Passive Wilderness Survival Food Acquisition
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Passive Food Aquisition A couple dozen traps like this scattered about your area could help ensure you of a constant survival food supply. Once in place, traps like these will hunt for you 24/7, even as you sleep. Here I am investing in a rabbit snare placed in the underbrush along a well used path. The wire was pulled from a broken down vehicle and stripped. I recommend you carry snare wire in your survival kit. Note how I "enhanced" the rabbit's passage between the small trees by the judicious placement of sticks, helping the rabbit place its head into the loop of the snare as it lopes along the trail. Increasing your rate of return using all the methods at your disposal is a key component of successful wilderness survival. |
If you read the Survival Topic on “Survival Foraging on the Move”, you know I am an advocate of consuming anything and everything that is edible and can be harvested with a minimum of effort. That’s because when it comes to wilderness survival it is energy and time that denote wealth; go into debt on this account and your very life is at risk.
In a long term wilderness survival situation once you have provided for water, shelter, and fire your thoughts are likely to eventually turn to food. And when it comes to finding food in the wilderness I recommend you go about it as would a skilled investor seeking to increase wealth through wise investments.
How’s that, you ask? How could finding food in the wilderness be anything at all similar to finding wealth in civilization?
In reality, the principles are identical.
Passive Income on the Path to Plenty
If you are familiar with passive income, you know its value as a steady revenue stream that takes little additional effort on your part. Passive income is one of the best ways to accumulate wealth because you do not have to go through all the time and effort of having to work for it.
Sure, the initial stages take some work but once the system is in place the money comes to you 24/7; even as you sleep!
As a simple example of passive income that nearly anyone can understand is investing in a CD at your local bank. The interest you make from such an investment means you are generating money twenty-four hours a day seven days a week without actually having to do anything for it. Once you create the initial investment and set it up, you regularly reap rewards without having to work by the hour. That’s just plain smart.
Create a number of investments that provide passive income and you may very well never have to work at a job again; unless, of course, you want to work on making more investments! In fact, as many people do, eventually you could be making far more money from investments than you could ever do by working for a living for forty or more hours per week. You become rich.
Makes you wonder why so many people are working so hard at their everyday jobs!
While passive income is one secret to monetary wealth, it is also a secret to finding enough food to survive in the wilderness.
But how do you invest in finding survival food in the wilderness?
Traps: Your Survival Food Investment
The Problem with Hunting for Food
The most concentrated sources of food for survival, besides insects, are meat and fish. This makes most people immediately think of hunting and fishing in order to obtain enough food to survive in the wilderness.
However in many cases hunting and fishing is not what you hope it to be. Game and fish can be relatively scarce and difficult to locate. Attempting to acquire these food resources can require a great expenditure of energy and time, both of which may be in short supply during a wilderness survival situation.
The fact is even a highly skilled hunter with modern arms will often find it difficult to bring in enough meat to feed himself, let alone others. Should he be skilled and lucky enough to bag, say, a rabbit, after it has been eaten what then? Time to go hunting again! Relying upon hunting often means iffy chances of success on a day to day basis and good chances of regularly going hungry.
And that’s even if you happen to have the proper arms, ammo, and skill. Often in a wilderness survival situation you will have none of these.
Invest in Traps for Passive Survival Food Re-Supply
The smart thing to do is set in place a number of investments that work will work for you 24/7, even while you sleep. Create skillfully laid traps, spread them around your area, and allow a passive supply of survival food to come to you.
Even though you may not have brought trapping materials with you there are almost always plenty of natural means at your disposal for making traps. Sticks, rocks, natural fibers, holes in the ground, and your own wit and skill can fill the cooking pot if only you know how.
At least once a day make the rounds, gathering up the returns on your investments traps and resetting them as need be. In your spare time make more investments traps.
Eventually you will have enough invested in traps so that even though most do not produce on any given day – some will. With more traps set, your chances of seeing a daily return on your investments will substantially increase, hopefully to the point where you are always well fed. In effect you become a wealthy survivor, living off the land very well and with a minimum of effort.
What’s more, rather than ranging all over the landscape using up energy, time and risking injury or becoming lost while hunting, you can develop a route or “trap line” that you leisurely follow as you go about harvesting the returns on your investments.
