I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

dv said:

I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

Perhaps it’s easier to allow the mother and the herd to raise the elephant to adulthood and then just steal one instead of doing all the hard work raising it from an infant.

Cattle breeds that have been domesticated for 100s of years do fine if released into the wild

Peak Warming Man said:

Cattle breeds that have been domesticated for 100s of years do fine if released into the wild

Able to flee large carnivores?

Cymek said:

dv said:

I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

Perhaps it’s easier to allow the mother and the herd to raise the elephant to adulthood and then just steal one instead of doing all the hard work raising it from an infant.

no, raising one from an infant means you can ‘train’ it. From the negative to positive practices that occur. Much like training a dog, what (and how) you teach them young makes a huge impact on how they respond and behave in adulthood.

their size means a beloved owner can be crushed by accident (as has happened in captive environments in the past) trying to train as an adult is more dangerous.

It is much easier for a grazing animal to return to the wild, than animals that must search and select, or otherwise capture their food.

PermeateFree said:

It is much easier for a grazing animal to return to the wild, than animals that must search and select, or otherwise capture their food.

Indeed that makes a lot of sense especially if the predator learns hunting skills from parents

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

It is much easier for a grazing animal to return to the wild, than animals that must search and select, or otherwise capture their food.

Indeed that makes a lot of sense especially if the predator learns hunting skills from parents

Again: the difficult part for a grazer is learning to, or being physically able to, escape predators. A lioness seeing a bunch of grazing animals (zebra, gazella, fat guernsey cow) is probably going to go for the cow.

dv said:

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

It is much easier for a grazing animal to return to the wild, than animals that must search and select, or otherwise capture their food.

Indeed that makes a lot of sense especially if the predator learns hunting skills from parents

Again: the difficult part for a grazer is learning to, or being physically able to, escape predators. A lioness seeing a bunch of grazing animals (zebra, gazella, fat guernsey cow) is probably going to go for the cow.

Perhaps they could use Bart Simpson posters to try and the influence the lioness to “Not have a cow, man”

dv said:

I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

There are distinct separate subspecies of Asian Elephant.

I think I counted 67 different extinct species of elephant. That didn’t count extinct subspecies.

So let’s look into the subspecies of Asian Elephant. Elephas.

But first, the extinct North African elephant was domesticated. Was it the only domesticated subspecies of African elephant?

The Maltese elephant. Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta (at Ghar Dalam), Crete (in Chania at Vamos, Stylos and in a now under water cave on the coast), Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands. Dwarf elephants were around at the same time as people, at least as recently as 4,000 BC in one case, 11,000 BC in another. The most recent dwarf elephants are Elephas, more closely related to Asian than African elephants, but not subspecies of Asian Elephant.

The Ceylonese Elephant is a subspecies of Asian Elephant. So is the Sumatran Elephant. The Asian Elephants of Laos and Vietnam may or may not be separate subspecies.

Two extinct Elephants, the Chinese Elephant and the Syrian Elephant, are also subspecies of the Asian Elephant. The Chinese Elephant went extinct after the 14th Century BC and the Syrian Elephant went extinct about 100 BC.

OK, so far so good.

So far as I can tell, all of the subspecies of Asian Elephant were domesticated.

Doesn’t the problem of the extinction of Elephant subspecies hold more mystery than any question of changes due to selective breeding?

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

So far as I can tell, all of the subspecies of Asian Elephant were domesticated.

In a formal sense, there have been zero domesticated breeds of Asian Elephant, as outlined in the OP.

dv said:

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

It is much easier for a grazing animal to return to the wild, than animals that must search and select, or otherwise capture their food.

Indeed that makes a lot of sense especially if the predator learns hunting skills from parents

Again: the difficult part for a grazer is learning to, or being physically able to, escape predators. A lioness seeing a bunch of grazing animals (zebra, gazella, fat guernsey cow) is probably going to go for the cow.

I think that applies to all animals. However, if they have evolved with large predators as most large grazing animals have, then they would learn very quickly. Grazing animals generally do not graze alone, so any rapid movement from one, the others automatically react.

dv said:

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

I was surprised to learn that during the 4000 years that elephants have been domesticated in Asia, there has been no selective breeding, and hence there are no identifiable domesticated breeds of elephant. It is still the case that companies and people that want a domesticated elephant go out and capture a young elephant and domesticate it.

I realise that female elephants don’t breed until they are at least 10, and this would slow down any selective breeding process but still … that’s 400 generations, I am surprised it has not just happened incidentally. Horses don’t normally breed til they are 3 or 4, for comparison.

The upside of this is that rewilding of elephants is easy. Captive elephants and even their offspring usually do fine when released directly into the wild.

There some 16000 captive elephants in Asia.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e06.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_elephants
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5756178/why-can-some-animals-never-be-domesticated

So far as I can tell, all of the subspecies of Asian Elephant were domesticated.

In a formal sense, there have been zero domesticated breeds of Asian Elephant, as outlined in the OP.

In the formal sense, only the two African Elephant species remain undomesticated. Sure, an elephant requires a lot of food and a lot of room, so you let it roam. It’s no different to letting cattle roam in central Australia.

Why would you want to selectively breed elephants?

Would you breed them to be better quality meat?
Would you breed them to be better war machines?

Elephants haven’t been used for the same purposes over the entire time that they’ve been domesticated.

mollwollfumble said:

Why would you want to selectively breed elephants?

Would you breed them to be better quality meat?
Would you breed them to be better war machines?

Getting through the house duties to be organised to start a new week again. Waiting for a floor to dry before doing the next job. Taps fingers….

monkey skipper said:

Getting through the house duties to be organised to start a new week again. Waiting for a floor to dry before doing the next job. Taps fingers….

And … elephants are helping you?

dv said:

monkey skipper said:

Getting through the house duties to be organised to start a new week again. Waiting for a floor to dry before doing the next job. Taps fingers….

And … elephants are helping you?

nah, that elephant in the room is getting in the way but hoping no one notices it.

ChrispenEvan said:

dv said:

monkey skipper said:

Getting through the house duties to be organised to start a new week again. Waiting for a floor to dry before doing the next job. Taps fingers….

And … elephants are helping you?

nah, that elephant in the room is getting in the way but hoping no one notices it.

Kabaddi clap