No, this is the total accumulated number left after the additions and subtractions of all the previous years.   If you look a bit, you'll find it generally keeps decreasing year by year.

Quick googling says the total number is:


Active Entries as of  1/1/2008             - 105,229
Active Entries as of  1/1/2009            - 102,764
Active Entries as of  12/31/2009         - 96,192
Active Entries as of 12/31/2010          - 85,820
Active Entries as of 01/01/2012          - 85,158
Active Entries as of 01/01/2013          - 87,217
Active Entries as of 01/01/2014            - 84,136
Active Entries as of 01/01/2015            - 84,924

*hands raised* goodness I was just trying to say it's not unheard-of  that people go missing. I guess I'm just as wrong as Harry.....

Dead beat harry to Butters.....

"All right" I said " Last year in the U.S. alone more than nine hundred thousand people were reported missing and not found"

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah" I said "you can check with the FBI.....that breaks down to one person in three hundred and twenty five. Vanishing. Every year....."

I'm not trying to argue your real world statistics i was just pointing out people go missing and in the FICTIONAL  world of Dresden some  of them could be changelings. it was my take on this topic of fae reproduction and how it can go unseen....just my opinion. I'm leaving this topic as my two cents worth is unwanted....bye

Actually we know very little about fae reproduction and there are many kinds of fae with very different mythological backgrounds.

We see the changelings because they live in the mortal world but many fae might not have that much contact with mortals.

And for some types of fae it might even not practical to reproduce with humans.

While I completely  agree  with this statement it could go the other way too. The fae that don't resemble humans may not even reproduce in the same way. PURE SPECULATION : maybe some get a bit Shakespearean and impregnate or become impregnated  in a dream....Imagine how easy that could be dream sexy dreams with tall dark and dangerous poof one changeling  and one confused mortal.

If you look at the mythology of some fairy (spelled this way to denote stories told by mortals) stories they get weird with their reproduction. MAYBE some of these are taken literally by the Fae. Which means there could be thousands of changeling 

Remember close to 700,000 people were reported  missing in 2010 alone! Some of those could be changelings. If only 1/4 are winter tributes in just 10 years that's 1,750,000 tributes which could make winter's army a bit more realistic.

Some math for you....

131,000,000 people are born every year
if only .266% of those are are changelings....348,460 or 1 in every 20,000 which is about how common albinism is
If half of those are winter....174,230
And 1/4 of 700,000....175,000