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This chapter considers a particular category of interactions between humans and animals – the use of animals as assistants for foraging activities – and looks at how these animals qualified as ‘auxiliaries’ are situated along the broad spectrum of relationships between humans and animals. A prominent feature of this kind of relationship is that it mainly addresses wild-born animals that are purposely tamed in captivity to assist humans. Emphasis of the chapter is placed on the few existing cases of human cooperation with wild, non-captive and non-tamed animals that deliberately assist humans in very specific foraging activities. The rare wild and untamed animal species involved as auxiliaries – dolphins, orcas, ravens and honeyguides – are remarkable for their intelligence, socialization faculties and sophisticated communication system, or for their very atypical diet. In return for their help, they obtain from their human partners by-product benefits that are sometimes supplemented by a reward. They occupy a lead position in the cosmogony of the foraging societies with which they interact, and these interactions thrive on an obligation of mutual respect. The chapter shines a spotlight on mutualistic interactions which do not necessarily set in motion a domestication process.
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