Domesticated Jackals?

 Domestic jackals?

With jackals the situation is similar to foxes. In some cases there is almost a symbiotic relationship.

 We know the British Old Cur fox (extinction date circa 1860s) lived near human habitation for centuries as these places were a good source of (waste) food since it was dumped and also attracted rodents. It was also noted that during the 19th century when the British army in India went on campaign, etc., the jackals would follow for the same reason and disperse once the army had.

 Anecdotal evidence suggests that there were fox feeders at the very least in the 19th century.

a  jackal  cub

 In India jackals are commonly found around villages, towns etc for the same reason: waste dumps. It is why many claimed that jackals have cross bred with domestic (and feral) dogs. For many years I stated that I believed that there was jackal-domestic dog cross-breeding going on and we know that cross breeding (or idiotically attempting to) of foxes-domestic dogs, jackals-domestic dog and even coyote and wolf with domestic dog was tried by the various British hunts. Certain “Fox-dog” hybrids may well have been jackal-dog crosses.

In The Red Paper Canids I included photographs of three unusually coloured “hybrids” killed in Croatia (2015)  and these were hailed as the first scientifically proven golden jackal (Canis aureous) and domestic dog hybrids/crosses. Long term observation can, of course, be very boring for people who like home comforts and so shooting animals “for science” is always less exertion (not that I am suggesting those involved in this study did so (they would not respond to emails).

Basically, yes, jackals and domestic dogs do cross-breed like other wild canid species and domestic dogs. 

But are jackals becoming domesticated in the sense that they will live around humans? We have seen in the UK that feeders treat foxes like “garden pets” and feed them as they would a house pet so, yes, people have "adopted" New foxes.  In many areas where there are jackals such as (mainly) India they are treated as almost wild pets. Waste food is one attraction and the there is a strong symbiotic relationship between humans and jackals and it would be nice to see naturalists actually study that rather than kill jackals “for science”.

So people have already adopted jackals (and foxes) a long time ago.