacity of this region,greatly outpaces that which would be required for local sustenance. Drinking water abounds and the table is set twice daily,as an absolute minimum. Hint.



Just sayin'...............