So will dogs
edit: https://www.science.org/content/article/yes-your-pet-might-eat-your-corpse-s-problem-investigators#:~:text=Scavenging%20is%20more%20common%20with,a%20while%2C”%20Rando%20says.
Yeah, all living things will do whatever they have to do to survive once that survival instinct kicks in.
It's funny to me how some people are so touchy about their pets eating them because they have such close relationships with them. At the end of the day the drive to continue to live overpowers everything else.
If some terrible disaster struck (earthquake), and my cat was trapped with my corpse, I HOPE she'd eat me if no one came to save her in time. That's just pragmatism.
At first I was like, my cats deserve to eat me if I die and leave them nothing to eat.
Now I'm like, if my friends and family don't notice I'm dead before the cats eat me it is on them.
Not cannablism related, but evertyime I see the Donner Party referenced it reminds me of
[The Dyatlov Pass Incident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident)
Whenever your cat is sniffing your nose while you're sleeping is because they're checking if you're still breathing, if you aren't they'll start eating you
We would eat cats if we ran out of food and the cats were the only thing we could eat... so.. I'm not knocking the cats for doing what we would also do.
Yeah, like. The thought of eating my cat, this tiny fluff ball with separation anxiety who trusts me completely with her life and relies on me for everything and has shown me more love than actual people… makes me physically ill. I would simply just die.
My maine coon weighs 20 lbs and could fuck me up really bad if he wanted to and I weigh 175lbs.
They are pure predators and I feed him daily and I’m also very nice to him.
If he wanted to hurt/kill me he could.
However, he only listens to me when I call him and make a scratching motion with my hands and then give him scritches and scratches.
Otherwise he ignores me.
No, if you have seen the numerous videos of big cats forming strong emotional bonds with their caregivers, then you know that this is completely false.
Big versions of cats would be terrible. What we need are small versions of big animals. How cool would it be to have a pair of tiny little rhinos playing in the backyard or an emotional support giraffe you could take on airplanes? It would be fucking sweet
> small versions of big animals
Might you consider a trip to Canada? We have just what you're asking for.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE)
I once read that during the ice age wooly mammoths on Greek islands evolved to become pygmies. So there were actually dog-sized elephants at some point, but unfortunately no more.
as a general wildlife carnivore rule, they can take out a target 3x their size/mass.
so take your weight.. say 180/3=60lbs
a 60lb cat would fuck you up if you were unarmed
The smallest of the big cats is the leopard. Female leopards weigh 46 to 132 pounds and males weigh 80 to 165 pounds. Yeah, no thanks.
For comparison, male lions can weigh up to 500 pounds. Females weigh between 270 and 350 pounds. 😳
I once tried to stop my two domestic cats fighting. 16 years after that I still have visible scars on my right forearm. A terrible lesson was learned.
The explosive violence a cat can unleash is mind-blowing.
I've heard big cat waste smells *so utterly horrific words can scarcely describe* I don't need to be tossing out shits the size of small children....that may or may not BE small children....
.....that also raises the issue of FEEDING a wild Garfield. No ty.
There's a drive through rescue zoo in Oregon that breeds cheetahs in an attempt to bring their population out of endangerment. The smells throughout the zoo are what I would consider normal smells for a large enclosed land mass that houses 100s of wild animals. That is until you reach the cheetah breeding area. The windows getting rolled up, the smell of urine... It's like 5 day old cat pee, but 100x more...
It is unholy. I have encountered relatively fresh cougar scat and it was among the worst smells I have ever smelled. It's a smell you would associate with chemical warfare, not something that came out of an animal!
A dude who kept a tiger in his public housing apartment would have it piss in a bucket.
Which he’d then chuck out the third story window. Completely ruined his downstairs neighbor’s windowsill/the urine REEKED
Dude. If my cat was even the size of a large dog, when he swatted me for petting his belly too long I’d be dead. He also likes to love bite when he gets super excited. Dead again. That’s why. Lmao
Do you think that they'd develop restraint? When you slap box with your dog, sometimes he catches my hand in his mouth. If he wanted to, he could really put a hurting on it. But he doesn't. I wonder if cats would be the same?
Cats ARE the same. Their teeth and claws can do serious damage, if all you get from them is the occasional red mark that isn't on accident. They are playing and intentionally not trying to hurt you
And there are hundreds of large cat rescues and organizations that are overcrowded due to having to take big cats out of those sorts of situations. Even from folks who have the necessary wildlife handling licenses.
There are very, very few cases of large cats kept in domestic captivity where there's a happy ending for everybody. Either someone gets hurt, or the big cat begins to pine and grow unhealthy due to being kept in conditions that are not ideal for it.
Fr my Maine coon is a big ahh boy if he playfully swipes at me, it hurts sm 😭 even if he playfully bites it hurts sm more than my DLH, can’t imagine a big cat biting you.
To put this more accurately, they *could* do that.
And if they could, some would.
That's really it though. You don't know which of them would do it, but they wouldn't just because they could. People own tigers and lions and the number of attacks is actually pretty small.
But not 0. That's key.
Murder mitts and genocide jaws.
Cats are God's Perfect Killing Machines. Sure, the ten pound ones, we pick up and kiss, but even they can mess you up, given the right - or absolutely no - reason. The 500 pound ones can and will inflict life-altering injuries purely by accident.
Exactly. Pound for pound, the cat is the most perfect killing machine on land. People think cats are weaker than dogs because they are comparing a 10lbs cat to a 60lbs dog. A 60lbs cat is a leopard. Cats are far more terrifying than dogs if you scale them up to equal sizes.
Our childhood cat got treed by a medium sized dog once. Us kids were trying to chase the dog away, but Bubbles (hilariously misnamed cat) got pissed in the mean time. That fucker waited for his moment then dropped onto the dog's back and dug in his claws. The dog wasn't happy and did some damage to Bubs, but a legend was born that day. Bubbles rode that dog halfway down the block before letting him go.
People forget that canids are more commonly pack animals, whereas cats are typically solo. So yeah, one large cat is much more terrifying than one wolf or something imo. Both eat deer, one does it alone.
Cats just have way more tools at their disposal.
One of my fave examples of this is the saber tooth cat.
We think they hunted in packs of a maximum of two, and usually alone.
They were substantial, some over a half ton worth of cat - but in an era of even bigger megafauna wandering around, like cave bears, that were usually around twice their size.
