It's an interesting idea - natural selection not by death before breeding, but by emigration - if only the animals that liked humans stayed near them, and those

It's an interesting idea - natural selection not by death before breeding, but by emigration - if only the animals that liked humans stayed near them, and those that didn't went elsewhere, then they'd end up breeding with other "friendly" individuals and you'd have genetic selection pressure that would amount to natural selection. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Domesticated_Red_Fox (evidence for genetic influence on "friendliness") Edit: somewhat irrelevant to the point above, but interesting anyway