This article addresses the question of whether a cognitive ethology, based on the study of animal conscious experiences, is possible. I argue that although it may be said that animals are conscious, in the sense of being aware of internal and environmental events, there is no way to obtain an accurate knowledge of such awareness states. I set out a number of reasons why attempts to read animal conscious experience through perceptual translations, antropomorphical analogies and behavioral criteria are of limited help. I believe that knowledge of what an animal is originate from careful observation of this animal's interactions with specific social and environmental circumstances and involves a reconstruction of its peculiar ways of representing the context.
Consciousness; Animals; Animal ethology; Cognition