The EFSA findings confirm what scientists have been stressing for years: fur farming is fundamentally incompatible with animal welfare. It highlights the severe welfare consequences faced by mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and chinchillas in fur production, including restriction of movement, isolation stress, tissue lesions and lameness, while it asserts that the complex behavioural and physiological needs of these animals simply cannot be met within the fur farming industry.
Given that the only currently-used farming system relies on wire mesh cages, this conclusion aligns with a broad body of existing research highlighting the harmful impact of caging animals, whether domesticated or not.
As scientific evidence highlights that no enrichment or change to the system can respect the welfare needs of animals farmed for fur and with the industry being in a state of decline, the EC should seize the opportunity of the current revision of the EU animal welfare legislation to acknowledge the calls of the ECI and adopt:
- A ban on fur farming
- A ban on the placement of farmed fur products on the European market, to ensure that fur produced under similarly cruel conditions in third countries is not sold within the EU.
This call has also been supported by The Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), representing 330,000 veterinarians across 39 countries, which asserted that fur farming is not future-proof and urged a full ban on farming and the sale of fur products in the EU.
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