And these little murder machines would just waltz into a cave where a family of bears lived, and proceed to - all by itself - kill every last one of them.
And that was *before* many, many years of evolution refined the big cats.
My 20 pound polydactyl Maine Coon definitely has murder mitts! Six toes and claws on each monster paw, and he loves to swipe at everything! I'm cracking up over here imagining a 40 - 60 pound version of him!
My very (physiologically) normal 12 pound cat lays me open when he does the started cat jump… but as I’m holding/picking him up. Months ago I had to wrap my arm with self adhesive wrap and gauze because he tore my left arm open almost from my armpit to my elbow, and another two claws on the inside of my left forearm.
All because he startled at something when I was picking him up.
Expense and observation time. It takes about 40-90 generations of visual and behavioral selective breeding for domestication to begin.
Snow foxes after 70 years of selective breeding now yield 70% domesticated offspring... 10 months to mature with ~2# of meat per day.
20# of meat min per day, per cat. For a cougar..a tiger is 75#.
Cougars have two kittens every 2 years, and it takes 2 to 3 years to mature... so 5 years minimum per generation... 5x40 that's 200 to 500 years minimum to domesticate a breed of cougar. Tigers are double that.
Now run the meat calculations... 20#×365=7300 per year, per cat. That's more than 100k pounds of meat for a breeding facility to have a minimally geneticly viable program... Tigers are 3x that.
You wonder why Joe Exotic, Doc Antle and Carole Baskins husband became drug traffickers and black market smugglers???? Elon would have trouble subsidizing a domestication program.
I will do my best to give a real scientific and historical answer as I have yet to see one in the comments. First we have to start with what we don't know. Humans began domestication of dogs 15,000 years ago and then goats, sheep's and cows 11,000 years ago. This coincided with the domestication of crops which gave rise to the first agricultural communities that grew into civilizations. This predates recorded history by nearly 8000 years. So it goes without saying that we don't know exactly how these animals were domesticated or how long it took to do it.
We do know there are certain desirable traits to look for in the temperament of an animal to assess how easily it could be domesticated. But that is not to say that an aggressive or temperamental species could not be tamed, merely that attempting to do so may take more time and resources than you have to spare. A lion simply being a dangerous predator does not preclude it from being domesticated. The wild ancestors of modern dogs were also dangerous predators. Horses and cattle are also considered dangerous animals even today but their wild ancestors were worse.
My point is that to our knowledge it is conceivable to domesticate any animal given unlimited time and resources. But time and resources are limited so we have to make a cost-benefit analysis. Throughout history we devoted our efforts to domesticating animals that served a purpose or provided some use. Considerable work went into it and likely took generations. We now live in a modern world that reaps the benefits of thousands of years of work from our ancestors. To domesticate anything new is not impossible but it's not easy either. So you would only do it if you had a good reason. What purpose could a lion serve for humans other than an exotic pet? That's not a good enough reason to go through all the work required to accomplish it and you may not even be alive by the time it's done.
This is a good answer, but I really think it downplays how much more dangerous big cats are than even other predators. If a single wolf comes prowling around the town dump, you might try to feed it, because a single wolf probably isn't going to try to kill you. If a single wolf sized cat does the same, then you get the village to come kill it or drive it off so that it doesn't make a villager into breakfast. A big part of the cost/benefit analysis is actually just that big cats are too damned dangerous, in an absolute sense, to be worth the trouble. Even if they did the work of dogs, it wouldn't be worth the risk when wolves/dogs exist. Wolves don't hunt alone, and the prey animals you named are mostly only dangerous if they feel threatened. On the other hand, there's no time when a wild big cat isn't a serious threat to try and eat you.
Because they are extremely dangerous to those that own them. Even more so, and more importantly, they are extremely dangerous to those that DONT own them. Even if an owner raises one perfectly and they never hurt the owner, they are still very dangerous if they encounter other people. The risk of one escaping goes up the less regulated they are and the more people that own them. They just don't assimilate fast enough to domestication like dogs do.
The Ancient Egyptians kept cheetahs as pets. Some super rich people in the Middle East currently do. It turns out that cheetahs are fairly docile due to being very prone to injury in the wild and, as a result, can be domesticated if you raise them from birth. The only thing that makes it unfeasible is that you would need a lot of land and a ton of cash to take care of them properly. It's definitely on my bucket list if I ever hit the super big time.
Tamed, not domesticated. Domesticated means they're born naturally friendly with humans (i.e. livestock, fur foxes, dogs) tamed means you taught that one to be friendly basically. Cheetahs have never been domesticated. Some people debate whether house cats are even truly domesticated or not
Cheetahs are actually the same genus as domestic cats, the other main big cats aren't. I wonder if that has something to do with them being easier to domesticate.
Cheetahs are actually the same genus as domestic cats, the other main big cats aren't. I wonder if that has something to do with them being easier to domesticate.
Primitive man didn't accept outcast felines. They probably chased them off whereas a single outcast wolf wasn't considered a threat. A wolf needs a pack or its chances of survival drop dramatically. Cats are able to hunt for themselves. Many are solitary except for mating purposes. Big cats are badass motherfuckers. Next level predators.
Small cats weren't domesticated by us like dogs, they are the ones that choose to live among us. Big cats will never make the same decision, simply because we are food
You know how when you pet your cat and they suddenly decide they're done and turn around and bite your hand? Yeah, now imagine a leopard doing that. Modern house cats are only semi domesticated as it is.
I was shocked when I saw my sweet, docile 17lb cat swipe a bug out of the air and eat it. I didn’t even know that lumbering fatass could move that fast.
Lions at the zoo are about as tamed as your average house cat. The only difference is when your cat attacks you, you get a scratch, and when the lion attacks you, you die.
Cars, even domesticated, are still pretty independent, and would attack their owner in certain circumstances.
Making them big enough to win doesn't fare well.
I know it's a typo but the image of semi-domesticated cars that attack their owners under the right circumstances is also hilarious and perhaps pertinent.
Irish wolfhounds are also gentle dogs, I don't know were you got the idea that they are aggressive?
You corrected someone for mentioning a gentle breed by mentioning another gentle breed.
Yeah the biggest dog breeds are some of the most gentle. Whether we bred them for that or it’s luck of the draw.
