Picture this: Yous're a harvest mouse who lives in a wheat field. Being a mouse, you lot have excellent hearing and can easily pick up sounds that a human cannot hear. Cheers to your sensitive whiskers and small size, you lot're acutely attuned to vibrations acquired by big machines. Although your eyesight isn't the best in the globe, your optics are situated high on your caput and offer an fantabulous all-round view. And to pinnacle that off, yous accept lightning reflexes and dash most at a acme speed of 8 miles an hour.

Now imagine that you're perched idly on a stem of wheat, your tail curled effectually information technology like a fifth limb. You lot're smelling the crisp morning air and feeling the dominicus shining on your confront. But then, the ground starts to shudder as a 3 ton, iv-cylinder diesel fuel-engined combine harvester ominously starts heading your style – which, by the style, you can see without even turning your head. What will you practice?

  1. Run like hell
  2. Humbly await your fate on a Kentish plum

Mike Archer, a paleontologist, goes with Option 2, which makes me wonder if he should be spending more fourth dimension with living animals instead of extinct ones.

Eloquence: You're doing it wrong.

Just this article is not the rebuttal of any one person or article, merely an exploration of a notion perpetuated repeatedly without a shred of scientific bear witness: that more animals are killed cultivating food for vegans and vegetarians, and therefore eating meat is kinder because it kills fewer animals. I think that this is not a scientific debate, merely a social power struggle, perhaps with the support of the meat manufacture. But before we deflate the "armchair experts", allow's have look at some bodily studies conducted in the field.

The best laid plans o' mice and machines

The English study on wood mice

Tew and MacDonald studied wood mice betwixt 1987 and 1991 to understand how the harvesting of grain affects their numbers.[one] In one study, they fitted radio collars to 33 forest mice on three different sites. They wanted to find out how many of them are killed when a combine harvester shreds a wheat field. With all the propaganda well-nigh mass extinctions caused by crop harvesting, you lot might think that they were bracing themselves for a mouse apocalypse. Turns out, of the 33 mice, 32 survived the combined harvester – that'due south 97% of them! The deed of harvesting posed virtually no threat to these mice.

Following the harvest, 17 of the remaining 32 mice were hunted by predators such as weasels and tawny owls. Clearly, the loss of cover made them more vulnerable to predators. Just the mice knew that besides. So they adapted. Subsequently the harvest, they became cautious in their forays, refusing to venture far unless it was safe. Many left the fields and migrated to nearby scrub. On the farms, the number of mice on the fields declined by lxxx%. Merely the betoken is, they had not been massacred by a combine harvester. The half who were killed made an important contribution to the ecosystem. Without wood mice, predators such as foxes, owls, stoats, martens, badgers and hawks would have a difficult fourth dimension surviving. Everything from a cat to a kestrel needs wood mice to thrive.

The Argentine written report on Azara's akodont

Don't y'all love the discussion 'Akodont'? It sounds like something straight out of a fantasy game! In fact, Azara's akodont is a grass mouse native to the Pampas of Paraguay, Uruguay and eastern Argentina. In 2005, a squad of Argentine researchers studied the populations of the akodont in wheat and corn fields to understand the effects of harvesting.[2] They found that following harvest, the akodonts ditched the fields and moved to grassy borders betwixt the fields. By beingness adaptable and moving to a different habitat, they were able to avoid the harvesting machines as well as predators. The study found no evidence to indicate that their numbers were affected in any pregnant fashion by the harvesting process.

The German study on common voles

Jacob and Hempel studied common voles on wheat fields and pastures in central Germany in 2002 to sympathize how farming practices change their beliefs.[3] In this extensive report, they fitted radio collars to 85 voles and studied them before and after mulching, mowing, harvesting, harvesting and ploughing.

Every bit expected, they establish that any removal of cover, such as harvesting, mowing, or grazing cattle, decreased the spatial action and dwelling-range size of the voles, meaning that they didn't travel far from their homes without the comprehend of vegetation. Simply they did not abandon the fields and did not shift their centers of activeness. The voles rapidly adapted to the decrease in the height of vegetation and changed their habits, their travel routes and how far they traveled. Jacob and Hempel found that pretty much the just danger that agriculture presented to voles was an increased risk of predation. But they adapted by changing their behavior until the vegetation grew dorsum. In this extensive, existent-life field report, which used no controls, no manipulation and surveyed all agricultural activities, the information shows that actions like harvesting pose no threat to the voles. Quite the reverse of what armchair "experts" with an axe to grind claim about the impact of vegan nutrient tillage.

