UTRECHT, 07/04/07 - The Netherlands is the biggest distributor of animal pornography worldwide. Of an inventory of 1,500 films, over 80 percent came from Dutch distributors, according to Algemeen Dagblad.

"Dutch companies buy up cheap films abroad en masse and distribute them via the Internet," according to an anonymous former staff member of a distributor. "We control the world market." The domain names of hundreds of animal pornography sites are also registered in the Netherlands.

Another producer says in the newspaper that the films are particularly popular with Germans and Americans. Many films are made in Eastern Europe. Films with horses often come from Brazil, said Algemeen Dagblad.

Films in which men and women have sex with animals are also made in the Netherlands. A company in Nieuwegein, near Utrecht, produces about 20 films a month in a shed, according to the newspaper. The recordings can be watched live via "hundreds of linked websites" on the Internet for 30 euros a month.

Last week, Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin announced that the making and distribution of animal pornography is to become a punishable offence. In the Netherlands, sex with animals is currently still legal, as long as the animal is not shown to suffer from it.