And that means, what? They're "happy"? "Breeding" happens in all manners of fauna, regardless of conditions. "Breeding" even happens in prison, whether willingly or otherwise. Comfort, stress, boredom, etc.
And that means, what? They're "happy"? "Breeding" happens in all manners of fauna, regardless of conditions. "Breeding" even happens in prison, whether willingly or otherwise. Comfort, stress, boredom, etc.
They've been together for three weeks and are already breeding... Sounds interesting to me.
And I said "currently" as in they were mating that second. Giving people the indication that there's a large chance there will be a baby hippo by next year. Which also sounds interesting to me.
quick survey: does anybody outside America use the word "breeding" when they actually mean "mating"? I've only ever heard/read Americans using it in this way.
If the hippos have only been there three weeks they are not "already breeding", they are just mating.
To throw another spanner in the works, I just had a lecture at university last week which included breeding vs mating. Mating, as defined by my lecturer, is the "free range, uncontrolled copulation between males and females", while breeding is "mating orchestrated by human intervention with a purposeful selection pressure (e.g. conservation)". You could argue that, according to my lecturer's definitions, all reproduction in zoos is technically 'breeding' (whether you agree with these definitions is a separate matter).
To throw another spanner in the works, I just had a lecture at university last week which included breeding vs mating. Mating, as defined by my lecturer, is the "free range, uncontrolled copulation between males and females", while breeding is "mating orchestrated by human intervention with a purposeful selection pressure (e.g. conservation)". You could argue that, according to my lecturer's definitions, all reproduction in zoos is technically 'breeding' (whether you agree with these definitions is a different matter).
I think you (or perhaps also your lecturer) are misinterpreting the generality of his latter example.
The "mating orchestrated by human intervention with a purposeful selection pressure (e.g. conservation)" isn't the single act of mating between two individuals - that is just mating - it is the overall programme of breeding the animals.
Even your last sentence showed confusion: "all reproduction in zoos is technically 'breeding' " - that is correct, it is, because reproduction is the production of offspring (i.e breeding), which is separate to mating. Mating is the function through which reproduction is occurring. To put it another way, if you have a lion mating with a lioness on a birth control of some kind - they are emphatically not reproducing or breeding, they are just mating.
