Managing Disturbance on Your Property

A disturbance is any kind of event that kills or gets rid of existing vegetation in an ecosystem. A classic example of a disturbance is a forest fire. A forest fire will kill trees and other vegetation by burning through the bark which prevents nutrients and water from reaching new growth. There are however many types of disturbances. Some natural types include blowdowns from windstorms, volcanic eruptions, overbrowsing by wildlife, insect infestation, disease, flooding and severe drought. There are also man made disturbances such as plowing the soil, logging, brush clearing and mowing. Managing disturbances is an important part of maintaining a property for wild game and the specific techniques you use will depend on many factors such as climate, local wildlife species, types of existing vegetation and management goals.

Climate is one of the most important things to consider when managing disturbance. In general when managing a property for wild game it is best aim for a mosaic of savanna and shrubland habitat. This will consist of open meadow type areas, and scattered trees and shrubs, the exact configuration depending on the game species you're managing for. To create this type of habitat you will have to use certain disturbances such as clearing brush, coppice, and possibly mowing. But this will largely depend on your local climates. On one extreme you have very wet areas that generally succeed to dense climax forests. In these areas you will generally have to create new disturbances quite often due to the fast establishment and growth of trees. This is especially true if your region is already covered in dense forest which will provide an abundant source of new seeds. In these types of areas a clearcut forest can reestablish and start it's growth very quickly turning into a dense brushy stand of new growth in just a few years. On the other extreme is a dry barren desert type area where you will want to almost eliminate any disturbances due to the very slow growth of new trees. On these types of sites you will have to baby your plantings by watering them regularly and providing mulch at least until they are more established. Creating a disturbance in this environment would be counterproductive and set you back too far in succession. In this type of climate you will lean towards more inputs. More seeds, more watering, more mulch, more earthworks, and more work in general just to get your plants established. Where as in very wet areas you will be aiming more for taking away vegetation because of frequent vigorous growth. Another consequence of this is that you will have to closely manage browsing pressure. So for drier properties you would want lower browsing pressure due to the fragility of the habitat so in general this would mean lower game populations especially with browsing species such as deer. On very wet sites you could get away with higher populations and more browsing pressure due to the more vigorous regrowth rate of the vegetation. If you want the least amount of work i would aim towards a middle ground for a climate that is only moderately wet, but also may have occasional dry spells. These types usually will also resemble the habitat your trying to create generally supporting a savanna and/or open woodland/ shrubland type environment.  Although for the highest game densities a wetter environment may be better.

Most properties will not be homogeneous, but will instead consist of several microclimates. These include dry uplands, wet bottoms, cooler and wetter north facing slopes and warmer drier south facing slopes. Your management of disturbance on your property will be different for these different microclimates. In general for drier upland areas and drier south facing slopes I would recommend creating less disturbance than on other areas of your property. This is because these areas are generally harder to get vegetation established. If you create too much disturbance in this area it might take a long time before you can reestablish a significant amount of vegetation. On wetter areas however such as bottoms and on north facing slopes you can generally get away with more disturbances and if you do too much it is more likely to grow back quickly.

The way you manage disturbance will also be dependent on the game species you are managing on your property. For browsing species such as deer you will want a majority of the vegetation to be within their reach so they can make use of the food on your property. This will mean you will have to periodically cut trees and shrubs that have grown too high above the browse line. Most browse species will be able to be cut just above the ground level and should resprout from the root crown. This technique is called coppicing and is a way to manage most hardwood trees and shrubs. Conifers will generally be killed if this is used unless there is still a growing tip left on the foliage, but I would not recommend coppicing conifers as they will most likely die. Other trees I would not coppice are nut and fruit trees, especially large healthy specimens that are producing a large amount of food. Other possible techniques such pollarding and hinge cutting may also be used depending on the existing vegetation and your overall management goals.

