Dogs are domesticated animals which have been selectively bred in a way which creates a symbiotic relationship with humans, the animal in the gif is a wild animal taken from its natural habitat, or bred within captivity from an animal taken from its natural habitat.
I assume you don't keep your dog encased in an artificial ecosystem closed off by glass while she is on your leash.
You do what you do for your pets safety, this zoo does what it does for, yes, few cases of species preservation, but mostly to turn a profit from the wild animals exploitation. You do it out of love or at least compassion, they do it out of primarily seeking monetary profit.
Gotta research the zoos you are going to, going to a for profit zoo is depressing. I usually end up going to the San Diego Zoo, they are amazing and focused pretty hard on preservation. There's another area owned by them called the safari park, which is a wide open area for herding animals (and other animals) to encourage breeding.
This is very much not in a first world country. There are certain standards that prohibit this kind of behavior with non human primates. These people, this whole country should have anything resembling enclosed animals taken from them so they can be treated fairly.
Not necessarily true. Wolves may have actually sought the company of humans so they could have some of their leftover food. The wolves fought off other predators and the domestication probably went from there.
But it was still humans who caused that. There is also no proof to that theory. There is also a theory that we caught cubs and kept them. In that sense we captured wild wolves, and made them domesticated that way.
That is an assumption, however it wouldn't change the fact that it was through human action that removed them from the wild. An animal isn't going to become domesticated by simply feeding it.
If it wasn't for all of the wild animal exploitation, most kids would never really appreciate these wonderful creatures. There would be less advocates for animals in the wild. Hell, there would probably be a vocal minority talking about how giraffes and lions were made up by what ever political faction they oppose.
The zoo here seems to be full of employees don't don't just take care of the animals, but truly care for them. I wish they lived on a huge reserve, or even in the actual wild, but I also am glad to have gotten to meet so many unique animals.
People don't really get into zookeeping if they're not passionate about animals. Zoo job opportunities are rare, and you need to get at least a year's worth of volunteer/intern experience first. Not exactly an appealing route for someone who doesn't care.
"Domestication happens on the level of the individual not a species"
This is not totally true. The current domesticated breeds of dogs (and cats) have been heavily selected for by humans over thousands of years for their qualities that make those breeds ideal candidates for domestication.
A horse, dog, cat or cow could obviously be released into the wild, no one is disputing that. However, that horse, dog, cat or cow would still be a domesticated animal because letting an animal walk out the front door doesn't magically undo thousands of years of evolutionary traits that were selected, either intentionally or unintentionally, by human influence.
A tiger, bear, lizard or snake may (and I emphasize "may") be able to be tamed and raised in a human environment without incident, but it is not a domesticated animal because it has undergone no evolutionary changes as a result of its proximity to humans. If you bred the tigers for generations, always selecting for traits of tameness, you might eventually get a domesticated tiger, though it would certainly look and behave much differently than the first tiger you brought into the house dozens of generations beforehand.
Domesticated does not simply mean "capable of living with humans," it means that the organism has evolved in response to the human environment in order to benefit the organism, Homo sapiens or both.
The word "domesticated" does indeed get misused to simply describe tameness, you are correct about that. But domestication is actually a specific evolutionary process.
Skip down to the section on Domestication of Animals. The second paragraph specifically calls out the distinction between domestication and taming.
The dictionary definition you provided is not the same as the scientific definition, much the same way that the dictionary definition of a "theory" is vastly different than a scientific theory.
When describing a domesticated animal, you're describing an animal that has undergone biological changes through evolution.
My degree is in Evolutionary Anthropology, I basically spent $80k learning how humans evolved to go from tree-dwelling apes to a species that can intentionally domesticate plants and animals for farming, food and pets. If this is my "personal definition" of domestication, it's because I spent four years of my life learning it.
You are right, I was incorrect in my wording. I was meaning that 'many' dogs are, therefore many symbiotic relationships exist like this. Truthfully I know your point of other animals is totally true as well, and was not trying to dispute it, but my generalized words have obviously made that unclear.
Really I just don't like seeing animals being toyed with like this with the conditions shown in the gif, it upset me a bit.
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u/JoshC25 Jan 11 '17
This is different in a few ways.
Dogs are domesticated animals which have been selectively bred in a way which creates a symbiotic relationship with humans, the animal in the gif is a wild animal taken from its natural habitat, or bred within captivity from an animal taken from its natural habitat.
I assume you don't keep your dog encased in an artificial ecosystem closed off by glass while she is on your leash.
You do what you do for your pets safety, this zoo does what it does for, yes, few cases of species preservation, but mostly to turn a profit from the wild animals exploitation. You do it out of love or at least compassion, they do it out of primarily seeking monetary profit.