Debunking Mike Archer’s ethical case (and bad statistics) for eating grass-fed meat.

Getting your protein from grass-fed beef does not spare more sentient animal lives than plant-based sources.

For nearly a decade Professor Mike Archer at the University of New South Wales has accused vegetarians and vegans of having ‘more animal blood’ on their hands.¹ ²  He claims that getting your protein from plants instead of (grass-fed) meats will end up costing the lives of at least 25 times more sentient animals. Although this claim has gone viral as an ethical rebuke of plant-based diets, it is not empirically true. Not even close to what he figures.

Mike’s claim rests upon poor attempts to estimate and compare the number of sentient animals killed producing a kilogram of protein from wheat grain to grass-fed beef. There are two problems with his estimation. First, his model grossly exaggerates how many rodent deaths occur during grain production. Second, it fails to measure for animal life lost in grass-fed beef production beyond the slaughtered cattle. Some simple corrections to Mike’s estimates reveal that even an inefficient plant protein source like wheat grain will harm fewer sentient creatures than the most ‘ethical’ option available to meat eaters - grass-fed beef. His comparison of choice inadvertently ends up strengthening the ethical case for a plant-based diet.

Lives lost for 100kg of protein: Mike’s case for beef over wheat.

Mike’s ethical argument for choosing meat over plants as a protein source fixes on the number of sentient animals killed producing 100kg of protein from wheat grain compared to grass-fed beef.  He claims that the plant-based source kills upwards of 25 times more sentient creatures compared to the meat option.  This statistic comes from his estimate of how many mice will be poisoned to death by grain growers during plague seasons in Australia.

According to Australia’s national science agency, the CSIRO, the country’s grain growing regions are hit by a mouse plague every four years on average.³  Assuming mouse densities reach 500 per hectare in plague conditions and 80% are poisoned in baiting efforts, Mike figures that ‘[a]t least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year (500/4 × 0.8) to grow grain.’⁴  If a hectare yields 1.4 tonnes of grain and wheat is 13% protein, then growers can produce 182kg of wheat-based protein per hectare.  To supply 100kg of protein, 0.55 hectares of cropland must be cultivated.  Mike concludes that 55 mice are killed per 100kg of plant protein.

He then estimates that 2.2 grass-fed cows must be slaughtered to produce 100kg of protein.  The calculation assumes an average carcase weight of 288kg, lean meat yield rate of 68%, and useable protein conversion rate of 23%.  According to these measurements, a beef cow will yield 45kg of protein.

If it is correct that 100kg of protein from wheat kills 55 mice whereas grass-fed beef only involves 2.2 cattle slaughters, then choosing the plant-based option will entail 25 times more death.  Neither of these estimates are any accurate, however.

How Mike grossly exaggerates rodent deaths in grain production.

Mike asserts ‘[a]t least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year’ in grain production.  This calculation hinges on a big assumption.  As others have already pointed out,⁵ he must presuppose that every last hectare of cereal grain cropland is subject to mouse infestations and baiting.  For Mike’s assertion is only plausible if mouse plagues blanket a total area equivalent to 100% of Australia’s cereal grain croplands every four years.  The same area must also be baited for the statistic to hold. His assumption, however, diverges far from the empirical reality.

Table 1. Broad-scale baiting of cereal crops in Australia during the 1990s.

CSIRO research finds that ‘[a] mouse plague occurs somewhere in Australia once every four years’ (emphasis added).⁶  Somewhere is not everywhere.  Mouse infestations only impact 100 to 500 thousand hectares of cereal grain cropland on an average annual basis.⁷  CSIRO data on broad-scale rodent baiting available for the 1990s reveals that it spanned just 155 thousand hectares on average per year (see Table 1).⁸  Given that cereal grain production in that decade covered 14.5 million hectares of cropland (see Table 2),⁹ it equates to only 1% of the total area being baited annually.

Wheat vs. beef in the 1990s: Mike’s case revisited.

With the CSIRO baiting data, it is possible to test Mike’s viral claim that protein derived from wheat costs the lives of 25 times more sentient animals than grass-fed beef.  A control for the total area of cropland poisoned can be added to his estimation. It should provide a result that more closely aligns with the reality.  The sample period will span the 1990s given the available data.

