Nine animal-welfare wins mark a cautious year of progress

A year of policy reforms, market shifts and technological advances produced nine notable wins for animals, spanning fur farming, eggs, pets, meat production, and research. The trend reflects growing advocacy and the spread of alternative technologies, even as the global scale of animal welfare challenges remains enormous.

Poland banned fur farming, becoming the world’s second-largest fur producer, as the industry continued to collapse. From 2014 to 2024, the number of animals farmed for fur fell from about 140 million to roughly 20.5 million. Polish President Karol Nawrocki framed the move as a demonstration of compassion and civilizational maturity, signaling a broader shift away from a century-old industry amid mounting financial pressure and public scrutiny. The decline in fur farming reflects a long-running campaign by animal advocates and increasingly outspoken regulatory actions in European markets. This year’s decision followed more than a decade of industry contraction, illustrating how policy choices can accelerate structural change in animal-exploiting sectors.

In the United States, the move toward cage-free eggs gathered momentum. Although cage confinement remains common in the industry, the share of cage-free eggs rose from 38.7 percent in December 2024 to 45.3 percent in September 2025, an increase that saved about 20 million hens from life in cages. Industry advocates describe 2025 as the fastest shift since organized campaigns began in the early 2000s, even as opponents in some states and at the federal level pursued efforts to roll back cage-free laws—efforts that ultimately stalled in 2025. The trend highlights how policy and consumer demand can push producers toward higher-welfare housing, even as remaining cages and related welfare concerns persist.

In the policy arena, more than 25 U.S. jurisdictions enacted bans on the sale of dogs, cats, and other companion animals in pet stores. The bans aim to reduce sales through puppy and kitten mills that raise animals in cramped, unsanitary conditions and often with minimal oversight. Cities and counties that moved to restrict pet-store sales included Las Vegas, Denver, Detroit, and Manatee County, Florida, among others. Advocates describe these laws as a critical step in redirecting demand toward adoption from shelters and rescue groups, while critics argue about enforcement and the breadth of coverage. The cumulative effect across dozens of communities signals a broader appetite for more humane pet-procurement standards nationwide.

Switzerland enacted labeling requirements for meat, milk, and egg products that originate from animals subjected to mutilations without pain relief. While the country did not ban the practices themselves, the new law obligates producers, grocers, and restaurants to disclose on packaging whether products come from animals that underwent tail docking, beak trimming, horn removal, or other procedures without analgesia. The measure places a new burden on supply chains to inform consumers, potentially shaping purchasing decisions and encouraging welfare improvements across production chains that have long relied on routine, painful measures.

A wave of technology to end the brutal killing of male chicks gained traction globally. Because male chicks cannot lay eggs and do not grow efficiently for meat, they are often killed shortly after birth. New detection technologies can identify the sex of a chick while it is still inside the egg, enabling disposal before hatching in an effort to spare countless birds from death. By spring 2025, more than a quarter of eggs in Europe were scanned with these technologies—an eight-percent year-over-year increase—while pilot deployments in the United States and Brazil signaled broader commercialization in 2025. If scaled, the approach could dramatically reduce billions of early chick deaths in the coming years.

Government agencies signaled a sustained commitment to reduce animal testing and accelerate non-animal methods for safety and biomedical research. The National Institutes of Health and other U.S. federal agencies publicly pledged to cut back on animal testing and to advance human-relevant, nonanimal testing methods. In the United Kingdom, authorities announced parallel initiatives aimed at expanding alternative approaches. Experts caution that the policy shifts will require careful implementation and sustained funding, but supporters argue that they could yield more efficient research while reducing animal suffering.

A controversial area of food policy saw the U.S. dairy regime loosened, allowing schools to offer plant-based milk as part of meal programs without requiring a doctor’s note. The bill, which Congress recently passed and which President Donald Trump was expected to sign, would enable schools to proactively offer soy and other plant-based milks alongside cow’s milk. Proponents say the change reduces waste and expands dietary options for students who may be lactose intolerant or prefer plant-based alternatives, while critics question the adequacy of labeling and the impact on dairy farmers.

In seafood welfare, several large European grocery chains committed to ensuring that shrimp and prawns in their supply chains are electrically stunned before slaughter, rather than killed by suffocation. A major seafood certifier also pledged to prohibit eyestalk ablation, a practice intended to accelerate reproduction but widely criticized as inhumane. The moves drew attention on social and media platforms, reflecting growing public concern about invertebrate welfare and the potential for industry standards to drive meaningful change across global supply chains.

Chickens, a major driver of farm-animal suffering due to breeding and growth practices, saw industry leaders in Europe move toward slower-growing breeds with fewer health problems. Several large chicken companies and grocery stores pledged to shift away from ultra-fast growth strains, a change expected to reduce the frequency and severity of ailments that accompany rapid growth. While the changes are incremental, supporters say they can avert millions of animal-days of poor welfare annually and set a precedent for broader reform in the sector.

Taken together, these nine developments illustrate a year of targeted, policy-driven, and technology-enabled progress for animal welfare. Advocates emphasize that the scale of animal suffering remains enormous—hundreds of millions of animals endure painful conditions in farming, and many more experience confinement or exploitation in entertainment, research, and trade. Yet the year’s wins show that coordinated campaigns, regulatory action, and market innovation can create durable improvements in specific sectors and lay groundwork for broader reform in the years ahead. The aggregation of these efforts, many of them long in the making, also demonstrates the growing reach of the animal-advocacy movement and the emergence of practical, scalable alternatives to conventional practices.

This story originated in Vox’s Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up to explore the big, complicated problems the world faces and the most efficient ways to solve them.