Why haven't humans domesticated hyenas, lions, or banded mongeese?

[enderlord99]

Like we did with wolves to make dogs, I mean.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Like we did with wolves to make dogs, I mean.

Are you aware of this video?

GW

[Murk]

I did see clips of people living friendly together with hyena's (most recently in planet earth II, I believe), which is a good first step.

Having said that, these are all carnivores. Humans mostly domesticated herbivores, because being able to turn grass into meat is an amazingly useful ability (and other reasons, of course).
Aside from small rodents and birds of prey (which are barely domesticated - I think they mainly tolerate humans rather than live with them) the only domesticated carnivores that I can think of right away are cats and dogs.

If you look at the history of domestication of cats and dogs, you'll notice that it was a mutual development: wolves domesticated humans as much as humans domesticated wolves. It wasn't just humans catching wolves and breeding them: the wolves themselves went near humans for food and brought advantages with them (though I'm not sure which advantages that were at an early stage). I don't think domestication of wolves was a long-term planned project for early humans. It just happened, because the wolves came closer and closer.

If hyena's, lions or mongeese had done that - come close to humans without attacking them - humans would have taken advantage too. They didn't, though.
So, I think the question should probably be the other way around: why haven't hyena's, lions or mongeese domesticated humans?

To which my answer is: I don't know. Ask the hyena's!

[hamishspence]

Aside from small rodents and birds of prey (which are barely domesticated - I think they mainly tolerate humans rather than live with them) the only domesticated carnivores that I can think of right away are cats and dogs.

"Tamed" is a better term for what's been done with birds of prey. Rodents are omnivorous in general rather than carnivorous.


Ferrets have been domesticated from the wild a bit - but their external appearance has changed less than their behaviour has, from what I've read. I think the reverse is true for mink - their fur changed a lot, but their behaviour has not.

[Amazon]

You mean you don't have pet Hyenas?

[hamishspence]

Those would be Tamed rather than Domesticated.

Wikipedia's list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...icated_animals

does list the Egyptian Mongoose on the second table.

[ImNotTrevor]

I'm fairly certain that, by definition, cats are not domesticated because we don't actively use them for anything except companionship. The fact that they kill mice sometimes is a side benefit, and likely unrelated to why humans got along with them in the first place. (We just thought they were fluffy. I pity the aliens that will one day have to comprehend why on earth we had people like Seigfried and Roy who kept thousand pound apex predators in their house and gave them kissies)

[hamishspence]

What defines "domestication" has more to do with how much the creature has changed from the wild state - brain size, color, selective breeding, etc.

[Lord Torath]

Interesting point: In Russia they started an experiment deliberately breeding foxes for domestication: Doesticated Foxes in Siberia Experiment in Peril. I thought it was interesting that while breeding just for "personality" (which foxes react best to humans), the foxes started taking on a more dog-like appearance.

[Vinyadan]

It's worth saying that the wolves from which dogs descended belonged to a now extinct genus. This probably is why we don't have noteworthy domestication in fieri in places with large wolves populations: those which had the chance to be domesticated have already been.

Among other animals, bears for example do seem not to worry too much about humans, and have enough intelligence to understand that humans can give food without being food. However, dogs evolved together with men because they were similar from many points of view, especially concerning migration. Dogs and men both walk a lot, migrating from place to place, and behave gregariously. And I think that certain large animals, if not enraged or very hungry, were scared of wolves. Just think of it, if you had small children wouldn't you feel safer, if there were inoffensive wolves around the camp, to keep hungry hogs and irate aurochs away from your kids? Dogs guard the camp without depleting the labour force, and can perceive stuff you can't. They also are more disposable than humans: a dog learns less than a human. Losing the guy who can make knots or specializes in attaching handles is much worse than losing a couple dogs.

As for cats not being used for a purpose, try catching mice with your hands besides, some dogs also have been bred with this purpose. But cat domestication happened, afaik, among sedentary societies. Besides ruining food, rats also used to eat the lips of unattended infants... I think that, rather than being undomesticated, cats are untrained. Geese are pretty much like this, it's not like they do much more than being themselves and attacking children.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elemen...s-domesticated

[hamishspence]

It's worth saying that the wolves from which dogs descended belonged to a now extinct genus.

Subspecies, maybe, but not genus. Canis genus is pretty large and contains jackals and coyotes as well as wolves.

