Corona Daily 335: Bye Bye Mink

When I worked in Moscow, many Russian girls in my office wore mink fur coats. The coats looked elegant and warm, offering protection from the severe cold. They came in many colours, and discussing their prices was part of the office gossip. A British colleague, a woman, scorned at the wearers. In her country, it was illegal to make anything with mink. Until then, coming from a tropical country, I had no idea mink was an animal.

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Several countries have special mink breeding farms. Denmark, China, Poland, Netherlands and the USA are the top five producers. Mink is the most farmed furry animal, with more than 50 million minks bred every year. Minks breed in March, and have one litter per year. With a 45-50 day gestation, they give birth in May. With 6-10 kits per litter, the mink population grows dramatically by May. In November and December, they are killed, and in the following year worn by the elite women of the world.

For several decades, animal rights activists have been fighting against the cruelty of mink farming. In farms, minks are placed in small metal wire cages that restrict their ability to move. Such imprisonment is said to create abnormal behavior and repetitive actions. It is possible to create fur products with synthetic fibers (made from petroleum oil). The obsession to use natural fur is criticized and made illegal in some countries.

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Netherlands has more than 170 mink farms. On 23 and 25 April, two coronavirus outbreaks were reported at farms with 12000 and 7500 minks. More minks were dying than usual, and some were breathing with great difficulty. They had contracted it from farm workers who had covid-19, a case of zoonosis in reverse. Once the virus reached a mink farm, it spread like wildfire, though minks were housed in separate individual cages. Scientists suspect it moved via infectious droplets, on feed or bedding or in dust containing fecal matter.

That was just the beginning. More and more farms reported the epidemic among minks. Feral cats, roaming the farms, and stealing the minks’ food were found to be infected as well. In June, authorities in the Netherlands began gassing hundreds of thousands of minks, including new-born pups. They were culled using carbon monoxide. Until today, more than 2 million minks have been gassed.

Denmark and Spain reported few cases. But Utah, a major mink breeding American state has reported a number of infections in August. American scientists are worried that the virus could mutate and amplify in mink populations, before making a jump back into humans.

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Last week, Netherlands announced that the mink farming must end by March 2021. That nation was planning to stop it in 2024 for moral reasons. Coronavirus has forced the Dutch to bring that deadline forward by three years. The unaffected farms can still produce mink fur in November and December (by killing the uninfected). But they will not be allowed to replace them. After 31 March 2021, mink farming will be illegal in the Netherlands. The nation had closed down fox and chinchilla fur production in the 1990s. Closure of mink farms will end all fur farming on its soil.

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The next few months will show if the story sees repetition elsewhere. If severe epidemic among minks becomes universal, an industry considered immoral could become illegal for ever.

Ravi