Swiss fur import ban resembles Swiss cheese, full of holes, but is a start

Swiss exemption for pelts from body-gripping traps smells like Limburger

GENEVA,  Switzerland––Switzerland,  effective July 1,  2025,  will become the first country in Europe and likely the world to ban the import and sale of fur taken from animals by means defined as “cruel production methods.”

The new Swiss law,  introduced by the Swiss Federal Council in May 2025,  does not ban all fur sales,  however,  nor does it prohibit all domestic production of fur.

Further,  the definition of “cruel production methods” includes glaring omissions.  The enforcement mechanism appears to depend heavily on fur industry self-certification.

Finally,  the fur import ban is to be phased in over two years.

What the new law really does

While not the sweeping victory that animal advocates hoped for,  and for which some major animal advocacy groups have already claimed credit without acknowledging the shortcomings,  the Swiss law is a noteworthy advance in a nation which has historically been among the hubs of the international fur trade.

“Cruel production methods” designated by the new Swiss law include use of leghold traps,  fur farming in poor welfare conditions such as obliging animals to stand on wire floors,  fur plucked from live animals,  and anal electrocution.

Thomas Pietsch,  fur campaigns director for the Austrian-based global animal welfare organization Vier Pfoten,  known as Four Paws in the English-speaking world,  both welcomed “This landmark decision of Switzerland,”  and urged that the ban “be extended to include fur of any origin.

Why Conibear traps don’t work

“Exempt from the import ban,  for example,”   Pietsch pointed out,  “is the use of traps that are designed to kill instantly,  such as Conibear traps,  used to catch animals in the wild” including beaver,  mink,  marten,  and muskrat,  “which often fail,  leaving the trapped animals to suffer in agony for days,”  before death from starvation,  dehydration,  and exposure.

Conibear traps,  further,  while meant to be used in body-gripping “drowning sets” placed to catch aquatic and semi-aquatic species,  function as leghold traps when animals are caught––as often happens––by just a paw or a leg.

Conibear traps set when streams or ponds are high can catch land-dwelling species coming to drink,  including fox,  coyote,  raccoon,  and even deer and bear when the water levels drop.

Depending on precipitation and snowmelt,  this can be later on the same day the traps are set.

“Any fur production involves cruelty”

Pietsch also mentioned “the risk of poor enforcement and false certification,”  citing “the fur industry’s own widely criticized FurMark label.”

“For Four PAWS,”  Pietsch said,  “any kind of fur production involves cruelty.  We believe that the import ban must be comprehensive.  That Switzerland intends to prohibit the import of fur produced under cruel conditions is a groundbreaking step forward.

“However,”  Pietsch emphasized,  “the term ‘cruel to animals’ is not interpreted consistently. Therefore the regulation does not go far enough.

“Despite these shortcomings,”  Pietsch allowed,  “the Swiss government’s decision sends a clear signal to other European countries and the European Union.

“Switzerland is showing the way”

“The European Union is currently considering a ban on fur farming and a ban on the trade in fur products,  at least from farmed animals,”  Pietsch said.  “Switzerland is showing the way forward for modern animal welfare,  and we call on the European Commission to follow the Swiss example.

“While several European countries have banned fur farming,”  Pietsch acknowledged, “Switzerland is the first to restrict imports on cruelty grounds.  This is a crucial step,  as much of the world’s fur is produced in countries with weak or non-existent animal welfare regulations.

“We call on Switzerland—and other nations—to ensure that no cruelty slips through the cracks,”  Pietsch finished.

“The fur industry is in deep crisis”

According to Swissveg,  self-described as “the largest representative of vegans and vegetarians in Switzerland,”  founded in 1993,  “Every year,  350 metric tons of fur are imported into Switzerland,  which corresponds to the slaughter of around 1.5 million animals.”

Swiss fur imports are valued at $30 million a year.

“The fur industry is in deep crisis,”  says the Swissveg web site,  “with worldwide fur production declining by 85%  between 2013 and 2023.  Israel [in 2021]was the first country in the world to ban the sale of fur,”  albeit with exemptions.

(See Israel “fur ban” is among last gasps of “lame duck” Netanyahu regime.)

Respect for Animals asks U.K. to pass similar bill

“In the United States,  California and cities in Massachusetts,  Michigan and Florida have already passed laws prohibiting the sale of real fur,”  Swissveg adds.  “Switzerland’s import ban will continue to reduce demand for fur products and thus also limit the risks to public health and the environment associated with fur farms.”

(See New virology study shows just how sick the fur trade is.)

Mark Glover,  director of the British organization Respect for Animals,  called on the House of Commons to pass a pending bill similar to the one soon to take effect in Switzerland.

Ban on seal pelt imports came first

Momentum toward the Swiss ban on imports of fur produced by designated cruel methods began with a ban on the import of seal pelts,  along with seal meat,  blubber,  oil,  and genitals,  introduced effective on April 1, 2017.

