LONDON—The Animal Welfare Committee, which advises the UK government, has published a damning report today condemning the animal suffering involved in the fur trade. Its report on ‘the responsible sourcing of fur’ calls out the suffering inflicted on animals who are confined in cages on fur farms or caught in brutal traps in the wild, and indicates support for legislative action, stating ‘consumer and market forces currently do not and cannot provide sufficient pressure to adequately safeguard animal welfare.’
Despite banning fur farming more than two decades ago, the UK imports millions of pounds worth of animal fur from overseas every year, creating a double standard, says Humane World for Animals UK (formerly called Humane Society International UK), which leads the #FurFreeBritain campaign. The charity is calling on the UK Government to act on the report’s findings and deliver on its recent Animal Welfare Strategy commitment to ‘uphold high animal welfare standards in trade’ by banning Britain’s bloody fur trade for good.
Also published today are responses to DEFRA’s 2021 Call for Evidence on the UK fur trade, which shows more than 96% of the almost 30,000 respondents strongly agreed that killing animals for their fur is wrong. Respondents ‘overwhelmingly did not support the import, sale or export of fur or fur products.’
Claire Bass, senior director of campaigns and public affairs for Humane World for Animals UK, said: “It’s clear from the Committee’s findings that trading in fur from caged, tormented, diseased and injured animals is completely at odds with the UK Government’s recent Animal Welfare Strategy commitment to ‘uphold high animal welfare standards as part of our approach to trade’. The Committee states that fur should not be sourced from animals who have not had ‘a life worth living’ or a humane death and then explains all the ways in which the global fur trade fails to meet these criteria.
“The previous Labour Government rightly banned fur farming 25 years ago. We must now stop outsourcing that same suffering overseas. The Government now has both formal evidence and a strong public mandate to end the UK’s bloody fur trade.”
The evidence released today of animal suffering and of strong public opposition to the fur trade puts the need for a fur import ban beyond doubt, and Humane World for Animals UK calls on the Government to act swiftly.
Animal Welfare Committee report quotes and conclusions:
The Animal Welfare Committee states that ‘Within a commercial setting it is not possible and is unlikely to ever be possible to farm species such as fox and raccoon dog without having a detrimental effect on their health and welfare, or in a way which meets their welfare needs’ and that ‘there are no species being farmed for fur whose welfare needs are being adequately met by current standards and safeguards.’
Its concerns include:
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Criticism that cage sizes within industry ‘welfare assurance’ schemes are ‘insufficient to meet physical and psychological welfare needs’, and cage design is inadequate;
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The use of inhumane killing methods, including CO2 which ‘has been shown to be a highly aversive method of killing mink [which] fails to kill rapidly’, and anal electrocution;
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Criticism of fur industry assurance schemes for both farmed and trapped fur, including outdated welfare science and lack of consistency, training, unannounced inspections, independent auditing and traceability;
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Lack of industry consideration of the experience and welfare of individual animals on fur farms, with welfare assurance schemes such as WelFur permitting a high threshold of allowance for animals with serious welfare problems (e.g. 15% of foxes may have ‘severely bent feet’);
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Challenges with traceability of the country of origin, species and method of production of fur (farmed or trapped) imported into the UK, using available data from HMRC;
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Inability to confirm welfare certifications: although over a third (37%) of fur imported to the UK over the last 10 years came from China, the Committee was unable to obtain any evidence about industry application of ‘welfare certification’ schemes there;
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Concern that trapping standards for fur subsequently imported into the UK are ‘not sufficient to prevent unnecessary suffering, and do not adequately protect animal welfare’. The standards permit lethal head/chest crushing traps that take five minutes to kill species including beavers and otters;
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Concern that ‘consumers are not currently able to accurately identify whether products are fur of animal origin (wild caught or farmed) or ‘faux’ fur, or a mixture of the two.’
More than 200 MPs support the Fur Free Britain campaign, and cross-party support for the issue was expressed during a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament earlier this month, led by Ruth Jones MP.
There is also strong public support for a ban on fur imports and sales, with 77% of UK voters supporting a UK import ban on products produced overseas using a type of farming that is banned in the UK for being too cruel. Last year campaigners handed in a 1.5 million signature petition to the Prime Minister in support of a ban. Further, the vast majority (93%) of the British public reject wearing real animal fur, while only 3% wear it. The same poll found that the words 79% of people most closely associated with a fashion brand selling fur are 'unethical', 'outdated', 'cruel' and 'out of touch'.
The Animal Welfare Committee’s findings echo the damning indictment delivered by the European Food Safety Authority in its scientific opinion on the welfare of animals on fur farms, published last year. EFSA concluded that the cage systems used on fur farms — including the industry’s so-called “high welfare” or “certified farms”— fail to meet the basic welfare needs of mink, foxes, raccoon dogs and chinchillas.
Humane World for Animals works across the globe to end the fur trade. With a focus on the UK, Europe, North America and China, our work includes government, industry and corporate campaigns, collaborations with designers and fashion brands, undercover investigations and education campaigns, and has led to a steadily decreasing number of animals affected by this cruel trade.
Download photos/video of fur farms HERE.
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Notes to editor:
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Tens of millions of animals, including mink, foxes, raccoon dogs, chinchillas and coyotes, suffer and die each year in the global fur trade.
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HMRC records show annual UK imports of between £30m-£40m (estimated to equate to 1 million animals’ worth) of real fur, from countries including Finland, Greece, China and Poland. The Animal Welfare Committee report notes that the biggest source of this fur by volume was China, the biggest source by value was Italy.
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Fur farming is a zoonotic disease risk. Mink on almost 500 fur farms across 13 countries in Europe and North America have been found to be infected with COVID-19, with millions of animals killed on public health grounds. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza A(H5N1) has also been found on 72 fur farms in Europe to date. Around 500,000 mink, arctic fox, red fox, raccoon dogs and sable were killed on public health grounds.
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Fur farming has been banned in 24 European nations. The European Commission is due to deliver a policy proposal on fur farming and trade in the European Union in response to the FurFreeEurope European Citizens’ Initiative which was signed by more than 1.5 million EU citizens.
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In 2019 California became the first U.S. state to ban fur sales, sixteen other U.S. towns and cities have introduced similar bans. In 2021 Israel became the first country in the world to ban the sale of fur. In 2025 Switzerland’s Federal Council introduced a ban on imports of products made from cruelly produced fur.
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An increasing number of major international fashion designers and retailers including Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Versace and Canada Goose have all turned their back on fur. In the UK, luxury department stores such as Selfridges, Liberty, Fenwick, Flannels and Harvey Nichols do not sell fur, and well-known high street retailers including John Lewis & Partners, Marks & Spencer and Next have long-standing fur-free policies. UK designers including Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, Erdem and Christopher Raeburn do not use real fur in their collections, and UK brands including Helen Moore, Shrimps and Jakke specialise in the use of faux fur.
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Fashion Weeks including Copenhagen, London, New York and Iceland have dropped the use of fur from their events, and publishers of titles including Vogue, Elle, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Esquire and Vanity Fair have committed to fur exclusion policies.
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Fur comes with a hefty environmental price tag. Whilst all materials have some eco-footprint, when compared to other textiles, fur takes a significant toll in terms of the C02 emissions associated with keeping and feeding tens of thousands of carnivorous animals on a farm, the manure runoff into lakes and rivers, and the cocktail of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals such as chromium and formaldehyde used to preserve the fur and skin to stop it from rotting.
