
Facing meat shortages, some Americans turn to hunting during pandemic - rbanffy
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-hunting/facing-meat-shortages-some-americans-turn-to-hunting-during-pandemic-idUSKBN22F0G4
======
ndespres
I think a lot of these folks underestimate what it takes to hunt an elk, field
dress it, bring it back to their vehicle, and put away 300 lbs of meat. Even
if you borrow a gun as one person interviewed here would, you need a truck,
knives, a bone saw, camouflage, maybe a tree stand, and a large freezer, among
other things. It is reasonable to hunt for food, but it's not reasonable for
your typical "hospital manager" to go out in the woods and take his first shot
at a large animal.

Lots of people from NYC suburbs and Long Island head up into the nearest
forest every hunting season and accidentally shoot each other, maim animals
and don't have the stamina to chase them to complete the kill, etc.

If you're concerned about food shortages, it would be much easier to raise a
few backyard chickens or rabbits if you have the small amount of space
required for it. Much less likelihood of a gun accident that way too.

If you're set on going out in the woods for a "mental cleanse" and to kill an
animal, you could do worse than starting with a read of Jackson Landers'
excellent Beginners Guide to Hunting Deer for Food
([https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Hunting-Deer-
Storey/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Guide-Hunting-Deer-
Storey/dp/1603427287)).

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
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.

~~~
Balgair
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-...](https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/593001800/decline-in-hunters-
threatens-how-u-s-pays-for-conservation)

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.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
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.

------
z3ugma
This pandemic is really bringing out the folly of concentration at the expense
of all other business considerations. Sure, it makes food cheaper but at what
cost? We deserve systems that are more resistant to shocks. We've allowed
oligopolies to form in many industries, perhaps especially agribusiness. This
has brought prices to rock bottom and commoditized living beings, putting
pressure to further reduce prices. "Ag-gag" laws and the might of huge
consolidated meatpacking firms makes it difficult to do investigative
journalism.

Maybe it's time for people to try going meatless instead? People are so
disconnected from their meat supply and the horrific conditions
([https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/25/meat-
work...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/25/meat-workers-
safety-jbs-smithfield-tyson/)) imposed on the people who provide that meat to
them. If we had a different political climate, we could think about sensible
reform in meat.

Meat should cost 3-5x as much as it currently does
([https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/21/the-
true...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/21/the-true-cost-of-
eating-meat-if-we-want-change-we-have-to-pay-for-it)) to allow for a safe and
healthy habitat for the animals, and a living wage to the farmers and packers.

Finally - if you, like me, grew up eating meat and never considered what a
meatless diet would look like, now's a perfect time to try while you're stuck
at home learning new things. There's a large community of former meat-eaters
that would be happy to help you start.

~~~
stronglikedan
But meat is _sooo_ good, and there's nothing else even close, that I'm willing
to pay more for it. I'd rather see the supply chain issues worked on, even if
it just means more expensive meat. Going meatless is like cutting of the nose
to spite the face.

------
heelix
The article is more about legal hunting. Not uncommon for 'guides' to provide
a full service experience, including the gun in your hand, the clothing on
your back, coffee thermos at your side, and all the cleaning/butchering while
you have a beer. Not an economical way to fill your freezer, but it is a bonus
if you were looking to 'try' hunting. Hunting elk like that is closer to you
going deep sea fishing on a charter.

I would have expected an article more along the (legal) varmint hunting for
wild hogs down in the south or straight up increases in poaching. I know some
farmer have discovered cows .. dead and missing only a few choice bits.

------
JoeAltmaier
There is a tiny fraction of the available game to feed America. A single deer
would feed a family of four for, what, a week? So, every family needs 52 deer
per annum. Forget it.

This is sort of why civilization is based on agriculture. Not hunting-and-
gathering.

~~~
mindcrime
I don't think anybody is proposing to replace the entire existing food supply
chain with nothing but hunted deer.

There is no reason however, to think that hunting can't supplement a family's
food stocks if other sources start to become thin. And there's a lot more to
hunt than deer.

There's also more in play than hunting. A family might feed themselves through
a combination of any or all of: hunting, trapping, fishing, foraging for wild
edibles, home gardening, AND buying from whatever is available on the market.

One interesting thing about this is that those living close to the coasts may
be in better shape in one or two regards. Most notably, seafood is one area
where "direct to the consumer" sales is a real thing, and there isn't a lot of
processing involved. At least where I grew up on the NC coast. It's common for
seafood houses to sell oysters, clams, shrimp, etc. directly to consumers.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Again, there is every reason to believe (know) hinting/foraging is woefully
inadequate. Simple numbers. Natural 'foods' are pitiful fractions of modern
cultivars. It takes a quarter acre(?) of Jerusalem Artichoke to gather a few
baskets of roots, which must be boiled and peeled down to a few score pounds
of edible material. Even a bonanza 10-acre plot in a meadow would feed 40
people for a few days.

Early Americans spent the whole summer struggling/working like slaves to put
up enough food for the 3 months of winter.

Seafood - that sounds like continuing to rely upon the food supply line
(fishing boats and their supply chain). That used to be pretty good return.
Not sure stocks today could feed a fraction of America for long. Most of us
eat seafood a meal a week/month that way even in the best of times.

