Best way to handle dead bears?


godhelpme89

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Last night I downed my first bear... well the first one I didn't die prior to getting the meat off it.

It was very close to my house so I ran back to grab some wood and after many hours I had my first load of meat. By this time I think I was awake for over a day. I was in PV and the meat was left either in the container on the porch or on the floor of it outside.

I ran back to get the final 2 pieces of meat, guts and skin first thing.

When I got back to my house for a day of cooking I found some of the bear meat was down to 16%!? If I had slept a few more hours the meat would of gone bad. Is there something I'm missing or is this normal?

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This is, annoyingly, normal, as nonsensical as it is. Meat on a corpse degrades waaaaay faster than the meat off the bone. I was standing at a bear I'd just killed (ran over to it as soon as it died) and harvested the skin and guts first (...I don't know why. I just did). Immediately after that, I started harvesting meat and saw it was at 71% already. So, yeah, lesson learned: the first thing you should harvest is the meat if you want it, and if it's from a bear, try to do it all as quickly as possible.

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As @WanderingPalm says, harvest all the meat off the bear first. I recommend building a fire nearby as well to keep the bear thawed as well as keep yourself warm. Make sure you have enough firewood at hand for several hours, as it takes awhile to harvest everything off of one bear. If the wind is blowing, see if using a nearby tree, rock, or even the bear's body as a shield from the wind will keep the fire from blowing out. As soon as you get the meat off of him, set it all on the ground as it's very heavy. Next skin him and get the guts. It may take a few trips to bring everything back home, but leave all the meat outside until you're ready to cook it, as it degrades much much slower when stored outside at freezing temperatures. Also be wary of nearby predators being attracted to the smell as you transport the meat.

What I like to do to get the most out of my bear meat, as I've had it spoil in the past before I was able to eat through it all, is cook the meat about 5-10 pieces at a time, then bring it back outside and take more raw meat in to cook, and keep doing this until it's all cooked. Then store all but just what you're able to eat in a few days back outside, and it will last a long time. Also keep in mind that when meat is cooked, it gets a 50% condition bonus. This means that you can let meat decay down to 50% before cooking it, cook it and it'll be right back at 100%.

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9 minutes ago, Samsonguy920 said:

I would love if we could craft litters to carry things that wouldn't normally be expected to fit in a backpack.  Would still be slow going, but at least you could drag a bear or elk carcass to your shelter in one trip.

Litters? ...If that word means the same as 'sled' then I agree!

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17 minutes ago, Stormwolf1O1 said:

Litters? ...If that word means the same as 'sled' then I agree!

It does. I forget the exact term but I refer to the type that has two long poles and you drag behind you.  That would be the simple version. An actual sled would definitely require more work and material, to be sure.

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3 minutes ago, Samsonguy920 said:

It does. I forget the exact term but I refer to the type that has two long poles and you drag behind you.  That would be the simple version. An actual sled would definitely require more work and material, to be sure.

All the more reason to be able to tame wolves to get a sled dog team going!

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12 hours ago, godhelpme89 said:

I cant believe the meat goes that quick.

Raw (harvested) bear meat will deteriorate at 25% per day indoors, and at 2.5% per day outdoors.
Cooked bear meat will deteriorate at 8.333% per day indoors, and at 0.833% per day outdoors.

But on the carcass, it deteriorates at an amazingly fast rate.. I haven't seen figures for it though.

 

6 hours ago, Stormwolf1O1 said:

Litters? ...If that word means the same as 'sled' then I agree!

6 hours ago, Samsonguy920 said:

It does. I forget the exact term but I refer to the type that has two long poles and you drag behind you.

The word you're looking for is "travois". By using long enough poles, it's easy to move a lot of weight. Over the past few years, there have been many requests for this to added to the game.

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13 hours ago, Stormwolf1O1 said:

What I like to do to get the most out of my bear meat, as I've had it spoil in the past before I was able to eat through it all, is cook the meat about 5-10 pieces at a time, then bring it back outside and take more raw meat in to cook, and keep doing this until it's all cooked. Then store all but just what you're able to eat in a few days back outside, and it will last a long time. Also keep in mind that when meat is cooked, it gets a 50% condition bonus. This means that you can let meat decay down to 50% before cooking it, cook it and it'll be right back at 100%.

