#AskPaulKirtley Episode 42 – Weird Encounters At Night, Drugs Tests, Predators and Wild Edibles
In this episode of #AskPaulKirtley I answer questions about natural compounds affecting drugs tests, drying clothes after rain in the northern temperate, my weirdest encounters at night, nitty gritty detail on bow-drill notches, predators and rewilding, carcinogenic campfires and how to learn more about wild edibles when you are getting into bushcraft?
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Links For This Episode of #AskPaulKirtley
Bushcraft Clothes: Favourite Thermal Layer & Shell Combos For The Woods (YouTube)
Staying Warm Outdoors: Avoid The Four Horsemen of Heat Loss
A Bushcraft Camping Outfit – Equipment for Living in the Woods
Hang ‘Em High: Tips for Getting Organised Under Your Tarp
Five Survival Plants Every Forager Should Know
The Difference Between Foraging and Living Off The Land: Bushcraft Show 2013 Presentation
Careful With Your Carrots: A Case In Point
Approaching Apiaceae: A Practical Example Of Carrot Capture
Boost Your Bushcraft With Urban Botany
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What Is #AskPaulKirtley?
#AskPaulKirtley is my Q&A video and podcast series that aims to answer your questions about bushcraft, survival skills and outdoor life.
The idea here is partly to take the strain off my email inbox and get answers out to people in a more timely fashion.
Rather than send an answer to just that one person, I’d like others to benefit from the answers too. So, just in the same way I’d previously write an email answer, here I’m going to speak the answer (which is much quicker than me typing out an answer, so I’ll get more questions answered as well as benefiting more people).
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Related Material On Paul Kirtley’s Blog:
Bow-Drill – The Keys to Success
10 thoughts on “#AskPaulKirtley Episode 42 – Weird Encounters At Night, Drugs Tests, Predators and Wild Edibles”
Thanks for this one Paul, some interesting topics. I was pleased to hear you mention rewilding in your answer to one of the questions and agree that it would be wonderful to see such animals as wolves back in the wild here in Britain, but, unlike you I am HOPEFUL that it could happen in our lifetime. Here is a link to the rewilding Britain website regarding wolves.
http://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/rewilding/reintroductions/wolf
Also here is a quote from the website regarding the comment on our population.
“We’re a small over-crowded country
Some people say that Britain is too small and crowded to have flourishing nature and wildlife. The Highlands of Scotland alone are actually bigger than Slovenia. We can live right alongside forests and birds and wolves and lynx as they do in other countries.
The population density of several parts of Europe (such as eastern Germany and the Apennines) is much higher than that of many parts of Britain. Yet populations of beavers, wolves and lynx are thriving. Belgium and the Netherlands have far less uncultivable land than we do, and hardly any places with low population density, but the return there of wolves, boar, beavers and other species is widely welcomed.”
Clearly the challenges are great but maybe we can take a lead from our European brothers and actually do something wonderful.
With wild animals that are potentially dangerous it is in my opinion far more complicated than people think, if you want to reinstall them in the wildlife of a crowded country.
Till I was twenty years old, I was nearly every free minute in the woods in western Berlin, and in the holidays and a lot of free weekends in several parts of Western Germany. Normaly i didn’t see any wild animals instead of birds and Insects. I have seen in the hole time only three times a fox in the forest, and than far away, and only, because he didn’t expect a wildcamper drinking there a tea in the morning.
Than they took down the Berlin Wall. And the protected border to Poland. And now it changed in a way, nobody expected: Like the well known example of the russian wolf the wild animals decided to go westward, not the wolf yet, but the others decided to visit Western Berlin.
I am living in a wooden cottage in a part of Berlin, which is 10 minutes on the bike to Kurfürstendamm and 10 minutes to the forest too, next to the hunting castle Grunewald.
5 minutes away from me they have pigs in the gardens of their villa colonie. The owners have the opinion, the pigs would be in the garden, the pigs are in the opinion the villas would stand in the forest, what is right, but they are standing there since 100 years, and for 80 years no pig has been seen there. Perhaps somebody told the pigs, that it is not allowed to hunt between the houses…
I have today in my garden a Racoon, who brings himself in a distance of 3 meters away from me to sit comfortable on the roof of my cottage, the fox only needs 2,50 for sitting, for passing me planed he needs only one meter. Skirl 80 cm siiting, Rats 60 cm acting distance, mice running over my feed have been seen too.
That is lovely, because i have no pigs, and the rest of my zoo is friendly and SMALL!
I have seen fotos where a pig allowed a kind of hunting dog to play with her children in the forest of west Berlin. In TV was speeking a women, i forgot where in Germany, who met several half aduld wolfes, which came to her and her dog in a distance of perhaps 20 meters, just standing and looking!
So far i am informed, they start to kill sheep in low distance to houses, and there would be enough wildlive to hunt for them.
What i want to say is, that in my opinion, you can reinstall such animals in crowded countries, and that would be lovely in my opinion. I would like to see the elk returning to Germany and so on. But:
I am convinced, that you have to shoot down in front of the eyes of every family a part of that population, if you do not want a wolf sitting one evening between your guests at the barbecue party.
In Germany we do in the moment the oposit, we educate a generation of wolfs , which is alowed to do what they want to, because they are protected. If they do not change that, i guess, in the end they will have to kill them all. A fox i can hunt away easily from my table. But a wolf??? I dont know that, but I also do not want to try it.
Marcus
Hi Paul, thanks for this episode.
I would love to see some of the eradicated species return to the UK. While our total population is higher than desired, there are still some amazing parts of the country which are more than adequate for extra species of wild animals to survive and even prosper.
your answer to one of the questions may have possibly solved a problem I have been having when attempting to help my son light a fire with the bow-drill method. Compared to the picture you showed we have been using far too thin wood for the spindle to accumulate enough embers…..If at first….
All the best, Dave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_psychoactive_plants
I remember while camping in the Mourne Mountains a few years ago my dog woke me up at first light acting oddly..when i poked my head out from my tent we had been surrounded 360 degrees by about 200 sheep just staring at us!
P.s..I left my first comment half way through the video before i knew you had answered my Predator question! Thanks for that and keep up the great work! And no im not a pub land lord!
Hi Paul, that beetle you mentioned sounds like a Death watch Beetle. I’ve heard of people who think they have a ghost in the house because they hear a clicking noise at night coming from the loft, but its actually this beetle in the wooden beams!
Hi Paul,
I was recently on a fungi foraging course with a rather knowledgeable field mycologist. He was explaining that any mushroom that contains even a small trace of the active chemical in Psilocybin is regarded as a class A drug in the same way. He used deer shield mushrooms as an example,which are edible to my knowledge. That being said I have no idea how many mushrooms you’d have to eat in order for this to show up on a drugs test. I just thought it would be worth mentioning.
Hi Paul.
Thank you for another good episode.
I just wanted to comment on the fire and carcinogens question:
Working for a specialist unit within a metropolitan ambulance service, two of our specialist areas were fires and carbon monoxide.
Every winter I go to people who have used barbecues indoors and are now suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. It has no smell, you can’t see or taste it but it can and does kill every year.
The solution is ventilation and education.
Regards
Robin
Great pod cast Paul . I think you needed that fire you burnt your trousers on by the end of it . That made me laugh , the things we all did when you were younger and thought little of it . All the best .