The Parliament of Catalonia approved yesterday a resolution proposal urging the Generalitat to ban fur farms in the Catalan territory. Catalonia becomes the first territory in the State to move towards the veto of mink, fox, chinchilla, or raccoon dog farms, aligning with the progress achieved in 24 European countries.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, July 15, the Ecological Transition Commission of the Parliament of Catalonia gave the green light to a resolution proposal urging the Government of the Generalitat to promote and approve the ban on breeding animals for exclusively fur purposes in Catalonia, including the prohibition of authorizing new facilities intended for this activity.
The initiative was approved with the votes in favor of PSC-Units per Avançar, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, Comuns, CUP, and Junts. PP abstained, Aliança Catalana and Vox were absent from the Chamber.
In the text, the parliamentarians argue that the breeding of animals for fur production is associated with risks to public health due to the potential transmission and amplification of pathogens, zoonoses, and viral variants.
Between December 2020 and October 2021, 18 outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 were recorded in fur farms in the Spanish State, including at least one case of reinfection. In October 2022, the first outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza was also detected in a mink farm.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), in its scientific opinion of July 2025, concludes that the fur production systems used in the European Union are high-risk zoonotic environments due to the high density of animals, prolonged confinement, and the high susceptibility of mink to respiratory viruses.
Additionally, they point out that they cause severe and widespread animal suffering, including movement restriction, injuries, stereotypies, and self-mutilation, and emphasize that most of these problems cannot be substantially prevented or mitigated within the current cage-based systems. Junts, despite its vote in favor, was the only party that questioned these data, calling them not rigorous.
The resolution proposal indicates that fur farms would have a negative impact on the natural environment and biodiversity, as many of these animals end up in the natural environment, displacing the native fauna and potentially transmitting viruses that can later reach humans. The breeding of mink and foxes has a high climate footprint and causes water pollution in the surrounding areas.
The exploitation of fur farms in Catalonia was located from the 1960s in the provinces of Girona and Barcelona, with two farms in the municipalities of Viladrau and Taradell respectively. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were animal escapes from these facilities.
In the case of Viladrau, the escapes were progressive, while in Taradell a forest fire in 1983 caused the release of a considerable number of animals and the farm closed shortly after. The Viladrau farm and another located in Ullastret (Girona) continued operating until around 2009. Currently, there is no fur farm in operation, unlike Galicia and Valencia where there are 21 and 1 active farms respectively.
The existence of these fur farms led to the establishment of the American mink in river systems, from where it progressively expanded and today is found in all the river basins of Girona and Barcelona. It has reached some basins of Tarragona and has also reached the Segre basin, up to the border with Aragon.
The American mink generates an impact on biodiversity and associated human activities as a result of its predatory and competitive activity. Thus, its predation affects fish such as the common trout, ducks and moorhens, and protected species such as the Iberian crab, amphibians and reptiles, aquatic birds, and their eggs. Additionally, the great abundance in rivers and wetlands causes them to venture into chicken coops and pens to kill chickens, turkeys, or rabbits.
The initiative also points to the existence of serious animal welfare issues in these farms, given the intensive nature of the breeding systems and the usual housing conditions. In 2025, organizations representing more than 330,000 veterinarians requested the gradual elimination of animal breeding for fur in Europe, as well as the importation of furs from third countries, considering it incompatible with animal welfare.
According to the Study on perceptions of nature and animals, published by the BBVA Foundation in 2025, the use of animals to “make fur coats for humans” is unacceptable to 90% of the public. 19 member states of the European Union have already adopted measures to end this activity. At the end of 2025, Poland, the main European producer and the second in the world after China, approved a regulation that prohibits the creation of new fur farms with immediate effect and establishes a timetable for the cessation of existing activity.
“The approval of this resolution is not a novelty for this industrial sector in Catalonia, where there is currently no activity, but it does represent an important step forward to prevent the intensive breeding of animals for fur production from being re-established. The articulated text we are working on as a proposal to the Government can be a key tool to consolidate this regulation and provide it with greater legal certainty.”
Julia Elizalde, spokesperson for the animal protection entity ARDE: “We celebrate that the Parliament has promoted this proposal, which represents an important step to protect animals, our ecosystems, and public health. Catalan society rejects breeding animals in tiny cages just to make fur coats. We hope that the Government of Catalonia will translate this innovative political commitment into an effective ban as soon as possible, so that Catalonia is on the right side of history along with the rest of Europe.”
