Copyright © 2015 Bert N. Langford (Images may be subject to copyright. Please send feedback)
Welcome to Our Generation USA!

This Web Page Covers
Nature,
including all forms of Plants, Animals, Insects, and other flora/fauna of the Planet Earth, whether on Land or Waterways.

For the Planet Earth, click here
For the Environment, click here

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​Nature and the Natural Wonders of the World Pictured below: 
LEFT: The Victoria Falls contain the largest sheet of falling water in the world in terms of area;
CENTER: The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights;
RIGHT: the Grand Canyon
​Click here for viewing the Natural Wonders of the World.

Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general.

The study of nature is a large part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena.

Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" often refers to geology and wildlife.

Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth.

It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention.

For example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind.

Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural.

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Life on Earth Pictured: Timeline of Life on Earth.
Life is a characteristic distinguishing physical entities having biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, or because they never had such functions and are classified as inanimate.

Various forms of life exist, such as 
The criteria can at times be ambiguous and may or may not define viruses, viroids, or potential artificial life as living. Biology is the primary science concerned with the study of life, although many other sciences are involved.

The definition of life is controversial. The current definition is that organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce.

However, many other biological definitions have been proposed, and there are also some borderline cases, such as viruses. 

Biophysicists have also proposed some definitions, many being based on chemical systems. There are also some living systems theories, such as the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that the Earth is alive; the former first developed by James Grier Miller.

Another one is that life is the property of ecological systems, and yet another is the complex systems biology, a branch or subfield of mathematical biology. Some other systemic definitions include the theory involving the Darwinian dynamic and the operator theory.

However, throughout history, there have been many other theories and definitions about life, such as: 
  • materialism, the belief that everything is made out of matter and that life is merely a complex form of it; 
  • hylomorphism, the belief that all things are a combination of matter and form, and the form of a living thing is its soul; 
  • spontaneous generation, the belief that life repeatedly emerge from non-life;
  • and vitalism, a discredited scientific hypothesis that living organisms possess a "life force" or "vital spark." 

Abiogenesis is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.

​Life on Earth arose 3.8–4.1 billion years ago. It is widely accepted that current life on Earth descended from an RNA world, but RNA based life may not have been the first. The mechanism by which life began on Earth is unknown, although many hypotheses have been formulated, most based on the Miller–Urey experiment.

In July 2016, scientists reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth.

Since appearing, life on Earth has changed its environment on a geologic time scale. To survive in most ecosystems, life can adapt and thrive in a wide range of conditions. Some organisms, called extremophiles, can thrive in physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most other life on Earth. Properties common to all organisms are the need for certain core chemical elements needed for biochemical functioning. 

Aristotle was the first person to classify organisms. Later, Carl Linnaeus introduced his system of binomial nomenclature for the classification of species. Fungi was later classified as its own kingdom.

Eventually new groups of life were revealed, such as cells and microorganisms, and even non-cellular reproducing agents, such as viruses and viroids. Cells are the smallest units of life, often called the "building blocks of life."

There are two kind of cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Cells consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane, which contains many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. Cells reproduce through a process of cell division in which the parent cell divides into two or more daughter cells.

Though only known on Earth, many believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life. Artificial life is a computer simulation of any aspect of life, which is used to examine systems related to life. 

Death is the permanent termination of all biological functions which sustain an organism, and as such, is the end of its life. Extinction is the process by which a group of taxa, normally a species, dies out. Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of organisms.

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​Natural SciencePictured: (L) North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; (R) Houston Museum of Natural Sciences
​Natural science is a branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena, based on observational and empirical evidence. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatability of findings are used to try to ensure the validity of scientific advances.

Natural science can be divided into two main branches: life science (or biological science) and physical science.

Physical science is further subdivided into branches, including:
These branches of natural science may be further divided into more specialized branches (also known as fields).

In Western society's analytic tradition, the empirical sciences and especially natural sciences use tools from formal sciences, such as mathematics and logic, converting information about nature into measurements which can be explained as clear statements of the "laws of nature".

The social sciences also use such methods, but rely more on qualitative research, so that they are sometimes called "soft science", whereas natural sciences, insofar as they emphasize quantifiable data produced, tested, and confirmed through the scientific method, are sometimes called "hard science".
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Modern natural science succeeded more classical approaches to natural philosophy, usually traced to ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes, Francis Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain requisite in natural science.

Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on. Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences.

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Paleontology * -- Jurassic Park Movie Franchise
Pictured:
TOP ROW: (L) Petrified Wood and (R) Petrified Forest National Park
BOTTOM ROW: (L) Partial Dinosaur Skeleton; (R) Dinosaur National Monument Park
Click to set custom HTML


​Paleontology or palaeontology is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene Epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present).

It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments (their paleoecology). Paleontological observations have been documented as far back as the 5th century BC. The science became established in the 18th century as a result of Georges Cuvier's work on comparative anatomy, and developed rapidly in the 19th century.

Paleontology lies on the border between biology and geology, but differs from archaeology in that it excludes the study of anatomically modern humans. It now uses techniques drawn from a wide range of sciences, including biochemistry, mathematics, and engineering.

Use of all these techniques has enabled paleontologists to discover much of the evolutionary history of life, almost all the way back to when Earth became capable of supporting life, about 3,800 million years ago. As knowledge has increased, paleontology has developed specialised sub-divisions, some of which focus on different types of fossil organisms while others study ecology and environmental history, such as ancient climates.

Body fossils and trace fossils are the principal types of evidence about ancient life, and geochemical evidence has helped to decipher the evolution of life before there were organisms large enough to leave body fossils. Estimating the dates of these remains is essential but difficult: sometimes adjacent rock layers allow radiometric dating, which provides absolute dates that are accurate to within 0.5%, but more often paleontologists have to rely on relative dating by solving the "jigsaw puzzles" of biostratigraphy.

Classifying ancient organisms is also difficult, as many do not fit well into the Linnaean taxonomy that is commonly used for classifying living organisms, and paleontologists more often use cladistics to draw up evolutionary "family trees".

The final quarter of the 20th century saw the development of molecular phylogenetics, which investigates how closely organisms are related by measuring how similar the DNA is in their genomes. Molecular phylogenetics has also been used to estimate the dates when species diverged, but there is controversy about the reliability of the molecular clock on which such estimates depend.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks to learn more about the science of Paleontology:






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Insects including a List Pictured:
TOP ROW: (L) Dragonfly; (C) Monarch Butterfly; (R) Mosquito
CENTER ROW: (L) Honey Bee; (C) Grasshopper; (D) Two Ants Fighting
BOTTOM ROW: Spiders as (L) Brown Recluse Spider; (C) Black Widow Spider; (L) Tarantula
Click here for a categorical listing of Insects

​Insects are a class of hexapod invertebrates within the arthropod phylum that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae.

Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, including more than a million described species and representing more than half of all known living organisms. 

The number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million, and potentially represent over 90% of the differing animal life forms on Earth. Insects may be found in nearly all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans, a habitat dominated by another arthropod group, crustaceans.

The life cycles of insects vary but most hatch from eggs. Insect growth is constrained by the inelastic exoskeleton and development involves a series of molts. The immature stages can differ from the adults in structure, habit and habitat, and can include a passive pupal stage in those groups that undergo 4-stage metamorphosis (see holometabolism).

Insects that undergo 3-stage metamorphosis lack a pupal stage and adults develop through a series of nymphal stages. The higher level relationship of the Hexapoda is unclear.

​Fossilized insects of enormous size have been found from the Paleozoic Era, including giant dragonflies with wingspans of 55 to 70 cm (22–28 in). The most diverse insect groups appear to have coevolved with flowering plants.

Adult insects typically move about by walking, flying or sometimes swimming (see § Locomotion below). As it allows for rapid yet stable movement, many insects adopt a tripedal gait in which they walk with their legs touching the ground in alternating triangles.

Insects are the only invertebrates to have evolved flight. Many insects spend at least part of their lives under water, with larval adaptations that include gills, and some adult insects are aquatic and have adaptations for swimming.

Some species, such as water striders, are capable of walking on the surface of water. Insects are mostly solitary, but some, such as certain bees, ants and termites, are social and live in large, well-organized colonies.

Some insects, such as earwigs, show maternal care, guarding their eggs and young. Insects can communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Male moths can sense the pheromones of female moths over great distances. Other species communicate with sounds: crickets stridulate, or rub their wings together, to attract a mate and repel other males. Lampyridae in the beetle order communicate with light.

Humans regard certain insects as pests, and attempt to control them using insecticides and a host of other techniques. Some insects damage crops by feeding on sap, leaves or fruits. A few parasitic species are pathogenic. Some insects perform complex ecological roles; blow-flies, for example, help consume carrion but also spread diseases.

Insect pollinators are essential to the life-cycle of many flowering plant species on which most organisms, including humans, are at least partly dependent; without them, the terrestrial portion of the biosphere (including humans) would be devastated. Many other insects are considered ecologically beneficial as predators and a few provide direct economic benefit. 

Silkworms​ and bees have been used extensively by humans for the production of silk and honey, respectively. In some cultures, people eat the larvae or adults of certain insects.

​Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Insects:
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Plants including a List of Plants by Common Name
​YouTube Video about Carnivorous Plants*
* -- What plants eat insects and how do they do it? See how Venus flytraps, sundews, butterworts and pitcher plants capture insects to get nutrition in a nutrient poor environment.

Pictured:
Top Row: (L) Apple Tree, (R) Four oil-giving plants
Bottom Row: (L) Corn; (C) Rainforest that generates oxygen for life; (R) Strawberry Field

Click here for a list of plants by common name.
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Plants are mainly multicellular, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae.

The term is today generally limited to the green plants, which form an unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for "green plants"). This includes:
But it excludes the red and brown algae. Historically, plants formed one of two kingdoms covering all living things that were not animals, and both algae and fungi were treated as plants; however all current definitions of "plant" exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria).

Green plants have cell walls with cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color.

Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is also common.

There are about 300–315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, some 260–290 thousand, are seed plants (see the table below). 

Green plants provide most of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earth's ecologies, especially on land. Plants that produce grains, fruits and vegetables form humankind's basic foodstuffs, and have been domesticated for millennia. Plants play many roles in culture. They are used as ornaments and, until recently and in great variety, they have served as the source of most medicines and drugs. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.

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Animals including a List of Animals
YouTube Video: Top 10 Domesticated Animals and Their Origins
Pictured Below: 
TOP 2 ROWs: Different Wildlife (See labels)
BOTTOM 2 ROW: Different Breeds of Owls

Click here for a List of Animals

Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia (also called Metazoa).

The animal kingdom emerged as a basal clade within Apoikozoa as a sister of the choanoflagellates. Sponges are the most basal clade of animals. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs: they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance.

Most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates. Vertebrates have a backbone or spine (vertebral column), and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

The remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include the following: 
The study of animals is called zoology.

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List of Diseases Carried by Insects that Impact Humans
YouTube Video: How to Recognize Symptoms of Lyme Disease
Pictured: ​Insects that can infect humans with disease include LEFT: Mosquito (West Nile Disease); RIGHT Tick (Lyme Disease)

This is a list of diseases spread by invertebrates.

​Invertebrates are very common vectors of disease. A vector is an organism which spreads disease from one host to another. Invertebrates spread bacterial, viral and protozoan pathogens by two main mechanisms. Either via their bite, as in the case of malaria spread by mosquitoes, or via their faeces, as in the case of Chagas' Disease spread by Triatoma bugs or epidemic typhus spread by human body lice.

Many invertebrates are responsible for transmitting diseases. Mosquitoes are perhaps the best known invertebrate vector and transmit a wide range of tropical diseases including malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever.

Another large group of vectors are flies. Sandfly species transmit the disease leishmaniasis, by acting as vectors for protozoan Leishmania species, and tsetse flies transmit protozoan trypansomes (Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypansoma brucei rhodesiense) which cause African Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).

Ticks and lice form another large group of invertebrate vectors. The bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme Disease, is transmitted by ticks and members of the bacterial genus Rickettsia are transmitted by lice. For example, the human body louse transmits the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii which causes epidemic typhus.

Although invertebrate-transmitted diseases pose a particular threat on the continents of Africa, Asia and South America, there is one way of controlling invertebrate-borne diseases, which is by controlling the invertebrate vector. For example, one way of controlling malaria is to control the mosquito vector through the use of mosquito nets, which prevent mosquitoes from coming into contact with humans.

Click here to see the list of diseases caused by insects and which can infect humans.







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List of Poisonous Plants
YouTube Video Top 10 Deadliest Plants In The World
Pictured: Recognizing the leaves of three types of poisonous plants

​Plants cannot move to escape their predators, so they must have other means of protecting themselves from herbivorous animals. Some plants have physical defenses such as thorns, spines and prickles, but by far the most common type of protection is chemical. 

Over millennia, through the process of natural selection, plants have evolved the means to produce a vast and complicated array of chemical compounds in order to deter herbivores. 