The Indonesian study on rice-field rats

In 2002, an international squad of scientists studied the move and populations of female rats before and after harvest in western Java.[4] This species of rat, rattus argentiventer, is has been creatively named the rice-field rat, because it's found in, yous guessed it – rice fields! And this study over again shows how intelligent and adaptable rodents are, no thing what species they are or what continent they live on. Every bit nosotros've seen, rodents in other places have been observed leaving the fields and moving to the borders of the fields or a nearby forested area. Like their cousins elsewhere, rice-field rats in Republic of indonesia live in wild patches on the borders of farms and venture into cultivated areas for foraging. But when the rice is harvested, the rats actually shifted base of operations into the fields. Why? Because post-harvest, at that place are big stacks of rice straw left in the fields to dry (they're used every bit provender for cattle). Although the home range of these rats temporarily decreased past 67% and the altitude of their forays shrank by 35%, they actually relocated an boilerplate of 367 meters to exploit better opportunities bachelor elsewhere!

To belabor the obvious all the same again, it must be emphasized that harvesting did non kill these rats by the thousands, or hundreds, or even a scattering. In fact, even though harvesting increases risk of predation (which is a natural part of the lives of rodents), none of those who were radio-collared for the study were hunted by predators. Dissimilar common voles, these rats actually remained in the fields for another 2 or 3 weeks – perhaps because information technology seemed like a better option than seeking shelter elsewhere.

And what about baby mice?

Ok. But even if nosotros concede that small wild animals remain largely unharmed by agricultural equipment and can adapt to risks created by loss of cover, what about baby mice? Oh, why don't vegans intendance about baby mice? They are and then tiny, and blind, and helpless! It's ironic that the very people whose hearts drain for baby mice practice not feel the same pity for newborn chicks who are thrown into grinders in the egg manufacture, or male calves who are killed for milk production. To a vegan, the death of a unmarried babe mouse is a tragedy. What I have a trouble with, however, is the meat industry and its advocates exploiting such losses to endeavour and discredit the vegan manner of life.[5] So while acknowledging that the death of even a one baby mouse is a painful loss, let me put things into perspective.

The typical lifespan of a rodent is betwixt 12 and 36 months, depending on the species (smaller species accept shorter lifespans). Infant rodents are typically weaned by the time they are 3 weeks old, at which point they leave their nests and socialize with others of their age earlier dispersing. Assuming a lifespan of xv months (sixty weeks), a babe rodent is dependent on her parents for food and protection for 5% of her life. Dissimilarity this with human beings, who depend on their parents (and lodge) till they are 15 years sometime – for the commencement twenty% of their lives, assuming a lifespan of 75 years. Or elephants, who likewise need maternal intendance and protection for 20% of their lives. Or lions, who depend on their mothers and aunts for nutrient till they are 3 years old (16% to 20% of their lives). Which is to say, it's pretty astounding that a rodent can fend for herself for 95% (!!!) of her life. And when a combine harvester menacingly heads toward a wee lil' harvest mouse, there's a 95% probability that he won't exist all that blind and helpless.

And I thought vegans are the 'bleeding hearts'

Fine. But nevertheless not as awesome as a pasture, right?

Simple math explains why buying meat means killing more mice and birds and whatnots.

Ask someone well-nigh how livestock are raised, and nigh people imagine cows grazing on idyllic meadows, munching lazily on soft, green grass and smelling edelweiss while honeybees hum drunkenly around them. People think that manufactory farming is an ugly reality for "some" animals – and certainly not the ones they eat. Few people have an clue of the true scale of grain-based livestock farming. Worldwide, 91% of the world'southward beef cattle are raised on a diet of grain – thus spaketh the FAO.[6] And in industrialized countries such as the United States, around 97% of all cows are fattened on grain – or almost all of them.[7] So if y'all eat meat, chances are high that the animal was fed grain, even if the package comes with a "free-range", "pasture-grazed", or any other fancy label.

And since almost all of the world's meat is produced past cultivating grain as feed, it's pretty obvious that nigh all meat product puts wild animals at the aforementioned risks as cultivating grain for direct homo consumption. Worldwide, forty% of all grain is fed to livestock. In the United States, over 70% of all grain is fed to farm animals; in another countries, this proportion is even higher. So, even if your argument is, "Harvesting is a capital punishment to innocent mice! Vegans are rodent killers!!!", the fact remains that less than a tertiary equally many wild animals would exist dying today if the demand for meat didn't be. Just ask a Casio reckoner.

