Importance of Animals | 13 Uses for Human Life

Animals are a gift of nature. They are the ones that are closely associated with us in daily life.

Animals act as the source of food, clothing, medicine, and even economic benefits.

Can you imagine human life without animals? May be no.

Below is the 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 of animal usage has increased like

1. They provide milk

Milk is the daily essential food for children and adults. It is obtained only from animals like cows, buffaloes, goats, camels, and donkeys.

Milk obtained is used as a part of the daily diet to make tea, coffee, ice creams, chocolates, sweets, and also other products like baby foods.

Milk is one of the protein-rich foods. It is highly recommended by doctors as it can be easily digested by people of any age group.

Natural milk is good to feed for babies and also adults with illness or old age. Hence you will notice physicians recommending milk for those with sickness.

2. Meat

We consume many animal types of meat as a part of the diet. Though the vegetarian diet is good for health, we still 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 the hen, turkey, etc. These are highly nutritious with large protein content and hence beneficial to man.

3. Animal hair

Animal hair has great demand. The hair from goat and sheep is used for making woolen clothing, shawls, and blankets. Similarly, Horsehair can be utilized for bristles in small paintbrushes. Even fur of animals, including the skin, is used to make warm and attractive clothing.

4. Medicine extraction

Animals are used to extract useful medicinal molecules. Though in recent times, this method is mostly replaced by biotechnology, Still there are some drugs that are especially obtained from animals. Ex. Heparin, an anti-coagulant, is used to control clots in the blood, is collected from ox lungs and pig intestines. Even insulin was previously isolated for people with diabetes from buffalo and pigs pancreatic cells. Similarly, we obtain vitamin-D from shark liver oil.

5. Leather

Animals are a great source of leather. This leather is used for making footwear, 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 are widely used for transport.

For this, 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 illnesses 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 that are animal-based. Some of them include dairy, 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 to sell them at a higher price. Sometimes even the excellent breed of animals are sold for their performance and efficiency. Even many drug companies rely on their business through the marketing and sale of animal medicines.

Importance of animals in agriculture

Agriculture is another area where animals are used on a large scale. They were the sole source of cultivation till machinery equipment arrived.

9. In agriculture for cultivation and manure

In developing countries still, animals 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 the river and ponds into the farms.

Natural farming experts also recommend the use of animals for farming instead of heavy machines like tractors.

As per them, heavy tractors would destroy the soil layers. The density of soil increases, and soil air is reduced. This causes harm to the farm. Animals used in the place of those machines would not cause such harm.

Also, animals feed on the vegetation grow on the farm, like the husk of wheat, rice, etc. and survive without the need for extra cost for the farmer.

Hence, the use of animals for agriculture would save the cost of farming and also minimize the chances of pollution.

10. Animal for manure

Animals are also kept for the sake of organic manure. The 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 on the farm during summers.

The litter droppings of the sheep staying on 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 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 the 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 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 an 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 humans when there is a snake bite. Similarly, mice are used to create a variety of monoclonal antibody production.

In horses, snake poison is injected into horses. The body of a horse produces anti-venom, which can counter the snake poison. After a 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.