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It's also a good excuse to learn to hunt. Every single experienced hunter had their first hunt at some time.

My family has hunted for generations and I have hunted for nearly a decade now. You are right, there is an elevated risk of accidents. But the experience of hunting is nothing like raising chickens. Staying out in the woods for days, becoming more and more tuned to the animals and environment around you. Feeling the adrenaline when you hear a huge animal tromping through the woods, just to look over and see a couple squirrels playing. There's nothing like it.

If this pandemic draws more people out to try hunting, and in so doing, they have similar experiences to those I've had, then I'm fine with it.

I agree! But these aren't people who are going to spend days in the woods. They are people who work in offices, who are nervous about toilet paper shortages and are unprepared for the possibility of food shortages. Good for them for trying to be prepared and I hope many more people do take some steps towards self-sufficiency. Safely. Maybe with an experienced hunter friend.

To echo this: Hunting is good for the animals.

I know, I know, that seems like an oxymoron, like jumbo-shrimp or old-news. But in the US at least, a lot of national parks are funded via hunting permits [0]. The same is true in many parts of Africa. Those photos you see of some rich person with an elephant or a 5 point buck? The permit to kill that animal cost a lot of money and the parks are very grateful to have the cash [0].

NPR had a good story on how conservation in part depends on hunters: https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-...

Yes, the issue of hunters/poachers is a very complicated one. But what the sportsmen take, generally, is less than what they give back.

[0] The funding of parks is very complex, but permits do play a large part, generally. Each park is unique though.

In our state the conservation efforts, the DNR, everything comes from hunting and fishing licenses. So-called environmentalists who criticize hunting (at least here) are ironically doing little or nothing while the hunters are supporting the cause.

That’s what’s always held me back from hunting; there is a huge amount that has to be learned in a really short period of time. It seems to me that you should probably know what to do before you shoot the animal, and not plan to figure it out later.

It seems that hunting is a skill best passed down directly from seasoned hunter to new hunter.

Doesn't your state require hunter safety courses? In Missouri, we've got to take one before legally being able to hunt unless we're being guided by an experienced hunter.

They taught gun safety, field dressing, and the different type of animals that could be hunted. They taught what clothes you can wear and when, and they taught different strategies to extricate animals if they were too large for you to carry or drag.

I was unaware that hunter safety courses taught more than hunting. Other things held me back well before that point.

More practically my apartment dwelling nature was more of an issue; the idea of storing a gun in my apartment isn’t something I find particularly thrilling. If I could afford a house with a safe, that might’ve been a different story.

Oh, and I’ve lived in 3 states in the past 6 years. That also would’ve been a problem.

Gun owners must have a way to lock it up, of course. That's usually just a locked case. Not cheap but much less than the firearm itself. And you'll want it to transport the firearm anyway.

This might be state/course dependent. In NY you have to take a class in order to get a license but the one I took well over 18 years ago only taught you the safety part, gun safety, don't shoot at things you cannot see, what to wear, basic navigation, etc., as well as when it is legal to hunt different game. If someone else didn't teach you the actual hunting part you'd be fairly ill equipped still after taking the course.

If your family doesn't hunt, states often have "learn to hunt" or mentored hunt programs that will help teach you. I did a learn to hunt deer program in Minnesota and it was extremely informative and extensive. Everything from learning about the habits of the whitetail deer, scouting sessions looking for deer sign, rules/regulations, processing a deer in class, then going on a mentored hunt during a special season.

Deer hunting is still very popular in the midwest, although it's fading fast with the younger generations.

Every year I can walk through my neighborhood and see deer hanging in the garages. A deer is much smaller than an elk, you can dress it and then take it to a processor or cut it up on your own.

Had this pandemic happened during hunting season, states would have probably banned hunting anyway.

The midwest has too many deer. Pretty much everyone acknowledges it, but what usually happens is that you get an argument about extra deer hunts vs birth control for the deer.

I'm not a hunter, but I think that most places in the midwest limit deer hunting to a bow season and a shotgun season, so at least you don't have the danger of people firing rifles all over the place.

I had the same thought. That guy sounds like it's as simple as walking into the woods and shooting an elk. I don't think he has any idea how difficult it can be.

Especially an Elk! Last time I saw elk hunters they had horses to pack out the meat.

The guy in the article mentioned he planned to bring a horse to haul the meat.

You can take a kill to a butcher. You can drag an elk out with a ATV or other means than relying on your own strength, but some can do that as well. You don't need a truck necessarily, an elk can be quartered or de-boned in the field. A bone saw is helpful, but it isn't necessary.

Millions of Americans hunt for deer and elk without a lot of the gear you list.

Hunting isn't some sacred thing that can only be accessed through special means, even though plenty of hunters frame it as such. You can pass a hunter's safety course in less than a week, while learning the basics as you go.

However, I agree with the idea that using legal hunting as a means to survive during a national food shortage is grandiose.

I live in the mountains and learned from dad to park the truck downhill so you can drag the carcass fairly easily. No ATV needed, unless you just want to scare the game away.

As one who does hunt in the suburbs of NY: Most hunting in the NYC area is done with bows, and some with shotguns. Almost all is done from elevated stands or occasionally cliffs.

The maximum effective range of a bow is 40 yards (above that, and the deer jumps away before the arrow gets there). Shotguns are a little bit higher, but even so, I have never heard of a bowhunter shooting another bowhunter in the area -- one time a novice bowhunter illegally hunting in a park shot a dog, but that's about it.

When you shoot a deer, you do not chase it. You wait for it to expire and then look for it. This is taught in the bowhunting safety course.

The real difficulty is that even in areas where they are overpopulated, there are at most one group of deer per 60 acres, and a bowhunter can barely cover 1/4th acre. Deer do not like to move around, don't follow the same routes every day, and are quite cautious and sensitive to odors and noise. They also spend most of their day in areas such as thickets where a bowhunter cannot get close to them without scaring them off.

So unless the deer happens to walk by the hunter, not smell him, not get startled by his movements drawing a bow, and is facing the proper direction to offer a shot, the hunter will go home empty handed.

People could also stock up on dried beans if they are worried about future food shortages.

Or you could do both.

Beans and rice. Big bags of each got me through many a lean time when I was a university student.

Public land in states with highly limited seasons, few legal hunting areas and high barriers to entry is always a shitshow because you have a bunch of people who haven't been in the woods since last year scrambling to shoot the five stupid bucks that are walking around on opening day in the tiny area you can legally hunt. If the state doesn't like the outcome they should change their laws to stop incentivizing it either by relaxing requirements on where you can hunt or adding more barriers to entry to get the number of people down (of course the latter approach doesn't help control the excessive deer populations that a lot of states have problems with).

Or go with a friend who is an expert hunter, and learn from him/her.

around where i live most people almost certainly know someone who can help them out with all that stuff for a cut of the bounty...