The government in Denmark wants to cull 15 million mink. In other words, they plan to cull their whole mink farm population to stop the spread of a mutated coronavirus before it spreads to more humans. They say 12 people in the country already have the new virus because of infected mink. In fact, their Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said half of the human COVID-19 cases in northern Demark are linked to mink.
If the country decides to go through with culling millions of mink, this could severely hurt Denmark because they’re such a huge exporter of fur. The government estimated that culling all 15 million mink could cost them up to $785 million. That’s a very large number, but this is a very serious problem. The number of infected mink farms jumped from 41 in October to 207 this month. Denmark already started culling some mink last month and the government plans to lend financial help to the impacted farmers.