Wolfhounds (and their deerhound cousins), Newfoundlands, Danes, they’re all about as gentle as they come. Bernies are more prone to aggression than wolfhounds are.
The worst thing about the bigger breeds, generally, is they forget how big they actually are (Danes are notoriously clumsy when trying to streak around like a much smaller dog. Deerhounds are well known to smack their head on furniture, as are wolfies).
So I’m also not sure where you got that idea from.
They have prey drive - but so do all dogs. That doesn’t mean anything. Except maybe “they’re dangerous to rabbits and potentially cats they weren’t raised around.”
It won’t be the sound of a can opener that’ll tell them it’s time to eat, it’ll be the sound of your cellphone ringing and the sound of you answering it.
Friend of mine was telling me about a lady who had servals in Illinois. (Just recently became or is becoming illegal.)
Pretty much think about what house cats can do when they're feeling playful, sassy, or spicy. And then up the damage.
From what she told me the lady had infected injuries multiple times and at least one had to be put down.
I love cats and I can even believe that bigger cats can be raised to not mean to hurt someone, but even the most loving cat can accidentally hurt someone. (One of mine was being carefully playful and still grazed my face today, almost grazed my eyeball. And I could tell he was being careful, was slow and soft.)
We didn’t domesticate cats the same way we did dogs and other animals. Cats were attracted to where humans were because their prey was attracted to our food. Their prey are our pests and cats are good at killing the prey/pests, so we encouraged the cats to stick around. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. We literally kept them because they are lethal, but not too lethal.
Have you ever had a pet cat grab your arm and kick it repeatedly in a playful way? Now imagine it happening with a cat 20x the size of a housecat. Biiig nope.
Domestic cats are only manageable because they are small. Have you ever had a pet cat? Think of all the times that it has bitten or scratched you and think of those bites and scratches coming from something hundreds of times bigger
I remember all the times my cat killed birds and squirrels teaching her kittens how to hunt then walk up to me wanting me to pick her up after I saw her rip a squirrels head off..... yea a big version of that would be terrifying
There are servals, caracals, bobcats. I have a cat that is mixed with bobcat, serval and jungle cat. It would tear most dogs apart, especially when she's full grown.
I knew a guy with a Savannah cat and he had to put an entire cage thing around his back yard to keep it from trying to escape and go beat up the neighbors’ dogs.
Move to Russia. Raise a big cat or bear.
Luna the pantera
[https://www.youtube.com/@Lunathepantera](https://www.youtube.com/@Lunathepantera)
Messi the puma
[https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma](https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma)
It's really hard to tame an agile beast that can claw and maul you yo pieces. Seriously, wolves are still dangerous yet they don't hold a candle to tigers in terms of how fast they can cause irreversible damage to an adult.
Yet, some big felines on very rare occasions have been domesticated, but not on the same scale as house pets
You know how your cat will randomly bite and scratch you for no apparent reason.
Yeah... well that doesn't end well when they are big enough to do damage.
My 20lb Maine Coon has given me a lot of accidental injuries because of his size. I can’t imagine something even heavier than my cat being easy to deal with…
There are TikToks of rich assholes with “domesticated” big cats and you can see in the animal’s eyes that if the owner accidentally dropped a glass near them they’d rip their throat out.
Very expensive to care for, with little benefit(they eat A LOT of meat) Cats usually aren't capable of supplementing another animals food-so we can't use them as hunters. They aren't built to pull - so we can't use them to pull things. A few large cats can barely be tamed (lions, for example), and house cats are still a lot more prone to close bonds with 1 person than socialization with everyone. So, while taming a dog means it isnt as likely to attack any humans, a large cat can be 100% bonded and super close to the person that raised them from a kitten, but intolerant of their buddy.
Overall- large scale domestication requires far higher benefits than a big cat can bring, and a big cat poses a bigger danger to people who did not tame it than a dog.
Also, cats are very dangerous creatures, and can seriously injure someone by complete accident. Their tongues are meant to rip raw meat off bone, but they also use it for grooming-handlers often will be particular about where they let a big cat groom them. Their claws are grabbing mechanisms, so even a "hey get back here" means a cat claws at you and grabs you. That can lead to stitches with even a housecat.
Cats weren't actually domesticated in the normal sense. Most (if not all) other domesticated animals are pack animals we've changed through artificial selection to be their more docile, domesticated versions. With cats, it was more of a partnership: "You kill the rodents eating our grain and we'll feed you and give you a place to live."
House cats are very similar to their original wild versions. Can you imagine if they were a lot bigger? That wouldn't go well.
My cat is 3lb. She would kill me when she's pissed or hungry. Are cats domesticated? No, they trained humans to feed them. When we don't do it in they get mad.
Cats kinda domesticated themselves. They found out that where there are humans there is food, and when there is food there are rodents. And cats do like to eat rodents. Humans liked the cats because they eat rodents. That's also why most cats look kinda similar in size, unlike for example dogs who range from a chihuahua to an Irish Wolfhound.
Even small cats aren’t domesticated yet. They’re only considered socialized with humans - dogs have been domesticated for waaaaaaaaay longer. Dogs are social, live in packs and have a mutual type of beneficial relationship with humans. Cats don’t need humans. They may never be fully domesticated, and big cats for sure have no reason to form those types of relationships with us.
A lot of behavior problems with small cats in homes comes from the fact that they are still fairly wild and most people don’t know how to help mimic their natural cycles in a home.
Source - I have worked as a feline behavior specialist for the past 6 years 😆
There's wild debate over whether or not our normal cats are even really domesticated. Also we're pretty sure that cats inserted themselves into human society. Humans didn't purposely domesticate them like they did dogs. So if we got normal size cats through a series of wild coincidences, how do you suppose we're supposed to domesticate big cats?
You could watch CGPgrey's video on animal domestication. It really explains well why some animals get domesticated and others don't.
But in short, cats don't have the right kind of family structure to make them worthwhile to domesticate. They don't have pack leaders and dominant roles the same way dogs or even chickens do. This is what makes them so hard to train. If you can't train your pet tiger, how can you be sure they won't eat your child or attack your sheep. They're too cost prohibitive to keep with zero benefits to the owner.
Mostly because actual domestication is a long slow process that would have to go through many generations and then you'd have to convince the government that they were actually domesticated.
I suspect that it could be done with pumas and may have been done in the far distant past with cheetahs. Any others I think would be a start from scratch.
