The speed and number of animals abused is huge |
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How many animals are slaughtered on earth?Every year more than 80 billion land animals are slaughtered worldwide for their meat. The number is so large that it hardly means anything. That is why the figures below are also given per second. Land animals slaughtered in 2023
Source: FAO (FAOSTAT), via Our World in Data. Want to see how fast it goes? The counter starts when you press the button. And the fishOn top of the land animals, an estimated 1.1 to 2.2 trillion wild fish are caught every year. About half of them are turned into fishmeal and fish oil, partly for animal feed. According to the FAO, more than a third of fish stocks (37.7 percent) are overfished. Read also Is fish a good alternative to meat? The balance is lost
Put all cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock on a scale and together they weigh about fifteen times as much as all wild mammals combined. All our poultry weighs about three times as much as all wild birds. Livestock farming is overrunning the earth. For images of the lives of these animals, visit photographer Jo-Anne McArthur or our page Photos of animal cruelty. Historian Yuval Noah Harari called industrial farming one of the worst crimes in history. What can I do?Do these figures paralyse you? The solution is simple and depends on no one else. You do not have to do anything, only leave something out. Every meal without meat counts. And things are moving. More and more people choose plant-based food. A growing number of countries ban fur farming or cages for farm animals. Read what you can do for animals yourself or let animals live in freedom. Sources: FAO, FAOSTAT (2023), via Our World in Data; Fishcount, numbers of wild fish caught (2024); FAO, SOFIA 2024; Bar-On et al., PNAS (2018). Updated October 2026. |
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