Petting/Loving My Alligator Gar
- Thread starter Spatula
- Start date
when you consider the fact these bulls are raised and bred for the PBR, yes the rope is minimal. there is millions of dollars spent in raising and breeding these bulls. they dont just go to a random farm and say, "hey, lets pick this guy for tonight". farmers and scientests and vets breed these bulls specifically for rodeo and nothing else. theyre given precise diets and even steroids to make them as large and as fast as they can possibly be
zspidel;4127537; said:
Thanks your proving the type of things I do not want to see Gars being chosen for.. I'd rather see them not in this area of human involvement...
For the record I deal a lot with Cervid domestication and have quite a few years doing that as well. Been working with Fallow deer (Dama Dama) in particular...
Just FYI...
1. This is a Gar forum. Gar > Cattle
2. I don't plan on riding my Gator Gar or giving him steroids, just swimming with him.
I just really love my fish and for that I apologize.
Now Shogun just beat Machida, so let's party
1. This is a Gar forum. Gar > Cattle
2. I don't plan on riding my Gator Gar or giving him steroids, just swimming with him.
I just really love my fish and for that I apologize.
Now Shogun just beat Machida, so let's party
zspidel;4127392; said:
The main difference I see here is that the animals you mentioned are herd animals. They respond to body language and negative actions. A horse can be "broke" a term I hate because it relates to cowboy days when a "trained" horse was one who had it's spirit broken. IMO seems similar to what the OP is doing here. I give him props for being brave to get his fingers near that mouth, but still this is not in the animals nature. Horses, and cattle, are herd mammals and they rely on communication from one another. Today's horse training methods rely on playing to body language to get the horse to feel it is becoming part of your herd, a herd in which you are the alpha mare, yes the female leads the herd, males are protection. A herd equals protection so a horse will strive to become part of your herd to become protected, that is because they are prey and an estimated 5000 domestication have not taken that instinct away.
Now this leads us to a second point. Horses and cattle have been bred to be more passive over the years, with the exception of those rodeo cattle and broncs bred for aggressive violent tendancies and one wild ride. Fish are not bred for companionship, pack animals or even intelligence, they are bred as a hobby. It sounds cruel but its true. In some cases they are bred for scientific study, in a biologists effort to learn more about the world around us and the animals behavior in the wild. Horses were once bred for speed when the various tribes used them for pillaging and the very first domesticated horse was selectively bred to be large for meat, way before cattle was domesticated.
Predators are not very easily domesticated. It has take the domestic dog an estimated, if I remember correctly 6000+ years to become what it has come. Largely, IMO the reason it was so easy is because it was a pack animal. The domestic cat is still not as tame as a dog and retains most of its wild instincts, the instinct to be above, to hide, to reserve food, and to hunt. A bird dog has to be taught to hunt, a cat still remembers.
I would say not so much that you are treating your fish as though it were a dog or a baby so much as you are treating as if it were domesticated. Fish are not domesticated, they are tricked into thinking that this glass box we give them is the whole entire world. We, at least I, love them so much because they retain a sense of what is wild, a sense of what is primitive, something that works. Your gar is an ancient species, the behavior that he displays, including his intelligence has been modified over thousands, millions of years, into something that works. Obviously, since he has survived as a species.
"Training" is something that can occurs because the animal has the intelligence to comprehend due to natural selection, you appeal to the will to survive, for instance a treat. Eating means surviving, if you say sit to a dog and it sits you give it a treat, it learns to sit because sit means food and food means survival. If you apply pressure to the bit in a horses mouth to get it to stop and stopping means you release the pressure, the horse will stop to relieve the pain, pain does not lead to survival. A cat will learn to come in at night because at night there are things larger, coyotes where I am from, and larger things do not mean survival.
However, sometimes animals will do things that natural selection should select against. Take the North American Possum for example, how many do you see smashed on the road every day? This animal continually stops when lights hit it and will freeze or "play possum." Now playing possum works sometimes when a large animal is attacking you, but does not work when a car is coming at you in the dark going 60mph and you are an animal that ways 4lbs max.
So, my question as a, trying to return, biology student is not "why the hell are you doing that to your fish?," although part of me inside wonders, but "why is your fish letting you?" What wild trait is making it give in? Pressure points? Fight or flight instinct? What?
However, curiousness aside, I agree that it is bad for the animals slime coat, considering the fact that a single netting can damage it. I also see no reason to lift the fish out of the water except for personal pleasure, I like to breathe I think your gar does too. As the poster, who's name I cant remember as I have been typing this for 25 min but works with these animals regularly said, he teaches his to go into a tube for measuring, so there is no need for that unless you have a personal mission to weigh your fish.
