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Comment by skosuri | Hacker News Reader

About 4 years ago I gave a talk at a genomics conference in Novosibirsk. I asked to go to this facility and it was super interesting. They were also doing similar experiments on minks and a few other mammals. I was pretty surprised on how few generations it took, and the physical features changed pretty drastically as well. I'll see if I can dig up some old videos.

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Tamed mink (1)

Untamed mink (2)

Note the coat color change happened during selection.

Tame cute foxes (3)

Bred foxes (not for tameness) (4)

Excuse my shoddy camerawork.

(1) https://www.dropbox.com/s/9h5imx8kr3zrxe4/2012-06-28%2000.54...

(2) https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sjenj5us94y2c8/2012-06-28%2000.50...

(3) https://www.dropbox.com/s/6z0x1f60z2evvmy/2012-06-28%2000.26...

(4) https://www.dropbox.com/s/9o22yx9nk2pvfj8/2012-06-28%2000.36...

That tamed mink is absolutely relaxed. Such an animal would likely serve as an excellent pet, but the regulatory and cultural obstacles are almost certainly insurmountable.

Even genetic evolution moves faster than our regulatory system!

Might be other problems though with a tame but undomesticated animal. Do they smell bad? Can they control their bladders etc? Carry pests or other undesirable bacteria etc?

I think the only problem would be finding a vet who knows the species and getting vaccinations.

Outside of dogs and cats, vaccinations are likely off label anyways. A vet would say "This mink is 4kg, I'll give it the dosing for a 4kg cat."

Feral mink are a serious threat to other, more endangered species of small animal: http://www.scotsman.com/news/invasive-mink-killing-native-wi...

Are feral dogs and cats not, though? I.e., we accept the risk of pet cats and dogs escaping into the wild and reproducing, and they are quite savage hunters when they need to be (cats, IIRC, even kill just for sport).

Not to the same extent, it seems - although probably that's because people have been drilled into neutering their pets for decades. Some places do have feral dog problems. The Scottish Wildcat is also threatened by interbreeding with domestic cats - an unusual form of extinction where it simply becomes indistinguishable as a species.

Thanks for these videos, they're real gems. I've wanted to see the foxes at the Institute for Cytology+Genetics for a very long time, and this raw footage almost puts me there. I finally see the difference between the tamed and not-so-tamed foxes - real eye-opener.

I must ask... do you happen to have any more footage hiding away? :) (The camera is in perfect focus, making this footage a rare treat for this type of thing)

Seeing the difference between the {non-,}tame mink was very interesting too, TIL.

Awesome! Thanks for the videos.

You should also check out this great documentary, Secret Life of the Dog.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/secret-life-dog/

It has a segment in it regarding this fox domestication project.

Also gave me a greater appreciation for how great dogs are.

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