Fear of wild animals on a Island while I am sleeping in tent alone at night

Question

I have been camping solo at various places(Hills, riverside) for 3 years of my life. I have also seen various techniques online to survive alone on the Island. I often wonder how do you deal with wild animals at night once you are in a tent??

Scenario: I went to Island and hooked my tent upright and then light firewood at the entrance. After completing my food I am inside the tent and have locked the zip from inside. Now I know after some hours the firewood will complete itself and the wild animals will surely come near my tent. There might be a case that some carnivorous animal would try to attack me and the tent is no protection to that. How do I deal with such a scenario or how do I avoid it?? Almost all the survivor stories that I have read or seen, none of them have explained or taught on how I deal with this scenario.

Any thought to the above scenario would be appreciable.

Answer 1

As this was already posted on the worldbuilding site, I wrote my answer aimed at a fictional story, not as survival advice. Still, I'll post it here and feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

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Few animals randomly attack. They may hunt for food, but other than that most animals will leave humans alone so long as you leave them alone. As such, the food in your backpack is under much higher threat than you as a living, breathing, potentially dangerous human. Moving to protect your food bag then makes you a target.

Outside of hunger, a few species (like lions) practice hunting but stop short of injuring or killing their prey. A very small number of species are actively belligerant.

I suspect that in most places in the world, if you lie down in the wilderness unprotected, there is a reasonably high chance you will wake up uninjured - particularly if you pay attention and make sure you aren't sleeping in the path a rhino takes to get to the water hole.

Here in New Zealand we have an awesome solution: we simply don't have any dangerous wild animals. I have spent many nights outdoors, some in tents, some under the stars with nothing but a blanket. Nothing to fear here except the weather (and that is the largest killer by far).
Probably different in places like Australia.

If you're on a small island, chances are that there isn't much large life that can hurt you. To the best of my knowledge Hawaii, Tuvalu, Samoa and many of the other pacific islands have no native large animals. You're probably under more threat from insects.

Answer 2

First of all, you should read these general guides to predators:

https://www.outdoorlife.com/survival/how-to-survive-predator-attack/

https://survivallife.com/surviving-predator-attacks/

https://www.outdoorlife.com/how-survive-wild-animal-attacks/

Assuming that the island has large predators on it at all, I would imagine you might not need much.

Predators on such an island will likely be unfamiliar with humans. I assume that they will either avoid you, or approach cautiously.

If you set up a tripwire around your tent (and have access to a small bell or something similar), you could potentially alert yourself to the threat. Once you're awake, you can probably scare the predator off by yelling, screaming, and potentially throwing rocks at it. The predator will most likely not be hunting you when it approaches, so scaring it off should be relatively easy.

Of course, most likely, you won't even need a tripwire. If you keep a clean camp, dangerous animals are not particularly likely to enter the camp in the first place.

Answer 3

Do not cook where you sleep. Change your clothes (that smell like food) before you go to bed. Store your food in a manner that scavengers can't get it. Leave your food pockets open so animals don't ruin your gear trying to get to it. You may lose your food, but at least your pack will still be intact. These will make you much less attractive to animals. But the real answer is just sleep outside more. It is a someone irrational but understandable fear. The more you do it, the easier it will be.