Talk:Tame Silver Fox

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1 Proposed move: tame and domesticated
2 Nature/Nurture
3 Silver foxes as pets
4 Scientific Name
5 Taxobox

[edit] Proposed move: tame and domesticated

In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond makes a point of distinguishing "tame" and "domesticated," claiming that the latter, unlike the former, is the product of artificial selection over many generations. His emphasis, he explains, is due to the tendency to consider the words synonymous, when in fact they are not. I don't know whether he invented this distinction for the sake of clarity, or whether it is widely accepted in the study of agriculture and domestication. If it is widely accepted, however, the name of this article is both inaccurate and misleading, and I move that it be changed. If I have the time, I'll investigate this further. Please do not hesitate to provide evidence and take further action if needed. Thanks! Temptinglip 06:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Well if Jared Diamond said it, it must be true! ;-) Seriously, though, the word "tame" appears to be present throughout the literature regarding this study, and the authors of the Wikipedia article simply copied the terminology from the papers. Although I don't have any evidence to back this up, I was always under the impression that the adjective "tame" simply referred to behavior; "tame" is the opposite of "aggressive". "Domesticated" is the past participle of a verb; it denotes something that was "done" to the animal. To domesticate means to make tame, so a domesticated animal is one that is tame, having been made that way by someone. I could be wrong. If you have another reference (perhaps a more academic one) that refutes this, let me know. Xezlec (talk) 07:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the title seems incorrect, and if the literature uses it, that's misleading too. Many animals may be tamed in principle, and there are many tame "ordinary" foxes, lions, wolves etc. The whole point of this experiment was to breed a naturally tame type (see #Nature/Nurture below), not to tame ordinary foxes. A naturally tame strain of a species is exactly what a domesticated animal is, and I don't see how this creature differs from domesticated cats, pigs or pigeons.

I therefore suggest renaming this article Domesticated silver fox with of course a redirect from the current name. --Richard New Forest (talk) 15:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with classifying this fox as domesticated. The latest animal to be domesticated, without argument, seems to be the European rabbit in the 1600's. In the wiki article about domestication there are four degrees. Wild, Raised in Captivity, Raised Commercially or Semi-domesticated, and Domesticated. This fox appears to fit best in the "Raised Commercially" category. Chickens and goats are in the domesticated category, while elephants are still only considered semi-domesticated. To me, if there is any doubt, there is no doubt. Tsarevna (talk) 04:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be talking about ordinary fur-farmed silver foxes, which I agree are probably semi-domesticated. However, this article is not about silver foxes in general (nor about other farmed red foxes), but about a special strain of fox deliberately bred to be tame. The whole point about it is that it is very much more domesticated than ordinary farmed foxes, and (if it is as described in the article), there can be no doubt that it is fully domesticated.

Domestication is when there has been genetic change to fit it to humans. It seems clear that this is what has occurred here, and I support the proposed move.- (User) WolfKeeper (Talk) 17:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It surely cannot be true that European rabbit is the latest domesticated animal. Off the top of my head: house mouse, black rat, brown rat, golden hamster, gerbil, chinchilla, domestic canary, bob-white quail, budgerigar, cockatiel etc etc. Were all those before the 1600s? Then arguably various animals whose "tamability" is limited anyway: Drosophila fruit flies, many species of fish, various ornamental reptiles and amphibians. (Conversely, according to Asian elephant, "domesticated" ones of those are tamed wild ones, so not even semi-domesticated.)--Richard New Forest (talk) 23:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Tsarevna – have another look at the article you referred to. At the end of Domestication#Degrees there is a statement that "a dog is certainly domesticated because even a wolf (genetically the origin of all dogs) raised from a pup would be very different from a dog". How is that difference different from the difference between these different foxes? The European rabbit idea you got is, I'm afraid, because you must only have looked at Domestication#Approximate dates and locations of original domestication. In the next section, Domestication#Modern instances, there are many later ones. These do include the "fox" (which ought to be red fox) – although there is no distinction made there between fully and semi domesticated. Incidentally I see that canary is given as 1600s, about the time given for the rabbit (though there is mention in Rabbit of much earlier domestication).--Richard New Forest (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(back to the left) Support the move - 'tame' seems like it could easily apply to an individual (a relatively "tame" wolf, or even a "tame" lion, or something), whereas 'domesticated' implies that this is something true of the whole group. It also implies that the group has undergone a process to make them this way, which is the case. While these foxes could be accurately called "tame", I think "domesticated" is both more specific and also more unique - you could not call your average Silver Fox "domesticated" (maybe "semi-domesticated" when raised for their fur, but that's hardly the same thing).
DragoonWraith (talk) 21:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nature/Nurture

