This survey aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of residents in rural communities
towards hunting practices. It seeks to gather valuable insights into the complex relationship between rural populations and hunting.

The survey was conducted by Savanta in November 2023 among a sample of 10,000 inhabitants of rural areas in the following Member States of the European Union: Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Romania.

This survey aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of residents in rural communities
towards large carnivores. It seeks to gather valuable insights into the complex relationship between rural populations and the coexistence with large carnivores (wolves, bears and lynx).

The survey was conducted by Savanta in November 2023 among a sample of 10,000 inhabitants of rural areas in the following Member States of the European Union: Germany, France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and Romania.

This reports provides an overview of current housing standards for mink, foxes and racoon dogs farmed for their fur in European countries, and confirms, through scientific evidence, that attempts to introduce cage enrichment or alternative housing systems to improve animal welfare are doomed to failure.

In the first edition of this report, published in 2015, we examined the welfare of mink and foxes farmed for fur in Europe and evaluated the fur industry’s WelFur protocols for on-farm welfare assessment. We concluded that WelFur could not address the major welfare issues for mink and foxes farmed for fur, the issues associated with inhumane handling and slaughter methods, or the serious inadequacies in fur labelling and regulation in Europe.

In this revised edition of our report, we update the scientific evidence regarding the welfare of animals farmed for fur in Europe, assess claims that these animals are, or could be, domesticated, and the credibility of WelFur.

This report discusses the present state and future prospects of fur farming in Finland. The report was carried out as part of the ORSI research project investigating fair and robust methods to make Finland environmentally sustainable. The ORSI looks at structural changes linked to changing societal values, causing some industries to shrink or disappear while others emerge, offering new job opportunities. Gradually losing societal acceptance, fur farming is one example of an industry experiencing such disruption.

This report explores the structural changes in the Finnish fur farming sector, paying particular attention to future options.

This review aims to provide an overview of past studies and investigations conducted to analyse the online exotic pet trade in the EU. It focuses on investigations conducted to determine the number and species of live animals traded from, into and within the EU through digital means.

The EU is known to be one of the world’s largest wildlife markets and a central hub for the exotic pet trade. Millions of exotic pets are estimated to be owned in private households, including among others mammals, birds and reptiles.

This report provides some insight into the scale of the pet market in the EU in selected Member States, as well as an overall estimation of the number of, CITES listed, wild animals imported into the EU as pets over the last ten years.

Wild animal pet markets, also called exotic pet fairs, shows, exhibitions or expos, are events organised by the industry and breeder associations; where multiple businesses and hobby breeders display and sell live animals and related-products to visitors. Some of these markets solely focus on traditional pets while others also cover or are dedicated to exotic animals including a wide range of species of birds, reptiles and amphibians, but also mammals and fish and other animals such as spiders or snails.

This review is based on 9 investigations that have been carried out in wild animal pet markets in the EU and UK, addressing animal welfare, public health and invasiveness concerns. In this review, the key findings from these investigations are presented, highlighting key knowledge gaps that must be addressed to further understand and tackle the exotic pet trade.

With more than 600 million confirmed cases since its emergence in late 2019, and more than 6.5 million deaths, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the devastating human and economic cost of emerging infectious diseases. Approximately three quarters of emerging human infectious diseases are zoonotic (originating in animals).

This report examines the role of animals farmed for fur in the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential role in the emergence of future pandemics of human respiratory disease.

Summary report - In the context of the unprecedented and ongoing biodiversity crisis, trophy hunting puts an additional pressure on populations of threatened species that are already facing a multitude of threats to their survival, including habitat loss and degradation, climate change, wildlife trade, poaching, and human-wildlife conflict.

In the context of the unprecedented and ongoing biodiversity crisis, trophy hunting puts an additional pressure on populations of threatened species that are already facing a multitude of threats to their survival, including habitat loss and degradation, climate change, wildlife trade, poaching, and human-wildlife conflict.

Following the European Commission’s commitment to a cage-free future for farming and the move towards a species-specific behaviour approach, the keeping of innately wild animals in confinement simply cannot be legitimised. The clear societal consensus across Europe is that the keeping and killing of animals merely for their fur is unethical – a view reflected both through national prohibitions and the abandonment of fur
products by increasing numbers of retailers.

This report explores why we need to ban fur farming and the placement of farmed fur products on the European market, from a public health, legal, environmental and ethical perspective.

Today’s growing concerns about the ethics of using wild animals for public entertainment have led to increasing calls from the public to end this practice. In Europe, this is reflected in the national legislation of 24 Member States, as well as the UK’s England, Wales and Scotland, who have adopted restrictions on the use of either all, or exclusively wild, animals in circuses. This report provides an overview of the current legislation and restrictions on the use of animals in circuses in all EU Member States, with a particular focus on the process of enforcement of total bans on the use of wild animals in the respective countries. The goal of this analysis is to recommend solutions that can be adopted when phasing out the use of wild animals in circuses.

Although kangaroos and wallabies are Australia’s national symbol, almost 90 million of them have been hunted for their skin or meat over the last 30 years. All commercially hunted kangaroos are wild animals, not farmed for meat production purposes, and the EU currently is Australia’s main market for kangaroo exports, both for skins and hides and for meat products. This report provides explains why Eurogroup for Animals believes it is high time that the EU introduces an import ban on all goods derived from the hunting of kangaroos.

The lack of proper regulations on the keeping of exotic pet animals and insufficient knowledge of private keepers undermine the welfare and health of both humans and animals and poses a threat to biodiversity. This report provides an analysis of national legislation related to the keeping and sale of exotic pets in Europe as well as recommendations for national governments.

The present report aims at summarising and explaining the problems related to the keeping and trade of exotic pets, presenting arguments stated in peer reviewed articles and published reports. This report also demonstrates that, while there are several ways to regulate the keeping and sale of exotic pets, a Positive List (a list of allowed species) is the most effective, concise, transparent, precautionary, enforceable and economically feasible way to reduce the suffering of exotic animals and the risks for the environment and the human and animal health.

A positive list is a list of species that are allowed to be kept as pets, with or without the requirement of a permit or authorisation. This is an efficient, clear and precautionary way to reduce the risks caused by exotic species and to minimize their welfare problems. As Belgium has been the first European Union country which adopted a positive list system to regulate the keeping and sale of exotic pets, this offers an excellent opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.