You have a wreck in the extreme rural area and need to pop a couple squirrels on your 2 day hike back to the main road kind of gun.
1) Where were we driving that we had a wreck which was 2days walk from a road? Which didn't have cellular service? Are we flying over central Alaska in summer, with a shady pilot who didn't log any flight plans, and we didn't communicate any such to our loved ones so nobody realized when we didn't show up and nobody is looking for us even if they knew where to look if they did, and we have **** for luck so no other hunter/hiker/fisher/local would take note of a plane going down and be able to find us within a couple days? What's the game availability like in this area such we can expect to be 100% incommunicable, unknowingly unaccounted for in the travel, unwitnessed in crash, and too far from other outdoorsmen/locals that we could expect to find a squirrel to hunt in the proximity of our crash?
2) We assume we survived such wreck in sufficient condition to be able to hunt, as well as travel by foot to the road 2 days away? We also assume the sustenance hunting firearm and ammunition weren't separated from us in the wreck, nor damaged?
3) What's the calorie balance on adding time and energy to your survival situation to locate, successfully hunt, and prepare small game in this rural area? Rather than simply taking that time to travel towards the road - aka, salvation?
4) What's the bird population, success ratio, and calorie balance for pursuing birds rather than mammalian small game as a protein source?
5) What's the calorie balance on scavenging suitable local forage in the area, rather than hunting for such a low mass protein source?
In planning a trip in such area, where I might have an opportunity to crash and be ~2days away from a road in an area which didn't have cellular service, I'd likely carry about 5lbs of granola bars, water, fruit snacks, and beef jerky, rather than 10lbs of a firearm, ammo, firemaking supplies, field cooking gear, etc. I've spent my entire life in "rural areas," have hiked and hunted in very "extreme rural areas" for 20yrs, and it has never made any sense to me to think a person should carry a firearm intent for sustenance hunting. I ride colts every spring which may not be the most reliable of transportation in cattle pastures far enough off of the beaten path and with enough terrain features that I've often joked - "if I fell off and hit my head, nobody would even find a body but the coyotes." I've hiked and hunted in areas where even in peak physical condition, simply being in that area is life threatening if separated from my gear, as the environmental conditions, opportunity for injury, and distance from communication and transportation in the event of an emergency all combine to a high risk situation. The answer to being stranded out there has never been to carry a sustenance firearm, but rather to carry sustenance, and plan a means of communication and accountability. A firearm isn't a bad idea out here, but a defensive firearm, not sustenance.
A satellite phone (or Garmin Inreach or similar), a mylar blanket, and a couple pounds of food and water would be worth far more in any acre of North America than a sustenance hunting firearm.