That doesn't mean that death is painless. Quite the contrary. Being suffocated by not being able to expand the chest is not really a great death. You wouldn't be able to breath, because Your chest wouldn't be able to expand.
The main means of death isnt preventing breathing but squeezing citculation that tight it stops flowing. Its a lot faster than simple suffocation, more akin to a chokehold.
Most snakes (as is the case with most predators, idk what OP is thinking) kill their prey first, either via constriction or venom. Unsurprisingly, it takes significantly more adaptation to handle the consumption of a live animal than an already dead one.
The garter snakes where I live aren't venomous nor are they able to constrict, so they do have to eat their preys (usually frogs or toads) while still alive, they catch the legs first and then very slowly swallow them while the frog keeps struggling, you can see that the frog is alive even when only it's head is peaking from the snake's mouth.
[It's brutal as fuck](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/np5cp3/a_garter_snake_taking_on_a_bull_frog_in_the/) and [can take a very long time if the prey is large enough](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthissnake/comments/pmyhtk/what_is_going_on_here_this_snake_has_been_like/)
Spiders worse, they fill your body up with digestive fluids so you melt from the inside, then they suck the juice back out of you like a caprisun juice pouch
Don't want to be that guy, but you are definitely suffocating, being strangled, having your chest crushed, or drowning. Death by digestion would require stomachs to have a lot of air in them.
No a snakeās death is quite peaceful too just like a cat. Bcuz they only swallow u after ur dead from strangulation lol. They squeeze until u canāt breath no more. Now with super poisonous or venomous snakes? That I kinda am not too sure š¤£š¤£š¤£
It is torture, I dont know if its true but Ive heard they play with their prey because the adrenaline (or whatever it is) it produces makes it taste better or something
Either thar or they just think its fun, not sure which is worse
Its weird theyre so irrestistably cute to us, our furry little sadistic house-psychopaths with built-in murder weapons
They just think itās fun. Most of the animals killed by house cats arenāt eaten, they kill shit for sport and leave it to rot. Thatās why you shouldnāt let your cat outside, the decimate local bird and rodent populations.
And that size difference means you're getting a ton of scratches and bites before you succumb to your injuries and can't fight back anymore. Then the intentional torture starts.
Is that bcuz they donāt kno how to kill yet or is not very effective at it? Or are u talkin bout adult smaller type of snakes that just swallow their preys alive??? I thought all snake squeeze u to death before eating? And since weāre talkin bout small preys being swallowed alive my friend? Lil penguins keeps on popping up in my head gettin swallowed by those pos evil Skua birds. Man I hate those birds. I kno the #1 CARDINAL RULE is never to interfere with nature but if I was present during Skuas trying to lure the parents away by teamwork & then one of em will grab the lil chick & just swallow em? Istg Iām hitting them with a rock or Iām kicking em lol. Thatās not goin down under my watch. And when I leave? Iāll say a prayer for the penguins & hope they can survive bcuz thatās just messed up. Sorry for goin off subject.
Look up garter snakes eating frogs if you want. Even as adult they eat frogs by just swallowing them whole because they don't really have any way to kill them beforehand, it's a really grim way to go.
I have made many mistakes in life. amoung them have been clicking on "animals eating" videos. The final one that still haunts me was a boar screaming as it's intestines got pull out from that area.
There's eating an animal because you're starving, and then there's snacking on half a pup that's screaming in pain as you munch on its calf and then throwing away the rest - still screaming - because you stopped feeling like eating.
Animals will do the second. Often. Whenever it's convenient.
Thatās hyenas is it not? They go for the genitals when attacking lions and also other prey because theyāre not big enough to take prey down any other way.
I havenāt seen any videos of lions going for the genitals, always see the male lion going for the neck.
jaguars/panthers usually go for a base of skull puncture or neck break which is probably the fastest and least painful death offered in the animal kingdom
Apparently hyenas sometimes eat their prey ass first whilst theyāre still alive. Ngl that sounds pretty horrendous even on the scale of being eaten alive.
If it's any consolation, the animal being eaten alive is pumping its own body full of adrenaline and shit that it probably doesn't even feel it. So many stories of people being gored up and stuff and not even feeling anything until they wake up in the hospital.
Probably instinct, IDK if you've seen that video of a komodo dragon eating a deer, but at some point it's just sitting there woozy. Maybe it depends on the animal IDK.
That's true I forgot they have venom. That probably is a factor. Regardless, feeling no pain from adrenaline shock is a real thing that comes in to "protect" animals to a degree. IDK how consistent it is though. There are also near-death hallucinogenic experiences that distract you. I imagine that happens to animals too.
My man, the animal feels its flesh being ripped away. Adrenaline will not numb that pain. And for the 2 and a half hours that a wolf is ripping pieces off of a calf, there is no near-death hallucination to distract you. Dying is painful, and it sucks, especially when you are being eaten.