Isn't it the better idea to leave the raw meat lying around outside until you want to use/cook it? That way you can let it go ruined and bring it up to 50% when you need it. Once you have reached cooking skill 5 and become immune to food poisoning from food you cooked yourself, I guess your method of cooking everything and then storing it outside become superiour, because it is more fuel efficient.

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When dealing with a bear, it really is best to take advantage of the quartering. You get the whole carcass stripped in about two hours. If you're lucky and the weather is decent, you wont even need a fire. Then you can transport the quarters 2 or 3 at a time to the closest indoor location, get the meat off them and placed outside, and almost all of it will still be over 50% when you get to the cooking stage, and you end up with 100% cooked meat if you get that back outside as quickly as possible.  I personally don't worry to much about the meat, because on Pilgrim/Voyageur I always have more stuff to eat than I could possibly ever use, and on Stalker, I always already have more wolf meat than i can risk eating. I don't know how other people manage the risk of intestinal parasites, but my rule is no more than 1 piece of infected meat per 24 hours. For awhile, I was eating two, thinking that 4% or 5% (whatever it is) was low enough to be worth it, but I got parasites once, and it wasnt nice.  Interloper is another story. I think I've only lived long enough to get hungry once. :P 

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13 hours ago, Stormwolf1O1 said:

Litters? ...If that word means the same as 'sled' then I agree!

In actuality the word 'Litter' is still technically correct. There are 'Carry Litters' that date back to thousands of years 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle)

And there are 'Drag Litters' which is what is being mentioned here.  It is much like a stretcher, but intended to be used by a single person, rather than by two. Here are a couple of versions available commercially.

http://www.tacmedsolutions.com/Foxtrot-Litter

The one below is similar to those I've used in the military.

http://skedco.com/product/ranger-sked-reg-patient-equipment-drag-coyote-brown/

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1 hour ago, L² said:

In actuality the word 'Litter' is still technically correct. There are 'Carry Litters' that date back to thousands of years 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_(vehicle)

And there are 'Drag Litters' which is what is being mentioned here.  It is much like a stretcher, but intended to be used by a single person, rather than by two. Here are a couple of versions available commercially.

http://www.tacmedsolutions.com/Foxtrot-Litter

The one below is similar to those I've used in the military.

http://skedco.com/product/ranger-sked-reg-patient-equipment-drag-coyote-brown/

Ahh, okay! Thanks for all the info, I appreciate it! :) 

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I never used the quartering option, I'll have to give it a shot.

As far as the sled, would it change the way you played? Possibly for the worse? Granted I'm new to the game, so I might be wrong here, but taking on a bear is not something you do on a whim. Sure you might kill it, but if you don't have enough materials for fire, or are too far away to haul it, you'll just end up wasting it. Having a sled might make killing a bear somewhat trivial.

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38 minutes ago, godhelpme89 said:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I never used the quartering option, I'll have to give it a shot.

As far as the sled, would it change the way you played? Possibly for the worse? Granted I'm new to the game, so I might be wrong here, but taking on a bear is not something you do on a whim. Sure you might kill it, but if you don't have enough materials for fire, or are too far away to haul it, you'll just end up wasting it. Having a sled might make killing a bear somewhat trivial.

If you aren't good at bear hunting, it will never be trivial, even if you had a helicopter with heated interior and wine for the celebration party. If you are good at killing/hunting them, it's already trivial.  A travois, or toboggan, would more likely encourage players to travel further, get out of their comfort zone, take risks in places they otherwise wouldn't. And the only trivial thing then is their life. :) 

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21 hours ago, Thrasador said:

I've been begging for ANYTHING that allows us to move more gear from place to place....

I suggested a toboggan a long time ago. I wasn't the first, but I went into great detail, even explaining how to make it work within current game mechanics, how it should be balanced for load to player encumbrance(having actual experience pulling loaded ones) how to build them, how to tune the wear and tear on them, how to deal with taking one through a cave, how to deal with it being left outside or unattended... every detail, worked out within the scope of current mechanics. I don't think it's in the cards.  Although, it's possible they got idea for scent mechanics from that post.... ooops. ;) 

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On 9/3/2017 at 2:47 PM, Stormwolf1O1 said:

As @WanderingPalm  As soon as you get the meat off of him, set it all on the ground as it's very heavy. Next skin him and get the guts. It may take a few trips to bring everything back home, but leave all the meat outside until you're ready to cook it, as it degrades much much slower when stored outside at freezing temperatures. Also be wary of nearby predators being attracted to the smell as you transport the meat.

