I was just running some numbers and thought that perhaps you might want to know why we will be guarding our borders the moment the SHTF. There are 314 million people in the US. That's a Billion meals a day!If even one out of every 10,000 Americans has plans to wander their way to Montana when the apocalypse arrives, that's still 31,000 people. Not much by most standards. Heck, not even a city worth naming on a country map, but that's still almost a hundred thousand meals a day.
So assuming that the trucks have stopped and the grocery store shelves are empty, hunting and fishing are the main dreams of the wandering masses. So here's the overdose of reality:
Montana has...
1.4 Elk per square mile
3.3 Deer per square mile
1.5 Pronghorn antelope per square mile
About 8000 Moose
About 750 Grizzly Bears
When I do the math, that's not even enough to feed the million folks already here in Montana. You cannot dent the animal population to the point where is unable to reproduce or it will be game over no matter what.
Birds are seasonal and small. Fish are temperamental, and many mountain lakes are artificially stocked and thus artificially inflated populations.
So there you have it. Your dreams of bugging out to Montana are hereby officially squashed.
It is interesting when discussing SHTF, that everyone tends to forget about cattle and other domestic livestock and only reference wildlife. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture there are 2.5 million head of cattle alone in Montana. That is 2 head of cattle for every person in the state. Texas has the largest population of cattle at almost 12 million head at any one time.
ReplyDeleteGreat point 3M. And thanks for reading.
DeleteHowever, I've never heard of anyone hoping to bugout to someone's ranch or farm that they do not know. While some ranches are large, all are well armed and it won't take long for an established community to rally behind the ranch and protect their local interest.
On the other hand, bugging out to the forests and mountains of the great redoubts of Montana and Idaho have always been the meme for escaping WROL.
Add in the lack of refrigeration, salt, and vehicles, unless mobile groups set their tent city like the Indians did around buffalo hunts for weeks on end (yea, I know they are American Bison) 90% of any harvested cattle will go to waste meaning you can divide the number of large livestock by 10 to get a more realistic number of mouths that can be fed.
And either way, it will all be game over in less than a year unless the animals are allowed to breed and raise their young which has been demonstrated to be a physical impossibility during trying times.
Another interesting fact. There are chickens everywhere!!!
ReplyDeleteIn 2008, 9.08 billion chickens were slaughtered in the United States according to United States Department of Agriculture data.