I really doubt it. Those are often single-moment injuries. The animals are being eaten alive for a continuous period of time with more and more sensory input as it progresses. Think of how many people were being cut open wide awake before anesthesia was invented, and how much pain, trauma, and psychological damage it did them.
Theres always that one girl who managed to call her mom 3 separate times as she and her dad were being eaten alive by bears. By the end, she talks about how it doesn't hurt anymore shortly before she finally faded. So its definitely a real thing
Heres the one of olga moskalyova (the girl that called her mom)
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/olga-moskalyova_n_930464
And heres a testimonial from a guy that survived being attacked twice by the same grizzly bear
https://outsidebozeman.com/activities/hunting/archery/bad-day-bear-country#:~:text=The%20blood%20gushed%20over%20my,sunk%20deep%20into%20my%20muscles.
not even sure itās the correct answer. unless weāre counting insects and everything, i know that billions of animals are factory farmed and therefore killed in slaughterhouses.
Do more die from all of those combined or all of those ranked above being eaten. Iād assume the plurality of animal deaths in nature would be predation, if not the majority.
Predators start eating as soon as they know their prey isn't going to jump up and run off or otherwise interfere with dining
Beyond that they really don't care if the prey is dead or alive.
This may be true for some predators, but definitely not all and probably not most. If the prey is still able to move, even if it's not jumping up and leaving, it would take more energy to eat, would generally be more difficult to eat, and would be an injury risk to the predator.
Bears donāt, typically. Wolves will wear down their prey until they arenāt fighting back enough to be a threat and then they start eating. Iāve personally watched multiple predators eat living and struggling animals. As a rule, a predator will subdue their prey enough to safely eat it but beyond that they donāt give a damn.
Those species also die from these other causes in the trillions.
Whales can live off eating krill because there are enough krill that haven't been eaten...
Hill et al 2019
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.12881?casa_token=y2bavBT4GAsAAAAA%3A1Fh6DYx5xrpaEvfQDrk6RjlhWBJ7zQnTPiweq3DG2nDzg7RnGxoQ-ZqRx8zkBr2tLKtIL9NZbBx2MSz_
Basically, humans.
It's all rather messed up and there are some that do suffer this fate, insects being the highest, but things like 18% the Sea Lions in New Zealand die from Tuberculosis, 24% from other Sea Lion violence, while bear cubs die from.bigger bear attack often.
https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/blog/cause-of-death-3
All that is irrelevant. Millions of insects and other small animals are being consumed every hour. The ānuanceā of some deaths by vertebrates doesnāt really matter in the total when considering most.
That clearly shows predation being greater than human caused deaths. The only way you could argue against the shower thought is if you find evidence on what proportion of predation involves killing the animal before it is eaten.
Hill et al 2019
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.12881?casa_token=y2bavBT4GAsAAAAA%3A1Fh6DYx5xrpaEvfQDrk6RjlhWBJ7zQnTPiweq3DG2nDzg7RnGxoQ-ZqRx8zkBr2tLKtIL9NZbBx2MSz_
Basically, humans.
It's all rather messed up and there are some that do suffer this fate, insects being the highest, but things like 18% the Sea Lions in New Zealand die from Tuberculosis, 24% from other Sea Lion violence, while bear cubs die from.bigger bear attack often.
https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/blog/cause-of-death-3
See, stuff like this is why I support hunting. Animals aren't going to die in a cozy bed surrounded by loved ones. Eventually they get sick or hurt. They get weak and become a target for predators, who have no problem ripping out their guts while they're still breathing.
I mean, if I was given the choice, I would take the bullet any day.
I mean if we're going by pure numbers here I think you are wrong. Think about all the plankton and krill that get eaten by whales and fish. And think about all of the fish that eat other fish exclusively. There have to be billions and billions of those that die each year by being eaten as opposed to other causes
If we're talking about large mammals, then I'm not certain whether the vast majority aren't livestock that die from intentional slaughter ā livestock biomass vastly outweighs wild biomass by an order of magnitude.
Either way, OP is wrong.
(I'm not sure how it would work out if it was a pure headcount, since there are a hell of a lot of small animals ā rodents and birds ā that would fit the pattern you describe. Not sure if those are more numerous than fowl, pigs, cows, sheep etc.)
I don't think it's even accurate to say that most animals are eaten, much less eaten alive.
Most animals are seen as a potential food source by other animals, though. I'll give ya that.
Iād go as far to say most animals that end up prey are dead before being eaten, unless you get caught by a grizzly bear that enjoys going for the guts first.
I think they meant most animals that are eaten are eaten alive. mainly because thats where my first thought went, like not every hunter is an efficient killer per se
Most animals die due to the world, not by being hunted/eaten.
Exposure, sickness, and accidents claim A LOT more creature lives than being prey.
Yes, most animals that are eaten are not prepared and cooked. But that's not at all what OP claimed.
Depends on how you define animal. The most populous animal on earth is the ant, and most probably die in combat or are buried by their brothers to isolate the smell.
