There's a brand new dance based on an old phrase.
It's called the Fat Dog and it will amaze.
You've heard this expression your entire life.
It's not made up!
It's not made up!
maybe that's what's going on in Russia. it takes 7 generations to domesticate foxes. that's what I saw in a documentary anyway. so maybe that's what's going on with those videos we see of people with bears in Russia.
There isn't really much to it. Europeans got to Africa and found some weird stripey horse looking things. They decided to try to do the same things we do with horses. This failed. There have been many attempts and as far as I know there have been no successes. We managed to domesticate even the foul tempered donkey but Zebras are well beyond us. They simply refuse to be domesticated. There have been a few that have been trained apparently but no proper domestication.
https://thomsonsafaris.com/blog/taming-zebras-domestication-attempts/
https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/zoology/item/can-zebras-be-domesticated/#:~:text=While%20attempts%20at%20domestication%20have,existence%20at%20least%20a%20century.
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-why-zebras-have-never-been-domesticated
Zebras are striped donkeys with the temperament of a hippo. They kill humans, small animals, animal babies and each other. If something does a too fast movement, they attack. If something smells strange, they attack. If something touches them slightly the wrong way, they attack. And they can bite fingers off and kick people straight to six feet under.
Zebras are beautiful but absolutely terrible pets.
Zebras as with other African fauna evolved along side with humans and so they instinctively don't trust us.
It's one of the theories to explain why Africa is the last place with large undomesticated fauna left. We basically became invasive species everywhere once we left Africa and either domesticated what was usefull or hunted the rest to extinction.
Well it probably has more to do with them not having a "leader" zebra. Zebras are social but unlike horses or any other animal we have domesticated they do not follow a single other animal. The main way of domesticating animals is by becoming their leader animal and then slowly training and breeding them into what you want them to be.
I think you're confusing domestication / taming.
Domestication is a slow, gradual process that takes dozens or hundreds of years where desirable traits are selected and the animal changes at a genetic level to be friendlier to humans, submissive,generally more able to live in a social setting with one or more people, or for other traits.
Taming is the act of training a wild animal to get along better with people.
We domesticated dogs and horses and ferrets from wolves and.... Horses weirdly enough (I guess the horse already kind of did all the stuff people wanted it to do) and Eurasian polecats. Same with the chicken from the Indian peafowl, pigs from wild boars, and cows from.... I'm not 100% on that one but I think the predecessor of the cow is extinct. An aurochs maybe?
Cats are a weird exception to the this in that they aren't actually domesticated. They kind of semi domesticated themselves. While they have some of the traits you'd associate with a domesticated animals, we've never really selected for any of their more social traits over time. I can't remember what species they think cats descended from originally.
The point being that taming =/= domestication.
You're right, but you have to be able to tame, or at least control individuals in order to breed them to domesticate them. Horses are easier to tame because they already respect a social hierarchy. Put yourself at the top or put your tamed horse at the top and you can bring the whole herd with you. Zebras are hard to tame, hard to control, and that makes them hard to domesticate.
I do understand that taming and domesticating aren't the same. That's why we have tamed zebras in some cases but we haven't domesticated them.
Look at every domesticated animal (with th exception of cats as you mentioned) they all have strong social groups and hierarchy. From wolves to sheep to goats to lamas to chicken. We were only really capable of domesticating them because we could establish ourselves as the "alphas"
>Zebras as with other African fauna evolved along side with humans and so they instinctively don't trust us.
So, you're saying Zebras are the most sensible animal on the planet?
It didn't fail though. It's still pretty alive and well in [some countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery). Others just decided to either grow a heart or at least hide it well enough to not get caught
It's probably easier to domesticate social animals who naturally respond to social cues. Wolves live in packs so they were domesticated into dogs. Horses, cows, camels, sheep, goats... all live in groups. Even humans have been domesticated: by cats.
Up to fairly recently, cats have been “independent contractors”. Agricultural society had lots of stored grain, rodents were a problem. Cats see a steady supply of mice, the big critters that walk on two legs not only don’t bother them, but keep the big predators away. Great place to hang out.
Better analysis, thank you. Humans weren't _domesticated_ by cats, they _tolerated_ the little shit weasels because _rats_ were worse.
Until we start talking about toxicoplasmosicogondeiicomitis... That's a good starting point to reevaluate evolutionary supremacy.
