As regular readers of this blog know, I found Timothy Treadwell’s relationship with foxes far more interesting than his relationship with bears. (Here he is with his beloved “Timmy.”)
If he’d only stayed with foxes, he’d probably be alive today, and we’d call him the “Red Fox Man.”
The real reason why I find his intimate relationship with these foxes fascinating is quite simple:
I think we can glean some insights into dog domestication from his relationship with his fox friends.
Now, I do disagree with Mr. Treadwell on the merits of fox hunting and trapping. If foxes become too densely populated, they will succumb to disease or mange and will die horrific deaths. It is better to have a controlled cull of foxes to prevent these diseases from causing a lot of suffering.
However, these foxes in Katmai National Park have never been hunted or persecuted. They have no reason to fear people. They not only scavenge and beg for food from people. Some of them, like “Timmy,” can become extremely tame and a bit bonded to people.
I think it is very likely that before we began our intense and often bizarrely creative persecution of wolves, they were rather like these foxes. They were curious and bold animals that were opportunists that would approach people without any fear. These animals were probably easily imprinted as puppies, and they were probably kept as pets by hunter-gatherers.
We know that most hunter-gatherers today keep all sorts of interesting pets, and it is very likely that wolves were kept as pets by these ancient hunter-gatherers.
How long ago this happened is still up for debate– anywhere from 14,000 years ago to 135,000 years ago.
Modern wolves are generally very hard to tame, even if bottle-reared from any early age. They don’t typically make good pets, but it is very possible that this nervousness and reactivity that so marks this species is the result of a few centuries of intense persecution from our species.
I think Tim Treadwell’s insane and often profane adventure with bears and foxes was useful and philosophically significant. I am a Timmy the Fox devotee, seeing something poetic in that weird and wonderful bonding that we glimpse in Grizz Man. Indeed, studying foxes would have been less dangerous, but when one thinks of it carefully, the Tim Treadwells of the world have nothing better to do than die with their friends. There are worse outcomes and when I consider the fate awaiting most of us, five minutes with a hungry grizzly bear seems small compared to the normal agony most of us are forced to endure by default. Tim went into the hereafter as he wished in all probability and died like a man defending the woman he loved, which is more than most of us can say. No doubt he was bitter and hard-edged, but all is well than ends well. As far as Timmy the Fox, well, he remains, either in life or the progeny he left. Everyone is satisfied and it is all good.