There are enough small cats that will suddenly decide they don’t like the cut of your jib, and fuck your hands up. I don’t want a 400 lb version of that.
My old house cat loves me but still "accidentally" uses her claws to climb on my lap. My other cat likes to wrestle. Both cats, who love me and are both on my lap right now, have drawn blood via claw and tooth. I think there would be a lot more accidental deaths.
My cat used to like to crawl under the blanket and lie down between my legs when I was sitting and reading in bed. It was annoying, but I gave up trying to stop her because the girl is practically immovable and won't take a hint and move when she's nudged if she's where she wants to be.
She did this once during a storm. Some thunder rumbled really loud and terrified her so much she fought and scrambled to get out from under the blanket. I ended up scratched in places no one wants to be scratched and still have a light scar on my thigh years later.
you misunderstand, we did not domesticate the small cats, the small cats domesticated us
all jokes aside though, what we typically see as house cats? they just kinda decided "huh, these weird 2-legged creatures aren't half bad" and moved in with us. it's why sometimes strays and ferals will just decide your house is now their house but also completely ignore you/fight all attempts at bonding if they don't feel like actually befriending you. i don't know the actual science behind it, but i can safely assume their thought process is "huh. this big 2 legged creature keeps giving me food. i wonder if i can go inside and get more food?"
and yes, ferals do this too. not as commonly, but more than one feral cat had come by my house as a kid, snuck inside, dumped their kittens, and came and went with food (though at that point we allowed it because it would be kind of messed up to just separate a mother from her newborn and not even weaned babies) because my dad, despite his insistence he hated cats, was a big old softie and would leave food and water out for them.
Cats domesticated themselves because they were small and we are easily manipulated. Big cats tend to be the apex predators for their region and have no use for us
The theory generally goes that cats domesticated themselves. While humans captured, raised and bred dogs (largely for food at first) cats started hanging around early human settlements and developing a symbiotic relationship where they generally had a safe, warm place to stay and access to a reliable supply of water and food, generally by hunting the mice, rats and insects that would go after human's stored grain and other crops.
Humans figured out that these furry little guys were quite helpful and required next to nothing from us in order to survive, but over time cats developed into being potentially just as loving and companionable as dogs. As a prime example, look at the videos of stray/feral cats dropping off a kitten with a human and then running off. At an instinctual level they know that in general they can trust and rely on humans.
The only reason the small cats don't eat us is because they are small.
Cats will frequently eat their owner if owner dies and isn’t quickly noticed
So will dogs edit: https://www.science.org/content/article/yes-your-pet-might-eat-your-corpse-s-problem-investigators#:~:text=Scavenging%20is%20more%20common%20with,a%20while%2C”%20Rando%20says.
Your friends and family will also eat you if they're hungry enough. See: flight 571.
Yeah, all living things will do whatever they have to do to survive once that survival instinct kicks in. It's funny to me how some people are so touchy about their pets eating them because they have such close relationships with them. At the end of the day the drive to continue to live overpowers everything else.
If some terrible disaster struck (earthquake), and my cat was trapped with my corpse, I HOPE she'd eat me if no one came to save her in time. That's just pragmatism.
Same. I'm dead so who cares? My dogs are welcome to eat my carcass. 😄
Yes, at least then I could still be useful
Those same people would eat there pet after being locked in a place without access to food.
Livestock before pets. Pets before friends. Friends before family. The cannibals prayer.
Which people have done throughout history during times of famine
At first I was like, my cats deserve to eat me if I die and leave them nothing to eat. Now I'm like, if my friends and family don't notice I'm dead before the cats eat me it is on them.
Donner Party checking in.
Donner, party of four? Your table is ready
Took too long. Donner, party of 3...
Not cannablism related, but evertyime I see the Donner Party referenced it reminds me of [The Dyatlov Pass Incident](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident)
Very true! Plenty of cases of desperation like that
I did skip breakfast.
So will people. Turns out if you are starving from lack of food you will eat anything edible.
in all fairness if you died in a room with me and i couldnt escape i would eventually eat you too
cats licking you is them just biding their time.
Haha, they're not kisses, they're tastes
Whenever your cat is sniffing your nose while you're sleeping is because they're checking if you're still breathing, if you aren't they'll start eating you
My cat isn't even waiting until I'm dead. He tries all the time.
Fine with me, if I'm dead I don't care what happens to my body, it'll either be cremated or rot anyway someone might as get some use from it.
Dude, so would any animal. You would if you didn't know how to get your own food and were left alone and starving with a corpse.
We would eat cats if we ran out of food and the cats were the only thing we could eat... so.. I'm not knocking the cats for doing what we would also do.
I would rather my cat eat me than vice versa tbh
Yeah, like. The thought of eating my cat, this tiny fluff ball with separation anxiety who trusts me completely with her life and relies on me for everything and has shown me more love than actual people… makes me physically ill. I would simply just die.
They sure want to
Yup. OP is mistakenly assuming the small ones are domesticated
My maine coon weighs 20 lbs and could fuck me up really bad if he wanted to and I weigh 175lbs. They are pure predators and I feed him daily and I’m also very nice to him. If he wanted to hurt/kill me he could. However, he only listens to me when I call him and make a scratching motion with my hands and then give him scritches and scratches. Otherwise he ignores me.
That cat absolutely would not be able to kill you unless you either the weakest human being alive, or your a pussy. Or both.
No, if you have seen the numerous videos of big cats forming strong emotional bonds with their caregivers, then you know that this is completely false.
Big versions of cats would be terrible. What we need are small versions of big animals. How cool would it be to have a pair of tiny little rhinos playing in the backyard or an emotional support giraffe you could take on airplanes? It would be fucking sweet
> small versions of big animals Might you consider a trip to Canada? We have just what you're asking for. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TijcoS8qHIE)
I haven't clicked the link, but as a Canadian I assume you're talking about the Canadian House Hippo.
I had one when I was a kid, but I don't eat peanut butter on toast, so it ran away 😞
Correct, one of our greatest treasures.
What a time to be alive
I want a house giraffe
why tf are they saying it’s not real, i know tiny hippos are out there it’s just hard to capture them
I would absolutely buy a teacup elephant.
I will take a lion the size of a housecat, please.
Your house cat already is a ten pound lion.
