Q: How bad are pets for our environment? How much would a cat or dog cost if you had to buy an emissions certificate?
Asked by Gerald from Frankfurt, Germany
We love our animals. The American Pet Products Association reported in their 2011-12 survey that 62 percent of U.S. households include pets. Personally, I’m a cat person. I have countless stories about our overweight tuxedo cat, Cuddles, getting himself into trouble in our neighbor’s yard. But no matter your companion animal of choice, pets provide excellent therapeutic value with recorded health benefits. Pet owners generally make fewer visits to the doctor, suffer from depression less frequently, and have lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels than their pet-less peers. Playing with a pet can release serotonin and dopamine, chemicals associated with feelings of well-being and happiness. Unfortunately, these benefits do come at an environmental cost that is rarely discussed. For most cats and dogs, the “cost” in carbon offsets would be less than $45 per year. But the true environmental cost of pet ownership can be much higher.
Put simply, the biggest environmental problem with owning a pet is that they are living animals, and thus eat and poop. And since our favorite pets—cats and dogs—are carnivores, their impact is higher than veggie lovers, such as rabbits or guinea pigs. Carnivore pet food is primarily made of beef, poultry, grains and flour. All of this requires cropland to sustain, and raising a cow to turn into beef to feed your dog requires more land and grain than growing carrots for your rabbit.
One of the most shocking pet impacts may come not from something we feed our pets, but the food they seek on their own. Roly-poly Cuddles actually moonlights as a vicious feline hunter, killing birds and mice every day. About 44 percent of roaming housecats did, according to a recent “kitty cam” study in Athens, Ga. It might surprise you that currently, housecats are the number one cause of bird deaths in North America, with over 500 million birds slaughtered each year (half by pets, half by feral cats). This could endanger avian species or disrupt the ecological balance of an area, such as an increase in termites as woodpeckers are hunted out.
What comes out of our pets can be just as damaging as what goes in, but we’ll save the elimination details for the Nitty-gritty answer.
What can the concerned pet owner do? The first step is to consider whether you might not be a bunny person, just as much as a cat or dog person. But SAGE understands that dogs and cats have their special appeal, and switching species isn’t as simple as switching brands of coffee. Some groups advocate keeping kitties indoors, and point to resources to make sure they stay happy and healthy there. Others recommend bells or other devices to sabotage your feline’s hunting attempts. For dogs, lower-impact food is available, made with a higher percentage of grains and other plant material. And for any species, adopting animals from a shelter helps keep total populations—and thus, impact—lower. The same goes for making sure your companions are spayed or neutered.
At the end of the day, raising carnivores will always carry an environmental cost. But taking a little care can help lighten your pet’s impact, and your own.
Brady Hamed, '12, is an earth systems major.
