Wild, Domestic, and Captive Animals After SitX?

Many people, myself included, seem to be planning to run for the hills and the deep woods when TSHTF. More people, in fact, than I’m comfortable with. It’s going to be a nightmare if I bug out to my hiding spot and find it filled to capacity with displaced refugees. I really think my chosen destination is remote enough and difficult enough to reach to avoid this, but it’s still a nagging point of worry for me.


That got me thinking. My grandfather grew up during the Depression and told me how difficult it could be to capture game when so many people were dependent on it. And now, we have far, far more people and far, far less wildlife than we did then. So, in the event that everything shuts down, will we see the depletion of deer and other game animals? If so, any idea how quickly?


And what becomes of domestic animals? I’ve already been hearing stories about animal shelters being filled to the breaking point with dogs and cats people can’t afford to take care of anymore. I suspect that, as the economic situation worsens, we’ll see more people dumping their animals off in the country, where, to be honest, packs of dogs gone feral are already a pretty big problem. I remember last summer my aunt, who raises sheep, had a problem with something killing them, then running off and leaving them more or less uneaten. She suspected coyotes, but it turned out to be a group of four very large wild dogs.


And going a step farther, and assuming things get so bad that it all just totally breaks down, what about all the animals in zoos and circuses and wildlife parks? Unless they get released by PETA or some other group, I imagine most will either starve to death or become food for the starving masses, though there are bound to be escapes; if a tiger can get out of it‘s enclosure because some kids are messing with it, I’m sure they could manage it when hunger pains set in. Either way, things like dolphins and seals are pretty ****ed. Or what about people that own things like big cats and great apes? Could any of these animals, if they weren’t, you know, eaten, establish viable populations? Florida I know has feral monkeys, pythons, and monitor lizards living in several counties, and I believe there was a troop of baboons that lived along the Trinity River in Texas in the ‘70s.


Just some thoughts…