“We were
wild animals for seven million years. We learned a lot of lessons. We should be
careful not to lose them.”-Lee Child
Let’s keep that quote in mind as we compare a couple of definitions, the first—
Domesticated or Domestication, (from the Latin domesticus: "of the home") is the cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer.
For today’s lesson it is important that we hew closely to the scientific definition of this word. Merely finding a baby squirrel and keeping it as a pet is not by strict definition “domesticating” that animal, you are merely acculturating it to abnormal surroundings and there is a high probability that this “taming” will not survive sexual maturity. This is a lesson hard learned by chimpanzee and big cat owners, often what begins as an exercise in cuteness ends in the animal being what it is-wild. By the way, never the animal’s fault, it is merely being what it is despit…
Let’s keep that quote in mind as we compare a couple of definitions, the first—
Domesticated or Domestication, (from the Latin domesticus: "of the home") is the cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer.
For today’s lesson it is important that we hew closely to the scientific definition of this word. Merely finding a baby squirrel and keeping it as a pet is not by strict definition “domesticating” that animal, you are merely acculturating it to abnormal surroundings and there is a high probability that this “taming” will not survive sexual maturity. This is a lesson hard learned by chimpanzee and big cat owners, often what begins as an exercise in cuteness ends in the animal being what it is-wild. By the way, never the animal’s fault, it is merely being what it is despit…