Falconry has existed for at least 2000 years. Despite this, no form of hawk, eagle, falcon, or other commonly used bird is domesticated. They’re still considered tame wild animals.
Humans domesticated cats, ferrets, horses, pigeons, chickens, and rats. So why is there no domesticated form of falcon or hawk yet?
In: Biology
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/Falconry/comments/1angdzq/why_no_domestication_over_the_millennia/) is an interesting thread on r/Falconry. The tldr is “although we have been using raptors in hunting for thousands of years, breeding raptors in captivity is extremely recent and thus there has not been enough time for the domestication process to really start.” [This article](https://faculty.washington.edu/toby/baywingdb/Genetics%20of%20captive-bred%20raptors.pdf) from 2009 puts the length of time that raptors have been captive bred at about 50 years, although I’m not sure if this is in general or just that specific program.
Latest Answers