With the popularity of survival-style television shows in the last couple of decades, it feels like survival advice is everywhere. Much of what you see on many of those shows is done for shock value or entertainment and is definitely not anything you should attempt if you ever find yourself lost in the woods in a survival situation. Let’s correct some survival myths.
1. Don’t Ration Your Water
It’s going to be very tempting to look at the dwindling level of water in your last bottle or canteen and decide to save it for tomorrow so it “lasts longer.” This is dangerous! If you are thirsty, drink. Dehydration wrecks your brain’s ability to think clearly, and you can’t afford to make poor choices or find yourself unable to navigate through brain fog. The general rule is to store water inside your body, not in a bottle.
2. Don’t Trust Running Water to be Safe
Just because water is running rapidly, or even just because it’s coming from a spring, doesn’t mean it won’t make you sick. Spring water is a little more likely than downstream river water to be safe, but it’s far from a guarantee. Water coming out of a spring might be clear, and it might even taste great, but it can harbor bacteria and parasites that can make you sick and leave you worse off. Boil or filter water before you drink it, or set up a rain catchment system in a longer-term scenario.
3. Don’t Drink Water From a Cactus
There isn’t actually a big tub of water inside a cactus—just pulp. It’s highly acidic and can cause extreme nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and even paralysis. None of those are going to help you when you’re already in a desperate situation. There ARE two varieties of cacti that are semi-safe to eat if you really, really must: the barrel cactus and the prickly pear. Be absolutely sure you’ve identified them correctly.
4. Don’t Eat Snow for Hydration
Snow is about nine parts air to one part water, so eating it for hydration is ineffective at best and generally considered dangerous. You’d have to eat 10 cups of snow to yield one cup of water, and the real problem is that eating a significant amount of snow can lower your body temperature and lead to hypothermia. Don’t eat snow. You can, however, safely melt snow and then drink the resulting water—just keep in mind the low yield you’ll get when it’s melted.
5. Don’t Drink Your Own Urine
I know you’ve seen Bear Grylls drink his own pee on TV, but don’t do it. Your urine is full of everything the body didn’t want or need, like salts and metabolic waste. You don’t want to put that back in your body and force your poor, dehydrated kidneys to process concentrated waste. Drinking urine actually can speed up dehydration—like drinking ocean water—so don’t do it.
6. Don’t Assume Everything an Animal Eats Is Safe for You
There’s a common misconception that if you see an animal eat something, like a berry, it’s safe for you to eat as well. This isn’t entirely true, and it should be obvious if you think about it for just a second. Animals, especially birds but even mammals, have different digestive systems than we do and can handle some toxins that we definitely can’t.
Specifically regarding berries, never eat a berry (or a mushroom) you can’t identify, as some of them will kill you. The rule is that about 10% of white and yellow berries are safe to eat, 50% of red and orange berries are safe to eat, and 90% of blue/purple/black berries are safe. Even at 90%, I’m not taking those odds if I’m not absolutely positive I know what kind of berry I’m looking at.
7. Don’t Count on a Big Game Animal Alone to Keep You Alive
Speaking of food, if you’re in a long-term survival situation and manage to kill a deer or a moose or some other large animal, you might think you’re set for a while. But while it’s true that you just landed a huge source of calories, you can actually starve to death eating lean meat all day. Your body needs fat to digest the protein, so if you’re eating strictly muscle meat with no fat, it can lead to protein toxicity. Fatty animals like beavers and bears are great for preventing this, but lean animals like rabbits and deer present a problem long-term.
8. Don’t Assume You Can Easily Make Fire With Matches or a Lighter
If you’ve never built a fire in a pit or a fireplace, you might think it’s as easy as lighting some sticks on fire and watching them burn. In reality, you need tinder, kindling and fuel/logs, and you need to know how to arrange and add them in the right amounts at the right time to get a fire going. Oh, and they all must be pretty dry, and good luck if it’s raining or windy. You should definitely carry a lighter in your pack, because it will make the process of lighting tinder much easier, but you still need the know-how to actually turn that little flame into a real fire, and that’s not something you want to learn on the fly as night is closing in.
9. Don’t Take Shelter in a Cave Haphazardly
Actually, it is true that caves make great shelters—which is why something else is probably already living there. If you find a cave or a nice rock shelter, check carefully for tracks, bones, fur or any other sign that an animal already calls it home. And avoid building a fire in a cave if you can, even if you can manage the smoke—rocks crack and break when they get too hot, and that includes cave roofs.
10. Don’t Use Moss to Navigate
It’s a common navigational myth that moss grows on the north side of trees. In fact, moss grows wherever conditions are suitable—shady and damp. In the northern hemisphere, this is the north side of the tree more often than not, because the sun shines more on the south side, but “more often than not” is not definitive enough to base your navigational plan on. A compass is better, and gauging the direction of the sun works as well.
Better yet, consider that you might be better off to stop navigating at all and stay put if you know people will be looking for you. Many times, wandering around only gets you more lost and makes you more difficult for a search team to find.
