We have some tags that aren't quite being used right and it's bothering me.
The tag domestication tends to be used where I would use feral or something that doesn't exist (maybe taming?).
From wikipedia:
Domestication should not be confused with taming. Taming is the conditioned behavioral modification of a wild-born animal when its natural avoidance of humans is reduced and it accepts the presence of humans, but domestication is the permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to an inherited predisposition toward humans. Human selection included tameness, but domestication is not achieved without a suitable evolutionary response. Domestic animals need not be tame in the behavioral sense, such as the Spanish fighting bull. Wild animals can be tame, such as a hand-raised cheetah. A domestic animal's breeding is controlled by humans and its tameness and tolerance of humans is genetically determined.
Domestication is a multi-generational process that changes the genetics of a group of animals (with a preference towards traits like tameness and usefulness to humans).
Taming is the behavior modification of a single animal.
A good case study of the difference in taming and domestication can be found by reading the large variety of articles and papers written on the Russian Domestic Fox.
Additionally, a feral animal is the opposite of a tame animal. A feral animal is a domesticated animal that is no longer conditioned to accept humans.
Current Usage
The only question that's currently tagged domestication that I believe fits that definition is: Where do domesticated cats come from? I think it would be fine with the other two tags it has (cats and history).
A second question with the tag is a little more arguable: Are there native web building spiders in North America that can be domesticated? The other parts of the question (how do I support a spider) indicate to me that the intent is to tame a single spider, not start a breeding program to genetically modify a line of spiders.
In some places, domestication is used because feral is not appropriate (the species isn't a domesticated species), such as How to "re-tame" my captive shingleback
Most of the feral questions are about cats, but I know we've had a large number of questions about feral dogs (mostly from questioners in India, where they're a lot more common). Is there something about the feral tag that people associate with cats?
Examples of misused domestication
This is a record of posts I've removed domestication from to get an idea of how widespread this problem is.
- 9/5/17: Taming feral cats
- 9/12/17: Cat in a electronics hobbyist house
