h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would like to bring up the point about wild animals. Now I know it is a rare site these days to see a dangerous wild animal lurking anywhere near most campsites frequented by "civilized" men, but the deeper we venture into the wild and the more used to "civilized" man the wild becomes you may very well meet face to face with a creature not welcome in you personal space. These would include everything from the annoying scavengers to the rather large predators. Make no joke on anything not being dangerous. I live in Colorado, USA, and I have hiked and camped just about every condition known save perhaps K2. I am going to relenquish my knowledge of a few situations you may find yourself in with certain animals.
First the cute and seemingly domestic rodents everyone simply cannot resist feeding. One suggestion DO NOT FEED ANY ANIMAL, unless you bring it with you, if you travel with your pets. Feeding them helps destroy their natural abilities to survive and makes them more dependent on mankind, this ruins the pristine nature of it all. However if you cannot follow this advice a few other suggestions. If you do feed them do not feed them salty or heavily spicy products or anything with too many preservatives, such as salted nuts or beef jerky, animals lack the built up enzymes humans have to digest such things and this can kill them very easily. Also resist beyond all temptation to allow them near you, I know you want that nature photo to show your friends the cute little squirrel that you hand fed, then it bit you and after 50 shots later you have a real story for those back home. All animals have the potential to carry deadly disease no matter how cute and domestic they seem.
Secondly the scavengers again if you keep your distance from them you should have no problems with them. They usually do not like humans and will wait for you to turn your back or nod off to try to ganque any thing from you. I do say watch your belongings, even your electronics and keys, keep them packed up. Once a friends cell phone and car keys with his only security fob was stolen during the night by such a rogue. Luckily one of us had a misspent youth and was able to hotwire the truck and disconnect the alarm, I will deny that being me if anyone loses there vehicle anytime soon ). I suggest you take everything valuable into your tent or at least into the rainfly vestibule, and lock the zippers on your packs because yes natural selection has allowed certain creatures the ability to work zippers. One thing I have done in the past, although it was for the more human creature but will work for most, is I took a bullhorn can, those cans of compressed air that are louder than all get out, and stripped the top off it carefully so the mechanism was single as opposed to dual, meaning it only needed to be pulled on as opposed to pressed to activate. I tied a string to the mechanism and wedged the can still. I then tied the other end to my pack so when the pack was tugged away it would receive a very loud honk. It did not happen but it would have worked I am sure had anyone tried to abscond my pack. This may be a bit over kill but it was fun the thought of someone or thing having a coronary when they tried. Always though keep your food stored where critters cannot reach them. If you tie them up to a branch high enough that bears cannot get it make certain you poke a hole into a coffee can lid in its center and string it onto the rope knot the rope about a foot above the pack of food and allow the lid to rest on it. This will keep the tree scurrying sort from your food, they will atempt to get around the obstical of the lid and fall off due to its instability. Make certain the pack or bag the food in is water and airtight so it wont get wet or allow the wonderful odor out to entice such critters.
Next the predator group of nasties. Now I do hope you never have to face a Mountain lion or a pack of wolves, but it is possible. Firstly DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PANIC, just like good Mr Addams says, this will only make you seriously at risk of death. It is not the animal to be feared it is us and our irrationality. In your mind prepare yourself for the possibility of an encounter and think through the steps of what you would do, this will help it from being such a surprise. Additionally when hiking keep your eyes out around and yes look up! We were given the ability to be intelligent enough to look up, use it most animals don't. If you are aware of your surroundings at all time then you have lees a chance for encounter. Make noise when hiking as well this will usually frighten off predators, sing is what I do sounds dorky but it helps the morale too. Now if by chance you do get confronted by a beast, again do not panic THINK! DO NOT RUN!!! YOU WILL NOT BE FASTER THAN IT!! Tell it to go away firmly, do not motion towards it allowing your hands away from you body towards it only gives it something to attack, alot of animals do not see the third dimension as well as we do and the effect would be wasted anyway. Instead raise your arms to your sides make yourself look bigger as you tell it to go away. This sounds silly but some animals have not seen humans and when they are sizing you up they get confused by your voice. Animals rely on body language an pheromone scent to consider if this in front of them is prey or not. If you have not panicced then your pheromone level should be low to fear scent and by looking bigger it will most likely run away itself. Animals learned survival skills are good it will not attack something it is not sure it can kill, unless it is protecting it's young, do not threaten their young then they will not kill you. In other words walk away from that cute bear cub, do not even take a picture of it, you just may look like you are trying to shoot it with a gun to it's mother, wouldn't you want to protect your kid if a stranger was taking picures of them? If you want the pic walk away and use a telephoto lens from a good distance away like a good voyer would. Now if for the ever increasing chance the telling it to go technique does not work and it is still there licking its chops, this is happening alot more now that most creatures are used to humans now, again do not run! Instead YELL as loud and as menacingly as you can at it and stomp your foot. It does not have to be coherant just as loud as you can. Open your mouth as big as it goes and let out the most gutteral scream or low pitched sound you can make, I want your vocal cords to be snapping on this one. If you scream make certain it is not a fear scream make it a "you are trying to hurt my loved ones and you are going to die for it!!" scream. This actually worked for me with 3 wild dogs on me, they caught me by surprise