Wildlife
Wildlife comprises undomesticated animals and other organisms living in natural habitats, including species that also live near or alongside people.
Wildlife conservation: The protection and recovery of wild species and the habitats they depend on. It organizes efforts to prevent wildlife populations and habitats from disappearing.
Habitat fragmentation: The division of continuous habitat into smaller, isolated patches. Roads and development can isolate wildlife populations and restrict movement.
Habitat: The natural environment in which an organism lives and obtains resources. Wildlife depends on suitable places for food, shelter, and reproduction.
Domestication: The multigenerational process by which humans shape heritable traits in populations of plants or animals. Domesticated populations differ from wildlife through sustained human control and selection.
Wildlife management: The planned stewardship of wild animal populations and their habitats. It guides decisions about wildlife populations, habitat conditions, and human use.
Poaching: The illegal hunting, capture, or collection of wildlife. Illegal exploitation reduces populations and can disrupt ecosystems.
Biodiversity: The variety of life across genes, species, and ecosystems. Wildlife forms part of the living diversity that conservation seeks to sustain.
Feral animal: A domesticated animal living independently of human care in the wild. Feral animals live outside human control but descend from domesticated populations.
Human–wildlife conflict: Interactions in which wildlife and people cause harm or costs to one another. Wildlife living alongside people can damage crops, threaten safety, or lose habitat.
Extinction: The permanent disappearance of a species when its last individual dies. Wildlife loss can culminate in the disappearance of entire species.