Prey

The Aftertime has been described as the Valley of the Shadow of Death in the Exodus and by the Zetas as:

A dense cloud cover that lasts for decades, resulting from the volcanic activity and loss of atmosphere due to the stripping away that occurs during lashing by the comet's tail. The dust filled clouds are low to the ground, and create a constant gloom. Rain occurs almost continuously. Where sunlight cannot penetrate and seldom manages to peek through this dense cloud cover, it does warm the Earth's atmosphere and thus its warming influence is not lost on the Earth. Less warmth from sunlight, but warm wet air.

1. Decades implies 20 years or more.
2. Most plant life requires a good deal of sunlight, without which plants die. Consequently, where these conditions exist it seems reasonable to expect that within less than 1 year there would be very little plant life.
3. Most animal life subsists either directly from plant life or by eating other animals who do eat plants. This includes sea-life where the bottom of the food chain is plankton which ultimately get their energy from sunlight in the same way as plants on land.

What that leaves is plant life that requires very little sunlight, such as some ferns and other plant life that lives on the ground under the canopy of a rain forest, and plants and animals that can live off dead plants, or the animals that can live from those that can live off dead plants. There are lots of insects that live off dead plants, and there are some animals that can live off these insects; and a few animals that can live off these animals.

For instance, a bear can live off insect larva found within rotting trees if it can find enough. Mice and some other small furbearing animals can also live off insect larva, and fox, wolf, dog, and cat can live off these small furbearing animals. In addition, some birds also eat these insects and may also be present if they can survive the wind, fire, and rain. If there is still some remaining animal life, then there will probably be flies and mosquitoes. That allows for bats, which should have a reasonable chance surviving the fire and wind since so many live in protective caves.

What I'm getting around to is, why do all that work of searching for insects all the time when one can let the surviving animals do it for you? One must balance the energy expended to obtain a grub to eat with the energy provided by that grub. On the other hand, the higher up the food chain one goes, the less energy usually required to obtain the food. So, I've started thinking in an entirely new way about hunting animals for food, skins, and bone. Of course, the most efficient way to get wild animal food is to trap or snare it. In addition, though, one can hunt it.

Offered by Ron.