Rats, mice, and ferrets are all pets but we’re leaving the cutest rodent on the table! Why?
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Even when “domesticated”, these animals still largely behave like their wild counterparts. They just become tolerant of humans, perhaps to the point of considering us family, and generally more docile because that’s a trait we wanted. Dogs are just less aggressive wolves that consider us pack members, and they are social animals so it works out nicely. Even a friendly dog that sees a squirrel behaves like any other predator. They just lack practice.
Squirrels… they are bundles of energy looking to escape. Friendly squirrels can be found and a few people have pet squirrels, but they still want to burrow into things, climb up on things using their claws, and find nice hiding spots. That’s their nature, even if your house isn’t going to appreciate that…. and breeding that behaviour out of them will take a LOT of very selective breeding, maybe thousands of years. Who wants to take that job on?
And… what are the benefits of having a pet squirrel?
So, yeah, high effort for low reward. Decision: don’t bother.
Well we tried in colonial times. They were popular pets back then.
https://williamsburgwalkingtours.com/squirrels-in-williamsburg/#:~:text=But%2C%20by%20far%20the%20most,were%20proudly%20displayed%20in%20homes.
some old friends rescued a baby squirrel and kept it in their house and treated it like a pet, but then one day they were gone all afternoon and the squirrel went nuts and ripped down curtains, pulled books off shelves, etc. to the point that when they got home they thought they’d had a robbery and called the police
nope, baby squirrel just had a rampage
I think it lived outside after that, lol.
Wildlife rarely benefits from close proximity to humans. Best to appreciate them from a respectful distance.
Squirrels have damn near domesticated themselves, having benefitted so much from living in close proximity to humans, like dogs and cats. The only reason they haven’t been is that we see no use for them and they don’t benefit us to live with them.
All a person need do is start throwing food to the squirrel in your yard and they’ll soon come knocking on your back door and let themselves in.
“Tame” and “domesticated” are two different things. I’m not an expert, but domestication involves selective breeding over generations to produce desirable traits for human use or companionship. “Tamed” just means an individual member of a wild species has come to tolerate, accept, or enjoy human contact and control, usually having been reared by humans from infancy.
Humans have domesticated a surprisingly few species of animals on the planet. I read Jared Diamond’s book *Guns, Germs, and Steel* years ago, and there was a whole chapter on the topic. Things I remember include:
– Domesticatable animals generally share similar traits of having some kind of social behavior that they can recognize in human leadership (horses, dogs), manageable breeding/gestation, low cost of investment/risk vs reward
– Loads of animals that are selectively bred for certain desirable traits are actually not ‘domesticated’ in the sense that their behavior is too far from their wild ancestors (sheep, cows, pigs, chickens)
– Zebras are assholes. While individual zebras might be tamed, as a species they are not worth the effort. I read somewhere else that more zookeepers are bitten by zebras than any other animal
– The only species of deer to be domesticated is the reindeer, which are behaviorally similar to horses. Other deer species either don’t have a herd mentality, can leap ridiculous heights, and have a tendency to panic and break their own silly necks when enclosed. Impala, for example, can leap 3m vertically and 10m horizontally. Moose, on the other hand, can and will stomp you into paste whilst you’re trying to gather your breeding stock.
– Elephants take too damn long to breed, live too long, and are too smart. Tamed Asian elephants are used in some places for hauling and other heavy work, but are not domesticated.
– The ancient Egyptians attempted to domesticate cheetahs and had tame ones, but were unsuccessful in selective breeding. This is because for a female cheetah to ovulate, she has to be chased at top speed (I might be remembering this part wrong, but basically the sheer difficulty of selectively breeding animals that are this fast is too high). Fun fact: cheetahs in zoos are often anxious and easily stressed, so they’re often reared with an emotional support puppy/dog.
Edit because I forgot you asked about squirrels: Domestic breeds of rabbits, rats, and other rodents generally retain most of their wild attributes while no longer being able to survive in the wild. While you probably could embark on a program to selectively breed squirrels… What traits would you be aiming for? What are the benefits to humans to engage in this process? I mean, if you just wanted fancy-colored squirrels, I guess you could, but they would wreck your house with chewing. The downsides of having squirrels in the house would outweigh their cuteness as potential pets, so there’s no economic incentive.
Ferret people (and those who just like keeping their animals organized) are going to point out that ferrets are *not* rodents. Far from it. They’re weasels. Carry on.
I had an old neighbor that put out corn everyday for a squirrel until eventually it would climb up on his shoulder to eat it.
>Who wants to take that job on?
I will take this up as my calling in life!
Point of order. Ferrets are not rodents at all. They are domesticated weasels originally used for hunting and act nothing like a rodent.
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