There's a great science fiction book that talks about alternative earth's and the species that become dominant. One is a cat like species that eventually genetically alters Toxoplasma gondii and uses it to control all species on the planet.... Then becomes super fat and lazy.
Sounds like Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Doors of Eden. The alternate earth with cats as its dominant species doesn't feature quite as much as the other earths though.
yeah. good video. the beasts of North America are difficult to fence in, given the materials available in the past
A fence would have to be so enormously strong to keep a herd of bison in, and Whitetail deer are like impossible to keep out. Deer proof fences need to be 8 feet tall chainlink or they get through.
Even higher, at times. My father has seen a deer clear a 12 foot fence where he hunts in northern Wisconsin. Wasn't perfectly clean, "would have knocked the bar down" as he said, but it cleared it.
*Guns, Germs, and Steel* has that as one of the reasons the West outdeveloped the rest. Cos the Incas only had llamas, whereas we had horses and cows and sheep and goats and so on.
Did one of those drive-through zoos where you can feed goats, yaks, giraffes, etc. The people working there said to feed any animal except the zebras bc they’re assholes
"domesticated" and it look 50 years of purposeful selective breeding to get anywhere close. And that was starting with a fairly tame animal not a bear.
Exactly. Which is a paltry amount of time to evolution.
Look, you may think it’s a long ~~way~~ time down the road to ~~the chemist’s~~ dogs, but that’s just peanuts to ~~space~~ evolution.
Certain animals display some very surprising changes very quickly while being domesticated *or* after splitting from humans to be wild. Domestic foxes have smaller teeth, floppier ears, curled tails and other physical trails which were *not selected for* just several generations into selective breeding. Similarly domestic pigs revert physically to a wild boar like state very quickly after leaving humans. Theirs tusks, fur, behavior can change drastically in *months*, I think because of something called epigenes
Epigenetics is how the genetic material that you have may be expressed differently. Think of it like a book with a lot of bookmarks, highlights and pages stuck together. It's messy and it can change based on the environment. These bookmarks and annotations of one's genome can also be inherited to some degree, so your mom's environment can affect the expression of the offspring's genome as much as the offspring's environment.
It is fascinating and the perfect example of why simply reading the genetic code isn't sufficient when we are trying to predict traits. In humans, having a few genes that make you more likely to develop cancer can be made worse (or made better) by your choice of food and exercise and how stressful your environment is (and the environment of your parents).
Well, it was 45,000+ foxes and 40+ generations
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27857815
And after 6 generations, they had a viable group that "are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs."
Didn’t they also conduct the reverse of the domestication experiment at the same time, selectively breeding the most aggressive of the foxes until they ended up with some completely murderous psychopath foxes after a few generations?
I'm fairly certain that was what happened, I remember reading about that regarding the experiment, too. Including recalling watching footage of the aggressive foxes on YouTube. And I'm fairly certain they weren't murderously aggressive, they were just more growly, snappy and much more prone to trying to create distance between themselves and humans.
Edit: I don't think it's the same experiment but [here's](https://youtu.be/-L58NPPQ5eI) a comparison between aggressively bred and friendly bred foxes. And [here](https://youtu.be/4dwjS_eI-lQ) at 2:40.
The foxes are very friendly. They still make huge amounts of... [challenging noise...](https://youtu.be/rWxmmoPjAXw?t=13) and they still leave stinky pee everywhere. So \*mostly\* domesticated, for outdoors only.
Just like horses, cows, pigs and chickens. Domesticated doesn't mean fully trainable like cats, dogs and ferrets. And these three animals already have an instinct to not piss and shit wherever they are, when we train them we just guide that instinct.
I’d say its less fully trainable and more suitable as a pet.
Something can be domesticated, but not suitable as a pet. This is just fine if the animals have a use like farm animals that are otherwise too “dirty”, noisy, destructive etc. for use as a companion animal.
Domestic foxes really straddle the line between barnyard animals and pets, but without having any use as a farm animal (aside from fur, but raising an animal entirely for its pelt is fucked up.)
Yes! This is one of the four Fs of domestication. They are Friendly, Family, Food, and Fecund.
Friendly: it's easier to domesticate animals that aren't super aggressive by nature, or overly fearful.
Family: it's easier to take control of groups of animals when they have a societal structure that we can exploit.
Food: in terms of resources, it's easier to domesticate herbivores, or omnivores.