If yous're a wee mouse, idyllic pastures tin exist far from idyllic

Some people eat "grass fed", "pasture-raised", or another fancy-labeled meat, fifty-fifty paying premium for it, because they want to do the "right affair". They sincerely believe that grass-fed meat is better for the environment. Let's say that you're i of the more conscientious meat eaters who only eats grass-fed cows. That sure means that all the mice, voles, pikas, gerbils, prairie dogs or tuco-tucos on that pasture are safe, right? Right? Meat companies would certainly like you to believe this lie. In reality, grazing does exactly what mechanized mowers or combine harvesters exercise – reduce tall, luxuriant grass to something resembling the head of a bipolar hedgehog. Enquiry indicates that small animals are even more at risk of predation on a pasture, specially since, unlike cultivated areas, they have no forested areas to escape to.

A digression

In 2003, Prof. Stephen Davis wrote a paper that essentially argued that practices such as mechanized harvesting kill more animals per hectare than, say, dull grazing by cattle – therefore, eating big herbivores (he recommended cows, not elephants or horses) might be more ethical than raising crops.[A] This was music to the ears of meat manufacture supporters, who have shared it widely, despite the fact that it was soundly refuted the very year that it was published. For one, Davis' assertion was non based on any field studies. He cherry-picked data that supported his signal of view and did some back-of-the-paw calculations. Without conducting controlled studies, he assumed that pasture grazing kills just half as many wild animals per hectare as crop tillage. Well, even if we assume that effigy to exist accurate, he is still incorrect, because it takes only a tenth as much country to produce poly peptide from soy and corn, versus grass-fed beef. In a detailed rebuttal, Gaverick Matheny explains that even using Davis' own figures, the average vegan'southward nutrition kills 0.3 animals a twelvemonth (or one wild creature every 3 years), whereas an omnivore who eats "upstanding" pasture-grazed beef causes the death of 1.5 wild animals each year.[B] Almost meat eaters eat grain-fed livestock.

An American report on grey-tailed voles living on pasture state showed that their numbers were reduced by more than fifty% when the pasture was mowed or grazed.[8] That's a lot of dead and missing voles!!! Those who didn't die suffered from "disrupted social organizations" and forced pregnant females to carelessness homes and territories. Other studies also suggest that grazing causes widespread devastation on seemingly peaceful pastures. Simply don't believe it considering I say and then; here'due south what some field studies say:

"Large herbivores swallow the same vegetation every bit many rodents and they therefore have the potential to compete for food resources. They too reduce vegetation peak and embrace through trampling and grazing, which may damage nests and increase the exposure of small mammals to predation. The factors mentioned tin can all lower species richness."

Froeschke and Matthee, 2014 [nine]

"Although owls seem to search for areas in which vegetation is sparse, transforming an entire pasture through intensive grazing would decimate small mammal numbers."

Marsh et al., 2014 [10]

"The [ungrazed expanse] supported 45% more grass cover, a comparatively heterogeneous grass community, and significantly more than herb cover than the grazed pasture. … Various studies have shown that livestock exclusion may even accelerate woody plant growth in Southwestern rangelands. … Several of the species more abundant in the grazed area may be valuable indicators of desertification. … Collectively, grazing appeared to favor birds over rodents."

Bock et al., 1984 [11]

"Despite the relatively recent cattle grazing history in the study region, cattle appear already to have altered vegetation composition in areas where they have grazed more heavily. Total vegetation cover showed a tendency to remain higher in areas where grazing intensity had been historically light."

Frank et al., 2013 [12]

Livestock farmers actively kill wild fauna

Okay, so you shouldn't read this department if y'all're peculiarly sensitive, in a bad mood, or prone to nausea. I'm certain yous already know what happens when a special interest group lobbies the government to apply public funds – your tax coin – to advance their interests. I'yard certain you're aware of what bank bailouts have done to the world economy. And how oil companies get no more than a rap on the knuckles when they destroy a marine ecosystem. Or how the conventional car manufacture stalled progress on electric vehicle engineering, or industrial lobbies have spent billions (on media and politicians) to confusing the public about the undeniable reality of climatic change.

