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Wildlife refers to domestication animals and uncultivated plant species which can exist in their natural habitat, but has come to include all that grow or live wilderness without being species by . Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those and that were trophy hunting. Wildlife can be found in all . , , , , , and other areas including the most developed , all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popular culture usually refers to that are untouched by human factors, most scientists agree that much wildlife is affected by human behavior. Some wildlife threaten human safety, health, property and quality of life. However, many wild animals, even the dangerous ones, have value to human beings. This value might be economic, educational, or emotional in nature.
Humans have historically tended to separate civilization from wildlife in a number of ways, including the legal, social and moral senses. Some animals, however, have philanthropy to environments. This includes urban wildlife such as , dogs, mice, and rats. Some religions declare certain animals to be sacred, and in modern times, concern for the natural environment has provoked environmentalism 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. Different countries have various legal definitions for “wildlife” but 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.
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 sold for as little as $1.60 (5 Peruvian soles). Many Amazon species, including peccary, , , turtle eggs, , are sold primarily as food.
Muslims conduct sacrifices on Eid al-Adha, to commemorate the sacrificial spirit of Ibrāhīm in Islam ( Abraham) in love of God. Camels, sheep, goats may be offered as sacrifice during the three days of Eid.
In Christianity the Bible has a variety of animal symbols, the Lamb is a famous title of Jesus. In the New Testament the Gospels Mark, Luke and John have animal symbols: "Mark is a lion, Luke is a bull and John is an eagle."
Exploitation of wild populations has been a characteristic of modern man since our exodus from Africa 130,000 – 70,000 years ago. The rate of extinctions of entire species of plants and animals across the planet has been so high in the last few hundred years that it is widely believed that a sixth great extinction event ("the Holocene Mass Extinction") is currently ongoing. The 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, published by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, says that roughly one million species of plants and animals face extinction within decades as the result of human actions. 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. 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."
The four most general reasons that lead to destruction of wildlife include overkill, habitat destruction and fragmentation, impact of introduced species and chains of extinction.Diamond, J. M. (1989). Overview of recent extinctions. Conservation for the Twenty-first Century. D. Western and M. Pearl, New York, Oxford University Press: 37-41.
Populations that are confined to islands, whether literal islands or just areas of habitat that are effectively an "island" for the species concerned, have also been observed to be at greater risk of dramatic population rise of deaths declines following unsustainable hunting.
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. This is particularly challenging since wild animals cannot drink tap water, which means they cannot autonomously survive in those habitats where there is no surface water access.
Mice, cats, rabbits, dandelions and [[poison ivy]] are all examples of species that have become invasive threats to wild species in various parts of the world. Frequently species that are uncommon in their home range become out-of-control invasions in distant but similar climates. The reasons for this have not always been clear and [[Charles Darwin]] felt it was unlikely that exotic species would ever be able to grow abundantly in a place in which they had not evolved. The reality is that the vast majority of species exposed to a new habitat do not reproduce successfully. 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.
Another example is the and the found in India. These birds feed on insects on the back of cattle, which helps to keep them disease-free. Destroying the nesting habitats of these birds would cause a decrease in the cattle population because of the spread of insect-borne diseases.
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