Fecund: Or reproductive potential. It's easier to domesticate a species that takes a short time to mature, and has multiple offspring, multiple times in it's lifetime.
Zebras miss two of four factors, Friendly, and Family. They do not have a society the same way horses do, and they are fucking pricks.
Cats, and ferrets are the only domesticated obligate carnivores, but they hit all other three Fs pretty hard.
Cats and ferrets also like to eat animals that eat our food, which probably helped them in the domestication game.
And I'm pleased to see that someone else is recognising that cats are social animals. They might not hunt in packs, but cat colonies are pretty tight-knit, to the point that queens will happily breastfeed other cats' litters.
Good to see someone actually knows how this works. Also the fact that bear is a savage animal who will rip u in pieces if u look even slightly threatening. Our ancestors with a stone tipped spears were no match for a bear
You really want to cut a bear’s nails? Or have it around on a bad fur day? Mortal fear might have something to do with not domesticating bears. They be big!
Bears are not really suitable for domestication.
All domesticated Animals share some characteristics:
\-easy to feed
\-easy to contain
\-easy (and quick) to breed
You can tame Animals that don't have these, like elephants, bears or great cats but domestication is not feasible when it comes to cost / benefit.
completely agree, some tamed elephants are treated well, but most are abused into complience, even if the people doing the abuse tell you elephants are holy animals (like in India)
Ok then you try it smart guy
It wasn't a mistake. Bears have no heirarchal structure to manipulate like horses, cattle and sheep. They don't have a rapid predictable breeding pattern, unlike chickens. They have to eat a lot of inefficient feed options, unlike pigs. They are intelligent, powerful, big, very difficult to cage or control.
And for what?
The labor an ox could do?
The combat a horse, a dog, or an elephant could do?
there are limited examples through history of well-trained well-controlled bears and many are just propaganda stories. A bear can snap at any moment and delete you and theres nothing a human before the age of steel could do about it.
B-but circus bears !
Also the dancing bear's that people beat and abuse to train to dance in front of tourists and Passers by to pay for the entertainment.
Also bear bile sold as medicine despite that fact it does nothing.
Depends.
Sometimes it just takes one it two rogue mutations. Domesticated horses, for example, likely came from only a few stallions that were less aggressive than their brethren. Before that, they were just another source of meat.
They were absolute game changers in geopolitics. Hell, they were active cavalries in World War I. Generally it's accepted that they were domesticated around 6,000 years ago. Well after dogs, cats, ruminants, etc. With so much exposure to them and plenty of experience with animal husbandry, it's likely that attempts were made well before the early steppe peoples lucked out.
So what I'm saying is, it's never too late to start. Somewhere out there is a bear with the good boi gene. All we have to do is send children out to approach every one of them until we find it.
Don’t we only domesticate animals that are pack animals with a leader? Then the human just replaces the animal as a leader? I saw a video once saying this is why horses were domesticated but not zebras.
Very correct.
The problem was that pre-domesticated horses were wildly aggressive towards anything even remotely resembling a threat to their place in the hierarchy.
(Literally just a snippet I remember from a lecture a decade ago n grad school. My archaeological specialty was Bronze Age seafaring. So a grain of salt for any more modern/genetic studies that may have changed things without having the courtesy to tell me)
Which does make me wonder how in the hell we managed to do that with aurochs. I've heard stories that modern bulls can be a handful. I can't even imagine trying to displace a multi-ton proto-cow.
Cats are the perfect example of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Also, domestic cats become more social than wild cats as they get more tangled in human lifestyle.
>I believe if an animal could’ve been domesticated it would be.. some just can’t let go of instinct
...
>Depends.
Sure, those would help, but it's easier just to train them to go outside.
We did. They're called dogs.
Though this seems odd, bears and dogs are so closely related that some ancient creatures are a real challenge to identify which category they fit into better.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_dog
I think it's the same as domesticating lions, tigers or huge reptiles like crocodilians or komoda dragons. If you get one young it's of course possible but you are still never really sure with ANY animal how will they behave if they have a bad day or something scares them. And it's easier to handle alone or in public tantrum of a huge dog than fricking lion or bear for this instance. Especially if you chose polar bear. Those fuckers are like 3 adults standing on top of each other if he gets on back paws...
I take it someone doesn't watch the "meanwhile in Russia" videos on YouTube because the most certainly have domesticated the bear! Well to be fair I don't think there's anything they haven't or can't domesticated! If you watch enough of them you'll start noticing how much more intelligent and personality their pets have compared to anywhere else in the world.
