Exctract from the book Animal Liberation Now (Publisher: New York: HarperCollins, 2023), which shows that despite the growing importance of the animal liberation movement, we still abuse animals on an incomprehensible scale. The book returns to the themes of Animal Liberation – Peter Singer’s groundbreaking work from 1975 and examines how the issues of the animal rights movement intertwine with climate change and social justice. The book is also a voice arguing for a new ethics of our relationship with animals. In the quoted passage, Peter Singer argues for animal liberation and equal treatment of the interests of humans and non-humans. He also describes speciesism as prioritizing the interests of one’s own species. The ethical basis for equal treatment of different species is their shared capacity to suffer.

Animals belonging to different taxonomic groups are treated in a different way in scientific studies – this applies to wild as well as cultivated specimens. The scope and commonness of moral obligations with which animals used in scientific research are assigned allows for distinguishing clearly different categories among them. Birds, mammals and partially cephalopods have a privileged status over the others, and fish occupy an intermediate position in this hierarchy. The remaining groups of animals, invertebrates covering the vast majority of animals present in the biosphere, are still deprived of any protection of their basic life interests in scientific research. Over the last years we have been dealing with a real revolution related to the confirmation of the presence of advanced cognitive abilities in many invertebrates. New ethical concepts define a new paradigm in understanding and ordering their place in the sphere of moral obligations. According to them, the empirical evidence unequivocally dictates the abandonment of the habit of treating invertebrates as primitive, insensitive creatures whose behavior is based on simple responses and automated instincts. Concept of evolutionarily inclusive ethics may gain a special place among them.

The present doctrine that discriminates against non-native species and drives the indiscriminate cleansing of sentient animals from „invasive“ species is deeply unscientific and unethical. The doctrine originated as a combination of Aldo Leopold’s homegrown ecocentric ethics and C.S. Elton’s theory of invasion by animals and plants. Despite repeated criticisms the doctrine is widely espoused by conservationists and the majority of biologists with little or no ethical reflection, leading to a blatant bias in research and interpretation of its results as testified by consistent ignoring any positive, while demonizing the negative, impact of non-native animals with the purpose of instigating their persecution. Species cleansing instigated by conservationists represents biopolitics disguised as science, and as such constitutes an abuse of public thrust and financial resources dedicated to science. Here I expose the bioxenophobic bias in numerous publications on the American minks and Raccoon dogs. The unbiased reading of the current research results shows that the Raccoon dogs found their trophic niche and the minks are in the process (disturbed by repeated escapes from fur farms) of carving out one of their own while controlling the populations of other American immigrants, muskrats and red swamp crayfish (both of which are considered invasive). Ame­rican minks may possibly contribute to the disappearance of the relic populations of European minks but this is far from proven as the latter are on decline since XVII century. If a population of a neobiotic predator really needs to be reduced then the first rational and responsible move would be to stop the influx of new individuals (by removing their source) and the ongoing killing of its native competitors rather then inciting the populace to persecute wild animals. The striking irrationalism and zeal of conservationists to vilify and persecute non-native animals calls for an explanation. It seems to result from bioxenophobia which arises as a combination of biophilia and nativism, and turns conservationists’ anger over the devastation of biosphere into instrumental aggression against non-native („alien“) species.

The egg is a structure that allows many organisms to reproduce. It is also called one of the forms of animal development. However it is a product intended for human consumption that it is no longer just a food product, but is becoming a super-food. It enables controlled enrichment of its composition with bioactive factors that are conducive to human health and can even have therapeutic and preventive effects against many diseases. Despite the great prospects associated with the design of eggs, consumers show different preferences and do not always trust the new product. This is a key issue because the research so far has shown a huge development in the possibilities of using eggs for humans, and not only those from birds. Sustainable management of all parts of the egg is in line with the trends of contemporary pro-environmental policy and could help solve many global problems, such as hunger. Social conditions have the greatest influence on the use of eggs by humans. They were assessed due to the wide discourse present in the public space related to the exploitation of nature and the acquisition of animal products, in particular
regarding cage breeding and the welfare of laying hens.

During the first, the second and the third wave of coronavirus infections in Poland, the authors conducted empirical online research inspired by the theoretical potential of everyday life sociology and the sociology of disaster. One of the interesting problems which came to the surface when the project was carried out, was the issue of changes in human-animal relations, in the behavi­our of animals during lockdown and in people’s own behaviour towards animals. Interpretations of the research results presented in this paper concern two spheres: the home sphere – with the animals which live in it – and the urban sphere – including the free-living animals (also homeless and abandoned ones). We believe that the results of this research contribute to the broadening of our knowledge on the matter of human-animal familiarness as well as on urban ecosystems and the possibilities of their cultural-environmental exploration.

The paper presents horned animals of India, described by Aelian in his zoological treatise On the Characteristics of Animals (De natura animalium, XV 15; XVI 20). Probably he is repeating Megasthenes’ description of the oriental animals existing in the Indian Peninsula. The present author carefully analyzes three species of animals, mentioned under their local (i.e. non-Greek) names: (1) μέσοι, (2) καρτάζωνος and (3) ὑάριναι. It is suggested that Aelian’s zoological nomenclature is of Middle Indo-Aryan origin and refers to three species of horned mammals, respectively: (1) the Ladakh urial or the wild oriental sheep (Ovis vignei Blyth, 1841); (2) the Indian rhinoceros or the greater one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis L., 1758); (3) the Deccan chinkara, known as the Indian gazelle and the ravine deer (Gazella bennettii Sykes, 1831).