For species more adapted to grazing such as elk you will want to have a larger proportion of open meadow type habitats with grass and forbs. For these areas you may need to clear brush or mow occasionally if woody shrubs and trees start to encroach. Another possible option in these areas, especially on larger properties might be to do a controlled burn. This if done right and in a safe manner could drastically improve large open areas with relatively little work. But again make sure you do a ton of research and use professional help because of the dangerous potential for the fire to get out of control.

The way you manage disturbance on your property is very important to developing good wild game habitat. Too much disturbance can destroy too much of the vegetation that is used for food and cover, but not enough could shade out plants at browse height because of shade from tall trees. You will want to study and observe your property to find the right balance so you can create the optimum habitat for the game animals on your property.

The Case for Hunting and Gathering (And Trapping and Fishing)

I strongly believe that humans are hardwired to be hunter gatherers. Whether you believe we evolved on the African savanna or were created in the garden of eden people were designed to acquire their sustenance from nature's abundance.

In ancient times the majority of people's lives revolved around acquiring food. Yes we still needed to build shelters and find water but these were relatively simple and straightforward tasks that didn't require too much time or effort. Hunting on the other hand led us to create the first tools, spears and knives to take down and process game. It also gave us an important reason to speak so that we could coordinate a hunt and express a strategy to take down large and dangerous game like mammoths. Watch any documentary about modern hunter gatherers and you'll realize that most of what they talk about is food.

In modern times even people in industrialized countries show signs of being hunter gatherers. Look at the concept of shopping. People go to grocery stores and malls to “forage” for food and goods and many find this a very pleasurable experience even to the point where they would call it a hobby. For many people this is the closest thing we have to actually foraging in the wild for our food. Then there are people who like to go hiking and exploring the backcountry, which helps fill this need to see new territory and find out what's over the next ridge. In ancient times this wanderlust helped us scout for game and find new hunting territory as well as productive fruit and nut areas to forage.

Then there are people who just love to hunt like myself. There is a huge industry around hunting in America today.  It makes you wonder why would people want to spend so much time, money and effort wanting to go out and kill something, drag it out of the woods and butcher it themselves when they could much more easily just go buy meat at the store? I think the answer is that there is something innate in people that gives them an immense amount of pleasure for pursuing and harvesting wild game. I believe it's just what we're meant to do. This feeling is somewhat hard to explain to somebody who's never hunted before, but it is commonly expressed by first time hunters how they feel this deep connection with the hunt that they never realized they could experience before.

Like hunting, practically everyone who has ever gone out and picked wild berries would describe it as an all around great experience. You get to be out in nature and there are these sweet little treats just growing wild without any human intervention. It's hard not to smile when picking an eating wild berries. Even people who plant berry bushes or an apple tree in their yard will tell you how cool and fun it is to get food right off the branch. It's just an experience we are designed to enjoy because for centuries it helped keep us alive.

Another huge reason I advocate harvesting wild foods is because they are simply healthier than modern foods. Wild foods generally have much higher nutrient contents than their domestic counterparts. For plants a big part of this is because in nature there are no pesticides or fertilizers applied to them so they are forced to create their own in the plants themselves. Also the fact they generally grow in healthier undisturbed soils with all the soil organisms that help distribute nutrients throughout the entire plant. Then you have the wild game that is generally eating mostly wild foods unlike many domestic animals which eat mostly processed feed. Since the wild game are eating mostly a variety of nutrient dense wild plants then their meat becomes more nutrient dense as well.

Many now argue that the modern diet is so deficient in nutrients that it is actually a huge reason why things like cancer, heart disease and many other ailments are becoming so common. People are essentially becoming malnourished because the foods they eat are so nutrient poor causing our bodies to become weaker and less resilient. To me this makes sense and I believe if everyone ate wild food then at the very least many of the common diseases we see today would be less prevalent.  