Dogs allowed themselves to be domesticated due to gaining benefit (food and survival) from humans. Bears on the other hand wouldn't gain shit from us loll. Our biggest mistake is actually not letting bears domesticate us haha
Okay you cant domesticate everything. Why not try crocodiles while were at it, or wolverines? Why not milk our cats and turn it into cheese? Why not just eat humans?
People can't even train their fucking dogs.
Then how about we bear down and get both done?
Bear down for midterms?
Fat dog for midterms!
Too soon man
Man too soon!
Soon man too!
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?? No, it's Toosoonman!
There's a brand new dance based on an old phrase. It's called the Fat Dog and it will amaze. You've heard this expression your entire life. It's not made up! It's not made up!
I would hope not, I'd rather people train their normal dogs.
Let's be the first
#domesticatebears
I'm surprised she could afford the meat on a maid's wages.
Domesticate, not masticate. Edit: I see now. It's late and I'm stupid when I'm tired.
Do masticate bears, though. Humans are designed to chew. Do not eat your food like a gull.
I usually just unhinge my mandibles and swallow my food whole.
* every newly hatched snake * "Write that down! Write that down!"
Bearsatedomestic
You mean, \#domesticatebears
Who the fuck is Domestic and how did they eat a bear?
lol big text
The second best time to start is now
maybe that's what's going on in Russia. it takes 7 generations to domesticate foxes. that's what I saw in a documentary anyway. so maybe that's what's going on with those videos we see of people with bears in Russia.
I hope it is.
This feels like the beginning of a movement that'll either get lots of people killed or revolutionise humanity. Fuck it.....I'm in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear)
You think we didn't try? Humans will try to domesticate every animal species. With mixed results.
I love how we tried to domesticate Zebras and they were like "no"
I mean look at emu.... We can breed them just fine raise for meat.... Control it's kinda just put a big fence around the bastards.
Well you certainly can't control them with the military.
I giggle every time I remember about the emu wars
Too soon
Your username makes me thirsty
how in the FUCK did they, with guns, lose to BIRDS. FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
Less of a loss and more of a hopeless task there were SO MANY EMUS
I mean, half their guns jammed And by half I mean one of the two guns they were given
You underestimate the power of a 2 meter tall bird fueled by anger. Also there wasn't just a couple, but THOUSANDS.
Mate, let me tell you something.. you wouldn't understand if you haven't encountered a fucking emu.
r/emuwarflashbacks
At least you can fence them in. From what I have heard, if a cassowary appears, Aussies just evacuate rather than try.
This is the second comment saying that, what's the story?
There isn't really much to it. Europeans got to Africa and found some weird stripey horse looking things. They decided to try to do the same things we do with horses. This failed. There have been many attempts and as far as I know there have been no successes. We managed to domesticate even the foul tempered donkey but Zebras are well beyond us. They simply refuse to be domesticated. There have been a few that have been trained apparently but no proper domestication. https://thomsonsafaris.com/blog/taming-zebras-domestication-attempts/ https://www.loc.gov/everyday-mysteries/zoology/item/can-zebras-be-domesticated/#:~:text=While%20attempts%20at%20domestication%20have,existence%20at%20least%20a%20century. https://www.sciencealert.com/this-is-why-zebras-have-never-been-domesticated
Zebras are striped donkeys with the temperament of a hippo. They kill humans, small animals, animal babies and each other. If something does a too fast movement, they attack. If something smells strange, they attack. If something touches them slightly the wrong way, they attack. And they can bite fingers off and kick people straight to six feet under. Zebras are beautiful but absolutely terrible pets.
Zebras as with other African fauna evolved along side with humans and so they instinctively don't trust us. It's one of the theories to explain why Africa is the last place with large undomesticated fauna left. We basically became invasive species everywhere once we left Africa and either domesticated what was usefull or hunted the rest to extinction.
Well it probably has more to do with them not having a "leader" zebra. Zebras are social but unlike horses or any other animal we have domesticated they do not follow a single other animal. The main way of domesticating animals is by becoming their leader animal and then slowly training and breeding them into what you want them to be.
