The world we’ve constructed is an unrelentingly merciless one for animals. By 2025’s finish, tens of millions of animals can have been locked in tiny cages and violently killed for his or her fur. A whole lot of tens of millions can have been drugged, prodded, or sliced up in painful experiments. And near 1 trillion animals can have been farmed for his or her meat, milk, or eggs, with the overwhelming majority reared in manufacturing facility farms.
In the meantime, numerous animals are caught from the wild, or bred in captivity, to be placed on show in zoos, aquariums, and circuses, or offered as pets.
Although most individuals oppose these cruelties to a level, the industries that exploit animals for revenue are economically highly effective, politically linked, and culturally entrenched, making it extremely troublesome to win animals authorized protections. The international animal advocacy motion is rising, however stays tiny in mild of what it’s up towards. So too are startups growing animal-free applied sciences.
However regardless of the chances, various incremental and transformative campaigns have been gained this yr to chip away on the immense struggling skilled by animals. Right here’s an incomplete record.
1) Poland banned fur farming as the worldwide business continued to break down
Weeks in the past, Poland — the world’s second largest fur producer — banned fur farming. Polish President Karol Nawrocki known as it a choice that “displays our compassion, our civilizational maturity, and our respect for all dwelling creatures.”
The transfer adopted a decade of business collapse; from 2014 to 2024, the variety of animals farmed for his or her fur plummeted from 140 million to twenty.5 million.
2) America’s cage-free egg development accelerated
Most egg-laying hens within the US are nonetheless pressured to dwell in tiny cages for his or her complete lives. Cage-free eggs are removed from cruelty-free — the hens nonetheless endure from various painful practices and sure don’t spend any time open air — however they’re a giant enchancment from cages. And this yr, a variety of hens have been spared from cage confinement.
Within the US, the share of cage-free eggs jumped from 38.7 % in December 2024 to 45.3 % in September 2025 — saving about 20 million hens from life in a cage, which is the quickest shift since animal advocates started campaigning to ban cages within the early 2000s.
The development is accelerating globally, too.
However progress on the cage-free subject needs to be protected; US business teams have tried to repeal state cage-free legal guidelines in Congress and the courts, and happily, these efforts failed in 2025.
3) Over 25 US jurisdictions banned the sale of canine, cats, and different animals
Every year, People purchase tens of millions of canine and cats from pet shops and breeders. Most of them come from pet or kitten mills, the place animals are raised in small, unsanitary enclosures with few protections and little governmental oversight. In the meantime, tens of millions of adoptable cats and canine languish in shelters, and lots of are euthanized as a result of there isn’t sufficient area to accommodate all of them.
To deal with the issue, animal advocates have efficiently campaigned to go legal guidelines in lots of of cities, counties, and states that prohibit pet shops from promoting pets. Momentum continued in 2025: Las Vegas, Denver, Detroit, and Manatee County, Florida — and greater than 20 different US jurisdictions — handed such bans.
4) Switzerland required meat corporations to reveal abusive practices on their packaging
One of many lesser-known horrors of meat, milk, and egg manufacturing are the mutilations. As a result of overcrowded animals generally peck or chunk at one another, producers lower off piglets’ tails, sear off egg-laying hens’ beaks and cows’ horns, and slice off turkeys’ snoods — all typically with out ache aid.
Switzerland didn’t ban these practices, but it surely did go a regulation requiring meals corporations, grocers, and eating places to reveal on package deal labels whether or not the animal merchandise they’re promoting got here from animals mutilated with out ache aid.
5) Expertise to finish the brutal killing of chicks superior around the globe
As a result of the lots of of billions of male chicks within the egg business can’t lay eggs, and so they don’t develop huge and quick sufficient to be effectively raised for meat, they’re killed on the day they’re born — and brutally so: Normally they’re floor up alive, however some producers suffocate, burn, electrocute, or drown them.
Right here’s the excellent news: There at the moment are quite a few applied sciences to detect the intercourse of a chick whereas they’re nonetheless within the egg to allow them to be disposed of earlier than they hatch. And these applied sciences are taking off shortly. As of spring 2025, over 1 / 4 of eggs in Europe have been scanned with these applied sciences — an 8 % improve over the prior yr — which can forestall lots of of tens of millions of those violent deaths within the years forward. And 2025 marked the yr that these applied sciences grew to become commercialized, although on a small scale, in the USA and Brazil.
6) Authorities businesses dedicated to cut back animal testing
The Nationwide Institutes of Well being and different federal businesses have dedicated to decreasing animal testing and accelerating the event of high-tech, nonanimal strategies to check the protection of medication and chemical substances and conduct biomedical analysis.
Final month, the UK authorities introduced comparable initiatives.
The politics of this subject are difficult — take a look at this Vox story for extra — but when executed nicely, the result will likely be fewer animals subjected to painful experiments and extra environment friendly, correct scientific analysis.
7) The US dairy business tyranny weakened
One of many extra weird US meals laws requires that cow’s milk be provided and even served at each college meal; 41 % of it’s thrown away.
Colleges are barred from proactively providing plant-based milk options, like soy milk, though most youngsters of shade are lactose illiberal to a point, and if a child needs plant-based milk, they want a physician’s be aware.
A invoice not too long ago handed in Congress, which President Donald Trump is predicted to signal, will permit faculties to proactively supply soy milk alongside cow’s milk, and college students who need plant-based milk will solely want a be aware from a dad or mum, not a physician.
It’s a win for scholar alternative and meals waste, but additionally for cows, who’re subjected to a variety of horrible practices in the dairy business.
8) Shrimp welfare went viral(ish)
The animals farmed within the highest numbers will not be chickens, pigs, or fish, however crustaceans, like shrimp and prawns, totaling some 630 billion animals every year.
This yr, a number of massive European grocery chains dedicated to making sure that the shrimp and prawns of their provide chains are not less than electrically surprised earlier than slaughter (versus being suffocated). Additionally, a significant seafood certifier pledged to require corporations that promote underneath its label to now not use eyestalk ablation — the ghastly follow of chopping out feminine shrimp’s eyes to speed up copy.
Rising assist for shrimp welfare additionally had a second of relative virality on The Each day Present (and I’d be remiss to not point out on Vox.com and Vox’s Unexplainable podcast).
9) Chickens get some aid
Arguably the most important animal cruelty drawback on the earth is invisible to the bare eye; it’s how animals’ very genetics have been tweaked to make them develop greater and quicker — particularly chickens — which might trigger them to endure terribly.
The pinnacle of a rooster business group went as far as to say that the animals’ “existence is painful.”
The excellent news is that this yr, based on Coefficient Giving’s Lewis Bollard, some massive rooster corporations and grocery shops in Europe dedicated to switching to slower-growing breeds with fewer well being issues — adjustments that may scale back the struggling of lots of of tens of millions of animals yearly.
Nonetheless incremental most of those adjustments could also be, they have been onerous fought for via intensive campaigning, coalition constructing, and public persuasion. They show that these animal industries’ financial and political energy doesn’t make them invincible, and that change for animals is feasible via good advocacy and new applied sciences. Right here’s to hoping much more is achieved in 2026.
This story initially appeared in Vox’s Future Excellent publication. Enroll right here!
