Comments on: Are Fennecs Foxes?

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:30:08 +0000

Great post Sabrina, Dan i couldn’t agree more with you. I think we should adapt the fennec and make it domesticated. I think that because a fennec fox is such a small animal, that the fennec can be an alternative to making dog breeds teacup or smaller. The fennec is said to be a lot like a dog and belongs to the same family. In fact, results show that fennecs do well as pets. They can be trained to a leash, litter box, and how to fetch and come. They seem to adapt quite well with food as pets and have shown to do well with other pets. I feel seeing this information and how cool and cute they are they should definately be domesticated.
http://www.fi.edu/learn/heart/systems/excretion.html

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 20:38:56 +0000

Great post, I think fennecs should be domesticated. Keeping in mind the creation of dogs, with the aid of artificial selection, fennecs can be morphed into a common household pet. Dogs were once wolves that would feed off the food waste of a human civilization. The wolves that were least afraid of the humans fed on their trash and survived. Eventually these calm wolves passed on their genes to the next generation. The growing populace of calm wolves encouraged the humans to domesticate them and use them to their advantage. Humans would breed the calmest of each litter and form them. I think that if we follow a similar principle with these foxes they may adapt into household pets.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/5/l_015_02.html

By: Gurk

Gurk — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:29:23 +0000

Wow great job!Thanks Sabrina your blog post kept me up with this, I never knew this was being debated. Like Gunnar I agree that fennecs are foxes. Its not hard to notice that fennecs have some of the same abilities just like foxes. When I wanted to learn some more about fennecs, I started to do some research. What I learned, from this post was alot such as that the big ears they have are used to radiate heat from the Sahara heat. Even the fox’s feet are hairy, which helps them perform like snowshoes and protects them from extremely hot sand. The fox’s feet are also effective shovels for frequent digging.They live in underground dens.Fennecs foxes dwell in small communities, each inhabited by perhaps ten individuals. Like other, male fennecs mark their territory and become angry competitors when mating season arrives each year.
Here is the link where I found this information.
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/

By: Leyla

Leyla — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:29:03 +0000

Great article, Sabrina! In terms of your questions, I believe that fennecs could possibly be pets. If a fennec is born in captivity rather than in the wild, it is unlikely for it to be any more dangerous than a a dog or a cat. After doing some research, I learned that fennec foxes are hunted for their valuable fur, and are nearly extinct. By this logic, I don’t believe that it would have negative ramifications for the fennecs at all if they are kept as pets; as a matter of fact, a fennec kept as a pet would most likely live a longer life than a fennec in the wild.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/
http://www.squidoo.com/thefennecfox

By: Gunnar

Gunnar — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:43:56 +0000

wow great topic Sabrina! I personally believe that Fennecs are foxes. I did not know that foxes could live in deserts, or the Sahara Desert for that manner. I know from general knowledge that the Sahara Desert is very hot and i thought it was awesome that this animal is nocturnal so it can hunt at night so it doesn’t have to face the scorching heat. I also noticed that you mentioned that they have to have a lot of attention or else they can use there skills to dig under fences and i 100 percent agree with that because i have watched a video which i will post at the bottom of a fennec owner that is annoying it’s fennec with his camera and the fennec makes growling noises and tries to leave the area. I just thought that it proved that if you don’t treat a fennec right it will do what it knows whats est for him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8GOEa5mx3s&feature=related

By: Noa

Noa — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:43:39 +0000

Great post, Sabrina! Fennecs can be household pets; in fact they are basically a combination of a cat and a dog. They are the size of a cat, and have similar personalities to a cat, but have the energy of a dog. They don’t even smell, like a cat or dog would, unless they scared but that odor lasts only for a moment. They aren’t more or less time consuming then a dog would be, you would need to play with it and give it its exercise, but it also sleeps a lot too. They also come with the same precautions you’d have with a dog, you should keep small objects away from them because they will eat it and because they are small you should be careful not to step on them around the house! Fennecs do also bark like dogs, and snarl like them too when playing so don’t be worried if they make any weird noises at you. These animals are a lot like having a puppy in the house; they will chew on your furniture and aren’t automatically trained not to pee on your bed. They are trainable though, and aren’t completely wild in the sense that they love to be cuddled and held.