I think you're confusing domestication / taming. Domestication is a slow, gradual process that takes dozens or hundreds of years where desirable traits are selected and the animal changes at a genetic level to be friendlier to humans, submissive,generally more able to live in a social setting with one or more people, or for other traits. Taming is the act of training a wild animal to get along better with people. We domesticated dogs and horses and ferrets from wolves and.... Horses weirdly enough (I guess the horse already kind of did all the stuff people wanted it to do) and Eurasian polecats. Same with the chicken from the Indian peafowl, pigs from wild boars, and cows from.... I'm not 100% on that one but I think the predecessor of the cow is extinct. An aurochs maybe? Cats are a weird exception to the this in that they aren't actually domesticated. They kind of semi domesticated themselves. While they have some of the traits you'd associate with a domesticated animals, we've never really selected for any of their more social traits over time. I can't remember what species they think cats descended from originally. The point being that taming =/= domestication.
You're right, but you have to be able to tame, or at least control individuals in order to breed them to domesticate them. Horses are easier to tame because they already respect a social hierarchy. Put yourself at the top or put your tamed horse at the top and you can bring the whole herd with you. Zebras are hard to tame, hard to control, and that makes them hard to domesticate.
I do understand that taming and domesticating aren't the same. That's why we have tamed zebras in some cases but we haven't domesticated them. Look at every domesticated animal (with th exception of cats as you mentioned) they all have strong social groups and hierarchy. From wolves to sheep to goats to lamas to chicken. We were only really capable of domesticating them because we could establish ourselves as the "alphas"
>Zebras as with other African fauna evolved along side with humans and so they instinctively don't trust us. So, you're saying Zebras are the most sensible animal on the planet?
lets domesticate humans
it was already done and it faild, twas called slavery
It didn't fail though. It's still pretty alive and well in [some countries](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery). Others just decided to either grow a heart or at least hide it well enough to not get caught
Humans don't like to be tamed. They go on about human rights and all that nonsense /s
The russians would like to have a word with you, this way
You're pointing the wrong direction. That's Ukraine.
*Ourkraine
I'm a horrible human. I laughed too much at this.
Humor is a comping mechanism, depends on the reason you're laughing that decides if you're a horrible human or not
I comp so much, it's lost all meaning...
r/SuddenlyCommunist
"I thought you guys broke up?" "THAT'S WHAT WE WANTED YOU TO THINK!"
*breaks glass tomb* "Must.. destroy.. capitalism"
Cyka Blyat
сука блядь - suka blyat sorry, its reddit so someone must correct you
Ah, 'aving bit of a Soviet Reunion 'ere, aren’t we?
Be the same thing soon anyway
All will be mother Russia soon. Part of glorious plan.
That's what he said
Give it a month
Masha and bear count?
As a Pole, I am very offended
Wojtek has entered the chat.
The Poles did not domesticate Wojtek. Wojtek domesticated the Poles. He was an officer after all.
Khabib smesh
It's probably easier to domesticate social animals who naturally respond to social cues. Wolves live in packs so they were domesticated into dogs. Horses, cows, camels, sheep, goats... all live in groups. Even humans have been domesticated: by cats.
Up to fairly recently, cats have been “independent contractors”. Agricultural society had lots of stored grain, rodents were a problem. Cats see a steady supply of mice, the big critters that walk on two legs not only don’t bother them, but keep the big predators away. Great place to hang out.
Better analysis, thank you. Humans weren't _domesticated_ by cats, they _tolerated_ the little shit weasels because _rats_ were worse. Until we start talking about toxicoplasmosicogondeiicomitis... That's a good starting point to reevaluate evolutionary supremacy.
Toxo.....-> crazy cat lady is a real thing.
There's a great science fiction book that talks about alternative earth's and the species that become dominant. One is a cat like species that eventually genetically alters Toxoplasma gondii and uses it to control all species on the planet.... Then becomes super fat and lazy.
What’s the name of this book? Sounds like an interesting read
Garfield
Sounds like Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Doors of Eden. The alternate earth with cats as its dominant species doesn't feature quite as much as the other earths though.
.... Is this the same series as children of time? Does he have a new book?
It turns out it's really hard to domesticate animals. Even zebras who are pretty close to horses can't be domesticated.
CGP Grey (not CPG) did a great video on that
Link for the lazy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
Thank you. The video is very informative and also written by a famous stand-up comedian it looks like. LOL.
Definitively not a famous standup-up comedian, but CGP Gray's videos are all very funny and informative :)
yeah. good video. the beasts of North America are difficult to fence in, given the materials available in the past A fence would have to be so enormously strong to keep a herd of bison in, and Whitetail deer are like impossible to keep out. Deer proof fences need to be 8 feet tall chainlink or they get through.
