Domestication of chinchillas

[davx]

Hello,

I found an interesting study about effects of domestication in chinchillas. The summary of the study is in English, however the study itself is in Russian... maybe google translator helps for better understanding. Maybe one can try to translate this together at least the most interesting parts?

"Summary: Evidences for numerous changes that had taken place at chinchillas during their breeding in cages for about 85 years, have been presented in paper. Their breeding period could be expressed as equaled to 68 generations of these animals. Preliminary observations have pointed out to progressed process of domestication of these animals that are very different nowadays from their wild ancestors. Although it is not yet their full domestication, there are many features testifying to progress in their domestication. Changes referring to reproduction (occurrence of polygamy, disappearing of seasonal reproduction, increase of fertility and prolificacy) as well as the rate of young animal growth and achievement of higher body weight as well as appearance of numerous color varieties that had not been met earlier in wild population have been observed. Moreover, in everyday farm practice, changes of nutritional and reproduction behavior, social and motorial activities have been clearly visible."

Source:
Barabash, B. (2007): The domestication of chinchilla (Chinchilla laniger). VOGiS Bulletin 11(1): 115-121. (PDF) (in Russian, engl. Abstract)

For those familiar with German, I picked up this topic in our German chinchilla forum as well:
www.degupedia.de/board/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=4414

[moletteuk]

I haven't really thought much about the domestication process of an animal before. I tend to think of it as a deliberate process for dogs and farm animals to be more as humans want them to be. For chinchillas, is this more of an accidental process, a response to the conditions they are kept in? Or perhaps has there been selective breeding in the commercial fur farms? ...I presume the research relates to fur farm bred animals rather than pets?

[Karma]

domesication is just the process in where animals become use to a difference environment - so anything we catch and place in a cage/tank etc is being domesicated. We remove them from the wild and place them in a tiny cage, different diet, force them to be very close to others of its kind and subject them to different sounds, sights and smells of our house.

We always are selectively breeding because the individuals that do not thrive on our "commerical diet" and tiny cages are not going to be good breeders. Also, you hope that all breeders only breed healthy animals (ie those that can do well in the different environment) and those with behevaiour that makes them good pets.

Everything is always being selectively bred whether intentional or not - the animals/plants that are best suited for the particular micro-environment (the mineral levels, temperature, sunlight etc of the small area which they are living) are going to be the healthiest and thus the best at reproducing.

[davx]

For chinchillas, is this more of an accidental process, a response to the conditions they are kept in? Or perhaps has there been selective breeding in the commercial fur farms?

Yes and no. Domestication is always an accidental process, which is the result of a long lasting isolation from the wild populations. But chinchillas are also a good example of a strong selective breeding process, because the commercial fur breeders wanted to shape a population with better fur quality, bigger size and more uniform colour. There is mentioned in older breeder literature that the breeders had the short-tailed chinchillas in mind as ideal chinchilla type. However it is questionable if the effect of visual changes by selective breeding has a significant influence on the "nature" of the animal, on their behaviour and their adaptation to the new conditions, as the domestication itself is quite a slow process.

domestication is just the process in where animals become use to a difference environment - so anything we catch and place in a cage/tank etc is being domesticated. We remove them from the wild and place them in a tiny cage, different diet, force them to be very close to others of its kind and subject them to different sounds, sights and smells of our house.

Finally this is true as domestication is a long lasting, slow process: the isolation and the different environment leads to changes in the genetics and their behaviour. But it isn't that easy that animals in captivity show considerable changes of domestication after few decades of breeding (many pet owners think so, thus I mention this here). It is, as I said, a slow process, because animals adapted over thousands of years and even more to their natural habitat and environmental conditions. Thus it is vital that they won't change their genetics too quickly, as long as they can temporary adapt to a new situation e.g. by changing behaviour and so on and they can conserve a range of diversity to deal with changes in future, which might be disadvantageous if they are adapted to strong to the current situation. Domestication is therefore the process when changes to a new environment enters the genes and the animals start to change their behaviour irreversibly. Interestingly this isn't the case for many pet species, e.g. degus or even golden hamsters, the latter are kept in captivity for over 80 years and they still differ hardly in their natural behaviour, when they are kept under semi-natural conditions, e.g. in a recent study of the German ethologist Rolf Gattermann some laboratory hamsters lived in a 7,6 square-metre greenhouse with natural soil and the ability to build extensive burrows. The laboratory hamsters were able to dig the burrows as the wild species do, even-tough they never had the opportunity before to learn this and as well they didn't know soil as bedding before.
Good examples for domesticated animals are dogs or guinea pigs, the latter are clearly more social, can live in multi-male groups and so on. Also they have changed their "language", e.g. the most obvious feature is, that guinea pigs make sounds when they are hungry. Wild cavies do not know this form of communication, also the males live without other males in a small group with several females.

Everything is always being selectively bred whether intentional or not - the animals/plants that are best suited for the particular micro-environment (the mineral levels, temperature, sunlight etc of the small area which they are living) are going to be the healthiest and thus the best at reproducing.

That is true, there is much influence even if it is not intentional. This is also true for scientific breeding and scientific experimentation, where animals should be kept under "neutral" conditions to prevent unwanted influences. The truth is, that this sounds simple, but reality is, that there are so much influences we hardly can control. This influences also breeding strains. E.g. when a scientist sorts out biting mice because he doesn't feel like dealing with biting mice, he does something the nature probably handles differently (biting as a sign of aggressive behaviour might be a selective advance in wild). This might be an obvious example but there are also more subtle issues, e.g. a researcher is a cat owner and the laboratory mice smell the cat hairs, which stick on the clothes and eventually distribute in the environment of the mice. There are studies showing that cat hairs influence the behaviour and hormone regulation (e.g. alter stress hormone level) of mice and rats. So it is likely that mice or rats do not show natural behaviour in presence of cat hairs and it eventually may influence results of scientific experiments. Other examples might be magnetic fields, ultrasonic sounds and different types of sensory experiences animals can feel in contrast to humans and thus humans don't consider the influence of such "invisible" forces. Or another source of influences are social influences, e.g. that two animals dislike each other and in consequence they feel stressed in presence of the other animal or two animals with an unresolved ranking, which leads to smaller fights and incertitude in the stability of the group.

[moletteuk]

'Domestication' changes could cover all kinds of things now I think about it, and it must be difficult to tell which changes are for what reason and whether they are permanent or not. From almost genetic engineering of selective breeding for better fur or better temperament, right through to the lost chain of learning when babies are removed from parents too soon, so don't learn to communicate or nest build or correct social behaviour.

From my experience with hamsters and being on hamster forums, I think people almost deliberately tell themselves that domestic hamsters are very different from wild ones to salve their conscience about not providing natural habitats or anything much natural and of interest. I can remember joining in with the fear of bringing in wood or natural foods from outside as if it was 'foreign' to hamsters to have natural things. And the idea that hamsters don't need much space because they aren't used to having space. It's like an illogical conspiracy.