In both northern and southern elephant seals, only a few males produce offspring ever year. The bulls lay claim to a stretch of beach and then claim as many cows as possible.
And yes, it really must suck to be a cow elephant seal. During this time of her life, she continually being herded by males much larger than she is. And never mind the mechanics of their reproduction. She is a large seal, but she is significantly smaller than the male.
If you’re an elephant seal bull, you must be big and nasty if you are to reproduce. Only one in ten males manages to reproduce. That is an astoundingly low number:
These selective pressures on the elephant seal species have resulted in a favoring of bull seals that are the equivalent of the most-used sire effect in many breeds of purebred dog.
The northern elephant seal nearly went extinct. Its population may have dropped to only 100 individuals. Today, there are 100,000 northern elephant seals, and because of their particular breeding arrangement, very few males pass on their genes every generation.
It is very similar to what has happened in many purebred dogs, and I’m sure that some will suggest that if the northern elephant seals are able to have a healthy population, then it should be okay to breed dogs in this fashion.
The problem with that logic is that we actually don’t know the full consequences of the extreme genetic bottleneck on the northern elephant seal. Because they lack genetic variation, it is possible that an epidemic or even a slight environmental change could prove disastrous for the seals. In normal populations, genetic diversity means that some animals will have some resistance to potential changes in the environment or infectious disease. However, if all the seals are genetically quite similar, they may all be similarly susceptible to these problems, which means they could all die off.
Again, the fact that it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean that it can’t.
The other thing is elephant seals are under the pressures of natural selection. Dogs really aren’t. Really defective seals don’t live very long. They wind up in the bellies of orcas or great whites. Truly defective elephant seals don’t reproduce. With dogs, we can continue to select for defect, intentionally or unintentionally. We can select for a whole range of disorders and not even know it until a third the dogs in any given breed have them. (That is only slight hyperbole.)
One of the delusions we have is that we think we can just selectively breed out disease without actually realizing that we’re dealing with a dynamic genome. I’m not in favor of breeding dogs with disease. Don’t get me wrong.
But unless we look at the whole system that leads to an accumulation of these diseases, we are doomed to failure. It is quite literally little more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to think we can just cull for this disease or that one and not realize that the problem is much more systemic than peculiar.
Nature has done what it can to save northern elephant seals. Considering how these animals breed, I would certainly have wanted to have started with a larger founding population than 100 to 1,000 individuals.
But we didn’t get that choice.
With dogs, we have that opportunity, but it remains denied to us, simply because we cannot change our thinking.
As I’ve said before, the human ego is probably the most destructive part of the relationship between man and dog.
We are the so-called rational species, and in this relationship, we’re supposed to be the responsible ones.
But for all of our intelligence, we have failed our dogs.
And it’s something we need to think about.
wow Scottie – this is a fantastic post. I can’t come up with a genuinely intelligent sounding comment other than “yes”!
I love this: “But unless we look at the whole system that leads to an accumulation of these diseases, we are doomed to failure. It is quite literally little more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to think we can just cull for this disease or that one and not realize that the problem is much more systemic than peculiar.”
And it all does come down to ego… every set of protocol and system within the world of breeding comes down to ego.
Very good parallel observation there.
I bring these issues up occasionally, both in person and online, with competitive gun dog trial people (GSPs, EPs, et al.) Among these dogs, a few sites breed to a lot of bitches.
The consensus at the top seems to be that right now they are generally happy with the health of their dogs, and the dogs they compete against. Heavily line bred (read: in-bred) dogs are winning a lot, living acceptably long lives. None deny that it may cause a problem way down the road, but at the same time, no one wants to spend thousands of dollars and 12-15 years with a mediocre trial dog, just for the possible future benefit of someones great-great-great granddog.
“But for all of our intelligence, we have failed our dogs.”
I often think it’s our particular brand of intelligence that continues to cause us to fail dogs in so many ways. This is one of the best, most thought provoking posts I’ve read in a long time. Much appreciated.
It is all too obvious that there are people “in dogs” who should not be there. it’s obvious that there are problems. It is also obvious that there is way too much prejudice against purebred dogs and the people who are involved with them, merely because of the label “purebred”.
I make no excuses for having been involved in many aspects of my chosen breed for more than fifty years. Likewise, there are numbers of intelligent, careful, responsible people involved in the various breeds, all of which were chosen for the particular physical and behavioural characteristics that make that breed “typical”.
