Cost-effectiveness of animal charities

This page surveys work done by animal charities and the evidence that it works. It also sketches some rough estimates of cost-effectiveness. We focus on the areas that we find most promising (the food industry and suffering in the wild).

What do animal charities do?
Animal charities work in a wide variety of areas, but often focus on abandoned or abused pets. Other popular areas are animals used in labs, the fur industry, entertainment, and factory farms.

Which are the most important areas?
At this early stage of analysis, we find the food industry and suffering in the wild to be especially promising, from the perspective of doing as much good for animals for the resources used.

The vast majority of all animal suffering likely occurs "naturally" in the wild (animals eating each other, etc.), while the food industry probably accounts for the bulk of animal suffering caused by humans.

Factory-farmed animals
The number of animals killed in the food industry (even excluding seafood) dwarfs the number killed in shelters, for fur, and in labs combined; and the vast majority of these are raised in factory farms. So what's the quality of life of farm animals? People disagree but the table below shows an estimate by Bailey Norwood, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University.

It is unclear whether Norwood's estimates take into account slaughter and transportation to slaughter, and they probably disregard killing of male chicks in the egg industry. Either way, the welfare of veal calves, cage hens, and sows in gestation crates are well below a life worth living.

Brian believes these numbers are far too positive. He would rather not exist than live as any factory-farmed animal. In any event, Brian feels that even if beef cows have positive lives -- implausible given how brutal their slaughter can be -- their happiness can't be as intense as the suffering of battery hens and veal calves.

Cage hens (and perhaps meat chickens) probably account for the bulk of the suffering in farming. For each slaughtered cow, three pigs and 250 chickens are slaughtered (in the US). Laying hens in standard cages suffer greatly (based on Norwood's estimates) and, unfortunately, around 95% of all US eggs are cage eggs. In addition, chickens are not covered under the federal Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, and some fraction of chickens are not properly stunned, leading them to drown in boiling water in defeathering tanks while still conscious.

Seafood industry
The number of animals killed by the seafood industry probably dwarfs the numbers in other industries, such as farms, labs, and fur; and the time from catch to death involves great suffering for the individual animal. This, combined with the opportunity to make catch and killing methods more humane, make the seafood industry a promising area. A counterargument could be that the sea animal would have died a death at least as painful under natural conditions, so the seafood industry does not cause extra suffering; it merely shortens the sea animal's life. But even if that is correct, we could still reduce a lot of suffering by improving the seafood industry's methods for catching, handling, and killing the sea animals -- for example, by using electric methods to stun before killing.

Some have also argued that fishing may lead, in the long run, to larger numbers of smaller fish rather than fewer larger fish. If wild fish don't have lives worth living on account of short livespans, then increasing populations through overfishing would be bad.

Natural wild-animal suffering
Most animal suffering is not caused by humans but instead occurs "naturally" in the wild (animals killing each other, diseases, etc.). The number of animals in the wild is much larger than those killed or kept by humans, and it's widely agreed that all vertebrates can suffer, including most likely, fish. The suffering they endure (e.g. being eaten alive) seems on a par with the worst things humans do to animals.

Besides wild mammals, fish, and the like, the suffering among insects and other invertebrates is a potentially important area that is often overlooked (given how many insects there are, and some likelihood that they suffer).

Wild-animal suffering caused by humans
Wildlife and pest control (e.g., rodents in crop fields) may be one of the areas where humans cause the most animal suffering. We are not aware of any information on the number of animals killed, but we guess it could be huge. Adopting humane control methods is a promising intervention, especially since (in contrast to vegetarianism or veganism) only farmers would have to change their behavior, and one would probably not fight against as strong corporate interests as in the food industry. [These are hypotheses, need analysis]

Natural wild-animal suffering
The closest we have seen to a charities that work on reducing suffering that occurs naturally in the wild, are charities that take in sick, injured, or orphaned wild animals, provide care, and return them to the wild when they are ready. . However, we would guess that this is not cost-effective.

Wildlife and pest control
PETA does some work on cruel wildlife control (drowning, trapping, bird poison, and glue traps), but there may be better interventions.

One fairly concrete intervention would be to directly subsidize humane pest control so that it's in people's self-interest to buy it.

[To be researched more]

Does it work?
This section lists the most impressive achievements that we are aware of in the food industry. We have generally not vetted the achievements, just taken them from the charities themselves. If these achievements are correct, several of them seem to entail great reductions in animal suffering. For example, several achievements involve banning or stopping purchase of standard US cage eggs. Assuming this means a shift to cage-free production, laying hens would go from a minus 8 quality of life in the cage system to a plus 2 in the cage-free (according to Prof. Norwood's welfare estimates).

Politics & law

 * HSUS has maybe the strongest list of achievements in politics that we have seen, listing achievements for each year 2006-2011. For example, it sounds like HSUS helps pass around 90 animal laws per year. Achievements include California's 2008 Proposition 2, which bans veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates by 2015. Another achievement is a 2010 agreement with Ohio Gov. and agriculture industry that e.g. banned new sow gestation crates after 2010 and put a moratorium on new battery cage permits for laying hens.


 * Anonymous for Animal Rights says it has stopped several practices in Israel: force-feeding of geese and ducks, water deprivation and isolation of veal calves, dehorning of cows without anesthetics, vivisection in schools, etc.


 * ALDF, an animal charity founded by attorneys, regularly does lawsuits to stop animal abuse and expand animal law. For example, in 2012, ADLF (in cooperation with another charity COK) sued a chicken hatchery in Santa Cruz for abuse, which led to the hatchery closing down.