http://www.fennecfoxes.net/faq.html

By: Molly

Molly — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:33:22 +0000

Interesting choice for a post, Sabrina. I agree with Andrea that although they may be difficult pets to raise and take care of, I think that with enough care and attention they could easily be considered “pets”. If you think about it, most household pets originated from similar wild speicies that would never be considered demestocated today. For example, dogs are common household pets that numerous amounts of people keep as company and train to do several tricks. Researchers at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), recently conducted a study to prove that dogs descended from wolves in the middle east. Their results showed that specific domesticated dogs can trace a common ancestor back to wolves that lived in the middle east through gentetics and the same DNA. Just like dogs, these fennec foxes can be domesticated even though they are wild animals.
I don’t exactly agree that fennecs are classified under their own group, but I do think that these foxes can be considered foxes. According to National Geographic, researches consider this species a type of fox because they behave and act just like foxes. They also try to survive and reproduce in the same way. I don’t think their chromosome count affects if they should depend on what group they should be classified under.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124768140
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:29:19 +0000

Great post Sabrina!! I seen fennec foxes in real life and they are unique animals. Referring to what Ms. Baker said, the Belyaev experiment was a major discovery in artificial selection. Belyaev was a Soviet geneticist who performed his experiments in the 1950s and 60s. Belyaev believed that domesticated animals resulted in genetic changes over the course of time by the process of selection. Unlike most other scientists at the time, he believed that behavior was the cause of these changes, not by size or how much the animal reproduces. In 1959, he started an experiment on which how different behavioral skills can change a species over time. He used grey foxes, which are untamed. As the experiment began, he kept the foxes in cages, and allowed less time with contact with humans. When new pups are about 3 months old, they are placed to experiment with feeding, in which the experimenters give them food, and then see if the pups interact with the other pups or the humans more often. When the pups are sexually mature, they are placed in classes based on tameness. Eventually, some of the foxes remained the same, while some have in fact became tame.
I would now like to raise a question. How will this experiment, if performed, will react to this experiment? What could be a possible hypothesis for this experiment? These questions could relate to the fennecs by showing that there could be a possiblity that the fennecs can be fully tamed.

Link: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/early-canid-domestication-the-farm-fox-experiment/1

By: Cartland

Cartland — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:27:11 +0000

Good post Sabrina! I also find some information about Fennecs after read your post.
Basically, I think that why fenneces are so different from other fox is because they live in Sahara Desert. I’ve never heard that any kind of fox live in a desert.
The surface of the desert ranges from large areas of sand dunes (erg Chech, Raoui), to stone plateaus (hamadas), gravel plains (reg), dry valleys (wadis), and salt flats. So we can see that the Sahara Desert is very arid, and it’s very changeable. And the fennecs need to be change because of the environment. I think that’s why they are not look like fox and they have so many traits.

source:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Sahara_desert

By: Emily

Emily — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 18:23:40 +0000

This is a very riveting post, Sabrina! After doing some more research and gaining more knowledge on the fox, I do not beileve that the Fennecs should be classified as foxes, but instead, be categorized under their own division. As you stated in the article, the Fennec has only 32 chromosomes, which results in extreme differences between the fox and the fennec. Also, they eat things like plants, rodents, eggs, reptiles, and insects, which makes them the only carnivore in the Sahara desert.
I also believe that it is immoral to domesticate the Fennec. They often dwell in groups with around 10 other individuals of the same species in the Sahara, and they become extremely agressive when searching for mates each year. They are naturally wild animals and prefer to live where they originate, the Sahara Desert. It would be cruel to remove them from their natural habitat, and use them for the pleasure of humans. Although this may seem hypocritical, as most humans own some kind of dog or cat, that has been true for so many years now, and dogs and cats have adapted to life with humans.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/fennec-fox/