The Process of Animal Domestication Quotes

“Gambian rats are used to detect land mines and also tuberculosis, apparently via their highly developed sense of smell. This is probably one of the most paradoxical cases of human sophistication - using special skills of other living beings to deal with our own species' proneness to proactive aggression.”
― Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra, The Process of Animal Domestication

“On a more curious note, there have been historical attempts - some also in current times - to 'revive' an extinct wild form, the aurochs (Stokstad 2015), perhaps an example of the 'taste for the primitive' so characteristic of diverse human endeavors (Gombrich 2002). The case of the aurochs is tied to the Heck cattle and with that to the history of Nazi Germany. It would seem there are better ways to act to restore natural environments.

Gombrich EH. 2002. The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art. Phaidon.
Stokstad E. 2015. Bringing back the aurochs. Science 350:1144-1147.”
― Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra, The Process of Animal Domestication