Re: 1st Season New Amsterdam - The Golden Boy - 5 star poll - SPOILERS AHOY !

Joetheone <joetheone@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> "Lee Hulbert" <pythor@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
> >     *     Tendency to Panic - Animals that run at the first sight of
> > danger are difficult to domesticate.  Does this apply to bison?
> 
> No worse than horses. It can be trained out of them. Any herbivore's
fist 
> option in defense is to run away.

But not all of them use that option. Bison have another option, which
is to form a circle of adults around an inner group of young. It's
pretty effective against people without guns. This was the same tactic
Wellington used against Napoleon's cavalry.
> 
> >     *      Social Structure - To be easily domesticated, large
> > herbivores generally needed 3 social traits: Herds, Well established
> > hierarchy within the herd, Overlapping ranges of separate herds.  Do
> > bison have a well established hierarchy within the herd?  If so, are
> > they territorial, or do they allow mixing of herds when they come
> > together?
> 
> I really don't know if they are as hierarchical as, say, horses. That's
the 
> main thing that makes horses so trainable. Every horse has it's own
place in 
> the herd, and there will be scrapes and scratches and blood as a new
horse 
> finds that place. The key to training is presenting yourself as the
alpha. 
> That doesn't mean beating them up, it's more an attitude thing, acting 
> confidently, like you expect them to be led by you.
> As far as buffalo go, I haven't had enough day to day interaction with
herds 
> to know just how theiy're structured.
> I don't think they have a problem with mixing herd members.
> 
> >     From what little I know of bison, I suspect that one of the last
> > two traits is the sticking point.  Care to enlighten?
> 
> Maybe light enough to find the keyhole on the doorknob? 

Could it have been something as simple as not being around the animals
long enough? Bison and Native Americans migrated together from Siberia
no more than about 20,000 years ago and had to do a lot of adapting in
their new home. The people who domesticated animals were around them
much longer than that.