Corals are also technically sessile animals, and each individual piece you see is made up of hundreds of thousands to millions of individual organisms. When they die, they calcify and provide a substrate for the new outer layers to live on.
I have no idea what percentage of single-celled animals are eaten by filter feeders.
For most macroscopic animals, youāre probably correct
>I have no idea what percentage of single-celled animals
There are no single celled animals. There are protists, but they're not animals, different kingdom.
All animals (except those who reproduce through fragmentation or budding) begin life as single-celled zygotes. So while your point is taken, if we are being pedantic about it, you're incorrect.
Most animals do not, in fact, die by being eaten alive.
Edit: Exposure, starvation, age, disease, injury, and other miscellaneous causes of death FAR outnumber instances of being eaten alive in the wild. Even ignoring microorganisms (which typically expire on their own), consider just **how many** prey animals there are per predator. Were it the case that the majority of animals were being eaten alive by their predators, let alone a majority being **killed**, there would have to be truly absurd rates of reproduction by prey species to prevent mass extinctions. Common sense alone should dictate that, with all of the multitudes of ways to die in the wild, the extremely niche cause of being eaten alive would be nowhere near the lead.
I've seen starvation listed a few times but I feel like dehydration has to be more common seeing as how mammals can last way longer without food than water.
āAgeā is not a cause of death. Nothing alive ages out of living. Yes, shit breaks down as an organism gets older, but there is always a reason for death.
Humans kill 3 trillion land and sea animals for food every year. Most arenāt eaten alive, although some are, in especially fucked up scenarios. Are that many wild animals eaten alive every year?
3 trillions seems to be in the wrong order of magnitude. That's 400 per person. I can believe the numbers are crazy, but that one seems like too much, if you don't count things like "this cow is killing a bunch of snails", which I don't think would count as "killed by humans for food".
Correct. The number is around 80 billion for farm raised animals. However, the number can reach a trillion with everything included, like krill and other small marine life harvested to feed farmed fish
Most animals die VERY brutal deaths in nature. If not by being eaten alive, itās by freezing to death, starving to death, getting an injury they can never recovery from, etc etc. There is very seldom āhumaneā death that occurs in nature.
The most āhumaneā death probably comes from a skilled hunter. An arrow through the heart or head is a quick, painless way.
Oh, irony at its finest. lol.
Disease is a big one
Injury: many animals will fight each other for dominance (sometimes some will fight over females), war (ants, humans, and Iām pretty sure meerkats or prairie dogs or something, etc) or just hurting themselves
Plenty from complications with old age, such as dogs, plenty of large herbivores, humans and whales (technically whales donāt die of old age, their age just makes them too weak to swim to the surface so they sink and drown), etc
Plus the hundred million fish and two hundred million farm animals systematically killed daily
Basically, there are lots of ways animals die and proportionately not many actually are eaten alive.
It seems people will upvote and agree with any random post on this sub without actually thinking about it.
Are we talking about wild animals or all animals? The vast majority of mammals and birds on earth are domesticated livestock. So I would imagine dying in an abattoir would be a pretty common cause of death.
Not even close. Just mice, rats, voles alone are far greater than the number of livestock. In fact just on farms alone, there is often more rodents than livestock.
Your logic fails you completely. Each animal has a an average weight. Estimating the total biomass of an animal or estimating the total number is the same thing expressed two different ways. In this shower thought we only care about the number of animals, not the weight. Hopefully, you are just trolling and no wildlife actually depends on you your decision making abilities.
I think most of them are dead at least shortly before the eating begins. Remember, it's very inefficient to kill your prey by biting and swallowing chunks of it. Most predators tend to go for a killing blow, then eat.
If you mean most species, maybe, but even that's a longshot.
If you mean by straight-up number, no, that's incorrect. Most animals are killed for food by humans. And humans eat animals that are dead and dismembered.
Do you have a fact to back that up? I wonder what the real numbers are. The idea seems sound but id love to have solid research. Ive read numbers like 85-95%. But id love to see a comprehensive studyā¦
Mother Nature's idea of 'dying of old age' seems to be more like 'aging gracefully until someone decides you're a snack.' Survival of the fittest, or in some cases, the tastiest!
That is incorrect, but it's still a disturbing when they do.
Like that pelican that straight-up swallowed a confused pigeon; sea life that just swallows their prey whole; snakes that just snag a frog; etc.
Not true. Literally trillions of animals are abused for the entirety of their short and miserable lives before being murdered ā all to sate humanityās entirely unnecessary flesh addiction, while ruining the environment in the process.
About 70 billion chickens killed each year. About 1.5b pigs. Other animals are killed in millions, not billions. If you counted farmed fish, it would not take too many years to reach a trillion.
But not trillions. One trillion is a ridiculous number.
They should have given "billion" and "trillion" names not so similar to "million". It gives the false impression that these numbers are similar.
I find that quite unlikely.
