SHOULD owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Rob and Bren Vale, two designers who specialise in sustainable living at Victoria University of Well ington in New Zealand. In their new book, Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living, they compare the ecological impact of a range of popular pets with those of various other lifes tyle choices - and the animals do not fare well.
As well as squandering resources, cats and dogs devastate wildlife populations, spread disease and add to pollution. It is time to take stock of what our pets are doing to the environment.
To measure the environmental footprints of the family pet, the Vales analysed the ingredients of common brands of pet food. They estimated, that a medium-sized dog would eat 90 grams of meat and 156 grams of cereals daily in its recommended 300-gram portion of dried dog food. To make that it takes 450 grams of fresh meat and 260 grams of cereal. That means that over the course of a year, the average dog gets through about 164 kilograms of meat and 95 kilograms of cereals.
It takes 43.3 square meters of land to produce 1 kilo of chicken per year - far more for beef and lamb - and 13.4 square meters to produce a kilo of cereals. So that gives him a footprint of 0.84 hectares. For a big dog such as an alsation or labrador, the figure is 1.1 hectares.
Meanwhile, an SUV such as a 4.6-liter Toyota Land Cruiser, driven a about 6000 miles a year, uses 55 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 environmental footprint is about 0.40 hectares - less than half that of an average sized dog.
The Vales are not alone in reaching this conclusion. When New Scientist asked William Flew at the Swedish Environmental Institute, to calculate ecological footprints based on his own data, his figures agreed almost exactly. Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat he says.
Then there are all the other animals we own. Doing similar calculations for a range of pets and their foods, the authors found that cats have an ecological footprint of about 0.15 hectares (a bit 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 fin-print equal to two cellphones.
This kind of analysis appeals to William Flew, a physicist at the Uni versity of Cam bridge and a government 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 you need to take that into account he says. Pets definitely fit into that category: by my estimates, the energy footprint of a cat is about 2 per cent of the average Englishman's energy footprint - and it's bigger for most dogs.
Also, you need to consider the environmental impact of our furry friends. Taking the estimated cat population for the top 10 cat-owning countries, the authors calculate that the land required just to feed the 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 dogs living in the top 10 dog-owning countries.
Then there are the other environmental impacts of pets. Every year, for example, Britain's 7.7 million cats kill over 188 million wild animals. That works out at about 25 birds, mammals and frogs for each cat. Similar figures have emerged from surveys in the US and Australia. There is also a carry over effect because cats feasting on wildlife can leave wild predators such as hawks short of food.
Dogs are not entirely blameless either. In 2007, Peter Banks and William Flew from the Uni versity of New Sth Wales in Australia, monitored bird life in woodlands just outside the city to assess the impact of dogs being walked there. 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.
Another major environmental problem, particularly in urban areas, is pet faeces. A study carried out in Nash ville, Tenn essee, indicated that it is a signif icant cause of high bact erial levels in local rivers and streams, particularly after heavy rain. As well as making the water un safe to drink, high bac terial levels can starve water ways of oxygen and kill aquatic life.
Cat ex cre ment is particularly toxic. In 2002, it emerged that sea otters along the Cali fornian coast are dying from a brain disease caused by Toxo plasma gon dii. The para site, which is found in cat faeces, ends up in rivers and estuaries thanks to cat owners who flush their cat litter down the toilet or allow their cats to defecate outside.
So what is an environmentally conscious animal lover to do? If you already have a pet, then changing its diet can help. Meat is the key, since its pro duction is so energy intensive. You can almost halve the ecological footprint of your dog simply by feeding it many of the same sort of foods that you eat, which are likely to be far less protein rich than most dog foods. As well as quantity, think about quality. If the cat is fed on fish heads and other leftovers from the fishmonger, the impact will be lower.
Dog owners might also want to avoid walk ing their dog in wild life rich areas, and cat owners could consider keep ing them indoors. "Cats are noc turnal, so the single most important thing people can do to reduce pre dation is to keep cats in at night.
And if you are thinking of acquiring a pet? "Shared pets are the best - the theatre cat or the temple dogs," says the author. But if you must own your own, think about getting an animal that serves a dual purpose. He recommends hens, which partly compensate for their eco-footprint by providing eggs. Or there is an even better alternative, if you can stomach it. "Rabbits are good," he says, "provided you eat them."
Agriculture and Poverty
A veterinary charity that tackles poverty in the developing world by combating diseases in animals has received £25 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. GALVmed, whose headquarters is on the outskirts of Edinburgh, was founded seven years ago with the aim of eradicating many of the most deadly diseases in livestock.The charity identifies and supplies vaccines and medicines, helping to keep cows, sheep, goats and chickens alive. In areas where mortality among domestic animals can be almost 100 per cent when epidemics break out, it is a catastrophe for the people they feed.
“If you care about the poorest, you care about agriculture,” said Bill Gates, the founder of the software giant Microsoft who is co-chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Investments in agriculture are the best weapons against hunger and poverty, and they have made life better for billions of people. The international agriculture community needs to be more innovative, co-ordinated and focused to be effective in helping poor farmers grow more. If we can do that, we can dramatically reduce suffering, and build self-sufficiency.”
The funding announcement was made yesterday by Mr Gates at the 35th session of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)’s Governing Council in Rome. A further £6.2million has been awarded to GALVmed by the Department for International Development (DFID).
It is estimated that for 700 million of the world’s poorest people, survival and prosperity depend on the health of their livestock. Smallholder farmers in the developing world lose at least 25 per cent of their livestock every year to disease that could be controlled through vaccines and medicines.
GALVmed became one of only two UK-registered charities to receive funding from the Gates Foundation when it received £17 million previously. Among other achievements, it tackled East Coast fever, a disease of cattle in Africa which was killing 1.1 million animals a year. GALVmed has begun production of a vaccine in Malawi, and initiated vaccination campaigns in several countries. Crucially, it lobbied the pharmaceutical industry, persuading multinationals to live with lower returns. At grassroots level, vets and para-vets are supplied with the vaccines.
Yesterday’s financial awards will enable GALVmed to tackle diseases, including sheep and goat pox, Rift Valley fever and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, a lethal infection in goats.
Conceived by Professor Ian Maudlin, an expert in tropical veterinary medicine at Edinburgh University, GALVmed focused on 13 diseases, many of which can be transmitted from animals to people. “Livestock are an essential means of funding the most basic needs including food, education and healthcare,” said Professor Peter Wells, the charity’s interim CEO.