Wild caught crustaceans numbers

Counting the number of aquatic animals caught or farmed each year is difficult: the industry counts them in tons, not in individuals.

Fishcount has done valuable work to provide estimates of the number of aquatic animals caught or farmed, based on tonnages and average weight estimates for each species.

However, this work does not include estimates of wild caught crustaceans. For this reason, we have carried out a similar work to that of Fishcount on this subject, also using FAO data.

In August 2021, we have selected on FIGIS, following the FAOSTAT group hierarchy, for the year 2019, all species classified as "Crustaceans" (not the categories but each species, individually, with patience!), which generated this export.

We then added "Estimated mean weight (EMW) (g)" columns (low and high), which we filled in with the EMWs provided by Fishcount when available. The other species have been excluded (496,691.211 tons of animals, which represents 8.13% of total tonnage). This resulted in this spreadsheet.

Finally, we were able to estimate on this basis that the crustaceans caught in 2019 were between 317 and 484 billion individuals.

This estimate is subject to considerable uncertainty because average weight estimates are approximate. In addition, the large diversity of species and the lack of research on sentience of these animals makes it impossible to state with certainty that they are all sentient (especially the 183 billion Antarctic krill included in this estimate).

You can quote this estimate as follows:

WoDEF team, "Wild caught crustaceans numbers" based on FAO and Fishcount data, August 2021.