The study lays out the case that the domestication process is often wrongly thought of as initiated by humans—with people capturing and selectively breeding wild animals. But the study authors claim that the process begins much earlier, when animals become habituated to human environments.

“One thing about us humans is that, wherever we go, we produce a lot of trash,” says the study’s co-author and University of Arkansas at Little Rock biologist Raffaela Lesch. Piles of human scraps offer a bottomless buffet to wildlife, and to access that bounty, animals need to be bold enough to rummage through human rubbish but not so bold as to become a threat to people.

This has absolutely blown my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever considered that, obviously.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 24 points 6 days ago

Yeah, if you ever run across the theories of how dogs became so close to us, it started with wolves being willing to take the risks of scavenging near us, and eventually co-evolving (until selective breeding started).

Actively, intentionally domesticating a species is a slow process overall, and it wasn't something that I've seen any specialists suggest would have been the case with dogs, or cats.

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