Goodbye, Fur Farms. Hello, Vegan Alternatives!

After a decade-long fight to ban fur farming, Estonia will finally see all its fur farms permanently close by 2026, putting an end to a cruel industry already dwindling thanks to vegan alternatives being on the rise.

“We celebrate with Estonia today, as it becomes the first Baltic country to ban inhumane fur farming, and we congratulate local animal welfare groups on their years of campaigning to get the ban done,” says Claire Bass of Humane Society International, United Kingdom. “This victory provides further affirmation that caging, electrocuting, and gassing animals just to make bobble hats is a business that is on borrowed time.”

Estonia has been fighting to ban fur farming since 2009. As of July 2021, no new fur farms will be allowed to open across the country, and come January 2026, all remaining farms will need to permanently close down. So far, Austria, Bosnia, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and the UK have all banned fur farming. Some cities and states have also implemented various fur bans on their territory.