Table 2. Australian beef and grain production statistics during the 1990s.¹⁰ ¹¹

To start off, in the 1990s, the average carcase weight of a beef cow was 217kg.  At this weight, producing 100kg of protein requires the slaughter of 2.9 cows instead of the 2.2 in Mike’s original estimate.  Also, whereas he relies on wheat yield of 1.4 tonnes per hectare, it averaged 1.8 tonnes in the 1990s.  That works out to 233kg of wheat-based protein per hectare of cropland.  Already, these new figures would lower the estimated mouse deaths per 100kg of wheat protein from 55 to 42.9, even without controlling for the total cropland area baited.

For a claim of ‘100 mouse deaths per hectare per year’ to hold in the 1990s, rodent baiting must have blanketed an area equivalent to 14.5 million hectares of cropland every four years, or 3.6 million hectares annually. But CSIRO data shows baiting only reached 155 thousand hectares on average. Poisoning for mice occurred in just 4% of the cropland area that Mike would have to presume to arrive at his original estimate.

If his model is left uncorrected in the 1990s case, the estimated mouse deaths from grain production will be over 23 times higher than what it should be. When this discrepancy is corrected by controlling for the total area baited, the estimate of 42.9 mice being killed to produce 100kg of wheat-based protein is revised down to 1.8 mice.  According to Mike’s own approach, then, fewer sentient animals would be killed producing 100kg of protein from wheat grain (at 1.8 deaths) compared to grass-fed beef (at 2.9 deaths).

An alternative estimate of rodent deaths in grain production.

Aside from Mike’s approach, an alternative way to compare wheat and beef is to estimate what the upper limit of rodent deaths from grain cropping might reach under normal conditions.  Now it would be a mistake to simply assume that most field mice die during routine grain production.  On crop fields, mice reside in underground burrows during the day, exiting their nests at night when it is safer to forage. Disturbances to these mouse habitats from farming is reduced due to the ‘no-till’ practices that most Australian wheat growers follow for better crop yields.¹² ¹³ Mouse burrows can be left intact year-round.¹⁴

For the sake of a comparison, however, the following estimate will assume that 100% of field mice are killed in the cropping process.  It would constitute the worst-case scenario.  According to the CSIRO, mouse populations normally reach 4 or 5 per hectare of cereal cropland.¹⁵ ¹⁶  Given that wheat production averaged 2 tonnes of grain per hectare in the 2010s,¹⁷ a maximum of 1.9 mice could potentially be killed to make 100kg of wheat-based protein.  In contrast, beef cattle carcase weights averaged 269kg over the period,¹⁸ requiring that 2.4 cows be slaughtered to derive 100kg of protein.

It turns out that in both normal and plague conditions rodent deaths per 100kg of wheat protein come nowhere close to the 55 mice estimated by Mike.  In fact, even when assuming the worst-case scenarios for field mice during grain production, still it is found that sourcing protein from wheat rather than grass-fed beef will result in fewer sentient animals dying.  And keep in mind that Mike has selected a relatively inefficient plant protein source for his comparison.  There are much better sources of plant protein besides wheat which are readily available to consumers, such as legume-based products. But the flaws with Mike’s argument do not end here.

Beef cattle are actually the nation’s biggest grain guzzlers.

What Mike also fails to acknowledge is that far more rodents will be killed producing grain to support the diets of meat-eating Australians than their vegetarian or vegan counterparts.  According to industry-funded research, the livestock sector is ‘by far the largest domestic market for Australian grain.’¹⁹  Demand for stock feed is ‘a key driver of grain production,’ the government’s Grains Research and Development Corporation notes.²⁰ Industry figures for 2017-18 show that over two-thirds (69%) of grain consumed within Australia went towards feeding livestock animals (see Figure 1).²¹ 

At an estimated 3 million tonnes, the beef cattle sector ate the largest share.²²  Roughly the same amount of grain is eaten by beef cows as milled for flour to feed the entire Australian population.²³  Most of the beef found on major supermarket shelves throughout the country is harvested from these grain-finished cows.²⁴  These basic facts about the enormous volume of grain inputs in meat production (especially beef) makes Mike’s proclamations about vegetarians and vegans having ‘more animal blood’ on their hands even more ridiculous.

Figure 1. Domestic use of Australian grain, 2017-2018.

Grass-fed beef kills many more animals than just cows.

Another big problem with Mike’s approach is that he completely overlooks collateral animal deaths associated with grass-fed beef production.  Rearing cattle involves land clearing for grazing pastures, harvesting hay and silage for supplementary feed, and culling pest species.  All these activities will kill numerous sentient animals beyond the slaughtered cows. 

