Safe Bush Food

No mall in sight? Don’t starve in the wild

- Paul Donovan

In any survival situation there are priorities which have to be made according to the situation you find yourself in. Food is often regarded as a top priority, but in most situations it is, in reality, quite low on the list, as you carry enough fat on you to keep you alive for several weeks – even though your stomach may be telling you otherwise. But, for argument’s sake, let’s assume your stomach is beginning to rumble, and you have nothing to eat. What do you do?

First things first: don’t be tempted to knock off any passengers who may be with you and eat them. Look around. The environment you find yourself stranded in could actually be a food larder, although the definition of ‘food’ could be open to interpretation.

Many people subscribe to the notion that, ‘if it walks, swims, crawls or flies it can be eaten’. This is not strictly the case. While many have survived by eating things they didn’t particularly like the look of, some of these WSCFs could well be toxic. Even cooking the nastier ones will not necessarily render them edible. Generally, brightly-coloured individuals (particularly those showing bright red) should be avoided. They are showing colour for a reason.

Forget traps and snares

Most people believe you have to make traps and snares to capture prey. Infact many ‘off-the-shelf’ survival kits include snare wire for this purpose. But unless you know how to make a snare and where to place it, it’s pretty useless.

Some books suggest making spears. Have you ever thrown a spear and hit a static target? Yeah, it’s dif cult. So what hope do you have of hitting a moving animal!