why couldn't humans tame zebras ??

In My Humble Opinion
41

Or to look at another data point, why weren’t bison domesticated in North America? If we look at current bison ranching, it seems that bison take pretty well to domestication. So why didn’t North American indians domesticate them, when they were just as domesticable as Eurasian cattle? Jared Diamond’s hypothesis that domesticable species are already domesticated, and therefore any species that isn’t domesticated must be inherently undomesticable seem false.

There are tons of domesticable species out there, but in order to be actually domesticated those species have to fill some sort of place in an actually existing society. So all across Eurasia cattle were herded, and different species of bovids were domesticated, from aurochs to yaks to water buffalo. So why not bison? Simply because no one had the thought to even try it. And note that european bison were never domesticated either, despite the fact that they seem to do fine in captivity, and pretty much survive nowadays only in captivity or quasi-captivity.

Or take, say, caribou. Caribou are domesticable, they were used in northern europe. But no one in the Americas ever domesticated reindeer. So it isn’t the inherent undomesticability of caribou that prevented their domestication in the Americas, but rather something else. And it seems to me that the impulse in northern europe to domesticate the reindeer came because the northern europeans were already dairying and ranching, and doing the same thing to another species like the caribou came obviously. And the caribou isn’t just an unsatisfactory substitute for an already existing domestic animal, a caribou can thrive on the tundra and taiga where the typical eurasian suite of cows, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens can’t.

42

Because we can? Or as an accident?

IIRC, domesticated foxes were developed in Russia, as part of breeding “tamer” foxes for fur farms. Ruined them for fur, but turned them into may-as-well-be-dogs.

(googles) Ooh, story with picture

No point in keeping them around, really – we’ve already got dogs. But, still… so cute.

(not quite as striking a difference as brazil84’s 3 domestic wolves, but pretty damn different)

43

Well, of course we can do it nowadays, just for fun. But ancient subsistance farmers aren’t likely to attempt an animal domestication project for fun, they would only do it if they thought they would benefit from it somehow.

And that benefit would have to be realized from the captive wild animals right away, not hundreds of years in the future. The captive fox breeding program is an example, they didn’t breed the foxes in an attempt to make cool pets, they bred the foxes for fur, and inadvertantly created tame foxes. And it’s possible that other domestic animals were first tamed for other reasons than how they are used today. Cats weren’t domesticated to be companion animals, but to kill mice and rats in the barn. And they probably weren’t even domesticated on purpose, just that when farmers noticed wild cats hunting in the barn they decided to let them alone rather than harass them, and over generations the cats became habituated to human proximity through natural selection rather than artificial selection.

44

Doh! Beaten to it. That nicely demolishes Diamond’s argument as well, btw. Given enough time, resources and a clear objective I suspect any animal can be domesticated - but who would want to spend 50 generations domesticating vultures or killer whales?

As Lemur866 suggests, domestication probably occurred largely by accident through long periods of time spent in close proximity to humans - and I can imagine that maintaining proximity to a herd of zebra or wildebeest on the African savannah for generations would be a bit more challenging than in areas with more broken terrain that channeled animal movement more.

45

Because Ayla, of the Clan of the Cave Bear, didn’t go to Africa?

StG

46

I believe it also has to do with their poor eyesight.

47

We COULD have domesticated zebras… if it hadn’t been for those defeatist liberals!!!

48

Do you know anything about bison ranching? “Domesticated” bison differ from their wild brethren mostly in which side of the fence they’re grazing on. They are wild animals that are somewhat acclimated to human contact. So long as they aren’t frightened and you don’t try to compel them to go anywhere, you might think they’re behaving much like cattle. They come a-runnin’ to the pickup truck when it drives into the pasture on the expectation that they’re going to get some oats, and are perfectly happy to walk pretty much right up to you to get the oats.

But try herding them into a semi-confined space and they’ll just flip out. Run say 20 head into a 40’x20’ corral and they’ll stampede, room to run or no. Full tilt (30+ mph) in circles looking for a way out, and quite likely injure themselves in the process. Or just try to approach the herd during mating season, or when there are new calves. You’re taking your life into your hands.

These are not domesticated animals in the sense that cattle or dogs are. These are wild animals in a fence who are accustomed to people being around. Now, the most difficult and cantankerous bulls are going to get shipped off to the slaughterhouse, so over the course of the next few hundred years ranched bison should become somewhat more docile. In that sense, they (and zebras) are certainly not undomesticable. However, we just can’t say that bison are no less domesticable than aurochs were. There are no extant aurochs, and we can’t compare their behaviour to bison. Perhaps they were just as nasty as their modern cousins. But perhaps they were not. Certainly a modern feral adult male Bos taurus is a big, mean, nasty critter, so we know that aurochs tremendously more docile from the start. But that’s not to say that the “domesticability” of the two species was the same.

