Denmark will cull its entire herd of up to 17 million mink after a mutation of the coronavirus found in the animals spread to humans, posing risk to any possible future vaccine, the prime minister said on Wednesday.

This is sad.

  • Barabas [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I'm surprised that there are so many minks in Denmark. I knew they did a lot of farming, but damn.

    • CTHlurker [he/him]
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      4 years ago

      Something like 2/3s of the country is farmland or industrial agriculture of some kind. The farmers used to be our biggest political voting block actually, and are still the reason our center-right liberal party is literally called "The left".

      • Barabas [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The surprising part is that there are so many minks specifically, apparently almost half of all mink fur that is produced is from Denmark. It isn't really something I associate with Denmark, like pork or dairy production.

        • CTHlurker [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Apparently we used to have a lot more, but environmentalist action in the 90s caused quite a few losses for them, as the animals were released into the wild. Pretty sure they then promptly died, since they were kept in captivity for their entire lives up until that point, but you get the idea.