On Sunday, the world marks World Animal Day. It is not a pet lovers' party. It is a leadership and governance audit.
The day was founded in Berlin in 1925 by Heinrich Zimmermann and aligned to October 4 in 1929 to honour St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and ecology. Since 2003 it has been coordinated by Naturewatch Foundation in the UK.
This year's theme is disarmingly simple: See the World Through Their Eyes.
As a PhD candidate in management and leadership, I read that as a challenge to the way we govern: governance that cannot empathise cannot protect.
As Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, taught us: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." That is the ultimate audit of our nation.
The 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham, often called the father of animal welfare philosophy, posed the foundational question that still judges us: "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" That question must guide law and policy.
What does our governance feel like to the animal?
First, through the eyes of a dog at Jacaranda.
On September 13, a photograph from Jacaranda Grounds in Nairobi circulated widely. During the Linda Mwananchi rally, a supporter hoisted his dog high above a chanting, vuvuzela-blaring crowd. The crowd cheered and ululated. The dog did not.
Any animal welfare advocate could read trauma in that frame: ears pinned back, eyes wide with fear, limbs rigid and clinging for dear life. That is not pride. That is acute stress.
Dogs hear up to 65,000 hertz, four times better than humans. For him, a political rally is not celebration. It is sensory torture. The owner may have meant love, to include his companion in a national moment. But animal welfare is not measured by human intention. It is measured by the animal's experience.
Under our Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, it is an offence to cause unnecessary suffering or to terrify any animal. The Animal Welfare and Protection Bill of 2019, which has stalled in Parliament for five years, goes further and recognises animals as sentient beings capable of fear and distress. If we truly saw through his eyes, we would have left him at home, safe, with water and quiet. Inclusion does not mean dragging the voiceless into our chaos.
This failure of empathy is not limited to pets.
Second, through the eyes of a cow in Samburu.
Constitutional and animal welfare principles have affirmed that killing livestock should never be part of security operations. In Samburu and Baringo, during disarmament and banditry operations, cows and goats have been shot and left to rot in the sun.
Seen through her eyes, she was not a combatant. She was school fees, hospital bill, dowry and dignity. She died terrified, without stunning, without veterinary oversight, in breach of our laws on humane slaughter which require restraint that minimises stress and stunning before death.
From a management perspective, this is catastrophic leadership. You cannot secure a livelihood by destroying it. It breeds trauma, distrust and intergenerational poverty, not peace. Security governance without an animal welfare protocol is not professional policing. It violates Article 244 of the Constitution on humane policing.
Third, through the eyes of an elephant in Amboseli, and why all animals matter.
We have romanticised animal rights as Big Five rights, the elephants, rhinos and lions we show tourists. That is a governance fallacy. World Animal Day reminds us that sentience has no price tag.
The donkey beaten until it collapses in Kajiado matters. The dairy cow dragged by a rope behind a matatu in Kiambu matters. The layer chicken locked for 18 months in a battery cage in Mlolongo with no room to spread a wing, in violation of the Five Freedoms of the World Organisation for Animal Health, matters. The street dog poisoned by county askaris matters. All animals matter, not just the famous five.
As management scholar Peter Drucker taught us, what is measured is managed. We have measured Big Five poaching, so we reduced it. We have not measured donkey beating or chicken caging, so it persists.
And when we ignore this continuum, even our iconic wildlife collapses.
Between June and July this year, Kenya lost 18 elephants in one ecosystem alone, at Kimana Sanctuary and Kuku Group Ranch in Amboseli. The Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife confirmed four suspects arrested in Tikondo and Loitoktok with unlabelled chemicals recovered. Preliminary laboratory results point to cyanide poisoning from pesticide-laced tomatoes on farms bordering the sanctuary.
One victim was an 11-year-old bull known as Genghis Khan, found paralysed and struggling to breathe. He did not know tomatoes were poison. That is what seeing through his eyes truly means.
Other verified cases persist. On June 11, three suspects were arrested in Marsabit with 13 elephant tusks weighing 39.5 kilogrammes. Under the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act, trophy dealing can attract life imprisonment.
Yet there is proof that enforcement works when leadership is serious.
Kenya Wildlife Service and the Wildlife Research and Training Institute confirm elephant poaching fell from 164 in 2014 to 16 in 2025, while the elephant population grew from 32,214 to 42,072. Kenya recorded zero rhino poaching in 2025 and has maintained that into 2026, with black rhinos now at 1,147, up from about 350 in the 1980s.
So what would humane leadership do this October 4?
First, counties must audit all slaughterhouses for humane handling and stunning as required by the Meat Control Act. Under the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, meat inspection is devolved.
Second, Parliament must pass the Animal Welfare and Protection Bill, 2019. It would repeal the colonial-era cruelty Act, raise penalties from three thousand shillings to five hundred thousand and above, recognise sentience and regulate use of animals in public spectacles. This gives effect to Article 42 and 69 on the right to a healthy environment.
Third, the National Police Service must ban killing of livestock in security operations except as a last resort to save human life.
Fourth, we must de-Big-Five our animal rights and extend welfare to all species.
To lead is to protect those who cannot vote, cannot file a judicial review and cannot shout at Jacaranda. They can only suffer, as Bentham reminded us.
On Sunday, let us see the world through their eyes: the anxious dog at Jacaranda, the terrified cow in Samburu, the poisoned elephant in Amboseli and the beaten donkey in Kajiado. If we judge our greatness by how we treat them, as Gandhi challenged us, we will govern more humanely.
Animals are not tools of our politics. They are part of our polity. And as members of our polity, they deserve better.
The writer is an Advocate of the High Court, PhD Candidate and Animal Welfare Advocate Email: [email protected] X: @nyangaij
