cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/13071478
The data on this page was obtained from the USDA NASS Quickstats Database. The cattle slaughter numbers include bulls, heifers, steers, and dairy cows. Calves are counted separately and amounted to about 315,900 deaths in 2023.
Disturbing. It really shows how the animal-welfare issue is overwhelmingly a chicken-welfare issue.
Let’s not forget that if one is concerned about welfare, then logically one should focus more on the life of the animal than the final slaughter. Chicken slaughter in particular is a pretty unpleasant and haphazard affair (as I understand it, the electric stun bath doesn’t work reliably) but surely those 42 days of life beforehand were, cumulatively, much worse than the quick and grisly bit at the end.
Perhaps one exception to that might be the pigs, which are now overwhelmingly subject to carbon-monoxide gas stunning. Which apparently doesn’t work and results routinely in terrible suffering. All hidden neatly away in the gas chamber so that no humans need see it and it can be denied by the slaughterhouses. That we continue to allow this particular atrocity makes me seethe with rage.
If we want to approach it from that angle (which I think is a valid one), then what this graphic doesn’t tell you is that it’s overwhelmingly a fish-welfare issue. The amount of fish killed every year for food is in the trillions, completely eclipsing the deaths of mammals and birds for food. This is due in enormous part to bycatch. (I’ll look at this through the lens of deaths caused by a typical omnivorous diet, but for example, the amount of deaths of worms in the silk industry is similarly in the trillions).
If the question is “how many deaths does what I’m eating cause annually?”, the first stop is probably seafood, both because it directly kills so many fish on its own and because fishing devastates marine ecosystems, causing an unfathomable amount more deaths.
If your goal is cutting out the most per-animal suffering, then I estimate it’ll be cows, simply because chickens live much shorter lives and pigs are just raised for meat, thus again having shorter lives. Cows are tortured for years in the production of dairy, which itself feeds into the beef and leather industries.
If your goal is cutting out the most intelligent animals, then it’ll probably be pigs, as they’ve been studied to have the intellectual capacity of about a three-year-old child.
If your goal is cutting out the most land animals killed, then it’s chickens and other birds like turkeys.
If your goal is the amount of animals exploited per kilogram of food, then that likely goes to honey, which similarly has trillions of victims. Honey production is especially awful in places where the European honeybee isn’t native, as it outcompetes local pollinators and wreaks havoc on the environment.
But of course this isn’t Sophie’s choice; you can at any time simply cut out all of them.
Some thoughtful points here.
what this graphic doesn’t tell you is that it’s overwhelmingly a fish-welfare issue
Absolutely. If we take the common invertebrate-vertebrate threshold, then fish really should be in the graphic. It seems that the alien concept of living underwater just makes it hard for humans to empathize with fish.
If your goal is cutting out the most per-animal suffering, then I estimate it’ll be cows, simply because chickens live much shorter lives and pigs are just raised for meat, thus again having shorter lives. Cows are tortured for years
Interesting take. Not sure I’m convinced, given what I understand about chicken farming. Chickens seem to be like land-fish in that people have really hard time imagining their sentience and therefore considering their welfare. The short life of a meat chicken looks pretty close to hell itself. And those 42 days might well be perceived as more, in the sense that small animals tend to live shorter lives anyway, though I guess that an unfalsifiable hypothesis. And let’s not forget the egg-laying chickens, which live for a whole couple of years.
As it happens I personally choose to eat chicken products (in modest quantity, checking their origin where possible) but not large mammals. But that is because I put the environment before even the cruelty question. Hard choices and I’m aware of my (partial) hypocrisy.
If your goal is cutting out the most intelligent animals, then it’ll probably be pigs
Although (probably like you) I’ll take any argument if it convinces people, to me this is an irrational one. The classic counter-argument: would we allow a mentally disabled cousin to be tortured because he’s got a low IQ? Capacity for suffering has nothing to do with intelligence. Logically it might even be inversely correlated, as Dawkins has speculated: if pain is the signal sent by genes to bodies to “Don’t do that again” then it might follow that less intelligent animals need a stronger signal.
If your goal is the amount of animals exploited per kilogram of food, then that likely goes to honey, which similarly has trillions of victims
While this is rationally defensible, personally I get jittery when vegans bring insects into the equation. For two reasons.
- Where’s the line? If the welfare of ants is an issue, then what about sponges, corals - plants? I’m not being facetious. Though I agree it’s absolutely plausible, it’s not definitively proven that invertebrates with primitive nervous systems can suffer - the fact that insects have been observed continuing to feed while themselves being eaten always springs to mind. In any case, the line between animals and other kingdoms seems to me fairly arbitrary in a tree of life where everything is related. For me the issue should be capacity for suffering, not the issue of whether or not something is an “animal”. If that means plants and bacteria, so be it, but we’re not there yet.
