Over a lifetime, this amounts to 16,000 animals per meat eater.
For details, see:
- Summary: Average and Total Number of Animals Who Died to Feed Americans in 2010
- Calculations and Sources: US Animals Killed for Food 2000-2010
- Calculations and Sources: Sea Animal Mortality for US Consumption 2010
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, bycatch, discarded male egg-type chickens, production of food that is
discarded and not consumed, fish used to feed other fish on fish farms, 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.