But I guess my main point it, just because we can put up miles and miles of 6’ high electrified high-tensile wire fences and build extra-heavy-duty corrals and chutes specially designed to exploit bison psychology to prevent them from hurting themselves, doesn’t mean that bison are no harder to domesticate than cattle were. However aurochs were domesticated, it most certainly was not the way bison have begun to be domesticated.

49

It seems to me that one way to gain insight into this question is to look at animal that has both wild and domesticated forms around today, such as wolves.

And that’s why I asked whether zebras are more aggressive towards humans than non-domesticated wolves. I don’t know whether there is any objective way to measure aggressiveness. But if you could, my prediction would be that zebras are not particularly more aggressive towards humans.

50

From “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond

51

One difference between wolves/dogs and zebra/domesticated horses is the simple matter of size. Dogs can be fed with scraps and could quite likely have domesticated themselves through the simple act of hanging around people hoping to get some extra food. An article in the Smithsonian proposed that a particular hormone may have controlled a wolf’s likelihood of approaching a human settlement, and those who were less wary had more of this hormone. Thus, the more wary remained wolves while the less wary became domesticated through opportunism.

Other smaller food animals could be domesticated even more simply - an early agrarian noticed that putting out a bit of grain attracted hens, rabbits and other small prey.

Large animals are a different matter. To domesticate a large animal, you have to make sure that you can feed that animal, and feed it in a way that you are getting good return on your effort. That makes it very important that an animal be easily herded, corralled, and bred, and doesn’t kill you in the process.

Some large domesticates vs wild animals:

Camel/Vicuña
Donkey/Onager
Pig/Javelina
Cow/Bison
Domestic Sheep/N. American Bighorn sheep

52

The fact that Diamond made this statement makes me even more skeptical of his claims. The proper comparison is not zebras to horses, but zebras to proto-horses. Even as a layman, I’m pretty confident that proto-horses were significantly nastier than modern domesticated horses.

Again, one need only look at wolves for comparison: Many domesticated wolves have incredibly sweet dispositions, particularly if they are raised properly.

Here’s a picture of a child hugging a domesticated wolf:

http://www.doubleeaglesnumberonelabradors.com/images/doubleeagles1.jpg

As far as I can tell, he’s perfectly safe. Would any sane person allow a child to do the same thing with a non-domesticated wolf? Of course not.

53

That may very well be the case, but the claim I have been responding to is Bob55’s statement that, according to Diamond, in order to be domesticable, an animal must (among other things) be not too aggressive towards humans – thus ruling out the Zebra.

I suppose one could propose a new rule: That to be domesticable as a practical matter, an animal must, among other things, be either (1) not too aggressive towards humans; or (2) small. I see two problems with this rule: First, my point about proto-horses in the last post. Second, the rule smacks of ad hocism. When a hypothesis needs to be made more complicated in order to explain away evidence that contradicts the hypothesis, it undermines the credibility of the hypothesis.

54

This question can be answered by pure logic:

[ul]The zebra cannot be domesticated.
[li]But supposing the zebra could be domesticated?[/li][li]Ah, that would be a horse of another colour![/li][li]But the zebra is not merely a horse of another colour - it is an equine but not a horse (lacking anatomical features such as withers)[/li][li]Therefore the (putative) domesticated zebra both is and is not a horse[/ul][/li]Hence by reductio ad absurdum the zebra cannot be domesticated.

55

You assume this person is sane, when people show time and time again that they are NOT sane; or at least not very intelligent when it comes to keeping animals for pets. I’ve seen scorpions sold as pets, fercryinoutloud.

Here are several links on the safety of having domesticated wolves for pets:
http://www.wayeh.com/aboutsleddogs/wolves.htm
http://www.wolftrust.org.uk/wolfdogs.html

While I can agree that pre-domestication horses were probably more aggressive than domesticated horses, I cannot agree that it follows that early horses were likely to be as aggressive as early zebras. That requires the assumption that early zebras were less aggressive than they are now, which I don’t think is a valid assumption.

For what other reason are you proposing that humans didn’t domesticate zebras?

