The declaration:

The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness

Which animals have the capacity for conscious experience? While much uncertainty remains, some points of wide agreement have emerged.

First, there is strong scientific support for attributions of conscious experience to other mammals and to birds.

Second, the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).

Third, when there is a realistic possibility of conscious experience in an animal, it is irresponsible to ignore that possibility in decisions affecting that animal. We should consider welfare risks and use the evidence to inform our responses to these risks.

The definition of sentience is really low, it's basically the ability to have sensations and react. The most basic organisms can be argued to have that. The definition is not what I used for most of my life, which is higher intelligence.

There is no question in my mind that one hundred years from now we will look back at our treatment of animals in the same way we look back upon slavery.

Your reminder to go vegan if you're not already :)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The declaration was published Friday at an event at New York University, where scientists engaged in active and at times heated debate about the state of the science on animal consciousness, and the wisdom of releasing such a statement at all.

The problem of considering animal consciousness is that it “immediately brings us into contact with serious imaginative limitations,” signatory Jonathan Birch, a philosopher at the London School of Economics, told attendees.

All scientists, he said, ”are familiar with articles that summarize research that people do not trust — because they feel they are cherry-picking the data, they are relying on studies that are not objective.”

He added that while the signatories themselves disagreed on the dimensions of animal consciousness and its ethical implications, they agreed “big steps have been taken in the last 10 years,” and that these needed to be part of the conversation.

Per a summary of the recent research in Quanta Magazine, “we now know, for example, that octopuses feel pain and cuttlefish remember details of specific past events … and that zebra fish show signs of curiosity.”

In the insect world, Quanta noted that “bees show apparent play behavior, while Drosophila fruit flies have distinct sleep patterns influenced by their social environment.

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