Evolution: Survival of the Wildest

Abstract

Animals raised in captivity before release into the wild consistently show lower survival rates than those reared in natural environments. Captive-reared animals exhibit a wide range of skill deficiencies, such as in predator avoidance, food selection, migration, conspecific integration, and parenting. These differences suggest a strong selective advantage towards those able to integrate into the wild, in a way that goes beyond genetic instruction. Successfully integrating into the wild requires specific adaptations that foster a psychological state of wildness, a state that improves fluency and awareness through mechanisms targeting nature attunement, behavioural parsimony, and instinct learning. In our species, wildness is rejected because of the imagined chaos it might bring, and nature shunned as a way of coping with a fear of death, as explained by Terror Management Theory. However, better knowledge of the mechanisms involved may raise our standard of understanding and responsibility towards nature and each other. Examples comparing interpretations based upon ‘survival of the wildest’ (SOW) with ‘survival of the fittest’ (SOF) are provided.