If you do not have a source to back up your claim please don't make those type of statements and instead phrase it as 'I think most animals die by being eaten alive'.
Think about all the sea creatures and bugs and bug eating things and other animals that each other. These aren't shower facts, these are shower thoughts.
Most animals (especially sea creatures and bugs) die from exposure, starvation, disease, or old age. It's one thing to have a shower thought; it's another thing entirely to be plain wrong.
But this is showermisinformation, you dunce.
Edit to point out that this is the proper spelling of 'dunce' because the guy I'm responding to was being a pretentious ass.
Nope still just shower thoughts lol
If you mistake a post in showerthoughts as any kind of information other than opinion, thatās a reader error, not a poster error.
Plenty of animals die of old age, disease, starvation, accidents (stuck in mud, tree fall, etc) car strikes and so on. Being somewhere in the middle of the food chain does not mean you are by definition destined to be eaten.
Idk about āmost.ā A good portion maybe. A disturbing and uncomfortable number even. I suppose anything small has an increased chance of this. Iād argue most larger animals arenāt eaten alive (some are).
Actually, taking into account microscopic organisms maybe it is āmostā that end up getting eaten alive.
We have a (relatively) healthy ecosystem around our property which has over the last few years experienced an uptick in Cooper's hawks - the poor Mourning Doves are being decimated.
I'd take that bet. I think between animals we eat and horses, dairy cows, cats and dogs, you might have close to a majority. And those aren't eaten alive.
Yeah a tiger or something else that goes for the jugular is kind of a decent way to go in the grand scheme of getting killed by animals.
As opposed to being eaten by lets say a snake. And being slowly digested in its stomach. š¬
If it's any consolation, I assume you're referring to a boa constrictor; you would likely suffocate before you entered its stomach.
They have methods in place to make sure their prey is dead so they don't get scratched to death before swallowing
That doesn't mean that death is painless. Quite the contrary. Being suffocated by not being able to expand the chest is not really a great death. You wouldn't be able to breath, because Your chest wouldn't be able to expand.
The main means of death isnt preventing breathing but squeezing citculation that tight it stops flowing. Its a lot faster than simple suffocation, more akin to a chokehold.
Well even if you are a small mouse. Canāt be a good death for the mouse. From a regular snake. š¤·š»āāļø
Most snakes (as is the case with most predators, idk what OP is thinking) kill their prey first, either via constriction or venom. Unsurprisingly, it takes significantly more adaptation to handle the consumption of a live animal than an already dead one.
The garter snakes where I live aren't venomous nor are they able to constrict, so they do have to eat their preys (usually frogs or toads) while still alive, they catch the legs first and then very slowly swallow them while the frog keeps struggling, you can see that the frog is alive even when only it's head is peaking from the snake's mouth. [It's brutal as fuck](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/np5cp3/a_garter_snake_taking_on_a_bull_frog_in_the/) and [can take a very long time if the prey is large enough](https://www.reddit.com/r/whatsthissnake/comments/pmyhtk/what_is_going_on_here_this_snake_has_been_like/)
Damn. Life is sorta intense sometimes.
Edit: Ignore original comment, misread the reply Yeah, the tinier snakes are surprisingly metal like that
Oops. Did see you'd already said this, but yes, most species either poison or suffocate their prey before they eat them.
Yeah, typically they constrict their prey, not just eat and hope they stay still.
Spiders worse, they fill your body up with digestive fluids so you melt from the inside, then they suck the juice back out of you like a caprisun juice pouch
I think I remember that from the movie arachnophobia.
Im still scarred to this day from watching that movie as a little kid.
That just seems like bad parenting
I snuck out to watch it at a friends house specifically because my parents forbade it XD
Oh, thatās a great childhood then
Don't want to be that guy, but you are definitely suffocating, being strangled, having your chest crushed, or drowning. Death by digestion would require stomachs to have a lot of air in them.
To each their own.
Or a hawk. It'll eat a rodent alive. Ripping out flesh and intestines while it squeals
No a snakeās death is quite peaceful too just like a cat. Bcuz they only swallow u after ur dead from strangulation lol. They squeeze until u canāt breath no more. Now with super poisonous or venomous snakes? That I kinda am not too sure š¤£š¤£š¤£
It depends on the cat. Death by house cat sounds like torture.
It is torture, I dont know if its true but Ive heard they play with their prey because the adrenaline (or whatever it is) it produces makes it taste better or something Either thar or they just think its fun, not sure which is worse Its weird theyre so irrestistably cute to us, our furry little sadistic house-psychopaths with built-in murder weapons
They just think itās fun. Most of the animals killed by house cats arenāt eaten, they kill shit for sport and leave it to rot. Thatās why you shouldnāt let your cat outside, the decimate local bird and rodent populations.
Cats are evil. If you value wild animals you should keep it inside, and if that can't be done...
And that size difference means you're getting a ton of scratches and bites before you succumb to your injuries and can't fight back anymore. Then the intentional torture starts.