Do y’all believe that “bad genes” and deleterious characteristics did not exist before “pure breeds” came into being? Try reading some of the very old historic references– dogs were crippled with “rheumatism” or went crazy with “hysteria” or went blind or had “fits” or died of “old age” or simply unknown causes (heart disease, kidney malfunction, spinal disorders, etc etc) long before the dog world ever had registry organizations.
People with purebred dogs have long funded the most diligent and useful research into the various problems of dogs. Who do you think provides the vast majority of funding for the Morris Animal Foundation, the Canine Health Foundation, the Animal Trust in the UK, the dozens and dozens of health-related charitable foundations of various breed clubs, the funding for research at so many veterinary colleges? It’s the people with purebred dogs, by a long, long margin.
Thanks to those efforts, we are learning not only how to detect and treat the very wide range of problems, but how to prevent them, how to manage breeding programs so as to minimize their probability, how to increase the numbers of healthy dogs.
If you want to jump on “breeders”, how about the jump-in-and-make-a-buck creators of the various “designer dogs”– such as just a few I’ve seen recently: the “chiweenie” (chihuahua x dachshund) with severe dental problems, the “shih-poo” with the horrible undershot mouth and jumbled teeth, the “west-russell” with luxating patellas, the “labradoodle” with severe hip dysplasia. Oh, I forgot, that can’t happen, “hybrid vigor” prevents such problems.
Yeah, sure. Show us the stats that prove mixed-breeds are “healthier” than purebreds, over-all. If you can find any real numbers on mixed breeds: I doubt there are any.
Yes, “popular sire” syndrome is a problem in all purebreeds, and not just in dogs. But the problem is not in having pure breeds, it is in having people lacking sufficient knowledge and dedication to manage them wisely.
Well, it’s just as bad to assume that you can breed out all the genetic diseases dogs have without some interesting unintended consquence.
It’s always a mistake to too readily believe that one can eliminate any one problem completely. Dogs are complex living organisms. Yes, concentrating on any one or two items to the exclusion of the entire animal is probably going to be counter-productive.
Every dog (every higher-order mammal, no doubt) will carry a number of deleterious genes or genetic factors. It is unrealistic to expect to “eliminate” all of them. But it is also unrealistic to give up and say “we can’t make it better”. Especially with the advances in DNA and such, it gives hope that we will be able to make it better, even if not “perfect”.
For instance– we have not eliminated hip dysplasia. But– with continued testing and selection, in many breeds (especially in retrievers) it is now rare to see the really severe cases that were not uncommon fifty yers ago: four-month old puppies that could not get up off the floor by themselves: “square-hipped” dogs that bunny-hopped instead of trotting; the field trial winner that had to be carried back to the car after running a test, because his hips were so painful (but he ran on “heart”).
No, we haven’t eliminated hip dysplasia. But many dogs’ lives are far better than they might have been, because of selective breeding.
And yes, there were unintended consequences. Many good quality, useful bloodlines were abandoned and lost to the gene pool by uncompromising selection. Some of those dogs, if here today, could perhaps have been of use in a careful breeding program. But, at the time, no better alternative seemed available, and that’s what the researchers were saying — don’t breed dogs with even “mild” dysplasia.
Well, these days those who study the matter know better, and are becoming more aware of the possible ramifications– and the more dedicated breeders are. The general public and the casual breeder will probably always be bewildered by the complexities. And some just won’t care as long as they can sell dogs and/or win in competitions.
Not likely that will ever change, either.
There are quite a number of studies showing that mixed breed dogs generally have lower risk factors for certain diseases, than purebreds. I assume these are the studies that pet insurance companies use to set rates, and that is why mixed breeds are almost always cheaper to insure than purebreds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20303134
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20060988
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17916033
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14664452
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9394894
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8603904
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1293122
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2768063
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3710885
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7226844
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7385051
There are also a number of studies associating certain DLA genes with disease and with protection from disease. This confirms for me that a diverse MHC is fairly important to the health of the dog, for you it may mean something different.
Heh…
Reminds of me when a friend went to war with a few breeders when they pulled out the Soay Sheep or Thai Ridgeback examples; then when he pointed out natural selection kept those bottlenecked populations healthy, they reduced themselves to name-calling.