Why wildlife is important
This is a short essay I wrote for a recent job application that asked applicants to detail “Why wildlife is important”. I thought I would share my thoughts with you all here.
Why wildlife is important
Why do I think wildlife is important? Wildlife is a very generic term used to describe all of the creatures on our planet – by definition the earth’s fauna. Whether you also include all the earth’s plants, or flora, that essentially make our planet a hospitable place for fauna is up for debate. But, personally, I tend to think of the word wildlife as encompassing all living non-human creatures that call earth home. Simply said, wildlife is important because it is wildlife that makes the earth what it is. Yes, one can argue that the presence of water, geological features, climate and atmospheric gases are what made earth what is it. But, earth, and all of its inhabitants, evolved together to be what they are today over a long, messy and anything but straightforward process in which chance, risk and survival are the key players. No one creature evolved individually or isolated from its habitat, or the greater ecosystem in which it resides. Wildlife cannot be separated from the earth and the earth cannot be separated from its inhabitants.
When we think of the world and all of its inhabitants, or wildlife, in this way it is very hard to distinguish ourselves, the human race, from the rest. By regarding ourselves as just another co-inhabitant, it is easy to understand why all of earth’s inhabitants are important and why we should work to conserve them, rather than helping species along to their extinction. But, despite that I think the intrinsic value of wildlife is enough to consider them important, there are also countless ways in which wildlife are important to our survival. Here, I will explain just a few digestible reasons.
#1: Wildlife is food and food is wildlife.
In the simplest of terms, everything we know as food is either directly procured from wildlife or indirectly taken from wildlife. If you think about the everyday foods eaten in western countries (chicken, pork, fish, eggs, milk, fruits and nuts, etc.), they all originate from the natural bounty of our earth. What happens when we contaminate or otherwise destroy the habitat where our food comes from? Well, as we can observe in our modern world, the lack of food already takes it toll on millions of people everyday.
#2: Wildlife is from where our medicines, ointments, lotions, cleansers, and countless other essential and/or everyday items come from.
If you take a look around your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or really any room, you will be very hard-pressed to not find something that is taken from or is a synthetic replica of some fauna or flora. For example, down jackets that keep us warm in winter are stuffed with insulating waterfowl feathers, wool socks are made from sheep or alpaca, our leather belts come from an assortment of animals, and our most priceless cashmere and silk garments also hail from wildlife. But beyond these types of belongings, medicines, such as antibiotics, that are so integral to staving off diseases and other ailments were first discovered in plants. Pain medications, anti-fungal creams, anti-bacterial cleaners, and many other prescriptions and non-prescriptions that keep us healthy and feeling well were first found in plants that could just as easily been paved over. Without these plant-derived medicines, modern civilizations and 7.2 billion humans would never have been possible. Now think of the diseases and viruses that still plague us across the world, and the possibilities of cures that lie in those small and barely noticed plants. Do you think is is worth saving them?
#3: The ecological value of wildlife cannot be overstated.
The earth is governed by the ever-evolving and complicated interactions of all of its creatures and physical entities. These systems have an infinite number of components, all of which have been sculpted through the processes of evolution to serve a purpose or provide a function. From the most majestic predator to the tiniest single-celled bacteria, each creature functions in relation to other creatures. As in any system, when one component is lost or somehow altered, each an every other interaction is simultaneously altered, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In other words, the ecology of any one inhabitant on earth is delicately woven into the ecology of every other inhabitant. The same is true for us, the human race, although we go to great lengths to avoid admitting this reality. When we relate this phenomenon to the importance of wildlife, it is clear to see that every species is important to the maintenance of life, as we have come to know it. For example, bees, whose importance is inversely proportional to their size, are grossly responsible for the pollination of wild plants and agricultural crops alike. The loss of bees would have a global impact by causing food shortages and effectively stopping economies by halting the export of crops. The same can be said for many top predators, some of who are facing the highest risk of extinction. When one top predator is removed from a system, the impact is felt all the way to the base of the food chain where certain plant species will face increased browsing pressure that effectively leads to a change in the greater ecosystem. There are too many such examples to detail in this essay, but they all come to the same conclusion, all wildlife species have significant ecological value.
#4: The intrinsic value of wildlife is unmistakable.
There are many, many more reasons why wildlife is important to us and to the greater health of the earth. But, despite these benefits, there is an intrinsic value to wildlife that is evident in our emotional response to confronting wildlife, most spectacularly in their natural habitat. The adrenaline rush that follows a glimpse of a bear or big cat in the wild, the joy of seeing a whale breach the waters, the connection we feel to seeing any animal tend to its young, and the satisfaction we receive in knowing that these experiences are there to be had, even if we do not personally experience them. To me, these types of examples provide the strongest evidence for why wildlife is important. It is all of these reasons and an infinite number of others that explicitly show why we cannot separate ourselves from wildlife without causing the destruction of the delicate balance of earth, and therefore the destruction of ourselves.