If you woke up tomorrow, as a yearling whitetail buck - given your current level of whitetail knowledge - could you survive one full year in your deer woods?



Now, this isn't as simple as "could you avoid the bowhunters?"
Likewise, let's not oversimplify this to:"can you avoid the gunners?"
It's "CouldYOU survive, based ONLY on what you know right now."

That means choosing the right foods at the right times without poisoning yourself or compromising your health. That means avoiding the hunters at all costs. Survival means coming out of your reclusion long enough to pass on your genetic material to a fawn. Survival means avoiding motor vehicle collisions, orthopedic injuries, diseases, poisons - all while loading enough bodyfat to make the winter.

Could you do it?


__________________________________________________ _________

Personally, I say no. I'd slip up somewhere along the line. First off, I don't think I have the botanical knowledge to maximize my caloric intake 24-7-365 as I'd need to. I'd find myself staring at randomshrubbery wondering "can I eat that?" or "Which part should I eat?" "Is it better to eat the buds or the shoots or the leaves?" I'd probably spend my whole summer eating the wrong things and the whole winter starving. Caloric maximization and preservation requires a lot of specialized knowledge that I just don't have.

Secondly, even if I did know what to eat, and led a life ofreclusion and nocturnal movement - I'd likely bebumpedout ofmy bedduring gun season, and at-risk of running headlong into a battalion of gun-wielding hunters. So, even if you play all your cards right - you're still at risk of being pushed out of your bedroom and into harm's way.