Sources
The numbers of exploitation and of nature
How many animals are affected each year? The Volume XII box, with the sources for the estimates.
Activists often cite 80 billion animals killed each year for food. That figure includes only mammals and birds. Add fish, crustaceans, insects and other invertebrates, and the estimate ranges from 34 to 54 trillion. And animals in the wild are vastly more numerous still. See also the A Year to Scale tool.
Original text Volume XII, chapter 10
Below, we will look at the problems that affect the largest numbers of animals34
10.1. Exploited animals
Animal advocates, wishing to show how large the number of animals killed for consumption is, often say that around 80 billion animals are killed worldwide each year. However, this figure refers only to mammals and birds. The total number of animals killed is vastly larger. Below are some data on annual deaths of exploited animals at the global level.
| Type of exploited animal | Animals killed worldwide per year |
|---|---|
| Mammals and birds | 35Around 80 billion |
| Factory-farmed fish | Between 51 and 167 billion36. |
| Fish caught directly at sea | Between 787 billion and 2.3 trillion37. |
| Aquatic animals used as feed for fish farmed for consumption | 38Between 462 billion and 1.1 trillion. |
| Factory-farmed crustaceans | Between 255 and 604 billion39. |
| Silkworms for silk production | 40Between 420 billion and 1 trillion |
| Insects killed for consumption | 41Between 2 and 3.2 trillion |
| Cochineal insects in the production of carmine dye | Between 4.6 and 21 trillion42. |
| Shrimp caught directly at sea | Around 25 trillion43 |
The sum of these numbers suggests that somewhere between 34 and 54 trillion animals are killed annually at the global level. This means that the 80 billion usually mentioned by activists represent only somewhere between 0.1% and 0.2% of the animals killed in exploitation.
10.2. Animals in the wild
There are no statistics on the number of animals in the wild who die each year as a result of . But to get an idea of the difference in proportion, we can make a comparison with the populations at a given moment.
- The total population of animals in the wild at a given moment would be, according to certain estimates, between 1 and 10 quintillion individuals44.
- Let us compare this, for example, with the world population at a given moment of animals bred as stock to be exploited (a total population of 434 billion):
- Terrestrial vertebrates: 24 billion45.
- Fish: 180 billion46.
- Shrimp: 230 billion47.
- Total: 434 billion.
How much larger is 1 to 10 quintillion compared to 434 billion? These numbers are so enormous that it is hard to visualize the difference. So, to understand it, it is useful to make an analogy with the span of a year. The combined populations of animals bred to be exploited would represent at most 14 seconds of the year. All the rest of the year (364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 46 seconds) would be the animals in the wild. This gives us a rough sense of how large the number of animals in the wild is. As we have seen, the vast majority of these animals have lives in which suffering greatly predominates.
10.3. The future
These numbers, both of animals harmed by human practices and of those harmed by natural processes, may become astronomically larger in the future. That is why, in recent years, the debate on the importance of how our decisions affect the long-term future has been growing, as we will see in the next chapter.
Author's notes
- 34 More on this subject in IV, ch. 1; VIII, ch. 3.
- 35 (2018), Sanders (2018).
- 36 (2019).
- 37 Id.
- 38 Id.
- 39 Id.
- 40 Rowe (2021).
- 41 Rowe (2020b).
- 42 Rowe (2020a).
- 43 Waldhorn, Autric (2023).
- 44 See National Museum of Natural History & Smithsonian Institution (2008) and (2019a).
- 45 Tomasik (2019).
- 46 Fishcount (2019b).
- 47 Waldhorn, Autric (2023).