Some feeding of animals is purely practical. And while there are still wolves around, they are not thriving the way dogs are. The ancestors of horses and cattle are gone. Domestication may be the death knell for wild progenitors. One striking possible answer is extinction. Now, a group of researchers in Britain is asking: Where does this desire to give food to other animals come from, and what has it meant for animals, humans and their shared environments? We fed and feed cats both tame and feral, sharks, alligators, deer, hedgehogs, bears, pigeons of all sorts, ducks, swans, zoo animals, lab animals, pets, farm animals and more. Some of us give our beloved dead to vultures, which is a problem when the birds disappear. Our Stone Age leftovers from the hunt may have fostered the domestication of dogs. Some researchers think the desire to give food to other animals may drive domestication as much as the human desire to eat them does. Throughout history in fat years and lean across many cultures, sometimes with no apparent reason, humans have fed animals of every imaginable stripe in every imaginable way. Humans feed animals all the time, whether it’s our pets, the chickens we plan to eat or the ducks at the park pond, even though we shouldn’t. Fleets of ships ply the oceans to catch fish for domestic cats, the descendants of predatory land animals. In Delhi, people toss bits of meat into the air for black kites. In England and America, selling bird seed for feeders is a big business.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |