Foxes and pigeons can only sustain themselves due to humans being there. No humans = no waste = no animals.
You'd still have your rivers/water systems though.
What would you do for food?
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Foxes and pigeons can only sustain themselves due to humans being there. No humans = no waste = no animals.
You'd still have your rivers/water systems though.
How would British livestock cope without humans? Of course if the livestock survive so will the dogs, how big can a feral dog pack be?
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Russian provincial towns have huge problems with feral dog packs - very big packs of 20-30 dogs sometimes. They are periodically culled but back up in numbers very soon. All the wildlife parks would be interesting places, there's one close to us with boar, wolves and bison...the return of the native wolf?
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so where abouts in the country would provide a sufficient amount of food to keep some one going for a reasonable amount of time?
by that I mean an area with many many resources, so meat, fish, shellfish, nuts, fruit?
IMO all of these would be required.
by that I mean an area with many many resources, so meat, fish, shellfish, nuts, fruit?
IMO all of these would be required.
Problem is so much of the 'wild' food in the UK is seasonal so as a lone hunter gatherer you are up poo stream without a paddle. On your own there are not enough hours in the day to carry out all thats required, hunting, drying, storing, growing, guarding etc, plus having to move often to source your different foods in the first place. Remove motorised transport from the equation and your options for mobility shrink dramatically; how many miles a day can you walk out and back to camp in the hope of catching food, then prep it, preserve it, eat it?
You could 'survive' quite a while but long term your prospects of survival dwindle unless you are part of an organised group. Solo survival means really just getting by until you can join up or form a group IMHO.
Those of us who 'prep' have a head start, I have several months of food, clean water etc but locally apart from sheep and rabbit there is not a lot to munch on as things stand now.
Perhaps a better question would be "Whats the minimum size of group needed to survive an end of the world situation"
I reckon the south of England: Kent, Devon etc.
That's where all the big market gardens are and where the most feral plants will be. It has the biggest population of course so there'd be a lot of competition.
That's where all the big market gardens are and where the most feral plants will be. It has the biggest population of course so there'd be a lot of competition.
Indeed.
If there will be a group of you then you should all probably start thinking about keeping animals and raising crops rather than try to forage or hunt. If much of the population has vanished this will be your best hope, if the UK population is still in the tens of millions then your biggest problem will be in preventing a stronger group turning up to take away the result of your labor.
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That's one way of looking at it... But there is an alternative solution which nobody has proposed yet: eat the rich!
Trouble is that IMO a conventional end of the world scenario doesn't work. - even if a good portion of the populous is removed, I believe people would have a tendency to seek what they once had and help each other out. - minus of course the mindless individuals who would try and feed off the weak. - Though I do not believe these groups would last very long.
a family size group - say 4-5 individuals with no small children would do well I reckon. - though I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Andy
a family size group - say 4-5 individuals with no small children would do well I reckon. - though I'm happy to be proved wrong.
Andy
i doubt many people would stay in such a small group. after the initial fighting over food people will likely settle into groups.
basically describing the storyline of this series of books lol:
http://www.the-enemy.co.uk/site/teHome.php5
very well written end of the world zombie book, pretty much everyone on here is doomed though (unless your good at hunting children
).
basically describing the storyline of this series of books lol:
http://www.the-enemy.co.uk/site/teHome.php5
very well written end of the world zombie book, pretty much everyone on here is doomed though (unless your good at hunting children
).
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Spot on about rabbits. In fact there is a known condition called rabbit starvation.
I read once of American settlers starving to death despite eating numerous rabbits to the exclusion of any plantlife which would have saved them. How true this story was I don't know but it is accepted that you would suffer extreme diahorrea, headache and lethagy within a week. Some theorise that you would die quicker then if you ate nothing but there is a distinct lack of volunteers to substantiate!!
The problem with subsisting entirely on lean meat (such as rabbits) is that your are consuming lots of protein, very little fat, and negligible carbohydrate. Your body can turn protein into energy and this process goes on in the liver. It is quite an inefficient source of energy. The amount of protein that can be converted into energy is limited by the blood supply to the liver. This creates a bottle neck which means that only about 400g of protein can be turned usefully into energy in a 24 hour period. The rest is passed as waste products.
1g of protein gives 4 calories (Kcal) so 400g in 24hrs gives you 1,600 calories per day. An average man these days needs 2,000-2,500 calories per day. A trapper working the trap lines in the northwoods would need a lot more to stay warm and active so they would be in massive carlorific deficit. Hence, however much lean meat they would eat, they would eventually starve.
Pretty depressing eh?
as far as i'm aware sheep do alright up on the welsh hills....
I think cows get suppliments....although do they really need them?
Horses....they can survive I'm sure
And if my dog was released...he'd manage just fine....rabbits are easy for him and before now he's had a few pheasants and this is will he's on a lead! (walking past hedge rows where the the animals thinks it's safe. so yes feral packs of dogs:yikes: i had not though of that (they would make tree dwelling an attractive option for sure
Mojo
I not sure that sheep will be ok. Having lived in Scottish hill farming areas for ten to fifteen years I have seen just how much work goes in to keeping a decent sized flock going and this in a world with modern treatments and/or inoculations for pests and disease. Not to mention the depredations of feral dog packs and passing survivors taking pot shots at your prize ram.
Cows would also suffer badly, I read that some modern breeds can struggle to give birth without human assistance.
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I'm willing to accept that some have been bred to the point of no return...but survival of the fittest...some domesticated meals on legs will still roam about and i'm only after the odd one...as i'll be the one taking pot shots at the ram, not trying to raise a herd with it...
