What animals are on the menu in ireland?

Mice, rats, insects, mushrooms and berries

Pheasant would be very common, partridge less common, swans are edible if your feeling adventurous.

wolfeye wrote: »

Up to 60 mammals in Ireland.
Cook them well enough ,they'll be allright.
Too much carnivore liver is toxic ,herbivore liver in moderation is ok.

Well since I can't stand liver, I'll leave that for the rest of you

tc556guy wrote: »

Well since I can't stand liver, I'll leave that for the rest of you

Deer liver fried up with onions and garlic is really good.

It wouldn'the be my intention to survive solely on insects, but I wouldn't overlook them either. Foraging is, in my experience, gives you a better calorific return than hunting, even with a gun, trying to bag something as numerous as rabbits or rooks isn't as easy as some think it is. I can find edible plants, native fruits and insects a lot easier than game!

I wonder if you'd burn more calories gathering, cooking, and consuming woodlice than you'd gain from eating them? In a country like Ireland, unless you were trapped inside a building or cave, or unable to move, you would be unlikely to ever need to anyway, as you wouldn't be more than a days walk from a food source.

MysticMonk wrote: »

Course you would. Then of course there's the very real chance of catching some type of intestinal parasite from eating insects.
Then of course there's the overriding need for clean fresh water which comes in before any need for food.




This idea of guzzling insects and rats and urban pigeon eggs originated mainly from the nonsense Bear Grylls is famous for along with drinking elephant piss and leaping across fast moving water.

Dangerous and unnecessary in the main.


A person can live three weeks without food but will probably die from hypothermia in a few days outside in Ireland

Not as sexy as pretending to live off local insects though

As far as I'm aware, woodlice aren't insects, but yeah. For survivalism in general, especially in places where it might be actually necessary, Ray Mears output is far more practical and useful than the cartoonish antics of Bear Grylls.

MysticMonk wrote: »

Gravelly wrote: »

I wonder if you'd burn more calories gathering, cooking, and consuming woodlice than you'd gain from eating them?.

Course you would. Then of course there's the very real chance of catching some type of intestinal parasite from eating insects.
Then of course there's the overriding need for clean fresh water which comes in before any need for food.

Gravelly wrote: »

In a country like Ireland, unless you were trapped inside a building or cave, or unable to move, you would be unlikely to ever need to anyway, as you wouldn't be more than a days walk from a food source.

This idea of guzzling insects and rats and urban pigeon eggs originated mainly from the nonsense Bear Grylls is famous for along with drinking elephant piss and leaping across fast moving water.

Dangerous and unnecessary in the main.


A person can live three weeks without food but will probably die from hypothermia in a few days outside in Ireland

Not as sexy as pretending to live off local insects though

There's greater potential for contracting parasitic infections from game and fowl than there are from insects. Encephalitis, leptospirosis, liver fluke, avIan flu, tapeworm, rabies and any amount of gastrointestinal conditions from meat not cooked thoroughly enough. I would forego the Bear Grylls mantra though, but I would trust any information given by the likes of Ray Mears, Ed Stafford and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about the consumption of invertebrates. At the end of the day the choice is your own, if your not confident in preparing any wild food be it fish, fowl, game or insects then maybe survivalism/bushcraft isn't for you. We're adaptable animals and our diet can be adjusted to take advantage of whatever is abundant and whatever offers use the best calorific return, efficiency is key.

MysticMonk wrote: »

Welshlad1970 wrote: »

There's greater potential for contracting parasitic infections from game and fowl than there are from insects. Encephalitis, leptospirosis, liver fluke, avIan flu, tapeworm, rabies and any amount of gastrointestinal conditions from meat not cooked thoroughly enough. I would forego the Bear Grylls mantra though, but I would trust any information given by the likes of Ray Mears, Ed Stafford and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about the consumption of invertebrates. At the end of the day the choice is your own, if your not confident in preparing any wild food be it fish, fowl, game or insects then maybe survivalism/bushcraft isn't for you. We're adaptable animals and our diet can be adjusted to take advantage of whatever is abundant and whatever offers use the best calorific return, efficiency is key.

A couple of good points but my belief is that whereas man *can* live for a limited time by eating insects in an emergency they will not constitute a reliable or sustainable source of food for long.

Survivalism and bushcraft are two seperate things...nobody who takes himself into "the wild" should find himself at the stage where he needs to eat insects..he should have emergency rations,water purification tablets,a space blanket,a firearm/bow/snares/fishing gear etc etc.

But realistically it wont be a long term survival strategy,shows like Naked And Afraid for example nearly always result in some form of starvation over the 21 days with many contestants tapping out way before then.

My point is that eating insects is not likeley to sustain anybody for any length of time and diffculties of hunting game reliably means it was a natural progression when mankind decided to give up hunter gathering and start farming.

If you wanna eat woodlice though by all means do it..they taste like earthy prawns btw.

I agree with you. I certainly wouldn't advocate living exclusively on insects, but however unpalatable they may be, in a survival situation they shouldn't be overlooked, in a bushcraft type scenario, I see no harm in supplementing other wild edibles with them either. It's just my opinion, others will differ but I see foraging as going hand in glove with hunting, in the same way as shopping for groceries in a supermarket, I buy meat, but I also like veg and flavourings to compliment it! Also, we live on anew amazing island so being an impossible distance to the coast doesn't apply to us. If we foundo ourselves in a SHTF scenario, the coast is where i'd head for, much like our distance ancestors, the hunter gatherers, as sustaining yourself on fruits of the sea is really doable, from fish to molluscs to seaweed and coastal plants with the added bonus of surfing!!! It's all good!!

the_syco wrote: »

You assume that people are not guarding said food sources?

In a zombie apocalypse type situation perhaps, but I was thinking of a more realistic scenario. I would include coastlines, farms etc. in food sources - seems unlikely these would be guarded in their entirety.

I won't touch bivalves if the month doesn't have an 'r' in it, red tides and flagella are too risky, but grazers such as limpets and pennywinkles are safe to eat and available throughout the year and razor clams can be harvested fairly easily on springtides. Edible seaweed is abundant and packed with nutrients. Fishing is seasonal but there are fish available both in the summer through autumn and winter; bass and mackerel in the summer and autumn, cod and whiting in the winter months, spring is a difficult time to catch fish from the shore as most sexually mature fish go to deeper water to breed, but dogfish can also be caught year round and would probably be a staple catch in Ireland. But living on the coast doesn'the limit your range, not far inland presents another plethora of edible wilds that can be hunted or foraged. I would employ plots and set them from rocks and I would set long lines at low tide, if I had a partner then drag netting with a siene net is another option. A boat would open up more opportunities, but if our ancestors could thrive from foraging along the shore, i'may sure modern man could too especially making use of whatever flotsam so happens upon our beaches. Learning how to preserve fish would be beneficial for living on the coast too.