In Poland, legacies of the communist past interact with contemporary domestic opportunity structures, conditioning and shaping the forms of action of the country's animal rights movement. The resulting ‘NGO-isation’ of civil society impedes effective collective action, with animal rights activists' engagement channelled towards ‘animal charity’ and service provision rather than more political strategies or disruptive forms of protest. Faced with an unfavourable political opportunity structure, the Polish animal rights movement has, moreover, opted for judicial activism and education instead of politics to achieve its ends. To understand the organisational fragmentation of the ‘collective action space’, the article suggests, the notion of ‘opportunity structures’ must be broadened to capture how the interplay between different types of opportunity structures affects action.