Glossary of wildlife terms

GLOSSARY

1. Wildlife: Wildlife includes all free-ranging vertebrates in their naturally associated environments. Other definitions of wildlife are much broader and may include all plants (flora) and animals (fauna) in wild ecosystems.

2. Domestication: The condition wherein the breeding, care and feeding of animals are more or less controlled by man. Under modern husbandry practices, complete control of breeding and maintenance is typical. Domestication involves some biological i.e. morphological, behavioural and/or physiological changes in animals.

3. Taming: Elimination of tendencies to flee from man. Wild animals may be tamed whereas individuals of most domesticated species require taming only if their association with man is limited during early life.

4. Feral animals: Domestic animals which have reverted to the wild state.

5. Wildlife management: The art of making land produce valuable populations of wildlife. It includes the control of pest population to limit the negative values of wildlife. There are two general types of wildlife management:

a) Manipulative management acts on a population, either changing its numbers by direct means or influencing numbers by the indirect means of altering food supply, habitat, density of predators, or prevalence of disease. This is appropriate when a population is to be harvested, or when it slides to an unacceptably low density or increases to an unacceptably high level.

b) Custodial management is preventive or protective. The aim is to minimize external influences on the population and its habitat. It is appropriate in a national park where one of the stated goals is to protect ecological processes.

6. Wildlife conservation: A social process encompassing both ordinary and professional activities that define and seek to attain wise use of wildlife resources and maintain the productivities of wildlife habitats.

7. Biosphere: The habitat sphere of earth occupied by living organisms.

8. Environment: All the materials and processes in the surroundings of an organism or population. The naturally associated environment of a species is the kind of environment in which the species has evolved.

9. Environmental factor: One of the materials or processes in an environment. Factors may be groups of materials or processes (soil, food, weather, biotic succession etc.) or may be more specific (temperature, soil moisture etc.). Factors are often classified as:-

1. Biotic : food quality and quantity, predation, disease etc.
2. Physical : temperature, precipitation, humidity etc.
3. Edaphic/soil : depth, moisture, texture, chemistry etc.

10. Ecology: The study of relationships between organisms and the environment. Wildlife management is largely an application of the knowledge from this science.

11. Habitat: It is the kind of biotic community, or set of biotic communities in which an animal or population lives. eg. A marsh is a habitat for a muskrat population.

12. Zoogeography: It is the study of past and present animal distributions, including the evolution, spread, recession and extinction of species.

13. Geographic range : It is the broad area in which a species occurs. It is usually illustrated by irregularly shaped shaded areas on maps.

14. Ecologic range : It includes the habitats within a geographic range where a species occurs.

15. Ecological balance: The constant and perfect balance maintained between various organisms in the environment under natural conditions.

16. Biotic community: It refers to the existence of plants and animals in a common habitat.

17. Ecosystem : The combination of biotic community and physical environment.

18. Ecological niche : The set of habitat resources (food, cover types, water etc.) used by a species, as determined by its geographic and ecological range and its adaptations.

19. Ecological succession: The progressive development of a biotic community, involving replacement of species and modification of the physical environment, until a community with a relatively stable species composition is reached. The terminal, relatively stable community is termed ‘climax’.

20. Carrying Capacity: The number of animals of a specified quality that a habitat can support while sustaining a specified, but not progressively increasing, level of impact on habitat resources.

21. Population dynamics : It refers to the variation in the population size and also in sex-age compositions, reproduction and mortality rates, and qualities of animals in populations. It is the study of how this variation results from interactions among animals and between animals and their environment.

22. Sylvatic : A term referring to forest.

23. Adaptations : Biological changes that fit an animal for survival and reproduction within a particular environment or within a limited range of environments.

24. Natural resource: Any material provided by nature from which living things draw their sustenance.

25. Home range: The area traversed by an animal or population in its normal daily activities. An animal must find all its habitat requirements within its own home range, otherwise it must extend it.

26. Critical areas: Parts of the home range where limiting habitat resources are located. They are also termed ‘key areas’. eg. Area near water sources on which desert wildlife may depend in dry seasons.

27. Territory: Part or all of the home range that is defended to the exclusion of other animals, especially conspecifics. Territories may be defended by individuals, breeding pairs or social groups, either year-round or seasonally.

28. Dispersal (or emigration) :. It is the permanent abandonment of home ranges and movement, perhaps wandering, in search of suitable habitat for a new home range.

29. Cruising ability : An animal’s maximum ability to traverse an area in search of its habitat requirements.

30. Homing : Ability to return to a home range when displaced from it.

31. Migration : A two-way movement, usually between seasonally used home ranges.

32. Fecundity : Ability of animals to produce eggs or sperm.

33. Natality : It refers to the production of new individuals by birth or hatching. The natality rate is the number of young ones produced per female.

34. Recruitment: It refers to the production of sexually mature animals. The recruitment rate is the number of sexually mature animals produced per female or per adult. Recruitment has also been used to indicate production of self-sufficient animals (regardless of sexual maturity) by a population.

35. Productivity: The rate at which a population increases or the rate at which harvestable surpluses of animals are produced. Productivity may be expressed as a number of animals per unit time, or as a percentage of the total population.

36. Monogamy: Pairing of male and one female for at least one breeding season. It is common in birds and some canid species.

37. Polygamy: It includes polyandry (pairing of one female with several males; rare), polygyny (pairing of a dominant male with several females), and promiscuity (pairing of several males with several females).

38. Extinction : In biology and ecology, extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point).

39. Zoological Garden : A zoological garden, zoological park, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures and displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred. The term was first used in 1828 for the London Zoological Gardens, soon abbreviated to "zoo".

40. Menagerie : It is the term for a historical form of keeping wild and exotic animals in human captivity and therefore a predecessor of the modern zoological garden. The term was foremost used in seventeenth century France originally for the management of the household or domestic stock, but later primarily for an aristocratic or royal animal collection. Later on the term was referred even to traveling animal collections that exhibited wild animals at fairs across Europe and the Americas.

41. Safari Park : Safaris are specialized zoos where the captive animals are housed in any large naturalistic enclosures and the visitors are allowed to enter the enclosure to view the animals in a mechanized vehicle or a predetermined route from close quarters

42. Zoolatories : Religious places where wild animals are maintained for ritualistic purposes. eg. Elephants in Guruvayoor temple in Kerala.

43. Circus : A circus is most commonly a traveling company of performers that may include acrobats, clowns, trained animals, trapeze acts and other fun acts and the word also describes the performance that they give. A circus is held in an oval or circular arena with tiered seating around its edge; in the case of traveling circuses this location is most often a large tent.

44. Museum : An institution which collects, documents, preserves, exhibits and interprets material evidence and associated information for the public benefit. Museums of natural history and natural science typically exhibit work of the natural world. The focus lies on nature and culture. Exhibitions may educate the masses about dinosaurs, ancient history, and anthropology. Evolution, environmental issues, and biodiversity are major areas in natural science museums.