Brian Griffith's Blog - Posts Tagged "domestication"

At this point in history, the domestication and husbandry of animals has become a furiously evolving process. And as the rapid transformations of the animals’ worlds are mainly human-imposed, the animals are evolving for adaption to us. The implications for livestock, pets, and wild animal “friends” commonly range from the horrific to the laughable.
War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

When we talk about animals being “tame,” it could simply mean that we have decent, neighborly relations, as opposed to fear-filled mutual hostility. And it’s probable that domesticating animals began with simple friendliness, as with the Russian beekeeper whose son said, “He liked bees, and they liked him. He would go to the hives without his shirt. He wasn’t afraid.ˮ
War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals

Jared Diamond claims that reliance on domesticated animals has reduced the variety in our diet, lowered life expectancy, and generated maladaptive behavior by both humans and beasts. The Nuer pastoralists of Sudan agree, and they should know, as they have based their lives on cows for thousands of years. These highly experienced people report that cows have killed more humans than anything else. In ancient times, they say, humans killed the mothers of both cows and buffaloes. The buffaloes vowed to get revenge by attacking people in the bush. But the cows more cleverly plotted revenge by staying with humans in their camps and causing them to endlessly kill each other in disputes over herds, debts, bride-wealth, pasture lands, or watering holes. In the end, it will all lead to a kind of cow apocalypse, of which it is said that “They [the cattle] will be finished together with mankind, for men will die on account of cattle, and they and the cattle will cease together” War and Peace with the Beasts: A History of Our Relationships with Animals