This was eight years after the European Union in 2009 introduced a similar ban,  seven years after Swiss People’s Party parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger began pushing for Switzerland to ban seal pelts and other seal products.

Seal pelt import bans were also already in effect in the U.S.,  Mexico,  the Russian Federation,  Taiwan,  Kazakhstan,  and Belarus.

The United Kingdom kept the European Union seal product import ban in effect after leaving the EU in 2020.

Anti-cat fur campaign started momentum

Switzerland,  however,  has never joined the European Union,  and has historically always been resistant to outside pressure to do anything,  as the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca might have testified after trying to cross the Alps with elephants circa 2,100 years ago.

The fur trade became a prominent issue in Switzerland,  ironically,  when a home-grown campaign directed at probably the tiniest part of the industry blew up globally in tabloid media in 2008,  bringing the rest of the Swiss fur business under the spotlight.

It started in 2007 with an allegation by Tomi Tomek,  founder of the Swiss group SOS Chats,  and Patricia Dolciani,  president of the French Society for the Protection of Animals in Thonon-les-Bains,  near the Swiss border,  that Swiss furriers were using “tens of thousands” of domestic cat pelts per year to make fur garments.

The little old lady from Huttwil

“As far as we are aware,  only a couple of dozen cat furs are produced annually in Switzerland,”  responded Swiss Federal Veterinary Office spokesperson Marcel Falk in April 2008 to Tony Paterson of the London Independent.

“The agency  has asked the country’s tanners about production levels and concludes that the output is minimal,”  Paterson reported.

But at the Ark Farm in Huttwil,  essentially a grass-fed beef ranch where a store caters to craft artists,  Paterson found “a pile of cat pelts lying on a table,  on sale with sheepskins,  whole calf skins,  and fox pelts for five Swiss francs each,   worth about $5.00 U.S.”

Paterson was told that the cat pelts came from roadkills,  brought “by an old woman,”  but pelts from any animal who has been hit by a car tend to be damaged beyond use.

Who made her living selling “roadkill”

“Late last year,”  Paterson wrote,  “an elderly woman at a Huttwil tanners shop was interviewed by French television and not only admitted that cats were skinned for their pelts,  but added it was also quite normal to eat what was left over.  The traditional recipe on farms in the region,  she said,  involved cooking the cat with sprigs of thyme.  Television crews conducted investigations,”  Paterson reported,  “using hidden cameras that exposed the cat fur trade.  Tanners who denied involvement were caught in the act.”

Paterson investigated the Swiss cat fur trade about six months after Adam Sage of the London Times.   “The cat fur trade is small,  not very lucrative,  and I really can’t see why traffickers would get involved.  I sell ten blankets a year,”  shopkeeper Sylvaine Ghielmini of Yvonand told Sage.

Go granny,  go granny,  go granny go!  (And don’t come back!)

The shocker for many Swiss was not the size of the cat fur industry,  but that it existed at all.   Several Swiss animal welfare foundations had long funded aggressive campaigns against Chinese and eastern European commerce in cat and dog pelts,  and against eating cats and dogs.

Indeed,  Switzerland had already banned cat fur imports in 2006,  noted Paterson,  “because of concern about the methods used by the exporting countries to slaughter the animals.”

The European Union did not ban cat fur imports until 2008,  after the explosion of outrage over Swiss use of fur from cats killed within Switzerland.

St. Bernards

The Swiss cat pelt trade was exposed a decade after a dog meat farm near Datung,  China reportedly announced that it had begun breeding imported St. Bernards to slaughter their offspring.   In fact,  it bred St. Bernards for sale as high-status pets,  until enforcement of size restrictions on pet dogs in Chinese cities killed demand.

Responding to the rumor that Chinese people were eating St. Bernards,  Switzerland overnight became a hub of international opposition to dog-eating,  but Swiss activists were embarrassed in 2002 by a tabloid allegation that some Swiss farmers in remote areas eat puppies.

That unverified story circulated on the Internet for nearly three years.

Dog theft actually feeds Chinese meat trade

The story that St. Bernards were bred for meat in China meanwhile circulated for more than 20 years,  even though it was never confirmed by on-the-ground observation in China,  and never made sense in view that native Chinese “meat dogs” are just as large as St. Bernards and much less expensive to obtain and breed.

The rapidly contracting demand for dog meat in China,  persisting almost entirely in the southern and coastal regions,  was by 2005 wholly supplied by private animal control contractors,  many of them actually pet thieves.  This remains the case.

Breeding dogs for meat,  briefly a growth industry in the late 20th century,  became much less profitable than breeding dogs as pets,  as by 2010 people in China kept more pet dogs than the residents of any other nation,  most of those dogs as integral members of one-child households.

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