Mink farms should be closed worldwide, leading UK scientists have warned, saying they pose a ‘pandemic time-bomb’.
Researchers from Imperial College, London, said intensive farming of the creatures was not only unethical, but a major danger for human health.
In an opinion piece published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, experts warn that mink fur farming is a major global biosecurity risk, calling for urgent action to address the danger of a looming global pandemic.
‘As with any intensive farming, fur farming takes place in a high-density animal environment that allows for rapid spread of viruses with pandemic potential – and for virus adaptation to animals that would be unlikely to occur in nature,’ said Dr Thomas Peacock, a virologist, and Prof Wendy Barclay, chair of influenza virology at Imperial College.
‘This is particularly true for normally solitary, undomesticated carnivores, such as mink. More so than any other farmed species, [mink] pose a risk for the emergence of future disease outbreaks and the evolution of future pandemics.’
The researchers argue that fur farming poses a greater threat to global health than poultry or pig farming, due to a combination of the mink’s biology, housing conditions, and a lack of regulation and protective equipment in the handling and culling of animals.
During the Covid pandemic, millions of mink were culled at farms when the virus started to spread. In Denmark alone 15 million animals were slaughtered. Since then Denmark has reopened its fur farms. It hopes to return to being the world’s biggest producer of mink fur, creating 40 per cent of the world’s supply, mostly exported to Asia.
Avian influenza also poses an increasing threat. Recently, one variant – H5N1 – has been detected in 10 fur farms in Finland.
As one of the biggest fur-producing countries in Europe, Finland lags behind its many neighbouring countries that have already banned the practice – including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the UK.
Mink tend to fare very poorly, fighting each other and engaging in acts of cannibalism and self-mutilation due to the intense stress of living in cramped, densely populated conditions.
The scientists warned the only way to avoid a worse scenario in future is to close mink farms.
Inhumane Mink Farms
There finding were supported by Dr James Keen, an expert on animal-related diseases, who studied virus outbreaks as a senior scientist at the US Department of Agriculture
He said: ‘Mink fur farming (as well as raccoon dog and fox fur farming) should be banned for both humane and zoonotic disease risk reasons.’
‘You cannot separate the inhumane conditions of factory fur-farmed mink from their susceptibility and propensity to acquire and spread infectious diseases to other mink, wild animals, or people’
Dr Keen noted how farmed mink tend to fare very poorly, fighting each other and engaging in acts of cannibalism and self-mutilation due to the intense stress of living in cramped, densely populated conditions.
‘You cannot separate the inhumane conditions of factory fur-farmed mink from their susceptibility and propensity to acquire and spread infectious diseases to other mink, wild animals, or people,’ he said.
‘Mink are not just more susceptible to COVID-19 and bird flu H5N1 on a molecular level, they also get sick more than other animals because of their high density, high-stress farm environments to which they are genetically, behaviourally, and physiologically maladapted.’
European farmers produce around 40 million mink skins per year, with the industry worth more than 1.2 billion Euros.
Research by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) found that in mink farms, workers usually breed females once a year. There are about three or four surviving kittens in each litter, and they are killed when they are about six months old.
‘Minks used for breeding are kept for four to five years. The animals—who are housed in unbearably small cages—live with fear, stress, disease, parasites, and other physical and psychological hardships,’ said PETA
