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Are some wolves being 'redomesticated' into dogs?
It happened thousands of years ago, and it may be happening again: Wolves in various parts of the world may have started on the path to becoming dogs. That's the conclusion of a new study, which finds that the animals are increasingly dining on livestock and human garbage instead of their wild prey, inching closer and closer to the human world in some places. But given today's industrialized societies, this closeness might also bring humans and wolves into more conflict, with disastrous consequences for both.
[...] Not everyone is convinced. "I doubt if we're domesticating wolves that eat human-sourced food," says Robert Wayne, an evolutionary biologist and expert on canine genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. "That diet is more likely to get them killed." Unlike the trash-picking dingoes, which reduced their territories, wolves still range so widely that garbage-eaters are less likely to become genetically isolated from the rest of their population, he says. Bobcats, coyotes, and other animals that are already well-integrated in our neighborhoods are more likely to become domesticated, he adds.
Making a New Dog? (DOI: 10.1093/biosci/bix022) (DX)
Dietary niche overlap of free-roaming dingoes and domestic dogs: the role of human-provided food (open, DOI: 10.1644/13-MAMM-A-145.1) (DX)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 08 2017, @08:57AM (2 children)
Are we speaking about Canis dingo [wikipedia.org] or Canis lupus dingo [wikipedia.org]?
'Cause the Australian Dingo gets less than 10% [wikipedia.org] (and much less in the outback) through scavenging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Saturday April 08 2017, @10:19AM (1 child)
> Are we speaking about Canis dingo or Canis lupus dingo?
From the wording it sounds as though it's all of them but more often in Asia.
The "Dingo" article you linked says "10% of the examined faeces-samples contained human garbage (in earlier studies 50% were reported)." That would seem to answer your original question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingo#Dietary_habits [wikipedia.org]
In Australia, cannibalistic dingoes eat their trapped kin:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2097952-dingo-cannibalism-makes-for-a-dog-eat-dog-world-in-australia/ [newscientist.com]
http://www.publish.csiro.au/am/AM16018 [csiro.au]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 08 2017, @10:28AM
Good choice [soylentnews.org], seems they aren't stupid, are they?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford