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On Friday, the Danish authorities decided to kill the country’s 15-17 million minks.
Now it turns out that the decision is illegal and the government regrets the order.
Today they have made it clear to the country’s mink breeders that it is a call and not an order, to kill minks, due to a mutated coronavirus, which has also led to a widespread infection in humans.
They also withdraw the order to carry out the killings as soon as possible, Ekstra Bladet writes.
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Shocking video
The Danish Food Safety Authority, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, writes the following in the letter.
– We regret that it did not seem that for mink farms, which are more than 7.8 kilometers from an infected herd, it was just a call to kill as quickly as possible for public health reasons, they write.
It occurs at the same time that the killing of minks has occurred at a dizzying rate, with the creation of mass graves and haunting videos of how the killings are carried out.
Stop mink extinction
The video that has shaken Denmark in recent days was made by mink farmer Flemming Bach Olesen. Dagbladet spoke to him Monday afternoon, shortly after the illegal decision became known.
Mink farms are taking over
Now Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Food Minister Mogens Jensen are under heavy pressure from a united Danish opposition and an angry peasantry.
Flemming Bach Olesen is one of them. He reacted strongly to the death sentence handed down on Friday and the rush behind the decision. This weekend, the mink farm where he works was visited by employees of the Danish Food Safety Authority, who were sent there to kill the mink as quickly as possible.
– They had to kill them, they told us. Then Mette Frederiksen got the Norwegian Food Safety Authority to do it. 50 people came here in white suits. They didn’t even know how to catch mink, Bach Olesen tells Dagbladet.
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The video speaks for its self. It shows minks trying to get out of a death box, where they must actually be gassed to death. Instead, they pinch their heads as workers try to push them inside. The incident occurred at a mink farm in Hjørring, in northern Denmark.
– I went crazy
– It went from bad to worse. It has nothing to do with animal welfare. They almost got killed. I went crazy, in the end they stand up and kick them to close the box. They kicked the mink’s head. If we were to figure this out, we would have opened the box and let someone fall and then closed it. Now the mink is sitting there screaming. They were half dead and fought to the end. I get so pissed off, says Flemming Bach Olesen.
Mink creates complete chaos
Food Minister Mogens Jensen and the government have apologized. That apology doesn’t get very far with Bach Olesen and the rest of the mink farmers.
– They can’t just apologize. All the minks are gone and will never return. The mink will never return to Denmark. This is getting expensive.
– It is awful. It is not possible to express it in words. Mette (Frederiksen, Prime Minister) has only decided that they will get help. There have been no guarantees of what will happen next, he says.
– We do what Mette says, says laconic.
– There is no infection in Norwegian mink farms
Will change the law
The video that he himself took of the botched murder is now being broadcast all over Denmark, and therefore here in Norway and Germany. Flemming Bach Olesen wants cruelty to be shown.
– It will be a sequel. It has been reported to the police. It has created some controversy, he says.
Danish mink farmers are aware that the Danish mink industry has no turning back. Denmark has around 1,100 mink farms.
The government is working on possible legislative changes that could give the government authority to demand the slaughter of all the country’s animals.
Full alarm sounded for new findings
– It is a terrible and difficult situation, that an industry closes immediately. But there is no going back. Our organization’s leadership is in complete agreement with that, says leader Tage Pedersen at Danske Minkavlere.
Twelve infected people
The killing of the Danish mink takes place after the coronavirus has been shown to have mutated in infected mink animals, leading experts to fear that it could be transmitted to humans in a way that the vaccines being tested do not stop.
Denmark report: “Very urgent”
Twelve people in North Jutland have been shown the mink variant of Covid-19, called cluster-5.
It is currently unknown how mutations in the virus will affect its properties and it is not known whether it has reached Norway. However, Norwegian health authorities fear that the new strain of the virus could reduce the effect of a future vaccine.