The aim of article Jan Gawiński’s animal epitaphs in view of the ecocriticism was to use the optics of human-animal studies shaped as a part of that titular modern methodology, to verify previous interpretations of Jan Gawiński’s baroque epitaph, devoted to animals. The thesis focuses on polemic with the opinions that Jan Gawiński’s animal epitaphs are the expression of nihilism, grotesque or variations of the animal’s fable. The chapter also accents the importance of composition of that poems collection for the lecture of each respective piece. Using the ecocritical view made an opportunity to demonstrate that in spite of the pre-modern’s vision of nature (hierarchical chain of being) writers has found an interstice which has allowed them express the sense of community with animals, feeling of mortal togetherness, empathy, sensitivity of conscience and responsibility for friars minor.

The aim of the article is to trace the human-animal relationship in the situation of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Filelfo’s novel L’assemblea degli animali. The author will examine how the ideas of animalism are revealed in the novel. In the first part, the ideology of animalism will be discussed, in the second part we will look at the invasion of animals into a deserted city in a pandemic. The third part will focus on the relationship with pets in a pandemic. The last, fourth part, will discuss the process of hybridization-reconnection with nature.

The Author addresses the role of animals used in Slavic black magic rituals with regard to their qualitative and quantitative aspects by indicating their species, colouring and the participation of the fauna in bloody dark magic rites. His area of observation was the concept provided by Natasha Helvin in her book Russian black magic. Over the course of the analysis of the study the Author was able to determine which animal was most actively used by the sorcerers: a black rooster. The researcher provided an answer as to the causes of this state of affairs and highlighted the ruthless objectification of all animals in the practices of black mages.

The present paper is concerned with the reconstruction of the linguistic vision of pigs in Spanish language based on lexicographical data. The corpus used in the analysis contains lexicographic definitions, semantic connotations, idioms and proverbs, which make use of the lexeme cerdo (‘pig’) or its synonyms, i.e. chancho, cochino, guarro, puerco, marrano. The linguistic vision of pigs reflected in Spanish turns out to be predominantly influenced by negative connotations, re­lated not only to its physical features, but also to its behavior. The data also display the importance of the anthropocentric attitude of man towards the surrounding world, which is based on the opposition between what is human and, therefore, good and what is animalistic and bad.

In the review article, I focus on selected axiological and ethical issues, such as the value of care, mindfulness and hope in Jane Goodall’s reflection, as well as on almost half a century of Jane Goodall’s ecological and educational activism, the intellectual summary of which is the published The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for an Endangered Planet. I analyze the hypo­thesis that the secret of the impressive effectiveness of several decades of Goodall’s activities is the result of a consistently implemented strategy of ecological and social intersectionalism. The main method, successfully used by Goodall, is gentle persuasion, which appeals to the recipient’s emotions, combined with motivating narratives about precisely selected, interpenetrating problems on the border of natural sciences, political, socio-economic sciences and humanities. I aim to that Jane Goodall’s scientific and social activity fits into the framework of contemporary so-called prefigurative ethics, i.e. reflection and attitude announcing a higher moral good and arousing empathy, local involvement
and a sense of agency in the reci­pients of Goodall’s narrative.

In reaction to publishing the article by P.T. Skoczykłoda (Zoophilologica nr 2 (10)/2022) who uses religious sources to demonstrate that Jewish ritual slaughter or shechita does not harm animals more than the standard slaughter, and portrays this stance as being compatible with science, the shechita is here compared to the standard slaughter in the light of current knowledge. All credible results of physiological experiments and systematic studies of the real proces in the slughter­-houses leave no doubt that the correct standard slaughter starting with stunning causes much less suffering than any, even perfect cut without stunning which leaves an animal conscious with excruiciating pain until the death by exsanguination. Several independent quantitative studies of the latter demonstrated, that stunning preceding the cut does not affect either the rate or the final effect of exsanguination, which runs contrary to the religious tales, and calls into question the very religious sense of ritual slaughter. Systematic observations in slaughterhouses show that both standard slaughter and shechita are prone to malfunction that affects substantial numbers of animals and cause a great amount of additional pain except that faulty stunning shots should and usually are corrected by a second shot whereas in shechita animals are left to die of exsanguination whatever the cause of their prolonged agony (usually 20–80 seconds but sometimes much longer). In addition, the neck cut of a fully conscious animal necessaitates complete restraint – whereas in a modern slaughterhouse the cow is compressed in a slaughter box, in the traditional shechita the cow had the muzzle shackled to the ground while being suspended and hoisted by one hind leg, all of which is a torture made of pain and panic. This infamous, broadly used shackle-and-hoist technique, only recently banned in the USA and Isreal under the public pressure, contradicts the claim that shechita is meant to alleviate animal suffering.

This paper is polemical with respect to Paweł T. Sloczykłoda’ss text, namely with theses (a) the sentence of the Constitutional Courtt issued on December 10, 2014 that ritual slaughter was proper; (b) ritual slaughter is morally justified morally; (c) ritual slaughter is humanitarian. In particular, firstly, the Constitutional Court sentences behind the petitum of the claim of the Associastion of Jewish Religious Communities, secondly, the sentencje admittes not only religious slaughter for but also commercial one, thirdly, could be that ritual slaugher was more humanitarian in the past, but not presently. Finally, Poand can introduce own regulations, but it is not obliged to do so.