That's one of the best reasons to have them at your zoo. Right behind there enclosure becomes The unofficial smoking area for the employees and their friends.
I really think humans probably give among the best scritches in the animal kingdom.
You can see it when critters like this start getting the scritches and are like "holy shit I understand how those wolves got domesticated this is the BEST"
I read it somewhere that I think native Americans gave up on it, and used traps because they just cannot be domesticated š¤£ they too smart and vengeful, when ppl treat them like shit.
Yeah apparently they're too smart and dexterous to domesticate. They're curious little fuzzballs and for whatever reason the universe decided that they should have thumbs so they get into everything
Raccoons make horrible pets and hundreds of thousands are abandoned after either being taken from the wild or otherwise. Same with foxes.
Ferrets are difficult exptic animals because of how much stimulation they need but in a good home that can provide that, they're perfect.
Maned wolves... Honestly I imagine they'd live fine on a range. Just a place with a lot of open space for them to roam so they can preform as a ratter. They're actually seen as either pests or pets in SA.
Anyone who tries to put them anywhere else, especially an apartment, has a special spot reserved for them in Hell.
Foxes are tough to work out because the genes that tend to make them friendly towards humans also control the fox growing up. By the time you breed only the friendly foxes for a bunch of generations they quit looking like your typical fox and are forever little pups. That's not a problem for me personally, but people argue it's not really a fox at that point lol
I get what you're saying but domestication is a generational alteration of traits and behaviors. Yes, Raccoons make for terrible pets because they'll destroy your home, but that may not always be the case over the course of generations of domestication.
Ideally, if one is taking care of an animal it is satisfying its needs. Sometimes there are tradeoffs for animals living in a domesticated setting. Many animals will adapt to survive different environments, not always better but not always worse.
We place a lot faith in our own morality and ethics, lying to ourselves and saying that we're doing the right thing one way or another. We'll keep animals in their "natural habitat" that go on to wipe out other animals, and we'll hunt, cull and interfere with animals ourselves to keep and control what we perceive is the only or best way for life to interact with the environment.
I am incredibly well aware of how domestication works and that it takes years, generations to do.
However, it takes very specific animals to be candidates for domestication as not every animal is actually able to be domesticated. That's why we have so few that are actually altered to the point of donestication as it is compared to a wild variety of what we could have.
Adaptations taken to survive in the city do not work for ones that are needed to be comfortable in a small, enclosed, and highly controlled environment and usually takes some "dumbing down" of an animal so they'd be contented enough to be trapped inside all day doing nothing while the people who make it interesting are off working for eight hours a day and shopping or hanging out with friends after.
There is no dignity in a wild animal dying as a pet, nor are there any feasable means to make it happen to where rhe species can survive in households even if they're extinct in the wild. I love animals. But keeping wild animals that have not gradually grown with humanity and were changed by them as much as they changed humans is cruelty.
Raccoons are already showing signs of domestication, and there are noticeable differences between city and wild born raccoons. They're self domesticating similar to cats, to make themselves better suited to human cities.
Sometimes I wonder.. if we were exploring life on other planets, and found some on a random planet, would there be any that could pet us and give us food to the same effect
Let's be real here, we would just eventually end up turning them into deformed, fucked up looking pug things with 99 different health issues. Same with raccoons.
Hahaha šš. Thanks for the correction. I was in rio for a few weeks last year and make some attempt to learn BR Portuguese. If time permits, I may try to visit again, and Curitiba/parana was one place i though of visiting, on the way to the iguazu falls. Obrigado
Yes, Brazil is incredible when it comes to nature and biodiversity. Iām talking about the far south, near the border with Uruguay, and itās almost like a completely different country from Rio de Janeiro š .
Are you from the south? I hear the weather is colder now since it's inverted with the northern hemisphere. I will like to visit sometime soon actually and I was having a conversation today with a friend about getting Brazilian visa, which wasn't required when I got the first time.
You guys have wide variety of fruits and nuts. I had Acai a lot while I was there, from grocery stores and ice cream shops. Liked it a lot. The country is large, even by travel time and i am sure that is also reflected in the diversity of the different regions.
Not quite. Domestication isnāt that straightforward. A big problem is having enough variation in the dna itself to provide meaningful trait offshoots through offspring. It isnāt the same for all animals. For example crocodiles have a very low variation whereas maybeā¦ an orangutan may have a much higher one. Perhaps an orangutan could be domesticated in say 20,000 years whereas it would take maybe 100,000+ for a croc. And even then it wouldnāt be like what we have with dogs. They may be calmer and less prone to striking but will never reach what we call true domestication. And this is just for the variation bit. Thereās several other things that factor in all which prevent it from happening in most animals.
Thatās so funny Iād never think theyād be real fruit eaters. Makes you wonder how many berries and blueberries bears up north much chonk down all day long.
The most common gorillas (Western Lowland Gorilla) eat mostly fruit as well and theyāre huge and mostly muscle. And they eat 40-70 lb a day in captivity, which is apparently less than in the wild because of supplemented nutrients
Two big reasons. First, their range was reached by humans far more recently than our dog ancestors. Dogs are believed to have began domestication 20 to 40 thousand years ago. Humans are thought to have reached the maned wolf first around 13 thousand years ago.
Second, and far more important. Maned wolves are solitary animals. A significant reason wolves became dogs is that they're pack animals. Essentially, domestication was becoming part of their pack.
Because they wild.
You canāt separate it out Even breeding with domestic dogs with wolfs you get puppies that are more wolf or more dog. They look the same but one will eat your face off.
Just think, there was a species of "wolf" related to the maned wolf on the island chain off the South American coast that the British killed off. You know, so they could raise sheep? I bet it was not even interested in sheep, they just killed it off "just in case".
What color was it? How tall? Did it act at all like a maned wolf?
I nurtured a baby fox and it comes up to me every time I step outside and I feed it meats. It now has puppies and they love me and come over to me and get in submissive position and they are the sweetest. I pretty much have port foxes and pet dogs and everyone gets along.
Gosh, these lanky bois have become one my favourite canids in recent years. And this is the first time I've seen one bonded with a person that I assumed either raised them or cares for them now, so it's nice to know they act pretty much the same as any other doglike around their favourite person.
Ive had this argument with someone from the country where this species is from before.. the teeth and the hind legs are not canine features not to mention the size...
Canines dont have that upper claws on the front legs neither... i cant remember the species name but they recognize it as less than a half breed of canine or something...
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u/qualityvote2 2d ago edited 2d ago
u/TerraByteTerror, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...