Pet's carbon paw-prints could be cat-astrophic for planet

Saturday, 5 August 2017

Jenny Knight was oblivious to the fact her cat Claire was creating a large carbon pawprint.

Kiwi pet owners are waking up to an inconvenient truth: their meat-eating cats and dogs are causing a major carbon paw-print.

A new United States study found that feeding meat to companion dogs and cats ate enough to account for about 64 million tonnes of methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases. This has the same effect as driving 13.6 million cars for a year.

Jenny Knight owns five cats and a rabbit.

Grey Lynn resident Jenny Knight has been a cat lady since she was eight but she never thought about the environmental impacts of owning five cats and a rabbit until recently.

Knight's family spends at least $100 on a large bag of dry food every two weeks and they occasionally bought tinned food for their cats.

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According to the New Zealand Companion Animal Council (NZCAC), 64 per cent of households had at least one pet. The United States only had a marginally higher percentage of pet ownership of 65 per cent.

'As pet ownership increases in some developing countries, especially China, and trends continue in pet food toward higher content and quality of meat, globally, pet ownership will compound the environmental impacts of human dietary choices,' report author UCLA geographer Gregory Okin said in his findings.

Knight's five cats are called Midnight, Emma, Claire, Bill and Darling.

Knight said she would be willing to give up things in her own life it if meant that her cats could eat certain foods which may not be environmentally friendly.

'Having cats has enhanced our lives and we want what is best for them,' Knight said.

'They deserve to be given the best possible life.'

Knight said she would be open to feeding her pets environmentally friendly food in the future if it became available.

The Opportunities Party Leader Gareth Morgan and notorious cat loather said the problem was about carbon emissions as a whole rather than just one activity.

He said it was better to put a price on carbon emissions as people would change their consumptions habits based upon their priorities.

'I think it's all about getting your carbon footprint lower across the board,' Morgan said.

'This means changing our diet, eating local food and not as much process or transported food.'

Companion animals were important to a lot of people and if their pets were their priority, then they would be prepared to pay more for the carbon emissions, he said.

In his findings, Okin said it was not only what we fed our pets but also how we fed them that contributed to the environment.

'Simple measures like feeding domestic dogs and cats nutritionally appropriate amounts will certainly reduce their environmental and energetic impact,' Okin said.

'However, without large-scale reduction in their number and changes to the food system that drastically reduces the per-capita animal product consumption, the environmental and energetic impact of these animals will remain significant.'