Wildlife once meant game for hunters; now it includes the rats downtown
The word wildlife used to be close to a synonym for game, the birds and mammals people shot for sport. Today it covers anything living wild that people did not introduce, from deep-forest orchids to the feral cats, mice and rats of city streets. Scientists add a sobering note: almost none of it is untouched by us.
People have relied on wild plants and animals since the Stone Age, and early hunters may have driven some species to extinction. In parts of the world hunting and gathering still put food on the table, while elsewhere they are mostly recreation. Meat from animals not traditionally counted as game is called bushmeat; in the Amazon, peccaries, agoutis, turtles and armadillos are sold mainly as food. Demand for traditional remedies in East Asia is devastating populations of sharks, primates and pangolins, prized for supposed aphrodisiac powers.
The scale is staggering. By the reckoning of CITES, the treaty on endangered species trade, international commerce in wildlife is likely worth billions of dollars a year and involves hundreds of millions of plants and animals. Global wildlife populations have fallen by an estimated 68 percent since 1970, with overconsumption, population growth and intensive farming among the causes, which many scientists read as evidence of a sixth mass extinction.
Animals also carry deep symbolic weight. Eagle and hawk feathers are sacred objects for Native Americans, and Hindus regard the cow as holy. Muslims sacrifice camels, sheep or goats during Eid al-Adha, while Christian tradition assigns the gospel writers animal emblems, with Mark as a lion and John as an eagle.
Television turned wildlife into mass entertainment. NBC launched Wild Kingdom with the zoologist Marlin Perkins in 1963, and National Geographic specials began airing on CBS two years later. In Britain, the BBC's early studio series LOOK, hosted by Peter Scott, gave a young David Attenborough his first appearances. Since 1984, the Discovery Channel and later Animal Planet have dominated American cable nature programming.
Source: Wildlife
