Animal Welfare and the Science of Animal Consciousness: A Plan, and Its Test in 2026

Introduction

Humans kill more than 80 billion land animals for food each year, along with somewhere between one and two trillion wild-caught fish and tens of billions of farmed fish. Most of the land animals are chickens raised in industrial systems. If these animals can suffer, the harm exceeds any purely human problem in the number of beings affected. The evidence that many of them can suffer has grown steadily, and in 2024 several hundred scientists and philosophers signed a declaration saying that it is irresponsible to ignore the realistic possibility of consciousness in vertebrates and in many invertebrates.

Animal welfare belongs among species-level problems for that reason, and because it connects to the others. Livestock supports the livelihoods of almost 1.3 billion people, many of them poor. The sector produces an estimated 14.5 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions (World Bank). About 56 percent of the wild fish caught in 2010 were destined for reduction to fishmeal and oil, much of which feeds farmed animals, instead of being eaten by people (Mood and Brooke, Animal Welfare). Relative to its scale, the problem also receives very little public money or policy attention.

This essay sets out an eight-part plan to reduce animal suffering in farming, fishing, research and the emerging insect industry, then tests each part against what governments, courts, companies and investors actually did in 2025 and 2026.

Where things stand

Numbers of animals. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s figures for 2021 show about 73.8 billion chickens, 4.3 billion ducks, 1.4 billion pigs and 332 million cattle slaughtered for meat, part of about 222 million land animals a day (Our World in Data). The fishcount project estimates that 1.1 to 2.2 trillion wild finfish were caught each year on average between 2000 and 2019, and that 78 to 171 billion farmed fish were killed for food in 2019. Wild-caught fish made up 87.5 percent of the vertebrates killed for consumption in 2019 (Mood and Brooke, Animal Welfare).

Rethink Priorities estimated in 2020 that 1 to 1.2 trillion insects were being raised each year for food and feed, with 79 to 94 billion alive on farms on any given day (Rethink Priorities). Its 2024 model projects about 3.9 trillion black soldier fly larvae and mealworms harvested a year by 2030 in a median scenario (Rethink Priorities).

At least 192.1 million animals were used in science worldwide in 2015, the latest global estimate; recent figures show 9.1 million uses across the EU and Norway in 2023 and 2.63 million procedures in the United Kingdom in 2024 (Cruelty Free International).

The science. The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, issued on 19 April 2024 and since signed by more than 600 researchers, found “strong scientific support” for conscious experience in mammals and birds, “at least a realistic possibility” of it in all vertebrates and in cephalopods, decapod crustaceans and insects, and concluded that “when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal” (New York Declaration).

The most influential policy use of this science so far is a 2021 review for the UK government led by Jonathan Birch of the London School of Economics. It examined more than 300 studies against eight neurological and behavioural criteria, such as whether animals trade off risk against reward, tend wounds and value pain relief. It concluded that octopuses, squid, cuttlefish, crabs, lobsters and crayfish should be regarded as sentient, and the UK brought these animals within the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022 (LSE; Animal Welfare).

Some researchers think the declaration goes too far. The consciousness researcher Hakwan Lau has argued that the evidence behind the New York Declaration shows flexible behaviour, which does not by itself establish subjective experience, and that premature consensus statements may slow the development of better tests (The Transmitter). Research published in May 2026 found the opposite bias in ordinary judgement: people tend to under-attribute consciousness to animals with good evidence of sentience while over-attributing it to language models on the strength of fluent text (Frontiers in Psychology).

Law. The EU banned conventional battery cages for hens in 2012 but still permits enriched cages (EU Perspectives) and sow crates. Fifteen US states have farm animal confinement laws, and the Supreme Court upheld California’s Proposition 12 in May 2023 (Humane World for Animals). Most countries have no specific protection for fish at slaughter, and almost none cover invertebrates.

Part I: The plan

The plan applies the New York Declaration’s precautionary principle, taking proportionate steps wherever sentience is a realistic possibility, and ranks actions by the number of animals affected, the severity of suffering and feasibility.

1. Put sentience into law and give it an expert body

National governments should recognise in statute that vertebrates, cephalopods and decapod crustaceans are sentient, and create a standing expert committee that reviews new evidence and assesses the welfare effect of new policies. The UK model is the template: the Birch review applied transparent criteria, and the 2022 Act turned its findings into law. The same criteria should be applied to insects before the insect industry reaches trillions of animals. The cost is a few staff and research contracts, and the committee gives later rules a scientific basis that can survive changes of government.

2. End cages and crates, with fixed dates and help for farmers

The worst confinement systems affect the largest numbers of mammals and birds: cages for laying hens and crates for breeding sows. Legislatures should set a date after which new cage and crate systems cannot be installed, followed by a full phase-out date six to ten years later, which matches normal equipment replacement cycles. Transition grants and cheap credit should cover part of the conversion cost for small and medium farms. The same standards should apply to imports, so that domestic farmers are not undercut by cheaper caged products from abroad.

Corporate pledges show the transition is feasible: companies that pledged to go cage-free have on average completed 85 percent of it, benefiting more than 160 million hens a year (New Food). Pledges can be withdrawn or delayed, so law must follow.

3. Fix the broiler chicken

For meat chickens the main welfare problems are genetic: breeds selected to grow so fast that many birds have trouble walking, combined with high stocking densities. Governments should set maximum stocking densities, require slower-growing breeds over a transition period and end the killing of day-old male chicks in the egg industry through in-ovo sexing, which identifies male embryos before they develop. In the EU alone, more than 300 million male chicks are killed each year (Eurogroup for Animals).

4. Protect fish, crustaceans and cephalopods at slaughter and on farms

Fish are the most numerous vertebrates humans kill and the least protected. Countries should require effective stunning before slaughter for farmed fish, starting with the species farmed in the largest numbers where electrical and percussive stunning already work commercially. They should also set stocking density and water quality standards. For crustaceans, live boiling and live dismemberment should be banned where humane methods already exist, such as electrical stunning and rapid mechanical killing. Governments should prohibit commercial octopus farming, for which no welfare standard exists, before it starts.

For wild-capture fishing, the practical steps are shortening the time fish spend alive on deck and reducing the catch of small forage fish for fishmeal.

5. Regulate insect farming before it scales

Insect farming is promoted as a sustainable source of animal feed. Before it grows to trillions of animals a year, regulators should require slaughter methods that kill instantly, set basic standards for density, temperature and feeding, and fund research on insect sentience and welfare. Acting now is cheap because few large farms exist.

6. Replace animals in research where science allows

The goal is to cut animal use steadily while protecting research that has no substitute yet. Regulators should accept validated non-animal methods (organoids, organ-on-chip systems, computational toxicology and human data) wherever they perform as well or better, and should publish timetables for retiring specific animal tests. Research funders should require applicants to justify animal use and should fund the validation work that lets regulators accept alternatives. Priority should go to tests that cause severe suffering or use dogs and primates.

7. Invest in alternative proteins as a public good

Alternative proteins will displace factory-farmed products only when they match them on price and taste. Governments should fund open-access research on crop protein, fermentation and cell culture, build shared pilot-scale production facilities and give novel foods a clear, science-based approval path. The Good Food Institute estimates that public investment should be about $10.1 billion a year for the sector to mature; cumulative public investment since 2021 is about $2.5 billion (vegconomist).

8. Protect livelihoods and poorer countries

The rules above should apply first to industrial operations in high- and upper-middle-income countries, where most confined animals live and where alternatives are affordable. Smallholders and pastoralists in low-income countries, whose animals are often assets, insurance and a main source of nutrition, should receive support for better animal health (vaccination, veterinary services), which improves welfare and incomes together. Development banks that finance livestock expansion should attach welfare conditions to loans for industrial facilities.

Sequencing

In the first two years the priorities are sentience committees, installation bans on new cages and crates, fish stunning rules for major farmed species, a moratorium on octopus farming, basic insect slaughter standards and published timetables for replacing specific animal tests. Between years three and ten the full cage and crate phase-outs take effect, broiler standards come in, and public investment in alternative proteins builds. Over the longer term, lower-cost alternatives and changing diets reduce the total number of animals farmed.

What makes it stick politically

Farm animal welfare reforms tend to pass when put to voters, and polling cited by advocates shows about 80 percent of US voters, across parties, supporting confinement standards (Humane World for Animals). Reforms survive when farmers get time and money to convert, when imports meet the same rules and when retailers commit publicly, because retailers then want the law to bind their competitors too. Reforms fail when they appear to raise food prices during an inflation shock, when they are presented as an attack on rural communities, or when a single industry can lobby a national legislature to override a state or local rule.

Where reasonable people disagree

How much animal suffering counts. Some philosophers hold that full moral status depends on rationality, moral agency or the capacity for reciprocal obligations, which animals lack; on that view animals deserve protection from cruelty but not equal consideration of their interests. Many religious and cultural traditions give humans a special place while calling for kindness to animals. Others, following Peter Singer, hold that suffering counts equally whoever experiences it.
Fish and invertebrates. Researchers such as Lau argue that the evidence for fish or insect consciousness shows flexible behaviour and falls short of proof of feeling. Precaution says to act anyway at low cost; critics say precaution without a clear threshold could justify almost any rule.
Food prices and livelihoods. Higher welfare standards usually raise production costs. Farmers’ groups argue that cage bans shift production abroad to lower-welfare systems and raise prices for poor households, and rules designed for industrial farms could harm poor livestock keepers if applied carelessly.
Research. Animal studies have underpinned many medical advances, and many scientists warn that replacing them too fast could slow research or put patients at risk.
Reform or abolition. Some advocates think welfare reforms entrench animal farming by making it more acceptable; others think incremental reform is the only realistic path.

Part II: The plan in the world of September 2026

Sentience law: the UK advances, others wait

On 22 December 2025 the UK government published an Animal Welfare Strategy for England that commits to consult on ending enriched colony cages and farrowing crates, to end high-concentration carbon dioxide stunning of pigs, which affects about 9 million pigs a year, to promote slower-growing chicken breeds, and to introduce slaughter requirements for farmed fish in law for the first time (Animal Equality UK; Defra). The strategy also commits to guidance making clear that boiling decapods alive is unacceptable under existing slaughter law. In April 2026 the Home Office said it would take a phased approach to regulating the use of decapods in science (UK Human Rights Blog).

Neither the EU nor the United States adopted a comparable statutory sentience framework in 2025 or 2026, so element 1 of the plan remains mostly unimplemented.

Cages and crates: firm plans in Europe, a fight in the United States

European Union. In July 2026, after missing its own 2023 deadline, the Commission used its Livestock Strategy to commit to a proposal later in 2026 revising the rules for laying hens and broiler chickens, including a progressive phase-out of cages, an end to the systematic killing of male chicks through in-ovo sexing and equivalent welfare requirements for imports. A separate proposal on pigs, including the transition away from sow crates, is planned for 2027, along with measures on transport and the export of animals for slaughter (Animal Equality UK). Advocates estimate the measures could take more than 160 million animals out of cages, but note that cages for calves, rabbits, geese and other species are not covered (Animal Welfare Observatory). The strategy does not mention fish. Some member states are moving ahead: the Czech Republic has a national cage ban taking effect in 2027 and Slovenia has set a 2028 deadline (EU Perspectives).

The design matches element 2 of the plan, with fixed phase-outs and import equivalence, but the proposals are still unpublished and would take years to become law.

United Kingdom. The four UK governments consulted from 12 January to 9 March 2026 on banning all cages for laying hens, pullets and breeder layers. The first option would ban new cage installations from 1 January 2027 and end cage production on 1 January 2032; other options run to 2034 or 2037 (Welsh Government). The National Farmers’ Union opposes the ban, arguing that it will increase imports of eggs from lower-welfare systems and push some producers out of business during a cost-of-living crisis (NFU). The outcome had not been published by late September 2026.

