Domestic Versus Wild

There are a great many scientifically ignorant people in this world who would argue that there should not be a difference in how we treat our domestic pets versus our wild animals. These people, those who say that all animals should be in the wild, not in people's houses or in cages are unknowingly in the same herd as the people who think wild animals can be kept captive under guises of research and conservation, but such captivity has, for the most part, run its course of usefulness. While very few people in this world are truly free of the 'master race' analogy that we are taught to give ourselves - I cannot say even that I am, as I have been trained like every other human animal to follow the herd - there is something quite disturbing about anyone who says there is no difference between wild and domestic, that it is 'okay' to keep a wild animal in captivity under any circumstance. What about captive breeding, you may ask? Well, if it must be captive, let it be as far from human eyes as possible. Let it not be entertainment. Let those animals who are being bred for the survival of their kind have room to roam instead of being boxed up in a pretty temperature controlled terrarium which is supposed to look like their natural habitat.

A domestic animal is not the same as a wild one. Absolutely, positively, overwhelmingly, NOT THE SAME. Why? You may ask. They look mostly the same! They're of the same genus - a house cat is distantly related to a tiger isn't it? Well, I can't deny that. House cats are distantly related to tigers and both house cats and tigers are classed under Felidae, so they are both cats. However, just because they are both cats does not mean that they are the same animal and it especially doesn't mean that they have evolved the same strategies for survival. Several thousand years ago in Egypt, a little African Wild Cat saw opportunity in the rodent infested granaries of the Egyptians and this source of easy food was something she taught to her kittens. "Hey - the food's more plentiful over there. There's also less predators around - why don't I spend less energy by hunting over there, where those big stupid two legged beasts are?" Well, the big stupid two legged beasts weren't actually stupid and once the ancient Egyptians realized that the cats were protecting their very livelihoods by chasing the mice and their granaries, the cat became a sacred animal, protected, loved and yes, mummified, because humans are not really secretly just jumped up fancy herbivores who got a power-over-other-living-things complex somewhere down the evolutionary line, which other animals can only shake their heads at us for - proverbially of course, since they don't communicate like we do. In any case, in return for easy food and protection, cats and other domestic animals give us their services, services which we ourselves cannot - or rather could not - provide for ourselves.

The point is, 'domestic' animals - I'm talking pets, animals we do not typically eat such as cats, dogs and horses - have developed evolutionary strategies which include working for (with) us. What do we give a dog for his loyalty? He doesn't have to hunt for food. He doesn't have to worry about predators. He has protection against the weather and if he breaks a leg, we set it for him. Dogs have a good deal. So do cats and horses. What does a horse get for her draft services? She gets reliable food, medical, shelter and the thing which is most of all most important to a herbivorous animal, she gets protection from being eaten by predators. What is the most important thing for predatory animals like cats and dogs? Look at leopards, look at lions - they sleep most of the day, so the most important thing to a predator, is the conservation of their bodily energy. In modern times a cat doesn't have to use energy searching for food and neither does a dog. These animals have clearly evolved - or rather adapted or started to evolve - with us as their evolutionary advantage and we have benefited from their services too. Our society would not have been possible without them. The only time this synergy, this symbiosis between species fail is when we, humans, abuse the sanctity of the relationship and you would have to be quite stupid to say that we have not done this, nor that we are not doing that, right now.

Wild animals, tigers, wolves, parrots, birds, dolphins, whales, bears, what have you - they have not adapted for a symbiotic relationship with humans. That is not their survival strategy - their survival strategy is the same survival strategy is the same one which they have been using for thousands of years and they reason they are still using these strategies is because they work. The shark is (perhaps arguably, since everything in science appears to be arguable) the most successful species group to have ever lived. They have been around for over five million years and during that time, their strategy for survival has not changed. Sharks today are (again arguably) using the exact same strategy for survival which their ancestors were using several billion years before anything that looked even marginally like a human ever walked the earth. These animals, who have not adapted for life with humans and who would have adapted by now if they actually wanted to, should not EVER be kept in captivity.

