Comments for "Turning Foxes Into House Pets" Blog at VideoSift.com

By cheesemoo

cheesemoo (http://www.videosift.com/member/cheesemoo) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:10:10 -0800

Reminds me of some of the videos of simulated evolution that have popped up on the sift... when environmental pressures change, you get some pretty neat results.

By Farhad2000

Farhad2000 (http://farhad.videosift.com) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 23:48:12 -0800

Like we need to fuck anymore with nature, at our current rate all animals will soon be domesticated, you know when you entrench on their living space of course then we'd shoot them all.

However they are doing things rather nicely in Europe, they are reintroducing alot of species that were destroyed through pollution, securing wild life areas from developments and even building land bridges over roads so that animals can follow their traditional migration paths.

But keeping foxes as pets just because we can? No.

By kulpims

kulpims (http://www.videosift.com/member/kulpims) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:41:53 -0800

wow! and it took ONLY 40 years!? i can easily imagine, as Farhad said, all animals on the planet domesticated - but not by us but by the evolutionary forces themselves. I mean, look at venomous snakes for example - it certainly would be a survival trait for the rattlesnakes if they became so accustomed to people that they'd simply ignore us and not immediately put up a defensive stance, wouldn't it? cause then we'd probably be less afraid of a chance encounter with one and would likely kill less of them just because of our built-in fear of snakes - ergo, snakes have a lot to gain by becoming friedlier to humans, right? weird logic, i know, but it led me to ask myself if we will ever be able to domesticise (so-called) lower life forms like bugs or even bacteria. domesticated ants would also be a good idea. imagine your house is infested with thermites. you just send in a squad of your domesticated killer-ants from your local petshop to forcefuly evict them or order a colony of flesh-eating bacteria to finish them off...

By bamdrew

bamdrew (http://www.videosift.com/member/bamdrew) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:41:01 -0800

"what Mother Nature took thousands of years to do with wolves".

We don't know how long it took for wolves that were scavenging off our dump sites to become dogs that scavenged off our dump sites, that then became the dog as part of our human groups. I suppose thousands of years isn't a poor estimate, but who knows, maybe it was 100 years for the first step (wolves that hung around people as scavengers), then 30 years for the second step (wolf pups that people befriended or took and bred).

btw, this is a fun thought; have you ever seen the images of gangster dudes in Africa with hyenas and lions, walking around with big chain leashes? here's a famous one, http://www.hyaenidae.org/uploads/images/conservation%20pix/nigerian&pet%20hyena.jpg

By cheesemoo

cheesemoo (http://www.videosift.com/member/cheesemoo) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:46:12 -0800

Judging by the huge muzzle, those hyenas aren't tame. How long has that been going on?

By NeuralNoise

NeuralNoise (http://www.videosift.com/member/NeuralNoise) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:23:03 -0700

Hey Lucky. 5 months later, I land on this great post...
*quality stuff.
cheers!

By phelixian

phelixian (http://www.videosift.com/member/phelixian) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:28:48 -0800

Awesome Post!!!