~~~
mindcrime
I don't really understand what point you're trying to make, w/r/t the post
you're replying to.

Again:

 _A family might feed themselves through a combination of any or all of:
hunting, trapping, fishing, foraging for wild edibles, home gardening, AND
buying from whatever is available on the market._

I'm saying that hunting, etc. are individuals components of a broader strategy
for providing food - not that any one of those things is sufficient in and of
itself. As as of today, it doesn't appear to me that the commercial market for
food is going to just disappear overnight. But if things devolve to the point
that you can't buy _everything_ you need, then some of these other approaches
can come into play.

 _Seafood - that sounds like continuing to rely upon the food supply line
(fishing boats and their supply chain)._

There isn't just one "food supply line." The supply chain for the steak you
buy at Food Lion involves a lot of intermediate steps and processing. And
those are exactly the steps where we've heard news reports of the processing
plants closing down, etc.

My point about seafood is that there are fewer such intermediate steps
involved. A boat comes in, docks, and sells their shrimp to the seafood house,
and the seafood house sells to the public. The main processing is weighing.
And some boat captains even bypass the "sell to the seafood house" part and
sell direct.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Responded to the comment directly above (?) As a supplement to a family's food
supply, hunting and foraging are totally insufficient. Not if everybody was
doing it. The numbers aren't there.

Fewer steps in the seafood supply chain, doesn't offset the fact that in
America anyway, it currently provides a whopping total of 1 meal a week per.
That's gotta be dropping too. So still the numbers don't support any idea of
supplementing food supplies to any great degree.

The OP was just a puff piece about an uptick in hunting. That was fun and
interesting. I just posted to provide the insight that, this isn't going to
ever matter to our situation in any significant way. We have to
support/restart our commercial food chain, or its going to get very bad. No
alternatives are reasonable.

~~~
mindcrime
_As a supplement to a family 's food supply, hunting and foraging are totally
insufficient._

You can't _really_ make that claim without quantifying the degree of
supplementation in question. And that's an unknown. So really this is all just
speculation. But I can say that for myself, I'd rather have the
ability/knowledge/skills to acquire food by hunting, trapping, foraging,
fishing, etc. than not, all things being equal. If you want to take a
defeatist attitude and not pursue those things, well... that just means you'll
be one less person I'll be competing with for food eventually.

 _I just posted to provide the insight that, this isn 't going to ever matter
to our situation in any significant way. We have to support/restart our
commercial food chain, or its going to get very bad._

I think we're ultimately talking about two different things here. Of course we
have to restart the commercial food supply chain. That, to me, goes without
saying. It's also somewhat irrelevant to that I'm talking about (which I think
is different from what you're talking about). I'm talking about things to do
_in the interim_ for base survival... _until_ the commercial food supply chain
is working again. It sounds like you're assuming that we're talking about
depending on hunting/foraging/fishing etc. as the default way of life for
perpetuity. On that point, I agree with you... it's not reasonable to sustain
a population of our current size for an indefinite period of time.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Agreed.

If it comes to it, good luck out there hunting with all the amateurs who are
hungry, unskilled and outnumber trained hunters 100:1.

~~~
mindcrime
Let's hope it doesn't come to it though. There's a reason I have a lot of
dried beans and rice stored away... :-)

------
Reason077
It's strange that meat processing facilities in the US have been hard-hit by
Covid-19.

These are places that have strict hygine standards during normal times, with
employees wearing gloves and face masks as a matter of course. So you'd think
they wouldn't be somewhere that diseases would spread easily.

