Can you guess how many animals live in Australia?

For a start, every year, about 500 million cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and other farm animals call Australia home.  That’s 30 times the human population of Australia!  In our homes, we have 29 million companion animals 1 (mostly dogs and cats) - some even share our bed! We don't know how many kangaroos are out bush and can’t possibly count the other billions of animals living in the wild on land and in our aquatic and marine environments.

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Facts and figures about animals in Australia

• 335,000 female pigs (sows) are kept inside sheds continually pregnant and confined.2 This is equivalent to the whole population of the ACT. 62% of sows live in ‘sow crates’ for part of their reproductive cycle.3 Sow crates are 0.6m x 2.0m. Sows are not able to turn around or take more than one step forward or back.4 Around the world 1 billion pigs are killed for pork products every year.5 5 million pigs are killed in Australia 6 and more than 90% of these are raised in intensive conditions.7
  
  
• Around 10 million 'battery' hens are held in bare wire cages in Australia 8 - that’s nearly half our population! Each hen has just 450sqcm - 550sqcm of space (less than an A4 size piece of paper), with not even enough space to stretch her wings fully, to freely move or to exercise.9
  
  
• More than 4 million sheep and over 572,000 cattle were shipped abroad from Australia in 2005. Tens of thousands die as a direct result of the difficult journey each year (over 24,000 sheep in 2004).10
  
  
• Other animals are hunted, experimented on or just abandoned on the street by uncaring people.
  
  
• 30 million kangaroos have been shot over the last decade.11 A further 3 million young at foot joeys (young kangaroos) have been orphaned, left to starve or been eaten by other animals such as packs of wild dogs.12
  
  
• Approximately 6.5 million animals (including lots of mice as well as some monkeys, horses and dogs) are used in research and teaching in Australia.13 Many of these experiments can be replaced by existing alternative research methods.
  
  
• 130,000 dogs and 60,000 cats are killed each year in pounds because they have been abandoned.14
  
  
• About 34,000 native animals are killed on Australian roads every day.15 Multiply this by 365 days of the year – and you get a very large number in the millions! Their pouch young often die slowly from the cold or starvation if they survive the initial collision.

1. Pet Ownership in Australia: Australian Pet Ownership Statistics 2002, Petnet: Promoting Socially Responsible Pet Ownership, www.petnet.com.au/statistics.html, at 11 April 2006..
2. Voiceless, From Paddocks to Prisons: Pigs in New South Wales, Australia. Current Practices, Future Directions, (December 2005), 27
3. Voiceless, From Paddocks to Prisons: Pigs in New South Wales, Australia. Current Practices, Future Directions, (December 2005), 15
4. Voiceless, From Paddocks to Prisons: Pigs in New South Wales, Australia. Current Practices, Future Directions, (December 2005), 15
5. Intensive Farming and The Welfare of Farm Animals, Compassion in World Farming Trust, www.ciwf.org.uk/publications/Teachers/ITFWFA.pdf, at 11 April 2006.
6. Australian Pork, Australian Pig Industry Handbook: Australian Pig Annual 2004, 39.
7. Voiceless, From Paddocks to Prisons: Pigs in New South Wales, Australia. Current Practices, Future Directions, (December 2005), 19
8. Make a Choice – Battery Cages, RSPCA Australia, www.rspca.org.au/campaign/battery.asp, at 28 March 2006.
9. Make a Choice – Battery Cages, RSPCA Australia, www.rspca.org.au/campaign/battery.asp, at 28 March 2006
10. Live Export - the Issues, Animals Australia, www.animalsaustralia.org/default2.asp?idL1=1272&idL2=1283&idL3=1630, at 28 March 2006.
11. Maryland Wilson and David B. Croft, A Sampling of Kangaroos Myths & Realities, Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc, p 2
12. Maryland Wilson and David B. Croft, Kangaroos Myths & Realities , Australian Wildlife Protection Council Inc, p 6 (as updated 2005) and p 111.
13. Australian Association for Humane Research Inc, www.aahr.asn.au, at 28 March 2006
14. Say No to Animals in Pet shops, www.saynotoanimalsinpetshops.com, at 28 March 2006
15. Dr Daniel Ramp, Road Ecology Research Group, University of New South Wales, personal comment.
    

These facts and figures have been compiled from a number of sources including www.savebabe.com, Animals Australia www.animalsaustralia.org, Australian Association for Humane Research www.aahr.asn.au, Australian Wildlife Protection Council www.awpc.org.au, Say No to Animals in Petshops www.saynotoanimalsinpetshops.com, and Petnet www.petnet.com.au/statistics.html