A Comparative Study of the Herd Structure between the Feral Ogasawara Goats and the Domestic Samburu Goats

Abstract

Socio-ecological and behavioral data of the domestic goats reared by the pastoral Samburu of northern-central Kenya are analyzed in comparison with those of the feral goats of Chichijima Island, Japan, for inference on the process of domestication of bovine livestock. The pastoral and feral goats' behaviors are compared with those of wild bovine species. With regard to the origin of pastoral herds, the results suggest that the hypothesis assuming that man first caught infants and formed the livestock herds is more plausible than assuming that man habituated a natural group of animals as a whole.