Essay On Non Human Animals

Humans and other vertebrates have been in a dynamic relationship thousands of years. Animals have been used in many aspects of human lives various ways, directly for instance as, farm animals, companion animals, animals in entertainment industries. Animals have also been associated with humans indirectly such as in medical research. In Canada, human and non-human animals interactions do fall under these categories, Farm animals comprise of largest group, there are between 100 million to 1 billion animals in this category. Followed by companion animals, this group comprises between 10 million to 100 million animals. Third category is consists of animals that are used in science has a range of 1 million to 10 million. Last and smallest category is of captive wild animals for entertainment which has less than 1 million animals. In following paragraphs will provide more details about the each category’s animal use in Canada in past recent years.

Farming and animals have co-existed for many years. Furthermore, animals are significant for sustainable mixed farming (Sage, 2012). Animals are raised for their meat and by products such as, milk, wool, leather, eggs. In some countries, they

are also used as means of transportation (Adeoti, 1993). In Canada, the numbers of different livestock is as follows: chickens and cattle are 166 500 000 and 12 215 000, respectively (FAOSTAT, 2013). Chickens are primarily used for their meat and eggs, and cattle primarily used for beef and milk. Pigs are largest in this category mainly for meat and consist of 1 287 900 individuals (FAOSTAT, 2013). Other animals in this category consist of ducks, turkeys, geese, goats, sheep, horses and mules. According to FAOSTAT stat report published in 2013 there are total more than 200 million animals are used in farm in Canada.
Apart from being livestock, animals can be great companions as well.

As Birke and Hockenhull state, human and animals have a complex relationship and many humans can make a special bond with “many non-human animals throughout our lives, and cannot imagine a world without them” (2012, p. 15). Companion animals’ category in Canada with regards to animal use, and their total number sum up to more than 26 million; furthermore, cats and dogs make up of 56% Canadian household pets (Perrin, 2009). In this category dog sum up of 8 510 021 and cats sum up to 6 070 783 (Perrin, 2009). Other reporter animals in this category are fish, birds, rabbits, hamsters, lizards, horse, guinea pigs, snakes, frogs, turtles, ferrets and gerbils, and their total number sum up to 11 456 350 animals (Perrin,

2009).
In addition to being companions, animals have also impacted human lives significantly through means of research in science. Research have been done animals extensively for different fields such as, medical studies genetics studies, safety testing, and also for developing new methods. These are only few examples to list goes even further. According to annuals repot published by CCAC for 2012-2013, there were 3.3 million animals used in Canada in science. Today’s research area the animal that is used the most is fish, their number sum up to 1 300 259 (CCAC webpage). Second most animal that is used in science are mice, their group consists of 1 090 730, followed by rats, cattle, and birds and their numbers are 225 917, 224 288 and 216 588, respectively (CCAC webpage). Reptiles, amphibians, pigs, and other animals contribute greatly towards science as well.
Captive wild animals are used for entertainment purposes in various places such as zoos, aquariums, circuses, sports, film and television. The following number is approximate calculated from some of the members of CAZA. Vancouver aquarium is the largest aquarium in Canada, and has more the 50 000 animals, and some of them are belugas, sharks, fishes, dolphin, false killer whale, and sea lions (Vancouver Aquarium webpage). Another one of the biggest member of CAZA is aquarium of Quebec with 10 000 animals (Aquarium du Quebec webpage). Toronto zoo has more than 5 000 animals including African lion, olive baboon, giraffe are some of the animals they have there (Toronto zoo webpage). Other major zoos in Canada are Granby zoo and Assiniboine park zoo, and they have about 2 500 animals in total (Zoo Granby and Assiniboine webpage). The approximate total of wild animal in entertainment sums up to approximately 71070.