Animal Welfare Act 2006 Puns

[England]

Im aware this act was intended to apply to domestic animals however neither the title or contents of the act exclude wild animals. Section 1 the act says it applies to all vertebrate animals other then man and Under Section 9 a duty of care is placed upon people to ensure to uphold and protect the welfare needs of animals. These include a need to a suitable environment, diet, to express natural behaviour, be with it apart from other animals and be protected from pain and suffering.

But this does not mean that simply because an animal is called wild that it’s not entitled to the same rights and protections as their domestic counterparts. The government is also bring in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) bill which will recognise all animals in the country as sentient. It can also be reasonably expected that all animals can and should be protected from humans taking away these rights.

The reason I’m asking this is that recently my local council have allowed the development of a site that house a large ecosystem. This site is technically a brown field site however it was reclaimed by nature under a process known as rewilding. So the council already failed there as the site should have been considered for SSSI status. Unfortunately that’s too late now as the entire forest has been cut down. This caused a local herd of deer to become separated from each other and now increases the threat to a colony of rabbits in the site.

I argue that all this work by humans has caused multiple breaches of the Animal welfare act as non of these species were relocated. They’ve had their freedom from fear and distress, to be with other animals, a suitable environment (a construction site is not) and access to food.

Sorry if this is long and rambling hopefully you lot will be able to give me some advice

I'm genuinely nonplussed at the controversy generated by one of the reactions to the Government's voting down of a wrecking amendment to the Withdrawal Bill. Critics are claiming that the amendment was necessary because the Animal Welfare Act 2006 doesn't recognise or protect animal 'sentience', along with an assortment of secondary claims about its scope ("doesn't apply to fish"; "only covers domestic animals in the UK" etc.). Yet Section 1 of the Act reads like it comprehensively defines what is considered to be an animal, and 1(3) contains provisions for including invertebrates and other animals (on the basis of experiencing pain and suffering) as may be necessary.

S2 appears to clearly define the scope of the Act to be concerned with animals for which man would be considered responsible for their welfare.

S4 appears to comprehensively define instances and acts of suffering.

S62(1) appears to clarify the meaning of 'suffering' to be how we would commonly construe it in relation to physical and mental suffering.

I have a flimsy knowledge of the law and how to understand it, but reading those parts of the Act, it would seem to beg the question of sentience. Suffering is mental or physical suffering; if a relevant animal is experiencing it unnecessarily whilst under the control of someone, an offence is committed; evidence of suffering should be able to support the prosecution of an offence. Defining 'sentience' doesn't feel like it's important here.

My question is, are critics getting unnecessarily worked up about the specific lack of the word and definition of 'sentience'? Or does the Act actually not adequately address animal sentience (which I take to mean sense perception in this context)?