Tame vs Domesticated: Why Knowing the Difference Matters

Tame vs Domesticated: Why the Difference Matters: Because it can be a matter of life and death. To read more in Greek go at https://filikaki-blog.blogspot.com/2024/01/blog-post_15.html*

In other languages, the word for taming is the same as the word for domestication. However, in the English language, the two words refer to two partially overlapping but distinct concepts. For example feral animals (are domesticated, but not tamed. Similarly, taming is not the same as animal training, although in some contexts these terms may be used interchangeably. 

There have been innumerable instances where people were unable to distinguish between tame animals and domesticated animals, resulting in many potentially life-threatening incidents where tamed animals (which are still wild animals) attack people. 

Domestication is a multi generational mutualistic relationship between humans and other organisms, in which humans took over control and care to obtain a steady supply of resources including food. There are generally 3 types of domesticated animals: Animals adapted to a human environment e.g. dogs, cats, guinea pigs, animals farmed as food sources e.g. cows, sheep, pigs, goats and animals drafted for work purposes e.g. horses, camels and donkeys.

A tame animal is an animal that is relatively tolerant of human presence. Tameness may arise naturally (as in the case, for example, of island tameness) or due to the deliberate, human-directed process of training an animal against its initially wild or natural instincts to avoid or attack humans. The tameability of an animal is the level of ease it takes humans to train the animal, and varies among individual animals, breeds, or species. Taming implies that the animal tolerates not merely human proximity, but at minimum human touching. Yet, more common usage limits the label "tame" to animals which do not threaten or injure humans who do not harm or threaten them. Tameness, in this sense, should be distinguished from "socialization" wherein the animals treat humans much like conspecifics, for instance by trying to dominate humans. 

Domestication and taming are related but distinct concepts. Taming is the conditioned behavioral modification of a wild-born animal when its natural avoidance of humans is reduced and it accepts the presence of humans, but domestication is the permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to an inherited predisposition toward humans. Human selection included tameness, but domestication is not achieved without a suitable evolutionary response. Domestic animals do not need to be tame in the behavioral sense, such as the Spanish bull. Taming is conditioned behavioral modification of an individual; domestication is permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to, among other things, a heritable predisposition toward human association

Wild animals can be tame, such as a hand-raised cheetach. A domestic animal's breeding is controlled by humans and its tameness and tolerance of humans is genetically determined. Thus, an animal bred in captivity is not necessarily domesticated; tigers, gorillas and polar bears breed readily in captivity but are not domesticated. Asian elephants are wild animals that with taming manifest outward signs of domestication, yet their breeding is not human controlled and thus they are not true domesticates.

Here’s a simple glossary of these important terms and what they actually mean: Wild refers to naturally occurring animals, for example, a tiger.Tame refers to any animal that is habituated with humans, for example, you can tame a tiger, but it is still a wild animal which simply got used to interacting with humans. This does not mean that they will always behave like regular domesticated cats**. Domesticated refers to species of animals that are results of being selected and bred in captivity by humans over multiple generations. Such animals develop physical, behavioural and even reproductive changes when compared to their wild counterparts. Hence, there is no such thing as a “domesticated tiger”. Because even after generations of breeding in a zoo, it is still very much a wild animal. Want to know more?*** 

Before we go, there are two other commonly misused terms and they apply only to domesticated animals. Stray refers to domesticated animals escaped from captivity but still relies on direct or indirect  activities to survive. For byexample, a stray cat is not feral as it relies on humans a.k.a community feeders to survive. Feral refers to domesticated animals escaped from captivity and managed to thrive and reproduce without any direct human interference. For example, feral populations of cats have established themselves in many countries, threatening native wildlife. 

Παραπομπές: 

*Ορισμοί εν συντομία στα ελληνικά, εδώ

**Here’s a real-life incident which happened at the Singapore Night Safari in 2005 - a tame serval cat (yes, still a wild animal) attacked a tourist during the Creatures of the Night show.That is why you should not keep a wild-caught animal as a pet even if it is quite tame. 

***See this video: https://youtu.be/Euo3JaqFoss?si=iq0fYAyaRqMsbiKo (Even in this very interesting video, you’ll find the host using the term ‘domesticated’ wrongly).

Source - Photo at https://gaiavets.com/blog/tame-vs-domesticated