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Trying for twelve years to chase down and catch an antelope by foot [audio]
- dboreham 2y agoWorld's second fastest animal.
- Mistletoe 2y agoHaha I tried this once. Was very unsuccessful.
- mtlynch 2y agoScott Carrier is one of my favorite This American Life contributors. His delivery is so unusual and captivating. If you like this episode, you should check out the episode dedicated to Scott Carrier stories: "The Friendly Man." https://www.thisamericanlife.org/181/the-friendly-man https://www.thisamericanlife.org/181/the-friendly-man
- cheriot 2y agoAnyone have a tldr on the antelope chase?
- anonu 2y agoI did the boring thing and put the transcript in ChatGPT (but at least the summary makes me want to listen to the episode even more... Maybe there should be different summaries for different people to pick out the things that interest you): The story about the antelope, featured in This American Life, follows Scott Carrier and his brother's attempt to prove a theory that humans evolved to be endurance runners, capable of outrunning animals like pronghorn antelope over long distances. Scott's brother, a biology student, hypothesizes that early humans could have run down big game without weapons by relying on their endurance rather than speed. In the 1980s, they go to Wyoming to test this theory by attempting to chase down antelope in the desert. The idea is to exhaust the antelope by making them run in the heat for a long period. Despite their efforts, the antelope consistently outmaneuver and outrun them, blending into herds and splitting into different directions, making it impossible to follow just one. Scott reflects on the challenges of the endeavor, the limitations of modern life, and the connection to a primitive way of living. Despite failing to catch an antelope, the story highlights the persistence of the human spirit and the desire to understand our ancient origins.
- ptspts 2y agoTL;DR TL;DR They have been failing so far: they haven't caught a single sntelope.
- woleium 2y agoBut.. wouldn’t you mark your target with a dye pack? In the past i assume you'd spear your target then hunt it down?
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoThat would be spear hunting. Endurance hunting is where you jog steadily after a faster animal, never allowing it to catch its breath and cool off, until it collapses from exhaustion. Humans have the best long-distance endurance of any land animal in the world, at least in hot dry environments; it's why we have so little hair and so many sweat glands, among other things. There are still African savanna tribes that successfully practice endurance hunting.
- singleshot_ 2y agoSay, isn't this is the opposite of the conclusion of the article?
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoNo idea, since the "article" is an hour-long podcast with no option to read it. But I'd venture to guess that "Scott Carrier is incapable of running down an antelope" does not imply "humans are incapable of endurance hunting, full stop."
- CuriousCosmic 2y agoNo. The podcast focuses more on the fact that a lot of it is just very difficult for people adapted to modern life. It involves a lot of skills that need to be honed (tracking, long distance jogging, planning, coordination without tech, herding, not getting injured by other wildlife in the process, etc) and it requires strategic planning ahead of time. It's not to say that it's impossible, just that it's a skill that takes over a decade (part time) to do in a way that you have a decent chance of succeeding at. If however this was all you did day in and day out and you had someone experienced guiding you through the process each day, it'd probably take half the time and you'd be successful at the end.
- bitbasher 2y agoNot sure why, but I thought the podcast was "thisdeveloperslife.com" which made the title even more interesting as I had no idea why developers would be out chasing an antelope in the desert. Though, maybe it would explain what happened to the podcast.
- mdorazio 2y agoFor those who don’t want to sit through the listen, they’re never able to do it. From the interspersed stories, the “run an animal to exhaustion” theory only works if it’s 1) not an antelope (ex. A deer), 2) the runner is good at tracking, and 3) the runner is able to consistently track the same animal even through multiple herd merges.
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- iamthemonster 2y agoDid they never mention the concept of wounding the animal with a trap or missile weapon first? Of course it's unethical to test that theory but it's surely the first thing you'd think of doing if you actually wanted to catch an animal. Of course it would be devilishly difficult to hit an individual antelope with a missile weapon, but slinging 100 rocks at a herd over time is much less energy than chasing on foot.
- mdorazio 2y agoNope. The experiment is to see if it's possible to run down an animal completely unaided, then capture or kill it. It sounded like they want to duplicate a pre-tool use scenario but I'm personally in the same camp as you - seems a lot more likely that pre-tool hominids would have probably been pretty good at chucking rocks or pointy sticks.
