this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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So apex that even hunters need firearms because they're not fit enough to hunt without them nowadays, and unable to improvise and use self made weapons like the og hunters did.
I guess people that drive a forklift are "apex powerlifters" too.
Smart apex hunters always conserve as much energy as they can during a hunt. Because you don't know when your next meal might show up. And firearms do make hunting a more sure thing. Hunting game, of any kind, is high risk-- higher reward effort. Most hunters go home empty handed or with little to show for the effort. But, if you do get it right, the effort can be handsomely rewarded.
So if you are smart enough to develop ranged weapons, you eagerly use them to hunt supper.
Seafood requires far less effort to collect. Make lobster traps and trotlines which are catching food while you can do other tasks at the same time. Seaweed for some veggies on the side.
Seafood requires a lot of expensive resources to acquire. Boats, nets, traps, baits, access to the water, and not to mention the inherent risk of being on the ocean. Better to hunt herbivores on land.
Sure you can spend a lot if you want, but I have caught crabs with a bit of string. Seen people catch stuff bare handed as well.
Fishing is fun and good, but you still need access to water with a fish living in it. But a sharp stick or a rock is still cheaper and easier. Even a bow and arrow is very low tech and easily fashioned.
Well I live on the coast in the UK, so there is quite a bit of access to water. But even inland you should have lakes/rivers with fish in them too, even if they can be a bit harder to catch.
Not sure there, most seafishing methods are illegal on freshwater here.
I live in Minnesota USA-- The Land of 10,000 lakes. It's actually 14,380 bodies of water 10 acres or larger. 117,000 if you add the waterbodies/ponds smaller than 10 acres. I'm sitting in my house drinking my tea and looking at the lake I live on. Minnesotans own 14,505 registered watercraft per 100,000 people-- the most in the US. And all of us spend LOT of time fishing on them. But it would be extremely illegal to use nets or traps to fish for them. (There are carve outs for Native Americans to do some limited netting).
So historically, eating fish on a non-commercial scale has been an important thing in this region since before European settlers showed up. But it has never been the main source of meat due to the general extra work it takes. It's still easier to stick an arrow, (even a well thrown rock), into rabbit or squirrel. And a far bigger payout in calories to shoot that arrow into a white tail deer, elk, or moose with less effort than a fish.
Lakes are more limited than the sea though, I know here there are significantly fewer restrictions on sea fishing than fresh water. I can throw 50 traps off a kayak in the sea and I don't even need a license or permit.
But could the average hunter still hunt without the help of modern technology? Those who are entirely unable to do so are obviously not apex predators.
A lion can hunt any day without relying on a rifle, the vast majority of hunters could not.
Hunters that can build their own bows or spears and are able to hunt with them are genuine apex predators, that's fair.
Those who are completely reliant on industrially produced high tech firearms bought in a store, and would be outcompeted by any house cat without them, are not.
A lion can hunt because they come with weapons biologically attached. Humans not so much. And even you could fashion a spear with little effort. Which by your definition would make you a apex predator. And it did so for millennia.
I'm an old toolmaker that still has a small shop. I could make firearms from scratch if I wanted to. There is nothing special or complex about them. But I choose to purchase them from stores. So perhaps that demotes me from being a apex predator.
In order to make a firearm from scratch you must first create the universe.
In order to bake an apple pie you must also create the universe.