Tannin, for example, is a defensive compound that emerged relatively early in the evolutionary history of plants, while more complex molecules such as polyacetylenes are found in younger groups of plants such as the Asterales. Many of the known plant defense compounds primarily defend against consumption by insects, though other animals, including humans, that consume such plants may also experience negative effects, ranging from mild discomfort to death.

Many of these poisonous compounds also have important medicinal benefits. The varieties of phytochemical defenses in plants are so numerous that many questions about them remain unanswered, including:
  1. Which plants have which types of defense?
  2. Which herbivores, specifically, are the plants defended against?
  3. What chemical structures and mechanisms of toxicity are involved in the compounds that provide defense?
  4. What are the potential medical uses of these compounds?

These questions and others constitute an active area of research in modern botany, with important implications for understanding plant evolution and for medical science.

The link below provides an extensive, if incomplete, list of plants containing poisonous parts that pose a serious risk of illness, injury, or death to humans or animals.

There is significant overlap between plants considered poisonous and those with psychotropic properties, some of which are toxic enough to present serious health risks at recreational doses.

It is also important to remember that there is a distinction between plants that are poisonous because they naturally produce dangerous phytochemicals, and those that may become dangerous for other reasons, including but not limited to infection by bacterial, viral, or fungal parasites, the uptake of toxic compounds through contaminated soil or groundwater, and/or the ordinary processes of decay after the plant has died; this list deals exclusively with the former.

Many plants, such as peanuts, also produce compounds that are only dangerous to people who have developed an allergic reaction to them, and with a few exceptions, those plants are not included on this list (see list of allergens instead). Human fatalities caused by poisonous plants – especially resulting from accidental ingestion – are rare in the United States.

Click here for a list of poisonous plants.

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Animal Sexual Behavior
YouTube Video King Penguins Mating Start To Finish, Then They Switch!
Pictured: Mating by (L) Frogs; (R) Scorpions

​Animal sexual behaviour takes many different forms, including within the same species.

Common mating or reproductively motivated systems include monogamy, polyandry, polygamy, and promiscuity.

Other sexual behavior may be reproductively motivated (e.g. sex apparently due to duress or coercion and situational sexual behaviour) or non-reproductively motivated (e.g. interspecific sexuality, sexual arousal from objects or places, sex with dead animals, homosexual sexual behaviour, bisexual sexual behavior).

When animal sexual behaviour is reproductively motivated, it is often termed mating or copulation; for most non-human mammals, mating and copulation occur at oestrus (the most fertile period in the mammalian female's reproductive cycle), which increases the chances of successful impregnation.

Some animal sexual behavior involves competition, sometimes fighting, between multiple males. Females often select males for mating only if they appear strong and able to protect themselves. The male that wins a fight may also have the chance to mate with a larger number of females and will therefore pass on his genes to their offspring.

Historically, it was believed that only humans and a small number of other species performed sexual acts other than for reproduction, and that animals' sexuality was instinctive and a simple "stimulus-response" behavior. However, in addition to homosexual behaviours, a range of species masturbate and may use objects as tools to help them do so.

Sexual behavior may be tied more strongly to establishment and maintenance of complex social bonds across a population which support its success in non-reproductive ways. Both reproductive and non-reproductive behaviours can be related to expressions of dominance over another animal or survival within a stressful situation (such as sex due to duress or coercion).

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Amphibians including a List
YouTube Video Metamorphosis: Amphibian Nature Documentary
Pictured: four Amphibian Species

Click here for a list of Amphibians.

​Amphibians are ectothermic, tetrapod vertebrates of the class Amphibia. Modern amphibians are all Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arboreal or freshwater aquatic ecosystems.

Thus amphibians typically start out as larvae living in water, but some species have developed behavioral adaptations to bypass this. The young generally undergo metamorphosis from larva with gills to an adult air-breathing form with lungs.

Amphibians use their skin as a secondary respiratory surface and some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skin. They are superficially similar to lizards but, along with mammals and birds, reptiles are amniotes and do not require water bodies in which to breed.

With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often ecological indicators; in recent decades there has been a dramatic decline in amphibian populations for many species around the globe.

The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian period from sarcopterygian fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins, features that were helpful in adapting to dry land. They diversified and became dominant during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, but were later displaced by reptiles and other vertebrates. Over time, amphibians shrank in size and decreased in diversity, leaving only the modern subclass Lissamphibia.

The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura (the frogs and toads), Urodela (the salamanders), and Apoda (the caecilians). The number of known amphibian species is approximately 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs.

The smallest amphibian (and vertebrate) in the world is a frog from New Guinea (Paedophryne amauensis) with a length of just 7.7 mm (0.30 in). The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus), but this is dwarfed by the extinct 9 m (30 ft) Prionosuchus from the middle Permian of Brazil. The study of amphibians is called batrachology, while the study of both reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Amphibians:
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Reptiles, including a List
YouTube Video about Reptiles (by the Discovery Channel)
Pictured: Clockwise from above left: Green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas), Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus), Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus), and Sinai agama (Pseudotrapelus sinaitus).(Courtesy of Petter Bøckman, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Click here for a List of Reptiles.

​Reptiles are tetrapod (four-limbed vertebrate) animals in the class Reptilia, comprising today's turtles, crocodilians, snakes, amphisbaenians, lizards, tuatara, and their extinct relatives. The study of these traditional reptile orders, historically combined with that of modern amphibians, is called herpetology.

Because some reptiles are more closely related to birds than they are to other reptiles (e.g., crocodiles are more closely related to birds than they are to lizards), the traditional groups of "reptiles" listed above do not together constitute a monophyletic grouping (or clade). For this reason, many modern scientists prefer to consider the birds part of Reptilia as well, thereby making Reptilia a monophyletic class.

The earliest known proto-reptiles originated around 312 million years ago during the Carboniferous period, having evolved from advanced reptiliomorph tetrapods that became increasingly adapted to life on dry land.

Some early examples include the lizard-like Hylonomus and Casineria. In addition to the living reptiles, there are many diverse groups that are now extinct, in some cases due to mass extinction events.

In particular, the K–Pg extinction wiped out the pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, ornithischians, and sauropods, as well as many species of theropods (e.g. tyrannosaurids and dromaeosaurids), crocodyliforms, and squamates (e.g. mosasaurids).

Modern non-avian reptiles inhabit every continent with the exception of Antarctica. (If birds are classed as reptiles, then all continents are inhabited.)

Several living subgroups are recognized: 
Reptiles are tetrapod vertebrates, creatures that either have four limbs or, like snakes, are descended from four-limbed ancestors. Unlike amphibians, reptiles do not have an aquatic larval stage.

Most reptiles are oviparous, although several species of squamates are viviparous, as were some extinct aquatic clades — the fetus develops within the mother, contained in a placenta rather than an eggshell.

As amniotes, reptile eggs are surrounded by membranes for protection and transport, which adapt them to reproduction on dry land. Many of the viviparous species feed their fetuses through various forms of placenta analogous to those of mammals, with some providing initial care for their hatchlings. 

Extant reptiles range in size from a tiny gecko, Sphaerodactylus ariasae, which can grow up to 17 mm (0.7 in) to the saltwater crocodile, Crocodylus porosus, which may reach 6 m (19.7 ft) in length and weigh over 1,000 kg (2,200 lb).

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Reptiles:
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Mammals
YouTube Video of Mammals by the Discovery Channel
Pictured: An Assortment of Mammals

Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, which are a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles and birds by the possession of a neocortex (a region of the brain), hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands.

The sister group of mammals may be the extinct Haldanodon. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade. The mammals consist of the Yinotheria including monotrema and the Theriiformes including the theria.

Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales, as well as some of the most intelligent, such as elephants, primates and cetaceans. The basic body type is a terrestrial quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees, underground or on two legs.

The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, which enables the feeding of the fetus during gestation. Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 in) bumblebee bat to the 30-meter (98 ft) blue whale.

With the exception of the five species of monotreme (egg-laying mammals), all modern mammals give birth to live young. Most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group.

The three largest orders in number of species are:
The next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are:
All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands.

According to Mammal Species of the World, 5,416 species were known in 2006. These were grouped in 1,229 genera, 153 families and 29 orders.

In 2008 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) completed a five-year, 1,700-scientist Global Mammal Assessment for its IUCN Red List, which counted 5,488 species.

In some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses: the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata; and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria.

The marsupials constitute the crown group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones; the placentals are the crown group of the Eutheria.

While mammal classification at the family level has been relatively stable, several contending classifications regarding the higher levels—subclass, infraclass and order, especially of the marsupials—appear in contemporaneous literature. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics. Findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora.

The early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the sauropsid line that led to today's reptiles and birds.

The line following the stem group Sphenacodontia split-off several diverse groups of non-mammalian synapsids—sometimes referred to as mammal-like reptiles—before giving rise to the proto-mammals (Therapsida) in the early Mesozoic era. The modern mammalian orders arose in the Paleogene and Neogene periods of the Cenozoic era, after the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, and have been among the dominant terrestrial animal groups from 66 million years ago to the present.

In human culture, domesticated mammals played a major role in the Neolithic revolution, causing farming to replace hunting and gathering, and leading to a major restructuring of human societies with the first civilizations. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as various commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool, and leather.

Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science. Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Mammals:









Aquatic Animals as well as Marine Life
YouTube Video: The Life Aquatic with James Cameron* - Mariana Trench Dive
* -- James Cameron, Director of movies "Avatar" and "Titanic", took this awesome dive down into the Mariana Trench in 2012
Pictured: A Natural Habitat for Marine Life

​An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through its skin. 

Natural environments and the animals that live in them can be categorized as aquatic (water) or terrestrial (land).

The term aquatic can in theory be applied to animals that live in either fresh water (fresh water animals) or salt water (marine animals). However, the adjective marine is most commonly used for animals that live in saltwater, i.e. in oceans, seas, etc.

Aquatic animals (especially freshwater animals) are often of special concern to conservationists because of the fragility of their environments. Aquatic animals are subject to pressure from overfishing, destructive fishing, marine pollution and climate change.

Air-breathing Aquatic Animals: In addition to water breathing animals, e.g., fishes, mollusks etc., the term "aquatic animal" can be applied to air-breathing aquatic or sea mammals such as those in the orders Cetacea (whales) and Sirenia (sea cows), which cannot survive on land, as well as to the pinnipeds (true seals, eared seals, and the walrus). The term "aquatic mammal" is also applied to four-footed mammals like the river otter (Lontra canadensis) and beavers (family Castoridae), although these are technically amphibious.

Certain fish also evolved to breathe air to survive oxygen-deprived water, such as arapaima (family Osteoglossidae) and walking catfish.
___________________________________________________________________________

​Marine life, or sea life or ocean life, refers to the plants, animals and other organisms that live in the salt water of the sea or ocean, or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. At a fundamental level, marine life helps determine the very nature of our planet.

Marine organisms produce much of the oxygen we breathe. Shorelines are in part shaped and protected by marine life, and some marine organisms even help create new land.

Most life forms evolved initially in marine habitats. Oceans provide about 99 percent of the living space on the planet. 

The earliest vertebrates appeared in the form of fish, which live exclusively in water. Some of these evolved into amphibians which spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. Other fish evolved into land mammals and subsequently returned to the ocean as seals, dolphins or whales.

Plant forms such as kelp and algae grow in the water and are the basis for some underwater ecosystems. Plankton, and particularly phytoplankton, are key primary producers forming the general foundation of the ocean food chain.

Marine vertebrates must obtain oxygen to survive, and they do so in various ways. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. 

Marine mammals, such as dolphins, whales, otters, and seals need to surface periodically to breathe air. Some amphibians are able to absorb oxygen through their skin. Invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters including breathing tubes (see insect and mollusc siphons) and gills (Carcinus). However, as invertebrate life evolved in an aquatic habitat most have little or no specialisation for respiration in water.

Altogether there are 230,000 documented marine species, and it has been estimated that nearly two million marine species are yet to be documented. Marine species range in size from the microscopic, including plankton and phytoplankton which can be as small as 0.02 micrometres, to huge cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) which in the case of the blue whale reach up to 33 metres (109 feet) in length, being the largest known animal.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about Marine Life:
​







Birds, Including a List of Bird Species
YouTube Video of 19 "Funny Birds" Compilation
YouTube Video of the Scary Scene in the Alfred Hitchcock Thriller "The Birds"*​
* -- "The Birds" (1963)
Pictured: (Top Left) Ostrich, (Top Right) Hummingbird, and (Bottom) a Peacock

Click here for a List of Bird Species.

​Birds are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterized by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton.

Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at approximately ten thousand, with more than half of these being passerines, sometimes known as perching birds.

The fossil record indicates that birds are the last surviving group of dinosaurs, having evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago.

DNA-based evidence finds that birds diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction event that killed off all other dinosaurs. Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling.

Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period.

Many of these early "stem-birds", such as Archaeopteryx, were not yet capable of fully powered flight, and many retained primitive characteristics like toothy jaws in place of beaks, and long bony tails.

Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which evolved from forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in flightless birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species of birds. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight.

Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming.

Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animals; several bird species make and use tools, and many social species pass on knowledge across generations, which is considered a form of culture.

Many species annually migrate great distances. Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially monogamous (referring to social living arrangement, distinct from genetic monogamy), usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but rarely for life.

Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous (arrangement of one male with many females) or, rarely, polyandrous (arrangement of one female with many males). Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilized through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilized, though unfertilized eggs do not produce offspring.

Many species of birds are economically important. Domesticated and undomesticated birds (poultry and game) are important sources of eggs, meat, and feathers. Songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano (bird excrement) is harvested for use as a fertilizer.

Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the Birds Species:







Mother Nature Pictured below: ​The archetype for the characters that possess or have traits of Mother Nature. Variation of Goddess and Nature Deity Physiology. Secondary counterpart to Sky Father and Father Time. Not to be confused with Earth Mother.
Mother Nature (sometimes known as Mother Earth or the Earth Mother) is a personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it, in the form of the mother.

European tradition history:
​
The word "nature" comes from the Latin word, "natura", meaning birth or character (see nature (philosophy)). In English, its first recorded use (in the sense of the entirety of the phenomena of the world) was in 1266.

"Natura" and the personification of Mother Nature were widely popular in the Middle Ages. As a concept, seated between the properly divine and the human, it can be traced to Ancient Greece, though Earth (or "Eorthe" in the Old English period) may have been personified as a goddess. The Norse also had a goddess called Jörð (Jord, or Erth).

The earliest written usage is in Mycenaean Greek: Ma-ka (transliterated as ma-ga), "Mother Gaia", written in Linear B syllabic script (13th or 12th century BC). In Greece, the pre-Socratic philosophers had "invented" nature when they abstracted the entirety of phenomena of the world as singular: physis, and this was inherited by Aristotle.

Later medieval Christian thinkers did not see nature as inclusive of everything, but thought that she had been created by God; her place lay on earth, below the unchanging heavens and moon. Nature lay somewhere in the center, with agents above her (angels), and below her (demons and hell). For the medieval mind she was only a personification, not a goddess.

Greek myth:
​
In Greek mythology, Persephone, daughter of Demeter (goddess of the harvest), was abducted by Hades (god of the dead), and taken to the underworld as his queen. Demeter was so distraught that no crops would grow and the "entire human race [would] have perished of cruel, biting hunger if Zeus had not been concerned" (Larousse 152).

Zeus forced Hades to return Persephone to her mother, but while in the underworld, Persephone had eaten pomegranate seeds, the food of the dead and thus, she must spend part of each year with Hades in the underworld. Demeter's grief for her daughter in the realm of the dead, is reflected in the barren winter months and her joy when Persephone returns is reflected in the bountiful summer months

Demeter would take the place of her grandmother, Gaia, and her mother, Rhea, as goddess of the earth in a time when humans and gods thought the activities of the heavens more sacred than those of earth. — Leeming, Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia

Ancient Rome:

Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius opens his didactic poem De rerum natura by addressing Venus as a veritable mother of nature. Lucretius uses Venus as "a personified symbol for the generative aspect of nature". This largely has to do with the nature of Lucretius' work, which presents a nontheistic understanding of the world that eschews superstition

Basque mythology:

Amalur (sometimes Ama Lur or Ama Lurra) was the goddess of the earth in the religion of the ancient Basque people. She was the mother of Ekhi, the sun, and Ilazki, the moon. Her name means "mother earth" or "mother land"; the 1968 Basque documentary Ama lur was a celebration of the Basque countryside.

Indigenous peoples of America:

Algonquian legend says that "beneath the clouds lives the Earth-Mother from whom is derived the Water of Life, who at her bosom feeds plants, animals and human" (Larousse 428). She is otherwise known as Nokomis, the Grandmother.

In Inca mythology, Mama Pacha or Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting. Pachamama is usually translated as "Mother Earth" but a more literal translation would be "Mother Universe" (in Aymara and Quechua mama = mother / pacha = world, space-time or the universe). 

Pachamama and her husband, Inti, are the most benevolent deities and are worshiped in parts of the Andean mountain ranges (stretching from present day Ecuador to Chile and Argentina).

In her book Coateteleco, pueblo indígena de pescadores ("Coatetelco, indigenous fishing town", Cuernavaca, Morelos: Vettoretti, 2015), Teódula Alemán Cleto states, En nuestra cultura prehispánica el respeto y la fe a nuestra madre naturaleza fueron primordiales para vivir en plena armonía como seres humanos. ("In our [Mexican] prehispanic culture, respect and faith in our Mother Nature (emphasis added) were paramount to living in full harmony as human beings.")

Southeast Asia:

In the Mainland Southeast Asian countries of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, earth (terra firma) is personified as Phra Mae Thorani, but her role in Buddhist mythology differs considerably from that of Mother Nature. In the Malay Archipelago, that role is filled by Dewi Sri, The Rice-mother in the East Indies.

Popular culture:

  • In the early 1970s, a television ad featured character actress Dena Dietrich as Mother Nature. Vexed by an off-screen narrator who informs her she has mistaken Chiffon margarine for butter, she responds with the trademarked slogan: "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature" (underscored by thunder and lightning).
  • Mother Nature is featured in The Year Without a Santa Claus voiced by Rhoda Mann. This version is the mother of Heat Miser and Snow Miser. She was played by Carol Kane in the 2006 live-action version.
    • Mother Nature appears in the 2008 sequel A Miser Brothers' Christmas voiced by Patricia Hamilton. Besides Heat Miser and Snow Miser, she is also shown to be the mother of Earthquake, Thunder and Lightning, the Tides, and North Wind. After Santa Claus was injured during one of the Miser Brothers' feuds (with some part of North Wind's henchmen secretly sabotaging Santa's new sleigh), she and Mrs. Claus make the Miser Brothers work at Santa's workshop to make it up to her.
  • Mother Nature appears as a recurring character in The Smurfs voiced by June Foray.
  • Progressive rock band Kansas recorded the song "Death of Mother Nature Suite" as a protest against industrialization.
  • Mother Earth appears in The Earth Day Special, portrayed by Bette Midler. When she falls from the sky and faints due to the problems with nature, she is rushed to the hospital where she is tended to by Doogie Howser and other doctors.
  • Mother Nature is featured in Happily Ever After, voiced by Phyllis Diller. She is depicted as the most powerful force of good in this movie, having complete control over nature, as well as the ability to create creatures from potions she makes in her sanctuary.
  • Mother Nature is a recurring character in The New Woody Woodpecker Show, voiced by B.J. Ward. She is depicted as a fairy who often makes sure that Woody Woodpecker is doing his part in nature.
  • Mother Nature is a supporting character in The Santa Clause 2 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, portrayed by Aisha Tyler. She is shown as the head leader of the Council of Legendary Figures (which also consists of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Cupid, Father Time, Sandman, Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost).
  • Mother Nature is featured in John Hancock written by Bo Bissett. She is referred to as Tara, a tribute to her name in Roman Mythology which is Terra or Terra Mater.
  • Mother Nature is a recurring character featured in Stargate SG-1. She is portrayed as an ascended Ancient called Oma Desala.
  • The animated film Epic features a character named Queen Tara (voiced by Beyoncé Knowles) who is a Mother Nature-like being.
  • Mother Nature is a character in the Guardians of Childhood series by William Joyce. The long-lost daughter of the Boogieman Pitch, she is a young woman who can control phenomena of nature. She stays hidden while she watches the world. Her character is expanded in the latest book The Sandman and the War of Dreams.
  • She appears in an ad campaign for Tampax feminine hygiene products, as a woman in a green tweed skirt-suit, handing a red "gift" to young women, who typically chase her away or beat her up, as the voiceover says, "Outsmart Mother Nature".
  • Mother Nature appears in a major recurring role in the seventh season of Once Upon a Time. Mother Nature is a title for the leader of the dryads. The previous Mother Nature was Mother Flora (portrayed by Gabrielle Miller). Following the death of Mother Flora at the hands of some humans, Gothel (Emma Booth) becomes the next Mother Nature.
  • Mother Nature is mentioned in the hit song "It's Raining Men." by The Weather Girls & eventually remixed by RuPaul. The lyrics say she is a single woman who is to blessed... That she took on the heavens, every angel, and rearranged the sky so that each and every woman could find the perfect guy."
  • A Mother Nature costume was used for a contestant in the sixth season of The Masked Singer. She was eliminated after only one performance and was revealed to be actress Vivica A. Fox.

See also:







Wildlife, including a List of Endangered Species as managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature Pictured: Endangered Animals 2022: List of Endangered Animals – Pictures & Facts
[Your WebHost: While these related topics (below) impact our environment and therefore could have been placed on the Environment web page, the scope and depth covered herein relates more to the Nature Web Page.]

Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. 

Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted for sport.

Wildlife can be found in all ecosystems. Deserts, plains, grasslands, woodlands, forests, and other areas, including the most developed urban areas, all have distinct forms of wildlife.

While the term in popular culture usually refers to animals that are untouched by human factors, most scientists agree that much wildlife is affected by human activities. 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 adapted to suburban environments. This includes such animals as feral cats, dogs, mice, and rats. 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 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. 

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.

Interactions with humans:

Trade:

Wildlife trade refers to the commerce of products that are derived from non-domesticated animals or plants usually extracted from their natural environment or raised under controlled conditions. It can involve the trade of living or dead individuals, tissues such as skins, bones or meat, or other products.

Legal wildlife trade is regulated by the United Nations' Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which currently has 184 member countries called Parties. Illegal wildlife trade is widespread and constitutes one of the major illegal economic activities, comparable to the traffic of drugs and weapons.

Wildlife trade is a serious conservation problem, has a negative effect on the viability of many wildlife populations and is one of the major threats to the survival of vertebrate species.

The illegal wildlife trade has been linked to the emergence and spread of new infectious diseases in humans, including emergent viruses. Global initiative like the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 have a target to end the illegal supply of wildlife.

For food:

Stone age people and hunter-gatherers relied on wildlife, both plants and animals, for their food. In fact, some species may have been hunted to extinction by early human hunters.

Today, hunting, fishing, and 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. 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 other animals, which they believe have aphrodisiac properties:

Malaysia is home to a vast array of amazing wildlife. However, illegal hunting and trade poses a threat to Malaysia's natural diversity. — Chris S. Shepherd

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). Many Amazon species, including peccaries, agoutis, turtles, turtle eggs, anacondas, armadillos are sold primarily as food.

Media​:
See also: Nature documentary

Wildlife has long been a common subject for educational television shows. National Geographic Society specials appeared on CBS since 1965, later moving to American Broadcasting Company and then Public Broadcasting Service.

In 1963, NBC debuted Wild Kingdom, a popular program featuring zoologist Marlin Perkins as host. The BBC natural history unit in the United Kingdom was a similar pioneer, the first wildlife series LOOK presented by Sir Peter Scott, was a studio-based show, with filmed inserts. 

David Attenborough first made his appearance in this series, which was followed by the series Zoo Quest during which he and cameraman Charles Lagus went to many exotic places looking for and filming elusive wildlife—notably the Komodo dragon in Indonesia and lemurs in Madagascar. 

Since 1984, the Discovery Channel and its spin off 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.

There are many magazines and websites which cover wildlife including National Wildlife Magazine, Birds & Blooms, Birding (magazine), wildlife.net and Ranger Rick for children.

Religion:

Many animal 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 Hinduism the cow is regarded sacred.

Muslims conduct sacrifices on Eid al-Adha, to commemorate the sacrificial spirit of Ibrāhīm (Arabic: إِبـرَاهِـيـم, 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".

Tourism:
This section is an excerpt from Wildlife tourism

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.

While it can include eco- and animal-friendly tourism, safari hunting and similar high-intervention activities also fall under the umbrella of wildlife tourism. Wildlife tourism, in its simplest sense, is interacting with wild animals in their natural habitat, either by actively (e.g. hunting/collection) or passively (e.g. watching/photography).

Wildlife tourism is an important part of the tourism industries in many countries including many African and South American countries, Australia, India, Canada, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Maldives among many. It has experienced a dramatic and rapid growth in recent years worldwide and many elements are closely aligned to eco-tourism and sustainable tourism.

According to United Nations World Tourism Organization, with an annual growth about 3%, 7% of world tourism industry relates to wildlife tourism. They also estimate that the growth is much higher in places like UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

Wildlife tourism currently employs 22 million people worldwide directly or indirectly, and contributes more than $ 120 billion to global GDP. As a multimillion-dollar international industry, wildlife tourism is often characterized by the offering of customized tour packages and safaris to allow close access to wildlife.

Suffering:
This section is an excerpt from Wild animal suffering.​

​​Wild animal suffering is the suffering experienced by nonhuman animals living outside of direct human control, due to harms such as: 
Some estimates indicate that these individual animals make up the vast majority of animals in existence. An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of Darwinian evolution and 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.

The topic has historically been discussed in the context of the philosophy of religion as an instance of the problem of evil. 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 take actions toward preventing. 

