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MINKS

Danish authorities bust second illegal mink farm

Danish health authorities said Thursday they had discovered an illegal mink farm, a practice banned after the country controversially culled farmed minks nationwide last year over fears of a new coronavirus strain.

Published: 23 December 2021 13:17 CET
An illustration file photo showing Danish police at a mink farm in October 2020.
An illustration file photo showing Danish police at a mink farm in October 2020. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The find of 230 minks at a farm in northwestern Denmark, along with 60 foxes, follows a similar discovery of 126 minks at another farm last week.

Both owners have been reported to police, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said in a statement, adding that the minks would be put down.

Formerly the world’s leading exporter of mink fur, Denmark decided to kill all of its 15-17 million minks in November 2020 after studies suggested the variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future vaccines.

The Scandinavian country’s parliament later passed an emergency law which banned the breeding of the mammals in 2021, which was then extended to 2022, in a blow to the industry.

The affair has been mired in controversy after it quickly emerged — after the cull was already underway — that the order had no legal basis, leading to the resignation of the country’s agriculture minister.

An agreement was reached retroactively, rendering the government’s decision legal, and the nationwide cull went ahead as planned.

A specially appointed parliamentary commission has since April been scrutinising the government’s decision and all documents related to it, as well as questioning witnesses to dissect the decision-making process.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has defended the decision, telling the commission earlier in December that she believed it was “crucial that we acted quickly”.

A few weeks after the cull in the North Jutland region in northwestern Denmark, where many mink farms were concentrated, the mutation was declared extinct.

READ ALSO: Protestors damage Danish PM’s car during mink hearing

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MINKS

Denmark demolishes mink farms three years after controversial shutdown

Authorities in Denmark have begun the ‘largest demolition job in the country’s modern history’ to tear down disused mink fur farms, three years after a government order to cull the country’s captive population of the animals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Published: 13 November 2023 15:23 CET
Denmark demolishes mink farms three years after controversial shutdown

In late 2020, the government ordered all fur farm minks to be destroyed amid concerns about a potential mutation of Covid-19 in the animals.

Most of the farms are located in West and North Jutland, where work has now begun to tear them down, Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen and Food and Agriculture Minister Jacob Jensen said in a joint statement.

“It’s only reasonable that mink farmers and their families can now look forward to a dignified end to an undignified chapter which has had serious consequences for affected families,” the ministers said.

The Building and Property Agency (Bygningsstyrelsen) says the work to demolish the farms is the biggest demolition job seen in modern Denmark.

Some 220 mink farmers have so far applied to have their farms demolished. The agency expects to receive more requests given 1,227 applications have so far ben submitted for the government’s compensation package for mink farmers who lost their businesses to the 2020 order.

Some 90 farms have been inspected with a view to compensation and subsequent demolition.

The farms cannot be demolished until compensation cases with farmers are concluded. Once this process is complete, the farms must be torn down.

Demolition of the farms and removal of rubble will cost an estimated 3.7 billion kroner.

Denmark decided to kill all of its some 15 million minks in November 2020 after studies suggested a variant found in some of the animals could jeopardise the effectiveness of future Covid-19 vaccines.

The measure was rushed through and the mutation found in minks was later deemed extinct.

All breeding was subsequently banned in 2021 and 2022.

However the cull quickly turned into a political nightmare for the Social Democrat government as it later emerged there was no legal basis to impose the measure on farmers.

In July 2022, a commission of inquiry set up to determine responsibility for the affair concluded that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had made “seriously misleading” statements without having “either the knowledge or the perspective” to judge.

The commission however elected only to reprimand Frederiksen without further consequence.

The ban on mink fur breeding was lifted at the end of 2022.

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