Interesting Study On Domestication Of Silver Foxes

[Kobi'sDaisy]

Not sure if it has been posted but came accross this study of the domestication of silver foxes based on behaviour only and resulting in many changes in their appearance also, like floppy ears and tail wagging!

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/09/06/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/

[Kirislin]

Yep, it's been posted before but I'm sure lots haven't seen it and it's pretty interesting.

[sandgrubber]

Good article. Thanks for posting. I've been interested in the Belyaev experiments for many many years. This article presented them from a different angle.

At one point I considered signing up for adopting one or more domesticated foxes. Turns out that the only sell them desexed and the adoption fee was around $5k, which killed the idea.

Something Goldman didn't say is that the experiments were more successful than Balyaev expected. He originally measured domestication on a scale of 1 to 5. I can't remember how long it took, but it wasn't a huge number of generations before he ended up with all his foxes in the most-domesticated group and had to rework his scale.

I personally think dogs also range in the extent to which they are domesticated . . . and ongoing selection for temperament is one of the most important aspects of "improving the breed".

p.s. I think he's wrong about tail-wagging. I've seen wild foxes wag their tails . . . just not at people.