In the 18th century, the British banker returned to England with 4 zebras, he put the 4 zebras in a carriage, personally drove the zebra through the streets of London, until he walked to Buckingham Palace, attracting a large number of onlookers, and the banker named Walter Rothschild also showed the limelight.
Since then, in circuses, performative equestrian competitions in many countries, we can see the "style" of zebras, which gives us the illusion that zebras are domesticated. Of course, this is just an illusion, because zebras have never been domesticated, which is why we hardly see Africans riding zebras (a species unique to Africa).
So, let's talk about this together.
Zebras are ridden and can pull carts, why is it said that it has not been domesticated?
Among the animals we domesticated, there are two types of equines, they are donkeys and horses, and if you count the products of their hybrids, there are three - mules. There are actually only three types of animals in the extant equine family, which are horses, donkeys and zebras.
Among these three types of animals, human ancestors have domesticated horses and donkeys, they are either used to ride, or to transport goods, or to pull carts, grinding, from the point of view of function, zebras have been ridden since the 18th century, pulling carts too, and even they can participate in equestrian competitions like horses, which is how to see that zebras have been domesticated.
But in fact, domestication can not simply see it being applied, let's take a simple example, until now, humans have not successfully domesticated lions and tigers, but they in the circus, can still drill the ring of fire, walk the single bridge, and under the trainer, they are very obedient, even more than cats and dogs.
And the same goes for zebras, which are not domesticated, but tamed. The definition of domestication is the process by which the growth and reproduction of a creature is gradually used and controlled by another organism, which is very understandable to look at the animals we domesticate today, whether it is pigs, cows and sheep, or chickens, dogs, cats, we have controlled their growth and reproduction, and like chickens we also use their reproduction, such as in the wild their ancestor jungle chickens only lay eggs in 2-5 months a year, but after becoming domestic chickens, they can lay eggs almost every day and so on.
And the growth and reproduction of zebras, people are not controlled, as for use, only use the species itself, did not use their growth and reproduction, so zebras were not domesticated, they were just tamed.
The so-called taming is the use of some means (hunger, whipping, control, etc.) to make animals temporarily subservient to people, the biggest feature of these animals is that they want to escape at the first opportunity, and are very aggressive, if we check the cases of tigers hurting people in recent years, we can find a problem, although wild tigers have been more than in recent years, but the most injured is the tiger in captivity, which is the performance of temporary submission and forbearance.
The circuses, carriages, and zebras we talked about above are all like this, even if they look well-behaved, but aggression is still hidden in the bones, such as in August 2019, when a couple went to visit a zoo in Henan, because of feeding zebras, the middle finger of the woman in the couple was bitten off by half.
And zebras don't just bite "strangers", in American zoos, keepers are bitten by zebras more than other animals each year (counting lions and tigers), so zebras have never been domesticated.
The same equines, why are zebras difficult to domesticate?
Domesticated animals usually have several characteristics: first, the social structure of social groups; second, plant-fed or omnivorous feeding (cost issues); Third, strong reproductive ability; Fourth, the growth cycle is short; Fifth, the character is docile; Sixth, it is relatively quiet.
And zebras actually only meet the first and second two, the rest are somewhat unsatisfactory, let's talk about them separately:
The first is the ability to reproduce. As an equine, zebras breed similarly to horses, they all have a gestation period of close to a year, and then most give birth to only one cub per litter. However, they have an essential difference from horses, that is, after the horse gives birth, as long as the foal is weaned, it can be in heat, but zebras need 3 years before entering estrus again from the gestation, which makes the reproductive ability of zebras the worst among equines.
This is followed by the growth cycle. The growth cycle is actually one of the embodiments of animal reproductive ability, because animals with relatively short growth cycles must reproduce earlier, and zebras are different, they have a lactation period of up to half a year after birth, after that, young zebras want to have reproductive ability, the average age is 3.5-4 years old.
The third is the problem of personality. Among the animals domesticated by humans, although there are many grumpy animals, such as bison, wild boars, etc., the reason why these animals can be domesticated must be partly evolving towards docility. However, zebras began with the influx of Europeans in the 18th century, and today, even in captivity, their tempers have not changed at all, they are moody, and they are extremely prone to attacking people.
Finally, there is the problem of quietness, although most of our domesticated animals can bark, but their calls are relatively small, after all, domestic animals live in our homes, if they are too noisy, they will inevitably be eliminated. And zebras are such animals, they like to bark very much, because compared to other social animals, zebras themselves like to use a variety of different tones to communicate with the same kind (simply put, more words), which makes them still bark from time to time in captivity.
In addition, the call of zebras is similar to that of a donkey, which is higher than that of a donkey, so it greatly affects people's rest.
summary
Although some people have tried to ride zebras since the 18th century, it is a pity that zebras have not been domesticated until now, in fact, zebras have not been domesticated is that they do not meet the requirements of domesticated animals, otherwise as an animal all over Africa, Africans have long domesticated zebras to ride.
Among the key factors that zebras are not suitable for domestication, easy to attack people and bark is the most important factor, these two points are enough to dissuade people to retreat, but these aside, riding zebras does have some "pulling wind".
Extremely unstable zebra