Anyway, I just thought this was a discussion I could share my thoughts in and I would like to point out that the arguments stated between the two main posters are that of a Biologist/Zoologist and a Hobbyist. No offense meant.
wHilE sOloMon was ReaDIng thiS thrEad, he TaUght me (His AlLigator GAr) How to TypE resPonses FoR Him iN foRum threAds.
I don't think the question of if a fish can be tamed is the question.. but should one allow a large predatory animal the room to take your life.
the biggest flaw in the comparison between said bull and a gar.. quite frankly, the bull is not a predetor, as aggressive and "nasty" as a bull can be it doesn't have predetory instincts. They are dangerous because of their shear size, and defensive arsenal.
you want to get into the water w/ a large gar, jump into a leopard/tiger enclosure. It's a more accurate portral. It may be "tamed" but it's stupid to ever trust your life to it. It does not think like a human, it thinks like an animal. One day your luck will run out. Just like one day a horse might kick a trainer in the head, or a bull gore a rider. Even knowing what you're doing is taking a risk. Thinking the animal won't hurt you because you've "bonded" with it is just a recipe for disaster.
I do think you're going about it right in working with the animal from a small age. I work with all of my large species as juvies. I do not want 30"+ fire eels to get super stressed when i need to move them, or take a closer look. They are use to being manipulated in the water, so as they grow they are use to this. Much akin to teaching a dolphin/shark/ect at zoos to manuver them into slings ect. For the long-term health of my fish I work with them to accomplish these things. my own Florida allows some "pettings" but I'm not foolish enough to touch around his mouth. My TSN is also getting use to touch. I hate using nets to remove/move fish. they really damage them. being able to manipulate my fish into a solid container in the tank is by far less stressful and imo alot safer to my fish. I am also very careful about not removing slimecoat and the fish are touched maybe 1x a week.
I feel my fish over-all are more comfortable in their tanks with this interaction they have with me. my fire eels and TSN, notoriously shy fish are very outgoing and active.
I worked with very large aggressive reptiles years ago. pulling from those experiances I prefer to have handelable large animals to "wild" large animals. But it is never safe, and every precaution should always be taken.
And a side note about the bulls.. I agree the rope is minimal.. they are "trained" from birth pretty much to be "bulls". They know their job, and many of them probably even enjoy it. I know my Horse loves to jump, ears prick, steps get lighter, same w/ a few QH's I know and get them into a pen. The problem lies in how some less then reputable owners/breeders/ect who won't put hard work in and use torture instead to get results. And those are usually the animals that turn around and snap. But not always.
The question is... are you the former or latter?
Perun's point is about as solid as it can get...
the biggest flaw in the comparison between said bull and a gar.. quite frankly, the bull is not a predetor, as aggressive and "nasty" as a bull can be it doesn't have predetory instincts. They are dangerous because of their shear size, and defensive arsenal.
you want to get into the water w/ a large gar, jump into a leopard/tiger enclosure. It's a more accurate portral. It may be "tamed" but it's stupid to ever trust your life to it. It does not think like a human, it thinks like an animal. One day your luck will run out. Just like one day a horse might kick a trainer in the head, or a bull gore a rider. Even knowing what you're doing is taking a risk. Thinking the animal won't hurt you because you've "bonded" with it is just a recipe for disaster.
I do think you're going about it right in working with the animal from a small age. I work with all of my large species as juvies. I do not want 30"+ fire eels to get super stressed when i need to move them, or take a closer look. They are use to being manipulated in the water, so as they grow they are use to this. Much akin to teaching a dolphin/shark/ect at zoos to manuver them into slings ect. For the long-term health of my fish I work with them to accomplish these things. my own Florida allows some "pettings" but I'm not foolish enough to touch around his mouth. My TSN is also getting use to touch. I hate using nets to remove/move fish. they really damage them. being able to manipulate my fish into a solid container in the tank is by far less stressful and imo alot safer to my fish. I am also very careful about not removing slimecoat and the fish are touched maybe 1x a week.
I feel my fish over-all are more comfortable in their tanks with this interaction they have with me. my fire eels and TSN, notoriously shy fish are very outgoing and active.
I worked with very large aggressive reptiles years ago. pulling from those experiances I prefer to have handelable large animals to "wild" large animals. But it is never safe, and every precaution should always be taken.
And a side note about the bulls.. I agree the rope is minimal.. they are "trained" from birth pretty much to be "bulls". They know their job, and many of them probably even enjoy it. I know my Horse loves to jump, ears prick, steps get lighter, same w/ a few QH's I know and get them into a pen. The problem lies in how some less then reputable owners/breeders/ect who won't put hard work in and use torture instead to get results. And those are usually the animals that turn around and snap. But not always.
The question is... are you the former or latter?
Perun's point is about as solid as it can get...
