A growing number of countries have banned mink farming on welfare grounds, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating the policy shift by revealing biosafety risks alongside longstanding welfare concerns.
Mink welfare in fur farms represents one of the clearest cases of chronic welfare compromise documented by animal welfare science. The species' biological requirements - access to water for swimming, large territories, and complex predatory behavior - are fundamentally incompatible with the cage-based production systems that characterize commercial mink farming. Evidence from behavioral research shows that even enriched cage systems cannot adequately compensate for the absence of swimming water and natural ranging behavior. Bans based on welfare grounds are scientifically well-supported, and the combination of welfare, biosafety, and consumer pressure factors makes the long-term future of mink farming precarious.