Denmark’s prime minister has said that his government wants to cull all 15 million minks in Danish farms, to minimise the risk of them re-transmitting the new coronavirus to humans.
Mette Frederiksen said on Wednesday a report from a government agency that maps the coronavirus in Denmark has shown a mutation in the virus found in 12 people in the northern part of the country who got infected by minks.
Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said half the 783 human Covid-19 cases in northern Denmark “are related” to mink.
“It is very, very serious,” Frederiksen said.
“Thus, the mutated virus in minks can have devastating consequences worldwide.”
A new kind of terrible news really! l cant stop wondering whether there is really no other option than slaughering all minks! #denmark https://t.co/d62L1jDTIj
— Oz (@Oz_440) November 4, 2020
Mink fur exporter
Denmark is one of the world’s main mink fur exporters, producing an estimated 17 million furs per year.
Kopenhagen Fur, a cooperative of 1,500 Danish breeders, accounts for 40 percent of the global mink production.
Most of its exports go to China and Hong Kong.
According to government estimates, culling the country’s 15 million minks could cost up to $785 million. National police head Thorkild Fogde said, “it should happen as soon as possible.”
Denmark’s minister for food, Mogens Jensen, said 207 farms were now infected, up from 41 last month, and the disease has spread to all of the western peninsula of Jutland.
Last month, Denmark started culling millions of minks in the north of the country. The government has promised to compensate farmers.
#Denmark will cull its entire mink population of up to 17 MILLION after a mutation of the #coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, the prime minister says! Imagine “mutation” will be found in other animals as well. What then? Will this madness ever stop? https://t.co/MhOQyiElfK
— Carmen Renieri (@RenieriArts) November 4, 2020
Animal welfare group hails decision
The country has registered 50,530 confirmed Covid-19 infections and 729 deaths.
A total of 207 out of the 1,139 fur farms in Denmark has been infected with Covid-19, which prompted the announcement.
Millions of mink will be killed as a result.
Animal welfare group Humane Society International applauded the prime minister for taking “such an essential and science-based step to protect Danish citizens,” and said it hoped that losing so many mink to the coronavirus causes fur farms to get out of the business.
“Although the death of millions of mink — whether culled for Covid-19 or killed for fur — is an animal welfare tragedy, fur farmers will now have a clear opportunity to pivot away from this cruel and dying industry and choose a more humane and sustainable livelihood instead,” Humane Society International-Europe spokesperson Joanna Swabe said.
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