Which animal drinks the most?

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A team of researchers from Duke University, the University of the Witwatersrand and Hunter College has found that elephants have the highest volume of daily water loss ever recorded in a land animal. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the group describes experiments they conducted with captive elephants to measure how much water they lose.

Many animals, such as humans, keep cool in hot weather by perspiring—as sweat evaporates, the skin is cooled down. Other animals, such as dogs, keep cool by panting—and still others, such as elephants, have large organs that work as a cooling system—their ears keep them cool when it is hot. Elephants have sweat glands, as well, but they are small and located in their feet, near their cuticles. Elephants are also known to drink an enormous amount of water—hundreds of liters every day. Such huge amounts of water help to keep elephants cool by its presence in the body, but it is also needed to break down the huge amounts of food that elephants eat—and because their digestion process is so inefficient, they defecate from 12 to 15 times a day. Elephants also lose a lot of water through urinating, as well. Interestingly, until now, it was not known just how much water elephants lose per day. The researchers in this new effort sought to find out.

Rather than trying to measure urine, water content in feces, water expelled by breathing and via sweat, and other sources of water loss, the researchers added precisely measured doses of deuterium, which dilutes in body water, to the food given to several elephants at a zoo in North Carolina. By periodically taking blood samples, the team could measure how long it took for the elephants to eliminate the deuterium—an indirect way of measuring water loss. The researchers tested the elephants periodically over the course of three years, being sure to include very hot days.

They found that the elephants were losing more water on a daily basis than previously thought—as much as 325 liters on average on cool days, and as much as 427 liters on average on hot days. The researchers also found that the water loss on hot days added up to approximately 10% of the total amount of water in an elephant's body on any given day. They suggest that their findings could have implications for the future, as wild elephants face higher temperatures and water restrictions due to global warming.

More information: Herman Pontzer et al. Air temperature and diet influence body composition and water turnover in zoo-living African elephants ( Loxodonta africana ), Royal Society Open Science (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.201155

Journal information: Royal Society Open Science

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Citation: Elephants found to have the highest volume of daily water loss ever recorded in a land animal (2020, December 2) retrieved 2 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2020-12-elephants-highest-volume-daily-loss.html

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Worsening drought conditions in much of the American West, particularly California, are causing widespread concern. Lawmakers in the Golden State have recently implemented restrictions on the water use of civilians, restaurants, and hotels in an effort to slow the drain of this essential life-giving resource.

But can shorter showers and browner lawns really fix the problem? Those concerned about their personal impact need to spend less time looking at their faucets and more time looking at their plates. The following are 10 shocking stats that show the largely hidden yet massive water footprint of the animal-agriculture industry:

1. The land mammal who consumes the most water per pound of bodyweight is the cow.

A single cow used for her milk on an industrial feed lot can consume up to 100 gallons of water a day during hot summer months, and that adds up. An estimated 55% of the USA’s freshwater supply goes to raising animals for food.

2. In drought-ravaged California, more than 10% of the state’s dwindling water supply goes to growing alfalfa for cows on farms.

Alfalfa hay used as animal feed requires an estimated 1.6 trillion gallons of water a year. What’s more—30% of California-grown alfalfa is shipped overseas to feed cattle in Asia. That’s 100 billion gallons of water a year.

3. It can take more than 600 gallons of water to produce a single gallon of cow’s milk.

Since roughly 30 gallons of water required to yield just a 6-ounce serving of dairy milk, the total adds up at an alarming rate.

4. As many as 55 gallons of water go into every two slices of dairy cheese.

Four ounces of butter? That’s 109 gallons of water. Six ounces of Greek yogurt, 90.

5. If you follow government recommendations for saving water, you’ll save 47 gallons a day …

… but that doesn’t mean much when it takes an estimated 660 gallons of water to produce a quarter pound of hamburger meat.

Four ounces of butter? That’s 109 gallons of water. Six ounces of Greek yogurt, 90.

Producing just 1 pound of hamburger meat requires the same amount of water as 2 months’ worth of showers.

6. Ounce for ounce, beef requires almost double the amount of water that almonds do.

7. Snowpack in California’s mountainous regions accounts for 33% of the state’s water—but warmer winters mean less snowfall each year, and what’s there is melting faster than it can be replenished.

As average temperatures become steadily warmer (October 2014 to January 2015 was the warmest California winter recorded in the last 120 years), the state is forced to turn to its shrinking supply of groundwater to quench the enormous thirst of the animal agriculture industry.

8. Raising animals for food drives climate change.

Cows produce about 150 billion gallons of methane every day, which is 25 to 100 times more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2 (which, mind you, they produce an estimated 32 billion tons of per year).

9. Each day, humans worldwide drink an estimated 5.2 billion gallons of water. Cows drink roughly eight and a half times that amount in a day—45 billion gallons.

10. Compared to someone with a meat and dairy laden diet…

What else do they save each day?

• 45 pounds of grain
• 30 square feet of land
• 20 lbs of CO2 equivalent
• an animal’s life

Make a difference now: Pledge to go vegan

Not only will going vegan reduce your water footprint, it can also improve your health and will make the world a better place for animals. Need a place to start? Order a copy of our free vegan starter kit today. It’s packed with recipes and tips that will make going vegan a total breeze.