Question: What is so important about animals?

anon answered on 19 Mar 2015:

That’s an interesting question and an important one. Because if animals aren’t important then why am I wasting my time trying to protect wildlife?

I think there are lots of reasons but I’ll give you a few examples 🙂

Animals live in a particular habitat and they share that area with other living things, plants, animals etc. The living things in the area all affect and have relationships with each other. So some animals eat other animals, some eat plants, plants provide shelter for some animals etc. So for this area to be good for one type of animal to live in it needs all of the other plants and animals to be able to live there too. Once you lose one type of animal, all the other things trying to live there can find it really difficult. So every type of living thing in a place is important for the other living things there.

Ok, but that still doesn’t make animals important to us, does it?

But we actually need animals for things like:
Food
– most fish we eat is from wild habitats in the sea
– we also need things like bees to pollinate our food crops, or they wont grow properly.

Climate
– Healthy trees produce oxygen (which we breathe!) take in a lot of Carbon Dioxide from the air which helps balance out the Carbon Dioxide humans put into the air by using electricity and fuel, which is slows climate change down.

Rotting things
-Bacteria, plants and animals break down and eat waste and things that are dead. If they didn’t then the world would be full of dead bodies and poo!

Our happiness
– Studies show that spending time outside in nature and around wildlife makes us happier, nicer people!

So those are all reasons that animals are directly important for human health and happiness. But I would say that there’s something very special about animals without them having to be useful for humans too. WHat do you think?