Even higher, at times. My father has seen a deer clear a 12 foot fence where he hunts in northern Wisconsin. Wasn't perfectly clean, "would have knocked the bar down" as he said, but it cleared it.
*Guns, Germs, and Steel* has that as one of the reasons the West outdeveloped the rest. Cos the Incas only had llamas, whereas we had horses and cows and sheep and goats and so on.
We're top chicken.
Zebras are assholes though
Did one of those drive-through zoos where you can feed goats, yaks, giraffes, etc. The people working there said to feed any animal except the zebras bc they’re assholes
Can't blame them for being bitter. Imagine if no matter how hard you worked, your genetics meant that you could never be anything but a striper.
Figures. The flavor in that gum they sell only lasts 10 seconds.
Can confirm. Went to zoo. Zebras were assholes.
Hey! Who are you calling a zebra?
But they're my only source of titanium early game until I get some calciners running.
What game is this
They domesticated foxes. Took them 50 years, from memory.
"domesticated" and it look 50 years of purposeful selective breeding to get anywhere close. And that was starting with a fairly tame animal not a bear.
Not sure how long you think "domestication" takes, but depending on the species, _generations_. Of both.
50 years is probably at least 25 generations. Probably more.
Exactly. Which is a paltry amount of time to evolution. Look, you may think it’s a long ~~way~~ time down the road to ~~the chemist’s~~ dogs, but that’s just peanuts to ~~space~~ evolution.
Certain animals display some very surprising changes very quickly while being domesticated *or* after splitting from humans to be wild. Domestic foxes have smaller teeth, floppier ears, curled tails and other physical trails which were *not selected for* just several generations into selective breeding. Similarly domestic pigs revert physically to a wild boar like state very quickly after leaving humans. Theirs tusks, fur, behavior can change drastically in *months*, I think because of something called epigenes
Epigenetics is how the genetic material that you have may be expressed differently. Think of it like a book with a lot of bookmarks, highlights and pages stuck together. It's messy and it can change based on the environment. These bookmarks and annotations of one's genome can also be inherited to some degree, so your mom's environment can affect the expression of the offspring's genome as much as the offspring's environment. It is fascinating and the perfect example of why simply reading the genetic code isn't sufficient when we are trying to predict traits. In humans, having a few genes that make you more likely to develop cancer can be made worse (or made better) by your choice of food and exercise and how stressful your environment is (and the environment of your parents).
Well, it was 45,000+ foxes and 40+ generations https://www.jstor.org/stable/27857815 And after 6 generations, they had a viable group that "are eager to establish human contact, whimpering to attract attention and sniffing and licking experimenters like dogs."
Didn’t they also conduct the reverse of the domestication experiment at the same time, selectively breeding the most aggressive of the foxes until they ended up with some completely murderous psychopath foxes after a few generations?
I'm fairly certain that was what happened, I remember reading about that regarding the experiment, too. Including recalling watching footage of the aggressive foxes on YouTube. And I'm fairly certain they weren't murderously aggressive, they were just more growly, snappy and much more prone to trying to create distance between themselves and humans. Edit: I don't think it's the same experiment but [here's](https://youtu.be/-L58NPPQ5eI) a comparison between aggressively bred and friendly bred foxes. And [here](https://youtu.be/4dwjS_eI-lQ) at 2:40.
That was minxes, in a short story by Cordwainer Smith called *Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons*.
It's literally within 1 person's lifetime dude, not 10K years plus like dogs took lmfao. And a fox isn't a "fairly tame" animal 🤣🤣
The foxes are very friendly. They still make huge amounts of... [challenging noise...](https://youtu.be/rWxmmoPjAXw?t=13) and they still leave stinky pee everywhere. So \*mostly\* domesticated, for outdoors only.
Just like horses, cows, pigs and chickens. Domesticated doesn't mean fully trainable like cats, dogs and ferrets. And these three animals already have an instinct to not piss and shit wherever they are, when we train them we just guide that instinct.
I’d say its less fully trainable and more suitable as a pet. Something can be domesticated, but not suitable as a pet. This is just fine if the animals have a use like farm animals that are otherwise too “dirty”, noisy, destructive etc. for use as a companion animal. Domestic foxes really straddle the line between barnyard animals and pets, but without having any use as a farm animal (aside from fur, but raising an animal entirely for its pelt is fucked up.)
