Mark Derr > Quotes

“More animals followed in the parade of domestication, although the argument is frequently made that domestication is a rare and special event that only a few predisposed animals could have experienced. That may be, but I would propose that no one really knows how hard or easy it would be to domesticate a species until they have tried—the Siberian foxes were not that hard, once an effort was made. In fact, Neolithic farmers in short order domesticated their favorite mammal prey—horses, reindeer, aurochs, goats, sheep, asses and donkeys, cats, Asian elephants and African elephants of the subspecies Hannibal would later lead across the Alps to invade Rome, yaks, water buffalo, various Southeast Asian wild cattle, ducks, chickens, rabbits, rats, and mice. In the New World it was, turkeys, guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and occasionally the bush dog and raccoon dog. More recently, humans have added catfish, trout, salmon, shrimp, and other marine organisms to the list.”
― Mark Derr, How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends