The number of animals killed in the UK per year for meat, fish or shellfish

1.2 billion land animals are killed for meat each year in the UK.

Also, almost one billion fish and 4.4 billion shellfish.

Land animals

• Chickens – 1,161,000,000¹
• Turkeys – 12,000,000¹
• Sheep and Lambs – 13,409,000¹
• Pigs – 10,918,000¹
• Cattle – 2,700,000¹
• Ducks and Geese – 10,000,000¹
• Goats – 21,228²
• Horses – 20,550³
• Deer – 8,353⁴ (an estimated 350,000 are culled each year in the UK)
• Rabbits – 640 million rabbits were slaughtered for meat worldwide in 2020. The EU accounted for nearly a fifth of that³

Aquatic animals

• Wild Fish – 1.5-2.7 billion (does not include bycatch)⁵
• Farmed Fish – 28-77 million⁵
• Shellfish – 4.4 billion ( does not include bycatch)⁶

References :

1. Agriculture in the UK, 2021. Chapter 8: Livestock – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
2. UK Food Standards Agency. Freedom of information request FOI 2866, June 21, 2022.
3. UN FAOSTAT food and agriculture data: https://www.fao.org/faostat
4. Defra. Freedom of information request: FOI2022/12947, June 27, 2022.
5. Estimates based on FAO reported capture and aquaculture tonnages and average weights for fish species: https://animalclock.org/uk
6. Calculation based on tonnage by species as reported by MMO and Cefas and shellfish market sizes provided by FAO: https://animalclock.org/uk

The number of animals killed in the world for meat, fish or shellfish

78.7 billion land animals are killed for meat and many trillions of fish and shellfish.

Land animals

• Chickens – 70,767,577,000¹
• Turkeys – 617,877,000¹
• Sheep and Lambs – 590,507,650¹
• Pigs – 1,511,512,828¹
• Cattle – 293,196,735¹
• Ducks – 3,022,055,000¹
• Goose and guinea fowl – 742,356,000¹
• Goats – 495,108,884¹
• Horses – 5,037,634¹
• Rabbits – 639,789,000¹

Aquatic animals

• Wild Fish – 790 billion to 2.3 trillion²*
• Farmed Fish – 51 to 167 billion fish²*
• Shellfish – many trillions²*

References:

1. FAOSTAT, 2022. https://www.fao.org/faostat/en
2. Fishcount 2019. http://fishcount.org.uk/

* Fish and shellfish counts do not include ~23 billion animals killed as bycatch (sea creatures unintentionally caught and released, often dead or fatally injured) nor ~68 billion feed fish (small fish fed to other fish farmed for human consumption). >>MORE