Habitat with most odds off obtaining all your wild food needs in the U.K.

[Poacherman]

Iv thought long and hard about this over the years and Iv come to 1 conclusion.Large tidal common Reed marshes such as Humber n Tay provide a lot off food in form off starch in rhizomes plus fatty ducks geese and fish in the estuary .In the case off the Humber some off these habitats can be 50 miles inland and a mix off sea and fresh water habitat ,id guess this offers higher prospects off survival than a purely coastal environment. A good canoe knowledge off low tides and shifting sands be abs crucial, I don’t know the figures but the biomass for common Reed phragmites here must be huge. Offcourse I doubt the legalities but I started this thread purely for fun what habitat do u think offers highest prospects off survival in the U.K?or Europe even .

 

[demented dale]

I have thought about that question also . West of Ireland is not bad. I am thirty miles from the coast. I see everything with a survivalists eye and when I go for a walk in any given month I do a mental forage to determine if I could survive that day on what I see. I would struggle a bit Dec, Jan and Feb but if I was nearer the coast then it would a lot easier with the seaweeds and shell fish. not to mention fishing.
Next year I will going in to the wilds to do just that. I hope to start by doing a weekend with no food or water except what I find and build up from there.
Here we have ancient deciduous woodland, forestry, pasture, hundreds of inland lochs, salmon rivers and abundant coastlines. There is plenty to kill on land as well. I have hunted in the past but tend not to these days but since this is a 'potential survival scenario' discussion there are tonnes of deer for bow hunting and then theres always the domestic cow herd that you would have to wrestle and dispatch with bare hands. AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

 

[Toddy]

The hunter gatherers did just as you said. They used the rivers and estuaries, the marshes and the woodlands alongside.
Rich gathering grounds, rich hunting grounds. Always something to eat, even if it's just shellfish at 1 calorie each. Fishing all year round, from elvers to flatfish or salmon in their season.
Grazing animals come down there too to drink, and the opened up areas attract wild boar and the like as well.

Mind that people didn't live alone, humanity exists in family groups, occasionally 'male' groups form for a time, hunting parties, that kind of thing, but women and children bring in a great deal of the food. It might be small stuff, but it's nutritious food even if the hunting is bad.

 

[Tengu]

You would have to be able to store too.

 

[Toddy]

Up here they gutted and stored the seabird carcases in cleits, see St. Kilda for instance.
Or there's the guga harvest where the birds are buried for months.
It's all storage.

 

[Poacherman]

I have thought about that question also . West of Ireland is not bad. I am thirty miles from the coast. I see everything with a survivalists eye and when I go for a walk in any given month I do a mental forage to determine if I could survive that day on what I see. I would struggle a bit Dec, Jan and Feb but if I was nearer the coast then it would a lot easier with the seaweeds and shell fish. not to mention fishing.
Next year I will going in to the wilds to do just that. I hope to start by doing a weekend with no food or water except what I find and build up from there.
Here we have ancient deciduous woodland, forestry, pasture, hundreds of inland lochs, salmon rivers and abundant coastlines. There is plenty to kill on land as well. I have hunted in the past but tend not to these days but since this is a 'potential survival scenario' discussion there are tonnes of deer for bow hunting and then theres always the domestic cow herd that you would have to wrestle and dispatch with bare hands. AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

Iv done similar weekend excursions but Iv prepared wild walnut butter in advance that beats rabbit starvation .Be cool to stretch it to 7 days just to say Iv done it ,but to many people n everywere is owned by somebody .

 

[Poacherman]

I have thought about that question also . West of Ireland is not bad. I am thirty miles from the coast. I see everything with a survivalists eye and when I go for a walk in any given month I do a mental forage to determine if I could survive that day on what I see. I would struggle a bit Dec, Jan and Feb but if I was nearer the coast then it would a lot easier with the seaweeds and shell fish. not to mention fishing.
Next year I will going in to the wilds to do just that. I hope to start by doing a weekend with no food or water except what I find and build up from there.
Here we have ancient deciduous woodland, forestry, pasture, hundreds of inland lochs, salmon rivers and abundant coastlines. There is plenty to kill on land as well. I have hunted in the past but tend not to these days but since this is a 'potential survival scenario' discussion there are tonnes of deer for bow hunting and then theres always the domestic cow herd that you would have to wrestle and dispatch with bare hands. AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

The walnuts should be ready now or shortly they’d help u a lot on your quest.

 

[Poacherman]

The hunter gatherers did just as you said. They used the rivers and estuaries, the marshes and the woodlands alongside.
Rich gathering grounds, rich hunting grounds. Always something to eat, even if it's just shellfish at 1 calorie each. Fishing all year round, from elvers to flatfish or salmon in their season.
Grazing animals come down there too to drink, and the opened up areas attract wild boar and the like as well.

Mind that people didn't live alone, humanity exists in family groups, occasionally 'male' groups form for a time, hunting parties, that kind of thing, but women and children bring in a great deal of the food. It might be small stuff, but it's nutritious food even if the hunting is bad.

Yes the common perception is we lived in the woods but with my logical hat on I reckon majority off us lived on estuarys in forests off reeds or Reed houses there’s certainly more food on tidal salt marshes.

 

[Poacherman]

I have thought about that question also . West of Ireland is not bad. I am thirty miles from the coast. I see everything with a survivalists eye and when I go for a walk in any given month I do a mental forage to determine if I could survive that day on what I see. I would struggle a bit Dec, Jan and Feb but if I was nearer the coast then it would a lot easier with the seaweeds and shell fish. not to mention fishing.
Next year I will going in to the wilds to do just that. I hope to start by doing a weekend with no food or water except what I find and build up from there.
Here we have ancient deciduous woodland, forestry, pasture, hundreds of inland lochs, salmon rivers and abundant coastlines. There is plenty to kill on land as well. I have hunted in the past but tend not to these days but since this is a 'potential survival scenario' discussion there are tonnes of deer for bow hunting and then theres always the domestic cow herd that you would have to wrestle and dispatch with bare hands. AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH!