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- throwawaycar 2y ago[flagged]
- chrisco255 2y agoPre-tool hominids is going back over 3 million years ago, maybe much further. Long before homo sapiens even existed.
- FredPret 2y agoI know of one hunter-gatherer tribe that does this. 1. They start by learning how to track animals so well that they can identify an individual from among a herd's tracks. (in other words, crazy, crazy good) 2. Long before the hunt, they bury water in ostrich eggs under strategic trees 3. They then throw a rock at some antelope which then flee in panic. 4. Track the juciest individual (this is key - you have to chase the same animal for days on end) 5. Repeat rock throwing, individual tracking, and strategic water drinking until the animal's muscles stop working. Then you get it with an arrow.
- m3kw9 2y agoWhy not just shoot it with an arrow or are they glutton for punishment?
- FredPret 2y agoI’m not clear on this. Perhaps I’m wrong about the arrow in step 5 and they really don’t have arrows in the first place, killing the animal with a knife. Or perhaps they can’t get close enough with their arrows on day 1. Some of these antelope are really large and aggressive - you wouldn’t want to wound one.
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoIn the video I saw, the guy did the killing blow with a stone knife.
- Loughla 2y agoHonestly. Hide in bush, shoot the animal with that arrow previously mentioned. That seems much better?
- renewiltord 2y agoMuch easier if you’re closer to beast and it is tired. For instance, if we wanted to catch chicken as child we had to first tie it to tree so that we wouldn’t miss and then shoot it with bow and arrow. Otherwise you miss too much and arrow gets blunt. You want to maximize arrow usage because it’s hard to make.
- anitil 2y agoI find it really interesting that this concept took hold so strongly in people's imaginations. I think because it's just on the border of plausibility and seems somehow to be hidden knowledge. It reminds me of Dan Luu's idea of 'Cocktail Party Ideas' [0] Edit: Of course I appreciate someone putting the idea to the test! [0] https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/ https://danluu.com/cocktail-ideas/
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoIf you're saying that this proves endurance hunting is a myth, you should know that there are real live people who practice it today, and you can find at least one of them on YouTube. This comment discusses what some of those people do differently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41241490
- rramadass 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41242321 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41242321
- anitil 2y agoI'm not saying it's a myth, I'd say my position is - 1. It's plausible that some humans somewhere might have used it, however 2. It's unlikely any group of humans used this for a meaningful amount of their caloric intake The point of my previous comment was that I find it interesting that it seems to have taken an oversized mindshare in people's beliefs around the evolution of humans. I'm interested in why that might be. I suspect because it has a slightly unexpected twist that while we're not fantastic at running, we are (allegedly) good at long-distance running.
- PhasmaFelis 2y ago> we are (allegedly) good at long-distance running. Whatever the evolutionary reasons for it, I don't think we can reasonably dispute that humans are pretty good at long-distance running.
- inasio 2y agoThe tarahumara in northern Mexico are famous for running very long distances (men and women have won several ultramarathons, often running with handmade sandals), they are also known for hunting deer by running them to exhaustion (more for fun and tradition than anything else, they have access to rifles)
- silverlake 2y agoI was driving in Chicago late at night when this show first aired. I was so engrossed in the story I ended up in Wisconsin.
- Loughla 2y agoI did that with S town. I missed a wedding. . . .
- WatchDog 2y agoI first became aware of persistence hunting, by seeing this BBC Earth documentary[0], in which three men track and hunt an Kudu for 8 hours. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
- ungamedplayer 2y agoThe unsaid thing about endurance hunting is that you need to pick the right animal from the group and know how to persist hunt, aka keep prey away from water, have them run at the middle of the day, pace yourself, know the area and take shorter routes, know how to separate an animal from the herd. Temperature of the area also plays a large part, perhaps the writer was doing this in a cooler area giving the animal an advantage. I have not listened to the Audio, but most factors are not usually considered when people talk about any kind of persistence hunting. I have hunted pigs, kangaroos and wild dogs and reindeer this way, without guns sometimes with dogs. I am unable to do this in my older age, it's a younger man's game, it's good to see that people are still trying.
- jancsika 2y ago> I am unable to do this in my older age, it's a younger man's game, it's good to see that people are still trying. You're on a site called Hacker News. Get 3 more old dudes, develop a whistling protocol, and box that reindeer in!