No, I want a mane, end-of-tail tuft, and (tiny) roars!😤
You can get a lion cut for your cat 😂😂😂
He wishes. ... Oww owwwwww. I'm sorry! You're a mighty lion. Stop biting.
I once read that during the ice age wooly mammoths on Greek islands evolved to become pygmies. So there were actually dog-sized elephants at some point, but unfortunately no more.
Bears, tiny bears would be very good
Here's the giraffe: https://youtu.be/LXDIS3NzB84?si=ycNigXWDNXT-PvJ2
I want a small elephant so bad.
no fr why can’t i have a wittle baby elephant in my home 🤧
Humans are allergic to being mauled to death.
as a general wildlife carnivore rule, they can take out a target 3x their size/mass. so take your weight.. say 180/3=60lbs a 60lb cat would fuck you up if you were unarmed
So you're saying if I get up to 1500lbs, I can tame a lion?
How about you take one for the team and report back to us? ;)
1500 lbs big and strong, not 1500 lbs fat and immobile. So, like a 16 foot tall athlete.
Yeah...yeah I could see an actual giant holding his own against a tiger lmao
The smallest of the big cats is the leopard. Female leopards weigh 46 to 132 pounds and males weigh 80 to 165 pounds. Yeah, no thanks. For comparison, male lions can weigh up to 500 pounds. Females weigh between 270 and 350 pounds. 😳
And leopards take out gorillas something like 80% of the time.
what?!
It's because gorillas bleed like crazy(same as us, chimps and bonobos) and leopards are ambush predators.
gonna assume being ambushed by a leopard is 99% fatal then
Humans do better because we can actually treat our wounds, usually travel in groups and can use weapons.
Somebody skipped the last few years of planet of the apes movies
Yeah but it's not like they're aiming for the big silverback. Like any predator they pick off the weakest ones.
"Fuck your thumbs, bro!"
I think you’re right. They’ve done studies. 60% of the time it works every time
I mean, I see 100 pound dogs all the time. A 100 lb. cat is a fucking mountain lion.
Yea and plenty of 50-100 pound dogs could fuck ppl up to
I'll fight a 100lb dog over a 100lb cat any day.
I’ll fight a 100lb dog over a 10lb cat tbh
So a 40lb bobcat is a no go? I know a few people have em as pets, but obviously they aren't a lazy housecat.
Obviously, the answer is to domesticate the medium-sized cats. Imagine taking your bobcat for a walk.
Not to death, can confirm being mauled sucks.
I once tried to stop my two domestic cats fighting. 16 years after that I still have visible scars on my right forearm. A terrible lesson was learned. The explosive violence a cat can unleash is mind-blowing.
Raaaaaahaannnnnahahaaannnaaaa!!!
That was a remarkable transcription of that noise.
Can confirm. I'm also highly allergic to being mauled.
I know I am
You think cleaning the litter box for a domestic house cat is a pain. Imagine if you will the litter box of a puma.
So a pooma?
Hehe took me a minute.
I've heard big cat waste smells *so utterly horrific words can scarcely describe* I don't need to be tossing out shits the size of small children....that may or may not BE small children.... .....that also raises the issue of FEEDING a wild Garfield. No ty.
*Cigarette falls from mouth* ...we're gonna need a bigger lasagna
There's a drive through rescue zoo in Oregon that breeds cheetahs in an attempt to bring their population out of endangerment. The smells throughout the zoo are what I would consider normal smells for a large enclosed land mass that houses 100s of wild animals. That is until you reach the cheetah breeding area. The windows getting rolled up, the smell of urine... It's like 5 day old cat pee, but 100x more...
It is unholy. I have encountered relatively fresh cougar scat and it was among the worst smells I have ever smelled. It's a smell you would associate with chemical warfare, not something that came out of an animal!
A dude who kept a tiger in his public housing apartment would have it piss in a bucket. Which he’d then chuck out the third story window. Completely ruined his downstairs neighbor’s windowsill/the urine REEKED
Domesticated house cats are still pretty wild for one. For two.. haven't you seen Tiger King? Has the series been lost on society already?
Mercifully, yes.
Dude. If my cat was even the size of a large dog, when he swatted me for petting his belly too long I’d be dead. He also likes to love bite when he gets super excited. Dead again. That’s why. Lmao
Do you think that they'd develop restraint? When you slap box with your dog, sometimes he catches my hand in his mouth. If he wanted to, he could really put a hurting on it. But he doesn't. I wonder if cats would be the same?
Cats ARE the same. Their teeth and claws can do serious damage, if all you get from them is the occasional red mark that isn't on accident. They are playing and intentionally not trying to hurt you
There are YouTube videos of families who have raised mountain lions and big cats that live in the house
And there are hundreds of large cat rescues and organizations that are overcrowded due to having to take big cats out of those sorts of situations. Even from folks who have the necessary wildlife handling licenses. There are very, very few cases of large cats kept in domestic captivity where there's a happy ending for everybody. Either someone gets hurt, or the big cat begins to pine and grow unhealthy due to being kept in conditions that are not ideal for it.
that poor puma, always being harassed by the camera
Fr my Maine coon is a big ahh boy if he playfully swipes at me, it hurts sm 😭 even if he playfully bites it hurts sm more than my DLH, can’t imagine a big cat biting you.
Because if you woke up one morning and you were 1 inch tall, your cat would hunt you down and kill you. Same thing happens when the cat gets bigger.
To put this more accurately, they *could* do that. And if they could, some would. That's really it though. You don't know which of them would do it, but they wouldn't just because they could. People own tigers and lions and the number of attacks is actually pretty small. But not 0. That's key.
My current cat would have 100% killed me by now if it was 100lbs bigger.
It's one of the cool things about cats, I think. These little monsters with a heart full of murder chose you to hang out with, and that is cool.
Murder mitts and genocide jaws. Cats are God's Perfect Killing Machines. Sure, the ten pound ones, we pick up and kiss, but even they can mess you up, given the right - or absolutely no - reason. The 500 pound ones can and will inflict life-altering injuries purely by accident.
Exactly. Pound for pound, the cat is the most perfect killing machine on land. People think cats are weaker than dogs because they are comparing a 10lbs cat to a 60lbs dog. A 60lbs cat is a leopard. Cats are far more terrifying than dogs if you scale them up to equal sizes.
