4 ms·
Back of the napkin, obviously not accurate, but gives you a sense of scale: 84,553,674 companion animals in the US (dogs/cats/birds/horses) [1] 12,177,476,000
by jamesgreenleaf 6y ago
Back of the napkin, obviously not accurate, but gives you a sense of scale:
84,553,674 companion animals in the US (dogs/cats/birds/horses) [1]
12,177,476,000 animals slaughtered for food in US annually (chickens/turkeys/cows/pigs/ducks/sheep/fish - excludes shellfish) [2]
So, (0.3 * 12177476000) / 84553674 = 43.2
On average, keeping each of our pets kills around forty other animals per year. Those lucky dogs!
Gonna go feed my cat now.
1. https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-pet-ownership-statistics https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-p...
2. https://animalclock.org/ https://animalclock.org/
- VectorLock 6y agoI don't think pets are adding an additional 30% to the number of animals killed for consumption, companion animals are getting more of the parts that wouldn't be consumed by humans. If all pets suddenly disappeared tomorrow the number of animals slaughtered for food might go down some percent, but not 30. People talk about how the Native Americans would "use the whole animal" and thats very much true for what happens today.
- jamesgreenleaf 6y agoSure, adjust that scaling factor of 0.3 to whatever you think is more accurate. Also, I left shellfish out because the number is ridiculous at 43 billion per year, some appreciable fraction of which I'm sure make it into cat food.
- BelenusMordred 6y agoYou seem to think society can find no other replacement usage for that meat that wouldn't be consumed by humans, it's also a very Western viewpoint because nearly everywhere on Earth eats the whole animal in some way or another.
- VectorLock 6y agoTo my knowledge no appreciable number of humans are consuming bone.