There is considerable disagreement around taking such actions, as many believe that human interventions in nature, for this reason, should not take place because of practicality, valuing ecological preservation over the well-being and interests of individual animals, considering any obligation to reduce wild animal suffering implied by animal rights to be absurd, or viewing nature as an idyllic place where happiness is widespread.

Some have argued that such interventions would be an example of human hubris, or playing God and use examples of how human interventions, for other reasons, have unintentionally caused harm. Others, including animal rights writers, have defended variants of a laissez-faire position, which argues that humans should not harm wild animals, but that humans should not intervene to reduce natural harms that they experience.

Advocates of such interventions argue that animal rights and welfare positions imply an obligation to help animals suffering in the wild due to natural processes. Some have asserted that refusing to help animals in situations where humans would consider it wrong not to help humans is an example of speciesism. Others argue that humans intervene in nature constantly—sometimes in very substantial ways—for their own interests and to further environmentalist goals. 

Human responsibility for enhancing existing natural harms has also been cited as a reason for intervention. Some advocates argue that humans already successfully help animals in the wild, such as vaccinating and healing injured and sick animals, rescuing animals in fires and other natural disasters, feeding hungry animals, providing thirsty animals with water, and caring for orphaned animals. 

They also assert that although wide-scale interventions may not be possible with our current level of understanding, they could become feasible in the future with improved knowledge and technologies. 

​For these reasons, they claim it is important to raise awareness about the issue of wild animal suffering, spread the idea that humans should help animals suffering in these situations and encourage research into effective measures which can be taken in the future to reduce the suffering of these individuals, without causing greater harms.

​Loss and extinction:
​
This subsection focuses on anthropogenic forms of wildlife destruction. The loss of animals from ecological communities is also known as defaunation.

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 it is widely believed that we are in the sixth great extinction event on earth; the Holocene Mass Extinction.

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.

Destruction of wildlife does not always lead to an extinction of the species in question, however, the dramatic loss of entire species across Earth dominates any review of wildlife destruction as extinction is the level of damage to a wild population from which there is no return.

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.

Overkill:

Overkill happens whenever hunting occurs at rates greater than the reproductive capacity of the population is being exploited. The effects of this are often noticed much more dramatically in slow growing populations such as many larger species of fish.

Initially when a portion of a wild population is hunted, an increased availability of resources (food, etc.) is experienced increasing growth and reproduction as density dependent inhibition is lowered. Hunting, fishing and so on, has lowered the competition between members of a population.

However, if this hunting continues at rate greater than the rate at which new members of the population can reach breeding age and produce more young, the population will begin to decrease in numbers.

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.

Habitat destruction and fragmentation:
Main articles: Habitat destruction and Habitat fragmentation

​The habitat of any given species is considered its preferred area or territory. Many processes associated with human habitation of an area cause loss of this area and decrease the carrying capacity of the land for that species.

In many cases these changes in land use cause a patchy break-up of the wild landscape. Agricultural land frequently displays this type of extremely fragmented, or relictual, habitat. Farms sprawl across the landscape with patches of uncleared woodland or forest dotted in-between occasional paddocks.

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.

Impact of introduced species:
Main article: Introduced species
See also: Invasive species

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.

Chains of extinction:

This final group is one of secondary effects. All wild populations of living things have many complex intertwining links with other living things around them. Large herbivorous animals such as the hippopotamus have populations of insectivorous birds that feed off the many parasitic insects that grow on the hippo.

Should the hippo die out, so too will these groups of birds, leading to further destruction as other species dependent on the birds are affected. Also referred to as a domino effect, this series of chain reactions is by far the most destructive process that can occur in any ecological community.

Another example is the black drongos and the cattle egrets 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.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

Endangered Species:

An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and invasive species.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List lists the global conservation status of many species, and various other agencies assess the status of species within particular areas.

Many nations have laws that protect conservation-reliant species which, for example, forbid hunting, restrict land development, or create protected areas. Some endangered species are the target of extensive conservation efforts such as captive breeding and habitat restoration.

Conservation status:
Main article: Conservation status
​
The conservation status of a species indicates the likelihood that it will become extinct. Multiple factors are considered when assessing the status of a species; e.g., such statistics as the number remaining, the overall increase or decrease in the population over time, breeding success rates, or known threats. 

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the best-known worldwide conservation status listing and ranking system.

Over 50% of the world's species are estimated to be at risk of extinction. Internationally, 195 countries have signed an accord to create Biodiversity Action Plans that will protect endangered and other threatened species. In the United States, such plans are usually called Species Recovery Plans.

IUCN Red List:
Main article: Endangered species (IUCN status)
​
Though labeled a list, the IUCN Red List is a system of assessing the global conservation status of species that includes "Data Deficient" (DD) species – species for which more data and assessment is required before their situation may be determined – as well species comprehensively assessed by the IUCN's species assessment process. 

The species under the index include: mammals, birds, amphibians, cycades, and corals. Those species of "Near Threatened" (NT) and "Least Concern" (LC) status have been assessed and found to have relatively robust and healthy populations, though these may be in decline.

Unlike their more general use elsewhere, the List uses the terms "endangered species" and "threatened species" with particular meanings: "Endangered" (EN) species lie between "Vulnerable" (VU) and "Critically Endangered" (CR) species. In 2012, the IUCN Red List listed 3,079 animal and 2,655 plant species as endangered (EN) worldwide.

​In the United States:

There is data from the United States that shows a correlation between human populations and threatened and endangered species. Using species data from the Database on the Economics and Management of Endangered Species (DEMES) database and the period that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been in existence, 1970 to 1997, a table was created that suggests a positive relationship between human activity and species endangerment.

Endangered Species Act:

​Under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 in the United States, species may be listed as "endangered" or "threatened". The Salt Creek tiger beetle (Cicindela nevadica lincolniana) is an example of an endangered subspecies protected under the ESA.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as the National Marine Fisheries Service are held responsible for classifying and protecting endangered species. They are also responsible for adding a particular species to the list, which can be a long, controversial process.

Some endangered species laws are controversial. Typical areas of controversy include criteria for placing a species on the endangered species list and rules for removing a species from the list once its population has recovered.

Whether restrictions on land development constitute a "taking" of land by the government; the related question of whether private landowners should be compensated for the loss of uses of their areas; and obtaining reasonable exceptions to protection laws. Also lobbying from hunters and various industries like the petroleum industry, construction industry, and logging, has been an obstacle in establishing endangered species laws.

The Bush administration lifted a policy that required federal officials to consult a wildlife expert before taking actions that could damage endangered species. Under the Obama administration, this policy was reinstated.

Being listed as an endangered species can have negative effect since it could make a species more desirable for collectors and poachers. This effect is potentially reducible, such as in China where commercially farmed turtles may be reducing some of the pressure to poach endangered species.

Another problem with the listing species is its effect of inciting the use of the "shoot, shovel, and shut-up" method of clearing endangered species from an area of land. Some landowners currently may perceive a diminution in value for their land after finding an endangered animal on it. They have allegedly opted to kill and bury the animals or destroy habitat silently. Thus removing the problem from their land, but at the same time further reducing the population of an endangered species.

The effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act – which coined the term "endangered species" – has been questioned by business advocacy groups and their publications but is nevertheless widely recognized by wildlife scientists who work with the species as an effective recovery tool. Nineteen species have been delisted and recovered and 93% of listed species in the northeastern United States have a recovering or stable population.

Currently, 1,556 endangered species are under protection by government law. This approximation, however, does not take into consideration the species threatened with endangerment that are not included under the protection of laws like the Endangered Species Act.

According to NatureServe's global conservation status, approximately thirteen percent of vertebrates (excluding marine fish), seventeen percent of vascular plants, and six to eighteen percent of fungi are considered imperiled.

Thus, in total, between seven and eighteen percent of the United States' known animals, fungi and plants are near extinction.  This total is substantially more than the number of species protected in the United States under the Endangered Species Act.

​Ever since mankind began hunting to preserve itself, over-hunting and fishing have been a large and dangerous problem. Of all the species who became extinct due to interference from mankind, the dodo, passenger pigeon, great auk, Tasmanian tiger and Steller's sea cow are some of the more well known examples; with the bald eagle, grizzly bear, American bison, Eastern timber wolf and sea turtle having been poached to near-extinction.

Many began as food sources seen as necessary for survival but became the target of sport.

However, due to major efforts to prevent extinction, the bald eagle, or Haliaeetus leucocephalus is now under the category of Least Concern on the red list. 

A present-day example of the over-hunting of a species can be seen in the oceans as populations of certain whales have been greatly reduced. Large whales like the blue whale, bowhead whale, finback whale, gray whale, sperm whale, and humpback whale are some of the eight whales which are currently still included on the Endangered Species List.

Actions have been taken to attempt a reduction in whaling and increase population sizes. The actions include prohibiting all whaling in United States waters, the formation of the CITES treaty which protects all whales, along with the formation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). But even though all of these movements have been put in place, countries such as Japan continue to hunt and harvest whales under the claim of "scientific purposes". 

Over-hunting, climatic change and habitat loss leads in landing species in endangered species list. It could mean that extinction rates could increase to a large extent in the future.

In Canada:

Endangered species are addressed through Canada's Species at Risk Act. Once a species is deemed threatened or endangered, the Act requires that a recovery plan to be developed that indicates how to stop or reverse the species' population decline. As of 2021, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife In Canada (COSEWIC) has assessed 369 species as being endangered in Canada.

In India:

The World Wide Fund-India raises concern in the longevity of the following animal species: the Red Panda, the Bengal Tiger, the Ganges River Dolphin, the Asian Elephant.

India signed the Wildlife Protection Act and also joined the Convention on the International Trade in 1976, to prevent poaching from harming its wildlife.

Invasive species:
Main article: Introduced species

The introduction of non-indigenous species to an area can disrupt the ecosystem to such an extent that native species become endangered. Such introductions may be termed alien or invasive species. In some cases, the invasive species compete with the native species for food or prey on the natives. In other cases, a stable ecological balance may be upset by predation or other causes leading to unexpected species decline. New species may also carry diseases to which the native species have no exposure or resistance.

Conservation:

Captive breeding:
Main article: Captive breeding

Captive breeding is the process of breeding rare or endangered species in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife reserves, zoos, and other conservation facilities. Captive breeding is meant to save species from extinction and so stabilise the population of the species that it will not disappear.

This technique has worked for many species for some time, with probably the oldest known such instances of captive mating being attributed to menageries of European and Asian rulers, an example being the Père David's deer.

However, captive breeding techniques are usually difficult to implement for such highly mobile species as some migratory birds (e.g. cranes) and fishes (e.g. hilsa). Additionally, if the captive breeding population is too small, then inbreeding may occur due to a reduced gene pool and reduce resistance.

In 1981, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) created a Species Survival Plan (SSP) to help preserve specific endangered and threatened species through captive breeding. With over 450 SSP Plans, some endangered species are covered by the AZA with plans to cover population management goals and recommendations for breeding for a diverse and healthy population, created by Taxon Advisory Groups.

These programs are commonly created as a last resort effort. SSP Programs regularly participate in species recovery, veterinary care for wildlife disease outbreaks, and some other wildlife conservation efforts. The AZA's Species Survival Plan also has breeding and transfer programs, both within and outside of AZA – certified zoos and aquariums. Some animals that are part of SSP programs are giant pandas, lowland gorillas, and California condors.

Private farming:
​​
Whereas poaching substantially reduces endangered animal populations, legal, for-profit, private farming does the opposite. It has substantially increased the populations of the southern black rhinoceros and southern white rhinoceros.

Dr Richard Emslie, a scientific officer at the IUCN, said of such programs, "Effective law enforcement has become much easier now that the animals are largely privately owned... We have been able to bring local communities into conservation programs. There are increasingly strong economic incentives attached to looking after rhinos rather than simply poaching: from Eco-tourism or selling them on for a profit. So many owners are keeping them secure. The private sector has been key to helping our work."

Conservation experts view the effect of China's turtle farming on the wild turtle populations of China and South-Eastern Asia – many of which are endangered – as "poorly understood". Although they commend the gradual replacement of turtles caught wild with farm-raised turtles in the marketplace – the percentage of farm-raised individuals in the "visible" trade grew from around 30% in 2000 to around 70% in 2007 – they worry that many wild animals are caught to provide farmers with breeding stock.

The conservation expert Peter Paul van Dijk noted that turtle farmers often believe that animals caught wild are superior breeding stock. Turtle farmers may, therefore, seek and catch the last remaining wild specimens of some endangered turtle species.

In 2015, researchers in Australia managed to coax southern bluefin tuna to breed in landlocked tanks, raising the possibility that fish farming may be able to save the species from overfishing.

​See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

World Wide Fund for Nature

​The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States.

WWF is the world's largest conservation organization, with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries and supporting around 3,000 conservation and environmental projects. They have invested over $1 billion in more than 12,000 conservation initiatives since 1995. WWF is a foundation with 65% of funding from individuals and bequests, 17% from government sources (such as the World Bank, DFID, and USAID) and 8% from corporations in 2020.

