Humans Are Not at the Top of the Food Chain

And that should comfort you.

So now that I’ve gained your attention with that sensationalist title, allow me to elaborate.

Take a walk through any backpacking location or hiking trail and assess what could harm you at any given moment. Maybe you’ll scan the area looking for a snake slithering through the undergrowth, or listen for the distant cry of a mountain lion. You might cast your gaze to the sky and notice rain clouds stalking the fringes of the horizon, or see the purple bellies of clouds blinking with distant lightning. But none of these things faze you because you’ve come to this trail absolutely strapped. You’ve got your weather radio fully charged with an integrated solar panel and emergency hand crank. You trample sawgrass and thorn bushes in battle-ready composite-toe boots with a steel shank reinforcing the sole of knobby treads. Your EpiPen and venom extractor are tucked away in an outer pouch of your rucksack, easily accessible right next to the mosquito net. Your sidearm is stuffed with hefty 360-grain flat-nosed torpedoes of .454 Casull so even the most aggressive grizzly doesn’t frighten you. You ensured that you tripled the cordage and water you thought was necessary just for that extra precaution. Take a last inventory of the hazards in the environment that you, you veteran of the brush, you titan of nature, can conquer.

Now strip all of your luxuries away.

Ditch the Kevlar-cuffed hiking pants, the armored waterproof boots, and the warm woolen socks. Toss away the beefy revolver and carbon steel survival knife with a flint striker in the pommel. Heave aside the canvas backpack filled with camp food, your massive canteen, and your survival water filter. Drop it all until you’re left without a thread of clothing or gear on you, and then reassess your surroundings. Suddenly you’re not thinking about a bear and wondering if it’s going to charge; you’re thinking about a skittering insect and wondering if it’s a fire ant.

Humans are poor survivalists at the primal level. Our hide is soft and squishy, easily sliced and bruised. Our fat layer provides virtually no warmth and our thin hair doesn’t wick water away from our body efficiently. Our night vision is horrendous, our hearing is easily confused in panic, and our sense of smell is one of the worst in the entire animal kingdom. It’s especially poor in the class we pridefully identify ourselves with the most: apex predators. In virtually any environment, we’re close to the bottom of the food chain when our gear is stripped away. Our only advantage, the embers that will see us through the night, is our thumbs and our brains. While we may be the most pitiful of apex predators when left with our anatomy alone, we’re also the most resourceful. It’s not our anatomical features that give us our backcountry prowess, but rather our tech. And I’m not only referring to satellite GPS and cutting-edge fabrics, but simple tools as well. It’s the ability to combine a wedge-shaped stone with a branch as a lever to make an axe. It’s the ability to figure out that paper birch contains natural oils and will burn when wet, or that shaving and fluffing the inner bark makes fluffy balls of tinder that catch with a single spark. It’s the capability of being able to locate the Big Dipper constellation, the Little Dipper above it inverted and pouring downwards, and knowing that the tip of the Little’s handle is Polaris, the North Star. All the lightning storms and hungry predators can be woefully outmatched by one simple thing: human ingenuity.

As I finish this article I’m still not sure what spurred me to write it. Perhaps it’s simply a reflection, a curious thought from the road; that we as a species have risen up from leather and stone to carbon ceramics and circuitry. From an ecological standpoint we’re nature’s biggest underdogs. The stubbornness and sheer gall of a species that looked at a colossal wooly mammoth or a hulking saber-toothed tiger and said, “Yeah. I’m going to eat that,” is what separates us from the beasts. Never underestimate your wilderness training and never take your gear for granted. We’re not a species that is inherently at the top of the food chain; we rose to the top through our stubbornness, smarts, and tech.