56

I’m surprised no one’s brought up Przewalski’s Horse. They’re the only remaining truly wild horse species, and have never been domesticated. They may or may not resemble proto-horse, we don’t know, but my assumption is they’re much less accommodating than proto-horse, since Przewalski’s Horse, like the zebra, tarpan, and onager, has never been successfully domesticated. Anyway, the point is, there are several equids that haven’t made the domestication cut, and my guess would be the “because we already have horses and donkeys, and there’s no reason to put in the significant effort to domesticate the rest of them” argument is pretty valid. Some species adapt readily to domestication, and some don’t.

57

Um… did you check the link? It’s a kid and a black lab. :stuck_out_tongue:

58

I notice that the animals humans domesticated have individual appearances. Cats, dogs, and horses come in many sizes, colors, fur types, etc. But all zebras look the same.

I wonder if this had anything to do with it.

59

Probably not. Since all zebras do not look the same. In fact, all zebras aren’t even zebras – they’re quaggas, which looked zebra-like, but sufficiently distinct that they were originally thought to be different critters entirely. Nonetheless, although zebras and quaggas look somewhat alike, they certainly do not look the same.

Then, of course, there’s Grevy’s zebra, which was originally thought to be a zebra (hence the name) because it looked like all the other zebras (that all look the same), but turned out to be a different critter entirely. Quaggas and zebras are more closely related to other horses, while Grevy’s zebras are more closely related to asses.

Also, back to Diamond’s discussion in Guns, Germs, & Steel about domesticating the zebra – after re-reading his argument, it is not so much an argument about why the zebra can’t (or couldn’t) be domesticated, as it is an argument for why the zebra wasn’t domesticated since the horse was easier to domesticate. Which is an argument of an entirely different color than the OP seems to have been looking for.

60

What I’m objecting to is the notion that some ancient farmer was sitting around and decided, “I’m gonna domesticate me an animal! Now, where should I start? How about I start with the most domesticable one? Ah, that’s the horse, so I’ll domesticate the horse.”

I don’t think it works that way. Someone had the idea of hitching animals to a chariot, and having them pull the chariot around at high speeds, while one person drove the chariot and another person shot arrows at the enemy. The people who started this project didn’t have the option of selecting zebras, because zebras didn’t live where they lived. We know that onagers were used to pull chariots (from Sumerian art), but horse drawn chariots prevailed against onager drawn chariots.

Now, it seems to me that to declare that horses are much easier to tame than zebras is simply not supportable. Maybe it’s true. But there weren’t competing zebra and horse domestication projects, and the horse was chosen. Zebras weren’t even in the running, until thousands of years later. And it doesn’t matter how difficult horses were to tame thousands of years ago, no one is going to tame a zebra to do a horse’s job today (except for fun), because thousands of years of selective breeding have transformed the domestic horse.

Those colonialists who tried to tame zebras and found them much more difficult to work with than horses weren’t comparing apples to apples. They weren’t comparing zebras with wild horses, they were comparing zebras with domestic horses, and shockingly, found that tame zebras weren’t nearly as tame as domestic horses. Zebras can’t be ridden easily, because their withers aren’t shaped correctly? Well, ancient horses weren’t ridden either!

No one started the horse domestication project with the intention of ending up with the modern domestic horse. They captured horses probably for food animals, and then as military assets. And for thousands of years horses have been integral to military success, and in many cultures the definition of a nobleman was someone who was a professional at fighting from horseback.

The transformation of those stubby little indo-european chariot horses into the cavalry horses of today took thousands of years. And any potential substitute cavalry animal had to provide results in battle. And so we have tamed elephants, which could do things that no horse could do, but note that captive breeding of elephants was the exception, almost all tamed war elephants were captured wild animals. And camels were used occasionally…in deserts.

So out of the hundreds of animal species that could conceivably be used in war, why horses? Why not tapirs, or cattle, or bison, or rhinos, or giraffes? Simply because any potential replacement for the horse wouldn’t be compared to those first scrubby ponies, it would be compared to the horses available at that time. And thousands of years of selective breeding means that the horse is far and away superior to any replacement.

In other words, zebras could have been domesticated, if only someone had started 4 thousand years ago. And they can be tamed nowadays, because nowadays we’re wealthy enough to tame zebras for fun, and they’re similar enough to horses that many of the techniques used to raise horses can also be applied to zebras.

But the people who have tried to raise wolves or coyotes as pets have discovered that dogs aren’t just wolves who are used to being around people. Even huskies that don’t seem to look much different than wolves are much more tameable and dependable that a tame wolf. And a project to tame dholes, cape hunting dogs, or some other species of wild canid is going to find that, gee, those animals don’t make good pets, the same way that wolves don’t make good pets. And if we could selectively breed cape hunting dogs for 10,000 years we’d probably have a pretty good companion animal, except the only trouble is that the niche is already filled by the dog.