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1. Animals Killed Counter - More Than 150 Billion Animals Slaughtered Every Year

View the numbers in the "Animals Killed Counter" at the bottom of our website pages.

You can get the updated source code and details for the Animal Kill Counter at Consider Veganism or the original at ADAPTT.

The Animal Kill Counter was first posted in late May 2008 by Barna Mink, on a website called SFVegan. In September 2008 the Kill Counter was updated by the ADAPTT website by streamlining its code and adding a rough estimation of 90 billion marine animals killed annually worldwide for food. In November 2008 Action for Animals posted on their blog a significantly improved, more comprehensive version with more specific description of the animals slaughtered. In July 2011 ADAPTT supplemented the Kill Counter with estimated kills of dogs and cats for food, chiefly in Asian countries. It is also important to remember all the animals in the meat, dairy and egg industries who are killed but never eaten because their remains go to waste.

Data for the Kill Counter are based on worldwide animal slaughter statistics culled from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for the year 2003. According to these statistics, about 53 billion land animals are slaughtered annually worldwide. (It should be noted that at the time the numbers were compiled, they were the minimum numbers of animals killed each year. The actual numbers may be significantly greater insofar as some countries or territories either did not report, or deliberately excluded, some statistics.) Of the more than 200 countries researched, the top three - the United States, China, and Brazil - consume a staggering 46 percent of these animals as food. The United States alone consumes roughly 20 percent of all animals slaughtered for food even though it contains less than five percent of the world's population.

It's important to note that, since most of the available data are now multiple years old, these estimates are extremely conservative. The current kill rates are much higher than what is indicated here. Periodically check the ADAPTT website since they post more accurate statistics as they become available. ADAPTT pledges to update its Kill Counter accordingly.