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
Great podcast on this topic on CBC Ideas: Ideas with Nahlah Ayed: Entre Chien et Loup: How Dogs Began https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/16085164-entre-chien-et-loup-how-dogs-began
You need breeding populations and usually domestication requires animals that have some form of herd structure. Wolves are organized with parents ahd children. Cows and horses have herd structures with breeding males at the top. Cats are quasi domesticated but they can organize as a colony. In contrast Zebras herd together, but don’t generally ha e a herd structure. Same for Bison. Rhinos are solitary. Elephants actually have much more complex social structures that humans can’t quite interfere with and elephant life cycles are in par for the length of human life cycles.
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