CHAI - Reality Check - How Long Animals Live

Animals are commercially exploited, intensively farmed, and killed in great numbers for their meat, fur, leather, and wool. They are also collected from the wild for illegal live-trade markets, captive-bred as pets, hunted for sport, industrially fished, poached even when listed as endangered, trapped, as well as imprisoned in exhibitions and zoos, exhibited as entertainment, and experimented upon in laboratories. Today, many species we think of as wildlife, like deer, are actually factory-farmed and eaten, while others we think of as domestic companions are often used to trim our garments.

There is a great disparity between natural life expectancy and the time an animal is killed as a commodity. Most animals are slaughtered sometime between birth and when they are sexually mature, and frequently farm animals are butchered as infants (calves, kid goats, lambs, and piglets).

Animal	Potential Lifespan	For Clothes or Food
Alligator	30–50	3–4
Bear	25–30	3-5
Beaver	15–20	5–7
Camel	40	5 or under
Cat	15–20	1–3
Cattle, dairy cow	25–30	4–7
Cattle, beef	25–30	1–2
Cattle, veal	25–30	3–16 weeks
Chicken, eggs	15	1–2
Chicken, meat	15	6 weeks
Chinchilla	10–15	8 months
Deer	25	1.5–2.5
Dog	10–20	1–3
Duck, meat	15	7 weeks
Duck, foie gras/down	15	11-28 weeks
Fox	10–15	8 months
Frog	15	3
Goat	10–15	4–8 months
Goose, meat	15	7 weeks
Goose, foie gras/down	15	11-28 weeks
Horse	25–30	5–6
Kangaroo	20–30	2
Lobster	50	6–10
Mink	8–10	8 months
Ostrich	70	10–14 months
Pig	6–10	3–6 months
Rabbit	10–13	2–7 months
Raccoon	10	2
Seal	19	10 days–5 years
Sea Otter	23	Birth–5 years
Sheep, fur or wool	8–13	Fetus–5 years
Sheep, mutton	8–13	1–3
Skunk	7	1–2
Snake	20–30	3–4
Tuna	25	1–2
Turkey	15	3–6 months
Turtle	50–100	30
Wolf	10–16	2
Yak	20–25	3–5
Zebra	20–25	5