Mooses, Foxes, and Barter Economics.

Zirantun

Banned
My friend is an owner of a pet fox, and I've never seen a more intelligent pet in my life. My coati, who I have unfortunately had to leave with my dad in Hawai'i, is smart, but I haven't been able to teach him the kinds of tricks that this fox knows. Plus, the fox has proved to be an invaluable mouser, where his cat just sits around lazily waiting for you to fill up its food bowl.

As I know that foxes are domesticatable, I started reading up about other animals that could be tamed/domesticated and came across this very interesting article regarding tame moose: http://moosefarm.newmail.ru/e020.htm

In my William will always be a bastard... timeline, I've been toying with of the settlement of North America beginning much earlier in Eastern Canada and much, much, much slower during the Medieval Period. In the wake of the disease that will inevitably sweep over the continent as a result of European contact, I was wondering what you guys' thoughts are on the possibility of moose/fox domestication in place of scarce animals from Europe and its effects on Native American society? Also, as many Native Americans had no form of hard currency, what do you think about an organized barter system developing?
 
There isn't really a niche for a fox to fill. Native Americans at this point in time wouldn't have a large consumer society demanding exotic pets, and pest control could be more easily accomplished by breeding small dogs than re-going through an entire domestication process.

Really, that's the problem with domesticating native animals when European animals are available. Yes, the original herds of Eurasian domesticates may be small, but with humans protecting them they can grow fast and it will be much more economically preferable to buy or steal them from European settlers than to domesticate wild ones. In fact, that's what happened IOTL-despite the growing herds of feral horses on the Great Plains, the Comanche migrated southward so they could have easier access to the domestic horses of the Spanish and other tribes.
 

Zirantun

Banned
I think you're misunderstanding what I meant by "scarcity" and who is domesticating what.

The scenario would be very isolated European settlements on the East Canadian Coast that don't have a lot of contact with Europe. Therefore, in the scarcity of European animals amongst the European settlers, they may look for an alternative.

And dogs and foxes fill different niches as domestic pets. Foxes are good retrievers, but even better for mousing and efficiently fill the role of cats. If Europeans keep large storage houses of crops, that will attract mice, and you will need a smaller animal that is efficient for hunting mice - i.e. foxes.

Another possibility though is caribou, as they spread into Eastern Canada at the time. However moose sickness will effect them once they come into greater contact with white-tail deer.
 
I think you're misunderstanding what I meant by "scarcity" and who is domesticating what.

The scenario would be very isolated European settlements on the East Canadian Coast that don't have a lot of contact with Europe. Therefore, in the scarcity of European animals amongst the European settlers, they may look for an alternative.

And dogs and foxes fill different niches as domestic pets. Foxes are good retrievers, but even better for mousing and efficiently fill the role of cats. If Europeans keep large storage houses of crops, that will attract mice, and you will need a smaller animal that is efficient for hunting mice - i.e. foxes.

Another possibility though is caribou, as they spread into Eastern Canada at the time. However moose sickness will effect them once they come into greater contact with white-tail deer.

I think he got what you were saying... The problem is that domesticating foxes takes time whereas cats and mousing dogs will already be aboard ship (that's the place you need them most) There will be dogs and cats in the new world regardless... which is a shame because Russian Domesticated Foxes are the BEST THING EVAH!

As for Caribou you need some reason for people to go north (so that Caribou are preferable to horses) and likely need Scandinavians (preferably Lapps) around to come up with the idea. Read DValderons Ice and Mice, he has done TONS of research on Caribou domestication and it will be a great reference to you.
 

Zirantun

Banned
As for Caribou you need some reason for people to go north (so that Caribou are preferable to horses) and likely need Scandinavians (preferably Lapps) around to come up with the idea. Read DValderons Ice and Mice, he has done TONS of research on Caribou domestication and it will be a great reference to you.

