Is it possible to domesticate lions
So in case of lions, I expect that the breeders would also try to select the smaller ones, in order to have animals easier to feed. In a video about a Russian project on domesticating foxes, the foxes started to become greyer and their ears to become more soft and fallen to the ground, like the dog ones. The thing is that, just like us, the more the foxes started to look more sociable, the more they looked like infant version of their species. Even though foxes and wolves aren't much like Lions and cats, you could also considerate these changes.
Not to mention the social structure of lions would be severely be changed and affect their relationship with humans and other pets. Like pissing in all their territory, eating a crap-ton of food, sleeping more than 14h a day, roaring all night like dogs barks all day, ruining sofas with their powerful nails and jaws and probably eating the neighbour's dogs.
Also, a bonus, there is a russian couple that is raising a cougar that was too small and weak to be released into nature and was rejected by its mother. It could also be used as a reference for your lion. They also have a channel were they make daily uptades on their cougar and other wild animals they interact with:.
Also, another bonus curiosity: Cheetahs are too stressed, so the zoos give them companion dogs to help them keep calm. Depending on how your tiny-lions behave, you could also add a type of animal they are good to interact with, like cheetahs and dogs or crocodiles and those birds.
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Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Asked 6 months ago. Active 6 months ago. Viewed times. So far what I have is: Becoming more sociable Smaller Size Increase in synaptic plasticity What other changes can on suspect? More Context: For more context they were domesticated in much the same manner was wolves, they were assisted by humans, and assited humans in hunting of fauna and megafauna, over a long period of time, and soon began seeing them like members of the pride, and underwent the changes that come with domestication.
Improve this question. Zoey Zoey 9 9 bronze badges. Clarke's story The Lion of Comarre , semi-domesticated lions make excellent guards and companions Show 2 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. A possible solution So, what you're looking for is a set of circumstances that would mean it's desirable for humans to work together with big cats, and importantly that it's desirable for big cats to hang around humans as well rather than just eat them.
So what might that mean? Improve this answer. By now most of us have seen or at least heard of the controversial Tiger King and for some, it unraveled the scary reality for many big cats living in captivity. Can lions be domesticated? Lions are large and wild animals and can easily overpower and kill their owners at any moment.
The aggression of a tamed animal can be far more unpredictable , and dangerous, compared to domesticated animals. For example, a cat that is familiar with you is less likely to suddenly attack you aggressively unless you provoked them or pulled their tail.
Moreso, domestication can be broken down into three main groups according to these traits. Domestication for companionship as we see in our fellow cats and dogs, for food like the farm animals, and lastly for work that includes animals like horses, donkeys, and camels. In most cases, animal domestication was the product of human intervention.
Plant and animal domestication happened in numerous places, most likely about 11, years ago, and in some parts of the world before 15, years ago. While there were many animals that became useful to humans, big cats like lions were too wild to domesticate and there was probably no use for them.
Feeding them would be too expensive and capturing them and training them would also require certain provisions, time, and the willingness to overcome the dangers of such contact. While Captive Asian elephants were used as transport and believed to be domesticated by some they never were, similarly, big cats that were also bred in captivity were never selectively bred.
But what if humans did try to domesticate lions thousands of years ago through selective breeding, or better what if they tried to do it now?
In reality, such an experiment would take a dedicated group of specialists and generations of lions and probably humans to truly see if such a thing is possible. Lyudmila Trut a year-old biologist and Dmitry Belyaev had the same question half a century ago only instead of lions they used foxes for their experiment.
These scientists tried to re-create the evolution that transformed wolves into dogs and they did indeed manage to domesticate a group of foxes. The selection would be based on choosing less aggressive lions for each breeding, but by the end of this experiment, these lions would probably look less like lions and more like a new species. The foxes that Belyaev managed to domesticate had acquired floppy ears, they were no longer red, but grey, and while or they had white spots.
The history of lion taming goes back to the 19th century , and the first famous lion tamer was Isaac Van Amburgh who toured Europe between and A year later Miss Hilton became the first female lion tamer, and women with such a profession were called Lion Queens.
Lions were trained in circuses and they were part of entertaining acts, the tamer would put their head inside the open jaw, make them jump through hoops or they would make the lions sit on chairs.
Mr Von Solms walks barefoot next to the lion as Zion does not like noise - he described the lion as 'special because of the bond we share'. Mr Von Solms has grown very close to the lion and they have even shared the same bed and travel in his truck together. It was left to year-old Mr Von Solms to care for the lion cub. Unable to return to the wild because of his tame and friendly nature, Zion lives with 18 other lions, as well as cheetahs and leopards, all looked after by Mr Von Solms.
Eleven years later and the bond between Mr Von Solms and the 'king of the jungle' is stronger than ever. He spends his time walking Zion along dusty tracks in Africa - affectionately holding on to his tail - and drives the big cat to and from hunts in the back of his truck. To appease Zion - who dislikes noise - Mr Von Solms makes sure to walk barefoot next to the lion. However, for larger exotic animals, the disparities between the wild animals and domesticated cats or dogs are massively vast.
It is our responsibility to ensure those animals are given a safe haven. Although domesticated animals may very well retain some of their wild instincts, the ramifications of simply letting them all run free would be devastating.
On the flip side, the consequences of taking free animals out of their natural habitat especially animals like tigers and lions that are endangered and forcing them to live in a cage in our backyards as pets is equally devastating. There are many biological and evolutionary differences between our domestic cats and dogs and wild tigers, lions, monkeys, and reptiles.
We need to respect the fact that just because humans can hand-rear lion cubs does not mean that they will lose their heightened adrenal glands that drive them to hunt, or that their perfectly evolved teeth and claws will cease to be a threat. There is an indisputable difference between owning a dog or cat and confining a lion or tiger to a captive life. All wild animals should be able to live, well, in the wild.
Thousands of years ago wild animals were domesticated out of necessity, and despite many failed attempts by exotic pet owners to prove otherwise, domesticating wild animals at this junction is nothing more than self-gratification. Our energy and our focus should be on the conservation and survival of a species—particularly of endangered species—not on attempts to domesticate those that cannot be.
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