posted January 08, 2012 05:14 AM            

3 Videos Underline New Questions About What ‘Wild’ and ‘Tame’ Really Mean

Nature’s Edge Notebook #12 –

Observation, Analysis, Reflection, New Questions

Stray dogs figure out how to use Moscow’s subway system to get downtown to neighborhoods where the food is better.

For years, a house cat in England takes the public bus to get around town, unbeknownst to its owner.

A jungle leopard in India, needing to cross a swollen river with its cub, gets a man to ferry her and her cub across in his canoe.

Dolphins at a dolphin show in Hawaii instantly figure out a mistake their trainers have made and cover for them pretty well, preventing embarrassment all around.

The wild ocean cousins of those “tame” show dolphins have a long-standing partnership with fishermen along the coasts of both Brazil and Bengal that means more fish for all.

In Western Australia’s Shark Bay, wild dolphins being studied by scientists from Harvard, appear themselves to be studying the humans — including this reporter.

These anecdotes may at first seem to be simply entertaining aberrations — fun animal stories of unusually “tame” — and surprisingly intelligent — animals.

But scientists are now collating and comparing so many of these stories — literally thousands from around the world, often from what we’ve traditionally called “the wild” — that it’s all raising new questions about what the words “tame” and “wild” may really mean, and how any difference between the two can be usefully described.

posted January 10, 2012 03:18 PM            

Smarter than we know. One day they'll take over the world!

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"The better you feel about yourself, the less you feel the need to show off." — Robert Hand