Advances in comparative neuroscience increasingly support the view that a wide range of wild animals experience pain, fear, and potentially other emotional states similar to mammals.
The neuroscience of animal consciousness has moved dramatically toward recognizing widespread sentience across the animal kingdom. This has profound welfare implications: if birds and fish experience fear and pain in ways similar to mammals, then the suffering caused by agricultural and wild animal management practices is vastly larger than previously acknowledged. Evidence-based welfare policy must track this science.