The domestic dog is "Canis lupus familiaris" (or "Canis familiaris" by those who emphasise its distance from the wild Canis lupus wolves) - but they're still genus Canis.

[Blackhawk748]

Ya, we didnt have to train cats, they naturally did what we wanted them to do anyway (eat pest animals) they just had to get used to hanging around us.

Geese are largely similar, same with swans i believe.

[Vinyadan]

Subspecies, maybe, but not genus. Canis genus is pretty large and contains jackals and coyotes as well as wolves.

The domestic dog is "Canis lupus familiaris" (or "Canis familiaris" by those who emphasise its distance from the wild Canis lupus wolves) - but they're still genus Canis.

Species or subspecies, then. I can't remember where I read this stuff, otherwise I'd check it out.

[sktarq]

There are a ton of reasons that animals can't be domesticated. Especially before the 20th century when we massively expanded our ability to manipulate animals.

Zebras don't have the social structure that allows humans to step in as "leader" in a way that drives domestication. As they grow up they start chucking riders (young ones will tolerate it for a time). So thus there are no Zulu Zebra cavalry units

Humans have been training Cheetahs to hunt with humans in a similar manner to sighthounds (like a greyhound). Some Indian Princes had hundreds of hunting cheetahs. But we could not get them to breed in captivity on anything like a regular enough basis in order to shape their gene until the 1960's.

Elephants are similar in that they have been tamed for millennia but controlling their breeding was always far more difficult and doing so for enough generations to get them to diverge from their wild cousins would require many decades (to account for both a long gestation and very long birth to first breeding age gap) and that stability just never existed, or if it did it was on such a tiny scale it was swamped buy the wild caught ones.

Moose/Elk (Alces Alces) have been subject to repeated domestication attempts. . . The current one seems to be making progress though. Which really is the first.

Learning to tame examples of the animal type is a required step in domestication but is by no means a good bet in terms of controlled breeding and full domestication.

One of the things about fantasy DnD type worlds is that spells like Charm Animal and Speak with Animals do a lot to justify how weird domestic animals could crop up.



Jared Diamond in Guns Germs and Steel has a chapter that covers this pretty well at an introductory level.

[Vinyadan]

Apparently, moose husbandry and riding were a thing in Siberia (Khanate of Sibir) until Ivan the Terrible conquered the place, outlawed it and had all those practising it impaled. The Soviets went back to the project around 1930 with the purpose of creating the Soviet Moose Cavalry, although it was simply the wrong time (tanks > moose).

[Blackhawk748]

Apparently, moose husbandry and riding were a thing in Siberia (Khanate of Sibir) until Ivan the Terrible conquered the place, outlawed it and had all those practising it impaled. The Soviets went back to the project around 1930 with the purpose of creating the Soviet Moose Cavalry, although it was simply the wrong time (tanks > moose).

Stupid Russian tyrants ruing all the awesome stuff. Seriously, why would you ban Moose Cavalry? That would be horrifying to face.

[Mando Knight]

It's worth saying that the wolves from which dogs descended belonged to a now extinct genus. This probably is why we don't have noteworthy domestication in fieri in places with large wolves populations: those which had the chance to be domesticated have already been.

We largely don't domesticate the wolves directly because first it takes a lot of work to domesticate a population of wild animals, and second if you need a wolf-dog it's a lot easier to start by hybridizing existing wolfish dogs with wolves than by starting entirely from scratch.

[Fri]

As someone mentioned before me, domestication doesn't mean "training animals to do what you want." It means "breeding animal to something more desireable." And if you have the domesticated animal in the wild, they're not called "wild animal" they're called "feral animal"

For example, take cats. They're not considered domesticated because the egyptians trained them to catch mice. They're domesticated because there was this wild cats that are big and scary. Then either by purpose or accidentally, the egyptians selectively breed them so now cats are smaller and more easily handled by humans. Even stray cats that roam in the street are "feral" instead of "wild" because they're part of the species that's been selectively bred for years to make them small and more easily hang around humans.

Same with pigeons. Pigeons aren't wild species, they're feral species. As with domesticated goat. If you release a few hundred domesticated goat into the jungle, and they survive, they will retain all the characteristic that human had bred into them for thousands of years eventhough you can't easily order them around anymore. Though they might breed with actual wild goats and have the colony turn into a wild goat colony many years later.

