Control of Animals Through Domestication

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The association between humans and domestic animals is one of the closest relationships existing among species. This relationship is considered to be mutualistic because both members benefit. Domestic animals owe their distinctive physical and behavioral characteristics, care, and feeding to the humans who control them. People, in turn, modify their own behavior and technology to manage the breed and provide for the biological needs of their domesticates. If success is measured by the numbers of offspring produced and consequent population increase, clearly the mutualistic relationship between humans and their major domesticated animals is a success (Rindos 1984). The change from a hunting way of life to one incorporating animal husbandry was a profound one. Davis (1987:126) states that animal domestication “ranks in importance alongside the discovery of fire and tools.” Animal husbandry and plant cultivation are the foundations of modern civilization. The effect of domestication on animal and plant populations and on the environment has been, and continues to be, profound. It is not surprising that the origins of domestic animals, their wild progenitors, the region(s) where domestication took place, and the spread of animal husbandry, as well as cultural conditions that promoted these economic changes, are the focus of so much study (e.g., Davis 2005; Vigne et al. 2005). Domestic animals have many characteristics by which we recognize them and that distinguish them from wild animals. The distinctive characteristics of domestic animals include conformation and variability, social behavior, and the contexts within which they occur.