surviving velociraptor attach

I could survive for 54 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Created by Bunk Beds Pedia

disaster dining

from Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways, an Arizona-based survival school:

Dandelions

Benefits: Vitamin A, serious roughage
Taste: Like arugula, without the spice--or flavor
How to prepare: Pop the heads off the flowers, discard, rinse the leaves and roots, and chow down on a true-weed salad.

Cattails

Benefits: Vitamin D, carbohydrates
Taste: Like a cucumber, only grosser
How to prepare: Peel the stalk from the root up and eat, or roast first for 40 minutes to an hour, then peel and eat.

Pine needles

Benefits: Vitamin C
Taste: Like furniture polish
How to prepare: Simmer a handful of needles in water (don't boil, or you'll kill the nutrients), and drink it like tea. Enjoy the Pine-Sol aroma.

Acorns

Benefits: Protein, portable
Taste: White oak acorns (round leaf) taste like biter walnuts; red oak (jagged leaf) taste how a burning tire smells.
How to prepare: Roast whites; boil reds two hours

surviving Alaskan wilderness

If climbing, take your time. Let your legs take a lot of pressure, instead of arms, which will tire out much more quickly.

If trouble with grizzly, grab a stick and try to poke it in the eyes.

Alaskan devilclub plants are spiky and hard to get through, but are great sources of ginseng.

Follow stream down to river. When crossing streams, face upstream against the flow.

In Alaska, coastline is best place to find help.

If no fishing line, can make spear from tree. A Y-shaped spear end is nice...can use to hold down fish while reach down to pick it up. Key to being successful in fishing is patience. Watch out for fishing bears.

Salmon skin is thin and not with many scales...very good source of fat.

Caves are good shelters, but might already have occupants...be careful.

Shellfish available on rocks at low tide: must be cooked before eating, though.

Good wood for burning is wood that cracks audibly when breaking.

If on coastline, make signal fire for boats. Evergreen branches will smoke profusely, making a visible white smoke background against the dark background of trees.

...to be continued, when I finish the episode...

Les Stroud survival tips

Les Stroud (Survivorman) offers survival tips in each episode, which range from general (eg. conserve resources whenever possible) to quite specific. Some of the more specific tips include the following (note: not all were employed successfully):

• In cold or freezing conditions, the worst thing you can do is let yourself get sweaty. He constantly mentions that if you get sweaty, you should let the sweat dry (he mentions this tip in almost every episode).
• Use a lens from a camcorder to start a fire.
• Always carry a "good Multi-Tool."
• Break wood between two trees to keep from hurting yourself.
• Cut vines in swamps and jungles and place a cup at the opening to collect water.
• Wipe mud over your skin to protect against mosquitos.
• If you catch food (like a rabbit) eat everything, except the entrails. In the case of a rabbit, it is important to eat even the bones as a source of fat, since there is no fat on the rabbit, your body will get Rabbit starvation, which leads to death.
• To start a fire with a lighter that has no fluid, use a piece of tissue formed into a cone at one end with a ball of sock lint stuffed into the cone to catch the spark that comes off the lighter. This only works if the socks are manufactured from 100% cotton. He refers to this as a prison match (and tells viewers not to ask him why he knows how to make it).
• Use a snowmobile seat cover to melt snow in the sunlight.
• Don't play the harmonica when polar bears are possibly around because they are attracted to strange noises.
• Use corn chips to hold a flame in a manner similar to a candle wick.
• Boil water by placing heated rocks in it. This is done when a water container cannot be held directly over a fire.
• Heat rocks over fire and place them around the body as heating packs while sleeping or resting.
• Use an emptied coconut shell filled with coconut fibers to carry a smoldering coal. This prevents the need to light another fire from scratch.
• Use cow dung to keep a fire smoldering while away. This prevents the need to light another fire from scratch.
• Use the elastic strap from a pair of boxers as a slingshot to fire a fishing spear.
• Soak the foam cushion of a broken snowmobile in gasoline to use as fire fuel in the Canadian Arctic.
• Determine the time until sunset by measuring the distance between the sun and horizon, wherein each width of your hand equals one hour.
• Use moss from the north side of a tree to gain bearings without a compass (though he added that this method, though accurate in his case, is often unreliable).
• When opening a conch shell, crack the point on the back and scrape out the meat inside.
• To get fresh water on an island build a solar still by finding a box (or something similar) and put seawater and plants inside, along with a smaller container in the direct center, and cover it tightly with a plastic sheet. Then put a rock in the center of the plastic. The plants will sweat fresh water which will evaporate, condense onto the plastic and drip into the container.
• Too much coconut milk causes diarrhea.
• The Five "W's" of Survival:
  • Weather: Temperature of the area, know what kind of shelter you need.
  • Wood: How much wood is around for both fire and shelter.
  • Wigglies: spiders, scorpions, snakes, anything that can bite you or poison you.
  • Widowmakers: rocks, trees, large animals, anything that can fall on you or attack you.
  • Water: Where will you get water, how will you obtain it.
• Use a potato peeler on thin branches to create very curly wood shavings.
• Always check your boots for "Wigglies."

Man vs. Wild: savannah survival

In Africa, not Georgia, that is!

Things I learned:

1. Lions: can't outrun them...stand tall, wave arms, clap, etc. to try to bluff them away.
2. Rhinos: Stand ground till last second and dive away. Run for cover.
3. Elephants: can't see well, so run fast and make sharp turns out of their paths.
4. Hippos: the most dangerous animals. Never get in the water with them. Best bet for crossing is in running, shallow water.
5. Puff adders: Hard to see, though can hear them, and very poisonous when happened upon.

Good to travel in water when in ravines and denser forests...leopards may be around.

Follow water UPstream...to often in the savannah, water flows downhill and then disappears abruptly into an aquifer. Go upstream to find the source, where civilization often will be.

The blackjack plant makes a good mosquito repellant when burned.

Elephant dung is a source of liquid when squeezed.

Viable meat is meat that vultures are hanging around: they eat only fresh meat. No bad smell, no maggots.

Don't drink stagnant water. Not worth the risk of debilitating parasites, etc. Animal trails lead to drinkable water.

Aloe is a good topical treatment of cuts and burns.