But the biggest winner in the meta-game is the coyote’s domesticated cousin: the dog. They are the darlings of the human world. If earth was imploding and we had to leave for another inhabitable planet, I bet there would be a few dogs and cats aboard those spaceships. Not so sure there would be room for coyotes. Caring for dogs is now a many billion dollars industry and growing. Dogs might be dumber than coyotes but they’ve totally won the meta-game by being thoroughly domesticated (though one can argue at a cost to their dignity and independence). There is an obvious analogy here.
This makes me question what is should mean to "win" in a genetic sense. The dog may be high in number, but its genetic selection has been artificial, controlled by humans selecting for favourable traits. Similarly, could we consider the cow to be successful, having been bred to produce enough milk that it can't stand, yet with a population much higher than before humans?