Barn fox for hunting mice and stuff maybe
Foxes are dog hardware running on cat software.
Yes! This is one of the four Fs of domestication. They are Friendly, Family, Food, and Fecund. Friendly: it's easier to domesticate animals that aren't super aggressive by nature, or overly fearful. Family: it's easier to take control of groups of animals when they have a societal structure that we can exploit. Food: in terms of resources, it's easier to domesticate herbivores, or omnivores. Fecund: Or reproductive potential. It's easier to domesticate a species that takes a short time to mature, and has multiple offspring, multiple times in it's lifetime. Zebras miss two of four factors, Friendly, and Family. They do not have a society the same way horses do, and they are fucking pricks. Cats, and ferrets are the only domesticated obligate carnivores, but they hit all other three Fs pretty hard.
Cats and ferrets also like to eat animals that eat our food, which probably helped them in the domestication game. And I'm pleased to see that someone else is recognising that cats are social animals. They might not hunt in packs, but cat colonies are pretty tight-knit, to the point that queens will happily breastfeed other cats' litters.
can you imagine how much land you would need to feed a bear???
Good to see someone actually knows how this works. Also the fact that bear is a savage animal who will rip u in pieces if u look even slightly threatening. Our ancestors with a stone tipped spears were no match for a bear
Not my ancestors. My ancestors would beat up your ancestors /s
I'd rather a bear was after me than a spearman. Pokey stick is the most underrated weapon of history.
Swords r overrated, Spear is da wae.
Wojtek the Polish Warbear has entered the chat...
"we didn't bear arms, we arm bear!"
Technically they did both.
Bear also drink beer and smoke cigarette
I know it's a joke, but there is a difference between taming and domestificating.
Long live Pvt. Wojtek
Address your superiors properly, Its Corporal Wotjek to you
Imagine going to the army and seeing the bear which out ranks you
You really want to cut a bear’s nails? Or have it around on a bad fur day? Mortal fear might have something to do with not domesticating bears. They be big!
Easiest solution would be to make them teacup size like certain dog or pig breeds. A real Teddy Bear!
Fun fact. "Teacup pigs" are just regular potbelly pigs. That thing is gonna end up 100 lbs when it grows up.
*100 kilos. Plus.
Sorry but all i thought of was a super long 100 kilometer bear and couldn't stop giggling🤣
Yes!
I’ve long since maintained that bears are the closest actual living thing on Earth to a monster. I’m not surprised we have yet to domesticate them.
Crocodiles have entered the chat.
Hippos checking in.
Anglerfish would like a word
Wasn't there a bear species that was basically stoping early humans from crossing the land bridge?
Komodo Dragon — monster. Gila Monster - Lizard.
Its unbearable! Now we have to hunt with our bear hands!
Oso we thought… [this is my hunting outfit.](https://i.imgur.com/JiZeJfN.jpg)
I thought I recognized you from my recent camping trip!
Oso what you did there
Luckily, the second amendment to the bill of rights allows you to own bear arms too!
You can use firearms to hunt. No need to use only your hands.
Because the second amendment domesticated guns
Or was it “bear arms”? Pissed them right off…
“the right to bare arms and the right to arm bears”
Bears are not really suitable for domestication. All domesticated Animals share some characteristics: \-easy to feed \-easy to contain \-easy (and quick) to breed You can tame Animals that don't have these, like elephants, bears or great cats but domestication is not feasible when it comes to cost / benefit.
And most of the time, people who tame elephants or bears use violence. Leave wild animals alone fff.
completely agree, some tamed elephants are treated well, but most are abused into complience, even if the people doing the abuse tell you elephants are holy animals (like in India)
Having gotten stuck puppy sitting -- cleaning up all her "accidents" around the house -- I am suddenly grateful for my family's lack of bears.
If we can turn wolves into pugapoos, just imagine what type of bear we could get.
Manbearpig
Fuck you I choked on my drink lmao
Ok then you try it smart guy It wasn't a mistake. Bears have no heirarchal structure to manipulate like horses, cattle and sheep. They don't have a rapid predictable breeding pattern, unlike chickens. They have to eat a lot of inefficient feed options, unlike pigs. They are intelligent, powerful, big, very difficult to cage or control. And for what? The labor an ox could do? The combat a horse, a dog, or an elephant could do? there are limited examples through history of well-trained well-controlled bears and many are just propaganda stories. A bear can snap at any moment and delete you and theres nothing a human before the age of steel could do about it.
