WelFur is an animal welfare assessment- and certification programme for fur farmed species developed by independent scientists. WelFur is based on all animal welfare research done over the past 30 years. The WelFur project was voluntarily initiated by Fur Europe in 2009 and designed to provide reliable animal welfare assessment, consumer transparency and improvement of animal welfare in the European fur sector. The programme is developed by independent scientists from seven European universities1 and is based on the principles of the European Commission funded Welfare Quality® project (http://www.welfarequality.net/everyone).