• Gigan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    I wish ancient humans had domesticated bears and bred them to be pet-sized

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      01·
      6 months ago

      On a less jokey note, pretty much every living mammal has been subjected to domestication attempts at some point in history. Bears, elephants, tigers, hippopotami, moose… More often than not, there’s some kind of inherent physiological reason why it doesn’t work.

      Some animals don’t breed well in captivity (pandas, famously, but cheetahs are another classic case). Some can’t handle captivity at all - the few efforts at keeping Great Whites in captivity ended with the animals bludgeoning themselves to death on the walls of their enclosures. Others are consistently too aggressive to effectively tame (zebras, coyotes, chimps, elephants, and pythons are notable for all the historic instances domestication failed for these reasons). And some simply aren’t pleasant household companions - skunks, raccoons, and foxes are all notable for their powerful odors and their propensity to destroy the interiors of homes.

      There’s some speculation as to whether cats ever were actually domesticated successfully, or whether we’ve simply chosen to ignore their feral habits as such.

  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    Tigers are fairly common household pets in places like India, since they very much are like cats and are glad to be a cuddle-bug for free food. However this is at the risk that the tiger will forget herself and maul you in a moment of playfulness or annoyed aggression. And once you’re dead, well, there’s one last meal you can offer before it’s back to life in the jungle.

    This is not to say all tigers are amenable. Some are just assholes.

    Same with bears, and people have lived alongside bears for eons, knowing full well that alliance only lasts until famine comes a’knocking once again. (Grim fact, – relevant considering famine in Palestine – enough famine will drive us social apes to turn on each other and go full cannibal, which is why it’s regarded as a major humanitarian crisis, and cruel to induce. It’s also why Bron killed all the known thieves in anticipation of the imminent siege.)

    In the meantime, Grizzly Man lived with bears for ten years before getting killed by an unfamiliar one that was just a jerk.

    • TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      Tigers also kill people way more often than bears.

      Stats on this are hard to compare because black bears are responsible for 1.2 kills in the US per year and tigers are like 34 kills per year in India which does have like 4x the population of humans, but also there’s a LOT less tigers to do that killing [like 5,000 tigers to 400,000 black bears] So like… yeah.

    • Sentau@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Tigers are fairly common household pets in places like India

      Are you sure this statement is true¿? I never heard about any story of anybody having a fucking tiger as a pet

      • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        6 months ago

        My evidence is anecdotal, such as videos of people lounging with a tiger in their living room. There’s also the weird thing in the…90s? Where driving around in a large car with a tiger was a dare-sport thing (which is why it appears as an activity in Saints Row: The Third )

        I believe it’s not exactly legal to keep tigers or large cats as pets in industrialized parts of the world (at least not without proper holding cells) but there are huge parts of the world that are less industrialized and are not sufficiently policed to stop symbiotic social relationships between humans and wild animals.

        On a similar thread, cheetahs are notoriously easy to domesticate, to the point that they’re a problem. If you go out to cheetah territory, say in Kenya, and feed one, it may decide you’re their buddy for life and follow you home. Unlike black bears in Montana or Wyoming that assault tourists for food when they learn that’s a source, it’s for the protection of the currently endangered cheetah population.

        As for other large cats, I don’t know how often they companion up. Here in the states, we have mountain lions, but we also have ranger services to police both the lions and the tourists. I suspect in places like Nepal where there are human settlements removed enough from industry there also may be negotiations between leopards and humans with positive outcomes. But that is speculation. I haven’t seen videos of that.

        ETA: Scanning news, apparently in 2024 there are a lot of tigers-as-pets in Texas of all places, which is a lot more contrived since it’s not adopting and befriending the beastie from the nearby jungle, but importing them in to be domesticated.

        • Sentau@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          I have heard about wealthy people all over the world keeping big cats as pets but those are always kept in cages or their own enclosures. What seems wrong is you claiming that regular people are keeping tigers as pet. Infact people and tigers are more in conflict due to encroachment of humans into formerly forested areas.