Volume XII · The Essentials of Animal Ethics · chapter 10
Which Problems Affect the Largest Numbers of Animals?
Before you read study layer, not part of the original text
The 80 billion animals killed per year that activists cite are only mammals and birds, between 0.1% and 0.2% of the 34 to 54 trillion killed in exploitation; and animals in the wild, numbering 1 to 10 quintillion, make even these figures look small.
If we squeezed all the animals into a single calendar year, the animals raised for exploitation would take up only a few seconds. The rest of the whole year would be animals in the wild. There are so many of them, truly so many.
If the entire animal population were one year, exploited animals would be at most 14 seconds, and wild animals would be all the rest of the year.
- P1 Most campaigns cite 80 billion animals killed per year.
- P2 Adding fish, crustaceans, insects, and others, the figure is between 34 and 54 trillion.
- P3 Sentient animals in the wild are estimated at 1 to 10 quintillion at any given moment.
- C So the problems that affect the most animals are precisely the least remembered.
The chapter’s central argument in logical form. If the premises are true, the conclusion follows. To disagree, you have to show which premise is false.
They say “About 80 billion animals are killed for food each year.”
Answer That number includes only mammals and birds. With fish, shrimp, insects, and cochineal insects, the estimate is hundreds of times larger.
More objections and answers in Debunking objections.
Original text Luciano Carlos Cunha · Volume XII, p. 40 of the PDF edition · English translation
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.
Practice
Study layer. The answers are based on the chapter’s text.
What percentage of the animals killed in exploitation do the 80 billion represent?
According to the table, which form of exploitation kills the most animals per year?
Food for thought
Try the One Year to Scale tool on this site. What surprised you the most?
Author’s notes 14
- 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). ↩
Sources cited in this text 10
The full list for the volume is in the Volume XII references.
- FISHCOUNT. Fishcount estimates of numbers of individuals killed in (FAO) reported fishery production. Fishcount: Reducing suffering in fisheries, 2019a.
- FISHCOUNT. Numbers of farmed fish slaughtered each year. Fishcount: Reducing suffering in fisheries, 2019b.
- NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY & SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. Numbers of insects (species and individuals). Encyclopedia Smithsonian, 2008.
- OUR WORLD IN DATA. Number of animals slaughtered for meat, World, 1961 to 2018. Our world in data, [s.l.], 2018.
- ROWE, A. Global cochineal production: scale, welfare concerns, and potential interventions. Effective altruism forum, 11 fev. 2020a.
- ROWE, A. Insects raised for food and feed — global scale, practices, and policy. Rethink priorities, 29 jun. 2020b.
- ROWE, A. Silk production: global scale and animal welfare issues. Rethink priorities, 19 abr. 2021.
- SANDERS, B. Global Animal Slaughter Statistics And Charts. Faunalytics, 10 out. 2018.
- TOMASIK, B. How Many Animals are There? Essays on Reducing Suffering, 07 ago. 2019.
- WALDHORN, D. AUTRIC, E. Shrimp: The animals most commonly used and killed for food production. Rethink Priorities, 11 ago. 2023.
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