================================================================================ INTELLIGENSICUS The Domestic-Lineage Track Fox, Dog, Cat, and Rodent, Wild and Domestic Imran Stanton Cooper ================================================================================ INTRODUCTION These four species are already domesticated, so a fully tame population exists alongside the wild one. The goal remains wild uplift; the domestic members are a deep-study lever that unlocks work the wild-only species cannot support, such as obstacle and agility courses and cross-species socialization, whose findings feed the wild goal. The wild target is the feral or wild relative of the domestic lineage, not the distant ancestor: dog to dingo and village dogs, cat to the wildcat, rodent to wild brown rat and wood mouse, fox to red fox. Dogs read human gestures better than apes; dingoes out-solve pet dogs on detour tasks; rats free trapped cagemates; the silver fox is domestication caught in real time. The founding thesis of Intelligensicus is that intelligence rises in a population when abundance and stockpiling produce spare time and docility, and with them the room to work problems out. The decisive step comes not from handing animals finished solutions but from scaffolding self-authored capability, so a population improves its own conditions and transmits the gain. The silver-fox domestication experiment shows the shift is fast and heritable within a handful of generations. Robert Sapolsky's savanna baboon troop shows a wild population can adopt and hold a culture, transmitted to newcomers years after the original members are gone. The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness affirms a realistic possibility of conscious experience across vertebrates and many invertebrates. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. Can a wild counterpart acquire a scaffolded, wild-useful capability and transmit it? 2. What do obstacle courses, cross-species socialization, and high-repetition cooperation with domestic members reveal that transfers to the wild track? 3. How does the ceiling under domestic conditions compare with wild capability? AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To raise wild-population capability in the wild counterparts while using the domestic members as a method and study partner, with explicit wild-to-domestic transfer, the fox as flagship for its dual wild and tame forms. METHOD AND DATA COLLECTION A dual track. Wild: field and catch-and-release uplift on red fox, dingo and village dogs, wildcat and feral cats, and wild rodents, scaffolding wild-useful skills. Domestic: deep sustained study with tame members, obstacle and agility courses, cross-species socialization, cooperation and problem tasks, designed for transfer to the wild track. A feedback loop runs both ways. DATA ANALYSIS Capability is assessed on each species' terms; the wild track tracks transmission and persistence; the domestic track measures method transfer to the wild goal. OPPORTUNITY This category is likely the cheapest and most accessible entry: abundant wild counterparts, light legal load, and domestic members everywhere. A strong early proving ground alongside the corvids. ETHICAL ISSUES Wild-field permits and welfare for the wild track; companion-animal welfare for the domestic track. Feral-cat and wildcat work must not worsen predation or feral-hybrid spread. PERMITTING The domestic-lineage track carries one of the lightest permit burdens in the program, matching the corvid track as an accessible, legally straightforward entry point. Its dual structure splits the permit profile: the WILD counterpart work (red fox, dingo and village dog, wildcat, wild rat and wood mouse) runs under standard state and federal wildlife-research permits and protected-area authorizations; the DOMESTIC study-partner work runs under companion-animal welfare review rather than wildlife permitting. Institutional animal-care review applies to both under the 3Rs (Russell and Burch, 1959). There is no marine-mammal, near-person, or vessel permitting. The one substantive constraint is ecological: feral-cat and wildcat work must be permitted and designed so it does not worsen predation pressure or feral-hybrid spread, which is a siting and protocol condition rather than a heavy authorization. COST STRUCTURE The domestic-lineage outpost is among the cheapest units in the program, because the wild counterparts are common and accessible and the domestic study-partners need no field expedition at all. Its cost is driven by the cohort and light field and companion-animal infrastructure, not by vessels, marine fabrication, or international logistics. The dominant lines are the graduate and undergraduate cohort running the paired wild-field and domestic-partner protocols, light apparatus for obstacle-course and cross-species-socialization work, cameras and tracking instrumentation, and modest local travel. A fully loaded domestic-lineage outpost-year is modeled at an order-of-magnitude $100,000 to $220,000 per outpost per year in the early production run, the lowest land-track figure alongside corvids, which is why it sits with the corvid track as a lead pilot. Read on the outpost scaling ladder, holding these unit economics constant: N = 1 outpost one wild-plus-domestic pairing order $100K-$220K / year (the fundable lead pilot alongside corvids) N = 10 outposts one lineage saturated across order $1M-$2.2M / year several ranges and study-partner sites N = 100 outposts multi-species domestic-lineage order $10M-$22M / year network (fox, dog, cat, rodent tracks) N = 1,000 outposts continental program order $100M-$220M / year (mold and cohort economics dominant) N = 5,000 outposts approaching range saturation order $500M-$1.1B / year N = 10,000 outposts the serial, unbounded endpoint order $1B-$2.2B / year (run continuously and indefinitely -- "times by infinity") The dual-track design means each rung buys both a wild-field and a domestic-partner arm, the domestic arm serving as the lever that unlocks what wild-only work cannot run. The N = 1 rung is a fundable single-pairing program on its own. TIMETABLE Year 1: fox dual-track pilot plus welfare and permit frame. Year 2: dog dual-track and cross-species socialization work. Year 3 onward: cat and rodent tracks and wild-transmission monitoring. REFERENCES Bartal, I. B., Decety, J., Mason, P. (2011). Helping a cagemate in need: empathy and pro-social behavior in rats. Science. Hare, B., Brown, M., Williamson, C., Tomasello, M. (2002). The domestication of social cognition in dogs. Science. Dugatkin, L. A. (2018). The silver fox domestication experiment. Evolution: Education and Outreach. Trut, L., Oskina, I., Kharlamova, A. (2009). Animal evolution during domestication: the domesticated fox as a model. BioEssays. The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (2024). ================================================================================