Executive Summary
The Netherlands is a leading country with regards to animal welfare in Europe. The 2011 Animals Act is the main piece of legislation in the country for animal welfare. This Act, applicable to kept animals, with some general articles applicable to all animals, formally recognises animal sentience and the ‘intrinsic value’ of animals. Since the API was first published in 2014, the Wild Fauna and Flora act has been replaced by the Nature Protection Act 2017, whose Explanatory Memorandum reiterates the intrinsic value of wild animals. The Netherlands is progressive in certain areas of animal welfare. Notably, fur farming is being phased out by 2024. The Netherlands is the third EU Member State after Belgium and Luxemburg to adopt a Positive List, explicitly stating which animals can be kept as companion animals, though this List is still in the making – for mammals – and has currently not been enshrined in legislation yet. In addition, the country goes beyond EU requirements in some aspects for certain farm animals: the Netherlands has banned enriched cages for egg-laying hens, and legislation limits the use of gestation stalls to maximum four days for sows.
However, there is still room for improvement in many animal welfare areas. Notably, the Netherlands only bans the use of wild terrestrial mammals for entertainment: marine mammals and birds of prey can still be used for recreational purposes. Furthermore, the Netherlands allows to increase the stocking density for broiler chickens from 33kg/m2 – the EU standard – to max. 42 kg/m2, in conformity with the derogation provisions of the EU, thus creating even more crowded conditions for the animals. Moreover, notable welfare problems are persistent, including the routine tail-docking of piglets often without anaesthesia and the stunning of pigs by CO2.
Animal welfare mainly falls under the remit of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. The Council on Animal Affairs (RDA) is an advisory body dealing with animal welfare concerns in the Netherlands. The membership of the Council is diverse and includes animal welfare organisations such as the Humane Society International, which reflects that the Government engages with various stakeholders on animal welfare issues.
The Government of the Netherlands is strongly encouraged to improve the welfare of farm animals through forbidding the stunning of pigs by high doses of CO2, banning all types of cages and outlawing the current derogations on the basis of EU legislation to increase the stocking densities of broiler chickens. With regards to wild animals in captivity, the Government of the Netherlands is urged to ban all performances by wild animals, including for marine mammals. The Government of the Netherlands is furthermore urged to outlaw the culling of stray cats, which occurs in some provinces. For wild animals, at the very least the Government of the Netherlands is encouraged to outlaw the use of the cruellest forms of hunting. Further legal and policy recommendations are associated with each Animal Protection Index (API) indicator and contained in the relevant sections of this report.