How animals help humans? Their Importance in Life
Animals are a gift of nature to us. They are the ones which are closely associated with us in daily life.
Animals contribute a lot to humans lives, maybe even more than the plants.
It will be tough to imagine life without animals.
They serve humans for food, clothing, medicine and even for economic needs.
Below is a complete detail about how animals help humans.
But before you read, it is important to know what are animals and their types.
Importance of animals in human life:
Due to modern technology, the number of ways on how animals help humans has increased. Their uses in 12 points.
1. Animals provide Milk: Milk is the daily essential product which is obtained only from animals. The animals that are used to extract milk are the cows, buffaloes, goat, camel and donkey. Milk obtained is used as a pat of daily diet, to make tea, coffee, ice creams, chocolates, sweets and also other products like baby foods.
Milk is one of protein rich diets. It is highly recommended as it can be easily digested by people of any age group. The natural milk is good feed for babies and also adults with illness or old age people. Hence you will notice physicians recommending milk for those with sickness.
2. Animal hair: Animal hair has a great demand. The hair from goat and sheep is used for making woolen clothing, shawls and blankets. Similarly Horse hair can be used for bristles in small paint brushes. Even fur of animals including the skin is used to make warm and attractive clothing.
3. Medicine extraction: Animals are used to extract useful medicinal molecules. Though in the recent times this method is mostly replaced by biotechnology, Still there are some drugs which are especially obtained from animals. Ex. Heparin an anti-coagulant is used to control clots in blood is obtained from ox lungs and pig intestines. Even insulin was previously isolated for diabetics from buffalo and pigs pancreatic cells. Similarly, we obtain vitamin-D from shark liver oil.
4. Meat: We consumes many animal’s meat in the part of diet. Though vegetarian diet is good for health, still we consume animal meat for individual reasons. Some of the animals used for the purpose are goats, sheep, camels, buffaloes (beef), pigs (pork), rabbits, fish and many more. Even we consume eggs from birds like hen, turkey etc. These are highly nutritious and beneficial to man.
5. Leather: Animals are a great source of leather. This leather is used for making foot wear, belts, wallets bags, furniture etc. The animals used for extracting their hide for leather include buffaloes, cows, ox etc. This leather is tanned and made suitable for making the above articles after obtaining it from animal hide. Articles made of leather are stylish, attractive and also durable.
Animal researchers are also involved in the discovery of further improvements in the yield of milk, meat and essentials.
6. For work and transport: Animals were widely used for transport.
Especially animals like horses, ox, he buffalo, donkeys, etc. In deserts, camel is specifically used.
Now their use is limited to some parts of the world.
Washer men use the donkey to carry the clothes to the place of water for washing. Elephants are used to shift tree trunks and branches in the forests.
Similarly, animals like monkeys are trained to ward off birds near airports. Dogs are used to trace objects and people by exploiting their sense of smell. Hence dogs are commonly seen with police and military personnel as part of their operations.
7. For fun and recreation: Animals are also used for fun and recreation. Like in pets for household company. Horse races using horses for fun and racing.
Similarly, pet animals like dogs can be used for helping people with chronic illness to help them carry out daily activities. They help us ward off loneliness.
In zoos and circus, wild animals are kept and exposed for fun and knowledge purposes.
8. Economic importance: Animals contribute a lot to the economy of the nation. There are a lot of industries which are animal based. Some of them include diary, horse (races), meat for food, etc.
Even their abilities are improved by hybridization, biotechnology for better yield.
This modification is done for hybrid varieties of cattle for milk, flesh, and even pet dogs. They are grown for the purpose of selling them at a higher price. Sometimes even the semen of good variety of animals is sold. Even there are many drug companies which rely on their business through marketing and sale of animals medicines.
Importance of animals in agriculture
Agriculture is another area where animals are used in large scale. They were the sole source of cultivation till machinery equipment arrived.
9. Cultivation: In developing countries still they are used in large numbers for farming. They are specifically used for tilling the land, transport by bullock-carts by farmers.
They are also used for pumping the water from river and ponds into the farms.
10. Animal for manure: Animals are also kept for the sake of organic manure. Dung of cattle is very good for farms as it imparts rich fertility to the soil.
Even sheep and goats are grown as large herds by farmers. They are used to stop them for days in the farm during summers. The litter droppings of the sheep staying in the farm add a lot to the soil fertility.
11. Education: Animals are quite a part of our education. In science-related subjects and courses, we use animal specimens, live or even dead animals to study their body function and structure to understand better and gain knowledge. Also one can understand their own body physiology when comparing with animal physiology. Routinely we use animals like insects, amphibians, earthworms, rodents, reptiles to study.
12. For medical testing: Any new medicine discovered is taken for pre-clinical studies before testing on man. Here the animal testing is done on animal cells, tissues, organs or whole organism. This helps them to evaluate actual effects of drugs. This way the toxic drug effects, mechanism of action, side effects, maximum tolerable dose, etc. are noted. 
Smaller animals especially rodents like rats, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs are used for the purpose. For this, there are some stringent rules to be observed by the researchers to minimize the animal suffering. Big animals are mostly prohibited for use as they induce much waste and are also ethically debated a lot. By much waste, it means the use of one dog can create equal waste of using 50 rats. So now you can guess why…?
13. For drug manufacture: Animals like horses, mice are used for the production of essential medicines. Horses are used to produce snake anti-venom which can rescue the life of human when there is a snake bite. Similarly, mice are used to produce a variety of monoclonal anti-body production.
In horses, snake poison is injected into horses. The body of horse produces anti-venom which can counter the snake poison. After few days of injection, the horse blood is collected for isolation of anti-venom.
Because of the advantages mentioned above, we humans need to strive for animal welfare.