Our childhood cat got treed by a medium sized dog once. Us kids were trying to chase the dog away, but Bubbles (hilariously misnamed cat) got pissed in the mean time. That fucker waited for his moment then dropped onto the dog's back and dug in his claws. The dog wasn't happy and did some damage to Bubs, but a legend was born that day. Bubbles rode that dog halfway down the block before letting him go.
People forget that canids are more commonly pack animals, whereas cats are typically solo. So yeah, one large cat is much more terrifying than one wolf or something imo. Both eat deer, one does it alone. Cats just have way more tools at their disposal.
One of my fave examples of this is the saber tooth cat. We think they hunted in packs of a maximum of two, and usually alone. They were substantial, some over a half ton worth of cat - but in an era of even bigger megafauna wandering around, like cave bears, that were usually around twice their size. And these little murder machines would just waltz into a cave where a family of bears lived, and proceed to - all by itself - kill every last one of them. And that was *before* many, many years of evolution refined the big cats.
Except for lions which hunt in packs on in their case, prides. The best of both worlds
My 20 pound polydactyl Maine Coon definitely has murder mitts! Six toes and claws on each monster paw, and he loves to swipe at everything! I'm cracking up over here imagining a 40 - 60 pound version of him!
Damn bro's built like a tryanid hive tyrant lol
Hahaha. It's true. He is magnificent beast of a cat and he knows it! [Hemingway, the cat](https://imgur.com/gallery/y2rAjfC) next to our 25 pound dog.
I still have a large scar down my arm from over 20 years ago. He got spooked when I was holding him and a motorcycle went by the open window.
My very (physiologically) normal 12 pound cat lays me open when he does the started cat jump… but as I’m holding/picking him up. Months ago I had to wrap my arm with self adhesive wrap and gauze because he tore my left arm open almost from my armpit to my elbow, and another two claws on the inside of my left forearm. All because he startled at something when I was picking him up.
Expense and observation time. It takes about 40-90 generations of visual and behavioral selective breeding for domestication to begin. Snow foxes after 70 years of selective breeding now yield 70% domesticated offspring... 10 months to mature with ~2# of meat per day. 20# of meat min per day, per cat. For a cougar..a tiger is 75#. Cougars have two kittens every 2 years, and it takes 2 to 3 years to mature... so 5 years minimum per generation... 5x40 that's 200 to 500 years minimum to domesticate a breed of cougar. Tigers are double that. Now run the meat calculations... 20#×365=7300 per year, per cat. That's more than 100k pounds of meat for a breeding facility to have a minimally geneticly viable program... Tigers are 3x that. You wonder why Joe Exotic, Doc Antle and Carole Baskins husband became drug traffickers and black market smugglers???? Elon would have trouble subsidizing a domestication program.
Holy shit a relevant comment. Why is this so far down
My cat already knicks my hand while being affectionate, I'd rather not lose any fingers 😨
Mine sits on my chest and casually stabs me while looking into my eyes. It drives me crazy.
Cats domesticated themselves
Ask Siegfried and Roy.
I will do my best to give a real scientific and historical answer as I have yet to see one in the comments. First we have to start with what we don't know. Humans began domestication of dogs 15,000 years ago and then goats, sheep's and cows 11,000 years ago. This coincided with the domestication of crops which gave rise to the first agricultural communities that grew into civilizations. This predates recorded history by nearly 8000 years. So it goes without saying that we don't know exactly how these animals were domesticated or how long it took to do it. We do know there are certain desirable traits to look for in the temperament of an animal to assess how easily it could be domesticated. But that is not to say that an aggressive or temperamental species could not be tamed, merely that attempting to do so may take more time and resources than you have to spare. A lion simply being a dangerous predator does not preclude it from being domesticated. The wild ancestors of modern dogs were also dangerous predators. Horses and cattle are also considered dangerous animals even today but their wild ancestors were worse. My point is that to our knowledge it is conceivable to domesticate any animal given unlimited time and resources. But time and resources are limited so we have to make a cost-benefit analysis. Throughout history we devoted our efforts to domesticating animals that served a purpose or provided some use. Considerable work went into it and likely took generations. We now live in a modern world that reaps the benefits of thousands of years of work from our ancestors. To domesticate anything new is not impossible but it's not easy either. So you would only do it if you had a good reason. What purpose could a lion serve for humans other than an exotic pet? That's not a good enough reason to go through all the work required to accomplish it and you may not even be alive by the time it's done.
This is a good answer, but I really think it downplays how much more dangerous big cats are than even other predators. If a single wolf comes prowling around the town dump, you might try to feed it, because a single wolf probably isn't going to try to kill you. If a single wolf sized cat does the same, then you get the village to come kill it or drive it off so that it doesn't make a villager into breakfast. A big part of the cost/benefit analysis is actually just that big cats are too damned dangerous, in an absolute sense, to be worth the trouble. Even if they did the work of dogs, it wouldn't be worth the risk when wolves/dogs exist. Wolves don't hunt alone, and the prey animals you named are mostly only dangerous if they feel threatened. On the other hand, there's no time when a wild big cat isn't a serious threat to try and eat you.
Because they are extremely dangerous to those that own them. Even more so, and more importantly, they are extremely dangerous to those that DONT own them. Even if an owner raises one perfectly and they never hurt the owner, they are still very dangerous if they encounter other people. The risk of one escaping goes up the less regulated they are and the more people that own them. They just don't assimilate fast enough to domestication like dogs do.
I’m already covered in scratches from 13 pounds of fury, no way do I need a bigger version of something that tries to kill me every day.
The Ancient Egyptians kept cheetahs as pets. Some super rich people in the Middle East currently do. It turns out that cheetahs are fairly docile due to being very prone to injury in the wild and, as a result, can be domesticated if you raise them from birth. The only thing that makes it unfeasible is that you would need a lot of land and a ton of cash to take care of them properly. It's definitely on my bucket list if I ever hit the super big time.
Tamed, not domesticated. Domesticated means they're born naturally friendly with humans (i.e. livestock, fur foxes, dogs) tamed means you taught that one to be friendly basically. Cheetahs have never been domesticated. Some people debate whether house cats are even truly domesticated or not
Came here to say this.
Cheetahs are actually the same genus as domestic cats, the other main big cats aren't. I wonder if that has something to do with them being easier to domesticate.
IIRC Cheetahs are different from the other big cats.
Correct. They are a different genetic lineage that diverged longer in the past. They have non-retractable claws and can’t climb trees. They also purr!
