# How to survive in nature Often, being stuck in nature is more terrifying than it may appear: - Thousands of years ago, people lived in the untamed wild without any [technology](technology.md) *at all*. - While many plants and animals are hostile to humans, most of them are simply trying to survive like you, and they don't tend to attack unless they're under some sort of hardship of their own. Ideally, you should never have to brave it in the wild, and it's a bad idea to make it your first choice if you can live in civilization. However, sometimes the situation becomes dire, and you must venture into completely untamed land. Most of your survival will come through education, [creativity](mind-creativity.md), and experience, so try to find others you can [work with](people-5_conflicts.md) to dramatically increase your chances. If you can, bring a few critical lightweight multipurpose items: - Maps of where you're going - Compass - Multi-tool - Headlamp or flashlight - Extra set of clothes - Some type of fire starter, like matches or a lighter - Extra food, preferably high-protein, high-fat foods - A simple first aid kit with bandages, triple-antibiotic ointment, decongestant, and painkillers - Sleeping bag/tent (especially with cold weather) - Machete/axe - Fishing pole or fishing net - Cookware to boil water and cook Always tell someone where you're going, when you expect to come back, and give a route/float plan: - Even if you're not taking mobile devices, keep a GPS device. - If you're traveling by sea, let the Coast Guard know your float plan. ## Improvising Your ability to [creatively](mind-creativity.md) improvise, more than any other skill, will determine your survival in the wild. Rocks are sturdy, simple tools: - Use a rope, a rock, and a strong piece of wood to make a hammer. - Make a mortar and pestle from two relatively conforming rocks. - Make a frying pan with a smooth stone over a fire. Grind anything made of metal or glass against rocks to make a blade. ## Navigating If you're lost, use the rule of 3 to call for help: 3 shouts, 3 horn blasts, or 3 whistles. - Do *not* move around unless there's an immediate threat to your safety, since Search & Rescue won't be able to catch up with you. Sunscreen and sunglasses can help you maintain your energy and focus: - It's extra important with snow, since it reflects the sun's rays and can cause snow blindness. If you have maps and a compass, you have a tremendous advantage getting around. Learn to accurately [predict the weather without technology](science-earth-weather.md). Make a compass with a watch: 1. Point the hour hand of a watch at the sun. 2. Place a line through the center of the watch between the hour hand and 12. 3. The side of the line farthest from the 12 and hour hand is north in the Northern Hemisphere and south in the Southern Hemisphere. At twilight, find the North Star by looking directly under the Big Dipper constellation. Slowly and carefully approach uneasy terrain. If you're walking a long distance in shoes unfit for the task, stuff fern leaves inside your shoes as insoles. Air is an excellent insulator, so wrap up in layers to prevent any immediate heat loss. Avoid getting wet to cut down on the risks of hypothermia: - Try not to rush when you can to avoid sweating. - When you have layers, shed them when you start feeling warm. [Make a Tactile Feedback Compass Belt](https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Make-a-Tactile-Feedback-Compass-Belt/) ## Water Generally, untreated running water in temperate climates is usually fine to drink, but boil or chlorinate the water if you can to avoid risking the many diseases in the wild. You can harvest fresh water by tying a plastic bag around leaves, then putting something heavy (like a rock) in it. If you have any containers with you, collect rainwater (though it's not always safe to drink, so purify it first). There are several ways to purify water: - Add a drop of bleach in for every ten ounces of water and then let it sit for half an hour - Boil water for at least 1 minute, or up to 5 minutes if it's highly contaminated. If you don't have much water and are thirsty, rinse your mouth for thirty seconds before swallowing to feel hydrated. You can find water in the desert: 1. Dig up plant roots. 2. Cut them into thick shavings. 