[Sca-cooks] GHHandmaide was Deer Gelding

[Terry Decker]

According to Jared Diamond, domestication requires six traits:  flexible 
diet, reasonably fast growth rate, breeding in captivity, pleasant 
disposition, minimal disposition to panic, and a modifiable social 
heirarchy.  Gazelles, warthogs and cheetahs don't lend themselves to being 
domesticated.

There are a great many degrees between feral and domesticated, where animals 
can be raised in captivity or raised in controlled environment for 
commercial purposes.

While I haven't gone over the evidence, there are some experts who hold that 
the deer is now a domesticated animal due to the commercial breeding in New 
Zealand.

Bear


> Dunno if this will help, but rather than dividing animals into "wild" and
> "domesticated", as is our modern mindset, you might find yourself better 
> off
> running a continuum from "useful" to "useless". As you can see in this
> example, many "wild" animals were in some sense domesticated, whereas many
> "domesticated" animals were, in a greater or lesser sense, "wild" or 
> "feral"
> as we'd percieve them- pigs would be an excellent example, as would hawks
> and other hunting raptors.
>
>
> Saint Phlip