Most people who appreciate animals want to see them thrive for their own sake. But in his new book, Helping Animals Means Helping People, Katonah author Harold Hovel, PhD, contends that treating animals well benefits humans too. “Whether the subject is hunting and poaching, degradation of the oceans, climate change or nuclear war, animals suffer as much as people, and helping them saves human lives and human suffering.”

Sport hunting, for example, can have dangerous consequences for people, he says. They include hunting accidents, the proliferation of Lyme disease and co-infections, and deer-car collisions brought about by wildlife agency efforts to increase deer populations. Illegal hunting, meanwhile, kills wildlife rangers and funds terrorism. And when oceans are overfished and polluted, marine life and coral reefs die, affecting people’s livelihoods.

Then there’s climate change, which Hovel calls “the biggest danger that threatens both mankind and nonhuman life outside of nuclear war,” resulting in more violent storms, hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves; rising sea levels; and the increased virulence of disease pathogens and their carriers.

“When we help animal life by lessening or preventing these many problems, we wind up helping human beings as much as or more than the animals we save,” Hovel says. His book explores all these issues and suggests ways to mitigate the harmful effects on the earth.

Helping Animals Means Helping People is available in paperback ($14.95) or digital ($7.95) format from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes or OutskirtsPress.com. Hovel can be reached at [email protected] or 914.301.5074.