This is a problem my friends and I have been trying to solve for a long time. Almost everyone will donate to domesticated animals (and we’re focusing on cats and dogs here)- which are common household pets, but not everyone will donate to a wolf. To a snake. To a lion. And we’re still so focused on saving dogs and cats, which are overpopulated, instead of saving lions, tigers, cheetahs, which are estimated to be extinct by 2050. 

   Of course we should save all animals. But the problem right now is how much we’re saving the overpopulated animals versus how ignorant we are at saving the very, very endangered animals. Even canned hunting is allowed right now- that means zoos raise lions, sell them to an enclosed outdoor hunting area, and people are allowed to shoot. 

   I love dogs and cats. However, we should also focus on wild animals. If you’ve had a cat or dog before, they’ll sometimes go out or run out on their own. I’ll tell you what happens when you let domesticated animals roam free.

   In Australia, half of the native bird’s species are wiped out due to feral cats, with collars on them, released by owners. It’s legal to kill feral animals, and I’m not saying you should, but people there just see a feral cat and do nothing about it. That’s a problem. You don’t have to kill, but at least do something about it.

   In New Zealand, if you ever have a dog and let the dog loose, the dog will likely go into a forest and eat the kiwi birds. 

   Yes, all animals play a role in the life cycle. Just some roles are not as big as others- the Thylacine, hunted to extinction by humans just because of fear (there are no documented Thylacine attacks), doesn’t really make the world seem so different. But if all of the top predators go extinct- wolves, lions, tigers, snakes, etc., something would be off. 

   Let’s focus on the savannah for a bit. Lions and cheetahs are one of the top predators on the savannah, and if they go extinct, the gazelles will overpopulate. They’ll overpopulate so much that not even the snakes and the crocodilians could control it. They’ll eat all the plants, along with other herbivores, and the plants won’t grow fast enough. Pretty soon, all of them die and there goes our savannah population. If it keeps happening, humans will soon be affected, and the ‘soon’ is sooner than you think.

   Some animal rescue centers say ‘animal rescue’ but what they really mean is ‘cat and dog rescue’. So please, consider what humans and domesticated animals are doing to the wild animals. It is very hard to find donations or organizations that focus on wildlife alone, or other animals mixed with cats and dogs. 

   Now is the time to change. Change the lives of unfortunate animal species. Change the world today, together. 

   Thank you for reading- I hope that, by the end of this article, you’ll learn something new and be more aware. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is one of the places you could donate to. Donate here.