Historically, there have been cases where the extermination of animal species has been politically endorsed because the animals have been considered harmful. In some cases the animals have been hunted because the animals present a danger to human lives, at other times they have been hunted because they are harmful to human interests such as livestock farming. This article refers to animals in a more limited sense; it does not include humans. In a number of cases, such government endorsed hunting has led to the endangerment or outright extinction of the species.