They already are north. Caribou ranged into Eastern Canada at the time. The Lapps didn't develop reindeer husbandry until 15th century. These settlements would start out very small, and probably only have a few horses, possibly within the same family and therefore not good for a stable breeding population. Moose are also an option. I'll check out that article though, can you link me?

I'll have to read about the availability of domestic dogs amongst Eastern Canadian tribes though.
 
I think the same principle applies to Europeans as it does to Native Americans. It would be a lot easier to bring cats across the Atlantic than to re-domesticate foxes from scratch, even if the journey is arduous and the colonies are small.

Similarly, it would be easier to just hunt wild game around the settlements for meat to let the already domesticated herds grow without culling them. People willing to cross the Atlantic would be willing to bring livestock with them-the Norse brought their herds to Greenland, and according to the sagas brought livestock to Vinland as well (but obviously didn't let them go feral, and brought them back to Greenland when they left North America).

Assuming they managed to avoid Native attack, the European settlers at this time would find a lot of wilderness filled with wild animals to hunt, not to mention opportunities for deep water fishing in areas that had never before been exploited by humans. They would have a LOT of wild food to tide them over until they reproduced their farm animals. They don't have a reason to go through the effort of domesticating entirely new animals.
 
They already are north. Caribou ranged into Eastern Canada at the time. The Lapps didn't develop reindeer husbandry until 15th century. These settlements would start out very small, and probably only have a few horses, possibly within the same family and therefore not good for a stable breeding population. Moose are also an option. I'll check out that article though, can you link me?

I'll have to read about the availability of domestic dogs amongst Eastern Canadian tribes though.

Not an article, a timeline on this site... worth a read if for your research but also simply a good story https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=222103 one should note that dogs have a higher pulling capacity than either horse or caribou (something well discussed in that thread) and you need arctic agriculture to make domesticating caribou more efficient than simply using dogsleds.
 
Besides, if no one brings cats or dogs across, the natives have dogs. Breeding foxes just isnt going to happen without a very different pod.

Similarly, ANY colonization effort would have brought cattle and horses. The tiny abortive effort by THorfinnr Karlsefni already had at least cattle. And livestock breed much faster than humans. No way do you have a livestock scarcity. Sorry.
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
FWI: there was one sci-fi series that featured ridding moose
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Just want to note that caribou aren't an exclusively arctic animal. They ranged as far south as Mount Katahdin in Maine, and there is a city in northern Maine named for the caribou that the original settlers found roaming the region. Farming opened up the area to deer, which brought a fatal (to caribou) brain disease with them.
 
Just want to note that caribou aren't an exclusively arctic animal. They ranged as far south as Mount Katahdin in Maine, and there is a city in northern Maine named for the caribou that the original settlers found roaming the region. Farming opened up the area to deer, which brought a fatal (to caribou) brain disease with them.

Correct.

As for Moose, I'm not sure how effective they would be as Draft animals, in terms of horsepower.
 

Zirantun

Banned
Besides, if no one brings cats or dogs across, the natives have dogs. Breeding foxes just isnt going to happen without a very different pod.

In my desperation to make this happen, I have discovered that the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland did NOT keep dogs... kinda cuts into what I was thinking though, cuz I didn't want Newfoundland to be the source of the original European colonies.

I have a story in my head of how to make this happen, and furthermore, the widespread domestication of foxes in North America, but it won't have the kind of effects that I had wanted... oh well.

Similarly, ANY colonization effort would have brought cattle and horses. The tiny abortive effort by THorfinnr Karlsefni already had at least cattle. And livestock breed much faster than humans. No way do you have a livestock scarcity. Sorry.

Uhhh... haha, maybe smaller livestock. Breeding cows, pigs, horses, and sheep is a process. It is faster than humans in terms of they don't take 12 years to reach sexual maturity, but it is by no means so fast that a number of variables cannot prevent the growth of a population of one of the three. Specifically, when you're dealing with native peoples who are hunter-gatherers, explaining the value of livestock might be a little difficult. A hunter-gatherer knows that there is plenty to eat all around, so they may not understand why eating all of your cows/sheep/horses is a problem when there's lots of fish in the sea and caribou running around the island.