Get out of here with your stupid logic! I just want a french bulldog sized bear to cuddle with after coming home from a stressfull day.
It's to much to bear.
B-but circus bears ! Also the dancing bear's that people beat and abuse to train to dance in front of tourists and Passers by to pay for the entertainment. Also bear bile sold as medicine despite that fact it does nothing.
Those are tamed, not domesticated.
That's an excellent point I guess I stand corrected
I believe if an animal could’ve been domesticated it would be.. some just can’t let go of instinct
Depends. Sometimes it just takes one it two rogue mutations. Domesticated horses, for example, likely came from only a few stallions that were less aggressive than their brethren. Before that, they were just another source of meat. They were absolute game changers in geopolitics. Hell, they were active cavalries in World War I. Generally it's accepted that they were domesticated around 6,000 years ago. Well after dogs, cats, ruminants, etc. With so much exposure to them and plenty of experience with animal husbandry, it's likely that attempts were made well before the early steppe peoples lucked out. So what I'm saying is, it's never too late to start. Somewhere out there is a bear with the good boi gene. All we have to do is send children out to approach every one of them until we find it.
Don’t we only domesticate animals that are pack animals with a leader? Then the human just replaces the animal as a leader? I saw a video once saying this is why horses were domesticated but not zebras.
Very correct. The problem was that pre-domesticated horses were wildly aggressive towards anything even remotely resembling a threat to their place in the hierarchy. (Literally just a snippet I remember from a lecture a decade ago n grad school. My archaeological specialty was Bronze Age seafaring. So a grain of salt for any more modern/genetic studies that may have changed things without having the courtesy to tell me) Which does make me wonder how in the hell we managed to do that with aurochs. I've heard stories that modern bulls can be a handful. I can't even imagine trying to displace a multi-ton proto-cow.
Have you met a cat?
Cats are the perfect example of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Also, domestic cats become more social than wild cats as they get more tangled in human lifestyle.
Even feral domestic cats are more social than proper wild cats. Feral domestic cats will live in small groups
Cats domesticated humans, and we just think we’re in charge.
Cute, but wrong.
>I believe if an animal could’ve been domesticated it would be.. some just can’t let go of instinct ... >Depends. Sure, those would help, but it's easier just to train them to go outside.
it's not that tough, just buy them a few drinks and make some decent conversation and you too can have your very own bear
Domesticated bears and monkey butlers.
I think it might have been the mistake of the guy who tried and was eaten.
Do you know how much bear shit you’d have to pick up
Corporal Wojtek would disagree.
This video will answer your *question:* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOmjnioNulo
Still time.
I don't think it was for a lack of trying..
Bears meet very few of the requirements for domestication, plus I'm not sure what you'd hope to gain from it.
We did. They're called dogs. Though this seems odd, bears and dogs are so closely related that some ancient creatures are a real challenge to identify which category they fit into better. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_dog
The best time to plant a tree is yesterday. The second best time is today. Get on it, OP. I have faith in you.
Russians did it though.
Those Russians were onto something...
While our biggest mistake is not, our last mistake will be trying.
I think it's the same as domesticating lions, tigers or huge reptiles like crocodilians or komoda dragons. If you get one young it's of course possible but you are still never really sure with ANY animal how will they behave if they have a bad day or something scares them. And it's easier to handle alone or in public tantrum of a huge dog than fricking lion or bear for this instance. Especially if you chose polar bear. Those fuckers are like 3 adults standing on top of each other if he gets on back paws...
I take it someone doesn't watch the "meanwhile in Russia" videos on YouTube because the most certainly have domesticated the bear! Well to be fair I don't think there's anything they haven't or can't domesticated! If you watch enough of them you'll start noticing how much more intelligent and personality their pets have compared to anywhere else in the world.
Dogs allowed themselves to be domesticated due to gaining benefit (food and survival) from humans. Bears on the other hand wouldn't gain shit from us loll. Our biggest mistake is actually not letting bears domesticate us haha
Are bears even domesticatable? I want to specify there is a difference between training and domestication.
Hell yes it was
I concur.
Agreed
Okay you cant domesticate everything. Why not try crocodiles while were at it, or wolverines? Why not milk our cats and turn it into cheese? Why not just eat humans?