like the topic says can wild animals be domesticated, everyday i read something about a women or a man coexisting with dangerous wild animals, monks living with tigers, a siberian hunter who lives with a bear, Indian boy with a pet giant elephant the list goes on......
but the question remain can Wild animals be domesticated to live with humans without the risk of danger (note: risks always exists even with normal domesticated cats and dots but its small) can they both be small.....so can a giant grizzly be domesticated?
It's not unheardd of man to domesticate animals. Domesticating animals has begun since a loooooooong time ago. If you take a look around, we've already domesticated quite a few animals. We have domesticated the dog which is related to the wolf, cats which are related to the bigger cats, domesticated goats, sheep, essentially cattle.
It seems some animals are more easier to tame than others. Domesticating larger cats and bears are a little more scarier than dogs and cats. These types of animals out weigh you ten folds and are strong than us by a lot and a re a lot scarier if they are angry or in a pissy mood. :o
The way you worded your topic, you wrote as if coexisting with the animals meant domesticating them. I don't think that they are necessarily the same. Coexisting is more of a 'I'll give you your space, you'll give me mine,' while domesticated/tamed animals are generally subservient ('broken'-if you're cynical) creatures.
| Drawingguy wrote: |
| The way you worded your topic, you wrote as if coexisting with the animals meant domesticating them. I don't think that they are necessarily the same. Coexisting is more of a 'I'll give you your space, you'll give me mine,' while domesticated/tamed animals are generally subservient ('broken'-if you're cynical) creatures. |
what I was aiming for is can these animals ever be pets and partners like a dog or a cat. | Bannik wrote: |
what I was aiming for is can these animals ever be pets and partners like a dog or a cat. |
Occasionally, when the population gets too high, the US government will round up some of the wild mustangs in places where they are still free. (Otherwise they would get overpopulated, and possibly starve) These horses end up with private owners who tame and train them.
The point is that even animals that are much larger and more powerful than humans are routinely taken out of the wild and domesticated.
(Though there are always tell-tale signs of a horse that was raised wild and tamed, such as: most domestic horses are finicky about their water; wild-raised horses have learned to drink whenever they have an opportunity, wild horses learn to be quiet to avoid calling attention to the herd; they won't whinny as much or as loudly as domestic horses.)
A lot depends on the disposition of the animal in question. Horses are used to working in groups and taking orders from their superiors in the herd, so they are relitively easy to tame. A grizzly bear that is used to working alone and mauling anything that tries to stop it would be much more difficult to tame.It really depends on what you mean by domsitication and for that matter wild.
Can you take a truly wild animal and expect it to act like a pet you picked up at the shop last week? No. Even herd and pack animals like wolves or deer are unlikely to reconize a human as a pack leader and if they do, they are just as likely to challange you for dominance.
Taking a wild animal and making a pet out of it requires a lot of genetic manipulation (breeding). There are attempts to cross breed wild species with domesticated ones to get a "pet" demenor with an "exotic" look to them, but my experience they are not as personable as non-hybrid species.
Ocalhoun's mustangs are part of a notable exception. They're not what I'd call truly wild, but feral. Prior to their reintroduction to North America, horses underwent at least three thousand years of careful genetic selection.
Can you take a cub and socialize it to the point that it will listen to you and not kill you if you keep an eye on it? Yes, if you know what you're doing and never ever froget that the animal is not thinking like a domisticated one.
I wouldn't recommed wild animals in domestic area because there use to hunting. They do not know how to treat people , unless you count them as FOOD!
Something to keep in mind is that even the species that we consider domesticated are only domesticated in the general sense. Cats and dogs often get a bit out of hand and will attack their owners. But because of size they seldom inflict real harm (although this is not always true). I imagine horses, cattle, goats, etc get the same burr up their butts at times.
I think any species, given time, can be "domesticated" and individuals of a wild species can learn to live with man. But if you are living with a huge predator, don't be upset when he gets playful or angry and rips your arm off.
It takes many, many years to truly domesticate any animal and although finding some young wild animal at a very young age and then feeding it and caring for it and making it used to humans is in a way, "domesticating" it, it will probably never truly be "tame". Look at the "modern" dog and cat species, it has taken thousands of years to get them as domesticated as they are and I think cats are probbaly more wild at heart than we like to think! 
