Why we did not domesticate bears, apes or big cats? I know lizards are too dumb for it but bears/apes/cats are at least as smart as dogs. We managed to domesticate elephants, but were apes/bears/cats too much for humans to handle? Have been there cases of people trying to do it? in old or modern times
>>1201707
>Implying animals have to be smart to be domesticated
Probably because the social nature of canids can be hijacked to produce friendliness to humans.
>>1201710
>dumb frogposter
>>1201707
Usefulness
Food requirements
Hibernation
Domestication of elephants has only been a thing for a century or two anyways. Before that they just captured em wild and tamed them.
>>1201725
Is there a difference between domestication and taming? We were using Elephants since Antiquity.
>>1201727
Domestication implies raising animals in captivity and selective breeding.
Elephants take like a god damn decade to mature, eat so much food it's barely worth it to raise it during those years so folks just caught adult elephants and tamed them.
>>1201732
Because they're dangerous as fuck and are prone to violence. At least dogs/wolves can be timid and you can defang snakes and spiders.
>>1201745
in the start that was true to wolves/dogs too
>>1201752
Wolves or dogs are worth domesticating. They can assist in hunting in like five different ways and eat little food in comparison to a god damn bear. A bear who also sleeps for a few months each year.
>>1201727
>Is there a difference between domestication and taming?
Yes. You can tame a lot of animals but you can only domesticate certain ones. A lot of Animals don't breed in captivity
>>1201758
what about warfare, a bear could do a lots of damage
Im sure there would have been uses for a gorilla too
You can't just take any animal and domesticate it easily, especially back in the stone and bronze age. A bear is a big fucking animal (hard to contain) that eats a shit ton and doesn't have much of a social structure to take advantage of. Compare to a wolf, who is easy to cage, eats a modest amount of food, and has an inborn social nature that humans can establish themselves at the top of.
What you don't realize is that the potential for domestication has to already be there through evolution. For some animals, like Hippos for example, it's just not going to happen. Taming is an entirely different thing, and as far as I'm aware we STILL don't domesticate elephants to this day. Circus elephants and working elephants in Asia are captured adults.
>>1201771
>>1201771
People fought battles on horses, and horses were already fucking expensive so it was typically rich folks or rural gentry that fought as cavalry.
Now imagine a similar weight animal that you can't ride and which eats what a horse eats in terms of weight, only this guy eats meat which happens to be a bit more expensive.
People used dogs in war though.
>>1201771
People fought battles on horses, and horses were already fucking expensive so it was typically rich folks or rural gentry that fought as cavalry.
Now imagine a similar weight animal that you can't ride and which eats what a horse eats in terms of weight, only this guy eats meat which happens to be a bit more expensive.
People used dogs in war though.
ITT: People confuse domestication with taming
>>1201784
Only OP I think, the rest gives a good distinction.
>>1201707
>Why didnt we domesticate animals which want to kill us and aren't social
>>1201777
>Compare to a wolf, who is easy to cage, eats a modest amount of food, and has an inborn social nature that humans can establish themselves at the top of.
This. Which is also the same with horses, they have a hierarchy based social structure too and see humans as their leaders.
>>1201707
Because homie when you're trying to train a predator that's as large as you you will only ever have to be watching your back plus if you've tamed a carnivore good for you you now have to find food for it too
>>1201786
OP here, i asked why dont we have apes bears as fucking pets like dogs, whats so fucking hardto understand on it you fucking faggots seriously
>>1201806
No need to act like a retard.
>>1201793
Horses are just smart enough to be trained and just about dumb enough to actually do what humans tell them too.
Magnificent bastards they are.
>>1201806
You were already answered.
Bears are big so they need a lot of food, generally aggressive, and not particularly social.
If Black bears lived in Europe then perhaps, since they can get very tame and live around humans, but they didn't, only killed brown bears and also gigantic cave bears lived in Europe which no primitive man was going to try to domesticate.
>>1201806
Some people do have bears as pets though. Hell some even have fucking alligators.
>>1201806
Because they're fucking dangerous and don't breed in captivity. So to have one as a pet you need to hire a trapper to get one, and then you have to spend all this fucking money to feed it and even if you discipline it (which is a huge time-sink since they're not bred to be friendly like dogs) there's always a risk it will go berserk and murder you. Even if you don't die, apes and bears will FUCK YOU UP. Check out this woman who got mauled by a 'tame' chimp.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3DeJjHAz8I
>>1201836
so their agressive behavior cannot be changed by selective breeding because they dont bread in captivity, finally good answer
>>1201850
They could be domesticated now, any animal could be nowadays with modern tech. But not by primitive man, aggressive animals were a big no. Not that domestication was even something they considered, it wasn't planned, it just naturally happened over time. They didnt go catching wolves to make dogs.
/his/ could use some zoology to be honest
>>1201876
/his/ could use a historian or two from time to time...
>>1201850
It's not just aggressive behavior. Imagine you're playing with a large dog. During the play, the dog gets a bit carried away and nips you. No harm done, in the long term, right? The dog wasn't really trying to hurt you and as such didn't bite full force or break the skin. You're a little surprised and maybe you stop playing with the dog for the day, but it's an isolated and relatively unimportant incident.
Now imagine this with a bear. Or a tiger. People can and have tried to keep such animals as pets. They have to be very, very, very careful. A bear playing with you could accidently rip your face off with an ill-timed swipe of its paw, a blow that might do little damage it was playing with another bear, but a fragile humans? Consider Siegfried and Roy, the lion/tiger tamers and magicians. They once did a show where one of them had a stroke mid-act. Their tiger, feeling protective of its master, attempted to pick him up much as it would with a cub and carry him off stage. In grabbing him by the neck with its teeth and then utilizing enough of its muscle to carry him bodily, it's teeth tore into his carotid artery, causing major blood loss. Thankfully he was rushed to a hospital, but both performers insisted no harm be done to the tiger: it was just trying to help.
The massive size, strength and instincts of these creatures that might make them useful in combat make them liabilities to their owners. You can't breed those traits out, because they are the very traits that make the animals desirable in the first place.
Plus, most big predators are solitary and territorial. Unlike dogs, you can't tap into their natural pack instinct to protect and obey. A tiger or a bear is dangerous as an individual dude to it's "look out for #1" instincts as much as its strength and claws.
>>1201908
>dude
Meant to say "due."
