Hobbies And Interests
Beauty and Recreation
Wildlife adds beauty and provides reasons for recreation.
The more children experience of the natural world, the more they can appreciate its diverse beauty. Finding a frog, bug or bird can help them relate to species struggling to survive in their own backyards as well as in faraway rainforests, deserts and oceans. Recreational activities like trail rides, nature hikes, bird watching and gardening are ways to learn about how wild places are beautiful and fun.
Biodiversity and Ecology
Biodiversity keeps ecosystems balanced and resilient.
Biodiversity strengthens an ecosystem by giving each living creature a role in that ecosystem's life cycle. This allows the ecosystem to bounce back from things like fires, floods or significant population changes. In a monoculture, a single change can collapse the ecosystem because there's no backup plan.
Education and History
Studying past and present animals gives us an understanding of the natural world and our role in it.
The World Conservation Union estimates that more than 16,000 species are threatened with extinction. Natural history museums show children prehistoric animals like dinosaurs and megafauna, living animals and those in whose extinction humans have had a hand. They can also learn how those losses have changed our world, and what humans can do to reduce their impact on living species.
Food and Economy
Treated responsibly, wildlife has the potential to sustainably fill economic and food needs.
It's not easy to find a balance between the needs of wildlife and those of people.
Some choices, like maintaining salmon runs or preventing oil spills that damage shrimp harvests, are relatively simple. But humans living near rainforests clear the land for farming because they need to food to eat, so it's important to understand that this isn't a black-and-white issue.
Research
Wildlife potentially holds the key to curing diseases and improving human lives.
Spider silk is guiding us towards creating lighter, stronger rope. A snake-bite victim can be saved by receiving a dose of anti-venom, which is made from the same kind of venom that threatens the bite victim. Wildlife is so diverse in its adaptations that research is continually exploring ways in which those adaptations can benefit humans, either by curing or treating disease or providing insight into how to improve our innovations through what nature has already accomplished.
Ethics
As citizens of the Earth, we have an ethical obligation to support life on our planet.
"We did not weave the Web of Life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the Web, we do to ourselves".The words are attributed to Chief Seattle, from a speech given in 1854. Just as caring for fellow humans is often considered an ethical responsibility, so too is the call to care for wildlife.
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a way to empower people while protecting and helping wildlife.
Instead of using up their resources, some societies have turned to ecotourism to make a living. People pay to visit native ecosystems without damaging them, and some ecotourists even come to help out. Staying at an environmentally responsible hotel beside a rainforest, snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef or going on a photo safari are ways to enjoy and protect wildlife while also helping people.