[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

There is or was a race of natives of Mexico that caught deer by just running them down. A human in top shape can run longer than a deer. It will fall over from exhaustion, and they just walk up to it and cut it's neck. I assume they had to be doing the running in a area with no heavy trees of the deer would just vanish into the forest, and it is hard to run thought heavily wooded areas.

I prefer to go to the local grocery store to stock up on food. I really do enjoy modern amenities.

Yep, pretty amazing. I think the folks that do it in Mexico, do it in the mountains. Either way, having the critter "disappear into the woods" is part of it, which includes tracking. Although, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of "woods" involved since this is very much about overheating the animal.

Modern hunter-gatherers
Hunter-gatherers, including the San today, use persistence hunting to catch prey faster than themselves.

The persistence hunt is still practiced by hunter-gatherers in the central Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. The procedure is to run down an antelope, such as a kudu, in the midday heat, for up to five hours and a distance of up to 35 km (22 mi) in temperatures of as much as 42 °C (108 °F). The hunter chases the kudu, which runs away out of sight. By tracking it down at a fast running pace the hunter catches up with it before it has had time to rest and cool down in the shade. The animal is repeatedly chased and tracked down until it is too exhausted to run. The hunter then kills it with a spear.[10]

The Tarahumara of northwestern Mexico in the Copper Canyon area may also have practiced persistence hunting.[11]

Persistence hunting has even been used against the fastest land animal, the cheetah. In November 2013, four Somali-Kenyan herdsmen from northeast Kenya successfully used persistence hunting in the heat of the day to capture cheetahs who had been killing their goats.[12]

Seasonal differences

In particular, the Xo and Gwi tribes maximize the efficiency of persistence hunting by targeting specific species during different seasons. In the rainy season, prime targets include steenbok, duiker, and gemsbok, as wet sand opens their hooves and stiffens their joints. Hunting in the early rainy season is particularly advantageous because dry leaves form "rocks" in the animals' stomachs, resulting in diarrhea. Stiff joints and suboptimal digestion make the prey weaker and more available targets. In contrast, in the dry season, hunters run down kudu, eland, and red hartebeest because these species tire more easily in the loose sand. Hunters say that the best time to practice persistence hunting is near the end of the dry season when animals are poorly nourished and therefore more easily run to exhaustion.[14] By targeting the most vulnerable prey during each season, the hunters maximize the advantages of endurance running.

Conditions/parameters

- Persistence hunting must be performed during the day when it is hot, so that the animal will overheat.
- The hunters must have been able to track the animal, as they would have lost sight of it during the chase.
- Such a long hunt requires high amounts of dietary sources of water, salt, and glycogen.
- Although the success rate of recorded persistence hunts is very high (approximately 50%[15]), unsuccessful hunts are very costly. Therefore, there would have had to be a social system in which individuals share food, so unsuccessful hunters could borrow food from others when necessary.