Another huge reason I advocate hunting and gathering is because it helps us place a real value on nature. There is this common mindset today that is shared by people who claim to be environmentalists that we should completely leave nature alone and just take ourselves out of the picture. They might advocate that hunting and fishing and any kind of human development be banned in our wild spaces because they think that it is better for nature if humans are completely out of the picture. I think this is hugely misguided. While I do agree that human activity has done some major harm to the natural world, that doesn't mean humans are fundamentally bad for nature. In fact it is hunters and other outdoorsman that help fund the vast majority of wildlife conservation. That is because we are able to place an actual value on nature because it is able to produce things for us that we need and want. Hunters give money to fund wildlife conservation because they actually will get a return on their investment by having a better hunting experience with more plentiful game. If we get to the point where we ban hunting then we will have no real reason to value nature. Yeah it will be pretty to look at and the fresh air is always nice, but it doesn't have any real tangible benefit for people and  nobody will really see value in conserving it.

The reality of the situation is that people are meant to interact with and be a part of nature, not to look at it like this foreign separate thing. It's true we have degraded lots of ecosystems, cut down vast forests and desertified once fertile areas, but I believe we have the ability to heal the land as well by working with nature to make it possibly even more productive than it had been previous to human intervention. By using techniques like permaculture we can establish healthy and productive ecosystems in areas that were once barren and lacked hardly any wildlife. And if we did this to the world's degraded lands then we could once again rely on nature to help us meet our needs especially when it comes to getting healthy nutritious food and we would have a better reason to then preserve it's bounty.

Some people say we cannot feed the world on a diet of wild foods, because these wild ecosystems are just not productive enough. I think this is true for now, but if we started turning places like the midwest back into fertile prairie and savanna, instead of the industrialized monocultures of corn, soybeans and wheat, then we could turn them into productive hunting and foraging meccas that could potentially feed even more people than what is currently produced there. I'd advocate planting fruit trees, berry bushes, edible meadow plants, and nut trees. I'd bring back the elk and the bison and encourage current populations of deer, bears and turkeys to expand. I'd create ponds, swamps and wetlands to create habitat for fish and waterfowl. It would become a paradise for us to feed ourselves from the land and it would be more productive, sustainable and resilient than any kind of modern agriculture going on right now. At least that is my vision. So if we were able to create a paradise like this then yes I believe we would be able to feed the world off wild foods.

So that is my case for hunting and gathering (and trapping and fishing). To me, almost any way you look it, it seems like it would be a better way for people to feed themselves. It would be better for us, better for the environment and more productive and sustainable.  I'm not saying we'd have to live primitively like ancient hunter gatherers, on the contrary I think we still could benefit from all our modern technology and economy, but the main difference is we would be healthier, happier and just better off just because that's what harvesting and eating wild foods can do for you.

How to Live the Almost-No-Money Lifestyle

One of the major benefits of managing a property for wild game in the way I talk about is that you can create a sustainable food source that over time will be practically free. This fact is a huge contributing factor for why I endorse this land management strategy. However, there are many other things you can do to live a lifestyle that approaches $0. While this post will be a little off topic compared to my other posts I think it can tie in nicely to the lifestyle I talk about.

One of my major goals in life is to reduce my expenses as much as possible, especially recurring expenses. Things like a mortgage, student debt, rent, power bills, gas, food etc. are all recurring expenses that most people have to pay. But each one can be reduced, and most can be done away with completely.

Let's look at housing.  The vast majority of people either rent or have a mortgage. This is usually a huge chunk of a person's annual costs. The solution to this is to use cash to purchase a house or bare land and park a trailer or build your own home. Now most people can't afford to do this which is why you need to plan very carefully on how to save up money first. This takes a lot of discipline and hard work, but I believe practically everyone can do it no matter how bad their current financial situation is. It just takes a lot of sacrifice and a minimalist lifestyle.

Once you have your own home most other things become easier because that's the largest chunk of money in most people's annual expenses. Now obviously I’d recommend you buy a property with at least 5 acres to hunt and grow food on so your annual cost of food could be brought down to near zero. Some other things I'd recommend are avoiding any other kind of debt like student loans and a car payment. This is essential in getting rid of recurring expenses. If, for example, you have to go to college, which I would discourage the vast majority of people from doing, then I would definitely find a way to do it without taking on any debt. Like buying a house with cash though, it is hard to do and takes hard work and sacrifice.  

