Human uses of animals

Human uses of animals include both practical uses, such as the production of food and clothing, and symbolic uses, such as in art, literature, mythology, and religion. All of these are elements of culture, broadly understood. Animals used in these ways include fish, crustaceans, insects, molluscs, mammals and birds.

Economically, animals provide meat, whether farmed or hunted, and until the arrival of mechanised transport, terrestrial mammals provided a large part of the power used for work and transport. Animals serve as models in biological research, such as in genetics, and in drug testing.

Many species are kept as pets, the most popular being mammals, especially dogs and cats. These are often anthropomorphised.

Animals such as horses and deer are among the earliest subjects of art, being found in the Upper Paleolithic cave paintings such as at Lascaux. Major artists such as Albrecht Dürer, George Stubbs and Edwin Landseer are known for their portraits of animals. Animals further play a wide variety of roles in literature, film, mythology, and religion.

Culture consists of the social behaviour and norms found in human societies and transmitted through social learning. Cultural universals in all human societies include expressive forms like art, music, dance, ritual, religion, and technologies like tool usage, cooking, shelter, and clothing. The concept of material culture covers physical expressions such as technology, architecture and art, whereas immaterial culture includes principles of social organization, mythology, philosophy, literature, and science. Anthropology has traditionally studied the roles of non-human animals in human culture in two opposed ways: as physical resources that humans used; and as symbols or concepts through totemism and animism. More recently, anthropologists have also seen other animals as participants in human social interactions. This article describes the roles played by other animals in human culture, so defined, both practical and symbolic.

The human population exploits a large number of non-human animal species for food, both of domesticated livestock species in animal husbandry and, mainly at sea, by hunting wild species.

Marine fish of many species, such as herring, cod, tuna, mackerel and anchovy, are caught and killed commercially, and can form an important part of the human diet, including protein and fatty acids. Commercial fish farms concentrate on a smaller number of species, including salmon and carp.

Invertebrates including cephalopods like squid and octopus; crustaceans such as prawns, crabs, and lobsters; and bivalve or gastropod molluscs such as clams, oysters, cockles, and whelks are all hunted or farmed for food.