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I got to pet a Capybara yesterday!!!
(toast.ooo)
It was awesome! One even rolled over on its side to get belly rubs. Definitely would recommend for any animal lovers. :)
https://www.gatorland.com/animals/meet-a-capybara/
Link for anyone interested.
Too bad domestication takes generations. 😭 My buddy loves capybaras so much he has a tattoo of one.
Do you know if people have made a start?
Nope, but after researching everything you'd need to do to provide a suitable environment for a capybara, it seems super unfeasible. Besides breeding a desire for human companionship into capybaras, they require huge enclosures and access to large bodies of water since they're semi aquatic. Furthermore, the water would need to be thermally regulated and regularly filtered because that's where they defecate and stuff.
You can alter a creature's biology and behavior with domestication to an extent, but it seems like you'd have to be filthy rich or overhaul what a capybara is just to make having one as a pet a humane option.
They'll just have to keep being our buddies in the wild (or in dedicated sanctuaries).
The biggest issue is poop. They don't poop just in the water, they poop everywhere. And they often eat their own poop, not just under stress conditions (as dogs do) but even when they're happy. I'm not sure if they can be conditioned, for example, to only poop in a litterbox, and to leave the poop alone.
On the other hand, thermal regulation for the water isn't that big of a deal, they're more resilient to cold than it looks like:
I think that this pic is from the same park as I posted early on. It snows once in a blue moon here, but hail is somewhat common in the winter. They handle it fine.
And even if you successfully domesticate them, there are problems. There is a huge program in Russia that has been going on for decades domesticating foxes and, while it has been largely successful, the foxes urinate every time they're excited. So they just won't make good pets.
As I understand it, the foxes were specifically bred to not just tolerate human interaction but to enjoy it and crave it. The thing is that that is selective breeding over the course of a couple dozen generations in less than 100 years.
Most of the animals that are currently domesticated have had thousands of years of selective breeding, so there are all kinds of specific behavioral or physical traits that they do or do not have.
Ironically, that kind of hyperspecific breeding for only a few traits is what leads a lot of modern dog breeds to have various health problems associated with their breeds because they are bred for aesthetic and not for health or longevity. A common example is the obsessive compulsive disorder bread into the dog that is associated with bull terriers or the hip dysplasia that is associated with German shepherds due to being bred to have more and more deeply sloped backs.