United States. The federal government moved in the opposite direction. In July 2025 the Justice Department sued California, arguing that its egg laws, including Proposition 12, were preempted by federal law and raised egg prices. In March 2026 Judge Mark Scarsi dismissed the suit because the department had failed to show standing; he did not rule on preemption, so the California rules remain in force (Agri-Pulse; National Law Review). The Supreme Court declined further industry challenges to Proposition 12 in June 2025 and to Massachusetts’s Question 3 in June 2026 (Humane World for Animals).

A larger threat comes from Congress, where on 30 April 2026 the House passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (H.R. 7567) by 224 to 200. Its Section 12006, modelled on the “Save Our Bacon Act,” would let California enforce Proposition 12 on its own farms while barring states from enforcing livestock standards on production outside their borders (Hoodline). The Senate Agriculture Committee’s version, the Agricultural Act of 2026, passed the committee 12 to 11 on 16 September without that language, and a floor vote is expected after the November midterm elections (NACo; The Mercury). If the House language survives a conference committee, state confinement laws would no longer reach products raised in other states.

Corporate pledges. The Open Wing Alliance reported in 2025 that 92 percent of cage-free commitments with deadlines of 2024 or earlier had been fulfilled (The Humane League). EggTrack found that UK companies averaged 97 percent and European companies 94 percent, but only 198 of 415 commitments due in 2025 had been met, and 50 companies, including Unilever and Krispy Kreme, had withdrawn their pledges (New Food).

Broilers: proposals without binding standards

The EU’s promised 2026 proposal covers broiler chickens and male chick culling, and England’s strategy promotes slower-growing breeds. Neither has yet produced a binding breed or density standard, which leaves the largest group of farmed land animals with the least progress.

Fish and invertebrates: one law promised, one farm stopped

England’s commitment to legislate humane slaughter for farmed fish is the most significant fish welfare step by a major government in this period. The EU’s Livestock Strategy is silent on fish, which leaves the most numerous farmed vertebrates in Europe outside the new framework.

On octopus farming, the plan’s preventive approach succeeded without a national law. On 23 July 2026 Nueva Pescanova withdrew its application for a €50 million farm in the port of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, which would have produced 3,000 tonnes a year, about a million octopuses. It cited business and regulatory reasons after the Canary Islands’ environmental assessment body raised concerns about odour and water quality near a passenger terminal (The Olive Press). Nueva Pescanova may pursue other sites, so a legal ban is still needed.

Insects: the industry slowed before regulation arrived

Insect farming has grown more slowly than its backers predicted. Rethink Priorities found that about 36 percent of the roughly $2 billion invested in the sector through mid-2024 went to companies that have since failed or restructured, and its median projection for 2030 production capacity is less than half of a widely cited 2021 industry forecast (Rethink Priorities). Even that slower path implies trillions of insects killed a year by 2030. The slowdown gives regulators time, but neither the EU nor the United States has adopted welfare or slaughter standards for farmed insects, so element 5 is still undone.

Research animals: the fastest-moving element

Research policy moved further in 2025 and 2026 than any other part of the plan.

United States. On 10 April 2025 the FDA announced a plan to phase out animal testing requirements for monoclonal antibodies and other drugs (FDA). In July 2025 the National Institutes of Health said it would no longer issue funding calls exclusively for animal models, and that new calls must also support human-based approaches (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine). The FDA has since issued draft guidance to reduce long-term primate studies for certain monoclonal antibodies and, in September 2026, a direct final rule recognising non-animal methods as acceptable alternatives (FDA).
United Kingdom. On 11 November 2025 the government published a strategy to replace animals in science, with a £30 million research hub and deadlines: replacing the rabbit pyrogen test by the end of 2025, ending animal testing for skin and eye irritation and skin sensitisation by the end of 2026, ending mouse potency tests for botulinum toxin in 2027, and cutting pharmacokinetic studies on dogs and primates by at least 35 percent by 2030 (Cruelty Free International; GOV.UK).
European Union. On 1 June 2026 the Commission adopted a roadmap towards phasing out animal testing in chemical safety assessments, covering industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food additives. It sets no binding end dates (European Commission).