one day in a meadow and I turned to see them about to surround me, without much thought I bellowed the loudest I ever had and they were running into each other trying to get away from this before lunch parcel now immediate threat to their pelts. This actually does a number of good things. One it alerts your party members to your distress and location allowing for help. Second it relieves you fear by increasing your adrenal flow thus creating threatening pheromones to their scent glands. And third it should make them want to relieve their bladder and make for the nearest Park Ranger for their own safety. Now then if this does not work as it ought to and it is still determined to eat you, this is a bit hairy of a subject. I have never had to do this but I know I would if I had to. Now I hope you have had the forethought to bring a knife, not a gun you will injure someone else or yourself more than any animal, and have it on your belt with the scabbard on your primary hand side. Have the sharp part of the blade facing out to your front. This will give you the best angle of knife attack, not like a slasher movie with the blade going downwards but with the blade going upwards from your fist. This allows a better angle of attack than the overly used and pitifully uneffective downward stab. The blade's shar side if it is not a dual sided knife should actually face you in this case. Now then this is where it gets to be a real thought game and mental control of yourself. Most animals will attack your throat, depend on that they will. Worry less about the claws the only distract the true threats are the teeth. As I said most will go for the throat so with your off hand be prepared to intercept the attack and stick it in place of your throat into its mouth as it lunges. I know you seem to be helping it out by putting your body into its mouth, but you are really just sacrificing one part for the other, your arm can go and you still live but your throat goes you die, simple as that. Now as it latches onto your arm thrust your knife up into its throat and and pull back towards you this will gape its throat and hopefully sever a few arteries and muscles that control those jaws. Keep doing this until it leaves or is dead. Now if you are dealing with a number of attackers such as a pack of wolves after the first initial attacker is dead use it as a sheild, show it to the others this may very well let them think again of attacking. I know this sounds unlikely and something out of a B movie but think about it isnt it better to be prepare with a solution before than to have to formulate one in the midst? And if perchance you have no knife the throat is a very soft area on anything put all your might into ripping it out, thats what the animal knows to try to do to you. Hopefully you just might get away with only a torn up arm thet you can wrap tightly and get to a hospital, better than laying there with you throat open and being a delicasy for some lion.
Lastly those rascally little poison deliverers. Snakes first, a snake does not want to eat you it wants to save its hide. Again if you are paying attention you will not have to worry but you never know. If you come across a coiled snake talk to it not firmly but not fearfully, DO NOT SCREAM! Back away from it very slowly, it will usually not follow if you do this slow enough. I have had alot of altercations with Rattlers we had them on our porch when we were growing up almost weekly, have a very nice collection of rattles too. Now if you cannot back away find something you can try to trap its head to the ground. Now if you need to pick it up do it just behind the head, however you ought to just cut off its head right there. If you have it in your hand hold it very firmly between you thumb and forfinger again just behind the head, you ca now grab its body a bit down and snap its head off with a quick jerk, or you could find a place to throw it to away from your path or campsite the snake ought to be well disoriented it should not try to find you for revenge.. But again I would not suggest trying to hold it. If you are climbing and confront one on a crag or ledge that you were going to use as a hand hold merely move your had back laterally from it very slowly and go choose a different direction to climb. Now spiders and scorpions and such, these I detest!! If you have one on you take a flat wide object and place it in front of the evil assailent slowly and ease it towards it it ought to climb onto the board and then you can whack it or let the nasty evil beast go. Do not however try to brush it offor whack it while it is on you even if you think it is not poisonous, it very well could be and be able to "bite" you quickly. Also with Scorps you can sneak in behind them and grab there stinger tail without them seeing, dont worry about the claws they are harmlees there only to hold prey. One bit of advice ALWAYS check your clothes and boots before placing body parts in them. Now if you do get bit by a spider or a skake, DO NOT DO THE OLD WIVES TALE OF SUCKING OUT THE POISON!! It does NOT work, the poison is already rushing into the bloodstream and you will only infect the wound more. Rather you need to wrap a bandana or something just above the wound, make certain that it is a broad fold to it if it is too thin then they could lose the appendage. There are other things you want to do like keep as immobile as you can to not allow the poion to travel too far. Check out poison control in you firstaid books, but if it says anything about sucking out poison throw the book away it was written by a moron. I was an EMT for the State of Colorado and we were drilled to death on that.

Well thats about it I guess, I appologise if I tended to be graphic there I and I wish I could be more humorous but I think on this subject I ought to be serious.

Skitz the 1466th signing out.

Thanks for the advice, Skitz. Had you thought about writing about your experiences for the guide? We've got an entry on Living with Bears already at A515350, but it would be great to have a series on How to deal with scorpions/rattlesnakes. Amazing stuff!

Another reason not to get too close to the so-called cute and cuddly critters--if you can get very close to them, they might have rabies! Also if you see an animal that is supposed to be nocturnal during the day, rabies is very likely...

Wonderful stuff - agree it should be the basis of an entry in it's own right.

As an aside, I was walking in Britain with a friend (almost no nasty critters to consider - and none serious) and we got talking to an Aussie walker. After regaling us with stories of the various lethal spiders, snakes, crocs, etc, etc from his homeland, he confessed to being scared of sheep. I know there're lots of sheep in Oz, but none, to my knowledge, are carniverous or venomous.