The ability of indigenous animals to adapt to climate and quality of feed resources and to fluctuating supply of nutrients is outlined. It is argued that the intensive animal production systems adapted in many industrialised countries has generally been based on selection for single traits e.g. milk, meat, wool etc. and largely under human control of the environment. This contrasts with the indigenous animals in less industrialised countries which are largely multi-purpose but exposed to environmental control. Moving single purpose animals from human controlled environments into areas of environmental control causes lots of problems of mortality as animals have to some extend lost their ability to respond to environmental stresses (e.g. climate, quality of feed resources, fluctuating supply) and often die.