You certainly have much better salmon runs than Scotland and for much cheaper prices. Scotland salmon fishing is to elitist n has terrible runs compared to Ireland some Irish salmon runs are close to 6 figures and even a man on minimum wage can afford the fishing on Say the river moy or tributaries for example.

 

[Wander]

Towns and the urban environment would be your best bet for survival foraging.
The amount of food that supermarkets throw out the back would feed a family for ages.

 

[Broch]

As Toddy says, our ancestors didn't live alone. If you do the maths, calories, protein, fat, per Kg gathered, you quickly realise that a single person would have difficulty living off the land and the sea (in the UK). It takes communal hunting and gathering to make it possible. If you're using more calories than you're gathering, you'd live longer just sitting

 

[Van-Wild]

Iv thought long and hard about this over the years and Iv come to 1 conclusion.Large tidal common Reed marshes such as Humber n Tay provide a lot off food in form off starch in rhizomes plus fatty ducks geese and fish in the estuary .In the case off the Humber some off these habitats can be 50 miles inland and a mix off sea and fresh water habitat ,id guess this offers higher prospects off survival than a purely coastal environment. A good canoe knowledge off low tides and shifting sands be abs crucial, I don’t know the figures but the biomass for common Reed phragmites here must be huge. Offcourse I doubt the legalities but I started this thread purely for fun what habitat do u think offers highest prospects off survival in the U.K?or Europe even .

I grew up on the East Coast, near the river waveney. The area is (was) abound with reed marshes, good fishing (fresh and sea), deer and bird. As a kid I camped, fished and hunted, sleeping in the woods or on the banks of the river during holidays. It was a childhood ideal. If I were to go native, I'd head back there.

 

[TLM]

In US West Coast around the Canadian border indian tribes could keep their elders because they could feed themself by foraging on the tidal zone. On the Welsh coast I remember seeing a lot of fish beeing locked in tidal pools, crabs and molluscs also being fairly easy picks.

 

[Paul_B]

Talking about struggling in the winter months, like all mammals we have methods ti get around the quiet months. Some build up reserves like squirrels, others like bears in fatty deposits and camels too but for different reasons. That's why I think this sort of thinking should certainly be considering in months of plenty what can be stored as much as what can be gathered to eat directly.

Perhaps this thought trail could lead to storage foods as well as eating foods. I wouldn't want i have to just survive but thrive!

 

[Poacherman]

Talking about struggling in the winter months, like all mammals we have methods ti get around the quiet months. Some build up reserves like squirrels, others like bears in fatty deposits and camels too but for different reasons. That's why I think this sort of thinking should certainly be considering in months of plenty what can be stored as much as what can be gathered to eat directly.

Perhaps this thought trail could lead to storage foods as well as eating foods. I wouldn't want i have to just survive but thrive!

Walnuts are high calories and can be made into good butter

 

[Poacherman]

In US West Coast around the Canadian border indian tribes could keep their elders because they could feed themself by foraging on the tidal zone. On the Welsh coast I remember seeing a lot of fish beeing locked in tidal pools, crabs and molluscs also being fairly easy picks.

Wales has some off the best sea fishing in the U.K. in my opinion .

 

[Poacherman]

I grew up on the East Coast, near the river waveney. The area is (was) abound with reed marshes, good fishing (fresh and sea), deer and bird. As a kid I camped, fished and hunted, sleeping in the woods or on the banks of the river during holidays. It was a childhood ideal. If I were to go native, I'd head back there.

Iv never heard off the Waveney il look it up n have a nice read .

 

[Toddy]

We do get horrendously bad weather along our coasts though....my Dad said that the ice froze so hards on the Norfolk Broads one year that when it thawed it took away the eelgrass, that the elvers needed to hide/grow in, out to sea. Pretty much destroyed an entire industry.

On Skara Brae there are stone 'cisterns' in the houses. Older folks on the islands said that inland houses had these to keep sea molluscs fresh.....well the now coastal Skara Brae site was originally inland a bit. If you collect a lot of the shellfish, you could keep them fresh for a day or so in what would really be a kind of rock pool. Handy if the weather looked like it was going to be bad.

 

[Poacherman]

We do get horrendously bad weather along our coasts though....my Dad said that the ice froze so hards on the Norfolk Broads one year that when it thawed it took away the eelgrass, that the elvers needed to hide/grow in, out to sea. Pretty much destroyed an entire industry.

On Skara Brae there are stone 'cisterns' in the houses. Older folks on the islands said that inland houses had these to keep sea molluscs fresh.....well the now coastal Skara Brae site was originally inland a bit. If you collect a lot of the shellfish, you could keep them fresh for a day or so in what would really be a kind of rock pool. Handy if the weather looked like it was going to be bad.

Iv just caught 15 trout this morning “small” I only kept 1 il do a post.Is eelgrass edible ? Iv yet to visit the Norfolk broads do u recommend it .

 

[Toddy]

No, the eelgrass is the hiding place for the elvers, the little eels that grow up and then swim off all the way across to the Sargasso sea to spawn and die.....maybe thirty years later. The tiny wee eels are carried by ocean currents back to Norfolk.

There used to be hundreds of thousands of those elvers, they're kind of transparent when young and called glass eels. Now I believe they're on the endangered species list.