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LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS AND RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANIMAL WELFARE – ON THE EXAMPLE OF PREVENTING ANIMAL HOMELESSNESS
Hanna MAMZER1
Publication language: English
scientific paper
Guests Editors of the Issue Tomasz Herudziński, Wojciech Mincewicz
Transformations No. 4(127)2025, Publication date: 30 December 2025
Keywords: local comunity, animal welfare, responsibility
Abstract Animal rights issues are an increasingly important social problem, focusing attention on the micro, meso and macrosocial levels. Responsibility for animal wel-fare at the mesosocial level applies in particular to local governments. Under the Animal Protection Act, local governments are obliged to adopt annual resolutions in the field of preventing animal homelessness. The resolutions in question concern not only the fate of companion animals, but also wild animals and farm animals. Social practice as well as recent reports in the form of a report by the Supreme Audit Office indicate that municipalities do not properly fulfil the statutory obligations imposed on them in terms of ensuring animal welfare. It leads not only to abuse of animals, but also to financial mismanagement, as well as to a significant erosion of public trust. In extreme cases, courts are already handing down convictions for employees of municipal governments. All this makes the issue of making local governments aware of their responsibility for animal welfare an increasingly pressing problem. This is particularly important in the context of the draft amendment to the Animal Protection Act and some other selected acts currently being processed in the Sejm of the Republic of Poland, which is a citizens' project signed by over 550,000 citizens.
Sociology Faculty, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
ORCID: 0000-0002-2251-7639
E-mail: hanna.mamzer@amu.edu.pl