- If it's a mountain lion,
do not turn and run,
because that signals the feline's instincts
to go and get you.
Hey!
And back off.
♪ Well, me and my boys ♪
♪ Are from the wrong side of town ♪
♪ But no one complains ♪
♪ When we come around ♪
- Hi, my name is Christopher Nyerges.
I'm a survival educator,
and today I'm gonna show you
the top five tips for how to survive in the woods.
(cheerful music)
So, when you get to a spot in the woods,
the first thing you wanna do
is have some kind of a shelter.
And if you didn't bring something with you,
I would look for something in the woods
that's ready to occupy.
Natural shelters might be actual caves,
might be thickets of grass and leaves.
Man made shelters might be shacks, old cars.
I even slept in an outhouse once.
(toilet flushes)
One time in the Sequoia,
I burrowed into a thicket of pine needles on a hillside,
just burrowed in like a hole,
slept there snug all night.
So the second thing you wanna do
when you're in the woods,
is determine your food source.
Now the two sources of food
that you're gonna find in the woods,
are plants and animals.
Plants are easier, because they don't run away from you,
but you need to study them.
You can't just randomly eat things
and think you're gonna survive.
For example, all acorns can be eaten.
Seaweeds, if you're near the coast,
they can all be eaten
assuming you're not in a polluted area.
Wild onions, which are common throughout the country.
All cacti are edible, assuming they're palatable.
Even the green algae in the pond scum, you could eat.
Now, in terms of animals,
literally anything can be eaten.
The easiest thing would be insects.
I've taken walking sticks, swatted grasshoppers
as they went away from me.
Take off the head, take off the wings,
take off the legs and saute them,
and you have a delicious meal.
Any larva can be eaten.
And any birds,
lizards,
snakes,
rodents,
any of those small things can be eaten,
if you have a means to capture them.
For example, slingshots, bow and arrows,
sticks where you stab them.
When it comes to bigger animals,
it's gonna take a little bit of skill,
because they're not living their life to feed you.
And by the way, do not take killing an animal lightly.
It's a serious matter, don't do it for fun.
If you're gonna kill something, eat the animal.
Tip number three, water.
Water is really important.
Now, if I'm going into an area,
I'm gonna do a little bit of research
to make sure there's water there in the first place.
I don't like to go into areas where there's no water.
I've done that, it's miserable,
so you wanna have water there
in the form of a stream, rivers, lakes.
If there's no water around, you could eat cactus.
You could dig wells in dry stream beds,
I've done that.
You dig deep enough where water has flowed,
and you can get to the water.
You could also take a large plastic bag,
tie it onto a nontoxic tree like Willow,
the water in the leaf evaporates out,
it's captured in the bag.
In the course of several hours, half a cup of water.
When you find your water,
the big issue is, is it pure?
Is it safe to drink?
There is no way to simply look at the water
and determine that it's safe to drink.
The water could be flowing and look pure,
and be unsafe.
The water could be stagnant
with insects in it, and be safe.
I would assume that some kind
of purification process should be done,
and the universal way to purify water is boiling.
You put it in your can, find a beer can or a coke can,
and boil the water.
Boiling kills all of the biological contaminants.
Our next tip has to do with fire.
Fire is essential.
It's not only warmth,
it's not only comfort,
but it purifies your water.
It cooks your food.
It helps you make tools.
It helps you dry your clothes when you're wet.
The ability to make a fire
can mean the difference between life and death,
so there are four principles for making fire.
There's friction, there's electricity,
there's the sun, and there's chemicals.
Most people are gonna be using friction
or a combination of friction and electricity.
Besides the Bic lighter,
I would recommend the magnesium fire starter,
where you powder a little bit of magnesium
and you scrape an artificial flint,
known as Ferrocerium Rod.
Get a spark, and you get a fire.
Let's say you're in the woods with your vehicle,
you have a cigarette lighter.
You also have the car battery.
You can stretch steel wool from pole to pole.
Or you put the jumper cables on,
you touch some kind of tinder together.
I usually stretch a wire
from one of the copper terminals,
wrap it with some tinder,
touch the other copper terminal,
and bingo you have fire.
Okay, here's my fifth and final tip,
how to survive a bear attack.
(bear growls)
First off, in California, the native Grizzly,
was pretty much killed off
a 100 years ago in Southern California.
So if you're down in the south,
you're not gonna see any grizz.
If a grizz comes after you in Alaska,
or somewhere else in the country,
I hope you have your will in order,
because you can't outrun a grizzly bear.
They're fast, you're probably a goner, okay?
If it's a black bear in the south,
and most of the ones in the south
were the bad bears that they got rid of
and they dumped in the Angeles Forest,
and down here further south.
If it's one of those,
there was one death in the last 100 years.
So if you do encounter a bear in the woods,
and there's sufficient distance,
you know, make some noise.
You don't have to do a big fuss,
but you want it to have an exit
so it can get away from you, and it will.
You scream, make yourself big.
You know, do this,
but don't back off. (soundbar crashes)
Sorry.
Oh no, did I break something?
Okay, so if it's a mountain lion,
do not turn and run whatever you do,
because the feline's instinct is to go after you.
You make noise.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
But don't turn and run,
just face it and back off.
Back off, give it room to escape,
and hopefully you'll survive another day.
This has been Christopher Nyerges
with your five tips to survive in the woods.
(upbeat banjo music)
Did I break something?
I'm costing you guys money.