Results of Russian Experiment to Domesticate Foxes
We don’t know much about how dogs and cats were domesticated. We have never recorded the process of the domestication of a wild animal. The fact that we have successfully orchestrated the domestication of foxes is amazing. There are very few domesticated foxes in the world, they are part of a 60-year-old Russian experiment by Dmitry Belyayev involving a process that could be described as evolution. Dmitry chose, out of a large selection of wild foxes, the foxes that showed the least aggression towards humans. Those friendly foxes were allowed to breed, then the same process was applied to the offspring. This process continued and eventually 70% of the foxes had reached a high level of friendliness. This meant that the foxes showed no fear or aggression towards humans whatsoever unless provoked. This was a breakthrough and even after Dmitry died in 1985, the experiment continued. The experiment is…