This is some of the best advice in the thread.....

As you get the fresh bear meat off the bear, put it on the ground. Because of the crazy way the scent mechanic works....the scent of animal meat only attracts wolves while it is on your character/in your inventory....

For whatever reason meat on the ground doesn't attract wolves....

So like everyone stated, you want to get that meat off first because it rots incredibly fast....If you keep 30 kilos of fresh bear in your inventory while you spend the next 2-4 hours harvesting hide and guts, every wolf on the map will have been traveling to your position in the meantime....most likely. If you have the meat on the ground until you are ready to haul it to the closest shelter....it probably gives you more time before wolves zero in on your location.

Then like others stated cook it and/or leave most of the meat on the ground outside....it rots much slower cooked or uncooked outside.

Lastly, I didn't read everyone else's posts....but I have also done well quartering a bear....

It puts all the bear meat into several kilogram meat bags which you can then carry to your shelter and harvest again, the way you harvest a bunny from your inventory.....

The guts and hide end up on the ground as a byproduct of quartering....

Meat in the meat bags also rot relatively quickly.....but much slower than if you left the meat on the bear. I left my meat bags in a trailer while I slept....I think they lose about 10-20 condition a day, but it's still slow enough that you can rest normally and not have to panic, as long as you quartered the bear relatively soon after it drops....

According to the wiki meat in quartering bags rots equally fast inside or outside....which is probably an oversight that will never be corrected....

The bags are pretty heavy. With a normal inventory you can probably move three to four meat bags at a time....

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If you harvest all the meat of the bear in one click, from a fresh kill, you will be left at around 70% condition bear meat, if you harvest it with decent harvesting skill and no fire. So, with a fire that keeps it thawed, with the use of a hunting knife and decent skill, I dare say you could be able to get a 80% condition meat of off the bear. But you should always harvest meat first, on every animal you harvest. Dont even worry about the craftables - but as soon as you finish with meat, drop it on the ground to slow degradation even further and prevent attracting more predators, because BOY will they come running if you have a 35-50 kg of raw meat on you! Craftables dont degrade that fast on a corpse, but be sure to harvest them before the corpse dissapears! You dont want to lose that precious hide!

I usually dont build a fire when I start harvesting the bear corpse, but I harvest the meat in 3 tries. If I am getting really cold outside, I will build a fire after my first try, but usually i build like two hours worth of fire before I try to harvest the third set of the meat - this will thaw it off for when I am working the 10 guts because that part takes the longest of them all (per item) if the corpse is frozen.

So, to give an example how I harvest bears:
I killed a bear, it has 42 kg of meat on it. I calculate roughly how to split it into 3 parts - I will start with 14 kg, then 14 kg on second run, then the rest which is again surprisingly 14 kg (I guessed that). First meat will be at 85% condition, I drop it off entirely. Then the second batch will be at 75% or something like that. I drop it in a different pile than the first batch. 
Now, I am getting cold, so I build a fire for two hours. I harvest the third batch of meat, and drop it onto yet another pile.
Now, thanks to the fire, the Bear will be thawed - this is when I start harvesting the guts, doing all of them at once. Occasionally I will also cook the steak of the least quality meat if I am getting hungry and the fire is still going. So after I finish the guts, I will do the hide, even if the bear is already frozen again.

I dont have that big of an experience hunting bears since I usually prefer hunting with a bow entirely, but I found this routine works the best for me, when I want to harvest the bear.

I dont reccomend harvesting all the meat at once - if you do, then all of that meat will be at around 70-65% condition. It seems that almost always it is better to harvest meat in individual chunks, or at least in several groups as the meat you harvest the earliest will have better condition then the rest, and so you can stash it for later use.

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I don't mean to be a smart-mouth as it were lol, but in real life meat on a carcass (especially if the entrails are still in said carcass) can be spoiled within a few days. Perhaps they can make it so it deteriorates slower if just the guts are removed.

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