WWF aims to "stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature." 

The Living Planet Report has been published every two years by WWF since 1998; it is based on a Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculation. In addition, WWF has launched several notable worldwide campaigns, including Earth Hour and Debt-for-nature swap, and its current work is organized around these six areas: food, climate, freshwater, wildlife, forests, and oceans.

WWF received criticism for its alleged corporate ties and has been reprimanded for supporting eco-guards that hounded African forest dwellers in the proposed Messok Dja national park in the Republic of the Congo.

WWF is part of the Steering Group of the Foundations Platform F20, an international network of foundations and philanthropic organizations.

History:

Founding:

The idea for a fund on behalf of endangered animals was officially proposed by Victor Stolan to Sir Julian Huxley in response to articles he published in the British newspaper The Observer. This proposal led Huxley to put Stolan in contact with Edward Max Nicholson, a person who had had thirty years of experience linking progressive intellectuals with big business interests through the Political and Economic Planning think tank.

Nicholson thought up the name of the organization and the original panda logo was designed by Sir Peter Scott. WWF was conceived on 29 April 1961, under the name of World Wildlife Fund. Its first office was opened on 11 September in IUCN's headquarters at Morges, Switzerland.

The WWF was conceived to act as an international fundraising organisation to support the work of existing conservation groups, primarily the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Its establishment was marked with the signing of the Morges Manifesto, the founding document that sets out the fund's commitment to assisting worthy organizations struggling to save the world's wildlife: "They need above all money, to carry out mercy missions and to meet conservation emergencies by buying land where wildlife treasures are threatened, and in many other ways:
  • Money, for example, to pay guardians of wildlife refuges ....
  • Money for education and propaganda among those who would care and help if only they understood.
  • Money to send out experts to danger spots and to train more local wardens and helpers in Africa and elsewhere.
  • Money to maintain a sort of 'war room' at the international headquarters of conservation, showing where the danger spots are and making it possible to ensure that their needs are met before it is too late."
— Morges Manifesto, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld helped to found the WWF, becoming its first president in 1961.

In 1963, the Foundation held a conference and published a major report warning of anthropogenic global warming, written by Noel Eichhorn based on the work of: 
In 1970, along with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a few associates, Bernhard established the WWF's financial endowment The 1001: A Nature Trust to handle the organization's administration and fundraising. 1001 members each contributed $10,000 to the trust. Prince Bernhard resigned his post after being involved in the Lockheed Bribery Scandal.

Recent developments:

The WWF has set up offices and operations around the world. It originally worked by fundraising and providing grants to existing non-governmental organizations with an initial focus on the protection of endangered species.

As more resources became available, its operations expanded into other areas such as the preservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of natural resources, the reduction of pollution, and climate change.

The organization also began to run its own conservation projects and campaigns.

​​In 1986, the organization changed its name to World Wide Fund for Nature, while retaining the WWF initials. However, it continued at that time to operate under the original name in the United States and Canada.

1986 was the 25th anniversary of WWF's foundation, an event marked by a gathering in Assisi, Italy to which the organization's International President Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, invited religious authorities representing Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism. These leaders produced The Assisi Declarations, theological statements showing the spiritual relationship between their followers and nature that triggered a growth in the engagement of those religions with conservation around the world.

In the 1990s, WWF revised its mission statement to: Stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature,
  • conserving the world's biological diversity;
  • ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable; [and]
  • promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

WWF researchers and many others identified 238 ecoregions that represent the world's most biologically outstanding terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats, based on a worldwide biodiversity analysis which the organization says was the first of its kind. 

In the early 2000s (decade), its work was focused on a subset of these ecoregions, in the areas of forest, freshwater and marine habitat conservation, endangered species conservation, climate change, and the elimination of the most toxic chemicals.

"We shan't save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried." — Sir Peter Scott

In 1990, the Conservation Foundation was completely merged into WWF, after becoming an affiliate of WWF-US in 1985 when it became a distinct legal entity but with the same staff and board. The organization now known as the Conservation Foundation in the United States is the former Forest Foundation of DuPage County. 

In 1996, the organization obtained general consultative status from UNESCO.

Harvard University published a case study on WWF called "Negotiating Toward the Paris Accords: WWF & the Role of Forests in the 2015 Climate Agreement":

​Panda symbol:

WWF's giant panda logo originated from a panda named Chi Chi that had been transferred from Beijing Zoo to London Zoo in 1958, three years before WWF was established.

Being famous as the only panda residing in the Western world at that time, her uniquely recognizable physical features and status as an endangered species were seen as ideal to serve the organization's need for a strong recognisable symbol that would overcome all language barriers.
 
​The organization also needed an animal that would have an impact in black and white printing. The logo was then designed by Sir Peter Scott from preliminary sketches by Gerald Watterson, a Scottish naturalist.

The logo was slightly simplified and made more geometric in 1978, and was revised significantly again in 1986, at the time that the organization changed its name, with the new version featuring solid black shapes for eyes. In 2000 a change was made to the font used for the initials "WWF" in the logo.

​Organization and operation:

Policy-making:

Policies of the WWF are made by board members elected for three-year terms. An Executive Team guides and develops WWF's strategy. There is also a National Council which stands as an advisory group to the board and a team of scientists and experts in conservation who research for WWF.

National and international law plays an important role in determining how habitats and resources are managed and used. Laws and regulations become one of the organization's global priorities.

The WWF has been opposed to the extraction of oil from the Canadian tar sands and has campaigned on this matter. Between 2008 and 2010 the WWF worked with The Co-operative Group, the UK's largest consumer co-operative to publish reports which concluded that:

(1) exploiting the Canadian tar sands to their full potential would be sufficient to bring about what they described as 'runaway climate change; 

(2) carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology cannot be used to reduce the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to a level comparable to that of other methods of oil extraction; 

(3) the $379 billion which is expected to be spent extracting oil from tar sands could be better spent on research and development in renewable energy technology; 

and (4) the expansion of tar sands extraction poses a serious threat to the caribou in Alberta .

The organization convinces and helps governments and other political bodies to adopt, enforce, strengthen and/or change policies, guidelines and laws that affect biodiversity and natural resource use. It also ensures government consent and/or keeps their commitment to international instruments relating to the protection of biodiversity and natural resources.

In 2012, David Nussbaum, Chief Executive of WWF-UK, spoke out against the way shale gas is used in the UK, saying: "... the Government must reaffirm its commitment to tackling climate change and prioritise renewables and energy efficiency."

Collaboration:

The organization works on a number of global issues driving biodiversity loss and unsustainable use of natural resources, including species conservation, finance, business practices, laws, and consumption choices. Local offices also work on national or regional issues.

WWF works with a large number of different groups to achieve its goals, including other NGOs, governments, business, investment banks, scientists, fishermen, farmers and local communities. It also undertakes public campaigns to influence decision makers and seeks to educate people on how to live in a more environmentally friendly manner. It urges people to donate funds to protect the environment. The donors can also choose to receive gifts in return.

In October 2020, WWF was named as one of the alliance partner's of Prince William's Earthshot Prize, to find solutions to environmental issues.

In March 2021, WWF announced an extension of their partnership with H&M to address sustainable supply chain practices.

​Notable initiatives and programs:

Campaigns:
Publications:

WWF publishes the Living Planet Index in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London. Along with ecological footprint calculations, the Index is used to produce a bi-yearly Living Planet Report giving an overview of the impact of human activity on the world. 

In 2019, WWF and Knorr jointly published the Future 50 Foods report identifying "50 Foods for Healthier People and a Healthier Planet".

The organization also regularly publishes reports, fact sheets and other documents on issues related to its work, to raise awareness and provide information to policy and decision makers.

Promotions:
  • No One's Gonna Change Our World was a charity album released in 1969, for the benefit of the WWF.
  • Peter Rose and Anne Conlon are music theatre writers, well known for their environmental musicals for children, who were commissioned by WWF-UK to write several environmental musicals as part of an education plan. Some were narrated by David Attenborough, and broadcast on television in numerous countries.
  • The British pop group S Club 7 were ambassadors for WWF-UK during their time together as a band (1999–2003). Each of the members sponsored an endangered animal, and in 2000, traveled to the various locations around the world of their chosen animals for a seven-part BBC documentary series entitled S Club 7 Go Wild.
  • Environmentally Sound: A Select Anthology of Songs Inspired by the Earth is a benefit album released in 2006, for WWF-Philippines, featuring artists that included Up Dharma Down, Radioactive Sago Project, Kala, Johnny Alegre Affinity, Cynthia Alexander, and Joey Ayala.
  • In June 2012, WWF launched an online music download store with fairsharemusic from which 50% of the profit goes to the charity.
  • In April 2015, Hailey Gardiner released her solo EP, titled The Woods. In honor of Earth Day, 15% of the proceeds made towards the purchase of the EP would be donated to the WWF.

Controversies and disputes:

ARD documentary and PandaLeaks book:

The German public television ARD aired a documentary on 22 June 2011 that claimed to show how the WWF cooperates with corporations such as Monsanto, providing sustainability certification in exchange for donations – essentially greenwashing. 

WWF has denied the allegations. By encouraging high-impact eco-tourism, the program alleges that WWF contributes to the destruction of habitat and species it claims to protect while also harming indigenous peoples.

The filmmaker, German investigative journalist Wilfried Huismann, was sued by the WWF over his documentary and the book Schwarzbuch WWF published in 2012, which was based on the documentary.

In an out of court settlement, he agreed to remove or revise certain claims. Speaking on behalf of WWF Germany, Marco Vollmar indicated "[Huismann] draws a distorted picture of false statements, defamations and exaggerations, but we will accept that as expressions of opinion." (Translated from the original German: "ein Zerrbild aus falschen Aussagen, Diffamierungen und Übertreibungen, aber das werden wir als Meinungsäußerungen hinnehmen.")

In 2014, Huismann published a revised edition of his 2012 book, originally called The Silence of the Pandas. The original edition had become a bestseller in Germany, but was banned from Britain until 2014, when it was released under the title of PandaLeaks – The Dark Side of the WWF, after a series of injunctions and court orders. 

The book criticizes WWF for its involvement with corporations that are responsible for large-scale destruction of the environment, such as Coca-Cola, and gives details into the existence of the secret 1001 Club, whose members, Huismann claims, continue to have an unhealthy influence on WWF's policy making. 

WWF has denied the allegations made against it.

Corporate partnerships:

WWF has been accused by the campaigner Corporate Watch of being too close to business to campaign objectively. WWF claims partnering with corporations such as Coca-Cola, Lafarge, Carlos Slim's and IKEA will reduce their effect on the environment.

WWF received €56 million (US$80 million) from corporations in 2010 (an 8% increase in support from corporations compared to 2009), accounting for 11% of total revenue for the year.

For their 2019 fiscal year, WWF reported 4% of their total operating revenue coming from corporations.

Human rights abuses by paramilitaries:

In 2017, a report by Survival International claimed that WWF-funded paramilitaries are not only committing abuses against the indigenous Baka and Bayaka in the Congo Basin, who "face harassment and beatings, torture and death", but are also corrupt and aid in the destruction of conserved areas.

The report accused WWF and its guards of partnering with several logging companies who carried out deforestation, while the rangers ignored wildlife trafficking networks.

In 2019, an investigation by BuzzFeed News alleged that paramilitary groups funded by the organization are engaged in serious human rights abuses against villagers, and the organization has covered up the incidents and acted to protect the perpetrators from law enforcement. These armed groups were claimed to torture, sexually assault, and execute villagers based on false accusations.

In one instance found by BuzzFeed News investigators, an 11-year-old boy was allegedly tortured by WWF-funded rangers in front of his parents; WWF ignored all complaints against the rangers. In another incident, a ranger attempted to rape a Tharu woman and, when she resisted, attacked her with bamboo stick until she lost consciousness. While the ranger was arrested, the woman was pressured not to press charges, resulting in the ranger going free.

In 2010, WWF-sponsored rangers reportedly killed a 12-year-old girl who was collecting tree bark in Bardiya National Park. Park and WWF officials allegedly obstructed investigations in these cases, by "falsifying and destroying evidence, falsely claiming the victims were poachers, and pressuring the families of the victims to withdraw criminal complaints".

In July 2019, Buzzfeed reported that a leaked report by the WWF accused guards of beating and raping women including pregnant women while torturing men by tying their penises with fishing lines. The investigations were cut short after paramilitary groups threatened investigators with death. The investigators accused WWF of covering up the crimes.

Releasing an official statement, the WWF claimed that the report was not made public to ensure the safety of the victims and that the guards were suspended and are awaiting prosecution. However, Buzzfeed accused the WWF of attempting to withhold the report to the US congressional committee investigating the human rights violations by providing highly redacted versions instead.

In the Central African Republic, WWF officials were reportedly involved in an arms deal, where the organization paid for 15 Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition; but part of the money went unaccounted for and they were apparently defrauded by the CAR army representatives selling the weapons.