Still, the domestication of the caribou was not my initial intent as the taming of moose has been so successful in recent years. I'd have to look at how useful they would be as draft animals. Does anyone have any sources for that?
 
In my desperation to make this happen, I have discovered that the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland did NOT keep dogs... kinda cuts into what I was thinking though, cuz I didn't want Newfoundland to be the source of the original European colonies.

I have a story in my head of how to make this happen, and furthermore, the widespread domestication of foxes in North America, but it won't have the kind of effects that I had wanted... oh well.



Uhhh... haha, maybe smaller livestock. Breeding cows, pigs, horses, and sheep is a process. It is faster than humans in terms of they don't take 12 years to reach sexual maturity, but it is by no means so fast that a number of variables cannot prevent the growth of a population of one of the three. Specifically, when you're dealing with native peoples who are hunter-gatherers, explaining the value of livestock might be a little difficult. A hunter-gatherer knows that there is plenty to eat all around, so they may not understand why eating all of your cows/sheep/horses is a problem when there's lots of fish in the sea and caribou running around the island.

Still, the domestication of the caribou was not my initial intent as the taming of moose has been so successful in recent years. I'd have to look at how useful they would be as draft animals. Does anyone have any sources for that?

I don't have a good definitive source for you. It's just a couple of references I've come across - the Animal Traction sourcebook, in passing mentions that Elk (Moose) make relatively poor draft animals. And there was a source on Moose domestication which suggests that Moose aren't as comparatively effective at pulling weights.

I have a private theory that migratory animals, or animals which are habituated to regularly travelling vast distances probably are better candidates for draft animals. Simply put, a migrator builds up long distance power - they're marathoners, capable of putting out a reasonable amount of effort over a long period of time. Migrators are also likely to be more tractable, continually on the move, they're constantly exposed to new and changing environments, which probably gives them a more stable temperament. And in associating heavily in relatively dense populations continually moving through new areas, they're more likely to be immunologically robust.

A Moose on the other hand, while being an extremely powerful animal, is not a long distance critter. It's territorial and moves through a stable territorial habitat, its feats of strength are focused for short intense bursts, outrunning predators, fighting off rivals, etc.

That said, there's enough scattered bits of evidence of Moose domestication, that I'd tend to call them a reversed or abandoned domesticate. What basically eliminated moose as domesticates was that they were browsers, and human agriculture was grazer or grain based.

I would not suggest you abandon your idea for a timeline, but dig much more deeply into the notion and theories of domestication.

For instance, are foxes domesticable as effective verminators? I think so. But for various reasons, cats got into the niche first, and when they did, they occupied it. No room for rival verminators.

But how does domestication occur? Humans are not terribly good at forcing it to happen, in large part I think because historically humans did not understand the phenomenon. I think that domestication is at least partially a mutualist process.

In a sense, animals domesticate themselves by learning to associate with and tolerate humans. The ones who find or fill a useful economic niche become what we call domesticates. Crows, Rats, Raccoons and urban foxes show a high degree of tolerance and habituation to humans, and are very good at exploiting human created food sources.

Unfortunately, no one has ever found a good use for Raccoons, as an example, so they never quite cross over into domesticate territory.

Foxes, in the absence of cats, could autodomesticate. The trick is to figure out a way to keep cats out of the picture. Perhaps the simplest and most subtle means might be a relatively common and innocuous North American rodent virus or parasite to which European cats have no immunity....

But beware of butterflies. You could end up with the virus imported back to Europe on ocean crossing rats. From there, a major cat die off in Europe, vermin populations exploding, granaries and food storage being wrecked, and disease causing rodents producing a new black plague...
 
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