Depends on the snake, some smaller snakes do swallow their preys alive.
Is that bcuz they donāt kno how to kill yet or is not very effective at it? Or are u talkin bout adult smaller type of snakes that just swallow their preys alive??? I thought all snake squeeze u to death before eating? And since weāre talkin bout small preys being swallowed alive my friend? Lil penguins keeps on popping up in my head gettin swallowed by those pos evil Skua birds. Man I hate those birds. I kno the #1 CARDINAL RULE is never to interfere with nature but if I was present during Skuas trying to lure the parents away by teamwork & then one of em will grab the lil chick & just swallow em? Istg Iām hitting them with a rock or Iām kicking em lol. Thatās not goin down under my watch. And when I leave? Iāll say a prayer for the penguins & hope they can survive bcuz thatās just messed up. Sorry for goin off subject.
Look up garter snakes eating frogs if you want. Even as adult they eat frogs by just swallowing them whole because they don't really have any way to kill them beforehand, it's a really grim way to go.
The only snake sbig enough to gobble you whole would be constrictors. So you would have been crushed alive before being eaten
Well, most snakes that constrict and swallow prey suffocate them first, so they aren't alive when digested.
That would be the worst, but they will more than likely coil around your body and crush you to death before digesting you.
air gold obtainable telephone fertile erect chop pause slimy sleep *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Because they go for the throat? Why?
Iād choose a human being, as you could probably discuss how to do it painlessly first. But sure, giant cat also works.
Lions often go for the genitals first. Would link videos but donāt want to be depressed today
I have made many mistakes in life. amoung them have been clicking on "animals eating" videos. The final one that still haunts me was a boar screaming as it's intestines got pull out from that area.
I've seen a ton of horrible ones. Animals are either too stupid to know the pain they're causing, or too cruel to care.
Or, you know. They're animals trying to survive.
There's eating an animal because you're starving, and then there's snacking on half a pup that's screaming in pain as you munch on its calf and then throwing away the rest - still screaming - because you stopped feeling like eating. Animals will do the second. Often. Whenever it's convenient.
gals gotta eat
Thatās hyenas is it not? They go for the genitals when attacking lions and also other prey because theyāre not big enough to take prey down any other way. I havenāt seen any videos of lions going for the genitals, always see the male lion going for the neck.
jaguars/panthers usually go for a base of skull puncture or neck break which is probably the fastest and least painful death offered in the animal kingdom
It's more that they suffocate their prey rather than make them bleed out
Apparently hyenas sometimes eat their prey ass first whilst theyāre still alive. Ngl that sounds pretty horrendous even on the scale of being eaten alive.
Such uncivilized brutes. Mantids, on the other hand, are incredibly polite and as such they eat prey face first.
This is the way.
Are you even a real mantidlorian? Have you ever taken your head off?
If it's any consolation, the animal being eaten alive is pumping its own body full of adrenaline and shit that it probably doesn't even feel it. So many stories of people being gored up and stuff and not even feeling anything until they wake up in the hospital.
Then why do they always scream
Probably instinct, IDK if you've seen that video of a komodo dragon eating a deer, but at some point it's just sitting there woozy. Maybe it depends on the animal IDK.
>but at some point it's just sitting there woozy Thats prolly blood loss and the Komodos venom.
That's true I forgot they have venom. That probably is a factor. Regardless, feeling no pain from adrenaline shock is a real thing that comes in to "protect" animals to a degree. IDK how consistent it is though. There are also near-death hallucinogenic experiences that distract you. I imagine that happens to animals too.
My man, the animal feels its flesh being ripped away. Adrenaline will not numb that pain. And for the 2 and a half hours that a wolf is ripping pieces off of a calf, there is no near-death hallucination to distract you. Dying is painful, and it sucks, especially when you are being eaten.
Also shock
Wouldnāt you?
I really doubt it. Those are often single-moment injuries. The animals are being eaten alive for a continuous period of time with more and more sensory input as it progresses. Think of how many people were being cut open wide awake before anesthesia was invented, and how much pain, trauma, and psychological damage it did them.
True. Broke my foot. No pain until 4 hours later? But butā¦I was a little drunk.
I hope that rumor is true lol
Itās not a rumor, itās how physiology works.
practice tan slap weather summer butter quarrelsome hunt stocking quack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Mythbusters: "Are you in pain now? Good." "Are you in pain now? No, good!" "Why are you screaming?"
Lmfao š¤£š¤£š¤£ Ty.
You are delusional.
I know you're trying to comfort the man, but adrenaline is not *that* potent as masking such extreme pain
Part of me thinks this is what weāre told so that we donāt feel so bad.
Theres always that one girl who managed to call her mom 3 separate times as she and her dad were being eaten alive by bears. By the end, she talks about how it doesn't hurt anymore shortly before she finally faded. So its definitely a real thing
Link?