The Kathmandu Post, which cooperated with BuzzFeed News on the investigations in Nepal, claimed there was intense lobbying and political pressure to release WWF-funded rangers arrested for murder. They interviewed activists who claimed they were promised donations for pressuring victims of abuse to drop charges against the rangers.

When the local Tharu community protested, WWF officials carried out a counter-protest in favor of the accused and used park elephants to block Prithvi Highway.

An investigation by Rainforest Foundation UK found evidence of widespread physical and sexual assault by 'eco-guards' employed by the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo funded by WWF. These include two cases of gang rape, two extrajudicial killings, and multiple accounts of torture and other forms of mistreatment committed by park guards.

In reply to the investigations, WWF stated that it takes any allegations seriously and would be launching an independent review into the cases raised. The organization stated it has stringent policies designed to ensure it and its partners are safeguarding the rights and well-being of indigenous peoples and local communities, and should the review uncover any breaches, it is committed to taking swift action.

These accusations were central to a four day sit-in protest carried out by members of Extinction Rebellion's XR Youth Solidarity Network at WWF-UK's headquarters in September 2021.

Initialism dispute:
See also: WWE § Legal disputes and controversies

In 2000, the World Wide Fund for Nature sued the World Wrestling Federation (now named WWE) for unfair trade practices. Both parties had shared the initials "WWF" since 1979. The conservation organization claimed that the professional wrestling company had violated a 1994 agreement regarding international use of the WWF initials.

On 10 August 2001, a UK court ruled in favour of the World Wide Fund for Nature. The World Wrestling Federation filed an appeal in October 2001. However, on 10 May 2002, the World Wrestling Federation changed its Web address from WWF.com to WWE.com, and replaced every "WWF" reference on the existing site with "WWE", as a prelude to changing the company's name to "World Wrestling Entertainment."

Its stock ticker also switched from WWF to WWE.

The wrestling organization's abandonment of "WWF" initialism did not end the two organizations' legal conflict. Later in 2002, the World Wide Fund for Nature petitioned the court for $360 million in damages, but was not successful. A subsequent request to overturn by the World Wide Fund for Nature was dismissed by the British Court of Appeal on 28 June 2007.

In 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment won a limited decision which permitted them to continue marketing certain pre-existing products with the abandoned WWF logo. However, WWE was mandated to issue newly branded merchandise such as apparel, action figures, video games, and DVDs with the "WWE" initials. Additionally, the court order required the company to remove both auditory and visual references to "WWF" in its library of video footage outside the United Kingdom.

Starting with the 1,000th episode of Raw in July 2012, the WWF "scratch" logo is no longer censored in archival footage. In addition, the WWF initials are no longer censored when spoken or when written in plain text in archival footage. In exchange, WWE is no longer permitted to use WWF initials or logo in any new, original footage, packaging, or advertising, with any old-school logos for retro-themed programming now using a modification of the original WWF logo without the F.

Mekong River dolphins report:

In June 2009, Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission for Conservation and Development of the Mekong River Dolphins Eco-tourism Zone, argued that the WWF had misrepresented the danger of extinction of the Mekong dolphin to boost fundraising. 

The report stated that the deaths were caused by a bacterial disease that became fatal due to environmental contaminants suppressing the dolphins' immune systems. He called the report unscientific and harmful to the Cambodian government and threatened WWF's Cambodian branch with suspension unless they met with him to discuss his claims.

Touch Seang Tana later said he would not press charges of supplying false information and would not make any attempt to prevent WWF from continuing its work in Cambodia, but advised WWF to adequately explain its findings and check with the commission before publishing another report. Criticism of the validity of reports critical of government action or inaction, where 'approval' has not been sought before publication, is common in Cambodia.

In January 2012, Touch Seang Tana signed the "Kratie Declaration on the Conservation of the Mekong River Irrawaddy Dolphin" along with WWF and the Cambodian Fisheries Administration, an agreement binding the parties to work together on a "roadmap" addressing dolphin conservation in the Mekong River.

Accountability:

The Charity Navigator gave the WWF a 3-star overall rating, a 2-star financial rating and a 4-star accountability and transparency rating for the 2018 fiscal year.

Manipulation of CO2 emissions data from nuclear energy:

In 2009, in a scorecard report that they authored on carbon emissions in G8 countries, the WWF portrayed the greenhouse gas emissions of countries who use low-carbon nuclear power in their mix as a higher amount of emissions than realistically calculated.

For example, for France, the WWF displayed a false value of 362 gCO2eq/kWh which is over 400% larger than the actual emissions in France. WWF explained the manipulation as follows: "WWF does not consider nuclear power to be a viable policy option. The indicators "emissions per capita", "emissions per GdP" and "Co2 per kWh electricity" for all countries have therefore been adjusted as if the generation of electricity from nuclear power had produced 350 gCo2/kWh (emission factor for natural gas). Without the adjustment, the original indicators for France would have been much lower, e.g. 86 gCo2/kWh.

The scorecard for Sweden was also "adjusted" in similar way, where the WWF replaced the actual emissions of 47 gCO2eq/kWh with 212 gCO2eq/kWh.

Nord Stream involvement:

In 2011 Jochen Lamp, head of WWF Germany, was also head of Conservation Foundation German Baltic, sponsored by Nord Stream company building a controversial gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.

While WWF headed by Lamp has been actively blocking the project using court cases, Nord Stream reached "an out-of-court agreement" with the Foundation, also headed by Lamp, involving transfer of 10 million EUR, after which WWF withdrew the case.

Controversy on investments in multiple fossil fuel developments:

Investigative journalism by NBC and later Naomi Klein, in 2008 and 2013 respectively, uncovered that the WWF has invested and profits from, multi-million dollar investment contracts it has put into oil, gas, coal and tar sands developments and did not pull out of these, divesting, when confronted but indicated it would at the minimum wait until 2020 to do so, in some of its fossil fuel ventures, as early ending would have not been as profitable for them.

The WWF does not oppose fossil fuels but engages in what it, internally terms, as the "responsible development" of fossil fuels. 

Proposal to sell non-fungible tokens:

In February 2022, WWF UK released plans to raise funds through selling NFTs (non-fungible tokens). NFT is a unit of data stored on a blockchain. Critics point out transacting NFTs causes significant environmental impact.

Regional organizations:

WWF-Australia:

The Australian arm of WWF was established on 29 June 1978 in an old factory in Sydney, with three staff and a budget of around A$80,000 for the first year, consisting of a A$50,000 grant from the Commonwealth Government and a further A$20,500 in corporate donations. As of 2020, WWF-Australia is the country's biggest conservation organization, which operates projects throughout Australia as well as the wider Oceania region. 

Between 2015 and 2019 WWF-Australia reported an average revenue of $28.74 million per year. In 2020, WWF-Australia reported a total revenue of over $80 million driven by the global & local response to the Australian bushfires.

In 1990, WWF-Australia established the national Threatened Species Network (TSN) with the federal government, which remained operational until 2009. In 1999 it participated in the creation of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, at that time the most encompassing biodiversity conservation laws in the world.

In 2003/4 the organization played a part in getting the government to raise the level of protection for the Great Barrier Reef and the Ningaloo Reef, and since then has participated in or managed many conservation programs, such as the reintroduction of black-flanked rock-wallabies to Kalbarri National Park in Western Australia.

Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina:

In Argentina, WWF is represented by Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, an independent organization which is also a part of the network.

See also:







Domestic Animals, including a List Pictured below: Timeline -- The Domestication of Animals
Domestication of animals:

The domestication of animals is the mutual relationship between animals and the humans who have influence on their care and reproduction.

​Charles Darwin recognized a small number of traits that made domesticated species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding (i.e. artificial selection) in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits. 

There is a genetic difference between domestic and wild populations. There is also a genetic difference between the domestication traits that researchers believe to have been essential at the early stages of domestication, and the improvement traits that have appeared since the split between wild and domestic populations. 

Domestication traits are generally fixed within all domesticates and were selected during the initial episode of domestication of that animal or plant, whereas improvement traits are present only in a proportion of domesticates, though they may be fixed in individual breeds or regional populations.

Domestication should not be confused with taming. Taming is the conditioned behavioral modification of a wild-born animal when its natural avoidance of humans is reduced and it accepts the presence of humans, but domestication is the permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to an inherited predisposition toward humans. 

Certain animal species, and certain individuals within those species, make better candidates for domestication than others because they exhibit certain behavioral characteristics:
  • the size and organization of their social structure;
  • the availability and the degree of selectivity in their choice of mates;
  • the ease and speed with which the parents bond with their young, and the maturity and mobility of the young at birth;
  • the degree of flexibility in diet and habitat tolerance;
  • and responses to humans and new environments, including flight responses and reactivity to external stimuli.

It is proposed that there were three major pathways that most animal domesticates followed into domestication:
  • commensals, adapted to a human niche (e.g., dogs, cats, fowl, possibly pigs);
  • prey animals sought for food (e.g., sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, yak, pig, reindeer, llama, alpaca, and turkey);
  • targeted animals for draft and nonfood resources (e.g., horse, donkey, camel).

The dog was the first to be domesticated, and was established across Eurasia before the end of the Late Pleistocene era, well before cultivation and before the domestication of other animals. Unlike other domestic species which were primarily selected for production-related traits, dogs were initially selected for their behaviors. 

The archaeological and genetic data suggest that long-term bidirectional gene flow between wild and domestic stocks – including: 
One study has concluded that human selection for domestic traits likely counteracted the homogenizing effect of gene flow from wild boars into pigs and created domestication islands in the genome. The same process may also apply to other domesticated animals. Some of the most commonly domesticated animals are cats and dogs
​
Definitions:

Domestication:

Domestication has been defined as "a sustained multi-generational, mutualistic relationship in which one organism assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another organism in order to secure a more predictable supply of a resource of interest, and through which the partner organism gains advantage over individuals that remain outside this relationship, thereby benefitting and often increasing the fitness of both the domesticator and the target domesticate."

This definition recognizes both the biological and the cultural components of the domestication process and the effects on both humans and the domesticated animals and plants.

All past definitions of domestication have included a relationship between humans with plants and animals, but their differences lay in who was considered as the lead partner in the relationship. This new definition recognizes a mutualistic relationship in which both partners gain benefits.

Domestication has vastly enhanced the reproductive output of crop plants, livestock, and pets far beyond that of their wild progenitors. Domesticates have provided humans with resources that they could more predictably and securely control, move, and redistribute, which has been the advantage that had fueled a population explosion of the agro-pastoralists and their spread to all corners of the planet.

This biological mutualism is not restricted to humans with domestic crops and livestock but is well-documented in nonhuman species, especially among a number of social insect domesticators and their plant and animal domesticates, for example the ant–fungus mutualism that exists between leafcutter ants and certain fungi.

Domestication syndrome:

Domestication syndrome is a term often used to describe the suite of phenotypic traits arising during domestication that distinguish crops from their wild ancestors. 

The term is also applied to animals and includes:
  • increased docility and tameness,
  • coat color changes,
  • reductions in tooth size,
  • changes in craniofacial morphology,
  • alterations in ear and tail form (e.g., floppy ears),
  • more frequent and nonseasonal estrus cycles,
  • alterations in adrenocorticotropic hormone levels,
  • changed concentrations of several neurotransmitters,
  • prolongations in juvenile behavior,
  • and reductions in both total brain size and of particular brain regions. 

The set of traits used to define the animal domestication syndrome is inconsistent.

Difference from taming:

Domestication should not be confused with taming. Taming is the conditioned behavioral modification of a wild-born animal when its natural avoidance of humans is reduced and it accepts the presence of humans, but domestication is the permanent genetic modification of a bred lineage that leads to an inherited predisposition toward humans. 

Human selection included tameness, but without a suitable evolutionary response then domestication was not achieved. Domestic animals need not be tame in the behavioral sense, such as the Spanish fighting bull. Wild animals can be tame, such as a hand-raised cheetah.

A domestic animal's breeding is controlled by humans and its tameness and tolerance of humans is genetically determined. However, an animal merely bred in captivity is not necessarily domesticated. Tigers, gorillas, and polar bears breed readily in captivity but are not domesticated. Asian elephants are wild animals that with taming manifest outward signs of domestication, yet their breeding is not human controlled and thus they are not true domesticates.

History, cause and timing:
See also: History of agriculture

​The domestication of animals and plants was triggered by the climatic and environmental changes that occurred after the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum around 21,000 years ago and which continue to this present day. These changes made obtaining food difficult. The first domesticate was the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris) from a wolf ancestor (Canis lupus) at least 15,000 years ago.

The Younger Dryas that occurred 12,900 years ago was a period of intense cold and aridity that put pressure on humans to intensify their foraging strategies. By the beginning of the Holocene from 11,700 years ago, favorable climatic conditions and increasing human populations led to small-scale animal and plant domestication, which allowed humans to augment the food that they were obtaining through hunter-gathering.

The increased use of agriculture and continued domestication of species during the Neolithic transition marked the beginning of a rapid shift in the evolution, ecology, and demography of both humans and numerous species of animals and plants. Areas with increasing agriculture, underwent urbanization, developing higher-density populations, expanded economies, and became centers of livestock and crop domestication.

