News & blogs

Our call to the European Union: develop an EU positive list and prevent unsuitable pets from entering European households!

In many European countries, it is completely legal to have a spider monkey, serval, baboon or cougar as a pet. The European Union is one of the largest markets for exotic pets in the world; there are millions of exotic animals in European households.

The exotic pet trade is a booming business, but it involves animal suffering and risks for humans (disease transmission or injury) and the environment (decreased biodiversity...

Last Friday, we finally got the chance to take action for tigress Luli. After being rented out for circus shows and other cruel entertainment for years, her owner loaned the animal to Spain's Parque de Peña Escrita almost ten years ago. However, due to lack of funding, the park had to close down in 2015, after which most of the animals were outplaced to rescue centers and zoos. Luli was unlucky: her owner refused to give her up. In February this year, the park finally arranged ownership of the 15-year-old tiger to make her rescue possible. Then, due to the Covid-19 limitations, we...

The European Union is feeling green this week! Virtual events are being held all across the EU and in the European capital Brussels this week to talk about one thing: How the EU can better protect and restore nature and biodiversity.

We’re so happy to see that the EU recognizes that we can’t discus biodiversity protection without also looking at the millions of exotic animals that belong in the wild, but still end up in European homes as pets.

Today, EU officials and experts met online to discuss whether the EU is doing enough when it comes to regulating...

Good news from Spain! In the autonomous region Castilla-La Mancha, a new animal protection law has passed that prohibits circus shows with wild animals. With this region added, more than three quarters of the Spanish population now lives in a region or municipality without circuses with wild animals!

It took four years to include this regulation in the new law, after earlier efforts to ban it in the main municipalities in the region. Castilla-La Mancha is the 11th autonomous region (next to the autonomous city of Ceuta) that bans circus shows with wild animals. Six...

‘The European Commission’s passive attitude towards this matter is extremely concerning’ 

EU citizens from six surveyed countries overwhelmingly support better regulation of the exotic pet trade within the EU, according to an opinion poll by Savanta ComRes for Eurogroup for Animals and AAP Animal Advocacy and Protection. However, the new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2030, published last week, fails to include any clear actions to respond to these concerns and tackle the booming trade in exotic species.

An overwhelming...