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MPs file bill to ban fur farms in Estonia

BC, Tallinn, 23.02.2017.Print version
Social Democrat MP Barbi Pilvre on Thursday handed to the board of the Estonian parliament a bill that would outlaw fur farms in Estonia from Jan. 1, 2028, writes LETA/BNS.

Pilvre said that ten years is enough to provide retraining or find new jobs for the less than one hundred people working on fur farms now, as well as for businesses to adapt to the new situation.


The bill to amend the Animal Protection Act and the Nature Conservation Act, initiated by 14 MPs, would end from Jan. 1, 2028 the keeping, breeding and propagation of animals for the production of fur, spokespeople for Social Democrats said.


The initiators of the bill come from both the coalition and opposition parties in the Riigikogu. Only the Estonian Conservative People's Party (EKRE) has said that they support the continuation of fur famining in the present form.


In 2015, there were four mink and fox farms and 27 chinchilla farms in Estonia altogether with up to 200,000 animals.


In most countries where fur farms have been banned this has been done for ethical reasons. Fur farms have been banned in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Croatia, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the UK, the German states of Bavaria, Hesse, Nord Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, and the Belgian region of Wallonia. Partial bans are in effect in Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.


Public opinion in Estonia supports the ban on fur farms. According to a nationwide survey conducted by KantarEmor at the end of December 2016, 81% of women and 55% of men are not in favor of keeping and slaughtering of animals on farms for the purpose of fur production.






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