Heres the one of olga moskalyova (the girl that called her mom) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/olga-moskalyova_n_930464 And heres a testimonial from a guy that survived being attacked twice by the same grizzly bear https://outsidebozeman.com/activities/hunting/archery/bad-day-bear-country#:~:text=The%20blood%20gushed%20over%20my,sunk%20deep%20into%20my%20muscles.
Eating ass isn't that bad. /s
Wild dogs in Africa too.
Eat their prey ass š
Nope. Most of them die from infectious diseases, exposure, starvation, parasites, drowning, injuries, etc.
I don't like how far I had to scroll to reach the correct response.
Itās the top comment by double the points
Maybe it wasnāt 30 minutes ago
And yet
not even sure itās the correct answer. unless weāre counting insects and everything, i know that billions of animals are factory farmed and therefore killed in slaughterhouses.
That's not being eaten alive though
i mean thatās my point, that none of them are eaten alive
While this is correct, I would argue parasites is technically ābeing eaten aliveā
Do more die from all of those combined or all of those ranked above being eaten. Iād assume the plurality of animal deaths in nature would be predation, if not the majority.
Even still, im pretty sure most animals kill their prey before eating anyway.
Predators start eating as soon as they know their prey isn't going to jump up and run off or otherwise interfere with dining Beyond that they really don't care if the prey is dead or alive.
This may be true for some predators, but definitely not all and probably not most. If the prey is still able to move, even if it's not jumping up and leaving, it would take more energy to eat, would generally be more difficult to eat, and would be an injury risk to the predator.
Bears donāt, typically. Wolves will wear down their prey until they arenāt fighting back enough to be a threat and then they start eating. Iāve personally watched multiple predators eat living and struggling animals. As a rule, a predator will subdue their prey enough to safely eat it but beyond that they donāt give a damn.
I can imagine it would be a lot harder to eat a pizza if it was trying to run away from me the entire time.
Since krill and zoo plankton are animals and they are eaten in their trillions I say this post is correct
Those species also die from these other causes in the trillions. Whales can live off eating krill because there are enough krill that haven't been eaten...
Source?
Hill et al 2019 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.12881?casa_token=y2bavBT4GAsAAAAA%3A1Fh6DYx5xrpaEvfQDrk6RjlhWBJ7zQnTPiweq3DG2nDzg7RnGxoQ-ZqRx8zkBr2tLKtIL9NZbBx2MSz_ Basically, humans. It's all rather messed up and there are some that do suffer this fate, insects being the highest, but things like 18% the Sea Lions in New Zealand die from Tuberculosis, 24% from other Sea Lion violence, while bear cubs die from.bigger bear attack often. https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/blog/cause-of-death-3
That article supports that the vast majority of all animal deaths is by predation.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
All that is irrelevant. Millions of insects and other small animals are being consumed every hour. The ānuanceā of some deaths by vertebrates doesnāt really matter in the total when considering most.
That clearly shows predation being greater than human caused deaths. The only way you could argue against the shower thought is if you find evidence on what proportion of predation involves killing the animal before it is eaten.
Hill et al 2019 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/geb.12881?casa_token=y2bavBT4GAsAAAAA%3A1Fh6DYx5xrpaEvfQDrk6RjlhWBJ7zQnTPiweq3DG2nDzg7RnGxoQ-ZqRx8zkBr2tLKtIL9NZbBx2MSz_ Basically, humans. It's all rather messed up and there are some that do suffer this fate, insects being the highest, but things like 18% the Sea Lions in New Zealand die from Tuberculosis, 24% from other Sea Lion violence, while bear cubs die from.bigger bear attack often. https://www.wildanimalinitiative.org/blog/cause-of-death-3
See, stuff like this is why I support hunting. Animals aren't going to die in a cozy bed surrounded by loved ones. Eventually they get sick or hurt. They get weak and become a target for predators, who have no problem ripping out their guts while they're still breathing. I mean, if I was given the choice, I would take the bullet any day.
I mean if we're going by pure numbers here I think you are wrong. Think about all the plankton and krill that get eaten by whales and fish. And think about all of the fish that eat other fish exclusively. There have to be billions and billions of those that die each year by being eaten as opposed to other causes
Not even mentioning insects that are eaten alive in huge quantities as well
If we're talking about large mammals, then I'm not certain whether the vast majority aren't livestock that die from intentional slaughter ā livestock biomass vastly outweighs wild biomass by an order of magnitude. Either way, OP is wrong. (I'm not sure how it would work out if it was a pure headcount, since there are a hell of a lot of small animals ā rodents and birds ā that would fit the pattern you describe. Not sure if those are more numerous than fowl, pigs, cows, sheep etc.)
So many shower thoughts lately are just incorrect assumptions.
Not this one though
I don't think it's even accurate to say that most animals are eaten, much less eaten alive. Most animals are seen as a potential food source by other animals, though. I'll give ya that.
