← on nowLGR-029 · v0.1.0 · model · estimate How many chickens, ducks, turkeys are killed every second, every day, every year?
chickens, ducks, turkeys · culled for bird flu · estimated
killed by humans
120 million
a year
3.8
a second
328,542
a day
found infected
?
a fraction. if one bird tests positive the whole shed is killed. gassed, foamed, or the ventilation shut off. not eaten. buried or composted.
method WOAH and national reports of birds culled in HPAI outbreaks, annualised over 2021–2025.
- over half a billion birds since 2021. the disease is a product of the sheds it is meant to protect: forty thousand near-identical birds in one room is how a virus learns.source: WOAH; USDA APHIS; Nature 2023
- in 2024 the same virus walked into american dairy herds, and then into people who milk them.source: CDC; USDA 2024-25
- these are on the animal ledger. they were killed by humans. nobody counts them as slaughter.source: methodology note
live. this is the channel itself. embed it anywhere:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?channel=chickens%2C%20ducks%2C%20turkeys" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · chickens, ducks, turkeys"></iframe>
or the whole broadcast, every channel, the same for everyone:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?embed=1" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · on now, everywhere"></iframe>
how this number is built
- method
- WOAH and national reports of birds culled in HPAI outbreaks, annualised over 2021–2025.
- range
- 50–200 million/yr, highly variable by year
- confidence
- estimate
- weakness
- outbreak years differ tenfold; the annual figure is an average, not a rate.
- dispute
- dispute LGR-029 · corrections are credited
- data
- channels.json (sign-in) · full entry · CC BY 4.0