3. Squeeze or press a little water out. 4. Some desert plants are hallucinogenic, so only use in a life-or-death situation. Pay close attention to your urine to see how well-hydrated you are: - Your urine should be clear or near-clear - If it's light yellow, you could stand to drink some water - If it's darker yellow, you'll need about 1 cup (1/4 l) within the hour. - If it's at all brown, you must drink water right now. ## Food The Universal Edibility Test: smell it first (though it won't work for mushrooms). Only eat familiar plants. Use a sharpened stick to spear-fish. Insects are convenient sources of protein: - You can find bugs under rocks and in the soil, on and in trees, and around bushes. - Avoid three types of insects: - Brightly colored - Smells bad - Strolling along as if they aren't afraid of anyone Improvise tools to get meat: - Convert a broken-off soda can top, paperclip or small piece of bent metal into a fishhook. - Make a bow with a tightly curved piece of solid wood with a string. - Fletch arrows by carving long shafts out of branches, and adding a sharpened stone at the tip for aerodynamic weight. Catch wild game: - Small traps can catch small game like rabbits, squirrels, and rodents. - Make traps with branches and stones. - Bait the traps with leftovers of your food or other animals' trash food. - Often, if you're desperate, traps can be a painful cost-benefit risk analysis. - Use what you have to experiment with various traps. Hunt large game: - To hunt reliably, you should learn it beforehand and have *plenty* of experience. - Practice sneaking as quietly as possible through your terrain. - Since you usually only get one shot, practice with targets beforehand. If you score large game, you *must* preserve the leftovers: 1. Trim the good meat off the carcass. 2. Salt the meat. - Additionally, you can cure it in a waterproof pouch by turning it over once a day for at least a week. 3. Rinse the meat and dry it overnight. 4. Smoke the meat over a fire and tripod. 1. Cut it into strips and lay on a rack over coals. 2. Drape an animal skin over the tripod and add damp wood chips to create smoke. ## Shelter/Heat 60-80% of the body's energy works to create heat. The largest loss of heat comes through our skin's contact with air: - Heat loss can cause hypothermia and, at lower temperatures, frostbite. - We can measure how much heat we lose relative to the outside temperature combined with windchill. - The risk of quickly getting frostbite starts around -15° F within half an hour, and gets more dangerous with more windchill. You lose heat 20 times faster when wet than dry, so shed any wet clothing. Your shelter will be critical to protecting yourself from losing heat at night. Eat food to increase your metabolism to stay warm. The most effective foods are hot drinks, whole grains, ginger, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, paprika, and pepper. Stay hydrated to store more heat. Even then, weather and moisture in the air can *still* sap your heat. When wandering, only settle where you have convenient access to water: - You may want to stay somewhere safer and farther from water, but water satisfies far too many needs. The quickest shelter is a tarp, waterproof cover or tree bark tightly woven together: - Cover it directly over you. - Make an A-frame for a small tent by propping up two flat surfaces. - Create a lean-to (a one-sided tent) by tying it to two live tree branches, angled to protect against the wind. The easiest, sturdy-enough shelter simply involves leaning branches up against a large tree: - Make sure you don't have old, rotting wood with swarms of bugs inside it (though that wood may be a good source of food). ## Fire Fire provides heat for shelter, cooking for food, a signal, and helps to sterilize things. A. Prepare the fuel with the flash point in mind: - Every flammable object has a unique temperature the material lights on fire (flash point). - Low flash point objects burn rapidly, while high flash point objects burn for a long time. - Generally, you want enough low flash point kindling to start a higher flash point object, then enough to keep the fire going overnight. - Gathering firewood can be time-consuming, and is the most dangerous part of making a fire. B. Prepare the kindling as a "nest", where the fire will start in the middle: - You can improvise various kindling: - Doritos or potato chips - Dryer/clothing lint - WD-40 fluid - Most aerosol products - Twisted bits of paper - If you have the materials, you can create more advanced fire starters: - Stuff empty toilet paper rolls with dryer lint. - Place pieces of charcoal in a cardboard egg carton. - Dip cotton swabs in wax. - Place dryer lint, place beneath a paper cup, and pour wax on it, then you can light it when you need it. C. Create an ignition source from a spark, reflected light, or focused heat: - Your ignition can come from a spark, reflected light or focused heat. - Focus light on a point with a magnifying glass, aluminum foil, a bubblegum wrapper, or mirror. - Chip a large, clear piece of ice into a rough sphere, smooth it with gloved hands, then use it as a lens. - Rub chocolate into the bottom of a soda can with a cloth until it shines. - Focus sunlight by placing a drop of water on the inside of a glasses' lens. - Connect battery terminals with aluminum foil to create a spark. - Smash flint rocks together to make a spark. - A cell phone is both a reflective surface, and has a battery. If you have matches, your