I should have been clearer. If we didn’t domesticate and have use for them then they would have been hunted to extinction long ago.
If we stopped eating eggs and eating chicken for some reason then the domestic chicken wouldn’t be around anymore. They would kill off what is left in farms since they wouldn’t make profit off them, then they would be gone.
Again, I don’t think that’s true. Junglefowl live in incredibly dense tropical locales that would make it very difficult to hunt them.
As well, I think the concept that we would kill all chickens off so they would therefore be extinct because we have no use for them is, well, counter to what this entire post is about and not really much of a thought experiment. You could say the same about dogs, or cats, or any other animal humans decide to decimate. Hell, even each other at times… Even with junglefowl we could burn down their habitat until there were none left.
I should have been clearer. If we didn’t domesticate and have use for them then they would have been hunted to extinction long ago.
If we stopped eating eggs and eating chicken for some reason then the domestic chicken wouldn’t be around anymore. They would kill off what is left in farms since they wouldn’t make profit off them, then they would be gone.
Again, I don’t think that’s true. Junglefowl live in incredibly dense tropical locales that would make it very difficult to hunt them.
As well, I think the concept that we would kill all chickens off so they would therefore be extinct because we have no use for them is, well, counter to what this entire post is about and not really much of a thought experiment. You could say the same about dogs, or cats, or any other animal humans decide to decimate. Hell, even each other at times… Even with junglefowl we could burn down their habitat until there were none left.
See: the original penguin