Organisms as Agents in Zoosemiotic Perspective: The Case of Umwelt Reversion

In a zoosemiotic inquiry, alloanimal agency is accepted as a natural property of all animals. The aim of zoosemiotics is to analyse the behaviour of alloanimals and ecological relations through the emic perspective. This chapter shows certain changes that take place in an animal’s perceptual world and are mirrored in their operational world. The zoosemiotic analysis will be based on the Umwelt theory and work chiefly with a case study of reintroduction of the European mink (Mustela lutreola) and interviews conducted with local people in 2019 on the island of Hiiumaa in Estonia. The agency of animals becomes especially important when substantial changes take place in their environment, their food resources, or social relations; these are changes to which animals must adapt according to their Umwelt. In the context of reintroduction of the European mink, animal agency is central because ex situ environment was replaced with an in situ environment. What will be proposed and formulated is a special case of Umwelt transition, an ‘Umwelt reversion’, where the reintroduced minks return to their ‘natural’ social relations and food resources. This indicates that meaning carriers in the environment can change due to the agency of the mink.