So to domesticate hyenas or lions, you must selectively breed them for multiple generations until you arrive at a more desireable species characteristic. As you can imagine, it's easier for some species than other. I think that's why eventhough panda are mostly bred in captivity, they're not considered "domesticated." Because we don't really bred them for characteristic that we want.

[Peelee]

So to domesticate hyenas or lions, you must selectively breed them for multiple generations until you arrive at a more desireable species characteristic. As you can imagine, it's easier for some species than other. I think that's why eventhough panda are mostly bred in captivity, they're not considered "domesticated." Because we don't really bred them for characteristic that we want.

Well, also, the charicteristic we want in pandas is "breed more." Hard to breed for that, I'd think.

[Rockphed]

So to domesticate hyenas or lions, you must selectively breed them for multiple generations until you arrive at a more desireable species characteristic. As you can imagine, it's easier for some species than other. I think that's why eventhough panda are mostly bred in captivity, they're not considered "domesticated." Because we don't really bred them for characteristic that we want.

With Pandas we really should be breeding for wanting to breed.

[Fri]

With Pandas we really should be breeding for wanting to breed.

You know what's the problem with panda? They breed really slowly and only eat bamboo, which is very limited. So we should breed or genetically engineer panda so they breed really quickly and able to eat anything.

Definitely nothing can go wrong with that.

[Lazymancer]

Apparently, moose husbandry and riding were a thing in Siberia (Khanate of Sibir) until Ivan the Terrible conquered the place, outlawed it and had all those practising it impaled. The Soviets went back to the project around 1930 with the purpose of creating the Soviet Moose Cavalry, although it was simply the wrong time (tanks > moose).

Eh. The list of crimes attributed to Ivan IV grows exponentially.

And I'm pretty certain Soviet moose was a domestication project (same as foxes mentioned above), not military. At least, I've never heard of any military application.

Stupid Russian tyrants ruing all the awesome stuff. Seriously, why would you ban Moose Cavalry? That would be horrifying to face.

IIRC that was Karl XI (Sweden).

[Vinyadan]

Swedish moose cavalry had a number of problems. The first problem was that moose scare horses, so that various cities in the Baltic forbade moose from entering. The second problem was that moose were scared of gunfire, and would run away towards the forest when the battle started.

For what I understand, the Russian project started out as a military project that didn't make it to the battle lines. Among other things, they tried to educate elks not to be scared of bangs. Wikipedia says that they strapped guns to the antlers, but I won't believe that without a source. The idea was that they would have been a useful cavalry in high snow, where horses suffer. However, in 1939 the Finnish war started and things weren't ready yet. In the following war (1941), animals had a huge role behind the lines as transporters (more than 3 million horses), but would have been mostly out of use as fighters, if it hadn't been for the desperate conditions which forced the Soviets to get creative and attach cavalry as support for their tanks instead of mechanized infantry. In the 50s, they completely stopped using cavalry. I don't think domestication and military use exclude each other, anyway. But moose are hard to farm for many reasons - they need huge territories, they easily get sick, their diet is very complex and I am not sure it has been correctly replicated, the lack of selection means that they don't make that much milk and they aren't that good at pulling, they roam a lot so they need radio collars if you want to find them, while cows and goats only need a bell... I read that they actually learnt to come and be milked when called from a loudspeaker, which brings me images of surreal Soviet life, like walking in a forest and hearing a loudspeaker shouting "Comrade Antlersky! Comrade Antlersky, come to the stables, and give your milk for the Motherland!"
They say that their milk has medical applications though, like radiation lesions treatment.

Apparently, there are photos of Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose?

[wumpus]

You know what's the problem with panda? They breed really slowly and only eat bamboo, which is very limited. So we should breed or genetically engineer panda so they breed really quickly and able to eat anything.

Definitely nothing can go wrong with that.

Apparently pandas have most of the plumbing to eat meat (and I remember watching Hsing-Hsing eat a carrot), so it shouldn't take much to push them into a slightly more sustainable diet.

As far as the original question, there are painting in Egyptian pyramids (or other surviving ancient drawings) that clearly show people attempting to domesticate hyenas. Presumably it doesn't work.

Way back when I was a boy scout, the older boys went on a "high adventure" trip to Maine. They were specifically warned about attempting to ride the moose. The story went that occasionally some idiot realizes he could climb on a moose while it was in a river and stay on when the moose was wading around. Once the moose got on dry land things quickly become fatal for the rider.

