Working animal
A working animal is a semi-domesticated animal that is kept by humans and often trained to perform various tasks, regardless whether they are also used for consumption of meat and milk or for other products (such as leather).
The history of working animals is as old as agriculture, and possibly longer, some speculate, and has encompassed most aspects of human civilization down to the present day with millions of animals working in symbiotic relationships with their owners around the world, particularly in poorer countries and in agricultural industries.Different types of animals are used around the world depending on the conditions and the specific intended use of the animal. Domesticated species are often bred in several types of breeds suitable for different uses and conditions, in addition to pets, especially horses and working dogs. Working animals are usually raised on farms although some are still captured from the wild - such as some Asian elephants.
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Draught animals
A draught animal is an animal used for its physical (i.e. muscular) power, as in transport and haulage, such as pulling carts or sleds, hauling goods, and ploughing plow fields.
Animal-powered transport for movement of people and goods is a major category of working animals. People ride some of the larger of these animals directly as mounts, use them as pack animals to carry goods, or harness one or a team to pull vehicles. Such animals are sometimes known as beasts of burden.
Riding animals or mounts
These carry man himself, which steers in the saddle or bare back, revolutionizing history by increasing human mobility. They include equines such as horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules. Further elephants; camels (two humps) and dromedaries (one) are very common in arid areas, including North Africa and the Middle East, and are used for both transportation and haulage. The Bactrian camel, the world's only remaining other camel, is far rarer than the dromedary and inhabits central and East Asia, where it is also used for transportation and haulage. As the practice of using working animals spans millennia it has accrued much folk lore and forms an important connection between religion and agriculture, and is a specific focus of research in agricultural science.
- Some mythical creatures are believed to act as divine mounts, such as garuda in hinduism.
Pack animals
Often these belong to the same species as mounts, though breeds may be specialized (such as pack-horses. Other species are more exclusively used to carry loads, such as llamas in the Andes.Bovines include water buffalo (as distinct from bison), oxen, bullocks, and yaks (the latter adapted to extreme conditions in the Himalayas). Other species include dogs, deer and goats. Carrier pigeons are a type of pack animal which usually transport written information through the air.An introduction to the subject was prepared to stimulate international research and published as 'Introduction to Working Animals' in the 1980s
Harnessed vehicle pull
An intermediate use is to harness them, singly or in teams, to pull (or haul) sleds or wheeled vehicles.
- Traditionally, in the United States and for military use, mules have been considered excellent draught animals but are also more expensive since a separate breeding program must also be maintained as they are infertile
- Draught horses are commonly used but are often not considered the best animals for heavy pulling
- Dogs are used in some countries for pulling light carts (e.g. sled dog)
- Reindeer are used in cold climates (as Nordic countries and Siberia)
Other draught animals
Animal power is also used to drive various machines and heavy devices that are not mere loads, and for ploughing: especially oxen (often considered the best animals for heavy work, especially where surefootedness is necessary or if wet conditions prevail but they are required in numbers that make them expensive to procure and they are generally hard to raise in more arid climates) and water buffalo (in tropical or very wet subtropical areas, often used in rice-growing). Often the same species as beasts of burden, especially in a tread-mill, e.g. to grind or to pump, but other kinds can also be put to work.
Retrieval and similar largely sensorial tasks
Hunting and fishing animals
As predatory species are naturally equipped to catch prey, this is also an interesting economical use whenever man manages to 'harvest' their prey (if of value to man) and substitute it with cheaper food; the same can also be done either for sport (reviled by many as cruelty to animals), to reduce pest species or to control the population of species that are considered harmful to crops, livestock or the environment.
- Hounds and various other dogs are used to find, drive, kill and fetch prey, and various breeds are specialized in one of these tasks, sometimes reflected in the very terminology of dog classification, such as pointers and setters
- The same goes for ferrets, which are especially used on prey living in pipes or burrows, such as rabbits and hares
- In falconry, birds of prey are used as complete hunters in the air
- Aquatic birds, such as cormorants in China, can be used to catch fish
Man hunt
Mainly hounds are used to find and catch or eliminate human 'prey', such as escaped prisoners, because of their highly developed sense of smell- in human ethical terms this is a different matter, for the predatory animal just another prey.
Other gathering
- various breeds of dogs and other species with better sensorial functions than man are used to find and harvest other valuable products, such as truffles (a very expensive deep subterranean mushroom; in France mainly pigs are used, in Italy mainly dogs)
Rescue
- Mainly dogs are used to find and help people who get lost (e.g. the St.Bernard was bred for this job in the mountains) are trapped, e.g. in avalanches or collapsed buildings (as in case of earthquake)
Other uses
The sensorial functions and natural defensive and offensive means (such as fangs and claws) of various species can be used to protect or -mainly in the case of predatory species- to attack humans.
- The guard dog in no way has a monopoly as watchman (e.g. geese)
- Fight dogs (here: dogs of war, not for entertainment and betting) and battle elephants are living weapons, used as soldiers in all but conscious motivation, without a critical mind that might refuse orders
- Sniffer dogs aren't only suited for man-hunt (above) but also to find contraband, such as illegal drugs
- Dolphins to carry markers to attach to detected mines
- On lands, dogs and various other species, even insects, can be trained to find or even disable landmines
- For various tasks (often corresponding to civilian uses) in military and similar context, see Military animals
- Although their life may sometimes rather resemble that of a pet, to the owners animals trained for entertainment, such as circus acts, dolphinarium or animal acting, are essential to economically valid services.
- For various other uses, see also Working dog
Human toil
In both historical and modern times, humans have not only toiled 'like beasts' but have often been exploited against their wills as as a production factor for similar or even identical tasks as various other working animals, as in slavery. In fact, such workers are frequently subject to physical punishment (generally considered inhuman and degrading) if their productivity is not deemed satisfactory, either as a punishment (see penal labor) or in an institutional, sometimes legally rightless state as slave in the broad sense of the term. For example, the galley slave was often deliberately treated more cruelly than any beast of burden since he was meant as a punishment to suffer, not just to work [citation needed]. Often the economic analysis in agricultural science of substitution between human and animal power shows that traditional societies make worse decisions concerning animal welfare than the welfare of their citizens.
Although human labour may be similar or identical to that done by animals, many consider it a reproach or insult to equating human work with that of working animals, especially in the case of manual labour, while in modern societies technologial advances and rising labour costs caused much human abour to be substituted for by machines. Yet there is no fundamental physical difference in nature and in terms of natural history, the period when culture allowed the primate species known as man (Homo sapiens sapiens, arrogantly self-proclaimed 'wise, wise' as if genetically so and thus superior) to live significantly differently to animals (hunting and gathering is essentially animal subsistence) is still too short to count as more then an experiment.
See also
References
- Falvey, John Lindsay (1985). Introduction to Working Animals. Melbourne, Australia: MPW Australia. ISBN 1-86252-992-2.
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