tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7280576398615172460.post3104026807609025625..comments2020-02-19T00:27:13.196-07:00Comments on Where Simplicity Leads: Who's Domesticating Whom?Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7280576398615172460.post-22069253243470404162010-07-09T15:33:20.966-06:002010-07-09T15:33:20.966-06:00Reading your post about grubs remended me of a cro...Reading your post about grubs remended me of a crow that stayed with us when I was a young boy. The Crow stayed around our house and didn't seem to like any of us, much, except for my mother. While she gardened, he would wait for her to uncover grubs and obliged my mother by removing them from the garden. He would sit on her shoulder while she read in the garden, as well, a past time she is fond of to this day (without the crow).<br /><br />Taming, domestication...not sure. I beleive it is willful cooperation. The crow knew that my mother was harmless and benevolent whereas myself and my brothers were more interested in getting our hands on him for closer inspection. Animals operate in constant survival mode. It's all they know. Most people don't know what that is like. Combat is the most comparable thing to the natural behavior of most animals. If you were to swing a broom at that robin you would have no hope of landing a blow. He would still, most likely, come around when you begin to turn earth. I don't think you pose a significant risk to his overall safety.<br /><br />Interacting with nature is the reward for spending time outdoors. If you have ever been still in the woods in the evening or morning and had an encounter with deer, there is something visceral about the experience that reminds us that once we were more.Del Stantonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10898134040537771854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7280576398615172460.post-62840666935766638432010-06-09T08:38:19.844-06:002010-06-09T08:38:19.844-06:00Thom, you hit the nail on the head describing the ...Thom, you hit the nail on the head describing the moral dilemma here. But I think there’s more that needs to be teased out of this.<br /><br />I had the same thought as you—that I shouldn’t make feeding the robins a habit, so that I don’t inadvertently tame them to a degree that puts them at risk. But there’s something that bugs me about that sort of thinking. I think it presupposes that we’re intellectually superior to other animals and always know what’s best for them. In the animal kingdom humans aren’t superior to any other creatures and it’s arrogant for us to think we know what’s best for everyone else. We’re demeaning the birds when we think we have to look out for their own good. They’re intelligent creatures and can determine their own needs and do their own cost/benefit analyses.<br /><br />In this case the male robin knows what he wants and he’s determined to get it. Yesterday I was out in my front yard trimming some grass with clippers and he came up and got me. He kept chattering on the power line above me and when that didn’t work he hopped down on the ground in front of me and flapped his wings and made quite a scene until I finally listened. I dropped the clippers, went and got the shovel and went to the backyard to dig some grubs. He’s domesticating me, taking my wildness away—training me to do his bidding. I’ve definitely met my match here.<br /><br />I’ve noticed him watching me for weeks. He’s been checking me out. He’s seen the uncanny relationships I have with some of the feral cats in the neighborhood, how they’ll come and sit next to me with no fear (although I can’t touch them). He knows I’m benevolent and respectful. Am I projecting all of this on him? Again, there would be something awfully presumptuous in assuming he couldn’t be making these sorts of assessments.<br /><br />Another thing is, in my experience, that robins love to engage with humans. There are many birds that like to live among humans, but the robin is the one who really enjoys not merely living among us, but also engaging with us. In fact, my very earliest experience with birds was with a “tame” robin who lived in our yard when I was three years old.<br /><br />We form relationships by doing something nice for each other. How else can two living things truly meet? If I were to take a paternalistic stance with these other creatures and presume to know what’s best for them, then how could we ever meet? By telling them that association with us humans was a bad thing, and then walking away, I’d be eliminating one way that healing can occur on this planet. Humans desperately need to reintegrate into our respective ecosystems. I realize that engaging with other species tends to be a very slippery slope for us humans--for some reason we go from tossing grubs at birds to having chimpanzees in our beds in a heartbeat--but I don’t think that’s a reason to seal ourselves off from these relationships. We just need to know how to honor boundaries and not cross a line.Melanie Williamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7280576398615172460.post-3206807003870542832010-06-07T13:25:49.861-06:002010-06-07T13:25:49.861-06:00Good question. I believe it would be domestication...Good question. I believe it would be domestication, in that you are encouraging the robins to give up some of their wild tendencies while you are giving up nothing. Yes, they benefit too, but I think they may lose more in the arrangement than you.<br /><br />You said yourself you were more than happy to kill the grubs. You would have gotten what you needed (dead grubs) regardless of whether the robins showed up or not. That the robins DID show up only helped salve your conscience. <br /><br />The robins, on the other hand, are in danger of losing some of their natural (and justified) fear of humans. YOU might be kind and benevolent, but if they start learning that humans will feed them without harming them they might fall prey to some of the less enlightened of our species. <br /><br />One time I doubt is going to do any harm. But if you start feeding them grubs every day they may come to depend on you and may lose their ability to fend for themselves when you run out of grubs or stop feeding them.<br /><br />But does entering into a relationship make fellow creatures less wild? Not necessarily so. We see numerous cases in nature where two different species cooperate for mutual benefit. Are wild horses that stand end to end to swat flies from each others' faces domesticating each other? Perhaps, but so long as they are creating a natural advantage for one another without necessarily creating a disadvantage in the process, I don't see how it's a bad thing.<br /><br />If you and robins can cooperate without placing the robins at risk of becoming dependent on you or losing their fear of other humans, then why not cooperate? Domestication becomes a liability when one side becomes dependent on the other, such as cows or sheep who have lost their ability to cope for themselves in many instances.<br /><br />I think I'm basically calling mutual cooperation a probable good, while calling domestication--the act of bending another species to serve your needs in a way that makes the other species dependent on you--a probable negative.Thomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09747990389296523185noreply@blogger.com