Land Animals Who Died per American Carnivore 2012

This page exists for historical purposes only, and may be out of date. See instead: Land animals 2013

In all, 8.1 billion land animals died to feed Americans in 2013.

Over a lifetime, this amounts to 2,088 land animals per meat eater.

That's about the same number as in 2012 (97 million, or less than 0.5%, more than in 2012.

Turkey deaths saw a dramatic 7% drop, or 15 million fewer .

Cattle and turkey deaths were all their lowest levels since at least 2000.

Since peaking in 2004, US meat eaters eat 5 fewer land animals apiece — a 16% drop.

That's 785 million fewer than in 2005, in spite of a rising population.

For details, see:

What these numbers include

These numbers are not derived from slaughter figures (except for rabbits, included in the summary). They include deaths from all causes, including: disease, injury, culling, discarded male egg-type chickens, production of food that is discarded and not consumed, etc.

These numbers are global. They include deaths abroad for imported animal products, and exclude US deaths for exported animal products.

These numbers only include deaths after birth/hatching. Fetal deaths are not considered.

Sources

Land animal numbers are all based on US government statistics: U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and the U.S. Census Bureau. The only exceptions are U.N. statistics on duck imports/exports, and independent polls of the numbers of vegetarians and vegans.

Calculated by Noam Mohr, May 2013, noammohr@gmail.com