Yahoo Finance The saddest chart in global business - the Dog Kill Index
Forget tanking currencies and rising public debt, the most depressing chart in business is one you've probably never heard of before.
Earlier this week, Simon, a 10-month-old continental giant rabbit who was tipped to become the largest rabbit in the world, died in the cargo section of a United Airlines flight from Heathrow to Chicago.
While this has gone down as a fresh PR nightmare for the airline - which attracted a firestorm of controversy after hauling a man off an overbooked flight - it turns out that hundreds of animals have lost their lives on air transport in the past decade.
Bloomberg's Dog Kill index tracks this figure, which US airlines are required to provide by law. Dogs are the most common animals to die while being transported - presumably because they are most commonly transported - hence the name of the index.
Since 2006 the Dog Kill index has recorded 300 deaths with 2010 being the worst year to date, when 39 animals died on US flights.
The title for the worst day on record is shared between six different days, with six animals dying on each one. Three of these days occurred during 2010 while the latest was July 31, 2014.
So far in 2017 just four deaths have been recorded, although this does not include the death of Simon.