I changed "strong selection pressure for tamability." to "strong selection pressure for inherent tameness.". It's in important part of this experiment that the foxes are tamed by nature (breeding) not nurture. Each fox is given a small and controlled amount of time with humans, and only those that choose to actively seek out contact are selected for breeding. This is a significantly difference process from (nurture based) taming. Rogerborg 14:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Silver foxes as pets

does anyone know where one could find more details about buying some of these foxes as pets? some of the articles say that they were considering selling some as pets to fund the project...--74.140.144.112 05:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

same here i cant find anymore info about that either, the only article that i read that mentioned the possible sale as pets was from 1999.

It was a project in Russia. I highly doubt that they would be for sale in other countries. TJFox (talk) 12:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Black Russian Terrier was also spawned from a project in Russia, yet they are quickly gaining popularity in the US and abroad. It seems like they would make very interesting pets since they are actually domesticated, unlike many exotic pets that people keep. And despite the low numbers in existance, it shouldn't take too many years to breed them into a larger population. It's a shame there isn't much up-to-date information on them. -GamblinMonkey (talk) 19:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought 'wow that would be a cool pet' when I first started reading the article but its apparent from later on that they're just for the very rich (given that there are only a few hundred of them in existance). Shame really.--Him and a dog 16:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scientific Name

I have seen from many sites that this Silver Fox bears the scientific name "vulpes fulvus". The following sites agree: http://www.omne-vivum.com/b/3145.htm, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v181/n4619/abs/1811353a0.html, http://www.mm.helsinki.fi/users/aulimaki/silver_fox.htm, http://www.furry.de/suran/fox_db/Species_overview.html, and more. Nickesty 22:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

However, none of those sites are referring specifically to the foxes described in this article; they instead refer to 'silver foxes' in general, which I'm pretty sure are simply treated as a subspecie of the typical 'red fox,' which is vulpes vulpes. Take a look at the 'Subspecies' section of the Red Fox article.--MythicFox 01:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Given that the summary article by Dr. Trut describing the project uses Vulpes vulpes, I am inclinded to believe that V. vulpes is the correct name.

Soronel 17:43, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Vulpes vulpes is (or at least should be) the correct name. But however, they can be given an extended name when referring to the specific morph of the animal, or treated like one of the many subspecies of the Red Fox. So you can go either way. Regardless, there's nothing suggesting that the 'Tame Silver Fox' has been classified as a species all its own yet.--MythicFox 01:52, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

MythicFox, can you help to build improve this template (come from the article Red Fox). I added a question mark to each wrong or believe wrong field which need to be corrected. --Yug (talk) 13:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(Draft taxobox itself moved to its own section below: #Taxobox --Richard New Forest (talk) 15:05, 21 December 2007 (UTC))

I'm afraid I don't actually know any more about the subject than I've already stated. And even then, what I've stated is simply what I've been able to piece together by looking up the term 'vulpes fulvus.' While the subject itself bears enough merit to be worth an article, I still say that there isn't enough information to suggest that the tame foxes are or should be considered a seperate species. However, I am in no way an expert. I just happen to know the scientific name for Red Foxes is vulpes vulpes, and that according to the Red Fox article specific sub-species are given extended names. Sorry, but I really don't know enough to fill in the gaps on the template.--MythicFox 07:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)