The UK strategy comes closest to element 6, because it names specific tests and dates. The US changes are large in potential effect but rest mostly on agency guidance and funding policy that a later administration could reverse. The EU roadmap is broad and open-ended.

Alternative proteins: money down, regulation divided

Private investment in alternative proteins fell 20 percent in 2025 to $881 million. Plant-based companies raised $450 million, up from $309 million; fermentation companies raised $357 million, down from $651 million; and cultivated meat and seafood companies raised $74 million, down from $139 million (vegconomist; FoodNavigator). Global plant-based retail sales grew 3 percent to $28.9 billion while US sales fell.

Regulators pulled in different directions. The FDA cleared Wildtype’s cultivated salmon in May 2025, and it went on sale at a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, the following month (AgFunderNews). In July 2025 Mission Barns received USDA approval for its cultivated pork fat and its San Francisco pilot plant, completing the US regulatory pathway for that product (Green Queen). Seven companies worldwide now hold regulatory clearance, with sales permitted in Singapore, the United States and Australia (vegconomist). At the same time, US states moved to ban the product. Florida and Alabama were followed in 2025 by Mississippi, Montana, Indiana, Nebraska and Texas, where a ban on sales took effect on 1 September 2025 and runs to 2027 (Food Safety Magazine). South Dakota added a five-year prohibition in March 2026 (CSG Midwest).

Element 7 faces a harder environment than in 2021. Private money has shrunk, cumulative public investment since 2021 is a quarter of what advocates say is needed in a single year, and some legislatures are closing markets before products reach them. The shift of private money towards plant-based products, which are already on sale, is a reasonable correction after years of optimistic cost forecasts.

Livelihoods, climate and the wider shocks of 2026

The wider shocks of 2026 affect animal welfare mainly through prices. The US Justice Department’s case against California rested on egg prices, and the NFU’s opposition to a cage ban rests on the cost of living. With fertilizer and energy prices raised by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, food affordability arguments are likely to weigh more heavily against welfare reform in 2027. That strengthens the case for transition funding and long phase-in periods, which spread the cost over years. On climate, food production accounts for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock and fisheries responsible for 31 percent of food emissions (Our World in Data), so policies that reduce the number of animals farmed serve both goals.

Part III: Revised priorities

Priorities for the next six to twelve months, in order:

Keep state farm animal laws intact in the US farm bill. The conference committee after the November elections will decide whether fifteen state confinement laws keep their effect.
Get the EU hen and broiler proposal published in 2026 with firm dates, including import equivalence and a timetable for a separate proposal on farmed fish, which the Livestock Strategy omits.
Finalise the UK cage ban on the 2027 and 2032 timetable, and draft the promised farmed fish slaughter law.
Hold research regulators to their dates: the UK’s end-2026 deadline for skin and eye irritation tests, and conversion of the FDA’s draft guidance into final guidance.
Set insect welfare and slaughter standards now, while the industry is small and its growth has slowed.
Protect the approval route for alternative proteins and shift public money towards open research and shared production capacity, with priority for products that can reach price parity soonest.
Turn the Gran Canaria outcome into a ban on commercial octopus farming, starting in Spain and the EU.

Conclusion

The evidence of animal consciousness is strongest for mammals and birds, which are also the animals most affected by cages, crates and fast-growth breeding, and the policy response in 2025 and 2026 followed that gradient. The EU and the UK are preparing cage bans and new slaughter rules, research regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have started to retire specific animal tests, and a planned octopus farm was stopped. The United States is split between states that set welfare standards and a federal government that has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to override them. Fish, crustaceans and insects, which account for most of the animals humans kill, remain almost entirely outside the law.

The events of 2026 support the plan’s main claims: legal deadlines with transition support last longer than voluntary pledges, research policy can change quickly when regulators commit to it, and stopping a harmful industry before it starts is cheaper than reforming it afterwards. Over the next year the outcome depends mainly on a US farm bill conference, a European Commission proposal and a UK consultation response, all of which are still pending as of late September 2026.