Editorial: Cute, fluffy and horribly greedy
SHOULD owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale, two architects who specialise in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In their new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living, they compare the ecological footprints of a menagerie of popular pets with those of various other lifestyle choices - and the critters do not fare well.
As well as guzzling resources, cats and dogs devastate wildlife populations, spread disease and add to pollution. It is time to take eco-stock of our pets.
To measure the ecological paw, claw and fin-prints of the family pet, the Vales analysed the ingredients of common brands of pet food. They calculated, for example, that a medium-sized dog would consume 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food. At its pre-dried weight, that equates to 450 grams of fresh meat and 260 grams of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, Fido wolfs down about 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals.
It takes 43.3 square metres of land to generate 1 kilogram of chicken per year - far more for beef and lamb - and 13.4 square metres to generate a kilogram of cereals. So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares. For a big dog such as a German shepherd, the figure is 1.1 hectares.
Meanwhile, an SUV - the Vales used a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser in their comparison - driven a modest 10,000 kilometres a year, uses 55.1 gigajoules, which includes the energy required both to fuel and to build it. One hectare of land can produce approximately 135 gigajoules of energy per year, so the Land Cruiser's eco-footprint is about 0.41 hectares - less than half that of a medium-sized dog.
The Vales are not alone in reaching this conclusion. When New Scientist asked John Barrett at the Stockholm Environment Institute in York, UK, to calculate eco-pawprints based on his own data, his figures tallied almost exactly. "Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," he says.
Eco-pawprints
Then there are all the other animals we own. Doing similar calculations for a variety of pets and their foods, the Vales found that cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares (slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf), hamsters come in at 0.014 hectares apiece (buy two, and you might as well have bought a plasma TV) and canaries half that. Even a goldfish requires 0.00034 hectares (3.4 square metres) of land to sustain it, giving it an ecological fin-print equal to two cellphones.
This kind of analysis appeals to David Mackay, a physicist at the University of Cambridge and the UK government's new energy adviser. He believes we should put as much thought into choosing a pet as we do into buying a car. "If a lifestyle choice uses more than 1 per cent of your energy footprint, then it is worthwhile reflecting on that choice and seeing what you can do about it," he says. "Pets definitely deserve attention: by my estimates, the energy footprint of a cat is about 2 per cent of the average British person's energy footprint - and it's bigger for most dogs."
Alternatively, consider the cumulative environmental impact of our furry friends. The US, which tops the list for both cat and dog ownership in absolute terms, is home to over 76 million felines and 61 million canines. Taking the estimated cat population for the top 10 cat-owning countries, the Vales calculate that the land required just to feed these cats is over 400,000 square kilometres. That's equivalent to one-and-a-half times the area of New Zealand. A further five New Zealands are required to feed the pooches living in the top 10 dog-owning countries - which, perhaps surprisingly, does not include the UK.
Then there are the other environmental impacts of pets. Every year, for example, the UK's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals (Mammal Review, vol 33, p 174). That works out at about 25 birds, mammals and frogs per cat. Similar figures have emerged from surveys in the US and Australia. There is also a knock-on effect because cats feasting on wildlife can leave wild predators such as hawks and weasels short of food.
Every year the UK's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals. That's 25 per cat
Dogs are not entirely blameless either. In 2007, Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, monitored bird life in woodlands just outside the city to assess the impact of dogs being walked there (Biology Letters, vol 3, p 611). They showed that bird life in areas frequented by dogs, even when kept on a lead, had 35 per cent less diversity and 41 per cent fewer birds overall. Areas with off-lead dogs seem to suffer even more: ongoing studies in the UK indicate that dogs are aiding the decline of some rare species of bird, such as European nightjars (Ibis, vol 149, p 27).
- Like what you've just read?
- Don't miss out on the latest content from New Scientist.
- Get 51 issues of New Scientist magazine plus unlimited access to the entire content of New Scientist online.
- Subscribe now and save
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.
Have your say
Although I agree with a lot of the article (and remember and recommend the Vale's 1970s book -the Autonomous house) I do wonder how much of the "meat" in pet food is actually meat that people would have eaten but rather is carcase waste that would have otherwise have to be disposed of possibly in landfill with concomitant methane release.
I just assumed that when it says on the tin "real chicken " that it was neck head guts etc which is just as real to the chicken as the rest of it.
OK I admit it I have 2 small dogs but a very small car!
Those kind of meat are not disposed on landfills, if they don't go to our dogs they are disposed in our hot dogs
Define Meat
Sat Oct 24 01:28:38 BST 2009 by Dennis
http://freetubetv.net
Not quite, hot dogs are made from questionable meat but as far as I've heard I don't think recycled dog food is ever an ingredient
My dog eats its own faeces. Does that make it green?
Define Meat
Fri Oct 23 17:02:14 BST 2009 by Pete
http://www.ReallyQuick.co.uk
Eating my own feaces would certainly make me turn green.
you hit the nail on the head, gary. these people either have no common sense or are just outright lying. there's no 'extra' land being used to raise pet food, it all comes from byproducts of human food production.
i'll proudly admit that i have 4 cats, a dog, a toyota tundra (V8), a nice old inefficient pool pump, a poorly insulated house with the AC running and do a lot of cooking out on my grill. i love the smell of carbon in the morning!
Genetic,
I'm glad to see that a person of your persuasion is wasting so much of his money on inefficient energy use. Keep it up, so you continue to reduce your wealth and influence...
Anonamerican, although what i said is true i mainly frame things that way just to jab at people like you. of course i would like more efficiency but that is not possible at this point. you see, over the time that i will live in this house it would not be cost effective to install new windows, solar panels and the like. when improved technology and market demand lower the costs of such improvements i will gladly buy. no amount of government intervention is necessary, just let the market work. unfortunately for you, my wealth is accumulating just fine right now, thank you.
I think it would be very interesting to find out who is funding this study/book.
I also noticed that they dont take into account that farm space is always used for many Different products.
Also much of dog food is made from the Lefovers from the slaughter so that we That we do not wast the meat that WE would never consume.
Me personaly, im getting tired of one sided science and because it meets a point of view that people like, they say its true.
I wonder if Robert and Brenda Vale's next study will be how much meat each of them could provide to a starving village in Africa? Perhaps they could offer themselves voluntarily? This would be much less offensive than attacking pets! What about people that have pets - but no children? Surely the pets consume less - no diapers - no future houses or cars or tvs - - hey if they are open to radical theories - why don't they discuss this? Can we assume they have already eaten their pets? Should their kids be sought after by CPS - could their parents be a threat to them??? Hey, Robert and Brenda Vale - I also hear they are looking for future volunteers for a one-way trip to Mars - why don't you two apply? You certainly would lighten the load here!!!!
How Many Meals?
Fri Oct 23 12:42:26 BST 2009 by Janice Robertson
http://lyracat@wordpress.com
Well said Daisy Girl.
I suppose we could view this as progress of sorts. NS leading the way in an amazing new posthumanist society.
Please read the article. It is an analysis of the energy used to keep a dog/cat whatever fed.
It is not an attack on your dog/cat.
Feeding the researchers to starving africans? Awful, just plain awful....
Well said. Perhaps a few deeps breaths are in order...
The idea of feeding the researchers to starving Africans is no more awful than the suggestion of rabbits as pets - IF you eat them! If the author is going to take it upon herself to write about "pets", she would be well advised to first look up the definition of pets. People, at least civilized ones, do not eat their pets. I've read some assinine articles online, especially in the last several months. But this one deserves a special prize for stupidity. I find it hard to believe that this article was actually intended to be taken seriously.
Depends... You could keep rabbits as pets and livestock. Truly concerned and civilised people would keep the animals they ate as livestock, they would have a better quality of life, lower impact on the planet, better meat - but not many people in these days of disconnection, frozen broccoli and shrink-wrapped chicken understand what food is. And frankly, no matter what you say, you don't care how much leg room your pork supper had as long as its cheap, packaged and the wrong colour.
If you eat meat, you're hurting the planet. If you keep animals and feed them commercial pet food, you're hurting your pets, and you're hurting the planet. If you want to keep a dog, do a bit of research into their natural diet and feed them that - and do a bit of research into your own natural diet and adjust. Maybe then all you softy townies won't be so bloody fat
"What about people that have pets - but no children? Surely the pets consume less - no diapers - no future houses or cars or tvs"
Bingo. I'm sick and tired of these useless "studies" of one specific activity. Clearly we should be evaluating our resource use, sure. However this ought to be done for an individual, not an activity! For example LEED buildings are great, but if you decide that if your building will have less operating costs you may as well build something four times larger, well then it doesn't matter does it?
If I would rather have two well behaved great danes than seeing if my wife and I can make our own baseball team, well...
I always find it so amusing when humans complain about how environmentally damaging *other* species are..... what's that word? Hypo- something?
They aren't complaining about dogs or cat themselves damaging the environment. It's our control over these species that is the problem. So we are still to blame. No hypocracy to be found here.
The most awful beast of prey isn't a tiger, a wolf, a lion or whatsoever, they catch few species of prey and miss a lot, that title belongs to cats. It kills everything it can put its paws on and rarely miss and worse, it kills just to flex its skills, not to feed. We are releasing those beasts everywhere, so it is a big problem
tigers and lions aren't cats? No wonder i had such a hard time in 4th grade science! :-P
All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.
If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.