Windfall Profits
I recommend you stay alert to any possible windfall profits that may come your way as you inspect your traps. Often animals are attracted to others that have become trapped, may be investigating what you have been doing, or simply wandering through.
An intruder in the form of predator or scavenger may even be caught in the act of robbing your investment, in which case you can sue for all its worth via club, sharpened stick, or what have you.
Animals to Trap for Survival Food
Generally, the smaller animals are not only easier to trap they are also more numerous. For example, your likelihood of successfully trapping deer is far less than trapping rabbits. Even you are skilled enough to trap deer you can probably set dozens of rabbit snares in the time and effort it would take to make the single larger trap. And with that many rabbit traps you may very well be eating every day rather than perhaps not at all.
It’s easy to make traps for a variety of wildlife including fish, turtles, crayfish, frogs, insects, and birds. Small mammals such as mice and rabbits as well reptiles including snakes, turtles and lizards can also be harvested in this way.
Spread Risk by Diversifying
Like a wise investor, I suggest diversification. Learn how to make a variety of traps so that you can make survival food investments in any environment you find in your situation.
For example, make minnow traps and set them in the shallows of a pond, a number of rabbit snares along their trails, and a couple of deadfalls where you see signs of raccoon. But don’t stop there. As time allows make bird traps for the partridges, turkeys, or whatever other wildlife you find in your area.
With several dozen traps along your trap line, set for a variety of game, you are well on your way to a veritable carnivore platter smorgasbord. Should one type of game, for example rabbits, be scarce on a particular day then you may be having fish for supper. Should your favorite pool become fished out, raccoon or turkey may be on the menu. And of course insects are often the tried and true standby when all else fails.
The key to Passive Wilderness Survival Food Income is:
- numbers of traps
- placed in strategic locations
- for a variety of wildlife species
About Trapping Wildlife for Survival
If you love the outdoors as much as I do then you will treat the land and the creatures that live on it with the great respect and admiration that is their due.
The best wilderness survivors show an extraordinary respect for the land and wildlife that can only come from a deeper understanding of what is real and true and valuable in this world. Many of the problems we face today stem from the abuse of nature. Do not injure the very environment we all need in order to survive.
While honing your wilderness survival trapping skills is admirable, do not actually trap any animals you do not intend to eat. In most areas trapping is highly regulated and for good reason. Trapping can be so efficient that a skilled and uncaring trapper can substantially deplete wildlife populations for miles around – which has an adverse effect on the entire ecosystem. Only trap when you are in an actual wilderness survival situation.
More to Survival Trapping to Come
You may have noticed there is a new Hunting – Fishing – Trapping section on Survival Topics. In the coming weeks and months we will explore techniques you can use to put meat on the table in any wilderness survival scenario.
Until next time, enjoy practicing your wilderness survival skills!
your internets
Dont forget that when checking traps in a survival type situation you will want to make sure that there are no venomous snakes in the trap (if you use a pit trap).
Southern Republic of Kalifornia
Great article! Just wondering, would guitar strings work as snare wire?
Survival Topics - I've never tried them, but I've seen people carrying various instruments deep into the wilderness. I believe the strings could easily be repurposed into snare wire.
Perhaps that would make for an interesting article; turning musical instruments into wilderness survival tools.
Central IL
I was hoping you could go more into detail about the rabbit snare and how it works. I understand you want to prevent unnecessary trapping, however I believe this and other trap details would be beneficial to not just my but all of your patrons survival.
Survival Topics - Now that winter is on its way I plan on writing an article on rabbit snaring. Stay tuned!
Central Florida
Wow, now that is wisdom! People usually have to pay for that kind of advice!
You are welcome to share this Survival Topic with others. I only request that you use a short blurb (not the entire survival content) and this code to
link to the origional:
pacific nw
In the 1960's I went thru several survival courses as a member of USMC Force Recon. I learned a lot, and some of this came in handy on a few occasions in SE Asia. I wish I had an instructor like you for these courses. You are very down-to-earth and clear and practical and your info is realistic. Keep up the good work!! Semper Fi