Example 1. Land clearing:

Cattle grazing is the main driver of land clearing in Australia.  Millions of native wildlife die as a result.  A WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature study²⁵ conservatively estimated that land clearing across Queensland alone was killing 37.6 million animals – mammals, birds and reptiles – annually in recent years.  Ninety-two per cent of land clearing across the state is undertaken to create pastures for grazing cattle.²⁶  Few are aware that the steak on their plate is behind nearly all deforestation in Queensland and the animal life that goes with it. 

Example 2. Fodder crop production:

Although grass-fed cattle do not eat grain, they are given hay and silage as supplementary feed.  Fodder crops are grown and harvested across millions of hectares of land in Australia to provide additional feed to livestock.  Between 2014 and 2019, hay and silage production covered 2 million hectares²⁷ ²⁸ ²⁹ ³⁰ ³¹ to a value of $1.6 billion per year.³² ³³ ³⁴ ³⁵ ³⁶  In this period, beef industry spending on fodder averaged $603 million.³⁷  That could mean up to hundreds of thousands of hectares of cropland still being farmed for grass-fed cows. 

Example 3. Pest culling:

Livestock production involves widespread culling of ‘pest’ species, including kangaroos and dogs.  But the most economically damaging species to beef cattle and sheep industries are rabbits which compete with livestock for grazing pastures.³⁸  Killing methods include warren ripping, poisoning and shooting,³⁹ with the most lethal weapon being biocontrol agents, including myxomatosis and RHDV viruses.  The deliberate introduction and spread of these viruses⁴⁰ kill up to 85% of the rabbit population annually.⁴¹  CSIRO researchers estimate the economic benefits of these measures to the wool and meat industry reach $70 billion.⁴²

Official figures on Australia’s current rabbit population are unavailable,⁴³ although some estimates place it at 200 million.⁴⁴ There do happen to be a couple of official estimates for select years at the national and state level. These can be used to gauge the potential magnitude of the killings. 

According to Victoria’s Department of Primary Industries, the national rabbit population totalled 600 million in 1990.⁴⁵ ⁴⁶  That year, the combined total of beef cattle and sheep in Australia numbered 189.5 million.⁴⁷  Based on these figures, 2.7 rabbits would be killed per grazing livestock animal per year [(600×0.85)/189.5].  Extrapolating this estimate over a cow’s average lifespan of 2.7 years,⁴⁸ 7.3 rabbits are killed per cow.  That means producing 100kg of protein from grass-fed cattle could be linked to the killings of 17.5 rabbits going by the 1990 figure. 

Another example is Queensland.  The Department of Primary Industries and Fishing estimated 14 million rabbits across the state in 2008.⁴⁹  Queensland’s beef cattle herd and sheep flock totalled 16.5 million that year.⁵⁰  It works out to 0.6 rabbits killed per grazing livestock animal per year.  Over a cow’s lifespan, associated rabbit deaths climb to 1.6.  For 100kg of beef protein, 3.9 rabbits would be killed based on this data.

And if the current population estimate of 200 million nationwide is accurate, then the collateral deaths per 100kg of beef protein could include up to 12.3 rabbits. This is using beef cattle and sheep numbers in 2018-19 for a combined 88.1 million grazing livestock.⁵¹

Overall, whatever the real body count of grass-fed beef production is, the above examples are enough to demonstrate the clear bias in Mike’s approach. He considers the animal life lost as collateral in crop farming, but fails to do so when it comes to livestock grazing. It has already been established that protein from wheat results in fewer sentient animal deaths than grass-fed beef even when only the slaughtered cattle are counted. What the section here indicates is that this difference between the two protein sources could be much greater in reality.

Concluding remarks: on the hypocrisy of ‘[t]he vegans and the animal liberationists and the animal rights people.’

In his attempt to rebuke ‘[t]he vegans and the animal liberationists and the animal rights people,’ Professor Mike Archer has pushed the empirical claim that a plant-based diet ends up killing more sentient animals than a diet that permits grass-fed red meat.⁵²  Although the Professor arrived at this conclusion having supposedly ‘number-crunched in every conceivable way,’⁵³ a fact-check of some key assumptions reveals that Mike’s numbers are way off mark.  The evidence actually points to the opposite conclusion.  Even when factoring in rodent deaths during crop production, fewer sentient animals will be killed producing protein from an inefficient plant source like wheat grain compared to grass-fed beef, the sacred cow of the ‘ethical’ meat-eater. 

