Many wild animals are sentient creatures, meaning they have a conscious subjective experience of the world, including a variety of positive and negatively valenced feelings. This experience affects the way they behave and respond, and the welfare of animals (the experienced balance of positive and negative feelings) will therefore impact how they act within their environment. In this talk I will discuss the current best theories of animal sentience, as well as presenting a framework for assessing the likely sentience of different animal taxa and its application to some 'borderline' species.
