tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3113182078732942696.post1344589065710271945..comments2024-03-12T05:38:57.339-07:00Comments on Wolves, Wolf Facts, Cougars, Cougar Facts, Coyotes, Coyote Facts - Wolves, Cougars, Coyotes Forever: Blog reader "L.B." weighing in on the seemingly aberrant theory that Dogs got domesticated by following Humans and dining on their hunting scraps and garbage heaps.............He agrees with another Blog Reader, Dave Messinio, who yesterday commented strongly on the common sense theory that it was man who followed Wolves because Wolves found it so much easier to kill prey than did early man...........And then likely, Wolf pup adoption by the hunter/gatherers occurred with these adoptees joining humans on hunting forays/moving of camp, etc, etc.............Thanks to both L.B. and Dave for their common-sense thoughts on the never ending debate on how Dogs evolved from WolvesCoyotes, Wolves and Cougars foreverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05594002891926526543noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3113182078732942696.post-75046006016524233902013-11-29T06:07:58.731-08:002013-11-29T06:07:58.731-08:00....Let me emphasize that I don't doubt(knowin.......Let me emphasize that I don't doubt(knowing wolves and dogs), that wolves DID very likely scavenge from human hunters at times(I mean, just THINK of all the leftover meat from any of the Megafauna like a mammoth or giant ground sloth, for instance!), but I agree that humans likely scavenged just as much from wild wolf packs. What I disagree with is the notion that wolves SELF-DOMESTICATED(NO ANIMALS EVER "self-domesticated"!!!!!) by scavenging from early AGRICULTURAL dumps from settled villages, much, much later in human history. The slightest knowledge regarding these early, early agricultural efforts of humans indicates that there was little to discard in the first place(NOTHING like a modern urban landfill where Coppinger first observed dogs scavenging and had his very poorly thought out epiphany!), and then, of course, WHY would carnivorous wolves want to scavenge from agriculturists who had little meat, because there was little in the way of big game(why it is believed agriculture started in the first place was declining game numbers), and NO OTHER domestic animals yet! So wolves hung around for the extremely poor pickings, completely transforming themselves physically and socially to adapt to this miserly niche, when all they had to do was go elsewhere? Yet it is easy to see WHY wolves would be attracted to earlier hunter-gatherers' enormous gutpiles and excesses of meat from the megafauna being killed in those times. And the DNA tests, and archaeological evidence corresponds well with this time frame--THOUSANDS of years BEFORE agricultural villages showed up--plenty of time for human-raised wolves to have gradually morphed into our beloved dogs. One GLARING thing Coppinger overlooked was that the early Paleo-Indians that came to North America during the ICE AGE, eons before agriculture on any continent, already had DOGS! And our abilities as hunters may have been greatly influenced by observing and scavinging from wild wolves. Most hunter-gatherer societies in historical times revere and admire wolves. The wolf persecution by humans only seemed to begin when other domestic animals were "invented", that wolves could be a threat to....L. B.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com