But the Professor will still protest that animal rights advocates ‘can’t possibly get away from the fact that our vegan and vegetarian diets involve the deaths of wonderful sentient animals.’⁵⁴  He advises us to ‘stop being hypocritical’ and ‘just accept the fact that in order to survive, other animals are going to die.’⁵⁵  Unfortunately, such petty remarks are presented as a serious defence for the annual slaughter of around 700 million livestock animals in Australia to make meat.  But a regrettable negative externality of crop farming is not a reasonable excuse for supporting animal agriculture.  It is a ruthless production system deliberately set up to (mis)treat sentient beings as mere property for commercial exploitation.  The industrial-scale animal abuse carried out in the livestock sector is entirely unnecessary and easily preventable.

An analogy is useful for exposing the logical and moral shallowness of Mike’s line of reasoning.  Consider the exploitation of children, which is rife along supply chains for consumer products that Australians buy on a regular basis, from Congolese child miners toiling ‘in slave-like conditions’ to extract the cobalt used in our battery-powered devices⁵⁶ to Bangladeshi slum kids working full-time hours inside unsafe garment factories to stitch together our clothing.⁵⁷  Virtually no one can ‘possibly get away from the fact’ of financially contributing to child exploitation activities in some way.  Following Mike’s logic, regardless of how unintentional, indirect or minor this contribution may be, it makes it hypocritical for almost anybody to criticise or prevent the abuse of children. We should just accept it as a fact of life.  Fortunately, however, such misguided reasoning has not informed the decisions and actions of the honourable people over history’s course who have introduced, strengthened and extended protections for vulnerable children throughout the world.  Hopefully, a similar progressive trajectory unfolds for the rights of sentient animals in the coming future. 

So, while no one can be morally perfect, everyone – including you, the reader, and myself, the author – still faces the moral duty to limit the harm that they inflict upon others. That includes sentient animals.  Professor Mike Archer himself states that ‘[t]he challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths’ of sentient beings.⁵⁸  Even inefficient plant protein sources, such as wheat grain, result in fewer sentient animal deaths compared to the best-case options available from meat, such as grass-fed beef. This point becomes more evident when one considers the numerous animals killed during land clearing, fodder crop production and pest culling to support livestock grazing. In terms of saving ‘sentient lives,’ following a plant-based diet remains the obvious choice for the ethical eater.

At your next meal, make sure to order the vegetarian/vegan option.

1. Archer, M. (2011, December 16). Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659

2. Archer, M. (2019, April 23). Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands. SBS Insight. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands

3. Singleton, G.R., Brown, P.R., Pech, R. P., Jacob, J. Mutze, G. J., & Krebs, C. J. (2005). One hundred years of eruptions of house mice in Australia – a natural biological curio. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 84, 617-627.

4. Archer, M. (2019, April 23). Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands. SBS Insight. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/insight/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands

5. Animal Liberation South Australia. (2014, August 3). Archer’s dodgy claims III … mouse deaths. http://www.animalliberation.org.au/blog/2014/9/1/archers-dodgy-claims-iii-mouse-deaths

6. Brown, P. R., Singleton, G. R., Pech, R. P., Hinds, L. A., & Krebs, C. J. (2010). Rodent outbreaks in Australia: mouse plagues in cereal crops. In . G.R. Singleton, S. R. Belmain, P.R. Brown, & B. Hardy (Eds.), Rodent Outbreaks: Economy and Impacts (p. 225). IRRI.

7. McLeod, R., & Norris, A. (2004) Counting the Cost: Impact of Invasive Animals in Australia 2004. Cooperative Research Centre for Pest Animal Control. See p. 9.

8. Singleton, G. R. (2000). Ecologically-based rodent management integrating new developments in biotechnology. [Conference paper, p. 222, Table 1.]. Vertebrate Pest Conference, California. https://doi.org/10.5070/V419110207

9. Australia’s cereal grain crop consists of wheat, oats, barley, triticale, sorghum, rice and maize. The total area of cereal production is based on ABARES data for wheat, coarse grains, and rice. See notes [10] and [11] for references.

10. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2019). Agricultural commodity statistics 2019 (December) [Data file and code book]. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-commodities/agricultural-commodities-trade-data#2019

11. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2019). Australian crop report (December) [Data file and codebook]. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-commodities/agricultural-commodities-trade-data#australian-crop-report-data

12. Bellotti, B., & Rochecouste, J. F. (2014). The development of Conservation in Australia – Farmers as innovators. International Soil and Water Conversation Research, 2(1), 21-34.

13. Singleton, G.R., Brown, P.R., Pech, R. P., Jacob, J. Mutze, G. J., & Krebs, C. J. (2005). One hundred years of eruptions of house mice in Australia – a natural biological curio. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 84, 619.

14. Vincent, M. (2017, June 30). Mouse plague: Bait sales soar as farmers grapple with population explosion. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/mouse-plague/8662842

15. BBC News. (2017, January 17). Australian conditions “favourable” for mouse plague, scientists warn. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38645836

16. Charlton, C. (2019, January 16). Inside the mystery mice plagues that destroy rural Australia every four years. news.com.au. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/inside-the-mystery-mice-plagues-that-destroy-rural-australia-every-four-years/news-story/acfcabf428bf6070015af1dc3a286e7d

17. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2019). Australian crop report (December) [Data file and codebook].https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-commodities/agricultural-commodities-trade-data#australian-crop-report-data

18. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2019). Agricultural commodity statistics 2019 (December) [Data file and codebook]. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-commodities/agricultural-commodities-trade-data#2019

19. Spragg, J. (2018). Australian Feed Grain Supply and Demand Report 2018. Feed Grain Partnership/JCS Solutions. http://www.feedgrainpartnership.com.au/items/1023/FGP%20Feed%20Grain%20Supply%20and%20Demand%20Report%20Oct%202018.pdf.  See p. 22.  

20. Grains Research and Development Corporation. (2021). Growing regions. https://grdc.com.au/about/our-industry/growing-regions

21. Spragg, J. (2018). Australian Feed Grain Supply and Demand Report 2018. Feed Grain Partnership/JCS Solutions. http://www.feedgrainpartnership.com.au/items/1023/FGP%20Feed%20Grain%20Supply%20and%20Demand%20Report%20Oct%202018.pdf.  See p. 4. 

22. On the basis that grain inputs comprise 78% of 3.9 million tonnes of grain-based feed beef cattle consumed in 2017-18. See: Spragg, J. (2018). Australian Feed Grain Supply and Demand Report 2018. Feed Grain Partnership/JCS Solutions. http://www.feedgrainpartnership.com.au/items/1023/FGP%20Feed%20Grain%20Supply%20and%20Demand%20Report%20Oct%202018.pdf.  See p. 23.

23. Spragg, J. (2018). Australian Feed Grain Supply and Demand Report 2018. Feed Grain Partnership/JCS Solutions.

24. Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. (2017). Cattle and beef market study – Final Report. https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20Cattle%20and%20beef%20market%20studyFinal%20report.pdf. See p. 21, Box 1.1.

25. Cogger, H., Dickman, C., Ford, H., Johnson, C., & Taylor, M. (2017). Australian animals lost to bulldozers in Queensland 2013-15. WWF-Australia. https://www.wwf.org.au/ArticleDocuments/353/pub-australian-animals-lost-to-bulldozers-in-queensland-2013-15-25aug17.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y

26. Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation. (2017). Land cover change in Queensland 2015-16: Statewide Landcover and Tree Study (SLATS) report. https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2017-09/apo-nid113241_0.pdf.  See p. 23, Table 5.

27. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2020). Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2018-19 [Data file and code book]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/7121.0Main+Features12018-19?OpenDocument

28. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2017-18 [Data file and code book]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/E93D07C2489992E5CA258575002740E0?opendocument

29. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2016-17 [Data file and code book]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/335948D415C58826CA2583EB0021F120?opendocument

30. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2015-16 [Data file and code book]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/FAC1272BE29F58FBCA2582910013A7D5?opendocument

31. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Agricultural Commodities, Australia, 2014-15 [Data file and code book]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/AE8F71F633147655CA25815500117DA5?opendocument

32. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2020). Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia, 2018-19 [Data file and codebook]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/7503.02018-19?OpenDocument

33. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2019). Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia, 2017-18 [Data file and codebook]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/181E8F0177BBBFADCA258575002743B5?opendocument

34. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2018). Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia, 2016-17 [Data file and codebook]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/38D85263FD1CC395CA2583EB0021F3C7?opendocument

35. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2017). Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia, 2015-16 [Data file and codebook]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/5F8D4052E53922DACA2582910013AB15?opendocument

36. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2016). Value of Agricultural Commodities Produced, Australia, 2014-15 [Data file and codebook]. https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/E66BFDC17D5C631DCA25815500125AA2?opendocument

37. Meat and Livestock Australia. (2020). Farm survey data for the beef, slaughter lambs and sheep industries [Data file and codebook]. http://apps.agriculture.gov.au/mla/mla.asp

38. New South Wales Government Department of Primary Industries. (2018). Ecology and Management of Vertebrate Pests in NSW. https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/439200/Ecology-and-Management-of-Vertebrate-Pests-in-NSW-March-2018-web.pdf. See p. 22.

39. Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. (2019). Rabbit: Oryctolagus cuniculus.https://www.daf.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/62700/IPA-Rabbit-PA11.pdf. See pp. 3-4.

40. Cooke, B. (2012, March 8). Controlling rabbits: let’s not get addicted to viral solutions. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/controlling-rabbits-lets-not-get-addicted-to-viral-solutions-5701

41. Department of Environment and Energy. (2016). Background document: Threat Abatement Plan for Competition and Land Degradation by Rabbits. https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/bf9352c2-35ae-4a80-8828-96de630731a9/files/tap-rabbit-background-2016.pdf. See p. 19.

42. Cooke, B. D. (2014). Australia’s War against Rabbits: The Story of Rabbit Haemorrhagic Diseases. CSIRO Publishing. See p. 112.

43. Department of Environment and Energy. (2016). Background document: Threat Abatement Plan for Competition and Land Degradation by Rabbits. https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/bf9352c2-35ae-4a80-8828-96de630731a9/files/tap-rabbit-background-2016.pdf. See pp. 6-7.

44. National Geographic. (2020, January 27). How European Rabbits Took over Australia. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/how-european-rabbits-took-over-australia/

45. Victoria Department of Primary Industries. (2010). Rabbits and Their Impact [23 October 2012]. https://web.archive.org/web/20121023202114/http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/agriculture/pests-diseases-and-weeds/pest-animals/lc0298-rabbits-and-their-impact

46. Cox, T., Strive, T., Mutze, G., West, P., & Saunders, G. (2013). Benefit of Rabbit Biocontrol in Australia. Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre. https://www.pestsmart.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/RabbitBiocontrol.pdf.  See p. 12.

47. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. (2000). Australian Commodity Statistics 2000.http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/abares/acs/2000/acs2000.pdf. See p. 24.

48. Based on ABARES beef farm survey data, a weighted average age of a beef cow before being sent directly to slaughter is estimated to be 2.7 years.  Table 6 in Thompson and Martin (2011, p. 11) provides a breakdown of beef herd composition by proportion of target market.  The table details of the proportion of cattle that reach a set age bracket before being sent to slaughter.  When age was presented in a finite range (e.g. Calves at 0 to 1 years), the midpoint value of the bracket (e.g. 0.5 years) was multiplied by the target market’s (e.g. direct for slaughter) corresponding proportion (e.g. 0.25).  Otherwise the lowest age value was selected in the bracket.  See:

• Thompson, T., & Martin. P. (2011). Australian beef: Financial performance of beef cattle producing farms: 2008-09 to 2010-11. Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences. https://www.mla.com.au/globalassets/mla-corporate/prices--markets/documents/trends--analysis/abares-farm-survey/financial-performance-of-beef-farms-2008-09-to-2010-11.pdf. See p. 11, Table 6.

49. Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fishing. (2008). Rabbit control in Queensland: A guide for land managers. http://www.ddmrb.org.au/Files/IPA-Rabbit-Control-In-Queensland.pdf.  See p. 2.

50. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2019). Agricultural Commodity Statistics (2019) [Data file and codebook]. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-outlook/data#2019. See Tables 13.2 and 15.2.

51. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES). (2020). Agricultural Commodity Statistics (2020) [Data file and codebook]. https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/agricultural-outlook/data#2020

52. Archer, M. (2013, May 1). Mice: the biggest losers with vegetarianism. ABC. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/mice-the-biggest-losers-w-vegetarianism/4660498

53. Archer, M. (2013, May 1). Mice: the biggest losers with vegetarianism. ABC. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/mice-the-biggest-losers-w-vegetarianism/4660498

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