- If insects are to be protected, then the prospects become dimmer for cheap protein to nourish 10 billion humans and keep us from destroying what’s left of our environment. Of course, we could all become vegan and that would solve everything. But in the real world we’re entering a realm of very hard choices here.
- Yeah, I could be persuaded that egg-laying chickens have more cumulative suffering. Something I needed to and didn’t emphasize when making this point is that all of these animals’ lives are living hell. I think any first choice is a valid one to reduce suffering, but only if they all converge toward reducing exploitation “as far as is practicable”.
- I also disagree with the intellect approach personally. I just know there genuinely are those who quantify an animal’s intellect as their ability to suffer. It’s a common justification among carnists that “they’re stupid, actually” (see, e.g.: chickens), and so I think a comparison between an animal and a three-year-old child would resonate with some people as a starting point. As before, “whatever floats your boat as a starting point as long as it foreseeably keeps going past that starting point.”
- Barring some sort of extreme circumstance (insane metabolic disorder, living off the land in a remote tribe), it’s not a “hard choice”, and it’s not “partial” hypocrisy. I’m glad you appear to be more conscientious of it than others, and I agree wholeheartedly that from an environmentalist argument, chickens are strictly more benign than cows, pigs, or fish. But you should understand that “checking the origin when possible” and “modest quantities” are… Well, you addressed my points before me. Paying to make defenseless, innocent animals’ lives “a living hell.” And I feel at least to some extent like being aware of that makes it worse here.
- This is pushing Rule 5 about not debating the merits of veganism, but I think insects can be informally excepted because some well-meaning people are so confused that e.g. they’ll incorrectly call themselves “vegans” while still eating honey, while yet others don’t eat it but are essentially indifferent. Thus, I think it could be fine as long as it’s approached in good faith as you’ve done here.
- Bees have been studied to have at least some ability to experience pain, and that to me (let alone combined with the environmental impact) is more than enough. When we start getting into corals and sponges, those have nerve nets, and at that point, I think it becomes extremely debatable; nonetheless, I choose to cut off at animals because that makes the line extremely crystal clear and indemnifies me against our creeping series of realizations that “oh, these animals feel pain, actually”.
- I’ve seen debate over bivalves in vegan communities as they’re really the only commonly fished animal with a nerve net, like “oh, well they do more good than harm by filtering heavy metals out of the water”, but I think a valid response to that is “so why not just grow them without farming them?” I could see bivalves etc. emerging as a wedge issue for a future generation which has long-since advanced to outlawing most traditional animal foods and products on ethical grounds, sees insects as increasingly controversial, and for which animals without a CNS are still seen as broadly acceptable.
- As for plants, this is 5% crackpots and 95% just bad-faith, equivocating bullshit carnists don’t actually believe but throw out to flimsily justify their lifestyles (and they somehow come out looking even worse, because by basic entropy, it takes much more plant matter to raise animals, e.g. about 100 calories in to 12 calories out for chickens).
More interesting points!
It’s a common justification among carnists that “they’re stupid, actually”
Yep, I’ve always countered it with the “village idiot” or “disabled” examples, but “small children” is much more effective! Will use that in future.
But you should understand that “checking the origin when possible” and “modest quantities” are…Well, you addressed my points before me.
The “when possible” does undermine my argument but “modest quantities” must count for something and as for “origin” I’m sure you’ll agree that in theory free-range chickens can have acceptably pleasant lives. In Europe the highest class (i.e. 3 times more expensive) free-range eggs do come at least come close to the farmyard-idyll idea of chicken farming.
So at that point the putative cruelty concerns mainly the abstract fact of animal exploitation for eggs or the (less abstract) slaughter. As I understand it, this is what distinguishes animal welfare from animal rights. Personally my priority is the former. I don’t claim to respect the latter, i.e. an animal’s inherent right to life or to be left alone. Although I absolutely respect those who do. Both positions are ethically coherent, as I see it.
Paying to make defenseless, innocent animals’ lives “a living hell.” And I feel at least to some extent like being aware of that makes it worse here.
Yeah, that’s fair. At least, there’s certainly a paradox here. Because, under the law, for example, you aren’t usually held responsible for something you’re not aware of. And then people often say that the first stage to solving a problem is to be aware of it - and yet by becoming aware of it you’re transformed from an innocent to a hypocrite. Personally, like many people, I can’t stand hypocrisy so I choose to self-flagellate when I see it in myself. Rather than channel my insecurity into criticism of non-hypocrites, as many omnivores seem to do. And yet then I risk being sanctimonious as well as a hypocrite. Tricky problem.
I choose to cut off at animals because that makes the line extremely crystal clear and indemnifies me against our creeping series of realizations that “oh, these animals feel pain, actually”.
Some interesting points you made there. Yes, I suppose this dividing line is a pretty rational choice.