This has also not been a significant issue in other countries hit by Covid-19,
that I'm aware of. What is it about the USA's meat processors that have made
them vunerable?

~~~
z3ugma
You would certainly expect that these places should have strict hygiene
standards, but investigative journalists have found time and time again that
slaughterhouses in the USA are filthy places where human and animal disease
alike are concentrated by the time pressure to go faster, to make meat cheaper
and cheaper.

Fast Food Nation ([https://www.litcharts.com/lit/fast-food-
nation/chapter-9-wha...](https://www.litcharts.com/lit/fast-food-
nation/chapter-9-what-s-in-the-meat)) profiled this in the early aughts.

Countless other investigative journalists have tried, even against the "ag-
gag" laws we have in farming states, to uncover even more in recent times:

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/meat-plant-
wor...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/02/meat-plant-workers-us-
coronavirus-war)

[https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2010/05/14/probing_the_...](https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2010/05/14/probing_the_link_between_slaughterhouses_and_violent_crime.html)

The consolidation of the meat industry has given them extraordinary lobbying
power. They now have broad authority to regulate themselves:

[https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administrations-new-hog-
slaug...](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administrations-new-hog-
slaughterhouse-rules-may-risk-more-contamination-food-
safety-1459922?fbclid=IwAR13lxfSA9I_9WtJWlaJWfCoOBPTyKTpzxv_fpi6Z1_sIt3jWxxsyKHB5BQ)

------
TOGoS
Calling it a "meat shortage" is glossing over the situation. In the US we're
killing 160,000 pigs a day just to throw their bodies in the landfill.[1]

So the solution is to go kill more wild animals. Awesome.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/closed-
jb...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-28/closed-jbs-plant-
will-be-used-to-euthanize-hogs-peterson-says)

~~~
kube-system
Most shortages are caused by logistics, not supply.

------
mindcrime
I can relate to this, to an extent. I never hunted in my youth, despite having
grown up in redneckville. I was all about bass fishing in farm ponds, not
hunting. I was enthusiastic about shooting though, and I'm a lifelong gun
owner and have done a fair amount of sport shooting. So at least I already
know how to use a gun and do so safely.

Anyway, even before this COVID thing started, I had gotten into the whole
prepper mentality a bit and had started thinking "I should learn to hunt in
case I need to bring home some food one day." I went and took the NC Hunter
Safety Class back in January, just so I could get my hunting license. I had
planned to team up with some family and friends who hunt this coming fall, to
learn the ropes. Now I find myself wondering if I'll be forced to try and find
a way to accelerate the learning curve.

At least I do know how to fish. I wouldn't necessarily want to be forced to
support myself entirely on fishing, but I could make up at some some portion
of my diet on fish if push came to shove.

~~~
atwebb
I've had similar thoughts, the reality for me is that, should it come to
needing to fish/hunt for food, old methods aren't going to work. People are
going to fence in/trap big game, they are going to net/troll/spike water even
in ponds. If the rules of subsistence change enough that hunting becomes
required, accessing land in camo and a 4x4 will be outdated. My 2 cents.

------
werber
I was so mad when i saw that meat workers were being forced back to work i
stopped buying meat

------
gherkinnn
“Rent a gun” to “shoot some elk”.

This is as close to the proverbial foot gun you can get.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Yup. This is a classic case of something making the news because it is
atypical.

I found it funny that the article stops just short of implying that hunting is
driving gun sales when despite the obvious 800lb gorilla (Covid driving the
sales of any/all emergency preparedness products).

I didn't even know gun rentals outside a range (pay money to shoot stuff you
can't afford to own) or B2B (e.g. security or armored car company leases
handguns from a gun shop) context were a thing but it makes sense in states
where the only thing you'd need a full sized rifle cartridge for is assigned
tags via a lottery so every season you have plenty of hunters who suddenly
have a tag that they might not be equipped to fill.

------
RickJWagner
Resurgence in hunting... air travel is rare.... home hair cuts... families are
playing board games....

We've gone back to the late '40s!

------
camccar
I wish that was an option for me. I dont live near elk. i could eat the
rabbits in my yard but that wouldnt go aong way.

~~~
FlyMoreRockets
Wrong time of the year to eat wild rabbits. Wait until a few weeks after the
first hard frost, else you run a risk of contracting tularemia.

Unfortunately, I missed the small window to get a hunting license in my state
this year, it closed in Feb, before CV-19 was much of a thing. Fortunately, no
license is needed here to hunt rabbits. From what I hear, the same is true for
feral hogs, which are becoming a bit of a problem in some parts. Next year, I
am definitely putting in for an elk tag. I got a 4x4 largely so I can get into
the areas where they hide.

~~~
bobmaxup
Don't rabbits die if they are infected with tularemia? Is there actually a
correlation between temperature and tularemia spreading in rabbits? It seems
incredibly rare.

I can see there are more cases in humans during warmer months, but that is
probably due to insects that are the most common disease vector, no?