Here are some ways to get rid of monthly utility bills. For electricity I highly recommend getting solar panels. This is a one time expense and once you have them they will give you free energy for a long time. You just need to maintain them well. I also recommend doing things to conserve energy in general that way you don't need as much and there are a million different things you can do for that.

For water the best solutions are digging a well, developing a spring and collecting rainfall from your roof. Again these are all 1 time expenses that once they're paid for will last you a long time.

While getting rid of your phone and internet bill is impossible unless you just want to completely cut them out, you can get bare minimum plans that will help save you a lot of money. And it's not impossible to live without phone and internet, but it would be a pretty big sacrifice.

For gas for your car the best solution is to get a very efficient vehicle. Maybe consider getting a scooter or small motorcycle that has really good gas mileage. Another thing you can do is try to not drive a lot. If you have to commute to work then live really close by so your gas bills will be reduced. Another exciting new alternative would be to get an electric vehicle and charge it with solar power. Most electric cars are still very expensive but this new technology is improving fast and it's likely there will be more affordable options fairly soon.

Lastly there is food. This one is what my blog focuses on the most. I think hunting and foraging for food instead of buying it at the store has huge benefits. And if you set up your property like I talk about in my blog then I think this way of acquiring food could be completely sustainable in the long run. The only costs would be hunting license/tags which are very cheap compared to buying food at the grocery store. Then there is all the hunting equipment you need such as weapons and ammo etc. But most of it is a small one time buy except maybe ammo. But nonetheless this way of getting food would be much less expensive than the grocery store. Also some other ways of getting free food are scavenging roadkill which sounds gross but as long as it's fresh there's really nothing to worry about. Also foraging for wild plants and mushrooms on public lands can be done for free. In some areas where there are nuisance animals like feral pigs and beavers people will actually pay you to remove them, so there's a way to get food and get paid at the same time.

So what would an almost no-money lifestyle look like? Well let's say you graduate high school and instead of going to college you decide to get 2 dead end jobs and work your ass off for a few years while still living with your parents (I did this for 1 year and saved over $20,000). Alternatively, if your parents aren't as generous you can live out of a van to save money on rent only paying for gas and food (I also did this for a year). But anyways you save up a good chunk of cash and buy a cheap bare land property. Next you can buy a cheap used camper trailer and park it on your property while you save money to build a cabin. You build a cabin, collect the rainwater off the roof, install solar panels and manage your property to attract game animals to hunt. Many of the trees you plant to attract game will also produce food for you such as fruits and nuts. You shoot some game animals fill your freezer, pick some fruit and nuts, maybe grow a small garden for some veggies and you are pretty set.

You can do all this while at the same time working and saving most of it in order to finance the establishment of the lifestyle. But once all of this is established your only annual expenses might be property taxes, a phone/internet bill, hunting liscences/tags, health and car insurance, maybe a little bit of gas if you don't have an electric vehicle, and that's pretty much it. And if done right all of these expenses can be greatly minimized too so that you will have extremely low annual expenses. So much so that you can work much less than the vast majority of people and retire very early. Or you could keep working and save a ton of money for international vacations , “toys” like a boat or 4 wheelers, starting a business or give it to charity. If you minimize your cost of living to this super low point then the biggest gain is freedom.

So here are some of the main takeaways. Don't get into debt. If you already have debt get rid of it as quickly as possible. Work hard for a few years and save up money for your biggest expense which will be your property. Try to reduce all your other expenses as much as possible. If something seems too extreme do it anyways as you can always adjust later on.

So while a lot of this does seem extreme I have personally done a lot of these things in order to save money and the ones I haven't done I've researched enough to know they could be easily done. So if your dream is to live free knowing that your lifestyle costs practically nothing while at the same time owning property that you can hunt on and feed yourself from then I recommend trying a few of the things I've talked about so you can live free too.