You might again ask why. Why? Because they are intelligent. Only people who have not had a beloved pet or whom are brainwashed by institutions - our entire society can be called an institution - are stupid enough to question the intelligence of other species. It is rare that you find a human who has worked extensively with animals from another species who would tell you that that animal is stupid, if he or she has worked with that animal at least somewhat on that animal's own terms and not with unnatural predatory intentions of gain such as profit. Zoos and marine parks can be pooled in the same file as the ghastly gladiator exhibitions of Ancient Rome because they are all for the most part just a glorified show made up for entertainment value. Many people who run zoos, would agree with this and I salute those such venues such as the Cincinnati Zoo who actually do put their money into true conservation of the wild animals they feature as well as places such as Big Cat Rescue which rescues captive large cats from domestic confinement, places where these animals simply do not belong. You may point out that the animals at Big Cat Rescue are still in confinement there, if you are familiar with the program, but there is a difference - Big Cat Rescue is working hard to end put an end to the captivity of large cats and further, they are trying to conserve wild populations of these animals.

Ancient crowds thought it was amusing watching men fight to the death against each other and ferocious beasts. This, our society calls barbaric, yet this same society of ours calls it okay to capture wild animals from their habitats and put them into captivity. There is a wrongness to any wild animal being in captivity, even one which is captive bred, for a captive bred animal is like an Aboriginal child being denied their heritage. They are in confinement. They may want to escape but they cannot and it would cost them too much energy to try. Life is about preserving and keeping biological energy and creating new life. No matter how pretty a cage is, it's still a cage, to the point where I think of my own indoor cat Copernicus and find my captivity of him - as well as the captivity of hundreds of other cats as perhaps being fairly wrong. I don't mean him running in the wild. I mean that it maybe and probably is wrong that he has no opportunity to roam, to come and go as he pleases. If a domestic animal is unhappy with their situation, they will run away, but we are possessive animals. We love them, we hold them, but is it right, to keep them inside, to make them see the same walls, day after day? If trapped in a room for months, a human goes insane. If trapped in a pool for years, so does an orca or any other cetacean.

Copernicus is not a wild animal. He is domestic and his evolutionary strategy is to live beside me. He has proven himself to be extremely loyal over these past weeks and he has proven that he loves me. I don't want my cat to be hit by a car or eaten by a coyote, yet these same dangers are ones which I face regularly in my own life, as a human. As a human in our modern age, living in North America, I can almost definitely say that I fear no predator more than my own kind. Bears will not come in the night to force me. Tigers do not kill for fun - they kill for food or territory (resources needed to sustain personal life) or to get rid of competition, which really, are exactly the same reasons why humans kill, only we call it war, which we say we detest, yet usually still ends up being all fine and dandy. No matter what side you are in a war, somebody from that side will call themselves 'right' or 'better' so isn't it wrong that we critisize animals for doing exactly the same thing?

I'm getting off topic, but the essence of this all comes down to this: domestic animals are not wild animals. If I ever have a place where it is mostly safe to let Copernicus outside, I may let him, definitely if he has a streetwise companion to help him learn. It is a proven fact that cats teach each other - mothers train their babies how to hunt. Leopards do this and so do house cats. So too, do mother dogs teach their babies if given a chance and mother horses teach their foals how to run, as well as what plants are good to eat as well as which are not. Wild mustangs have been known to self medicate themselves with herbs and to avoid certain obstacles which have proven to cause harm, from dead fall to high ridges during storms when lightning might strike.

Before any reader gets too hyped up with self importance about any of these domestic species 'needing' us, remember this; any animal, including humans, can and will go wild again if forced to. We ourselves are domesticated, but if push comes to shove, we are just another herbivore who can survive in the wild perfectly fine without any modern aid or help.

I'll get to the herbivore thing soon, maybe in my next post. Thank you for reading.


For a change, here's some documentaries and articles I strongly recommend regarding the captivity of wild animals, because I'm not sure how credible most people find some crazy, opinionated little Canadian with no bachelor's degree in anything.

1. Lolita: Slave to Entertainment
2. The Killer in the Pool (article) by Tim Zimmermann
3.The Cove (you can watch it here)

For the record, if anyone strongly agrees with any of my posts regarding conservation or animal rights - such as this one, feel free to repost so long as proper credit is given to me and the repost is linked to the original post here. (However, reposting any of the other works, particularly the works of fiction - as in, manuscript excerpts - or blog posts as my personal life as a whole - are NOT allowed under any circumstances. Links are okay, but NO reposts and it would be better if you asked me first before reposting ANYTHING. Thank you!)