Mink fur farming has been banned or is being phased out across much of Europe. Understanding why welfare concerns drove this shift helps build the case for global reform.
Mink farming represents one of the most stark examples of a production system fundamentally incompatible with the welfare of the animals it confines. Mink are active, semi-aquatic predators with needs for space, water, and complex environments that wire-cage farming cannot provide. The near-universal prevalence of stereotypic behaviors in farmed mink is a scientific consensus that these animals experience chronic, severe welfare deficits. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed an additional public health dimension to mink farming, as the virus mutated in mink populations before transmitting back to humans. Legislative bans in progressive jurisdictions demonstrate that public and political will exists to end mink farming; translating this momentum to global reform is the remaining challenge.