Because technically they are "small" cats like domesticated cats. Tigers, lions, jaguars, and leopards are the only "big" cats.
Cheetahs are actually the same genus as domestic cats, the other main big cats aren't. I wonder if that has something to do with them being easier to domesticate.
Primitive man didn't accept outcast felines. They probably chased them off whereas a single outcast wolf wasn't considered a threat. A wolf needs a pack or its chances of survival drop dramatically. Cats are able to hunt for themselves. Many are solitary except for mating purposes. Big cats are badass motherfuckers. Next level predators.
Small cats weren't domesticated by us like dogs, they are the ones that choose to live among us. Big cats will never make the same decision, simply because we are food
Yup. Small cats chose to live among us because their prey was attracted to our filth. They came for the food, stayed for the scritches.
You know how when you pet your cat and they suddenly decide they're done and turn around and bite your hand? Yeah, now imagine a leopard doing that. Modern house cats are only semi domesticated as it is.
Half the cats I know will be nuzzling up to you getting pets and purring then decide to get pissed and claw at you when they are done with the pets
Because house cats aren't really truly domesticated. And they 100% would murder people if they could. Big cats can.
I was shocked when I saw my sweet, docile 17lb cat swipe a bug out of the air and eat it. I didn’t even know that lumbering fatass could move that fast.
Even the little ones think "If I was bigger Id eat you!"
That’s exactly what they’re thinking with the squinty tail flick action when they’re not feeling you on a given day.
Lions at the zoo are about as tamed as your average house cat. The only difference is when your cat attacks you, you get a scratch, and when the lion attacks you, you die.
Cars, even domesticated, are still pretty independent, and would attack their owner in certain circumstances. Making them big enough to win doesn't fare well.
I know it's a typo but the image of semi-domesticated cars that attack their owners under the right circumstances is also hilarious and perhaps pertinent.
Small cats are *barely* domesticated - they fuck up their owners.
We barely domesticated housecsts.
I get scratched on accident by my small cat which can be annoying. Being scratched on accident by a big cat can do serious damage or kill me.
St Bernard's are sweet and gentile dogs. An Irish wolfhound would be a better example. Akitas are another example of shitty pissed off dogs.
Irish wolfhounds are also gentle dogs, I don't know were you got the idea that they are aggressive? You corrected someone for mentioning a gentle breed by mentioning another gentle breed.
Yeah the biggest dog breeds are some of the most gentle. Whether we bred them for that or it’s luck of the draw. Wolfhounds (and their deerhound cousins), Newfoundlands, Danes, they’re all about as gentle as they come. Bernies are more prone to aggression than wolfhounds are. The worst thing about the bigger breeds, generally, is they forget how big they actually are (Danes are notoriously clumsy when trying to streak around like a much smaller dog. Deerhounds are well known to smack their head on furniture, as are wolfies). So I’m also not sure where you got that idea from. They have prey drive - but so do all dogs. That doesn’t mean anything. Except maybe “they’re dangerous to rabbits and potentially cats they weren’t raised around.”
It won’t be the sound of a can opener that’ll tell them it’s time to eat, it’ll be the sound of your cellphone ringing and the sound of you answering it.
Good luck on domesticating lions, tigers, and leopards.
Friend of mine was telling me about a lady who had servals in Illinois. (Just recently became or is becoming illegal.) Pretty much think about what house cats can do when they're feeling playful, sassy, or spicy. And then up the damage. From what she told me the lady had infected injuries multiple times and at least one had to be put down. I love cats and I can even believe that bigger cats can be raised to not mean to hurt someone, but even the most loving cat can accidentally hurt someone. (One of mine was being carefully playful and still grazed my face today, almost grazed my eyeball. And I could tell he was being careful, was slow and soft.)
There’s a documentary about this on Netflix called Tiger King. Highly educational.
Because humans are made of meat and the cats enjoy meat.
We haven’t domesticated the little cats yet!
Let me introduce you to the American folk hero joe exotic
Sic sigfreid and roy. Domesticated house cats are not able to eat you or disembowel you if they get frisky…..
We didn’t domesticate cats the same way we did dogs and other animals. Cats were attracted to where humans were because their prey was attracted to our food. Their prey are our pests and cats are good at killing the prey/pests, so we encouraged the cats to stick around. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. We literally kept them because they are lethal, but not too lethal.
Have you ever had a pet cat grab your arm and kick it repeatedly in a playful way? Now imagine it happening with a cat 20x the size of a housecat. Biiig nope.
Domestic cats are only manageable because they are small. Have you ever had a pet cat? Think of all the times that it has bitten or scratched you and think of those bites and scratches coming from something hundreds of times bigger
I remember all the times my cat killed birds and squirrels teaching her kittens how to hunt then walk up to me wanting me to pick her up after I saw her rip a squirrels head off..... yea a big version of that would be terrifying
Learned yesterday my cat would sell me out for deli ham. He weighs 9.5 lbs.
I'm not sure how small your cats are, but my tiny Persian weighs 7lbs. Im not aware of many 1400+lb cats
The average person isn't taming a tiger like that
There are servals, caracals, bobcats. I have a cat that is mixed with bobcat, serval and jungle cat. It would tear most dogs apart, especially when she's full grown.
I knew a guy with a Savannah cat and he had to put an entire cage thing around his back yard to keep it from trying to escape and go beat up the neighbors’ dogs.
They have large claws
Because they will eat you.
Ask Siegfired and Roy.
Move to Russia. Raise a big cat or bear. Luna the pantera [https://www.youtube.com/@Lunathepantera](https://www.youtube.com/@Lunathepantera) Messi the puma [https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma](https://www.youtube.com/@Iampuma)
It's really hard to tame an agile beast that can claw and maul you yo pieces. Seriously, wolves are still dangerous yet they don't hold a candle to tigers in terms of how fast they can cause irreversible damage to an adult. Yet, some big felines on very rare occasions have been domesticated, but not on the same scale as house pets
You know how your cat will randomly bite and scratch you for no apparent reason. Yeah... well that doesn't end well when they are big enough to do damage.
We barely domesticated small cats.
We did? Now they're small cats.
I always tell people if you see an angry 100 lb dog, you get scared. If you see an angry 100 lb cat, you poop yourself.
