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? Maybe no.

Below is the complete detail about how animals help humans.

But before you read, it is essential to know the animal 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 an essential daily food for children and adults.

• We can obtain it from cows, buffalo, goats, camels, and donkeys.

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

Milk is one of the protein-rich foods that is easily digestible for people of any age.

• Hence, your doctor recommends it for a disease or sickness.

• Natural milk is suitable for feeding babies and adults with illnesses or old age.

2. Meat as food

• Humans consume the meat of animals as a part of their diet.

• Though the vegetarian diet is available, still, meat is consumed on a large scale.

• Some animals used for this purpose are goats, sheep, camels, buffalo (beef), pigs (pork), rabbits, fish, etc.

• Besides, we consume eggs of birds like hens, turkeys, etc.

• These eggs are rich in protein, iron, and hence beneficial to man.

3. Animal hair as wool/clothing

• Animal hair has an excellent demand for warm clothing.

• The hair from goats and sheep is used for making woolen clothing, shawls, and blankets.

• Similarly, Horsehair can be utilized for bristles in small paintbrushes.

• Besides, the fur of animals is used to make warm and attractive clothing.

• While the animal skin (hide) is used for making leather items like belts, shoes, wallets, etc.

4. For Medicine and drug manufacture

• Animals are used to extract useful medicinal molecules.

• In recent times, this method has been mainly replaced by biotechnology.

• Still, some drugs are especially obtained from animals.

Ex. Heparin, an anti-coagulant 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 pig pancreatic cells.

Similarly, we obtain vitamin D from shark liver oil.

5. Leather and hide

• Animals are the primary source of leather.

• Their skin or hide is used for making leather shoes, belts, wallets, bags, etc.

• The animals used for extracting their hide for leather include buffalo, cows, ox, etc.

• This leather is tanned and made suitable for making the above articles after being obtained from animal hide.

• Articles made of leather can be stylish, attractive, and durable.

• Animal researchers are also involved in discovering further improvements in milk and meat, and enhanced yield.

6. For work and transport

• For this, animals like horses, oxen, buffalo, donkeys, etc. In deserts, camel is specifically used.

• Now, their use is limited to some parts of the world.

• Washermen used 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 pets for household company. Horse races use horses for fun and racing.

• Similarly, pet animals like dogs can be used to help people with chronic illnesses to help them carry out daily activities. They help us ward off loneliness.

• In zoos and circuses, wild animals are kept and exposed for fun and knowledge purposes.

8. Economic Importance

• Animals contribute a lot to the economy of the nations.

• There are a lot of animal-based industries that are in businesses.

• Even their abilities or charecters are improved by hybridization and biotechnology for better yield, looks or performance.

• Even excellent breeds of animals are sold for their performance and efficiency.

• Certain drug companies rely on business by marketing and selling 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.

a. In agriculture for cultivation and manure

In developing countries still, animals are used in large numbers for farming. They are specifically used for farming the land and transport by bullock carts by farmers.

They are also used to pump water from the rivers and ponds into the farms.

Natural farming experts also recommend using animals 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 damage.

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

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

b. Animals 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 in 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 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 compared with animal physiology.

• Routinely, we use animals like insects, amphibians, earthworms, rodents, and reptiles to study.

12. For medical testing

Any new medicine discovered is taken for pre-clinical studies before testing on man.

Here, animal testing is done on animal cells, tissues, organs, or whole organisms.

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, and guinea pigs, are used for this 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.

Much waste created using one dog can equal the waste of using 50 rats. So now you can guess why…?

13. For drug manufacture

Animals like horses and 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 produce a variety of monoclonal antibodies.

In horses, snake poison is injected into horses. A horse’s body produces anti-venom, which can counter the snake’s poison.

After a few days of injection, the horse blood is collected to isolate the anti-venom.

Because of the advantages mentioned above, humans must strive for animal welfare.

References:

• Animal Testing and Medicine
• Animals in Education
• How can animal manure help soils be healthier and more productive?