Response to Bill
Bill,
I think you are asking good questions and making good points. I too pondered what certain species would be like if they were subject to the changes that domestication would undoubtedly cause. Domestication would certainly preserve a species but the effects are completely unknown. Like your silk worm example, we have no way of knowing how species will react. Perhaps some species are not meant to be domesticated or maybe we just have to perfect our techniques of domestication. Improper domestication may have caused silkworm moths to lose the ability to fly, not just domestication. Your proposition with the tigers does seem to be a form of domestication. Willingly or not, those in captivity will evolve in a different way than those who are not in captivity. They may become smaller like fish have over time simply for the reason that they don’t have to be large skilled predator when humans are feeding them. I agree that simply domesticating tigers provides little to no benefit to humans. Saving tigers, to me, could provide some benefits. Extinction in an area can cause imbalance. Whatever the tigers where hunting may have a population explosion and send the ecosystem to unbalance.
Recent Comments