The Animal Sentience Bill may become a landmark piece of legislation, but do invertebrates deserve to be a part of it?
If passed, the Bill will be the first law in the UK to officially recognise animals as sentient beings and require their interests to be factored into policy decisions.
Yet curiously the bill defines an animal as “any vertebrate other than homo sapiens.”
The invertebrates, who make up ninety nine percent of the planet’s animals, have been left out altogether.
However, this may well change.
In July, The Times reported that the government was indeed preparing to proclaim that certain invertebrates were sentient, and include them in the Animal Sentience Bill.
The implications of such a move, were it to happen, could be vast.
Read the full story here.