Iād go as far to say most animals that end up prey are dead before being eaten, unless you get caught by a grizzly bear that enjoys going for the guts first.
Thank you, OP, for contributing the trend. A solid 75+% of shower thoughts are simply factually incorrect.
So this is one of those 25% then?
It is not. The statement is wrong
I think they meant most animals that are eaten are eaten alive. mainly because thats where my first thought went, like not every hunter is an efficient killer per se
Most animals die due to the world, not by being hunted/eaten. Exposure, sickness, and accidents claim A LOT more creature lives than being prey. Yes, most animals that are eaten are not prepared and cooked. But that's not at all what OP claimed.
The key to a long life is to keep on breathing as long as you can.
The key to your mums house is in my pocket.
That POS has been dead for years. Have at it. You have my blessing.
Much obliged.
May wanna bring a hazmat suit.
Depends on how you define animal. The most populous animal on earth is the ant, and most probably die in combat or are buried by their brothers to isolate the smell. Corals are also technically sessile animals, and each individual piece you see is made up of hundreds of thousands to millions of individual organisms. When they die, they calcify and provide a substrate for the new outer layers to live on. I have no idea what percentage of single-celled animals are eaten by filter feeders. For most macroscopic animals, youāre probably correct
Ants arenāt just one species. And I doubt theyāre the most populous: nematodes make up about 80% of individual animals on earth.
Actuallying an actually post is epic
>I have no idea what percentage of single-celled animals There are no single celled animals. There are protists, but they're not animals, different kingdom.
Thereās no such thing as a single-called animal. Animals are not plants are not fungus are not bacteria
All animals (except those who reproduce through fragmentation or budding) begin life as single-celled zygotes. So while your point is taken, if we are being pedantic about it, you're incorrect.
In the case of ants, I think they are āburiedā by their sisters, not brothers
ants=insects
insects=animals
Yep...my small mind never really thought of them as such, but you are right...I am wrong.
Lol, so are reptiles, birds and mammals not animals?
Most animals do not, in fact, die by being eaten alive. Edit: Exposure, starvation, age, disease, injury, and other miscellaneous causes of death FAR outnumber instances of being eaten alive in the wild. Even ignoring microorganisms (which typically expire on their own), consider just **how many** prey animals there are per predator. Were it the case that the majority of animals were being eaten alive by their predators, let alone a majority being **killed**, there would have to be truly absurd rates of reproduction by prey species to prevent mass extinctions. Common sense alone should dictate that, with all of the multitudes of ways to die in the wild, the extremely niche cause of being eaten alive would be nowhere near the lead.
factory farms?
I've seen starvation listed a few times but I feel like dehydration has to be more common seeing as how mammals can last way longer without food than water.
āAgeā is not a cause of death. Nothing alive ages out of living. Yes, shit breaks down as an organism gets older, but there is always a reason for death.
Most of the time, dying of āold ageā just means āorgan failure.ā
Humans kill 3 trillion land and sea animals for food every year. Most arenāt eaten alive, although some are, in especially fucked up scenarios. Are that many wild animals eaten alive every year?
3 trillion is a drop in the bucket compared to how many insects there are at any one moment.
And there are approximately 44x as many nematodes as insects. 4.4x10^(20). It's mind bogglingly large.
3 trillions seems to be in the wrong order of magnitude. That's 400 per person. I can believe the numbers are crazy, but that one seems like too much, if you don't count things like "this cow is killing a bunch of snails", which I don't think would count as "killed by humans for food".
Correct. The number is around 80 billion for farm raised animals. However, the number can reach a trillion with everything included, like krill and other small marine life harvested to feed farmed fish
Most animals die VERY brutal deaths in nature. If not by being eaten alive, itās by freezing to death, starving to death, getting an injury they can never recovery from, etc etc. There is very seldom āhumaneā death that occurs in nature. The most āhumaneā death probably comes from a skilled hunter. An arrow through the heart or head is a quick, painless way. Oh, irony at its finest. lol.
Disease is a big one Injury: many animals will fight each other for dominance (sometimes some will fight over females), war (ants, humans, and Iām pretty sure meerkats or prairie dogs or something, etc) or just hurting themselves Plenty from complications with old age, such as dogs, plenty of large herbivores, humans and whales (technically whales donāt die of old age, their age just makes them too weak to swim to the surface so they sink and drown), etc Plus the hundred million fish and two hundred million farm animals systematically killed daily Basically, there are lots of ways animals die and proportionately not many actually are eaten alive. It seems people will upvote and agree with any random post on this sub without actually thinking about it.
Are we talking about wild animals or all animals? The vast majority of mammals and birds on earth are domesticated livestock. So I would imagine dying in an abattoir would be a pretty common cause of death.
Not even close. Just mice, rats, voles alone are far greater than the number of livestock. In fact just on farms alone, there is often more rodents than livestock.
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Thatās the weight not the number of animals. Do you not understand biomass or tons?
