A nocturnal artist who is hungry and tired nearly all the time. Co-writer of Skyfallen and editor for Skull-Kidz!. In an alterous relationship with Humunanunga.
My mammogram results came back, it took so long because there was so much meat to go through. they found little ghouls and imps running around in there, with smoke and stalagmites, but no stalactites thankfully, so I’m I’ll set till next year.
Forgive me, but I don’t understand - can someone explain the difference and why not knowing it is dangerous?
So “domestic” means an animal that has been selectively bred over generations to have characteristics useful to humans, such as reduced flight distance, increased milk/wool/meat production, trainability, lower prey drive, attractive coloring, etc. These are livestock or pets, most of which have been domesticated by humans for millennia, and while they can still interbreed with their wild ancestors, are genetically altered enough to be distinguished from them by a variety of traits. Dogs, cats, cattle, llamas, horses, sheep, goats, pigs, yaks, ducks, geese, chickens: all domestic! You can also have semi-domesticated animals, where the semi-domesticated population has been more lightly managed by humans over time, still sometimes interbreeding with wild populations, and not intensively selectively bred, such as the semi-domesticated reindeer herded by various Arctic peoples. It’s kind of a continuum!
“Tame,” however means an individual animal that has been accustomed to human presence and tolerates contact with people, generally by being in close proximity to humans from birth. Most domestic animals are also tame, because ‘can deal with being near humans’ is a pretty important feature to build in when you’re designing your livestock, but it’s not automatic- even many domestic animals need human interaction from an early age to be able to be calm around humans later. On the positive side of things, tame wild animals can be ambassador animals at zoos and wildlife centers that can interact with handlers and help educate visitors without getting stressed, because they don’t fear humans. On the negative side of things, wild animals can become accidentally tamed (“habituated”) by being rewarded with food for approaching humans and our dwellings, and unlike domestic animals, wild animals haven’t had thousands of years of being bred to be easy for us to get along with, so when this happens you get human-animal conflicts, and that’s always bad news for the animal.
If it’s not already obvious from the above, the reason getting these things confused is dangerous is that people see “tame” wild animals interacting with humans in viral internet videos and go “oh, so cute! I want one!” and then they either go purchase an exotic pet they are entirely unprepared to care for or go out and try to interact with (BAD) or kidnap (WORSE) animals they find in the wild. The animals are always the losers in this situation, and it starts with thinking a tame fox is basically the same as a domestic dog, and can be treated the same way. Tame wild animals might be okay with taking food from your hand on a good day, but that doesn’t mean they’re suitable pets- cuddly-looking animals will wreck your home, smell like musk, be difficult or impossible to housebreak, become aggressive when frightened, and, once tamed, be unable to survive in the wild. A lot of wildlife centers have permanent collections of surrendered pets living out their lives there, because some asshat who decided they were too cool for house cats and what they really wanted was a pet bobcat was met with reality. Even if the animal doesn’t end up in someone’s house, it’s still bad news. If you’ve ever been to a park that gets a lot of tourist traffic, you might find wildlife that has lost its fear of people thanks to all the free handouts, which leads to more people trying to feeding the “tame” “friendly” animals, which leads to pushier animals, and that leads to attacks and wildlife being put down for the sake of public safety.
And people just kidnapping their own local wildlife is the less globally harmful side of things- international wildlife trafficking for the pet trade is a huge problem; it’s is too big an issue to get into here (I’d recommend the book Poached by journalist Rachel Love Nuwer), but it all comes back to not knowing- or caring about- the difference between domestic and tame.
(The other, less concerning to confuse terms I mentioned in those tags: wild is a non-domesticated animal and feral is a domesticated animal that was born outside of captivity and lives like a wild animal (eg feral cat colonies, most pigeons, mustang horses).)