Such agricultural societies emerged across Eurasia, North Africa, and South and Central America.

In the Fertile Crescent 10,000-11,000 years ago, zooarchaeology indicates that goats, pigs, sheep, and taurine cattle were the first livestock to be domesticated. Archaeologists working in Cyprus found an older burial ground, approximately 9500 years old, of an adult human with a feline skeleton. 

Two thousand years later, humped zebu cattle were domesticated in what is today Baluchistan in Pakistan. In East Asia 8,000 years ago, pigs were domesticated from wild boar that were genetically different from those found in the Fertile Crescent. The horse was domesticated on the Central Asian steppe 5,500 years ago. The chicken in Southeast Asia was domesticated 4,000 years ago.

Universal features:

The biomass of wild vertebrates is now increasingly small compared to the biomass of domestic animals, with the calculated biomass of domestic cattle alone being greater than that of all wild mammals. Because the evolution of domestic animals is ongoing, the process of domestication has a beginning but not an end.

Various criteria have been established to provide a definition of domestic animals, but all decisions about exactly when an animal can be labelled "domesticated" in the zoological sense are arbitrary, although potentially useful. 

Domestication is a fluid and nonlinear process that may start, stop, reverse, or go down unexpected paths with no clear or universal threshold that separates the wild from the domestic. However, there are universal features held in common by all domesticated animals.

Behavioral preadaption:

Certain animal species, and certain individuals within those species, make better candidates for domestication than others because they exhibit certain behavioral characteristics:
  1. the size and organization of their social structure;
  2. the availability and the degree of selectivity in their choice of mates;
  3. the ease and speed with which the parents bond with their young, and the maturity and mobility of the young at birth;
  4. the degree of flexibility in diet and habitat tolerance;
  5. responses to humans and new environments, including flight responses and reactivity to external stimuli.

Reduced wariness to humans and low reactivity to both humans and other external stimuli are a key pre-adaptation for domestication, and these behaviors are also the primary target of the selective pressures experienced by the animal undergoing domestication. This implies that not all animals can be domesticated, e.g., a wild member of the horse family, the zebra.

Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel enquired as to why, among the world's 148 large wild terrestrial herbivorous mammals, only 14 were domesticated, and proposed that their wild ancestors must have possessed six characteristics before they could be considered for domestication:
  1. Efficient diet – Animals that can efficiently process what they eat and live off plants are less expensive to keep in captivity. Carnivores feed on flesh, which would require the domesticators to raise additional animals to feed the carnivores and therefore increase the consumption of plants further.
  2. Quick growth rate – Fast maturity rate compared to the human life span allows breeding intervention and makes the animal useful within an acceptable duration of caretaking. Some large animals require many years before they reach a useful size.
  3. Ability to breed in captivity – Animals that will not breed in captivity are limited to acquisition through capture in the wild.
  4. Pleasant disposition – Animals with nasty dispositions are dangerous to keep around humans.
  5. Tendency not to panic – Some species are nervous, fast, and prone to flight when they perceive a threat.
  6. Social structure – All species of domesticated large mammals had wild ancestors that lived in herds with a dominance hierarchy amongst the herd members, and the herds had overlapping home territories rather than mutually exclusive home territories. This arrangement allows humans to take control of the dominance hierarchy.

Brain size and function:

The sustained selection for lowered reactivity among mammal domesticates has resulted in profound changes in brain form and function. The larger the size of the brain to begin with and the greater its degree of folding, the greater the degree of brain-size reduction under domestication. 

Foxes that had been selectively bred for tameness over 40 years had experienced a significant reduction in cranial height and width and by inference in brain size, which supports the hypothesis that brain-size reduction is an early response to the selective pressure for tameness and lowered reactivity that is the universal feature of animal domestication.

The most affected portion of the brain in domestic mammals is the limbic system, which in domestic dogs, pigs, and sheep show a 40% reduction in size compared with their wild species. This portion of the brain regulates endocrine function that influences behaviors such as aggression, wariness, and responses to environmentally induced stress, all attributes which are dramatically affected by domestication.

Pleiotropy:

A putative cause for the broad changes seen in domestication syndrome is pleiotropy. Pleiotropy occurs when one gene influences two or more seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits.

Certain physiological changes characterize domestic animals of many species. These changes include extensive white markings (particularly on the head), floppy ears, and curly tails. These arise even when tameness is the only trait under selective pressure. The genes involved in tameness are largely unknown, so it is not known how or to what extent pleiotropy contributes to domestication syndrome.

Tameness may be caused by the down regulation of fear and stress responses via reduction of the adrenal glands. Based on this, the pleiotropy hypotheses can be separated into two theories. The Neural Crest Hypothesis relates adrenal gland function to deficits in neural crest cells during development. The Single Genetic Regulatory Network Hypothesis claims that genetic changes in upstream regulators affect downstream systems.

Neural crest cells (NCC) are vertebrate embryonic stem cells that function directly and indirectly during early embryogenesis to produce many tissue types. Because the traits commonly affected by domestication syndrome are all derived from NCC in development, the neural crest hypothesis suggests that deficits in these cells cause the domain of phenotypes seen in domestication syndrome. 

These deficits could cause changes we see to many domestic mammals, such as lopped ears (seen in rabbit, dog, fox, pig, sheep, goat, cattle, and donkeys) as well as curly tails (pigs, foxes, and dogs). Although they do not affect the development of the adrenal cortex directly, the neural crest cells may be involved in relevant upstream embryological interactions. 

Furthermore, artificial selection targeting tameness may affect genes that control the concentration or movement of NCCs in the embryo, leading to a variety of phenotypes.

The single genetic regulatory network hypothesis proposes that domestication syndrome results from mutations in genes that regulate the expression pattern of more downstream genes. 

For example, piebald, or spotted coat coloration, may be caused by a linkage in the biochemical pathways of melanins involved in coat coloration and neurotransmitters such as dopamine that help shape behavior and cognition. These linked traits may arise from mutations in a few key regulatory genes. 

A problem with this hypothesis is that it proposes that there are mutations in gene networks that cause dramatic effects that are not lethal, however no currently known genetic regulatory networks cause such dramatic change in so many different traits.

Limited reversion:

Feral mammals such as dogs, cats, goats, donkeys, pigs, and ferrets that have lived apart from humans for generations show no sign of regaining the brain mass of their wild progenitors. Dingos have lived apart from humans for thousands of years but still have the same brain size as that of a domestic dog. 

Feral dogs that actively avoid human contact are still dependent on human waste for survival and have not reverted to the self-sustaining behaviors of their wolf ancestors.

Categories:

Domestication can be considered as the final phase of intensification in the relationship between animal or plant sub-populations and human societies, but it is divided into several grades of intensification. For studies in animal domestication, researchers have proposed five distinct categories: wild, captive wild, domestic, cross-breeds and feral.

Wild animals: Subject to natural selection, although the action of past demographic events and artificial selection induced by game management or habitat destruction cannot be excluded.

Captive wild animals: Directly affected by a relaxation of natural selection associated with feeding, breeding and protection/confinement by humans, and an intensification of artificial selection through passive selection for animals that are more suited to captivity.

Domestic animals: Subject to intensified artificial selection through husbandry practices with relaxation of natural selection associated with captivity and management.

Cross-breed animals: Genetic hybrids of wild and domestic parents. They may be forms intermediate between both parents, forms more similar to one parent than the other, or unique forms distinct from both parents. Hybrids can be intentionally bred for specific characteristics or can arise unintentionally as the result of contact with wild individuals.

Feral animals:  Domesticates that have returned to a wild state. As such, they experience relaxed artificial selection induced by the captive environment paired with intensified natural selection induced by the wild habitat.

In 2015, a study compared the diversity of dental size, shape and allometry across the proposed domestication categories of modern pigs (genus Sus). The study showed clear differences between the dental phenotypes of wild, captive wild, domestic, and hybrid pig populations, which supported the proposed categories through physical evidence.

The study did not cover feral pig populations but called for further research to be undertaken on them, and on the genetic differences with hybrid pigs.

Pathways:

Since 2012, a multi-stage model of animal domestication has been accepted by two groups. The first group proposed that animal domestication proceeded along a continuum of stages from anthropophily, commensalism, control in the wild, control of captive animals, extensive breeding, intensive breeding, and finally to pets in a slow, gradually intensifying relationship between humans and animals.

The second group proposed that there were three major pathways that most animal domesticates followed into domestication:
  1. commensals, adapted to a human niche (e.g., dogs, cats, fowl, possibly pigs);
  2. prey animals sought for food (e.g., sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, yak, pig, reindeer, llama and alpaca);
  3. targeted animals for draft and nonfood resources (e.g., horse, donkey, camel). The beginnings of animal domestication involved a protracted coevolutionary process with multiple stages along different pathways.

Humans did not intend to domesticate animals from, or at least they did not envision a domesticated animal resulting from, either the commensal or prey pathways. In both of these cases, humans became entangled with these species as the relationship between them, and the human role in their survival and reproduction, intensified. 

Although the directed pathway proceeded from capture to taming, the other two pathways are not as goal-oriented and archaeological records suggest that they take place over much longer time frames.

Commensal pathway:

The commensal pathway was traveled by vertebrates that fed on refuse around human habitats or by animals that preyed on other animals drawn to human camps. Those animals established a commensal relationship with humans in which the animals benefited but the humans received no harm but little benefit.

Those animals that were most capable of taking advantage of the resources associated with human camps would have been the tamer, less aggressive individuals with shorter fight or flight distances.

Later, these animals developed closer social or economic bonds with humans that led to a domestic relationship. The leap from a synanthropic population to a domestic one could only have taken place after the animals had progressed from anthropophily to habituation, to commensalism and partnership, when the relationship between animal and human would have laid the foundation for domestication, including captivity and human-controlled breeding.

From this perspective, animal domestication is a coevolutionary process in which a population responds to selective pressure while adapting to a novel niche that included another species with evolving behaviors. Commensal pathway animals include dogs, cats, fowl, and possibly pigs.

The domestication of animals commenced over 15,000 years before present (YBP), beginning with the grey wolf (Canis lupus) by nomadic hunter-gatherers. It was not until 11,000 YBP that people living in the Near East entered into relationships with wild populations of aurochs, boar, sheep, and goats. A domestication process then began to develop. The grey wolf most likely followed the commensal pathway to domestication.

When, where, and how many times wolves may have been domesticated remains debated because only a small number of ancient specimens have been found, and both archaeology and genetics continue to provide conflicting evidence. The most widely accepted, earliest dog remains date back 15,000 YBP to the Bonn–Oberkassel dog.

Earlier remains dating back to 30,000 YBP have been described as Paleolithic dogs, however their status as dogs or wolves remains debated. Recent studies indicate that a genetic divergence occurred between dogs and wolves 20,000–40,000 YBP, however this is the upper time-limit for domestication because it represents the time of divergence and not the time of domestication.

The chicken is one of the most widespread domesticated species and one of the human world's largest sources of protein. Although the chicken was domesticated in South-East Asia, archaeological evidence suggests that it was not kept as a livestock species until 400 BCE in the Levant. 

Prior to this, chickens had been associated with humans for thousands of years and kept for cock-fighting, rituals, and royal zoos, so they were not originally a prey species. The chicken was not a popular food in Europe until only one thousand years ago.

Prey pathway:
​
The prey pathway was the way in which most major livestock species entered into domestication as these were once hunted by humans for their meat. Domestication was likely initiated when humans began to experiment with hunting strategies designed to increase the availability of these prey, perhaps as a response to localized pressure on the supply of the animal.

Over time and with the more responsive species, these game-management strategies developed into herd-management strategies that included the sustained multi-generational control over the animals’ movement, feeding, and reproduction. As human interference in the life-cycles of prey animals intensified, the evolutionary pressures for a lack of aggression would have led to an acquisition of the same domestication syndrome traits found in the commensal domesticates.

Prey pathway animals include sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, yak, pig, reindeer, llama and alpaca. The right conditions for the domestication for some of them appear to have been in place in the central and eastern Fertile Crescent at the end of the Younger Dryas climatic downturn and the beginning of the Early Holocene about 11,700 YBP, and by 10,000 YBP people were preferentially killing young males of a variety of species and allowed the females to live in order to produce more offspring. 

By measuring the size, sex ratios, and mortality profiles of zooarchaeological specimens, archeologists have been able to document changes in the management strategies of hunted sheep, goats, pigs, and cows in the Fertile Crescent starting 11,700 YBP.

A recent demographic and metrical study of cow and pig remains at Sha’ar Hagolan, Israel, demonstrated that both species were severely overhunted before domestication, suggesting that the intensive exploitation led to management strategies adopted throughout the region that ultimately led to the domestication of these populations following the prey pathway.

This pattern of overhunting before domestication suggests that the prey pathway was as accidental and unintentional as the commensal pathway.

Directed pathway​:
​
The directed pathway was a more deliberate and directed process initiated by humans with the goal of domesticating a free-living animal. It probably only came into being once people were familiar with either commensal or prey-pathway domesticated animals.

