Plucking is usually better than shaving. Plucking the hair from the entire crack area also lessens the chances and severity of 'Jeep riders disease', Pilonidal Cysts. A potentially debilitating condition.

Yes and no. Many bacteria can infect another species without causing disease; hence they become carriers or vectors. A number of bacterial (and viral) agents are now jumping their traditional host species, in part due to the rising number of immuno-deficient individuals in the general population. For example a number of Helicobacter spp. have been found in non-traditional host species, leading to the spread in many populations. In many cases these organisms do not cause outright disease but may have an effect on the immune system making the individual more susceptible to other disease causing agents.

Some viral agents when they jump host species can have a devastating effect on the new host species. For example many parvoviruses and their respective hosts have an almost commensal (non-disease causing or normal) relationship. In some cases the virus causes no outright disease, but influences the immune system either up regulating or down regulating all or parts of the immune response. However, when the agent jumps species or infects a naïve population, outright disease and death is often the result until the virus or host species adapts to the infection over time.

While it is true most parasites are host specific due to their life cycle, there are cases (rare) where a parasitic agent will jump species (aberrant host). Generally it is a dead end infection/infestation, but can make life miserable for the affected host.

Pete

Prepration-H makes wipes. They are simply saturated with witch hazel. I use them all the time, in the wild and at home. I do not use them for medical reasons, I just hate the smell of baby wipes and think these clean better. And with witch hazel they work on other body parts too. Kind of like alcohol wipes but much more gentle on those special places.

They are flushable. In the wild, I use TP for gross decon and then do a final cleaning with the wipes. I then gather all the TP and wipes and either stick in a ziplock or drop in the fire if we have one.

As far as TP for hiking, I steal rolls from work. The rolls there have no tube and when they are nearly out the custodial staff will swap them out and leave a roll about 1" to 2" in diameter, which are the ideal size for sticking in my pack.

Pete, yes I know that, but my point was that not every disease nor every parasite crosses all species, which is why the animals' poops don't cause a disease conflagration among them.

But contamination from human waste has a higher likelihood of contaminating other humans, as there's no 'fight' to cross a species barrier. Well, at least with most people...

Sue

Susan, Agreed.

Sort of off the OP topic, but-

I guess my point of view (not directed at you Susan, but to the tread in general), is while we don’t want to be totally irresponsible when it comes to voiding in the outdoors, I think we tend to over estimate our impact on the water supply at least from the individual’s or small group’s impact. Clearly, if you have hundreds of individuals voiding in or near a water source, chances are you will end up with major coliform bacteria contamination (that is why we treat water before drinking). However, animals too void in these areas and likely have a larger impact than we humans. Granted the environment in which you void, will be a major factor in the ability of the environment to absorb the impact, but I think in most areas the impact will end up being minimal.

Look at the number of military campaigns with large numbers of concentrated troops field voiding. I would suspect if these large numbers of troops voiding had a major long-lasting environmental impact, we would still be seeing the negative effects of these actions. I contend the environment is a good self-fixer and while it may not be a popular line of thought in some circles, I believe we humans are also part of the natural ecosystem. I grew up with the principle of being a conservationist not an environmentalist. We were to be conscientious custodians of our resources, which were to be used wisely and with care, but were to be used. My impression (which may be wrong) is that many, if not most environmentalists want a totally hands off approach (in terms of human approach to utilization of natural resources).

Pete

Miner, are you referring to "Tuck's"?

When I had some issues in that department Tuck's are what the proctologist recommended for post wipe cleanup. Witch Hazel, as an astringent, presumably kept the area clean and psuedo disinfected. I think he prescribed them in general because his opinion was people don't keep that area clean enough, which contributed to other issues (hemmorhoids, cross contamination to uncooked foods, etc.)

I buy the Walgreen's Antibacterial Thick Moist Wipes with Moisterizers and Natural Aloe, individually packed in boxes of 48 so you can stick them in pockets, purses, packs.

The active ingredient is Benzalkonium Chloride .13%. I found that for me the alcohol sanitizer gels dried out my hands, as did straight alcohol wipes. The added moisterizers in these make a real difference at both ends.

More post waste (pun intended) with the individual foil wrappers, but they are disinfecting wipes, pleasantly scented (not flowerly or lemony or mediciny), and very wet. Plus they are paper so are biodegradeable.

They are very popular with my hiking/camping friends that want more than just paper or in place of TP.

One last note-I buy RV toilet paper for our Roadtrek, the single ply watch-out-or-your-hand-goes-right-through-type and carry small rolls of it on longer outings. It practically biodegrades in your hands.

Jakam,

Tucks are the same thing but smaller. The Prep-H ones come in a large, resealable pack with 50 or so wipes, and you can buy them in a box individually wrapped. I buy them both ways and use the individually wrapped ones in situations where I need to be a little more discrete. Wal-mart has a generic ones too but I do not like it as well as the Prep-H ones.

The only advantage with the Prep-H over Tucks is size. I like the margin of error I have with Prep-H.

I keep one full roll in the SHTF bag, one in my company van, and another in the console of my Jeep. Never leave home without TP, especially if you're going anywhere away from civilization.

Then we should be putting diapers on all the elk and deer in Colorado. Any idea how many there are v.s. people recreating in the forests? A LOT more. Our wildlife populations here would really surprise a lot of people.

To answer the original question, I wipe and bury. And carry lots of tp. And that's the way it's going to be for me. You all want to carry nasty stuff around in zip lock bags, go for it.

I am sure these have already been mentioned, I carry baby wipes for use in camp and paper blue shop towels for in the field (not the fastest to degrade though). The shop towels are because they are multipurpose, I used one as a dressing when my son hit his hand with a brush-hook and it worked great. I also use them to clean my hands after gutting big game. I started carrying a very small bottle of alcohol hand sanitizer in my field kit, it works well to clean your hands with if there is no water nearby. My hunting partner wears latex gloves to clean-up after making a deposit, that way his hands stay clean and he turns the gloves inside-out to carry them out for disposal.

Mike