Finally, in "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Jarad Diamond suggests that colonization would have been vastly different had the Buntu had rhino cavalry. I'm not sure if he ever worked out just how much fodder rhino cavalry would take and who would feed it (European feudalism seems based on feeding warhorses, I can't imagine feeding rhinos or moose).

[halfeye]

For example, take cats. They're not considered domesticated because the egyptians trained them to catch mice. They're domesticated because there was this wild cats that are big and scary. Then either by purpose or accidentally, the egyptians selectively breed them so now cats are smaller and more easily handled by humans.

This is incorrect, domestic cats come from small wild cats, not lions.

Even stray cats that roam in the street are "feral" instead of "wild" because they're part of the species that's been selectively bred for years to make them small and more easily hang around humans.

They are more tame, and tameable than the original wild species, but they are not smaller.

Same with pigeons. Pigeons aren't wild species, they're feral species.

There are wild pigeons and feral pigeons, some of the species are different, but not all.

The main reason that most animals aren't tameable is because they firecely reject being held captive, even when caught very young.

[Lazymancer]

Swedish moose cavalry had a number of problems. The first problem was that moose scare horses, so that various cities in the Baltic forbade moose from entering. The second problem was that moose were scared of gunfire, and would run away towards the forest when the battle started.

I'm glad nobody is impaling people for riding moose.

The idea was that they would have been a useful cavalry in high snow, where horses suffer. However, in 1939 the Finnish war started and things weren't ready yet.

AFAIK Soviet domestication projects begun post-WW2.

In the following war (1941), animals had a huge role behind the lines as transporters (more than 3 million horses), but would have been mostly out of use as fighters, if it hadn't been for the desperate conditions which forced the Soviets to get creative and attach cavalry as support for their tanks instead of mechanized infantry.

It was hussars who (according to sensationalist media) charged German tanks. I.e. Poland, not Soviets. Either way it never happened.

What were you even reading? Encyclopedia of historical misconceptions and hoaxes? Or just wikipedia? It's more of a place to exchange gossips, rather than a trustworthy source of information, in case you didn't know.

[Lord Torath]

It was hussars who (according to sensationalist media) charged German tanks. I.e. Poland, not Soviets. Either way it never happened.

What were you even reading? Encyclopedia of historical misconceptions and hoaxes? Or just wikipedia? It's more of a place to exchange gossips, rather than a trustworthy source of information, in case you didn't know.

As I understand it, the Russian forces included horse-mounted "cavalry", but the horses were only used for transportation. The troops dismounted and fought as infantry once the enemy was in range. Granted, my information comes from "The Wargamer's Guide to Panzer Blitz" by Avalon Hill (p8-9). But they put some serious historical research into that game.

[hamishspence]

There are wild pigeons and feral pigeons, some of the species are different, but not all.

And even the Rock Dove, the species from which tame pigeons were bred, has a few wild colonies that aren't descended from the Feral Pigeon.

Those colonies are pretty remote though - and feral pigeons interbreeding, has made the "fully wild" Rock Dove rather rare.

[Bavarian itP]

wikipedia? It's more of a place to exchange gossips, rather than a trustworthy source of information, in case you didn't know.

Who are you to make that judgement? Nowadays, every history professor in the world is going to point you to wikipedia if you want information about a historical event.

[Lazymancer]

As I understand it, the Russian forces included horse-mounted "cavalry", but the horses were only used for transportation. The troops dismounted and fought as infantry once the enemy was in range.

Everyone was doing the same thing. Not only Soviets and Poles fielded horse-mounted infantry, there were cavalry divisions in Wehrmacht and SS, for example.

Granted, my information comes from "The Wargamer's Guide to Panzer Blitz" by Avalon Hill (p8-9). But they put some serious historical research into that game.

I can't say anything about the research Avalon Hill had done (or didn't), but in Soviet naming system "cavalry" primarily implied high mobility (though there was a lot of four-legged beasties). It's like US "air cavalry" - it doesn't mean that soldiers ride pegasi in battle or paradrop actual horses on the battlefield.

In addition to usual weapons, Soviet cavalry divisions had their own artillery (at the very least). Usually they also had tanks, battalions of AA defence, engineers, chemical defence, even fighter planes (cavalry corps circa 1943, at least).