These animals were likely not to possess many of the behavioral preadaptions some species show before domestication. Therefore, the domestication of these animals requires more deliberate effort by humans to work around behaviors that do not assist domestication, with increased technological assistance needed.

Humans were already reliant on domestic plants and animals when they imagined the domestic versions of wild animals. Although horses, donkeys, and Old World camels were sometimes hunted as prey species, they were each deliberately brought into the human niche for sources of transport.

Domestication was still a multi-generational adaptation to human selection pressures, including tameness, but without a suitable evolutionary response then domestication was not achieved. 

For example, despite the fact that hunters of the Near Eastern gazelle in the Epipaleolithic avoided culling reproductive females to promote population balance, neither gazelles nor zebras possessed the necessary prerequisites and were never domesticated. There is no clear evidence for the domestication of any herded prey animal in Africa, with the notable exception of the donkey, which was domesticated in Northeast Africa sometime in the 4th millennium BCE.

Multiple pathways:

The pathways that animals may have followed are not mutually exclusive. Pigs, for example, may have been domesticated as their populations became accustomed to the human niche, which would suggest a commensal pathway, or they may have been hunted and followed a prey pathway, or both.

Post-domestication gene flow:

As agricultural societies migrated away from the domestication centers taking their domestic partners with them, they encountered populations of wild animals of the same or sister species.

Because domestics often shared a recent common ancestor with the wild populations, they were capable of producing fertile offspring. Domestic populations were small relative to the surrounding wild populations, and repeated hybridizations between the two eventually led to the domestic population becoming more genetically divergent from its original domestic source population.

Advances in DNA sequencing technology allow the nuclear genome to be accessed and analyzed in a population genetics framework. The increased resolution of nuclear sequences has demonstrated that gene flow is common, not only between geographically diverse domestic populations of the same species but also between domestic populations and wild species that never gave rise to a domestic population:
  • The yellow leg trait possessed by numerous modern commercial chicken breeds was acquired via introgression from the grey junglefowl indigenous to South Asia.
  • African cattle are hybrids that possess both a European Taurine cattle maternal mitochondrial signal and an Asian Indicine cattle paternal Y-chromosome signature.
  • Numerous other bovid species, including bison, yak, banteng, and gaur also hybridize with ease.
  • Cats and horses have been shown to hybridize with many closely related species.
  • Domestic honey bees have mated with so many different species they now possess genomes more variable than their original wild progenitors.

The archaeological and genetic data suggests that long-term bidirectional gene flow between wild and domestic stocks – including canids, donkeys, horses, New- and Old-World camelids, goats, sheep, and pigs – was common. Bidirectional gene flow between domestic and wild reindeer continues today.

The consequence of this introgression is that modern domestic populations can often appear to have much greater genomic affinity to wild populations that were never involved in the original domestication process.

Therefore, it is proposed that the term "domestication" should be reserved solely for the initial process of domestication of a discrete population in time and space. Subsequent admixture between introduced domestic populations and local wild populations that were never domesticated should be referred to as "introgressive capture".

Conflating these two processes muddles our understanding of the original process and can lead to an artificial inflation of the number of times domestication took place. This introgression can, in some cases, be regarded as adaptive introgression, as observed in domestic sheep due to gene flow with the wild European Mouflon.

The sustained admixture between different dog and wolf populations across the Old and New Worlds over at least the last 10,000 years has blurred the genetic signatures and confounded efforts of researchers at pinpointing the origins of dogs. 

None of the modern wolf populations are related to the Pleistocene wolves that were first domesticated, and the extinction of the wolves that were the direct ancestors of dogs has muddied efforts to pinpoint the time and place of dog domestication.

Positive selection:

Charles Darwin recognized the small number of traits that made domestic species different from their wild ancestors. He was also the first to recognize the difference between conscious selective breeding in which humans directly select for desirable traits, and unconscious selection where traits evolve as a by-product of natural selection or from selection on other traits.

Domestic animals have variations in coat color and craniofacial morphology, reduced brain size, floppy ears, and changes in the endocrine system and their reproductive cycle.

The domesticated silver fox experiment demonstrated that selection for tameness within a few generations can result in modified behavioral, morphological, and physiological traits.

In addition to demonstrating that domestic phenotypic traits could arise through selection for a behavioral trait, and domestic behavioral traits could arise through the selection for a phenotypic trait, these experiments provided a mechanism to explain how the animal domestication process could have begun without deliberate human forethought and action.

In the 1980s, a researcher used a set of behavioral, cognitive, and visible phenotypic markers, such as coat color, to produce domesticated fallow deer within a few generations. Similar results for tameness and fear have been found for mink and Japanese quail.

​The genetic difference between domestic and wild populations can be framed within two considerations. The first distinguishes between domestication traits that are presumed to have been essential at the early stages of domestication, and improvement traits that have appeared since the split between wild and domestic populations. 

Domestication traits are generally fixed within all domesticates and were selected during the initial episode of domestication, whereas improvement traits are present only in a proportion of domesticates, though they may be fixed in individual breeds or regional populations. 

A second issue is whether traits associated with the domestication syndrome resulted from a relaxation of selection as animals exited the wild environment or from positive selection resulting from intentional and unintentional human preference. Some recent genomic studies on the genetic basis of traits associated with the domestication syndrome have shed light on both of these issues.

Geneticists have identified more than 300 genetic loci and 150 genes associated with coat color variability. Knowing the mutations associated with different colors has allowed some correlation between the timing of the appearance of variable coat colors in horses with the timing of their domestication. 

Other studies have shown how human-induced selection is responsible for the allelic variation in pigs. Together, these insights suggest that, although natural selection has kept variation to a minimum before domestication, humans have actively selected for novel coat colors as soon as they appeared in managed populations.

In 2015, a study looked at over 100 pig genome sequences to ascertain their process of domestication. The process of domestication was assumed to have been initiated by humans, involved few individuals and relied on reproductive isolation between wild and domestic forms, but the study found that the assumption of reproductive isolation with population bottlenecks was not supported.

The study indicated that pigs were domesticated separately in Western Asia and China, with Western Asian pigs introduced into Europe where they crossed with wild boar. A model that fitted the data included admixture with a now extinct ghost population of wild pigs during the Pleistocene.

The study also found that despite back-crossing with wild pigs, the genomes of domestic pigs have strong signatures of selection at genetic loci that affect behavior and morphology. The study concluded that human selection for domestic traits likely counteracted the homogenizing effect of gene flow from wild boars and created domestication islands in the genome. The same process may also apply to other domesticated animals.

Unlike other domestic species which were primarily selected for production-related traits, dogs were initially selected for their behaviors. In 2016, a study found that there were only 11 fixed genes that showed variation between wolves and dogs. These gene variations were unlikely to have been the result of natural evolution and indicate selection on both morphology and behavior during dog domestication.

These genes have been shown to affect the catecholamine synthesis pathway, with the majority of the genes affecting the fight-or-flight response (i.e. selection for tameness), and emotional processing. Dogs generally show reduced fear and aggression compared to wolves. 

Some of these genes have been associated with aggression in some dog breeds, indicating their importance in both the initial domestication and then later in breed formation.

See also: ___________________________________________________________________________

​List of domesticated animals:

This page gives a list of domesticated animals, also including a list of animals which are or may be currently undergoing the process of domestication and animals that have an extensive relationship with humans beyond simple predation.

This includes species which are semi-domesticated, undomesticated but captive-bred on a commercial scale, or commonly wild-caught, at least occasionally captive-bred, and tameable.

In order to be considered fully domesticated, most species have undergone significant genetic, behavioural and morphological changes from their wild ancestors, while others have changed very little from their wild ancestors despite hundreds or thousands of years of potential selective breeding.

A number of factors determine how quickly any changes may occur in a species, but there is not always a desire to improve a species from its wild form. Domestication is a gradual process, so there is no precise moment in the history of a given species when it can be considered to have become fully domesticated.

Zooarchaeology has identified three classes of animal domesticates:
  1. Pets (dogs, cats, hamsters, etc.)
  2. Livestock (cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, etc.)
  3. Beasts of burden (horses, camels, donkeys, etc.

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the List of Domesticated Animals: ​


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Natural History Museums, including a List of Natural History Museums in the United States: Pictured below: Exhibits at the American Natural History Museum
TOP Row: Skeletons of: (L) Mammoth; (R) Whales
BOTTOM Row: Skeletons of: (L) Dinosaur; (R) Primates
Click Here for an Alphabetical List (by State) of natural history museums in the United States:

A Natural History Museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of: 
History:

The primary role of a natural history museum is to provide the scientific community with current and historical specimens for their research, which is to improve our understanding of the natural world. 

Some museums have public exhibits to share the beauty and wonder of the natural world with the public; these are referred to as 'public museums'. Some museums feature non-natural history collections in addition to their primary collections, such as ones related to history, art, and science.

Renaissance cabinets of curiosities were private collections that typically included exotic specimens of national history, sometimes faked, along with other types of object.

The first natural history museum was possibly that of Swiss scholar Conrad Gessner, established in Zürich in the mid-16th century. The Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, established in Paris in 1635, was the first natural history museum to take the form that would be recognized as a natural history museum today. 

Early natural history museums offered limited accessibility, as they were generally private collections or holdings of scientific societies. The Ashmolean Museum, opened in 1683, was the first natural history museum to grant admission to the general public.

The natural history museum did not exist as a typical museum prior to the eighteenth century. Civic and university buildings did exist to house collections used for conducting research, however these served more as storage spaces than museums by today's understanding. 

All kept artifacts were displayed to the public as catalogs of research findings and served mostly as an archive of scientific knowledge. These spaces housed as many artifacts as fit and offered little description or interpretation for visitors. 

Kept organisms were typically arranged in their taxonomic systems and displayed with similar organisms. Museums did not think of the possibility of diverse audiences, instead adopting the view of an expert as the standard.

The mid-eighteenth century saw an increased interest in the scientific world by the middle class bourgeoisie who had greater time for leisure activities, physical mobility and educational opportunities than in previous eras. Other forms of science consumption, such as the zoo, had already grown in popularity.

Now, the natural history museum was a new space for public interaction with the natural world. Museums began to change the way they exhibited their artifacts, hiring various forms of curators, to refine their displays. Additionally, they adopted new approaches to designing exhibits. These new ways of organizing would support learning of the lay audience.

Organized by the League of Nations, the first International Museography Congress happened in Madrid in 1934. Again, the First World Congress on the Preservation and Conservation of Natural History Collections took place in Madrid, from 10 May 1992 to 15 May 1992.

Problems of space:

While the museum buildings where collections of artifacts were displayed started to overflow with materials, the prospect of a new building space would take years to build. As wealthy nations began to collect exotic artifacts and organisms from other countries this problem continued to worsen.

Museum funding came from a mixed bag of state or provincial support as well as university funding, causing differing systems of development and goals.

Changing organization:

Opportunities for a new public audience coupled with overflowing artifact collections led to a new design for natural history museums. A dual arrangement of museums was pioneered by J. Edward Gray, who worked with the British Museum in the 1860s. This layout separated the science-producing researcher from the science-consuming public audience. 

By doing so, museums were able to save space in the exhibit areas and display a smaller, more focused amount of material to the public. This also allowed for greater curation of exhibits that eased the lay viewer's learning and allowed them to develop a more holistic understanding of the natural world. Natural history museums became a story of our world, telling different organism narratives. 

Use of dual arrangement was quickly adopted and advocated by many across the world. A notable proponent of its use was German zoologist Karl Mobias who divided the natural museum in Hamburg in 1866. 

The goal of such museums was not only to display organisms but detail their interactions in the human world as well as within their unique ecosystems. Naturalists such as American Joseph Leidy pushed for greater emphasis on the biological perspective in exhibits to teach the public more about the functional relationships between organisms. This required the expertise of zoologist and botanist. As this kind of work was not typical for educated scientists of the time, the new profession of curator developed.

Genomic information:

Natural history collections are invaluable repositories of genomic information that can be used to examine the histories of biodiversity and environmental change.

Collaborations between museums and researchers worldwide are enabling scientists to unravel ecological and evolutionary relationships such as the domestication of the horse, using genetic samples from museum collections. New methods and technologies are being developed to support museomics.
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The American Museum of Natural History: Layout of buildings below:
The American Museum of Natural History is the World's Largest Natural History Museum:

The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 interconnected buildings housing 45 permanent exhibition halls, in addition to a planetarium and a library (see above Building Layout).

The museum collections contain over 34 million specimens of plants, animals, fossils, minerals, rocks, meteorites, human remains, and human cultural artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, of which only a small fraction can be displayed at any given time.

The museum occupies more than 2 million square feet (190,000 m2). AMNH has a full-time scientific staff of 225, sponsors over 120 special field expeditions each year, and averages about five million visits annually.

The AMNH is a private 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: "To discover, interpret, and disseminate—through scientific research and education—knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe".

Click on any of the following blue hyperlinks for more about the American Museum of National History:






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