Animals
What about the animals?
Posted by: magooch on Dec-30-12 10:29 AM (EST)
How is it that animals can drink from just about anything and not be bothered? Do they develop an immunity, or a tolerance?
Magooch:
Actually animals do catch alot of what we catch. In some cases the animal may NOT get ill due to a variety of factors such as evolutionary adaptation and a shorter digestive tract which means the “bug” does not have adequate time to reproduce to numbers needed to cause symptoms. In other words it passes through quicker.
Off topic: the CD Isle is well as is my Epic surf ski. Have you tried a ski yet?
I am getting a second ski for big conditions. Even so i am sure I’ll never have near as many craft as you.
Happy New Year.
Jay
I’ve had dysentary
a few times with the Air Force but never Giardia or Crypto.
My current preferred method is to filter with my Katadyn Hiker then UV it with my Steri-Pen.
I’ve used chlor-floc overseas with no problems.
BUT,
my thought was that G&C are probably NOT evenly dispersed so there must be some areas where the concentration is less than in other areas.
THUS, trying to filter an area where the concentration is very thick would be more dangerous than trying to filter water where the concentration is much less.
Last trip the river water was so bad I had planned to wait until I reached the lake and then toss my filter intake over the side and filter clearer surface water.
I seem to recall
a study that showed (I may be misrembering this) that in the winter streams tested clean were contaminated by animals a month or so later who got it from people pooping along the trails.
Yes, some animals get sick.
Ever been in a cattle-field or sheep-field when the ‘runs’ hit them? Ireland around Tara Hill was mostly brown goo from a bug that went through the local sheep herd. And that got on our shoes which got on our hands when we changed shoes and the car floormats and… There was a lot of second and third-hand infection.
And a lot of the cowpies on Pleasant showed exactly the same thing.
People in the Third World get sick a lot too, they just shove rags up there and keep on working because they don’t have sick-time like we do.
So my original question remains.
Because I’ve seen second & third hand infection so if I can filter water from areas that have a lower concentration, it reduces the chance of not only direct infection (swimming too) but accidental second hand infection.
Russian Roulette
People have intercourse without using birth control, too.
Is it worth saving a few minutes of filtering time to be sick for days or weeks? To me, it’s not. Especially if I’m in the backcountry, where my own sick exudations would foul land and water for other people and animals later…