But you lot probably exercise not know about all the wild animals that are massacred on behalf of livestock farmers. Many of us know well-nigh the fell reality of factory farming and slaughterhouses, the impairment caused to the Amazon rainforest by ranchers, and even all the oceanic fish that are killed to support livestock farming. Only I'k talking about wildlife specifically killed at the behest of livestock farmers. Even if they never attacked livestock. With your taxation money.

This happens all around the world. In America and Canada, wolves and coyotes are routinely poisoned, trapped or shot from helicopters for eating into farmers' profits, prairie dogs for eating grass, geese for nesting or pooping, or competing with grazing livestock. Information technology's not too unlike in the U.k., which too culls animals like badgers for supposedly hurting the profits of dairy farmers. Australia has killed almost 90 million kangaroos and wallabies in the by 20 years nether the alibi that they're at "plague proportions" (and I idea that sheep and cows are the non-native invasive species in that location). Individual incidents like these make the news if someone creates a petition, or organizes a protest, or speaks out on social media. What is not apparent, all the same, is the mind-boggling scale of killing carried out, often by government agencies, covertly, using your tax coin, on behalf of individual businesses and individuals, only so that livestock farmers tin can brand a picayune extra profit. These include techniques such equally gassing, trapping animals in steel snares and letting them starve and die from mutilation, using dogs to rip open live victims, burying them live in their own dens, shooting them from helicopters, and fifty-fifty using phosphorous bombs to kill helpless cubs. By the hundreds.

Just don't take my discussion for it. Here's what publicly available data from the ironically-named Wildlife Services unit says about wild animals killed in 2014. At the behest of the livestock farming lobby, the USDA killed around 322 wolves, 580 black bears, 800 bobcats, 61700 coyotes (too destroyed 425 homes), 5500 deer, 300 badgers, 2950 foxes, 8600 gophers (with 1162 homes destroyed) and sixteen,000 prairie dogs (with 73,560 homes destroyed). In addition to these massacres, they likewise systematically killed 22,500 beavers, 325,000 blackbirds, 4000 cardinals, 730 feral cats, 2090 coots, 16,560 cormorants, 542,231 cowbirds, 20,600 crows and ravens, 112,200 doves and pigeons, 6400 francolins, 21,400 geese, 100,730 grackles, 800 hares, 2560 marmots (with 1600 homes destroyed), 5500 skunks (and thirty nests) and 5000 vultures. All in all, they killed ii,713,570 wild animals, destroyed 79,845 homes, and rendered over 27,632,200 animals without territories or dwelling ranges. All this in just one year.

And livestock industry minions mutter nearly all the mice supposedly killed for vegan food production.

Final Thoughts

In many means, the controversy over the upstanding toll of the vegan diet is similar to the controversy over climatic change. Almost all evidence from field studies and controlled experiments clearly shows that climatic change is significant and caused by homo activity. And nevertheless, industrial groups accept orchestrated a controversy using ads, paid articles, hired "experts" and blog posts that double as press releases. They do not care to be correct; their intention is to build an alternative narrative sow seeds of uncertainty in the heed of their client, the boilerplate person. And so to the average person, climate modify is unproven or benign, development is "just a theory", and vegans are arrogant hypocrites.

On one manus, this obfuscation of facts is driven by corporate greed, by an industry that wants to maintain status quo. On the other hand, it'southward ardently supported past some meat consumers – regular people – who are defensive about their lifestyle choices. They exercise not want to exist role of modify in whatever form, want to be right all the time, and feel threatened by anything that challenges their assumptions, their habits and patterns of thinking.

And then you get articles like those written by Mike Archer. Strangely (or not), they are written past a scientist who makes bizarre statements without offering any citation or sources (I'm not a scientist, and yet this article lists xiv references). Their choice of words, captions and title are clearly intended to provoke a reaction from vegans, perhaps hoping that they would make an emotional error and say something stupid. They are written by a paleontologist who, similar the physicist Due south. Fred Vocaliser who lobbied for tobacco and Big Oil, is writing on topics he probably has no expertise in. One of his posts was written for The Chat, which is funded by the CSIRO, which actively partners with livestock farming corporations. It's hard to take their claim of "no affiliations" seriously. Ironically, his life's piece of work has been to bring back the thylacine through cloning, although it was the livestock farming industry that caused its extinction in the beginning place. It would be hilarious if it weren't so deplorable.