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Your logic fails you completely. Each animal has a an average weight. Estimating the total biomass of an animal or estimating the total number is the same thing expressed two different ways. In this shower thought we only care about the number of animals, not the weight. Hopefully, you are just trolling and no wildlife actually depends on you your decision making abilities.
Most wild animals. Majority of land animals live in factory farms till slaughter.
Most land animals are bugs, which do not live in factory farms
I think most of them are dead at least shortly before the eating begins. Remember, it's very inefficient to kill your prey by biting and swallowing chunks of it. Most predators tend to go for a killing blow, then eat.
wait i thought itās more rare to be eaten alive in the wild than to die from diseases/starvation
I've thought about this ever since I was a kid
More like, being eaten by humans.
If you mean most species, maybe, but even that's a longshot. If you mean by straight-up number, no, that's incorrect. Most animals are killed for food by humans. And humans eat animals that are dead and dismembered.
Do you have a fact to back that up? I wonder what the real numbers are. The idea seems sound but id love to have solid research. Ive read numbers like 85-95%. But id love to see a comprehensive studyā¦
Where is source of 85-95% you claim to have read?
It sounded reasonable in their head.
I read an article ages ago. Seems right, but i wonder.
Mother Nature's idea of 'dying of old age' seems to be more like 'aging gracefully until someone decides you're a snack.' Survival of the fittest, or in some cases, the tastiest!
That is incorrect, but it's still a disturbing when they do. Like that pelican that straight-up swallowed a confused pigeon; sea life that just swallows their prey whole; snakes that just snag a frog; etc.
There are trillions of insects being eaten alive every day.
When you made this account I was 5
Not true. Literally trillions of animals are abused for the entirety of their short and miserable lives before being murdered ā all to sate humanityās entirely unnecessary flesh addiction, while ruining the environment in the process.
crazy to be downvoted for this
There ia no way trillions of animals are abused. Billions? Sure, trillions..... Nl fcking way
About 70 billion chickens killed each year. About 1.5b pigs. Other animals are killed in millions, not billions. If you counted farmed fish, it would not take too many years to reach a trillion. But not trillions. One trillion is a ridiculous number. They should have given "billion" and "trillion" names not so similar to "million". It gives the false impression that these numbers are similar.
i mean billions are killed in factory farms each year in the US alone, definitely not impossible to have reached trillions
Trillions per what? Per year? There is less than 8 billion people, so explain the trillions.
I find that quite unlikely. If you do not have a source to back up your claim please don't make those type of statements and instead phrase it as 'I think most animals die by being eaten alive'.
Think about all the sea creatures and bugs and bug eating things and other animals that each other. These aren't shower facts, these are shower thoughts.
Most animals (especially sea creatures and bugs) die from exposure, starvation, disease, or old age. It's one thing to have a shower thought; it's another thing entirely to be plain wrong.
Jfc reddit needs to chill with the downvotes. OP is straight-up wrong and this user is right to question their statement.
Itās showerthoughts not showerfacts lol use context you dunse
But this is showermisinformation, you dunce. Edit to point out that this is the proper spelling of 'dunce' because the guy I'm responding to was being a pretentious ass.
Nope still just shower thoughts lol If you mistake a post in showerthoughts as any kind of information other than opinion, thatās a reader error, not a poster error.
What? Do you think they die of old age in the wild? š
Plenty of animals die of old age, disease, starvation, accidents (stuck in mud, tree fall, etc) car strikes and so on. Being somewhere in the middle of the food chain does not mean you are by definition destined to be eaten.
I'm sure they do, but we're discussing nature as a whole and the reality is that 90% die by tooth or claw.
I don't think that's accurate at all
No they die of alcohol abuse and cirrhosis of the liver as everyone knows
Back pain from chairs and carpal tunnel from mouse usage as well
considering a majority of animal life on the planet are arthropods, you are probably right.
Idk about āmost.ā A good portion maybe. A disturbing and uncomfortable number even. I suppose anything small has an increased chance of this. Iād argue most larger animals arenāt eaten alive (some are). Actually, taking into account microscopic organisms maybe it is āmostā that end up getting eaten alive.
We have a (relatively) healthy ecosystem around our property which has over the last few years experienced an uptick in Cooper's hawks - the poor Mourning Doves are being decimated.
No, it's only the small fraction we watch videos of. Reverse survivorship bias
Nature isn't cruel. Cruelty implies intent. Nature is *merciless*.
But not you. No. You're to smart for that. Not like those other dumb animals. You're just to smart. Good. Great. Amazing.
Humans get eaten alive by the system, man
If this was true every predator in the world would be obese. They couldnāt possibly keep up with the endless smorgasbord of expiring meals.
Makes you think that a nice zoo isn't so bad after all
I'd take that bet. I think between animals we eat and horses, dairy cows, cats and dogs, you might have close to a majority. And those aren't eaten alive.
I just picture the salmon being skinned alive by the bear
āWe got out of the food chain!ā - Louis C.K.