Animal love: Encyclopedia - Animal love

Animal love

Animal love or Animal friendship is the affection and caring towards animals. Some animal lovers care for stray animals they find. Many animal lovers keep one or more pets, though an animal lover might object to being called a "pet owner".

Though in English the word is used in a totally different way, the greek word zoophilia translates literally as "animal love" — and in Greek language it has the notion of animal friendship, and no connotation of bestiality is implied.

Animal lovers are often conservationists, environmentalists, or Vegan/vegetarians.^{[citation needed]} Usually these properties are related, each inspired from the other: One can love animals out of a general respect for nature and environment, or become a vegetarian or conservationist out of one's love for animals.

Famous animal lovers include Michael Jackson and Brigitte Bardot. St. Francis of Assisi is considered the patron of animal love.

See also

• Animal rights
• Animal welfare

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Animal love", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki