Thread by @gauravsabnis

So far #OurWawar camera traps have caught a lot of wildlife - bear, deer, raccoon, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, coyotes, mice, and even a random stray cat!

But not a single rabbit or wild turkey which is a bummer. I was hoping to trap some to eat.

instagram.com/p/CjdSCfwOR9g/…

We found a bunch of old animal traps on the land. And I was reading that the tradition in that area before industrialized meat was more trapping than hunting. Deer hunting was okay but it was a logistical nightmare for most people to butcher and store em, unless for a feast.

Today, deer hunting is easy. You shoot one of those stupid things. Throw it in the back of a pickup. Take it to a USDA approved butcher. Who will vacuum seal it. You stick it in the freezer.

Not so easy in 1800s. Sure, you kill it. But what next? It might rot by evening.

However, trapping rabbits, turkeys, geese, ducks was easy. And you could just butcher it and use it up soon. Plus any chickens you might raise. For millennia, people in the ridiculously fertile and freshwater rich northeast ate plenty of meat without any carbon footprint.

An upcoming topic in my Marketing Society & Sustainability class is the food supply chain, especially industrial meat. The focus is always on the operations of those factories. I plan to discuss the marketing of it, which rarely gets scrutinized. Fast food & beyond.

The production costs of industrial meat or fish is so ridiculously low, that it makes non industrial sustainable meat or fish (like we used to do until a century ago) more expensive by bringing economies of scale into it. We take that economic structure for granted now.