Social alter, even overwhelmingly positive change, is hard. We are emotional beings, and our consumption choices are driven by habits and culture, rather than our all-time interests. And yet information must be shared freely and evidently, in the hope that eventually, improve sense will prevail over the egotistical need to be right all the time. And therefore, the malicious lie that vegans cause the deaths of more animals than meat eaters must be crushed whenever information technology crops up.

This article was republished on Free From Harm.

References

[1] Tew, T. E., & Macdonald, D. West. (1993). The effects of harvest on arable wood mice Apodemus sylvaticus. Biological Conservation, 65(3), pp. 279-283. Available at: http://world wide web.sciencedirect.com/science/commodity/pii/000632079390060E
[ii] Cavia, R., Villafañe, I. E. G., Cittadino, E. A., Bilenca, D. Northward., Miño, 1000. H., & Busch, M. (2005). Effects of cereal harvest on affluence and spatial distribution of the rodent Akodon azarae in fundamental Argentine republic. Agronomics, ecosystems & environment, 107(1), pp. 95-99. Bachelor at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167880904002944
[3] Jacob, J., & Hempel, N. (2003). Effects of farming practices on spatial behaviour of common voles. Periodical of Ethology, 21(1), pp. 45-50. Available at: http://link.springer.com/commodity/x.1007/s10164-002-0073-8#folio-1
[4] Jacob, J., Nolte, D., & Hartono, R. (2003). Pre-and post-harvest movements of female rice-field rats in W Javanese rice fields. Available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1249&context=icwdm_usdanwrc
[v] This, by the fashion, is a logical fallacy known equally Moral Equivalence. Shame on you lot, Meat Industry. You lot're amateurs.
[6] De Haan, C., Steinfeld, H., & Blackburn, H. (1997). Livestock & the environment: Finding a balance (p. 115). Rome,, Italy: European Committee Advisers-General for Development, Development Policy Sustainable Development and Natural Resources. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5303E/x5303e00.htm#Contents
[vii] Data from the National Resource Defence force Council. Bachelor at: http://world wide web.nrdc.org/food/ameliorate-beef-production/feedlot-operations.asp
[8] Edge, Westward. D., Wolff, J. O., & Carey, R. L. (1995). Density-dependent responses of gray-tailed voles to mowing. The Journal of wild animals management, pp. 245-251. Bachelor at: http://world wide web.jstor.org/stable/3808937?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[ix] Froeschke, G., & Matthee, S. (2014). Landscape characteristics influence helminth infestations in a peri-domestic rodent-implications for possible zoonotic disease. Parasites & vectors, 7(1), pp. 1-13. Bachelor at: http://world wide web.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1756-3305-7-393.pdf
[x] Marsh, A., Wellicome, T. I., & Bayne, E. (2014). Influence of vegetation on the nocturnal foraging behaviors and vertebrate prey capture by endangered Burrowing Owls. Avian Conservation and Ecology, 9(ane), 2. Available at: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Troy_Wellicome/publication/260634860_Influence_of_Vegetation_on_the_Nocturnal_Foraging_Behaviors_and_Vertebrate_Prey_Capture_by_Endangered_Burrowing_Owls/links/0046353aba61a2ffcb000000.pdf
[11] Bock C.Due east., Bock J.H., Kenney W.R. & Hawthorne Five.Yard. (1984) Responses of birds, rodents, and vegetation to livestock exclosure in a semidesert grassland site. Periodical of Range Management, 37, pp. 239-242. Available at: https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jrm/article/view/7711/7323
[12] Frank, A. Southward., Dickman, C. R., Wardle, Thou. K., & Greenville, A. C. (2013). Interactions of grazing history, cattle removal and time since rain drive divergent short-term responses by desert biota. Available at: http://world wide web.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3713037/
[A] Davis, Southward. L. (2003). The least harm principle may require that humans consume a nutrition containing large herbivores, non a vegan nutrition. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ideals, 16(four), pp. 387-394. Bachelor at: https://www.morehouse.edu/facstaff/nnobis/papers/Davis-LeastHarm.htm
[B] Matheny, Grand. (2003). To the lowest degree harm: A defense of vegetarianism from Steven Davis'south omnivorous proposal. Periodical of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, xvi(v), pp. 505-511. Available at: http://fewd.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Matheny__G._2003_Defense_of_Veg__in_J._Agric_Ethics.pdf