Humans Have Been Sharing Food With Animals for Centuries. Why Is That?

Researchers want to learn more about the connections between humans and the feeding of birds, beasts and other fauna.

In England and America, selling bird seed for feeders is a big business. In Delhi, people toss bits of meat into the air for black kites. Fleets of ships ply the oceans to catch fish for domestic cats, the descendants of predatory land animals. Humans feed animals all the time, whether it’s our pets, the chickens we plan to eat or the ducks at the park pond, even though we shouldn’t. Throughout history in fat years and lean across many cultures, sometimes with no apparent reason, humans have fed animals of every imaginable stripe in every imaginable way. Some researchers think the desire to give food to other animals may drive domestication as much as the human desire to eat them does.