Wildlife

From The UCSC Wikipedia Trust Project

(Redirected from Wild animal)

Various species of deer are commonly seen wildlife across the Americas and Eurasia.

Wildlife refers to all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms. Domesticated organisms are those that have adapted to survival with the help of (or under the control of) humans, after many generations. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has had a major impact on the environment, both postive and negative.

Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, rainforests, plains, and other areas—including the most built-up urban sites—all have distinct forms of wildlife.

Humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways; besides the obvious difference in vocabulary, there are differing expectations in the legal, social, and moral sense. This has been a reason for debate throughout recorded history. Religions have often declared certain animals to be sacred, and in modern times concern for the environment has provoked activists to protest the exploitation of wildlife for human benefit or entertainment. Literature has also made use of the traditional human separation from wildlife.

1 Wildlife as food
2 Wildlife preservation
3 Wildlife and religion
4 Wildlife on television
5 See also
6 External links

Wildlife as food

The Stone Age tribes and hunter-gatherers relied on wildlife, both plant and animal, for their food. In fact, some species may have been hunted to extinction by early human hunters. Its reliance has decreased with the rise of agriculture and the domestication of some wildlife. However, hunting for game has remained an important part of the diet in many cultures. Today, hunting, fishing, or gathering wildlife is still a significant food source in some parts of the world. In other areas, hunting and non-commercial fishing are mainly seen as a sport or recreation, with the edible meat as mostly a side benefit.Template:Fact Meat sourced from wildlife that is not traditionally regarded as game is known as bushmeat. The increasing demand for wildlife as a source of traditional food in East Asia is decimating populations of sharks, primates, pangolins and others, which they believe have aphrodisiacal properties.

Wildlife preservation

In some countries, protected areas, wildlife preserves or national parks have been set up to protect wildlife and their natural habitat. The most prominent of these are listed as World Heritage Sites or Biosphere Reserves by the UNESCO. The establishment of parks has been motivated by a mixture of environmentalism, tourism, and other factors. Some of these parks merely prevent development of the land, while still allowing limited hunting and fishing as a population control measure. Others forbid hunting or fishing and some may also limit the number or type of tourist excursions. Wildlife crossings have been installed at some roads to reverse habitat fragmentation.

Wildlife and religion

Many wildlife species have spiritual significance in different cultures around the world, and they and their products may be used as sacred objects in religious rituals. For example, eagles, hawks and their feathers have great cultural and spiritual value to Native Americans as religious objects. In the United States, the religious use of eagle and hawk feathers are governed by the eagle feather law (50 CFR 22), a federal law limiting the possession of eagle feathers to certified and enrolled members of federally recognized Native American tribes.

Wildlife on television

Wildlife has long been a common subject for educational television shows. National Geographic specials appeared on CBS beginning in 1965, later moving to ABC and then PBS. In 1963, NBC debuted Wild Kingdom, a popular program featuring zoologist Marlin Perkins as host. The BBC natural history unit in the UK was a similar pioneer, the first wildlife series LOOK presented by Sir Peter Scott, was a studio based show, with filmed inserts. It was in this series that David Attenborough first made his appearnace which led to the series Zoo Quest during which he and cameraman Charles Lagus went to many exotic places looking for elusive wildlife - notably theKomodo dragon in Indonesia and Lemurs in Madagascar. Since 1984, the Discovery Channel and its spinoff Animal Planet in the USA and the have dominated the market for shows about wildlife on cable television, whilst on PBS the NATURE strand made by WNET-13 in New York and NOVA by WGBH in Boston are notable. See also Nature documentary. Wildlife television is now a multi-million dollar industry with specialist documentary film-makers in many countries including UK, USA, New Zealand NHNZ, Australia, Austria, Germany, Japan and Canada.