 * ALDF also drafted a ballot initiative in 2001 to outlaw gestation crates, which became law in 2002 (according to ALDF).


 * AWI prompted the US National Organic Standards Board to increase the minimum space for pigs in USDA's organic program (in 2011).

Influence companies and the like

 * PETA implies it was a cause of these changes: Burger King and Wendy's adopt animal welfare standards. McDonald's makes basic animal welfare improvements. Safeway demands higher animal welfare from its suppliers (Safeway agreed to e.g. increase the amount of pig from suppliers that don't use gestation crates by 5 percent over each of the next three years). Puerto Rico's largest poultry company switches to gas killing. Online grocer FreshDirect to stop selling foie gras.


 * MFA caused Costco to stop selling veal from producers using crate-and-chain method, and Giant Eagle grocers to boycott egg from producers who force molt their hens (depriving them of light and food to shock them into a laying cycle). Also, after talks with MFA, Costco and Kmart agreed to phase out gestation crates from their pork suppliers.


 * HSUS has led the nationwide campaign for cage-free eggs. It says it has, along with sister organizations, convinced over 300 colleges/universities to use cage-free eggs in their dining halls.


 * The Humane League says that it has made 60 institutions (colleges etc.) go cage-free.

Consumer behavior

 * The Humane League did a survey of Facebook ads linking to a video of the animal industry. Visitors can "like" the video and/or order a "vegetarian starter kit." Some of those who pressed the like button or ordered a kit where contacted by the charity and asked about changed food consumption after visiting the video web site. The majority of respondents said that they had reduced their consumption of animal products, and around 3% said that they had increased their consumption.
 * The Humane League did a survey in 2010(?) of people who ordered a Vegetarian Starter Pack in response to online postings (people were contacted 3-6 months after their order). The study found that 40-80% reduced their animal consumption (depending on which animal product) and that around 5% increased their consumption.

Cost-effectiveness
We are not aware of any information on how much was spent to create changes in legislation and organizations' behavior (e.g. McDonald's and colleges). One would likely need to ask the charities, or alternatively, list what important achivements a charity makes in a typical year and put that in relation to the charity's annual budget.

We are aware of some information on how much it cost to do online veg ads from a study made by Nick Cooney at The Humane League (which includes follow-up survey to measure results). Brian used it to make a rough cost-effectiveness estimate below.

California's Proposition 2
Prop 2 (described above) bans veal crates, battery cages, and sow gestation crates by 2015. HSUS says it "drove passage of" the prop. According to the Wikipedia entry, $10.6 million was donated to pass it.

Veg ads
According to Brian, veg ads are probably the most efficient way to promote vegetarianism, because unlike leaflet distribution, there's almost no human time cost. Brian's piece "Donating toward Efficient Online Veg Ads" goes into details about veg ads being run by The Humane League. It includes the survey described above from The Humane League's Nick Cooney assessing changes in people's meat consumption upon seeing the landing page for the ads. Toward the end, the piece estimates that $1 donated to veg ads conservatively buys
 * 123 days of suffering on a factory farm avoided
 * 20 fish not painfully slaughtered
 * "return on investment effects" by creating people who will later donate to more veg outreach
 * increased concern for animal suffering, which may eventually extend to wild animals

Brian's view
This section contains Brian's views that Simon diagrees with.

Brian's stack rank for cost-effectiveness
1. The Humane League -- veg ads + follow-up research

2. VegFund -- veg ads

3. Vegan Outreach -- paper leaflets

4. Mercy for Animals -- investigations

...

Humane Slaughter Association -- supporting humane-slaughter research

Humane Society of the United States -- lobbying for humane slaughter, cage-free eggs

...

PETA -- investigations, lobbying for humane slaughter

(other groups)

HSUS has a $100 million annual budget. HSUS also spends a fair fraction of money on pets and other less effective causes, so it's probably not the best donation choice per dollar.

Brian's view on animal charities vs human charities
Animals can suffer in similar ways as humans, but people have fewer natural inclinations to help animals than to help other humans. Animals cannot vote, trade, or fight for their own interests. In addition, there are orders of magnitude more animals than humans on earth. These factors imply that charity to reduce animal suffering should have far more low-hanging fruit than charity to help humans.

Remaining questions

 * Are there any promising interventions that charities do on humane wildlife and pest control, does it work, and what's the cost-effectiveness? Simon would guess that cost-effective areas include pest control in agriculture, e.g. that crop farmers switch to a humane method to keep rodents away. But there could be other areas and Simon doesn't know if any charity is working on this.
 * Are there any promising direct actions that charities do in the food industry and to reduce wild-animal suffering? (And as usual, if so, do they work, what's the cost-effectiveness?) To clarify: examples of direct action in the food industry could be to rescue chickens or to physically obstruct whale hunters. This question is important because direct actions are usually easier to evaluate than e.g. trying to pass legislation or changing consumer behavior, but Simon is not aware of many direct actions in the food industri and to reduce wild-animal suffering, and not of any that seem cost-effective.
 * Are there other areas that we have missed with likely cost-effectiveness competitive with those on the page (food industry, natural suffering in the wild, and wildlife and pest control)? Simon has in mind tangible areas like those on the page, or more tangible.
 * What was the concrete result of interventions generally? For example, if a college switched to cage-free eggs, what was the new production system, and what's the difference for animals between the old and the new situation? And what welfare changes did McDonald's etc. end up doing as a result of PETA's work?
 * What information is available on how much resources it took to cause the changes?