World News – CA – Business: Was it excessive slaughtering millions of minks in Denmark?

On the farm at Knud Vest, an hour’s drive west of Copenhagen, there is a deadly silence due to unusual wind gusts. Rows and rows of cages are empty with nothing but mud and hay. The smell of fertilizer disappeared along with the animals.

For small, furry European mink farmers like 74-year-old Danish Vest, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed more than just a threat to their health. The past few weeks have shut down its business of more than five decades and sparked a political crisis in Denmark that became a warning of the potential of the coronavirus to exist as a threat.

Earlier last month, the Danish government asked all mink farmers to kill their cattle, fearing that a mutated form of the virus could spread faster than previously thought. Vest and his family carefully began the extermination of 23. 000 animals, while opposition parties turned against Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

« At first I didn’t believe it when I found out, » Vest said last week on his farm. “This strong overreaction did what animal rights activists have been trying to achieve for years. »

Denmark did quite well during the spring’s first wave of the pandemic, as a quick shutdown contained the spread of the virus while global attention focused on neighboring Sweden’s decision to keep its economy open.

This work has been undermined by a scandal over the government’s treatment of a victim of 17 million mink, which is roughly three for every person in the Scandinavian country. Opponents say the extermination of all healthy mink was a violation of the Danish constitution.

Beyond the political protest, health experts say Denmark is an alarm that the world should heed. So far, it’s the only country to have gotten rid of all of its mink, despite the World Health Organization starting on Jan.. November said the most worrisome animal-related strain is no longer circulating in humans.

« All countries where this type of animal husbandry is practiced must at least aggressively monitor what happens to contamination, » said Marion Koopmans, virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “Monitoring the animal side of the virus is an urgent matter, and understanding what is happening is a high priority for me. »

Mink is bred and skinned for its fur in many countries, including Russia and the United States. So far, eight have reported COVID-19 in mink to the World Organization for Animal Health, the WHO said on Jan.. December with.

The New York Times reported on Nov.. . 29 that the Ministry of Agriculture ordered quarantines of infected farms, but stopped at the mass clubs. Thousands of minks apparently died of coronavirus infections on US farms, the newspaper said.

In Europe, the Netherlands have put forward plans to shut down the mink industry by 2024 after the outbreaks earlier this year. Denmark has more at stake, however.

Until a few weeks ago, the country was the world’s largest producer of mink fur. Copenhagen Fur, the largest fur auction house, announced that it would cease operations after 90 years.

Indeed, the past few months have been particularly worrying for the country. It all started in June when the Danes gradually returned to normal after a national shutdown. A local outbreak of infection in the northwest may affect a local mink farmer and several of his 10. 000 minks will be returned.

Prime Minister Frederiksen ordered the slaughter of all mink on the farm and on two neighboring farms. It was not until October that the threat became more urgent when the outbreaks spread to the western Jutland peninsula.

Tests carried out by health authorities showed that the virus had mutated on its way from humans to animals and vice versa. A warning from government advisers caused the Prime Minister to stop the slaughter on Jan.. November, and police and army were sent to watch over the farmers. Frederiksen said the burden is serious, not just for Denmark but for management of the coronavirus around the world. »

This week the UK banned visitors from Denmark, although WHO is now advising against trade or travel restrictions.

At that point it turned into a full blown scandal and the Minister in charge of Veterinary Affairs resigned. There are still daily protests outside the parliament in Copenhagen against the slaughter of mink and against restrictions on the coronavirus.

On 25. November dismissed Frederiksen as « absurd » accusations of deliberately breaking the law. “A day later, in a tearful appearance on national television after visiting a local farm, he admitted that his handling of the crisis could have been better.

« There is a reason to apologize for this process because mistakes have been made and there has been riot, » he told TV2. “It was an extremely difficult process for the families and the mink farmers. »

The problem was that the victim’s speed created additional errors and embarrassment. Trucks full of dead mink dumped carcasses on the streets while some live animals were placed in dead mink containers. Some who were buried in mass graves in Jutland reappeared due to the gas in their corrosive bodies.

Meanwhile, compensation is being negotiated for mink producers like Vest, and the government is putting in place laws that will effectively ban mink cultivation later in 2021. Frederiksen hopes that farmers can rebuild the industry once the ban is lifted in 2022.

The problem for the government, however, was that it did not have the necessary legislation to order the killing of healthy minks. Frederiksen said he did not know the command was illegal and continued the slaughter.

Vest toured his property and remembered better times when Santo Versace, the older brother of fashion icon Gianni Versace, came to his farm around 2005 for Roskilde Fjord. The couple discussed the quality of Danish mink fur while sharing an almond cake.

It will take at least seven years for the industry to revive. Many of the closed farms will never see minks again, he said.

« I felt I was being anesthetized, » Vest said of the day the victim was announced. “We went into survival mode where we had to solve the task the government had given us. But when we cleared the farm, it was like going into a trance. «

Mink, coronavirus, fur farming, mink industry in Denmark, Denmark, culling, Mette Frederiksen