5 JUNE 2017, GERMANY – In a huge victory for animals German leaders have voted to make an end to fur factory farming. The legislation introduces fur farming regulations that are so strict that raising animals for fur will no longer be viable in Germany and will inevitably cause the remaining fur farms to close down. After a five year transition-period the last six mink farms in Germany will finally need to close its doors.

This great news will spare thousands of animals from a miserable life in cruel battery cages and means a big step towards the complete outlawing of fur farming in the country.

Eighty-five percent of fur comes from animals held captive on fur factory farms. These farms often hold thousands of animals, and the kinds of abuse that the facilities engage in are remarkably similar around the globe. To preserve the pelts animals on fur farms or killed by cruel methods as gassing, neck-breaking, anal electrocution and sometimes skinning alive.

Fur farming bans and stricter regulations that inevitably cause facilities to close are rapidly spreading all over Europe.

Currently parliamentary bills to prohibit fur farming are discussed in Czech Republic, Belgium and Luxembourg. Stricter regulations have caused fur farming to end in Japan and Switzerland and, in the future will end mink farming in Spain. Fox and chinchilla farming was already phased out in Germany, due to stricter regulations, as it was in Sweden.

The first countries to introduce the ban were the U.K., in 2000 and Austria in 2004. Other countries that banned fur farming are the Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia.