Animal husbandry with more settled communities. The first wild animal to be domesticated was the dog. Half-wild dogs, perhaps starting with young individuals, may have been tolerated as scavengers and killers of vermin, and being naturally pack hunters, were predisposed to become part of the human pack and join in the hunt. Prey animals, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle, were progressively domesticated early in the history of agriculture. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 13,000 BC, and sheep followed, some time between 11,000 and 9,000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan around
The Wild Animal Sanctuary summer of 2016 a new 48,000 square foot welcome center was opened and an additional 1/2-mile of elevated walkway was added. On October 31, 2016 Guinness World Records certified that the Wild Animal Sanctuary's elevated walkway was the world's longest footbridge at 1.51 miles, supplanting the Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge. In spring 2018, with the Keenesburg site deemed at capacity, and no local expansion options, partly due to expanding oil and gas operations, the sanctuary announced the purchase of an additional property of 9,004 acres in the southeastern part of the state. The new $7M property, dubbed "The Wildlife Refuge", is