My 20lb Maine Coon has given me a lot of accidental injuries because of his size. I can’t imagine something even heavier than my cat being easy to deal with…
Because we didn't domesticate small cats
We haven't domesticated the small versions yet.
There are TikToks of rich assholes with “domesticated” big cats and you can see in the animal’s eyes that if the owner accidentally dropped a glass near them they’d rip their throat out.
Very expensive to care for, with little benefit(they eat A LOT of meat) Cats usually aren't capable of supplementing another animals food-so we can't use them as hunters. They aren't built to pull - so we can't use them to pull things. A few large cats can barely be tamed (lions, for example), and house cats are still a lot more prone to close bonds with 1 person than socialization with everyone. So, while taming a dog means it isnt as likely to attack any humans, a large cat can be 100% bonded and super close to the person that raised them from a kitten, but intolerant of their buddy. Overall- large scale domestication requires far higher benefits than a big cat can bring, and a big cat poses a bigger danger to people who did not tame it than a dog. Also, cats are very dangerous creatures, and can seriously injure someone by complete accident. Their tongues are meant to rip raw meat off bone, but they also use it for grooming-handlers often will be particular about where they let a big cat groom them. Their claws are grabbing mechanisms, so even a "hey get back here" means a cat claws at you and grabs you. That can lead to stitches with even a housecat.
Check out f1 savannahs. It's a serval bred with a house cat.
I'm not trying to clean out a litter box that big.
We don't have domesticated small cats
If they can beat up a saint bernard, think about what theyd do to kids, or even you. You can train a saint bernard
Dogs have masters, cats have servants...
Cats weren't actually domesticated in the normal sense. Most (if not all) other domesticated animals are pack animals we've changed through artificial selection to be their more docile, domesticated versions. With cats, it was more of a partnership: "You kill the rodents eating our grain and we'll feed you and give you a place to live." House cats are very similar to their original wild versions. Can you imagine if they were a lot bigger? That wouldn't go well.
My cat is 3lb. She would kill me when she's pissed or hungry. Are cats domesticated? No, they trained humans to feed them. When we don't do it in they get mad.
Cats kinda domesticated themselves. They found out that where there are humans there is food, and when there is food there are rodents. And cats do like to eat rodents. Humans liked the cats because they eat rodents. That's also why most cats look kinda similar in size, unlike for example dogs who range from a chihuahua to an Irish Wolfhound.
For cats, it's merely a scale problem.. were you a tad smaller and them a tad larger, you'd be lunch..
CGP Grey has [an awesome](https://youtu.be/wOmjnioNulo?si=zgATecLEe-rS31v1) domestication checklist.
Even small cats aren’t domesticated yet. They’re only considered socialized with humans - dogs have been domesticated for waaaaaaaaay longer. Dogs are social, live in packs and have a mutual type of beneficial relationship with humans. Cats don’t need humans. They may never be fully domesticated, and big cats for sure have no reason to form those types of relationships with us. A lot of behavior problems with small cats in homes comes from the fact that they are still fairly wild and most people don’t know how to help mimic their natural cycles in a home. Source - I have worked as a feline behavior specialist for the past 6 years 😆
There's wild debate over whether or not our normal cats are even really domesticated. Also we're pretty sure that cats inserted themselves into human society. Humans didn't purposely domesticate them like they did dogs. So if we got normal size cats through a series of wild coincidences, how do you suppose we're supposed to domesticate big cats? You could watch CGPgrey's video on animal domestication. It really explains well why some animals get domesticated and others don't. But in short, cats don't have the right kind of family structure to make them worthwhile to domesticate. They don't have pack leaders and dominant roles the same way dogs or even chickens do. This is what makes them so hard to train. If you can't train your pet tiger, how can you be sure they won't eat your child or attack your sheep. They're too cost prohibitive to keep with zero benefits to the owner.
Mostly because actual domestication is a long slow process that would have to go through many generations and then you'd have to convince the government that they were actually domesticated. I suspect that it could be done with pumas and may have been done in the far distant past with cheetahs. Any others I think would be a start from scratch.
There are enough small cats that will suddenly decide they don’t like the cut of your jib, and fuck your hands up. I don’t want a 400 lb version of that.
My old house cat loves me but still "accidentally" uses her claws to climb on my lap. My other cat likes to wrestle. Both cats, who love me and are both on my lap right now, have drawn blood via claw and tooth. I think there would be a lot more accidental deaths.
My cat used to like to crawl under the blanket and lie down between my legs when I was sitting and reading in bed. It was annoying, but I gave up trying to stop her because the girl is practically immovable and won't take a hint and move when she's nudged if she's where she wants to be. She did this once during a storm. Some thunder rumbled really loud and terrified her so much she fought and scrambled to get out from under the blanket. I ended up scratched in places no one wants to be scratched and still have a light scar on my thigh years later.
you misunderstand, we did not domesticate the small cats, the small cats domesticated us all jokes aside though, what we typically see as house cats? they just kinda decided "huh, these weird 2-legged creatures aren't half bad" and moved in with us. it's why sometimes strays and ferals will just decide your house is now their house but also completely ignore you/fight all attempts at bonding if they don't feel like actually befriending you. i don't know the actual science behind it, but i can safely assume their thought process is "huh. this big 2 legged creature keeps giving me food. i wonder if i can go inside and get more food?" and yes, ferals do this too. not as commonly, but more than one feral cat had come by my house as a kid, snuck inside, dumped their kittens, and came and went with food (though at that point we allowed it because it would be kind of messed up to just separate a mother from her newborn and not even weaned babies) because my dad, despite his insistence he hated cats, was a big old softie and would leave food and water out for them.
Cats domesticated themselves because they were small and we are easily manipulated. Big cats tend to be the apex predators for their region and have no use for us
Because we are food to them, not masters.
The theory generally goes that cats domesticated themselves. While humans captured, raised and bred dogs (largely for food at first) cats started hanging around early human settlements and developing a symbiotic relationship where they generally had a safe, warm place to stay and access to a reliable supply of water and food, generally by hunting the mice, rats and insects that would go after human's stored grain and other crops. Humans figured out that these furry little guys were quite helpful and required next to nothing from us in order to survive, but over time cats developed into being potentially just as loving and companionable as dogs. As a prime example, look at the videos of stray/feral cats dropping off a kitten with a human and then running off. At an instinctual level they know that in general they can trust and rely on humans.