"Wild" animals
Language has the power to shape how we think about all kinds of things.
You see this criticism come up with mainstream news outlets (including purportedly liberal & leftist outlets) and how they frame their headlines - often in a way that minimizes U.S. cruelty and paints other countries as the bad guys, as the instigators.
It also comes up in gender analysis, with a great deal of english words being "man"-something like "man hours" or "mailman" or many other things.
Well, I've grown pretty uncomfortable with the way we talk about animals, and how the language we use helps build this idea of them as lesser, as something to be controlled, to be "domesticated" because these animals are "wild".
You might consider alternative terms like "undomesticated" animals, but this is no better - it frames them in reference to our control over them. Similarly, we often use "People of Color" instead of "non-white" now, so that we're not describing others in relation to whiteness.
I refer to "wild" animals as "free" animals now - because fundamentally that's what they are. I believe animals feel things, have some degree of will, are capable of suffering, and are capable of experiencing positive things too.
When we regard animals as "free", we begin to shed this deeply-ingrained notion that they are merely biological machines for us to do with as we please. A machine (bio or not) is never "free" because it has no will, but it can be "wild" if you do not have control over it. Consider a nuclear reactor that is malfunctioning and beginning a meltdown. The reactor isn't "free" to do as it pleases, but it is indeed "wild".
When we regard animals as "free" or "captive" we begin to see them as independent life, deserving of freedom. We recognize their capacity to feel, to suffer, and to express will.
When we do this, we value them as creatures with whom we share the earth, and we begin building compassion for these creatures we have long discounted and disrespected.