Domesticating Rats

This month's National Geographic has a fantastic article on animal domestication, "Taming the Wild." The article discusses the genetic changes that occur in domestic animals, and bases much of the story on a decades-old Siberian experiment studying the domestication of foxes. Essentially, scientists learned that it only took a few generations of selective breeding to turn wild foxes into tame, friendly animals. In an effort to duplicate their results, the same experiment began with rats, mink, and (briefly) river otters. The same results were seen in each species.

I live in a household full of animals. According to a Nova special the other night, our dogs are genetically 98% wolf. Our cats are the only species that domesticated themselves. (There are suggestions that this is why cats are so poorly domesticated.) Yet no one flinches at living alongside cats and dogs. Rats, however, are constantly referred to as harbingers of disease and sources of filth, despite their equal domestic status.

The researchers in Siberian are now applying for permits allowing them to sell their tame foxes as pets, which will help fund future research. There are already tame foxes living in private homes in Russia. It will be interesting to see if foxes as pets take off and how it may change public perception of foxes. I imagine that within a short period of time, it will be more acceptable to most people to have a fox for a pet than it is for a rat.

Sushi and Saké may treat their cage like they are wild animals but they are 100% domesticated.