life gets immeasurably easier: - To light a match in the wind, cut thin shavings toward the match head before lighting. - Make candles waterproof by dipping them in hot candle wax. - Keep matches dry: - Slip them inside a flashlight. - Wrap them in aluminum foil. - Attach sandpaper on top of a small plastic container and put matches inside it. - Carefully slice a match in half to make two of them. Improvise candles, lanterns, and torches to keep the fire going when you don't need it: - Use the inside of a lemon. - You can burn crayons with the paper still on them for up to half an hour. - Soak an orange in olive oil for three minutes, then use its stem as a wick. - Make an oil candle: 1. Fill a travel container with any oil. 2. Stick a rope or cloth in the center of the container. 3. Seal it with wax, an upside-down wrench socket or another non-flammable item. - Stab a thin rope through a can of shortening. To prevent it from catching fire, don't make your fire any closer than a meter to your shelter. If you have a large enough shelter to make a fire inside it, make a hole large enough to let smoke escape without igniting the edge of the hole. ## Specific situations Walking on ice: - Waddle like a penguin. - If the ice breaks: 1. Spread your arms, but it'll break further if you claw at more ice. 2. Kick your legs until you're horizontal on your stomach. 3. Stay on your stomach and shimmy forward out of the ice. 4. Keep laying on your stomach until you're on thicker, safer ice. - If you fall through, the dark spot is the way out (since the ice surface reflects the sun). If you're in the ocean and feel you're drifting out to sea, you're caught in a riptide and need to swim or paddle parallel to the shore to escape it. - You won't be pulled under, so save your energy. If you're stuck in quicksand, slowly raise your legs and lie on your back to escape it. When disoriented underwater, blow bubbles and follow them. Don't lay in the snow or walk home in freezing temperatures while drunk, since alcohol opens up your blood vessels and causes heat loss. ### Specific natural disasters If the tide goes *very* far out, you're about to see a tidal wave. If you're buried in an avalanche and don't know which way to dig, spit and drool will follow gravity. While on the ground in a lightning storm, the electric current will run through your entire body, so sit cross-legged for it to skip your vital organs or head for lower ground. In case of an earthquake, ignore door thresholds and find a table. For plagues, avoid rodents and bugs and shave your head and beard to avoid flea infestations. Fire: - Unless you're using an oxygen tank, crawl to get below the smoke. - When opening a door, watch for smoke around the perimeter, since you may not be able to hear the fire behind it. - If you *do* open a door, back away and wait about 30 seconds, just in case there's a backdraft. Volcano: 1. Seek shelter and close all windows, bring in all animals. 2. Turn off anything that pulls in volcanic ash, such as air conditioners, heaters, and fans. 3. Since an eruption can contaminate water, fill up tubs, sinks, and containers with clean water. Tornado: - Find shelter immediately, preferably anything that won't create a wind tunnel (like an overpass) and won't get flash flooded (like a ditch). - Since the most dangerous part of a tornado is its debris, board up your windows and doors. - Go to your basement if you have one, otherwise stay at the center of the first floor to get as many walls between you and the tornado as possible. - Contrary to urban legends, you *can* outrun it if you can go faster than 70 mph and are driving away from it. ## Dealing with wild animals Deodorants and perfumes attract bugs, and some scents will attract animals. Animals generally run away if you walk and speak loudly. Most dangerous bugs, such as wasps and bees, ignore you if you stay still. - If they land on you, blow on them, don't swat. Most animals are afraid of fire and jingling keys. Try to avoid seals and moose, since they can be very territorial. If a bear attacks: - If a brown bear attacks you, play dead. - If a black bear attacks you, punch it in the nose. - If you have to shoot a bear, make sure you kill it by hitting its face, up its nose, in its ears, or in its chest. If a moose attacks: - Never use a truck's highway horn around a moose, since it sounds like a moose's mating challenge call. - If you're chased by a moose, stand up against a tree. If a crocodile/alligator attacks: - Hit their nose. - If a crocodile bites you, gouge their eyes with your thumbs. - Sprint away as fast as possible, since they are very fast. If a shark attacks: - If a shark attacks you, hit it in the nose. If a whale has swallowed you: 1. Turn on any light source. 2. If you were swallowed whole, you'll likely get spit out whole. 3. Whales can swim deeply, so preserve what oxygen you can and head for the surface.