Success in Sweden

How to fight a reptile ban

and win!

What would you do if feeding insects became illegal? Or you were forced to increase your animal’s enclosure size by over 1000%? This almost happened in Sweden during March 2025. Here’s how Swedish pet keepers averted a legislative travesty.

If you follow our social media you’ll no doubt have seen the deeply worrying ‘L80’ proposals that would have put an end to pet keeping for countless Swedish keepers.

Despite months of consultation with highly experienced animal specialists, including reptile societies, trade organisations and veterinarians, the L80 proposal’s authors seemingly ignored their input. And in early March 2025, they published a proposal with their own recommendations.

Ridiculous

pet proposals

The most devastating proposal was the very sharp increase in enclosure sizes for virtually all animal species covered by L80 legislation – in many cases requiring enclosure size increases of well over 1000%, and for a budgerigar, the increase was over 7000%. This draconian policy, by their own admission, could not be supported by scientific evidence. Indeed, the research conducted during the L80 consultations revealed such evidence does not exist.

But these were not the only worrying recommendations included in the L80 proposal. It also recommended a ban on feeding live insects, a requirement that nocturnal animals only be handled at night, and most strangely of all – a way to avoid the specified requirements if keepers meet certain vague and subjective criteria. In short, the proposal was a mess.

The proposed changes weren’t just ludicrous. They risked mass non-compliance by pet keepers who would understandably lose faith in Sweden’s welfare laws.

Animal rights groups vs the public

According to our colleagues at ZOORF, one reason the proposal got as bad as it did was that two animal rights groups were invited to consult in the process at an early stage, and it seems they were listened to. When this became public, a lot of people got angry – and it wasn’t just passionate and dedicated hobbyists who became angry, but also a lot of everyday pet owners. It appears the public is waking up and realising the truth about animal rights ideologies.

Pets banned

by the backdoor

It didn’t require much scrutiny to realise that the L80 proposals would effectively end pet ownership for thousands, if not millions, of responsible people. And when faced with the possibility of losing their pets, these otherwise responsible owners would simply ignore the laws and continue to keep their animals – albeit underground, unregulated and unseen. We know this from countless case studies in other parts of the world, not least in Sweden’s next door neighbour – Norway. From there, it would be a small step for pet owners to ignore other welfare regulations. And when regulations no longer have any impact on animals’ conditions, this leads to a decrease in animal welfare, rather than improvement.

When initially challenged about the absurd requirements within the L80 proposal, the authors responded saying it had been created following consultations with specialists and professionals. What they failed to say is those recommendations were ignored, creating the potentially devastating issues the specialists had warned would occur.

Backlash

News of the preposterous proposals spread like wildfire, first in Sweden, and then to pet keepers around the world. Advocacy organisations inside and outside the Swedish borders compelled their supporters – most of whom would be experienced and responsible pet keepers – to object to the proposals through the Swedish Board of Agriculture website.

The backlash was swift and voluminous! Within a week, the proposal was withdrawn from the website and replaced with a statement which read:

‘The proposal has led to many reactions, both negative and positive. The reactions were much greater than we expected and the proposal has also created concern and anger. It does not provide good conditions for moving forward. We are therefore withdrawing the proposal to create better conditions.’

Who should we thank?

This is a massive victory for common sense, and the organisations involved in bringing this atrocity to light deserve enormous praise. But praise is certainly not enough. We need to be very clear here. Without organisations such as ZOORF and the Swedish Herpetological Society, this proposal would have been brought into law, we have no doubt. And we should make it clear that Responsible Reptile Keeping was alerted to the situation relatively late in the day, after the final L80 proposals had been published and following months of consultation with the two organisations named above. While we joined in with the outcry by publishing the story on our channels and urging pet keepers worldwide to air their objections, the credit for overturning the L80 proposals should be firmly awarded to ZOORF and SHR.

Our colleagues at ZOORF told us the campaign was only successful because these organisations worked tirelessly to:

inform and mobilise related organisations and associations for reptiles, fish, birds, rodents, rabbits, and chickens
contact politicians at various levels
approach mainstream media for interviews, press releases, radio coverage
post reports, updates, and positions on social media
advise members on how they could respond to and act against the proposal
encourage members to share the information on social media and act
through local media, local politicians, etc.
urge all pet owners to respond to the proposal

Needless to say, this was a mammoth task, and great credit is due to everyone who took action.

It’s not

over yet

But before we all stand down and celebrate, we should remember this issue isn’t over yet. The Swedish Board of Agriculture has also said

‘We are now making a new attempt to find forms for even more consultation and dialogue with the organizations and associations concerned before we can present a new proposal. In the continued work, we will include the views we have received so far.’

What this means is the L80 proposals will be revisited, and while we can hope the process will be conducted more sensibly this time, it cannot be guaranteed. We must remain engaged and alert, ready for round two.

Whether the L80 proposals were a result of ill-informed naivety or deliberate malice is not clear. But we can be sure that those who wish to bring an end to pet keeping – non-domestic pet keeping, in particular – will already be preparing for this next round of action. And we should all be wary, because our opponents are organised, well funded, and closely connected with governments around the world. While we spend most of our time caring for and enjoying our animals, their time is dedicated to stopping us from doing so.

So what should we do?

We cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to support the organisations that are working to protect pet keeping on our behalf. While we are enjoying our animals, they are interacting with governments, creating media campaigns and mobilising the kind of resistance that was successful in Sweden. This is not an easy job. It’s time-consuming and it’s financially costly.

Today, we ask you to stop sitting on your hands and do what you can to support the organisations that are working to protect your animals. And the best way to do this is to support them with funding. Almost every country in the world has a pet advocacy organisation and they need your help. If you can assist with funding, then we compel you to do so.

Today, we succeeded in Sweden. Tomorrow, there is every likelihood a similar emergency will arrive at your front door, wherever you are in the world. We won in Sweden because the pet community was mobilised. Our opponents will always win if we are apathetic. Now is the time for us to unite and fight.