Wildlife

Wildlife refers to undomesticated animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans.

Humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways, including the legal, social and moral senses.

Some religions declare certain animals to be sacred, and in modern times, concern for the natural environment has provoked activists to protest against the exploitation of wildlife for human benefit or entertainment.

Global wildlife populations have decreased significantly by 68% since 1970 as a result of human activity, particularly overconsumption, population growth, and intensive farming, according to a 2020 World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report and the Zoological Society of London's Living Planet Index measure, which is further evidence that humans have unleashed a sixth mass extinction event.

[3][4] According to CITES, it has been estimated that annually the international wildlife trade amounts to billions of dollars and it affects hundreds of millions of animal and plant specimen.

[5] Wildlife trade refers to the products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions.

The increasing demand for wildlife as a source of traditional food in East Asia is decimating populations of sharks, primates, pangolins and other animals, which they believe have aphrodisiac properties.

However, illegal hunting and trade poses a threat to Malaysia's natural diversity.A November 2008 report from biologist and author Sally Kneidel, PhD, documented numerous wildlife species for sale in informal markets along the Amazon River, including wild-caught marmosets sold for as little as $1.60 (5 Peruvian soles).

[14] Since 1984, the Discovery Channel and its spinoff Animal Planet in the US have dominated the market for shows about wildlife on cable television, while on Public Broadcasting Service the NATURE strand made by WNET-13 in New York and NOVA by WGBH in Boston are notable.

Wildlife television is now a multimillion-dollar industry with specialist documentary film-makers in many countries including UK, US, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Germany, Japan, and Canada.

"[17] Wildlife tourism is an element of many nations' travel industry centered around observation and interaction with local animal and plant life in their natural habitats.

Its sources include disease, injury, parasitism, starvation, malnutrition, dehydration, weather conditions, natural disasters, killings by other animals, and psychological stress.

[20][21] An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of Darwinian evolution,[22] as well as the pervasiveness of reproductive strategies, which favor producing large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care and of which only a small number survive to adulthood, the rest dying in painful ways, has led some to argue that suffering dominates happiness in nature.

[26] More recently, starting in the 19th century, a number of writers have considered the subject from a secular standpoint as a general moral issue, that humans might be able to help prevent.

[44][45] Subsequent studies have discovered that the destruction of wildlife is "significantly more alarming" than previously believed, with some 48% of 70,000 monitored animal species experiencing population declines as the result of human industrialization.

[46][47] According to a 2023 study published in PNAS, "immediate political, economic, and social efforts of an unprecedented scale are essential if we are to prevent these extinctions and their societal impacts.

Examples of habitat destruction include grazing of bushland by farmed animals, changes to natural fire regimes, forest clearing for timber production and wetland draining for city expansion.

Occasionally, however, some populations do take hold and after a period of acclimation can increase in numbers significantly, having destructive effects on many elements of the native environment of which they have become part.