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Why do animals adopt?
Taking responsibility for another’s young reveals the deep evolutionary roots of care.
A similar hullaballoo characterizes the elephant seal birthing colony at Año Nuevo, California, where one-quarter to one-half of pups each year become separated from their mothers due to storms, high tides, or the disruptive movements of galumphing males. In the southwestern United States, biologists working to restore endangered Mexican wolves have put these widespread proclivities to use in a fostering program that places captive-born wolf pups into wild dens with litters of the same age. In fact, one theory of dog domestication holds that the process began with Pleistocene hunter-gatherers bringing young wolf pups, perhaps orphans, back to camp to be suckled by human women and raised as part of the community.
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